This guy owned MTV & Comedy Central (but fumbled Facebook)

00:00:00My MTV hit list.>> MTV, MTV, MTV.>> MTV.>> MTV.>> You grew the company from zero tobillions in revenue.>> Yeah, we were a high margin moneymachine. It was sort of the height ofthe cable TV revolution which began todeteriorate in the early 2000s with thedigital revolution.>> You helped create South Park,Chappelle's Show, Stephen Colbert.>> We had Jimmy Kimmel on. He got his startthere. Bill Maher got his TV start onComedy Central.>> You were recruited by Steve Jobs, samewith Geffen who is one of the mostsuccessful media business guys thereever is. You uh I think made an offer tobuy Facebook. Is that right?>> Yeah, we were the first people. We wentback and forth and we put a bid on thetable and they turned us down.>> How big What was it?>> It was like 1.7 million billion, excuseme.>> When you're like trying to spot winningpeople or creatives, was there like acommon theme?>> Yeah, well

00:00:56>> I was trying to think of the way that Icould introduce you. Tom helped foundMTV which was one of the most importantnetworks when I was raised. Like goinghome and watching TRL at like>> Yeah.>> 3:30 was like the greatest thing ever.But then you also owned VH1, ComedyCentral which meant you helped createSouth Park, Chappelle's Show, JonStewart's uh>> Daily Show, Stephen Colbert.>> Stephen Colbert.>> We had Jimmy Kimmel on. I mean, he gothis start there. Bill Maher got his TVstart on Comedy Central.>> Yeah, it goes on and on and on. And thenalsothis is a business podcast. You grew thecompany from zero to billions inrevenue.>> Yeah, billions.>> Billions. We got up to like eight ornine billion dollars. That includesconsumer products which became a bigthing for us cuzwe would own the IP of all theNicktoons, SpongeBob.>> Yeah, you had you owned Nickelodeon. So,Ren and Stimpy>> was the biggest business wasNickelodeon.>> Nickelodeon was?>> Yeah, by far.>> I want to talk about that business, butI just like wanted to like show like thetraction. Not only from a cultural likeuh you had your impact on culture, butalso the business side which those twoaren't always correlated.>> Yeah, it was a wonderful business. Imean, we were a high-margin moneymachine.Uh it was sort of the height of thecable TV revolution, which, you know,began to deteriorate in the early 2000swith the with the with the digitalrevolution. So,

00:02:11yeah, we had amazingbusiness model. I mean, cuz we had wehad three revenue streams. We hadsubscribers, which is like 1/3 to 40%,you know, from cable operators orsatellite operators, advertising, andthen consumer products, movies, andother things that we would do.>> How old were you when you started it?>> I was the oldest guy when we startedMTV. The development team was seven oreight people, and I was 33, and I hadrun a business in India and Afghanistan.We used to design and make clothes andsell them to better stores here and inin Canada and a couple of othercountries, and I knew nothing about thatbusiness, but I wanted to live in India.>> Were you like a hippie and you just likewent over there?>> I wasn't a hippie. I was just I had beenworking in an ad agency in New York.And uh they assigned me to Charmintoilet paper, and that was like the laststraw for me, a line I couldn't cross.And a girlfriend ex-girlfriend called mefrom uh Paris. They said, "Oh, man, youcan't you can't sell toilet paper. I'mgoing across the Sahara Desert.Why don't you you should just come withme. Quit your job. Don't do this." I wason a plane like, you know, 10 dayslater.>> Which is weird because I think I readthat you graduated number one in yourclass from getting your MBA at NYU.>> I did that. Yes. I went to businessschool primarily if I originally to stayout of the draft

00:03:27because of the VietnamWar was raging. And then in businessschool, I encountered people like PeterDrucker and professors. I was reallyentranced and turned on by business. Andthen when I got out of there, Ibasically decided I'd do menial jobs andbartend my way around for a year andsort of take what people would call nowa gap year. So, I worked like in Aspenin the Caribbean, and you know, it was awell-rounded experience I'd recommendfor anybody to do. I was sort of theking of the road kind of phase for me.Then I came back and got a job in an adagency,which was interesting on another levelworking in a big organization, acreative organization at its heart.And then I quit and went travelinguhacross the Sahara Desert. We split up, Ikept going, ended up in India,Afghanistan, and I cuz I had met anotherwoman in Greece. She said, "Oh, youshould go to India. That's like the holygrail. It's the greatest show on Earth."In the '70s it was, you know, 60% ofpeople were under the poverty line. Itwas really way before,you know, the '90 economic reforms inIndia that really transformed the place.And so I decided I wanted to live there.Then I said, "Well, what am I going todo? How can I support myself?" Cuz youcouldn't get a job there in those days,and she hadshe had told me, this

00:04:42woman in Greece,she had lived in Kathmandu, and shewould make and design her own clothes.She was a former clothing designer whowas sort of dropped out from New YorkCity. And she would lived in Kathmandulike a queen. She would make and designthese clothes and then take themoverland and sell them on beach resortsin the Mediterranean in the summertime.She had her own, sort of, you know,vertically integrated conglomerate. AndI said, "Well, what if I scale that upand I could do better stuff than thecommodity imports and find partners andbuild businesses and factories andour peak revenue at the time wasprobably $8 million, but that was then,you know.>> What year was that?>> This was 1972.>> So that could be like 40 million today,right?>> It was good. I mean, I I was a I was Ihad my first million in my '20s.>> You're How old were you?>> 25, 20 I was probably, you know, 26, 27.>> Did you make a million? Did Were youable to take home anything?>> Well, yeah, I made it, but it was youprobably know it it was on paper.>> Oh, yeah.>> It was on paper cuz it was all tied upin inventory, it was tied up inreceivables, you know, you got to I hadto pay for goods in advance. It was fun.>> When you it down, I think you're what,like 30?>> I 33. I got wound it down. I mean, Ireally got yanked out of the businessbecause in Afghanistan, there had been acommunist coup

00:05:58that kind of drove me out of there. Andthen I doubled down on my business inIndia. And then of all people, havingendured strikes and blackouts and duststorms and all these delays and I'mgoing to payhostile Jimmy Carter put us out ofbusiness because he put an embargo, nota tariff, but an embargo on clothingimports from India.>> So, did you walk away with anything?>> No, I I I ended up smuggling three tonsof clothes over the Saint Lawrence Riverto meet a delivery date atBloomingdale's. We we were doing a bigthey called the the India that was itcalled the India fantasy India.AndI shipped clothes to Canada and thenbrought them in, you know, the crime putit in in my desk, but I ended up broke,bankrupt, and deep in debt, you know,just like had my whole business yankedout from under me. It was the hardestwork I'd ever done or would ever do.>> Hey everyone, really quick. If you'reenjoying this episode on CEO stuff, sodelegating, having hard conversationswith your team, hiring, then I've gotsomething for you. So, the team atHubSpot, they actually went and puttogether a bunch of best practices thatShawn and I use in our own companies.And they put it together in somethingthat's really easy to read andunderstand. And so, if you want to justsave yourself 10 years of headache

00:07:13andheartache, then you should check it out.I wish we had this a long time ago. Itwould have helped me a lot, but thereshould be a QR code on your screen thatyou can scan or a link in thedescription. So, check it out. It'stotally free and totally awesome.>> You're 33 and broke.>> Yeah, broke. And I'm going I'm comingback to New York.And all my friends who they've grown up,they've got married, they have mortgagesor whatever.So, I said I got to change careers. Isaid I need a new line of business.>> Weiss, I heard that you read a book.>> Yes, I bought a book. The only self-helpbook I ever bought. It's called and itwas the first edition, What Color IsYour Parachute?>> You're the second successful person I'vetalked to in the last month that saidthat book changed their life.>> That book so changed my life. And it issimple premise. You have a series ofskills that you kind of out of yourpersonality and you you've built themand they're transferable from oneindustry to another. You can changecareers. You can do different things.But at the heart of it, there's a fewthings you used to think about.You you basically want to do somethingthat you love and you're attracted to. Imean, that's that's a no-brainer. Itwould be great to get a business you goto work in a business that's is also notonly that you love, but it's ascendant.So, it looks like there's some forcesthat are making this business rise.

00:08:28Andthen they gave you all these exercisesto determine what skills you have andhow you match them up. So, I I sataround my kitchen and did them all and Isaid, "Voila, I want to go in the musicbusiness." Now, my brother was in themusic business. I used to watch him. Isaid, "Well, I could do that." But I Ihad an encyclopedic knowledge of rockand roll music.>> Okay.>> I got hired at the company that wouldbecome MTV and MTV NetworksinMarch of 1980.>> When they started the company, when youguys all started the company, it waseight of you trying to figure it out. Ithink I read that you got like 35 granda year. That was their first yearsalary.>> That was I got more than anybody.Everyone else was getting 30.>> What did you get?>> I got 35.>> What was the seed money to start it?>> We hadWhen I finally got approved, we were thechild of American Express and WarnerCommunications. It was a joint venture.>> Why would American Express want to be inthe TV business?>> Good question. They got into WarnerCablein in the '70s and developed thisinteractive thing called Qube. It wasgoing to be interactive television, ifyou can imagine such a thing. Q U B E.And it was a test they had in Columbus,Ohio.And American Express thought this wouldbe a great way for them to get into the

00:09:43interactive television business, whichis the first, you know, iteration of it.So, they formed a company and they said,"We're going towe're going to bid on and get franchisesin in big metropolitan areas cuz no onehad cable. It only really existed inrural areas."So, then they said, "Well, we're goingto have to feed the system. We need tofeed it with some channels ofprogramming." So, they started a secondsmaller company, Warner-Amex SatelliteEntertainment Company orthe mouthful, WASEC. And they startedthe moviethe movie channel, which was sort oflike HBO. It's 24 hours of movies, justmovies.>> Was it HBO? Is that the precursor ofHBO?>> No, HBO was had been around since '74.It was doing uncut movies and that was abig innovation. And it was using asatellite, which was our otherinnovation. We would we would not usebroadcast towers, but we would bounceoff a geosynchronous 23,000 miles upthere. This is sound like outer spacestuff. And the the little satellitecompany we they had Nickelodeon and thenwe were going to launch a whole,you know, portfolio of channels. MTV wasone of them. It wasIt was called uh we're going to do amusic channel of some kind.And it would be instead of being abroadcast network, these things would bewhat we called

00:10:59then narrowcast. We'reonly going to program one genre andwe're going to do it to one segment of aaudience, you know.>> Because before it was like ABC, there'sonly like four channels and it was likewe got to do everything for everyone.>> Yeah, every and and so basically, no one>> we're going to be a niche network.>> We're going to be a niche network, doone thing all the time, do it reallywell, build up build up a relationshipwith our viewers. And you know, so wewere sort of existing on the side of thehighway.And that was a you know, wonderful placeto be because the the major networkswould live or die on their shows. Peopleknew the knew the shows. They didn'tThey weren't really that conscious ofwhether it was NBC or ABC or whatever.We were going to be places, not shows.So, you're going to watch MTV. You'regoing to watch Nickelodeon.>> Was that a new idea?>> Yeah. The people who ran this companycame out of the radio business. Themedia business had been so boring andunchanged for so long. The biginnovation in the '70s was FM radio.That would kind of take over the AM dialand they would have, instead of thesegeneral interest stations, they would belike they would have genres like softrock or, you know, free-form rock androll music. So, they kind of graduallysliced away the big AM radio stationsand that was the model they they

00:12:14sawhappening in television, too. Nicheprogramming.>> What was your seed>> $25 million.>> That's a shitload.>> Yeah, it was a shitload of money. Butthen again,you know, we almost ran down to zerobefore we really had a business.>> What did you spend?If I Okay, so it was eight eight ofy'all uh making 35 grand, so nothing.But you have $25 million.>> Well, it was eight people who developedit and we When we launched By the timewe launched it,we had hired other people cuz we had a,you know, to run a network. We wererunning a 24-hour network 7 days a week.>> Which was insane because uh one of myheroes, Ted Turner, he had the idea ofCNN and that must have been a little bitbefore>> Well, a few months before. So, CNN,ESPN, us, USA Network, we were allstarting at the same time. It was reallythe beginning of the modern what becamecable network business. We were kind ofpals. We were we were all trying tobreak down the broadcast monopoly thathad like a 90% 95% market share. Who allthought we were idiots.>> Which is funny becauselike it's it's you you've been aroundlong enough that I'm going to ask youabout it later. Like you've seen cyclesof like the innovator then getsdisrupted and etc. It becomes like, youknow, the main guy and gets disrupted. Ithink I read that by year

00:13:29five or yearseven you were doing like 70 million inrevenue. Is that right?>> Yes.>> So, that's like a pretty fast ramp up. Imean, 25 million is a lot for>> Well, 25 million was the cost. I mean,we started with no I mean, the 25million was was how much we had to, youknow, invest in this company before wewent broke, you know. So, show me abusiness. We're going to give you a potof 25 million dollars. Let's see if youcan get your business plan, which Ithink originally was four years to breakeven. Let's see what you can do. And wewe we we were stalled.And we had to, you know, figure out aHail Mary pass to kind of save us cuzthe cable operators who really had tocarry us and they were monopolists atthe time, they didn't want to pay 10cents a month for MTV.>> What was the business model?>> The business model was multiple revenuestreams. We're going to have this narrowcast kind of programming strategy andwe're going to get into all these cablesystems. But what really had to happenwas the cable guy had to come and wireAmerica. And so, we were also waitingfor what we thought was theinevitability of cable TV coming toevery household in America.>> 10 cents>> We would get for for MTV we would ask 10cents a month. So, a dollar 20 a year.And then that was only to be

00:14:44like 1/3 ofthe revenue. The rest was to come fromadvertisers.>> And how many subscribers did you have?>> We had in yearthree or four when we were running outof money, we had only like two and ahalf million subs. We were really behindschedule.>> So, only250 that'd be three or four milliondollars a year in subscriber revenue.Did you have any other revenue?>> We barely barely. We had some advertiserrevenue, but we didn't really have anybig enough numbers to attractadvertisers of any significance. So, wewere running low and the the road blockwe had was that the cable operators weregoing, "No way. We don't By the way, wedon't even like this music. This is likesomething from the devil, you know, thisis rock and roll and these guys weremore like Elvis Presley fans or Biblethumpers. The guys who controlled thecable industry way back then>> Which is funny because they experiencedthe same thing with Elvis.>> Yeah. Exactly. But then so we we neededan ad campaign. We said we have toreally go for broke. I knew cuz I was amarketing guy. I would go to these townslike Tulsa, which actually had MTV fromday one and 100,000 homes. So you had alittle microcosm where you could seewhat would happen if MTV was in acommunity and people went crazy for it.>> What what did they like about it?>> They just liked that that it was 24hours of music videos. People had neverseen

00:15:59music videos before. So this is anetwork that looked like, where the helldid this come from? We just It just allone day it showed up on their TV set andit was all these groups they never heardof with all this fast cutting, thiswhole new visual style and it was funnyand irreverent and looked like someunderground thing and here it was on mycable TV. I didn't have to order it oranything. So if you were a music fan,you're going, wow, this is fantastic.>> Which is interesting because like MTVdoesn't do music videos anymore, but Iwatch music videos all day on YouTube.So I have to like the you the musicvideos are still relevant, I think.>> They make more music videos now thanever.>> That's what I thought. Like what aboutthat behavior? The idea of a musicvideo, I guess if you pitched it to mein the 70 late 70s,I would sort of react in the same waythat I would react if when TikTok like,so you're telling me I'm just going towatch people dance on on the internet orI'm going to watch like people playvideo games on the internet. That soundssilly, but then I actually find myselfdoing it all the time. Was there like aconversation where it was like,someone's going to likepretend that they're singing and playmusic and that's what we're going to beinto?>> Well, the birth of the music video wasbasically in Europe television had notbeen deregulated so there was or radio.So the radio stations didn't even play

00:17:14music. If you can remember or you readhistory, there were the these pirateradio stations that existed on boats offthe UK that would that could play likeradio like American style radio wherethey would be playing records all day.So, they said since we can't get on theradio cuz there's no radios playingmusic,we need to get on one of thesetelevision shows. Like in the UK, therewas a show called Top of the Pops.>> Yeah.>> And people would make music videosto use on that show or hey, why not putthem in record stores?That's where I saw them. I was living inBerlin and I used to go to this recordstore and they had a little tiny TV andI'd see music videos for the first timeand it was kind of like playful andlow-key and low-fi and it was anotherway to reach the consumer to promote thesales of LPs. The CDs hadn't evenarrived yet. So, this new business cameout of a need just to how do we findsome exposure for our product which wasthe album.So, then, you know, but America didn'treally have any exposure to the musicvideos cuz we had radio stations thatplayed music all day long. They didn'thave such a need here. So, when westarted MTV, we only had 160 videos andthey were largely from the UK or Europe,largely from

00:18:29the UK from independentacts and thenwhen people saw these could really helpsell records,we could sell a lot of records and, youknow, gradually the Bruce Springsteensand his ZZ Topsstarted making them and new artists likeMadonna would come on the scene whofound video to be a really great imagerfor themselves and they could use itvery effectively and smartly andgradually this business developed makingthese things which, you know, stillexist today even though MTV,you know, for a whole bunch of reasonsjust sort of gave up on them which, youknow, I think was a mistake, obviously amistake.>> You're able to like find and employ allthese amazing creative people. So, likeuh Steve, I I Steve's last name, the guywho started SpongeBob SquarePants.>> Steve Hillenburg. No.>> And then Mike Judge who is did King ofthe Hill, Daria,Beavis and Butt-Head, and then mostrecently Silicon Valley the TV show. Andthen Matt and Trey from South Park. Likeall these amazing people.When you'retalking to a young unaccomplished personcuz I think Steve the SpongeBobSquarePants guy, I think he was a marinebiologist. When you were like trying tospot winningpeople, not even ideas, was there like acommon theme?>> Yeah, well

00:19:45first of all, I reallyconsciously wanted to make the companylike it was an eccentric we were not atraditional media company. We were likethis eccentric place that we wouldthrive on sort of offbeat leading edgetalent, whether that be musical orcomedians or whatnot, and we would trygradually bring them into themainstream. So we kept ouryou know, pop culture kind of moves upfrom the street. So I wanted to have areally young employee base that waspretty loose and you know, casual.>> I think I said that your I think I readthat your dress code was no frontalnudity.>> That was it. Yes, we had the worstdressed group of people going in and outof any Manhattan office building, whichwould be a tie for today becauseno one seems to have a dress code. Butin those days everyone had to wear suitsand ties and it was really kind ofstraight-laced. But I wanted it to be afun place and I wanted all the employeesto know that our main aptitude wascreativity and taking risks. So I wouldput creative people in charge of thesenetworks and I wanted to send a signalto the employees that creativity andfinding people and nurturing them andhaving these relationships wasabsolutely core to our business cuz Iand people wouldn't stay in there a longtime. People would come and work a fewyears and leave, but I wanted therealways to be like a long line of

00:21:00creative people who wanted to get a jobat our company. We were like a talentmagnet at boy. And very good at spottingthings. We would look for people whowere sort of immersed and lived on thepopular culture of the day. It wouldn'tbe unlike say record companies have A&Rpeople who go out and try and spot youngbands and they would, you know, hirethose bands and, you know, hopefullyhave some hits with them. But we wouldhave people who,you know, when we started, for example,Yo! MTV Raps, we really put hip-hop onthe stage for America. We were the firstpeople to really It came from twointerns. Well, there was an intern and aproduction assistant who lived downtownNew York, who were part of the originalhip-hop scene in a way as fans. And theywould be champions for that within thecompany. And they would bring this castof characters that they knew to us.>> But did you get it? Like when you sawsomeone rap for the first time, were youlike, "Oh, I get how this could be big."Or was it like, "I'm good at hiringpeople and just letting them dowhatever.">> I I was good at, I guess, uh hiringpeople who were good at attractingpeople and had good instincts and goodtaste. I wasYou know,you need someone who had a waswell-versed in the popular culture,

00:22:15whohad good instincts, who had diplomaticskills, was able to spot talent andbuild relationships with these people.It wasn't like everybody we hired or gotbehind was a success. But we were youknow, we would find people like MikeJudge at animation festivals. You wouldgo to places then where a lot of thisyoung talent who had ideas in their headand they were animators, but they didn'twant to go to Hollywood and get immersedin the factory animation scene. I didn'tmeet him. The first thing I saw was awas a short called Frog Baseball. Beavisand Butt-Head. It wasn't even calledBeavis and Butt-Head. It was It wasBeavis and Butt-Head. And it was like amaybe a 5-minute thing that this guy whoworked with us named Abby Treculi, whowas an animation freak. I mean, he hewould go to all the festivals. He sawthis in in Austin, Texas and it wasBeavis and Butthead and they would havea frog and they would one Beavis wouldthrow a frog and Butthead would hit itwith a bat. You know, it sounds kind ofgrim and gruesome, but just theirattitude and sensibility and the waythey laughed and the way they weredressed. I went, "Wow, this is So thewhole green lighting process, if youwill, was like, you know, a minute.Well, that's That's the hilarious. Theseguys, how do we get this guy Mike Judgeinside the tent and how

00:23:30can we make iteasy for him to kind of develop a serieswith this that we Well, how do we dothat? So we made a deal with Mike Judgeand we started cranking out, you know,how Well, they Well, they can sit on acouch and and rate music videos and talkabout music videos, which is like likehow we imagine some people in ouraudience would be doing and make itfunny. Matt and Trey, when they came tous with South Park, the head ofprogramming at MTV at the time, BrianGraden, he had commissioned a Christmascard to send to like 3,000 people and itwas a 6-minute thing with thesefoul-mouthed kids who became the SouthPark guys.>> it was it And I think even at the time,wasn't there like still a talking turd?Like was it>> And that was again, that was a case ofwe'll greenlight that. We needed a hitdesperately on Comedy Central. That tooklike a minute. Okay, let's do that.>> Were you like, these these guys aregoing to be special or were you like,they're just one of many?>> No, these guys are going to be special.By the way, this is the most originalthing we have seen for a while. It'soffbeat. There's nothing else like it.It's It'spushes the edge. It's funny. It'sirreverent andit's going to get attention and then wemade six episodes with them.>> First one wasCartman getting an alien up his ass.He's like an anal probe, I think, right?>> They had They had They liked the analprobes, yeah.I know, it's

00:24:45funny cuz this last season,where they really go to town on theTrump people, has been their mostsuccessful in terms of ratings and buzzand everything. I mean, they're reallyThey're great guys. I'm friends withMatt, you know, to this day.And you know, their success has beenjust great to watch. I mean, then theydid The Book of Mormon on top of that.They're talented guys.>> Yeah, they're generative.>> So, I hire creatives and I'm trying toget basically like I I hire contentpeople. And the best ones are oftentimesthe biggest pains in the asses.And also, I love it. It's so it's kindof like a love-hate thing. But I'malways looking for ways to increase mybatting average of like finding youngtalented people and giving them a shotand increase the likelihood of a hitrate from I don't know what your hitrate was, but like let's say it's like30%. Try to get to 60%.>> Yeah.Well, that's exactly the same challengewe would have cuz they are a pain in theass. I mean, that's the beauty aboutthem. They're difficult. They really hada point of view and it was hard to movethem from it or they had no point ofview. They didn't want to do somethingand they didn't want to be told theywanted they you know, they kind offollow their own North Stars. And wewould generally hire people whoif they were going to be on the air,they they basically had a project undertheir belt when they came to us. It wasthey they they were selling something.People would come you know, we were say

00:26:00want to sell cuz they'd want to get onone of our networks. But finding theemployees who would basically be thetalent pickers or people who have towork with talent, that was a whole otherskill. You know, these were people whodidn't necessarily, you know, makethings, but they were power creators. Iwould hire someone who would bebasically the talent picker. If you wantif you get what I mean. Cuz I realizedat some point I I don't have necessarilythe instincts to do it myself because Iwas a little bit older and away from theaction which always seemed to focus onwhat's going on with 20-year-olds. Whatdo 20-year-olds want? So, the best thingis how can you best connect with thosepeople? I mean, I wasn't like an anidiot, but I I would find like a womanlike Judy McGrath. And she would alwayssay, "What we have to do is hireaberrant people."Cuz it's going to be aberrant people whoare a pain in the ass, but they're goingto bring us the most success.>> What what's that word mean? I've neverheard that.>> They are trouble. And they're likethey're not mainstream people. They werepeople maybe sitting in the back of theclass when they were going to school.And they they don't have a lot ofrespect for the system. They're on anindividual agenda, you know?>> There's small things that companies doin their culture that have big big

00:27:16shifts and shape the culture. Forexample, one of my favorite companies toread about is this company calledRakuten. It's like eBay or Amazon ofJapan.And they don't have um cleaners in theiroffices, even though it's like a youknow, a 10,000 person company orwhatever. Because every day at 4:00p.m., the employees are expected tospend 30 minutes cleaning their area andtidying their area. And then like uhthey have like assigned jobs. Like thisperson takes out the trash, whatever.And like the idea being is like we wantto sweat the details. There was anythingthat you did that you found othercompanies should implement in order toget their people to do more things thatcould get them fired at another company,but at your company could give you likea 10x outcome.>> But we would have parties that werekind of you know, I wanted the place tohave a bit of a wild vibe to it.>> Yeah, I heard at one of your parties, Ithink it was Jon Stewart, he was likemaybe he was thinking about signing withyou guys to host the Daily Show or hehad just signed and he goes to theholiday party and he sees you on theground in the street because you were onsomeone's chicken fighting and you likefell over or something like that. And hewas like you and he was like these guysare drunk and idiots. I'm in the perfectplace.>> We had a lot of that. We had you know,we used to have

00:28:31these girls. Youcouldn't do a lot of this stuff thesedays. But we used to have these girls inlike you know, short pants withbandoliers filled with shot glasses andholsters that had tequila bottles inthem. And so we would have whatbasically were like wild parties andget-togethers and social things.>> At my company, we don't do like thatmany cuz I got kids and so like I I gohome. But like I do think that likeintentionally hosting parties, it soundsso obvious and silly, but I actually dothink that like shifts culture a littlebit.>> Yeah, and if you have a party, it's nota plus-one party. I mean, people aren'tbringing their husbands or wives orboyfriends or girlfriends. It's It's theIt's the people who work together. Sotry and build the bond up with them. SoI want the sales people to get to knowsome of the people in the animationdepartment. You You're You're a salesperson, but you're also, you know, wegot to sell We have to sell thiscreatively cuz we we are the small guystill and we're up against these bignetworks. So how do we take thiscreative ethos we think really powersour business and apply it to accountingand sales and other things like that.And let's have these people socializetogether and become friends. People loveworking there. I used to say when whenwe had the pandemic and the officeculture disappeared for a few years andhasn't isn't fully back yet. We used tohave people who slept

00:29:46in their offices.They would be there 24/7. They couldn'twait to come in. It was like the centerof their social life.>> What was the average age you think?>> Uh20s.>> Were a lot of people sleeping aroundwith each other?>> Yes.>> Was that good or bad?>> Well, you know, a lot of them aremarried and they're still They're stillmarried.>> It's what I would tell my coworkers. I'mlike, this only ends well if it ends inmarriage.>> Yeah, there's There was There was thatproblem. But, you know,you have a lot of young people. They'reworking really hard. They're, you know,16 18 hours a day. They're consumed withtheir work or 12 hours a day. I mean,the only place they're meeting peopleis at work. So, you know, people starthaving relationships. We would also,you know, show people what we're makingand what we're doing. And when when Iwhen I would speak to the employees, wewould have like these town halls wherethey could ask me anything they want. Iwould always lead with all the creativesuccesses that we have and talk aboutthe risks that we've taken and whichrisks have paid off and maybe whichrisks haven't and then show programmingand talk about who was behind it andhave some of the creators come out andhow we revered say Jon Stewart orStephen Colbert or John Oliver and sothe stable of talent we were able togrow there that have be there someinteraction with that

00:31:01and the staffrather than focusing on our financialresults.When I would speak to the company as awhole, I almost never spoke about ourfinancial results. I never spoke aboutour relationship to Viacom, which wasour parent company. Which in many caseswas a sin becausethe parent company always wanted synergybetween the various divisions. The otherdivisions might have been uhyou know, Simon & Schuster or whateverand but we were no one came to workthere to work for, you know, Viacom.Viacom was this abstract public company.We don't even know what it does. Theycame to work at MTV or Nickelodeon andthen I had to knit together had topeople at Nickelodeon who were largelybetter dressed and maybe came from aschool teacher sensibility good for kidsmore sociably socially uh conscious thanthe MTV or VH1 people. How do they allkind of fit together and think they'reon the same team?>> Can you talk to me about the Nickelodeonbusiness? You said that was the biggestbusiness. I lived on the street fromSesame Street.>> You call it you lived on the street?>> Sesame Street is 63rd.>> Mhm.>> Yeah, my in-laws live on Sesame Streetbecause that's where>> run now by it was been run a long timewith Nickelodeon alumni.>> I've always been interested in thatbusiness because I think they'reindependent still, right? The Jim

00:32:16Hensoncompany?>> Yes, there's a Jim Henson company andI'm into Sesame Street Workshop and I'mnot sure the exact Jim Henson company iskind of separate from Sesame StreetWorkshop.>> But it's still a multi-billion dollarindependent company.>> Yeah, and it runs onpublic broadcasting. They license topublic broadcasting.>> What does it take to create a show or apiece of content that becomes legacy andyou think can last for two or threedecades?>> Well, you never know in advance. You'realways hoping you're going to do that.That's the home run. So, not that itonly lasts for decades, but you're ableto also spin it off into, you know, uhconsumer products.That's where the real money is or motionpictures. That's what we would do, youknow, and historicallythese characters would be chosen by inin sort of the factory world, thecommodity children's space likethey would try and pick something andsay, "Does it have the word they had wastoyability.">> Toyability? That means like just a canthe character become a toy? What can'tbecome a toy?>> You know, that we had a show calledAngry Beavers. I mean, you know,>> I watched that when I was a kid, yeah.>> There wasn't anything there, but our ourcriteria for green-lighting a show andgoing in and producing it had nothing todo with toyability.

00:33:31It was were we inlove with these characters? And did wethink it could be a good show and andget good numbers and resonate with theaudience in spite of the fact that maybeit isn't going to be a consumer productsbonanza.So, we were really thinking because itgoes back to the creator, the creatorwho had these characters in his headprobably wasn't thinking abouttoyability either. He had more a morecrystallized simple idea as to whatcould happen here rather than what wouldbe the eventual spin-offs and maybe hedidn't want to interfere with that. Hewasn't that interested in in toys. So,we would do things that we we were inlove with and a lot of them turned outto have, you know, with SpongeBob andRugrats and so many. There was a lot ofconsumer products that we could crankout and feature films because when wegot linked up with Paramount we set upfilm labels there on the lot, you know,for MTV and VH1 and uhand Comedy Central and Nickelodeon thatto develop films that would use the IPthat we had generated and made famous onthe television network.>> I have this feeling that a podcast musthave one of the following three thingsin order to be good. You need to have aunique perspective. So, for example,that could be LeBron

00:34:46James talking aboutbasketball. It doesn't matter if hetalks on the worst microphone ever.People going to love that because LeBronJames is one of one. The second thing isreally high-end or unique production.For example, if you get the best voiceactors and it has the best soundeffects, you're like, "Okay, I like thiscuz it's like a total immersiveexperience."Um or the third one is world-classdelivery, meaning a comedian. A lot ofcomedians that I listen to on podcasts,they can talk about anything, butthey're so funny and good at deliveringit that I'm into it. And so, when Ithink of podcasting, I'm like, "Okay,those are like three attributes. Can Ilean in on one of them?" Did you thinkof attributes for some of your showswhere like it if it hits one or more ofthese attributes, this is a winner?>> Yeah, we used to have this thing wecalled filters, which was sort of likethat. Does it pass through these filtersthat we would have? Nickelo- TheNickelodeon people were very consciousabout having some kind of prosocialappeal. Off the top of my head, I mean,we used to think that we had basicvalues like nonviolence, pro kid, thingskids liked, it was fun, it was funny,uh it was irreverent, and also does ithave sort of a modern presentation? Wewere trying to position ourselves as thesort of I hate to use this word, butsort of the the the hipper children'snetwork,

00:36:02the cooler children's networkversus Disney, which was the powerhousechildren's operation. We wanted to besort of the the the modern version ofthe Disney thing. So, those would besome of the filters we draw we we drawthrough. I can't have to go back andremember what they might have been forMTV or VH1. I usually had a lot to dowith like its appeal to the veryspecific core audience we were goingafter.>> Did you have a name for that person?>> The ultimate person was a 24-year-old.That's who we would program to,22-24-year-olds.And thatteenagers we would never talk aboutanyone younger than that or have themappear on the air cuz the minute people24 or older uh saw a teenager, they weregoing to say goodbye. They didn't wantto be part of some teenybopper network,even though teenagers were maybe 1/3 ofour audience. They were nevershowcased on the air. Uh but we wouldalso get, you know, people who wereolderwatching, but the core audience was onMTV was 18-24-year-olds. Then we wouldreally move it to like 22-24-year-olds.>> I was reading about uh I was readingabout you and umI think when I think that you said inthe book you were fired because youdidn't buy MySpace and Rupert Murdochbought it. And you were fired by

00:37:18>> Sumner Redstone?>> Yes, Sumner Redstone who was a mogul. Uhit seemed like a real jackass, though.And then you were recruited immediately,I think by Rupert Murdoch and a fewother people to join, you know, whateverthey had going on, but yeah, I don'tthink you took it. I think you wererecruited by Bono. I also think you wererecruited by Steve Jobs or you and youhad some um affiliation with him. Samewith Geffen, who is one of the mostsuccessful media business guys thereever is.You knew Bowie, Jagger, all these guys.You said you bought Andy Warhol's oldhouse.You uhI think made an offer to buy Facebook.Is that right?>> Yeah, we were the first people. We weWe offered like $800 cash with like a$900 earnout, if you can imagine.>> Tell me the Mark Zuckerberg story.>> Well, this guy called me up one day,Kevin Wall, whoI knew knew from the music business. Hesaid, "Hey, I got this guy. You know,you know, we we we we were aware ofsocial media was coming out and we wereaware this is a big paradigm shift.">> What year?>> This would have been 19 This is 2005.Facebook was still only programming tocollege kids 2 3 years old and theytheir revenue was like 7 or 8 milliondollars a year.And Mark Zuckerberg had just moved toCalifornia and the business thing

00:38:33theywere wrestling with he came in to see usin Times Square and I always remember hewas like wearing a hoodie and flip-flopsit was February and I had a meet us atthe MTV offices cuz I figured it'd beyounger and it'd beinteresting. He wanted to see what thatwas like.>> And he's only 21?>> Yeah, and their big their big challengewas do we want to expand thisto high school kids? Cuz it's justcollege kids that could really be onFacebook and the Facebook. Could we isit going to be a mistake to expand ourtarget audienceto high school kids? The revenue was 8million dollars a year. I remember this.But we saw that, you know, social mediawas going to be a big force in thebusiness and was going to grow cuzpeople now could, you know, they couldconnect directly to each other. Thegatekeeper era was going to begin tofade but we didn't have the capabilitiesor skill set to really create our ownsocial networks and maybe we buysomebody else's and bring it in house.So he came to see us but they must havefelt something good becauseuhdiscussions ensued with his team. Therewas a fellow named Owen Van Natta who Ibelieve was the first CFO and we wentback and forth and we put a bid on thetable and they turned

00:39:48us down.>> How how big was it?>> It was like 1.7 million billion, excuseme.>> 1.7 what how much cash?>> 800 or 900 million I'm trying It was 800900 million in cash the rest was an earnout.>> Okay, so Zuckerberg could>> not want his MTV. Eventually we gotturned down because the the thenegotiations happened at a lower levelthan me. But I do remember at one pointhe was going back to Dobbs Ferry, NewNew for Thanksgiving and this guyMichael Wolfwho was kind of heading the negotiationsfrom MTV Networkshe said, you know, I could offer MarkZuckerberg a ride on the plane when wehe'd basically be like a captiveaudience for 5 hours or so and you know,maybe we can make some headway in thenegotiation. Obviously it didn't workdidn't work out.>> He got on the plane though?>> He got on the plane, his parents pickedhim up at the airport. Yeah. So this isreally way back in the in folklore.>> Why don't you invest in it?>> That's a good question. We did weweren't thinking of that. We werethinking of like buying and owningsomething. We had we have been a companythat sort of grew organically and we hadnever bought anything.And we weren't really like a venture. Weweren't really set up as a venture firmand our company was always the parent

00:41:03company was always sort of operating ona shoestring in terms of how much moneywe can really invest in our ownbusinesses or buy other ones. I don'tthink we were thinking ofdoing an investment. That might havebeen a clever way to go. But he theyturned us down and they turned everybodyelse showed up at the door, you know, itwas Microsoft, Yahoo, everybody wantedto buy Facebook at higher and higheramounts.>> about that all the time to be 21 or 22and being offered to be a billionaireand just the gall that he had and I findthat to be fascinating.>> It's refreshing.You know, people would start a companyand they their purpose wasn't well, oneday I'm going to sell this company toGoogle or Facebook or somebody else.They wanted to start a company and haveit work, you know, and grow and grow tothe tree to the sky. It was the samething with Steve Jobs and and Bill Gatesand Paul Allen and Phil Knight. They allstarted companies cuz they thought itwas interesting fun. They saw somethingin the culture where they thought theycould slide in with an innovation andmake a business, but>> people always end up richer.>> Yes.>> Not always.>> They're owners. They didn't check out.That's not to say you can't sell yourbusiness anddo something else or sell your businessand maybe stay with it, but these guyswere true believers.>> Did you know Steve Jobs?>> Well, we went up once to see him atThis is before the

00:42:18we went up to see himand we wanted to talk about maybe doinga joint venture with MTV and Apple. Thisis before iTunes. There's thisguy who worked with me who had a digitalnamed Jason Hirschhorn and he made thecases to Steve Jobs that iTunes wasn'tthe way to go. The way to go was to puttogether basically a music streamingservice.Which would have been like Spotify andSteve Jobs was adamant about no.That's not the way we're going to do it.We're going to we're going to do we hadthe iTunes model. And you know, he gaveus a nice tour of the Pixar studios andyou know, we had afine relationship, but he was someone weof course really idolized. This an iconfor us, a guy who could lead leadcreatively. He was also by the waya a pilgrim from India.>> Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.>> Not to compare myself to him, but I meanhe he hadaa he didn't have a straight-aheadbusiness mindset.>> Yeah, he met with a Steve um Bill Gates.He was like, Bill, you need you need todo some acid.>> Right.>> Which other icons did you I read a tonof biographies and I'm always liketrying to find like who I can learnsomething from.Which icons did you meet that you werelike, this person needs to be studied?

00:43:34>> Well, there's Rupert.>> What do you think about him?>> Well, you know, he's a boldbuccaneer kind of old school classicmedia mogul. I can't say I agree withthe results of some of hispoliticalprogramming, but you've got to give himcredit for a guy who take big risks.When he>> What was he like?>> Well, he I got to know himfair amount because his wife Wendi Dengwas good friends with my my wife Kathy.So, we would go on trips together and soforth, but you know, he's quite youknow, he can be fun.>> Was he a workaholic?>> I think so. Yeah, I mean, but hetraveled Yeah, the difference betweenhimand my boss, who was Sumner Redstone,they were about the same in terms ofage. Rupert was a little younger, butthey were both big moguls who took bets.Sumner was always focused and almostentirely on people who might be screwinghim,so he could sue from an antitrustperspective. He was a former antitrustlawyer. Or the stock price. WhereasRupert Murdoch would fly around theworld endlessly in his 727, and he wouldreally understand the machinations ofhow the operations all worked.>> I There's not uh very many goodbiographies on Rupert. So, I've beenable to piece together a few,

00:44:50butthere's a cool documentary uh about hima little bit on HBO right now.And there's stories about him being thecompany being huge, billions in revenue,and he was still calling editors forcertain headlines. I mean, like, youshould change it to this, this, andthis, and people will buy more magazinesor newspapers because of that.>> He knew the business. Whereas, I mean,he really knew how the business workedas something like that, he can make acontribution to, and they'd say, "Oh,you know, it's the boss. He wants to dothis." It's like, it's not just the bosswho wants to do this, but he may wellhave a point.He had credibility with his underlings.>> I heard he made huge bets just over onelittle conversation.Like, I think it was they boughtMySpace, right?>> He bought it on a weekend.>> Yeah, I heard he bought it for like>> due diligence.>> did he pay for it?>> $580 million.>> obviously was It was the wrongbet.>> At the time, that was, you know, you gotto rememberin 2000, we had the Time Warner AOLmerger that was a disaster. That was thereal first linking of a new media and anold media legendary legacy mediacompany. And that kind of blew up, soeveryone was paranoid aboutmaking big bet on digital media afterthat. So, now it's like 5 years later,hejust lays out on a weekend with no duediligence buying this social media site

00:46:05that we we had been looking at and we'reaware of in Santa Monica just bought itover the weekend.And he became because of that purchase,he became like, oh, he's the new mediasavant. He's like this old dude.But he also gets this cuz he's buyingthis hot up and coming media company,which of courseour new media company, which of coursedidn't work out, but this reallyaggravated my boss Sumner Redstone, whoreally had never heard of MySpace untilhe heard that Rupert bought it.>> And he fired you just because>> Well, I think there might have beenother reasons, but a primary reason likehe told Charlie Rose was that, you know,I I had the prize and I let it go and Ilet it go to Murdoch.>> And MySpace was the prize?>> Yeah, which ended updissolving and being sold to JustinTimberlake for $35 million years later.So it wasn't much of a prize.>> Were you able to make money on this asyou went?>> Personally?>> Yeah.>> Yes, we had you know, when we startedlike I told you, we everyone's making30, 35 grand a year. There was no stockoptions. People wouldn't even know whata stock option was in 1980. It wasn'tlike part of the normal nomenclature ofyou know, we we just can't believe wehave a job here. We're on a crusade.This is the greatest thing. It's goingto be the greatest thing. We're going tosweep the nation with this thing.So they were

00:47:20like crusaders, but then wedecided we in 1995Warner Amex needed money and they made1/3 of the company public and everybodygot like a little bit of stock options.So we saw it started seeing that the onewe were this hot company. We're MTVNetworks. MTV was the first name. It wasa really hot commodity.So you get a you know, everybody had alittle taste and then we got bought whenwe were sold. So all those stock optionsvested and paid out, but you know,in today's no one was becoming abillionaire or even a millionaire.>> I want to ask about writing rooms. I waslistening to you and Jon Stewart talkabout that. And the idea of a writingroom is foreign to me because A, whenI'm creative, I'm by myself. I preferjust to like, you know, my old company,I used to have to write a bunch ofarticles a week, and I was like, I justneed to go into a room by myself and nottalk to anyone. What did a writer's roomlook like, and what do you think made awriter's room successful in order to getthe best outcome from a group of people?>> Well, I'll get into this in my book in abit. We didn't really have writers for alot of what we did at MTV. There wasstuff was really written individually.We didn't have a writer's room, per se.At

00:48:35one point, Rupert Murdochand Barry Diller uh launched the FoxNetwork, which was going to be not justa broadcast network like the others, butit was going to focus on younger people.And they were putting on soap operaslike Melrose Place and my and theBeverly Hills, 90210. So, he says,"Well, our creative people are alwaystrying to do something a little moreambitious. Why don't we do a soapopera?" So, we developed one.And it was developed with this companyin Buna Murray, a really successfulfolks, great people. They were young atthe time. And it came to me, and it hada budget, and in that budget was a bigline item for writers. And I said, "Youknow, we don't really have that kind ofmoney to hire writers. We probably goingto make stuff for $100,000 an episode orsomething like that, but we wanted to doit regularly, andit we had a lot of other financialneeds for the money. So, they went backand came back to me with, "Okay, we'reeliminating the writers. What we'regoing to do is find seven or eightpeople and stick them in a loft down onBroadway and Prince Street." We foundthis loft, and we're going to put hiddencameras in it, and we're going to tapethem, and then we're going to use whatour real skill set was at the time wasin post-production and editing. We willedit

00:49:50all this action from these kids andall this interchange into these episodesand that became The Real World.Which really launched the modern versionof reality television. That was 1992.But, um you know, that was uh the birthof The Real World and then, you know,the for the first season the people whowere in it, they had no idea they'dbecome reality stars cuz such a thinghadn't existed yet. Now, when they castpeople to be in any of these variousreality shows, which are everywhere,everybody knows they have to have sortof an outsized personality and, youknow, be controversial and whatnot. But,the success of The Real World was justexploded because we found out youngpeople wanted to see other young peopleon television. They wanted to see theyget a lot of social clue cues andwhatnot. The Real World, we were doing athing with Ozzy Osbourne and SharonOsbourne and Sharon Osbourne was drivingaround in the back of a car with ourhead of programming, Brian Graden, andshe says, "Oh, you know, this day iscrazy. If there was a crew following mearound,you know, it'd be an amazing realityshow." So, Brian, done. That was it.That became The Osbournes, which was thefirst celebrity reality show. Now,there's like 50 categories of realityshows. There's a whole industry aroundthem.>> What was the conversation like where yousaid, uh "We're not doing this writer

00:51:06stuff"? Was there unanimous agreement inthe room?>> Yes. Yes, everybody said everyone wantedto do let's do something.You know, we got to get this show on theair and let's this this is a good idea.We could actually make this better thanever. We'll make it real. It'll be>> was it?>> Uh well, Bunim-Murray had the idea.There was a fellow who was a championfor it internally named Doug Herzog, whoeventually would go on and become uh thehead of Comedy Central and I'm surethere's some other people's namesinvolved that I'm forgetting right now.>> Did you Were you on the board of OWN?Oprah's Is it OWN?>> I wasn't on the board, but I was hiredby Oprahto be a consultant. When I got firedfrom Viacom, I went to Burma,which I had known from my travels inAsia, which was the like the crazy uncleof Southeast Asia, run by a militarydictatorship. There's no media there. Ijust wanted to disappearwith my wife and just kind of rethinkand see if I could get some epiphanyabout what I was going to do next. And Igot back to this place. We were up inthe jungle.I got back to the hotel on a boat. Wehad to go by everywhere by boat. There'sa message and there's a message for youin the office. They didn't have cellphones there, nothing.Oprah Winfrey called.>> Were you starstruck?>> Yeah. I go, "What? Oprah Winfrey? Idon't even know

00:52:21Oprah Winfrey. Why isshe calling Why is she calling me?" So,I got back in New York and I called herand she said, "Yeah, I called you. I sawthat you left and I saw you got a bigcheer," which I write about in the book.When I left the company, there was alike all these people in the lobby tosend me off. And she says, "I I'd loveto meet with you and talk with you. Andwhy don't you come up to Montecito andI'll make you breakfast." Which I didand we become good friends. She helpedme promote my book. Recently, I did aninterview with her and I loved Oprah. Imean, there's no easier person in theworld to speak to. She's curious. Sheknows a little bit about everything. Andshe's she knows how to talk to peoplelike, you know, like nobody's business.So, I mean, that's what she does for aliving, right? She's always done that.So, she's been able to carve out and setup this whole like modern mediabusiness. She was one of the firstpeople like in the creator economy,which you people would use that wordtoday. I mean, here you have a creatorwho'sshe's at the center of a mediaenterprise, you know, her her ethos andeverything, you know.>> Does she still own Is that still its owncompany?>> OWN is owned by Discovery.It was originally called the DiscoveryHealth Network.And so, she did a joint venture withDiscovery. David Zaslav, much in thenews.

00:53:37He called Oprah and he said, "Look, we'dlike to change this Discovery HealthNetwork, which is just sort of layingthere. And what if you came in and madeit the Oprah Winfrey network, and wecould have something really original andnoteworthy, and so she hired me as aconsultant.And I did that for a couple of years.>> just so crazy. I wonder if if this stuffstill exists. Like the way that I'vebeen, you know, I've studied Ted Turner,that's my hero. The way that it seems islike becausebecause cable was like the pipes, if youget in the pipes, the likelihood thatyou're going to be a somebody was was alot higher than a little bit than whatit is now.>> That was the era of the monoculture in away, you know, you you you there therewas a where things were controlled byeditors, and there was a barrier to getin. Now, anybody can>> Which has pros and cons.>> Yes.>> Con being if you were one of the if youwere Oprah, like it was it was awesome.>> Yeah, cuz you got a built-in audience.You had a head start over everybody.But, you know, here you are, you'rescrambling, you've built a businessbasically on your own wits, yourpersonality, but you're competing withlike every fit in a minute.>> Yeah.>> Everybody's their own broadcaster.>> Well, do you have any advice to that?Like you've been on top of the game forlike three generations now.Where do you think things are going togo? I know that I've heard you talk likewhere you're

00:54:52you seem a littlefrustrated with the rise of digitalbecause that kind of made MTV lessrelevant because it kind of messed withthe business model, messed with themargins, which made it all possible.Do you have any predictions on whereit's going to go or um tips on how tosucceed uh right now?>> Well, you know, you see things emergingto me. I mean, I I really don't look ateverything, but I look at stuff like inthe so-called creator economy, and youcan see there's stuff there's things nowlike Patron or Substack or everythingwhere I always>> Patreon.>> Yeah, Patreon rather. It it what I woulddo if I was 25 years old, you know, if Iwould cuz I'm thinking, well, the samethings, how could I align the things Ilike and care about and say, you know,if I could work forsome type of enterprise and learn thebusiness, an enterprise that's reallyabout powering creative peopleand getting them more famous and morerelevant andhow do you do it? I meanyou you have to sort of be a master ofsocial media these days and uh you haveto have an intrinsic quality that willallow you to stand above everybody elsewhich is truly everybody else.>> Well, you know, what's funny is mycompany The Hustle, it was a dailynewsletter which at the time was peoplekind of laughed at it but I was like Ithink this can get to a couple hundredmillion in revenue if we do it right andwe sold before we

00:56:07got there. But uh mycompetitors and like where the companythat I sold now is like 200 hundreds ofmillions in revenue is was was possible.That was right.But I was inspired by Ted Turner. I readhis biography. He's he's my hero. And Iknew all I so I studied cable. So I readabout cable cowboys and Liberty MediaMedia and like I studied like crazy.I've studied you like crazy. Andat the time in 2000 and um 14 rightaround when I was starting the companyBuzzFeed was popular and Vice waspopular. But what was going on was theirbusiness models were going down becauseFacebook was pulling back reach so theywould get less umclicks. And I was like, well, where islike the last bit of real estate that Icould fully own and not rent? And it wasnewsletter. Newsletters. And you knowwho I got that idea from?Bob Pittman.>> Oh, really?>> Bob Pittman had this thing called ThePilot Group.>> I know. I said I had dinner with BobPittman last night as strange as it mayseem. I mean this is a a synchronicityand>> He's your one of your co-founders.>> He's a>> founder. And he had this thing calledThe Pilot Group where he would fundnewsletter companies. One of them beingDaily Candy which sold for a hundredmillion dollars. I heard about thatstory and I was like, I'm just going tocopy that and do it with business news.And so that's how I started my firstcompany which we ended up selling fouryears in.>> They're also involved Ben Lerer. I'mtrying

00:57:22to remember the name of the guywho>> I copied. Yeah, Ben for Thrillist. Yeah,I was just like>> Thrillist, yes.>> Yeah, I was like, I'm just going to dowhat those guys do.>> It was good. I mean mean, the thehad an era, digital media had an era.>> do because Substack and Patreon, whatyou're talking about, they created theircompany because they saw what I wasdoing and they're like, "Yeah, that'scool, but what if we just created thetechnology for it?" Which obviously isfar more lucrative.>> Do you regret selling that company?>> No, cuz I was broke. I didn't pay myselfmuch money. Um the business the year Isold it, we sold it in February, thetrailing year we had done 12 million inrevenue, that moving forward year thatforward year we were going to do like18, so it was growing like a weed. It'sdoing great, but I paid myself like thefirst 2 years like 2 grand a month andso I was broke. The last couple years Istarted paying myself a little bit moremoney, but a few things happened. I soldin February of '21, so the Black LivesMatter protests were happening, COVIDwas happening, and I felt the world waslike going to end. And so the secondthat I had an opportunity to kind ofcash out and have financial security forforever, I was like, "I will do that ina heartbeat." So I don't regret it, butI regret being in the position to sellit. Meaning I wish I could have owned itforever and still like had bothoutcomes. Obviously that's not possible.>> There's a different form of theinnovator's dilemma.>> What is that?>> The brokenness

00:58:38of scrambling with no money when youhave a life to support.>> Well, my biggest takeaway from the thatera is I should have paid myself moremoney. But dude, thank you for doingthis.>> I've enjoyed I've enjoyed theconversation very>> Yeah, I could talk to you all day. Itwas you've been you were the man behindthe scenes of the content that shaped mychildhood.>> Well, it's been great and it's been youknow, I I I've summarized it all in thisbook which was a lot of fun to puttogether, Unplugged, and it's out thereand doing well.>> It was good. I read it this past weekendand it was awesome. We didn't even getto it cuz I've seen you talk to it insome other podcast, but like you gotbusted for having hundreds of pounds ofpot on you and>> And what they used to say at Vice, theysaid, "What are you doing?" Well, we'redoing a lot of stuff that's really smartand a lot of stuff that's really stupid,which is sort of another version of thehigh and low.>> That's That's I'm still on that.>> Yeah.>> Well, thank you.>> All right. We're off.