This Is Working with Daniel Roth - Innovating in a Crisis with Spanx’ Sara Blakely

Innovating in a Crisis with Spanx’ Sara Blakely

05/08/20 • 27 min

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Sara Blakely, the founder and CEO of Spanx, is the definition of “self-made.” She took $5,000, which she’d earned selling fax machines door to door, and parlayed it into a company that women around the world now depend on. It made her a billionaire. Sara and her family are riding out the pandemic in an RV. They pulled over “somewhere in Florida” so she could chat with LinkedIn Editor in Chief Daniel Roth on This is Working. They discussed Spanx’s origins, how Sara is pivoting the company to respond to the current crisis, and why she is personally investing $5M to help women entrepreneurs hurt by the pandemic.

Previous Episode

Airbnb's Brian Chesky on Post-Pandemic Travel

Airbnb was born in a recession, but it has never experienced a crisis like this. The short-term rental site saw its business dry up in mid-March when the pandemic froze worldwide travel. That’s bad for Airbnb — it’s disastrous for the economy it invented: Hosts have earned $100 billion through rentals and more than 50% of them rely on that cash to pay mortgages or avoid evictions. Co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky joins LinkedIn Editor in Chief Daniel Roth for a frank conversation about the state of the industry, the state of Airbnb and the future of post-pandemic travel.

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