At 25, Justin Gold was making experimental peanut butter in his home kitchen with a food processor and a stack of recipe journals. His singular obsession: bring new life to a tired lunchtime staple.

What started as late-night experiments with honey, cinnamon and banana eventually became Justin's — one of the most influential natural food brands of the last two decades.

At first, Justin got rejected by most grocery stores he approached. He worked overnight in a shared industrial kitchen, hand-filling jars one at a time. He couldn’t get a distributor, so he stocked the shelves at the Boulder Whole Foods himself.

And when growth stalled… he had an idea during a mountain bike ride that would transform the company: What if peanut butter came in a squeeze pack?

In this episode, Justin explains how relentless experimentation and stubbornness helped him build a category-defining brand — and how, with each entrepreneurial milestone, an even more challenging one emerged.

YOU’LL LEARN:

• How Justin reverse-engineered flavored peanut butter in his apartment
• How launching in Boulder gave him a big advantage
• How he learned when to listen to feedback, and when to ignore it
• The deal he made with Whole Foods: “I’ll stock the shelves myself.”
• How the squeeze pack transformed the business, and why it almost didn’t work
• The power of naïve persistence in entrepreneurship

Timestamps:

• 00:07:10 — The obsessive recipe experiments that became Justin’s edge
• 00:14:00 — Getting support from Boulder’s startup food community
• 00:19:03 — Raising #35,000– and shocking his family: “I wanna make peanut butter!”
• 00:38:11 — The farmers market feedback that changed the product line
• 00:42:16 — Justin talks his way into the first Whole Foods
• 00:47:07 — Justin’s gets into more stores, but sales start to stagnate
• 00:48:55 — The mountain bike ride that sparked the squeeze-pack idea
• 01:13:33 — The brand gets sold, Justin gets fired…and invited back

This episode was produced by J.C. Howard, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.

Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Alex Cheng.

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Today’s callers: David from New Jersey struggles with self-doubt as he works to grow his muscle-scraping soap brand. Then, Marnie from Australia wants to convince customers that her colorful tick-repellent socks are worth the premium price. And David from New York wants his company to end the practice of throwing away burned out candles.

Plus, Sarah recounts rebuilding her brand in the wake of the pandemic and the changing fashion preferences of professional women.

Thank you to the founders of Sorsoap, Tick Socks, and Siblings for being a part of our show.

If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.

And be sure to listen to M.M. LaFleur’s founding story as told by Sarah on the show in 2020.

This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.

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NVIDIA is one of the most valuable companies in human history. Its chips run the AI systems transforming everything from entertainment to warfare. But for years, almost nobody believed in co-founder Jensen Huang’s vision. Jensen spent nearly a decade pouring billions into a technology called CUDA, long before AI made it profitable.

In this deeply personal conversation, Jensen tells Guy why NVIDIA’s very first chip was a catastrophic failure … and how at one point, the company was 30 days away from going out of business.

Jensen also explains why he thinks fears about AI are overblown, and why he believes the next generation will have more opportunity — not less — because of AI.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why NVIDIA nearly collapsed before becoming an AI giant
• How researchers sparked the AI boom using NVIDIA gaming chips
• How to lead through uncertainty when a huge bet hasn’t yet paid off
• How Jensen approaches hard decisions like an engineer
• We’re “doing ourselves a disservice” by being afraid: Jensen on AI and job loss
• How Jensen defends his demanding management style
• Why past failures still haunt him

Key Moments From the Interview:

• 00:05:26 — Jensen Huang’s childhood at an unusual Kentucky boarding school
• 00:12:25 — Why Jensen left a stable career to help start NVIDIA
• 00:14:49 — NVIDIA’s first failure: the NV1 disaster
• 00:17:26 — The desperate trip to Japan that gave the company a lifeline
• 00:20:46 — “The only idea we had” for prototyping: the emulator Hail Mary
• 00:26:13 — The book that shaped Jensen’s thinking about innovation
• 00:30:24 — Why NVIDIA kept investing in CUDA while Wall Street lost faith
• 00:36:58 — The moment AI researchers discovered the power of NVIDIA’s chips
• 00:47:07 — Jensen on fear of job loss from AI, and why America risks falling behind
• 00:55:46 — Knowing what he knows now, would he do it again? Yes — and no

This episode was researched and produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Robert Rodriguez.

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