President Barack Obama: When the moment chooses you, part 1
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2021
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Politics and entrepreneurship have much in common: Both versions of scale leadership require strategic patience, hard work, a clear vision of a better future, an unshakable belief that you can bring that future to life – and the ideal opportunity to make it all come together. President Barack Obama sits down with Reid Hoffman in Part 1 of our two-part episode on finding the right moment to act, and when the moment chooses you. Obama talks about how being in the right place, at the right time, with the right mindset enabled his political ascension. Fueled by what President Obama calls “preparation and perspiration,” his 2008 campaign was a startup that defied expectations. Then came the big pivot: figuring out how to move from renegade mode to leading one of the world's largest enterprises, the U.S. government. With guest will.i.am.
Read a transcript of this episode at: https://mastersofscale.com
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.7 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. |
| 0:33.0 | My guest today is President Barack Obama, but we're not talking politics. |
| 0:38.0 | We're talking about scale and how the lessons he learned as president relate to any organization. |
| 0:44.0 | But, we'll start our episode, as we often do, |
| 0:47.0 | with a story related to the ground we'll cover. |
| 0:50.0 | It's a story from someone else |
| 0:52.0 | who definitely doesn't mind being Obama's opening act, and it starts with a phone call. |
| 0:57.0 | Someone calls me and says, |
| 0:59.0 | Hey, your song, I got it from a mama. We want to borrow that and turn it into I'm voting for Obama. |
| 1:05.8 | And I said, no, no, no, no, no, you guys can't do that. He's definitely going to lose. |
| 1:11.5 | That is well I am. Grammy Award winning artist, co-founder of the Black |
| 1:16.2 | eyed peas. Will also created the Yes We Can video for Obama that went viral. But when he first got the call, it was a hard no. To be clear, |
| 1:26.8 | Will didn't say no because he thought Obama would lose. He thought Obama would lose if he used the song. |
| 1:33.2 | I got it from my mama. |
| 1:34.6 | The original is me on the beach in Brazil with a bunch of models. |
| 1:39.1 | That's not a recipe for success. |
| 1:41.6 | That's not the ingredients. |
| 1:43.5 | If you want to use a song to help get him elected, first off, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WaitWhat, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WaitWhat and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.