Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Ellen Coleman explains how Carbon used 3D printing to respond rapidly to COVID-era shortages, shifting from industrial applications to face shields and nasal swabs. She frames crisis leadership around four principles: control what you can, create your own trajectory, communicate constantly, and anchor change in mission and values.
Main Topics: Carbon’s pandemic pivot (Priority: 5/5): Carbon rapidly redirected its 3D-printing platform from commercial products to medical PPE and test swabs, proving the company could respond in days or weeks rather than months. Leadership under crisis and ambiguity (Priority: 5/5): Coleman describes her calm, experience-driven approach to uncertainty, emphasizing that crises demand action on controllables rather than panic. Four crisis leadership principles (Priority: 5/5): She outlines a framework for crisis leadership: focus on controllables, create your own trajectory, communicate consistently, and maintain pride in mission and values. Speed, iteration, and open-source collaboration (Priority: 4/5): Carbon leveraged internal labs, customer networks, clinicians, and open-source file sharing to iterate quickly and scale production locally. Lessons from experimentation and culture change (Priority: 4/5): Coleman explains that successful change must connect to existing culture and be treated as an experiment with clear hypotheses, not an edict. The future of manufacturing with software (Priority: 4/5): She argues that software-driven design and distributed production will make manufacturing more agile, resilient, and less dependent on single supply chains.
Key Arguments: Crisis management is about focusing on what you can control rather than wasting energy on uncertainty. Large organizations and entrenched cultures require repeated, consistent communication before people believe change is real. New strategies must connect to where an organization already is; leaders cannot simply impose a distant future vision. Experiments work best when teams define specific hypotheses and success metrics upfront. Carbon’s 3D-printing model enabled rapid iteration and local production, making it well suited to emergency response. Distributed, software-enabled manufacturing can create surge capacity and improve resilience during disruptions. Mission and core values give employees hope and direction during major change.
Data Points: Carbon employees globally: more than 500 - The company’s workforce size mentioned as evidence of its global scale. Customer firms using Affinity: over 3,000 - Sponsor mention during the transcript, not central to the interview. Face shields shipped last week: 7,500 - Carbon’s immediate PPE output at the time of the interview. Projected face shields this week: 15,000-18,000 - Expected weekly shipment volume from Carbon. Carbon lab production capacity: about 20,000 face shields per week - Estimated weekly output from Carbon-owned labs alone. Response time for face shield design: within days - Carbon and Verily developed a face shield design very quickly. Swab development timeline: about 3 weeks - Nasopharyngeal swab launch took longer due to clinical and supply-chain constraints. DuPont age at CEO tenure: 215 years old - Coleman cites DuPont’s long history to illustrate legacy-culture challenges. Communication repetition threshold: about the 15th time - Her example of how many repetitions it took for people to believe a message.
Pivotal Quotes: "You can't change what's happened. What you can do is figure out what you're going to do about it." — Ellen Coleman: Her core response to crisis and ambiguity. "Focus on what you can control." — Ellen Coleman: One of her central leadership mantras, repeated throughout the interview. "Don't play the hand you've been dealt. Play the hand you want." — Ellen Coleman: Her principle on creating your own trajectory during disruption.
Implications: The episode argues that resilient leaders and companies win by moving fast, communicating clearly, and using flexible, software-enabled manufacturing to build surge capacity. It suggests crisis can accelerate innovation and reshape industrial supply chains.
About Masters of Scale
On Masters of Scale, iconic business leaders share lessons and strategies that have helped them grow the world's most fascinating companies. Founders, CEOs, and dynamic innovators join candid conversations about their triumphs and challenges with a set of luminary hosts, including founding host Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner). From navigating early prototypes to expanding brands globally, Masters of Scale provides priceless insights to help anyone grow their dream ente...