Julie Wainwright: How She Built The RealReal After Losing Everything
Post Run High
iHeartPodcasts
1.1 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2025
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Julie Wainwright shares the ups and downs of her career that led her to founding The RealReal.
In this episode, Julie Wainwright shares the extraordinary story of her career — from leading Pets.com through its highly publicized collapse to founding and growing The RealReal into a billion-dollar company. She opens up about the lessons learned from failure, the grit it took to rebuild, and the early years of building a pioneering business around sustainability and luxury resale. Julie also reflects on taking The RealReal public, navigating life as a woman CEO in tech, and what she’s learned about resilience, reinvention, and purpose along the way. A powerful conversation about courage, conviction, and starting over.
Post Run High Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postrunhigh/
Kate Mackz YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KateMackz
Kate Mackz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katemackz/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi guys, it's your friend Kate Max and welcome back to post-run-high. |
| 0:07.7 | Today's guest has one of the most remarkable reinvention stories I have ever heard. |
| 0:12.2 | Julie Wainray is best known as the founder and former CEO of The Real Real, the company that |
| 0:17.2 | completely changed how we think about luxury fashion and sustainability. |
| 0:24.4 | And the company that I have bought quite a good bit of items from. |
| 0:27.1 | But her story starts way before the Real Real. In her 40s, Julie went through one of the most publicly difficult professional moments imaginable with the fall of Pets.com. |
| 0:34.0 | And instead of letting it define her, she used it as fuel to rebuild her life and career from the |
| 0:38.8 | ground up. At 53, she didn't just come back. She came back by creating a billion dollar brand |
| 0:44.2 | that redefined an entire industry. In our conversation, Julie opens up about resilience, |
| 0:50.1 | failure, intuition, and what it really takes to start over. Not once, not twice, but again and again |
| 0:56.9 | throughout life. And guys, this whole conversation really just had me thinking about, life is long, |
| 1:03.0 | and we cannot be afraid to continuously start over and reinvent ourselves. So whether you love a |
| 1:09.9 | good founder story or in a chapter of change or just need a reminder |
| 1:14.0 | that reinvention is always possible, this conversation is for you. |
| 1:23.7 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 1:32.7 | Okay. This is an IHeart podcast. Julie Wainwright, welcome to Post Run High. |
| 1:35.2 | Hello, Kate. |
| 1:36.4 | And thanks for letting me bring Poppy. |
| 1:38.5 | Julie and Poppy, welcome to Post Run High. |
| 1:41.1 | I'm so excited that you and Poppy are here. |
| 1:43.3 | How are you feeling today? |
| 1:44.4 | Well, I feel pretty good after that invigorating walk. That was fun. Yeah. So Julie and I went for a |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.