
The Rack We Built
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Creating Company Culture
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $14.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Lorenzo Gomez III
About this listen
In 1998, the thought of launching a startup in San Antonio was ludicrous - but that didn’t stop Rackspace’s founders from planting their flag in the heart of Texas. Just over two decades later, the scrappy little underdog that no one believed in is a billion-dollar business with more than 6,000 employees worldwide.
One of the first 10 account managers hired at Rackspace was Lorenzo Gomez. He was there when the company became the host for YouTube and saw the decade-long stretch where each month brought 100 new hires.
The rocket-ship growth was exhilarating, but exposed Rackspace’s early flaws, including avoiding customers at all costs. When the mission shifted to becoming one of the world’s greatest service companies, everything changed. Suddenly, Rackspace had a rallying cry - “fanatical support” - and a culture that few companies could match.
The Rack We Built is Lorenzo’s recollections from those days, told only as he can tell it: through stories packed with style, heart, and humor. With the principles in the book, you can create the type of culture that makes people want to volunteer their best.
©2020 Lorenzo Gomez (P)2021 Lorenzo GomezListeners also enjoyed...
-
Tafolla Toro
- Three Years of Fear
- By: Lorenzo Gomez III
- Narrated by: Lorenzo Gomez
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great lie of our society is that mental health and mental illness are the same. Lorenzo Gomez wants to dispel that notion for good. In his new book, Tafolla Toro, he reaches back in time to share stories of his turbulent, traumatic, and often violent middle school years in one of San Antonio’s most crime-riddled neighborhoods. He opens up to reveal the fear, anxiety, and hopelessness he felt as a teenager and how those forces shaped his life until he began taking steps as an adult to improve his mental health.
-
-
Best book ever!
- By Emily Hernandez on 12-07-22
-
The Cilantro Diaries
- Business Lessons from the Most Unlikely Places
- By: Lorenzo Gomez III
- Narrated by: Lorenzo Gomez III
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You don't have to have an MBA to get ahead in business. You don't even need a college degree. All you need is intelligence, drive, creativity, courage, and The Cilantro Diaries. Lorenzo Gomez went from the stockroom of a grocery store to the boardrooms of two private companies without a formal higher education. In his inspiring and humorous true story of hope and accomplishment, he shares the steps he took up the ladder and the guiding principles that got him to the top.
-
-
Disadvantaged Young Man Makes a Name for Himself
- By B&K's _mom on 08-17-18
-
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
- By: Ben Horowitz
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ben Horowitz offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.
-
-
For large company managers, not startups
- By Thomas on 03-18-14
By: Ben Horowitz
-
The Power Law
- Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
- By: Sebastian Mallaby
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.
-
-
An Excellent Modern History Book
- By BikerDave on 05-06-24
-
Winning
- By: Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
- Narrated by: Jack Welch
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack Welch knows how to win. During his 40-year career at General Electric, he led the company to year-after-year success around the globe, in multiple markets, against brutal competition. His honest, be-the-best style of management became the gold standard in business, with his relentless focus on people, teamwork, and profits.
-
-
Jack's Alltime-Best
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-05
By: Jack Welch, and others
-
Your Next Five Moves
- Master the Art of Business Strategy
- By: Patrick Bet-David
- Narrated by: Patrick Bet-David
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the creator of Valuetainment, the number-one YouTube channel for entrepreneurs, and “one of the most exciting thinkers” (Ray Dalio, author of Principles) in business today, comes a practical and effective guide for thinking more clearly and achieving your most audacious professional goals.
-
-
Mediocre; few actionable take-aways.
- By Michael on 10-31-20
-
Tafolla Toro
- Three Years of Fear
- By: Lorenzo Gomez III
- Narrated by: Lorenzo Gomez
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great lie of our society is that mental health and mental illness are the same. Lorenzo Gomez wants to dispel that notion for good. In his new book, Tafolla Toro, he reaches back in time to share stories of his turbulent, traumatic, and often violent middle school years in one of San Antonio’s most crime-riddled neighborhoods. He opens up to reveal the fear, anxiety, and hopelessness he felt as a teenager and how those forces shaped his life until he began taking steps as an adult to improve his mental health.
-
-
Best book ever!
- By Emily Hernandez on 12-07-22
-
The Cilantro Diaries
- Business Lessons from the Most Unlikely Places
- By: Lorenzo Gomez III
- Narrated by: Lorenzo Gomez III
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You don't have to have an MBA to get ahead in business. You don't even need a college degree. All you need is intelligence, drive, creativity, courage, and The Cilantro Diaries. Lorenzo Gomez went from the stockroom of a grocery store to the boardrooms of two private companies without a formal higher education. In his inspiring and humorous true story of hope and accomplishment, he shares the steps he took up the ladder and the guiding principles that got him to the top.
-
-
Disadvantaged Young Man Makes a Name for Himself
- By B&K's _mom on 08-17-18
-
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
- By: Ben Horowitz
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ben Horowitz offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.
-
-
For large company managers, not startups
- By Thomas on 03-18-14
By: Ben Horowitz
-
The Power Law
- Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
- By: Sebastian Mallaby
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.
-
-
An Excellent Modern History Book
- By BikerDave on 05-06-24
-
Winning
- By: Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
- Narrated by: Jack Welch
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack Welch knows how to win. During his 40-year career at General Electric, he led the company to year-after-year success around the globe, in multiple markets, against brutal competition. His honest, be-the-best style of management became the gold standard in business, with his relentless focus on people, teamwork, and profits.
-
-
Jack's Alltime-Best
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-05
By: Jack Welch, and others
-
Your Next Five Moves
- Master the Art of Business Strategy
- By: Patrick Bet-David
- Narrated by: Patrick Bet-David
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the creator of Valuetainment, the number-one YouTube channel for entrepreneurs, and “one of the most exciting thinkers” (Ray Dalio, author of Principles) in business today, comes a practical and effective guide for thinking more clearly and achieving your most audacious professional goals.
-
-
Mediocre; few actionable take-aways.
- By Michael on 10-31-20
-
Build
- An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
- By: Tony Fadell
- Narrated by: Tony Fadell, Roger Wayne
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia.
-
-
Best guide for start up founders, ever!!!
- By Curly Beard on 05-28-22
By: Tony Fadell
-
Trillion Dollar Coach
- The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
- By: Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The team behind How Google Works returns with management lessons from legendary coach and business executive Bill Campbell, whose mentoring of some of our most successful modern entrepreneurs has helped create well over a trillion dollars in market value. Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering deep relationships with Silicon Valley visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt.
-
-
This is a eulogy, not a "playbook."
- By intangiblereverie on 04-17-19
By: Eric Schmidt, and others
-
Elevate
- Build a Business Where Everybody Wins
- By: Tommy Mello
- Narrated by: Tommy Mello
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tommy Mello, the Home Service Millionaire, shares what inspired him and how you can learn from his experiences. He quotes from his favorite successful business gurus and explains what it takes to get to the top. He teaches you his method for training and inspiring employees, teaching accountability, and improving performance for any size business. A lively discussion of what it takes to succeed.
-
-
Fun and exciting!
- By clint Mccannon on 04-18-25
By: Tommy Mello
-
No Rules Rules
- Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
- By: Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer
- Narrated by: Jason Culp, Allyson Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here for the first time, Hastings and Erin Meyer, best-selling author of The Culture Map and one of the world's most influential business thinkers, dive deep into the controversial philosophies at the heart of the Netflix psyche, which have generated results that are the envy of the business world. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with current and past Netflix employees from around the globe and never-before-told stories of trial and error from his own career, No Rules Rules is the full, fascinating, and untold story of a unique company making its mark on the world.
-
-
Infomercial for Netflix
- By Srikanth Raju on 11-01-20
By: Reed Hastings, and others
-
How Google Works
- By: Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Jonathan Rosenberg
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. At the time, the company was already well-known for doing things differently, reflecting the visionary - and frequently contrarian - principles of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. If Eric and Jonathan were going to succeed, they realized they would have to relearn everything they thought they knew about management and business.
-
-
Painfully ignorant
- By kameir on 10-13-14
By: Eric Schmidt, and others
-
What You Do Is Who You Are
- How to Create Your Business Culture
- By: Ben Horowitz
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times best-selling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building.
-
-
Life changing book!
- By Jurell Tanksley on 10-30-19
By: Ben Horowitz
-
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility
- By: Patty McCord
- Narrated by: Patty McCord, Alex Hyde White
- Length: 4 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it comes to recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.
-
-
Good HR criticism - wrong alternative solutions
- By Mauro Locarnini on 02-08-19
By: Patty McCord
-
The Bulletproof Practice
- Your Epic Practice Begins Now
- By: Peter Boulden DMD, Craig Spodak DMD
- Narrated by: Craig Spodak
- Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With very different and highly innovative business models, Dr. Peter Boulden and Dr. Craig Spodak are redefining the dental industry standard of care and the patient + dentist experience. On their podcast, Bulletproof Dental Practice, they provide insight on what it takes to be competitive in the age of Uber, Amazon, and corporate dentistry. Peter and Craig will help you build and realize your vision for a kick-ass practice that s not only successful, but also fulfilling.
-
-
Extremely valuable content
- By Georg on 03-21-21
By: Peter Boulden DMD, and others
-
Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership, 2nd Edition
- By: Joan Garry
- Narrated by: Joan Garry
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a champion for nonprofit leaders hell-bent on maximizing the impact of the nonprofit sector, Joan produced this second edition of Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership during COVID lockdown. Drawing on her own experiences as a nonprofit ED, a board leader, a volunteer, and a donor, Joan shares her stories and introduces you to a host of new characters she has met since 2017. Board and staff leaders will see themselves in these folks - recognizing the mistakes and celebrating the successes.
-
-
great for anyone running a nonprofit
- By A on 07-05-24
By: Joan Garry
-
Freakishly Effective Leadership for Network Marketers
- How to Reduce Frustration, Drive Massive Duplication and Become a Leader Worth Following
- By: Ray Higdon
- Narrated by: Ray Higdon
- Length: 2 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leadership is the cornerstone of the network marketing profession. How you show up as leader will make or break your results and the results of your teammates...In this short and powerful audiobook, and in his typical, “hold nothing back” style, Ray Higdon teaches his most important and freakishly effective leadership principles and strategies for growing, building, and maintaining a thriving team....
-
-
Best book ever!
- By rosana navarrete on 04-07-24
By: Ray Higdon
-
Tribal Leadership
- Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization
- By: Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Within each corporation are anywhere from a few to hundreds of separate tribes. In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright demonstrate how these tribes develop - and show you how to assess them and lead them to maximize productivity and growth. A business management book like no other, Tribal Leadership is an essential tool to help managers and business leaders take better control of their organizations by utilizing the unique characteristics of the tribes that exist within.
-
-
Important if you're suffering at your job
- By alendar on 11-09-19
By: Dave Logan, and others
-
The High-Speed Company
- Creating Urgency and Growth in a Nanosecond Culture
- By: Jason Jennings, Laurence Haughton
- Narrated by: Jason Jennings
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author Jason Jennings believes that urgency and speed are keys to the growth of any business. Leaders need to adapt and ignite their workplace cultures to prevent everyone from falling behind. Jennings draws on years of research and 11,000+ in-depth interviews with executives, business owners, and CEOs across the country to uncover how successful leaders build cultures that support constant innovation and growth.
-
-
Incredible testament to the spirit of positive growth and change
- By Alexandra d. on 04-05-23
By: Jason Jennings, and others
What listeners say about The Rack We Built
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sophie
- 03-22-21
Entertaining and Insightful
Lorenzo does a great job of capturing the story of Rackspace’s culture from his perspective. The book was light hearted, inspiring and filled with stories of the good, the bad and the ugly sides of company culture and lessons learned. A great read overall!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!