Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing with Seth Matlins cover art
Podcast · 20 episodes

Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing with Seth Matlins

by Seth Matlins · English

Each week, marketing maestro Seth Matlins is joined by the most influential thinkers across business and culture for unvarnished, actionable, and frequently irreverent conversations on the forces that shape how value is either created or destroyed. From product decisions, supply chain, and capital allocation, to cultural and economic shifts, competitive dynamics, technological disruptions, and internal structure – each one is a marketing force, affecting whether value is created or not, and whether a customer stays or goes. It's a business show. It's a marketing show. Create or Destroy is the show that argues they’ve always been the same thing. From the Vox Media Podcast Network and the Wisdomous Company.

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Amazon Web Services CMO Julia White, on Why Earnings Calls Are Stories About DemandHow B2B marketing creates (and destroys) value by targeting human needs behind products; why earnings calls are brand storytelling; and why enterprise marketing should be measured against demand and…29 Sep 2026 · 49 min · 23 chapters
LuluLemon CBO Nikki Neuburger | When Cracks in the C-Suite Become Craters at The Front LineNikki Neuburger (LuluLemon CBO) discusses how cracks in C-suite alignment become “craters” at the front line, why proximity to guests is the ultimate power, and why brand value depends on product…22 Sep 2026 · 1 h 6 min · 21 chapters
'Incorruptible' Author Eric Ries on Making Money But Creating No ValueEric Ries argues that many companies “make money without creating value” in a hyper-financialized economy, because profit calculations ignore deferred liabilities, negative externalities, and even…15 Sep 2026 · 1 h · 23 chapters
Duolingo CMO Manu Orssaud on What Gets Destroyed When the Street Decides Your StrategyDuolingo CMO Manu Orssaud explains why Duolingo chose slower short-term revenue growth to protect user experience and retention, arguing that brand-building and “fun” drive long-term monetization.1 Sep 2026 · 58 min · 25 chapters
Musa Tariq on How Short-Term Growth Can Disguise Bad StrategyValue creation and growth can look successful in the short term while masking bad strategy; short-termism, mismeasurement, and organizational disconnects between brand and business destroy long-term…25 Aug 2026 · 1 h 19 min · 30 chapters
LVMH’s Mathilde Delhoume-Debreu | From Diapers to Dior: Value Creation Across IndustryHow brand value is created (and destroyed) through “craft, creativity, coherence, and commercial impact,” with a focus on luxury at LVMH; includes a major Pampers case study and guidance for CMOs on…18 Aug 2026 · 57 min · 25 chapters
JPMorganChase CMO Carla Hassan on What Happens When the Product Doesn't Speak for ItselfBuilding trust at JPMorgan Chase when the “product” is intangible (money, payments, savings) and trust is created or destroyed through millions of daily customer touchpoints; also how to scale brand…11 Aug 2026 · 1 h 11 min · 25 chapters
Bose CMO Jim Mollica on The Number One Predictor of Value CreationHow companies create or destroy value through “asset allocation” across every decision, not just marketing—especially via compounding brand trust, pricing power, and operational choices.4 Aug 2026 · 1 h 3 min · 25 chapters
Rocket Companies CMO Jonathan Mildenhall on The Business Case for Creating an Iconic BrandHow to build an iconic, category-bigger brand by creating internal belief, using brand to prime humans and “prove” to machines/LLMs, and avoiding bland AI/trope-driven sameness.28 Jul 2026 · 1 h 1 min · 22 chapters
LinkedIn CMO Jessica Jensen on The True Math of Value CreationValue creation in marketing and business strategy—how “the math” includes human value, trust, focus, and fast listening; why B2B marketing became feature/product-heavy; and what B2C can learn about…21 Jul 2026 · 56 min · 28 chapters
Gary Vaynerchuk: Fighting Your Customer Never Creates ValueValue creation vs value destruction in startups and big companies; why “numbers tell the truth” and why fighting customers destroys value.7 Jul 2026 · 50 min · 24 chapters
Zoe Scaman on The Unseen Source of Value DestructionHow value gets destroyed when leaders misunderstand meaning, brand, and organizational “heartwood,” especially amid short-term AI rollouts and misaligned incentives.30 Jun 2026 · 54 min · 20 chapters
Kraken's Mayur Gupta on Creating Value When Product Isn’t EnoughHow value creation works in product-led growth—why “marketing” can’t be separated from product, brand, data, and enterprise incentives; how to measure growth via payback/incrementality and avoid…23 Jun 2026 · 52 min · 21 chapters
Qualcomm's Don McGuire, on How A Narrative Shift Created 89% More ValueDon McGuire (Qualcomm EVP/global CMO; also Snapdragon CMO) explains how value is destroyed in tech—mainly by complacency and missed technology inflection points—and how narrative/IR shifts can unlock…16 Jun 2026 · 1 h 11 min · 28 chapters
Adobe's Lara Balazs On Orchestrating Value CreationValue creation through “marketing as product” and “product as marketing,” orchestrating an end-to-end customer experience (not just campaigns).9 Jun 2026 · 53 min · 28 chapters
Paulie Dery on Why Every Decision is a Brand DecisionBrand vs commodity; why every decision is a brand decision; how “energy”/sentiment and pride inside a company create or destroy value; why brand work compounds over time (even when CFOs demand…2 Jun 2026 · 55 min · 24 chapters
Soyoung Kang on the Architecture of Value CreationValue creation through systems thinking and consumer-centric “outside-in” design, using architecture as an analogy for how experiences flow through business.26 May 2026 · 1 h 11 min · 34 chapters
David Axelrod on How to Rebuild the American BrandRebuilding the American brand and, more broadly, how political campaigns (and by extension companies) create value through storytelling, messaging, and community-building rather than divisive…19 May 2026 · 53 min · 13 chapters
Nick Tran on How One Marketing Decision Created More Value Than Any CampaignHow value is created or destroyed when marketing assumptions break; why “above-the-line” spend is often ineffective now; and how brands should use culture and experiential moments to rebuild…12 May 2026 · 1 h 1 min · 18 chapters
Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing with Seth MatlinsThe episode argues that marketing can create or destroy company value, and that most firms can’t distinguish the two until it’s too late.5 May 2026 · 2 min