Guy Raz

Career

In 1997, at the age of 22, Raz joined NPR as an intern for NPR's afternoon news program All Things Considered. In 1998, he served as personal research assistant to former "Murrow Boy" NPR Senior News analyst Daniel Schorr.

He then served as a general assignment reporter for NPR, covering, e.g., the 2000 presidential primaries,

Raz also wrote for other publications during this time, including for the Washington City Paper, as well as for The Washington Post, among others.

In 2000, Raz was appointed NPR's Berlin bureau chief. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, and the incapacitation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Guy Raz, National Public Radio, takes notes during a press conference with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, August 1, 2007. Gates and Rice were in the Middle East to discuss regional affairs and the U.S.'s long-term relationship with Saudi Arabia. Released Defense Dept. photo, taken by Cherie A. Thurlby.

Following the two years with CNN, he returned to NPR in 2006 as a defense correspondent, assigned to the U.S. military and The Pentagon. Then, Raz created a weekly podcast to accompany the show, a first for an NPR newsmagazine. He went on to host Weekend All Things Considered from 2009 to 2012.

In December 2012, he stepped down from that position in order to expand the TED Radio Hour into a new weekly program to air on NPR beginning in March 2013. For podcast episodes posting in 2017, this NPR podcast was noted as being in the top 20 of most-downloaded in the United States across all devices (placing in sixth position).

2016–present In September 2016, Raz started hosting a new podcast on NPR, called How I Built This, about entrepreneurship. In 2017, it became one of the 20 most-downloaded podcasts in the United States. The first episode featured the founder of Spanx, Sara Blakely. He is the founder of the associated production company, Built-It Productions. Wondery began licensing How I Built This in 2022.

Raz announced he was stepping down from hosting the TED Radio Hour at the end of 2019. In 2019, Raz became the host of Wisdom from the Top, a podcast on leadership from Luminary.

Awards and recognition In 1999, Raz was awarded a Burns Fellowship to Germany to embark on a 2-month reporting assignment; his reporting there would win the Burns Award for distinguished writing. In the summer of 2000, Raz reported from Germany as a RIAS Berlin fellow. His work on German "Leitkultur" was awarded the RIAS Berlin Award.

Raz has stated on his personal webpage, dating to May 2017, that, "n 2008, he spent a year as a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University[,] where he studied classical history. During his time covering the Pentagon, Raz was awarded RTNDA's 2008 Edward R. Murrow Award in the "News Series" category for a 3-part series on military-medical evacuations from Iraq, and the 2008 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize given to "a rising public media journalist 35 years of age or younger ... particularly young journalists who have found a calling in public radio", also for his coverage of the Iraq medical evacuation subject.

According to his employer, NPR, Raz was the first, and "is the only person [as of November 2018] to ever have three shows simultaneously in Apple’s top 20 podcasts".

Personal life

As of November 2018, Raz married Hannah Raz, a consultant. As of July 2018, he was described as having a wife and two sons, ages 9 and 7, and living in Washington, D.C. Raz has also been described as having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Raz and his wife include in their circle of friends Stewart Butterfield, a founder of Slack, and Jen Rubio, a co-founder of Away.

In July 2018, Hannah Raz had described her husband as an early riser, and his hobbies as including a love of cooking.