Maria Sharapova’s centre court tricks for the boardroom

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Startups, Business, Mindset, Management, Bob Safian, Entrepreneurship, Diversity & Inclusion, Reid Hoffman, Jeff Berman

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Five grand slam titles. More than a decade as the world's highest-paid female athlete. But the fiercest competition Maria Sharapova describes may be the one she's navigating now. She joins Rapid Response to talk about her second act as an investor, entrepreneur, and podcaster — and what the court never prepared her for. She gets candid about the deals she's walked away from, the candy brand she built and ultimately shuttered, and what it really takes to sit across the negotiating table from Nike.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Founders ship faster on deal. Set up payroll for any country and minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling.
0:10.9	Deal takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance so your team can grow without borders.
0:19.2	It's why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust
0:21.8	deal to move fast. Visit deal.com slash M-O-S. That's D-E-E-E-L dot com slash M-O-S.
0:31.1	Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. Exciting news. Applications are now open for the Masters of Scale Summit. It's happening October
0:40.2	20th through October 22nd in San Francisco, and it is a really special event. Please join our
0:48.4	curated community of founders, innovators, and leaders shaping the future. Expect ideas that challenge your assumptions and connections
0:56.7	that move your business and maybe even your life forward. It's an experience that can change
1:02.8	literally everything. Apply now at masters of scale.com slash apply 26. That's masters of scale.com slash apply 26.
1:15.2	As your company scales, the hardest part isn't ambition, it's alignment. That's why Atlassian
1:21.9	built the teamwork collection, an AI-powered teamwork platform designed to help teams move faster
1:27.3	together.
1:28.5	By connecting Jira, Confluence, Lume, and Rovo, teams can easily align work to real business goals,
1:35.3	plan and track progress together, remove knowledge silos, and access the real magic of
1:41.2	AI plus human collaboration. Visit at lassian.com slash team changer to learn more.
1:47.9	That's A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N dot com slash team changer.
1:57.1	I think handling disappointment and the emotions are quite similar. Business, it's more mental than physical, but you give so much for an outcome that wasn't up to your standards. And so that's just, that's really deflating. I feel like I have a good understanding of investing your time into something that has no guarantees of results.
2:18.9	You can put in hours and hours. You can have all the talent. But until you get there and you do it,
2:24.0	like there, no one's giving it to you. That's Maria Sharpova, the iconic women's tennis champion, five-time Grand Slam
2:39.7	winner, and the world's highest paid female athlete for a decade.
2:44.0	Since hanging up her rackets, Maria has leaned into business as an investor, an entrepreneur,
2:49.5	and as host of a new podcast appropriately named
	...

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