Rapid Response: How Barstool Sports’ ex-CEO cooks up attention, with Food52’s Erika Ayers Badan

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

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

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Controversy, frat house culture, viral moments — when you hear ‘Barstool Sports,’ this may be what comes to mind. But former CEO Erika Ayers Badan is here to tell you that the business model that made Barstool into an online cultural juggernaut is replicable and poised to re-shape the food and lifestyle industry. Ayers Badan shares with Rapid Response why she decided to make a dramatic career pivot — taking over Food52 — and why running Barstool was like “a heart attack every day.” She also explores lessons around cultivating a community of fans, and why as a leader, “no” is often a better answer than “yes.”

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Transcript

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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.
0:07.0	Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response has expanded into its own feed.
0:12.0	We're releasing shows twice a week,
0:14.3	focusing on the urgent issues
0:16.1	that business leaders are dealing with in real time.
0:19.9	While some rapid response episodes appear
0:22.4	on Masters of Scale,
0:23.6	many of our best are only available every week
0:26.5	in the rapid response feed.
0:28.5	To make sure you catch it all,
0:30.3	search for rapid response,
0:32.1	wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe.
0:35.0	See you on the other side.
0:37.0	It's hard to put words and your arms around Barstool Sports because you can get
0:47.5	caught up in the controversy of it all. When I took the job, I had a lot of
0:52.4	people in my network be like, you just committed career
0:55.0	suicide and how could you go work at that disgusting terrible place?
0:59.7	And you know what, like I loved that disgusting terrible place. I found it to be the least sexist
1:05.0	place I've ever worked. It was the least insidious place. I've worked at you know
1:09.1	Microsoft. I worked at AOL. I worked at Yahoo. I've worked at a ton of ad
1:12.3	agencies. All of those companies had way more issues
1:16.3	that were way more hurtful that nobody ever talked about. That's Erica Ayers Badon, the new CEO of Lifestyle Brand Food 52 and former CEO of Barstool Sports.
	...

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