Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Peter Cuneo - Marvel’s Turnaround CEO, $4.5B Exit | The Navy Officer Who Saved Marvel
Transcript
- 0:00I think I was born with an adventurer gene. I had a history of Navy officers, my father, my uncle.
- 0:05So I went to the Navy and I got as a young person a lot of responsibility.
- 0:11And this is where I first really started to understand that I enjoyed leadership.
- 0:16He rebuilt Empire's others said we're dying. Peter Cunio doesn't just lead companies.
- 0:20He resurrects them from transforming Marvel into a global media powerhouse to scaling
- 0:25Iconics into a licensing giant. I didn't know anything about motion pictures of making them
- 0:30or comic books. When I did my research, I saw that the company had 4700 characters.
- 0:36We're valued at only $500 million. His leadership has been legendary. He's a turnaround
- 0:42architect, a strategist on the front lines, and a bold believer that businesses can and must
- 0:47reinvent themselves. We have a problem with over-parenting. Well-meaning parents think that
- 0:52their children should never have a negative thought about themselves. They don't realize
- 0:56it. We learn more about leadership than our successes. Lead a diverse life. You become
- 1:00wiser and you make better decisions when you've had diverse exposures to people.
- 1:15So the book is about leadership. Podcasts is about leadership. You've been studying these
- 1:20principles for 20 years. You have these 32 essential ideas around leadership.
- 1:25But principles are one thing. Understanding where they came from is something entirely different.
- 1:30So I know you said a lot about how Vietnam changed your relationship with risk.
- 1:36So was there ever a moment when you were serving, when you were on a destroyer where you actually
- 1:43had an experience that really changed or shaped your relationship with risk? Or was it just that
- 1:49period of your life? Well, actually, this is a very good question, Scott. I think there was an
- 1:55exact moment, which I could tell you a little about, that where I realized that I needed to
- 2:03have a life of leadership, or at least aspiring to leadership, trying to become a good leader.
- 2:11So this will take a little bit of time to tell, but I think it's worth it. So in the Vietnam war,
- 2:16I was a Navy officer on a guided missile destroyer. And then in the Navy at that point,
- 2:24and it's probably still true today, you really have as an officer two jobs.
- 2:30First job is a functional job. So the first tour I did, I was a damaged control officer.
- 2:36The second tour I did, I was communications officer. But the other job that you have is
- 2:42what is simply a ship driving job. You need to be ultimately qualified to what's called the officer
- 2:50of the deck, because the captain does not, you know, this is not like you see a lot of movies at
- 2:56the age of sale where the captain is yelling commands to the, to the, you know, engine order
- 3:02telegraph for speed or the helm for which direction. Now captain is way too busy, whether it's
- 3:09peacetime or wartime to be doing that. So you have people officers who are highly qualified
- 3:16and they're called officer of the deck. And you get qualified only by practicing over a period
- 3:22of years, which I had been doing. But I was now a qualified officer of the deck. So I am driving
- 3:30the ship. It's two o'clock in the afternoon to lovely day, nice sunny little breeze, and the ships
- 3:37mission, which we did quite a bit of on this particular day is called plane guarding.
- 3:44So when Navy aircraft carriers want to launch and or recover aircraft, they want to have a
- 3:50destroyer one nautical mile in front and one nautical mile and back. A nautical mile is 2,000 yards.
- 3:57And basically the destroyers, including mine, were playing lifeguard duty. The toughest time
- 4:04for Navy pilots was actually landing on an aircraft carrier. It's the most dangerous time.
- 4:09And if they had been hit over North Vietnam, they were limping back trying desperately
- 4:15to get to the carrier and not go down either on land or in the ocean. So you're there to provide
- 4:23lifeguard duty. In between recovering and launching aircraft, the three ships to destroyers and the
- 4:31carrier kind of just drift around going very slowly at random.
- 4:38But when they're ready to wreak, in this case, I'm going to tell a recover aircraft,
- 4:43they will call each ship over cryptid, encrypted voicemail and tell us what to do. So my ship's
- 4:51coal sign was fleet fox. And so I am now the most of the deck. It's very calm right now,
- 4:59but we get a message. Fleet fox takes station and describes, you know, wants us to go behind the
- 5:08carrier. And the carrier also tells you where it's turning in. It wants to go into the wind.
- 5:14So we'll tell you what course it's taking because you get maximum lift to the aircraft whether they
- 5:20are landing or taking off by going into the wind. And also they're usually at flank speed,
- 5:28which is top speed, which on those carriers could be 35 miles an hour, believe it or not,
- 5:34those giant warships. And so if you had a 20 mile an hour wind, there's 45 mile an hour wind
- 5:41when you throw the planes off or when they're landing. So there's a lot of lift because they
- 5:46landed typically 90 to 100 miles an hour. So we, I quickly do a little calculation. It's a relative
- 5:55motion. Oh, the captain, the carriers here, they're going to go in this direction at this speed for me
- 6:01to get the fastest way for me to get behind us to go at my flank speed, roughly the same speed 35
- 6:08miles an hour and then what direction. And so I'm doing that. And I suddenly realized that the
- 6:16carrier is coming right at us. Their new course and speed is directly at us. Now we are like three
- 6:25miles away. So there's no danger. I don't want to mislead you of having a collision because I can get
- 6:30out of the way very easily. But I need to get behind the carrier and I'm in front of the carrier.
- 6:37So I'm yelling commands on not on the wing of the bridge in the wind with the door open to the
- 6:44bridge yelling commands to the engine order telegraph, which is all ahead flank, which is top speed.
- 6:52And what course I want the helmsman to take. And I see that I'm going to pass what we call an
- 6:59Navy close aboard to another ship. In this case, the carrier. They're going to be going exactly one
- 7:06way. I'm going in exactly the opposite direction. And we are port to port. So in the Navy, the left
- 7:13the left side is the port side, the starboard side is the right side. So we're passing port to port
- 7:19close aboard. And when I say close aboard, it's it's a hundred yards apart, which seems like a lot
- 7:27when you're playing football, but actually two big ships. It could be a disaster if you hit.
- 7:34So I'm going by the carrier. Very important to get in our assigned position as soon as possible.
- 7:42Could be a matter of life and death. We really don't know. We don't know what condition the pilots
- 7:47are like coming back to land from a mission. And so we're flying by and understand that
- 7:54we're at 70 miles an hour relative motion, going in opposite directions.
- 8:00So to pass the carrier only takes eight seconds at 70 miles an hour.
- 8:06So I'm already anticipating I have to get behind. So I'm starting to turn
- 8:14to the port, my ship, even when I haven't passed the carrier yet because they because they're
- 8:20going to be past us, you know, when I get around. One of the things though about Navy ships,
- 8:27particularly big ones, is that when you put the helm over, put the rudder over,
- 8:34those ships continue to skid for a while in the same direction that they were headed,
- 8:39because the mass of these ships is so large. This isn't like driving an automobile,
- 8:46you turn the wheel and you turn right away. And you practice understanding as the officer of the
- 8:53deck, you know, went to give an order knowing you're going to continue to skid. So I'm actually
- 8:58giving the order to turn. It feels like into the carrier, but it's not because I know they're
- 9:03going to be past beforehand. And I'm judging the skid. If you've ever, Scott, if you've ever driven
- 9:10a car, sure you have in snow and you come to a corner, come to a corner and you're not even going
- 9:18fast. You know, you're very careful and you start to make a turn to the left and the car,
- 9:24the wheels go over, but the car continues to skid in the same direction we're going. That's
- 9:30the way the Navy ships behave, the big ones. So I'm starting to turn and I also realize that
- 9:41my turning radius with full rudder from my ship is going to be, is too large for me to get right
- 9:49behind the carrier. I'm coming left now. Okay, I'm going to be on the other side of the carrier,
- 9:55which is not where I want to be, but I have a trick up my sleeve that good authors of the decks all
- 10:01have this trick. I have a twin screwed guided missile destroyer. We have two propellers
- 10:08so that if I actually back down my port propeller, my port, because it would say screw,
- 10:16it's actually going backwards, full backwards, when I started right side propellers going ahead,
- 10:23my speed full, it will twist the ship even tighter than the normal turn.
- 10:30And so I'm trying to manage that as well. The ship shakes when you have those two forces on the
- 10:36propellers. The ship actually shakes a little. And I'm trying to get in position.
- 10:44Most stories short, call me good or just call me lucky or a little of both. I hit the spot perfect.
- 10:52And I'm I I steady up right behind the carrier 2000 yards. And just as I steady up, the first
- 11:00plane comes right over the ship. And remember they're very low at this point. You think a mile away
- 11:06is pretty high. It's not for for a great and this happened to be the F4 Phantom E class,
- 11:13which is one of the great Navy and Air Force planes ever built both fighters and bombers. And so
- 11:22just comes in over over the top of the ship. I hear the wine obviously the jet going by.
- 11:28And I'm feeling wound up needless to say. And but I'm feeling I'm feeling good because we we made
- 11:38our mark just in time. Luckily that day there were no planes going in the water. So that was not a part
- 11:44of this. So the captain is very busy, but he's watching the carrier and what have you. And I see the
- 11:53carrier is flashing us a message. You may have seen old movies where Navy ships communicate by
- 12:01Morse code you with a flashing light. And I don't think they do that anymore unless they're really
- 12:07in trouble, but back then that was common way that you communicated from a ship to ship kind of
- 12:15situation. And so I said to the captain because I'm still watching to make sure I'm in perfect
- 12:20position, adjusting a little bit tiny adjustments in the speed course of my ship. And I said to the
- 12:29captain, captain, what was the message? And the captain says to me, Cuniel, it was for you from
- 12:36their captain. And I'm like, what? The captain of the carrier is sending me a junior officer 25
- 12:44years old, a personal message. And he said, yes, for you, what was it? He said, Cuniel, it was
- 12:55Bravo Zulu, BZ in the Navy. BZ means well done. Now I am on a natural high. I don't know if I
- 13:07really wish on all of your audience that they at some point in their lives maybe multiple times
- 13:12experience a natural high. It comes from feeling so good, you can barely breathe. And so I am,
- 13:22well, what is going on here? I'm this young guy. I'm at sea. I've got 300 sailors, 20 officers
- 13:29on my ship that they're depending on me right now. And it's tremendous responsibility for a young
- 13:37person. In wartime, all of the armed forces have a lot of junior officers and they do give them
- 13:44an amazing amount of responsibility for being so young. And so my feet are full of the ground.
- 13:53I'm floating in my, I'm so wound up feeling so great. And it's at that moment, it occurs to me,
- 14:02Scott, that I need a life like this, a leadership, doing things that support other people,
- 14:09bringing together, doing my part of something really big. And that's the exact moment it hit me.
- 14:16Now I have to say there's a little finish to the story because it didn't occur to me till five or
- 14:23ten years later. That of course, the captain of the other carrier was not saying to me personally,
- 14:30good, good job. He was probably sent it to our captain. Captain to captain would be normal. But
- 14:36my captain, who was by the way a great leader, someone I admired, revered so much, shows to make
- 14:47me feel good by telling me the message wasn't to him, it was to me personally. Now I'll never know
- 14:54for sure. But either way, you know, I am, I was just, you know, I just floating, I swear, if I look
- 15:05down, I think my feet were a foot off the ground. So that's the moment, long story I know. But
- 15:10no, no, I love the extra detail so that you can, I think appreciate a lot better.
- 15:17First of all, I actually think what the captain did is the sign of what a good leader should do.
- 15:21Totally agree, totally agree. So when I figured out he probably, that's what he did when I was
- 15:27a so full of myself, you know, I thought about it for 10 seconds until my God, what a great leader
- 15:35to do that. Because it really, you know, it really lifted me up. I wanted to stay in the Navy
- 15:42to make it a career. I was not anapolis. I went to also candidate school in four months,
- 15:47your officer. And when I had done well in the Navy and the Navy offered me a regular commission,
- 15:53like people from anapolis, one was my time to get out, which was after about three and a half years.
- 15:59And I didn't stay in because my wife, who I just been married only nine months,
- 16:04had figured out talking to the lives of other officers on the ship when we were in port,
- 16:10that I was going to be, if I made it a career, I was going to be at sea six months a year,
- 16:16and she's going to raise our kids. We didn't have any kids at that point.
- 16:20Raise our kids alone, and she wasn't up for that. And I, well, I love the Navy, but I loved her more.
- 16:26And I will say it's 55 years later, and we are two days short of my 55th anniversary.
- 16:32And so one day, so I want to say about 10 years into my career,
- 16:41I had, my boss came to me and said, Peter, I want you to take over the international division of
- 16:48our organization, which is in trouble. And so I was thrown into, I was, I was living in working
- 16:58in New York City, was really thrown into with no prior warning, my first turnaround. And to be
- 17:08honest, the first six months, I was depressed. I thought, Turner, I don't know anything about
- 17:13turnarounds. I don't, I don't have any skills that I know of. I don't, you know, I don't know how
- 17:22this is going to turn out. But after six months, we started getting results. And I started to
- 17:27understand that turnarounds that are successful are all about leadership. Congratulations.
- 17:34That's amazing. Thank you. I'm just thinking about that story.
- 17:37What, what makes, because you were, I didn't realize when I was reading, when I was reading a little
- 17:44bit about your time in the Navy, I didn't realize how young you are. But now when you actually,
- 17:50when you actually place the Vietnam War, that actually makes a lot of sense. So you're 25 years old,
- 17:55and you're dealing with all this responsibility. Do you feel like that's something that,
- 18:00like, like leadership and responsibility, and you probably, you probably now see it with people
- 18:09that you hire in your organizations and your companies. Is that something that you're born with,
- 18:13or is that something that you just have to learn as you go? Like, is there anything that prepared
- 18:19you for that moment? I know that it wasn't like the most stressful combat situation, like some
- 18:25people have dealt with, but still it's like a 25 years old. You mentioned the amount of people on
- 18:30your ship. It could have been a life or death with the pilots coming back. There's a lot of things
- 18:35you could have screwed up to be quite honest when you're doing those maneuvers with a very large ship.
- 18:41Like, what prepares somebody to act cool and do good work in those high pressure situations when
- 18:48they haven't ever done them before? So I'm a very firm believer that leaders are never born.
- 18:55They're always made. Yes, you can be born with a certain amount of intelligence and certain
- 19:01things that are precursors, if you will, to learning leadership. They're certainly helpful,
- 19:08but I always cringe when I hear someone say he or she is a born leader because there aren't,
- 19:14I've never met any. So you learn leadership throughout your life primarily by face-to-face
- 19:23interactions, personally, professionally, with the diversity of other people.
- 19:30And with another way to learn leadership is geographical diversity, seeing other worlds, seeing other
- 19:37cultures, you know, what have you, is also very important. And that's how you learn the instincts.
- 19:45You're not born with the instinct. You learn the instinct of how to work with other people,
- 19:52how to motivate them, how to get them excited about what they do. And it's a process. And it
- 20:00doesn't happen right away. In my speeches about leadership, I often say to the audience,
- 20:08you can start learning leadership at age five. Your kids, your grandchildren, whatever can start
- 20:16at age five. And the audience typically goes, I can see them shaking their heads no way.
- 20:22You know, there's 200 people in the audience. No. You know, my child doesn't even know what
- 20:28leadership means. I've never heard the word. So I tell a story. And when I'm done, I have to say,
- 20:36I think most of the audience is going, you're right. Take your five-year-old for a week's vacation
- 20:43in Europe. Go to a country that doesn't speak English. And here's the emotional reaction
- 20:51from your child when they come back. Emotional reaction is, we went to this place. I can't
- 20:59remember the name. You know, I didn't understand anything anyone said. The food was different,
- 21:08but I liked it. Mom, Dad, where are we going next year? Great leaders are very good at being thrown
- 21:16into alien environments. Sometimes they move to an alien environment by their own decision-making.
- 21:24Sometimes this is something unexpected that does that. You could work in New York and take a
- 21:31job in London. Well, you're moving to an alien environment. I don't mean bad. I mean different.
- 21:38Okay. But you chose to do that. That's cool. Okay. Sometimes, unfortunately, business problems,
- 21:44problems with any leadership who can be in business or not, you can be leading any type of organization.
- 21:50There'll be things that come out of the blue that you didn't know about our big surprises,
- 21:56probably negative. And you've got a cope and great leaders actually run at problems, run at those
- 22:03situations. So by a five-year-old starting to travel, if you won't, and I say to people, if you
- 22:09cannot afford to go to Europe, I understand, go to Quebec. If you can't afford Quebec, go to
- 22:17West Virginia. Okay. It's a different environment. Okay. And so that's the key. Get kids started on
- 22:25being comfortable in these indifferent worlds from the world they live in most days. And actually
- 22:32looking forward to it, being excited about it. So, but learning leadership, it's all about face to
- 22:39face. Yes, you can learn some things from me listening to me talk. Yes, I think that's I do it
- 22:45because I think that can happen. But your most of your learning is going to be dealing with other
- 22:52people, good events, problems, bad events, your failures, your successes, all of these count,
- 23:01taking risks. You have to take risks to be a good leader. It's impossible. Leadership is synonymous
- 23:07with change. And whether you do what I do, which is turn arounds, with very extreme situations,
- 23:15companies and really in big trouble. Or just some you're in a great organization. You just have
- 23:22to make some small speed adjustments because things are going quite well. It's still change.
- 23:29And you have to be comfortable with change. Most people don't aspire to leadership because they're
- 23:35afraid that they don't want to upset other human beings. And they know instinctively that
- 23:42change will upset some people even so-called positive change. Quick question. What's your go-to
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- 28:18clary terms and conditions apply hiring do it the right way with Indeed. One thing that,
- 28:23you know, when you describe leadership, I've always thought of curiosity as like a good trait
- 28:30for anybody wants to be successful, but I've never actually tied curiosity to leadership.
- 28:35But what you're what you're speaking about with throwing people into new situations even at a
- 28:39young age telling them to go visit new environments overseas, new language, new culture, different
- 28:46part of the US, different part of North America. All of it is about curiosity mixed in with like
- 28:51a little bit of empathy. And when you have when you understand these traits very, very well,
- 28:56then I think it becomes a lot easier to throw yourself into this new environment that
- 29:02you don't understand at all and and thrive in it, not just sort of go into a new environment
- 29:08and maintain the status quo, but truly go into a new environment and not dominate but just
- 29:16excel in it. I think you do need to be curious and empathetic to do that. And you're sort of
- 29:20what you're talking about with kids is you're sort of training these traits early on.
- 29:25I agree. So my parents were such that I was, they never said the words you need to be curious.
- 29:32They just encouraged me to be curious. Anything I asked about, I'll go get a book, read more,
- 29:39or why don't you try out for this club in high school or wide range of different things,
- 29:46but I was always encouraged to follow my interests. We have a problem today with young people not
- 29:54learning leadership. There are two big reasons. One is just what I talked about. You need face-to-face
- 30:00experiences with other people. And today, because of technology and because of this,
- 30:08they don't get it. Okay, it's harder and harder. I do have a list of 15 things on petercunio.com
- 30:16that I recommend for young people with the learn leadership. And most of them have to do with face-to-face
- 30:22different types of experiences face-to-face. But I also say, you know, encourage young people to
- 30:31become expert at something. This is the other thing because human beings, even at a young age,
- 30:39when they have greater knowledge about a certain subject than most other people, it makes them one
- 30:45feel like they have a little power and two feel good about it. And so that's that's again
- 30:51being inquisitive. So your five-year-old, let's go back to the five-year-old, may know more about
- 30:57dinosaurs than you do. And that's great. If they like dinosaurs, encourage them to learn a little bit
- 31:03more about dinosaurs or whatever. It's okay, it could be something very simplistic. You know,
- 31:11and reward them for that with praise. You know, the other problem we have with young people not
- 31:19learning leadership is we have over parenting. And this is a problem where parents are not teaching
- 31:25their kids to be inquisitive, the opposite. They're teaching them not to take risks. Okay, and they are,
- 31:35it's called gentle parenting. There are lots of names for this. But basically, well-meaning parents
- 31:42want their, unfortunately, want their kids never to have a negative thought about themselves
- 31:48till they go out in the real world after college, let's say. So whatever goes on, it's not their
- 31:54fault, they're wonderful. They had graded in school, teachers' fault, didn't make the elite,
- 31:59football team, it's the coach's fault, whatever. And when these kids could not be leaders,
- 32:06they'd never learned the instincts of leaders. And when they first go out in the world, I hear from
- 32:12a lot of sea-sweet executives really horrifying stories about the lack of performance by young
- 32:20people now, including highly educated, well-educated children, kids, they're not the young adults.
- 32:27And lack of social skills, lack of no work ethic. I think I'll quit today, but don't even tell
- 32:36anyone. Or you don't want, you don't take a vacation day today, not going to show up, don't tell
- 32:40anyone. And they are not, because of the way they are over-parented, they're not thin-skinned,
- 32:49they have no skin, no skin. So when something goes wrong, the slightest thing that
- 32:56Scott, you and I would probably laugh at, they're devastated. It runs their whole day, it runs
- 33:01their whole, it's amazing, it's very sad, it's not their fault, I'm not blaming the young kids
- 33:07at all, not at all, it's how their parents did, how they grow up. That's where you look.
- 33:13But this comes from, this is not just an issue with young kids, I think that in general,
- 33:18I see people not wanting to be curious and not wanting to think outside of their worldview
- 33:28more often than never before. And I think that's just a toxic cultural phenomenon that's,
- 33:33unfortunately, the kids are a recipient of. I think it's toxic across the board. Now, of course,
- 33:39it's going to affect a kid at a younger age, much more seriously, when they don't have curiosity,
- 33:44they don't have critical thinking, they don't understand a world outside of their own.
- 33:47That's going to impact their career, that's going to impact their life. But it just seems like,
- 33:53I don't know, it just seems like across the board regression in terms of how we act and how we
- 33:57communicate. I think it actually started with COVID when everybody was like isolated in their
- 34:01bubbles and there was no more human to human face to face interaction. I think that definitely
- 34:06didn't help. But I don't think we've, I don't think we've bounced back to the society that we were
- 34:10pre-COVID, where people were empathetic and curious and wanting to be leaders and wanting to
- 34:17learn things that they didn't know and didn't understand. I don't think that we're there yet.
- 34:21Oh, I agree with you 100%. But again, it's going to be up to parents, grandparents,
- 34:28friends, mentors to fill the gap. Some will make it. And by the way,
- 34:34ones that come out, young people as, as quality leaders, are going to crush it,
- 34:38they're going to have very little competition and, and so on. Yeah, I, I think it's, it's a real
- 34:46challenge. We, we don't, you know, one of the things I, I noticed a lot is a big topic for
- 34:56organization I'm involved with, which is the National Archives Foundation. So the National Archives
- 35:03keeps all the records of the US government from day one, 22 billion documents.
- 35:10And I've been on the board now. I think this is my 16th year. I really love history.
- 35:15One of the things I recommend again on PeterCunio.com on my list of 15 things is study history.
- 35:22Because I do think that the past is prologue. And I do think you can learn a lot about human
- 35:27behavior by studying history and study our heroes. You're going to find out that heroes are not
- 35:34perfect. No human being is perfect. And while they did great things and they are very
- 35:41appropriately our heroes, they didn't do everything right. And, and they made their share of
- 35:48mistakes. So studying history, I really recommend to people. One of the things that concerns us on
- 35:55the board is that schools don't teach civics anymore. We have civics being how our federal government,
- 36:04state governments, and even local governments are organized. How they work. And so we have people
- 36:10in voting age voting with no sense. I didn't realize they stopped though. I took civics when I was
- 36:17in high school. Well, you're probably in the last year. I don't know. I don't know. But I'm telling you
- 36:22that we don't teach civics anymore. It's really troubling. And we're putting together programs to
- 36:29help rectify that. But that's another one that may never get fully rectified. And I think,
- 36:36yeah, so, so we have young people voting and they couldn't tell you who or why they're voting for
- 36:45necessarily because they don't know what the parties stand for really. They know what social media
- 36:51says. But most of that is inaccurate as we all know. They don't know enough not to
- 36:57to take social media. They don't know enough to take social media as with grain of salt.
- 37:04So then, so I don't know if you have an opinion on this. And I I'm just curious because
- 37:11you have strong beliefs around it. And your beliefs are very similar to mine.
- 37:17I don't know what the solution is. That's that's the quite like I don't know what the solution is
- 37:20because I think I think the actual solution is people have to be self-taught individuals. People
- 37:26have to be curious. People have to want to learn. But they also have to have the ability to understand
- 37:33if the information that they're learning is accurate or not. So it's a lot. Like the burden of
- 37:39education, it rested in institutions. Now I don't know if people even believe in traditional
- 37:46education the way they used to. I mean, I think there's I think people are now very focused on
- 37:52self-education and learning from their favorite, you know, thought leader on on social media.
- 37:58What's the solution to all of this? Like how do we how do we help kids get the right education to
- 38:05make smart decisions to be good leaders to be good human beings when they don't trust traditional
- 38:11institution or there's so much influence from social media. Like how do you set your kid up for
- 38:17success in 2025? I think it's doable. I certainly meet kids that are the exception and they're very
- 38:25impressive. And when I really get into them and you know, I have a podcast I've done two seasons,
- 38:31just finished season two. I interview people who names you may know, you may not know, but who are
- 38:38proven terrific leaders. And they talk about, you know, about their adventures, their failures,
- 38:45their successes. One of the things I ask all of them about though is their childhood. And when
- 38:51you hear some of their stories, how diverse their childhood was. One person I interviewed grew up in
- 38:58a camper, you know, with five of the children, brothers and sisters as an example. And another one
- 39:10had a paper route. And instead of just throwing the papers on the stoop when he went around,
- 39:15he actually rang the bell of every house and handed the paper to the people just he didn't know why
- 39:22he did it. But he was he was learning about human nature already based on the reaction from all
- 39:30these people in the neighborhood, you know, when he was handing them their paper. And he you know,
- 39:37credited a lot of his success started with that experience. So you really you really hear a lot
- 39:45when you talk to people about how they were grown up. And when I interviewed people,
- 39:50I always want to hear about how they grew up. What they, you know, they have adventures,
- 39:55have that diversity. You know, what was their life really like? Was it all planned out completely
- 40:01by their parents? Those, those people typically don't get passed the interview with me.
- 40:08I need people who have gained confidence in themselves. Okay, by getting out there and trying to,
- 40:17I would leave you with this thought for young people, however it gets done, young people have to
- 40:22learn their strengths and their weaknesses. They are not learning those today. Okay. And their strengths
- 40:29are their strengths, their weaknesses. They can avoid or work to get better. You know, it's it's
- 40:36it just depends on the situation. But you know, listen, I know this will shock you, but I certainly
- 40:43have a list of weaknesses I get taught to you. Learned in some cases to work to get better. In
- 40:50some cases, I can't get better. I just have to avoid. And so, and that goes on through life. I
- 40:57don't think it's just young people. You know, you're learning, well, I'm still learning. Let me
- 41:02really. And, and I enjoy it. One of the challenges I have right now is actually understanding the
- 41:10latest generations and how they think and what they value. And we've just been talking about this.
- 41:15And I, I can be critical, but that doesn't help anything. We have to find a way. And I interviewed
- 41:24recently, Patrice Gordon, who's in London. And she is a big proponent of what's called reverse
- 41:34mentoring. And I was really taken aback by this. I didn't ever heard of reverse mentoring. It's
- 41:40basically the, you know, the, the employees are educating the bosses. And how to do it. And, you
- 41:48know, she's, she's been very successful at it. And, and how you would set that up. And so on. And
- 41:54this, you know, and if it works, the whole organization is much, much more happy and much more
- 42:00efficient. So there are things that the, that the bosses can learn from young people. I think that's,
- 42:10I think that what you're saying is very wise. So what you're telling, what you're telling people
- 42:17who are a little bit younger, who are trying to figure out how to navigate the world. Like some of
- 42:22the people that you've had on your podcast, they have built real companies. They've had real success.
- 42:27They're not just the flashiest person on social media. They're people that have the track record.
- 42:32Those are the people that you actually pay attention to and learn their stories and understand how
- 42:36they leaned into adversity. How they started to learn about leadership. How they sort of structured
- 42:43the wrong career. Those are the people that find, you know, there's a lot of noise online,
- 42:48but those are the people you actually learn from. Yeah, and I think with all of this to talk about
- 42:54the media, the media has a lot to be blamed for. And I'm talking about, I know that. I'm talking
- 43:02about all media, because the way media makes money is to give you little tidbits on a particular
- 43:09subject with a, you know, in some cases, a totally misleading headline. No one is ever encouraged
- 43:18to go deep on a subject. In fact, half the time the headline tells you what the whole thing is,
- 43:24except it uses crazy words that don't fit the situation at all. And we all know the words,
- 43:32stunning, jaw dropping, you know, on and on and on and on, chaotic, all these words which
- 43:39actually don't apply, but you see them in the headline. And the media does this simply because
- 43:45that's how they make money. It's how they attract advertising. But unfortunately, our culture is a,
- 43:52is a 30 second, you know, info blast on any subject. And that's it. And you and the viewer or the
- 44:04listener has no idea if what they're hearing is accurate or not. And a lot of it is inaccurate.
- 44:12Of course. And they don't realize that they're just, they're basically just part of the monetization
- 44:16strategy. That's it. So one last one last thought on this. And then we'll switch gears. But if
- 44:24somebody who's listening to this who's 25 years old, they want to be a leader, they want to stand out.
- 44:30They grew up comfortable. They never faced real hardship. What should they do this week,
- 44:35this month right now, to better position themselves for the type of person that you think they need
- 44:40to be and they should be. Honestly, it's going to sound very self-serving. Go to petercunio.com
- 44:47and look at my list of 15 things I recommend for young people. And I'm defining young as 30 and under
- 44:54in this case. And they're all, most of them have to do face-to-face interaction with teams. So,
- 45:01for example, no one would be surprised. I highly recommend team sports.
- 45:06Now, you could be the worst person on the team. That's okay. Doesn't matter whether you're on
- 45:14the starting team or whatever. Being with you at one goal, which is to win, you'll have a diversity
- 45:21of people usually on the team. You have to bond with that team to have a winning team. Everyone counts,
- 45:31everyone will contribute some more than others. That's a great experience for kids. They don't have
- 45:38to be the best player. It doesn't matter. I also recommend performing arts. The reason I recommend
- 45:44performing arts is because it's a team sport also. Everybody diverse getting together. It doesn't
- 45:51matter if you're on stage or in front of the camera or whether you're backstage doing something.
- 45:57When I was young growing up, I was pulling curtains for a show at a local college. And I loved it.
- 46:04I wasn't performing. But, you know, there were 15 acts and each one had a different combination
- 46:11of curtains. I just had to keep that straight. And there were like 10 different possible curtains.
- 46:16And I loved it. I felt I did my job and I felt part of the whole group. So, performing arts,
- 46:23also I think a good way to learn diversity, learn other people's behaviors and teamwork and
- 46:30leadership. And then there's many more on the list, but I think you get the idea.
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- 46:54hire people at any point, you have to listen to the show. I just listened to an episode on my good
- 46:58employee suddenly quit. That's an issue that we all have. And it totally clicked for me. One of the
- 47:02reasons I explained is why it's not usually about the money. It's about all these little promises
- 47:07that we as founders, entrepreneurs, managers, leaders, we break without realizing it. Like, when
- 47:12you tell someone you just hired that they're going to learn all these new skills, but you just
- 47:16keep giving them the same tasks over and over and over again. It made me realize that I probably lost
- 47:20a lot of good people for dumb reasons that I never noticed. And hiring is one of the most important
- 47:24things you can figure out. So, if you manage people or if you just want to understand what makes
- 47:28your co-workers tick, it's worth checking out. Listen to truth lies and work wherever you get your
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- 49:25slash register to get your ticket today. So I want to just speak about Marvel because obviously
- 49:30that was a huge part of your career. And we touched on it a little bit but just to go a level deeper.
- 49:35So Marvel was basically bankrupt and I know I'm putting words into your mouth so you can tell
- 49:42me how good or bad it was but it was basically bankrupt. You came in. You didn't know the industry.
- 49:48When you come in, how do you know to a situation and this is sort of a leadership question
- 49:53laid on to a Marvel question. When you come into a situation that has history, how do you know
- 50:01sort of which industry wisdom you should learn and understand and keep versus which industry wisdom
- 50:08is not helpful at all and you have to sort of reinvent the wheel. You have to ignore some of
- 50:14the conventional wisdom that got the situation to where it is when you stepped in which was bad.
- 50:20In Marvel's case, Marvel had actually just come out of bankruptcy but it's important to talk about
- 50:26bankruptcy for a second because bankruptcy is a very very difficult process. Marvel had been in a
- 50:32tough bankruptcy for about two years before it came out of bankruptcy and a lot of people that
- 50:39don't know bankruptcy think oh you must be cured when you come out of bankruptcy and the reality is
- 50:45you're not cured. Your creditors have agreed on certain financial structures that they can live
- 50:55with. Those financial structures often are not the best structures for the individual business
- 51:00but it's what the creditors will agree to. So you're still very weak financially and you've lost
- 51:09a bankruptcy a lot of good people and that happened at Marvel. Long bankruptcy and people
- 51:16wondering if Marvel would ever actually come out of bankruptcy two years is a long time
- 51:23and good people left because they could. They were offered good jobs elsewhere and so there was a
- 51:29talent drain on Marvel that I had to deal with as well when I came in but so all of the turnarounds
- 51:42I've done well not all but most were businesses I had no background in. So and I'm always
- 51:50comfortable doing that in fact for a turnaround I could argue it's a good thing because you can
- 51:55really see what's wrong much easier if you have no background in industry and I had no background
- 52:03in motion pictures making them I love motion pictures but that's about it and I had no background
- 52:09in comic books publishing comic books the last time I read a comic book I was probably 12 years old
- 52:16so really didn't know much about either of those but the other thing that I do before I take on
- 52:23an assignment is homework and that homework is consists of two things one is and particularly
- 52:30the public company which Marvel was and it still is a part of dizzy now but Marvel went through
- 52:36bankruptcy still as a New York Stock Exchange company so when it came out of bankruptcy it's still
- 52:42a public company so there's a lot of public filings you can read that are open to people if you
- 52:48want to find them the things that you must you know submit to the SEC on a regular basis so I could
- 52:56see some of that but I also could find people to talk to through other people that would tell me
- 53:03something about Marvel what they thought was going on what were the problems did they know
- 53:08when it inside I would do that kind of searching on every opportunity I got and I turned down more
- 53:16opportunities when you go into a company you go into an opportunity I don't know if it's the first
- 53:2272 hours of reviewing maybe it's the first week maybe it's the first month first first quarter
- 53:28what are the signs that you can see immediately that a company's culture would be bankrupt
- 53:35I'm going to be honest with you I couldn't see any signs in three days or whatever it takes time
- 53:41working with people seeing their attitudes you know seeing what what went on in the past I I always
- 53:49knew going in that there'd be cultural problems no question it was you know but exactly what they
- 53:57would be you could guess from the outside before you go in but they're often not not often always
- 54:04surprises and so it's always worse than you think it is when you actually get inside and
- 54:10I don't care how much work you do looking in from the outside how many people you talk to doing
- 54:15your research all of these things it's always worse but in Marvel's case the one interesting thing I
- 54:21still remember is going through Marvel's books if you will after it had just come out of bankruptcy
- 54:28I'd still hadn't taken the job was that the the the lineup if you will of the characters
- 54:38Marvel had 4700 characters and the that entire group was valued at 500 million dollars
- 54:46on the books coming out of bankruptcy and I knew that one character alone spider man and I didn't
- 54:52I just knew as a consumer could be worth 500 million dollars if if managed correctly
- 55:01and and so I was very I thought this is definitely worth you know a shot
- 55:07and you can do a lot of homework but they're always surprises when you finally walk through the door
- 55:12every time you can't possibly it's always worse by the way than you think it's going to be
- 55:17I did seven turnarounds they were all the same it was always worse but um and so you know the
- 55:28I a lot of people want to give me a lot of the media and the interview me want to give me credit for
- 55:34the getting in the movie business the comic books etc actually movie business had already started
- 55:43uh it's come back before I got there I actually arrived the first film was X-Men 1
- 55:49in which came out in 2000 but in 1999 when I came to the company the first month I went to
- 55:56Toronto where we were filming you know on a set and a mansion some of the X-Men movie
- 56:02so it had started before me and we had some good people got him obvious rod really was the guy
- 56:08who pushed the motion pictures for Marvel it wasn't me I um I had to you know I tell people I read
- 56:17the scripts I never made a single change I wasn't I didn't feel I was qualified it would have been
- 56:22the height of arrogance for me to start telling people writing scripts filming movies how to do
- 56:29their job it would have been crazy so I didn't and I think that being an outsider it allows you to
- 56:35look at things differently and I think that's the huge advantage that you bring I think yes I think
- 56:42you're right I think that we talked about culture briefly also is the culture of the company right
- 56:49and invariably in any turn around the culture is not right now I'm defining the culture two ways
- 56:55as two pieces one is how we treat each other very simply and how we view people outside the
- 57:02company that are important to us they could be suppliers they could be customers they could be
- 57:07advisors they could be whatever it's it's it's you know how do we value human beings you know
- 57:16in terms of success the second thing is what do we need to be really good at to be successful
- 57:24we'd love to try to be good at everything but what are the key things is it new products
- 57:30is it customer service is it manufacturing you know so on it's it's very often the organ
- 57:40of the culture doesn't realize even what they need to be good at or doesn't take it seriously I've
- 57:46gone into cultures that actually didn't respect customers if you can believe that
- 57:52it's hard to imagine similarly with comic books the main thing was getting back a lot of the talent
- 57:58that we've lost we had some we hired some very good people our editor and chief came in
- 58:05who came in with Joe Cassada who was very instrumental in bringing back a lot of talent the talent
- 58:11could talk to me but I was the suit so to speak I was not the the fellow comic book guy if you know
- 58:18what I mean and so they needed someone like Joe to give them confidence that we were going to make
- 58:24it and so while I read the comic books I read them after they were published and I made very
- 58:31few decisions in comics or in film for that matter credit really I will take a lot of credit
- 58:37for staying out of their way which is very hard for week for week leaders week leaders will come
- 58:44in and want the world to think that their instant experts on some industry they think it's a
- 58:50sign of weakness you know what I did was a sign of weakness not suddenly showing up on the sets
- 58:58you know or or reading the the soft copy on on a comic book and making change no no I wasn't
- 59:06going to do that so my my big job was one making sure the culture the values system of the business
- 59:13was correct what we thought was important was what we were working on how we treated
- 59:19our our fellow employees and the people we counted on outside the company our customers our suppliers
- 59:25and on and on and on okay and that was my first big job and the I will say because I had a great
- 59:33board that agreed completely right away with the with the new culture that was basically a culture
- 59:41of changing the rules of the game we were not going to make movies the way big studios did
- 59:47and initially we had to because we had no money and we had to be partnered with that but eventually
- 59:52when we started model studios we did things very different same thing in comic books we did a lot
- 1:00:01of new things that worked out very well that other people weren't doing so that was all part of it
- 1:00:08and and actually most people don't realize I was there for the first year when I came to the
- 1:00:14company this stock was $7 after a year it was like a dollar and a half the world still thought we
- 1:00:22were going to go bankrupt again but the big event there were several big events but the biggest
- 1:00:27event was a year after I came X-Men 1 came out it was a gigantic hit people were lined up around
- 1:00:34the block on Friday night to go see the movie when it first aired or across the United States
- 1:00:40and most of those people had no idea that the X-Men was the number one comic book in the world
- 1:00:47they didn't just thought they just heard it was a cool movie and they had to see it
- 1:00:53so it demonstrated the power of comic book characters when they were done right
- 1:01:00and of course ultimately after 10 years that I was there first as CEO and then as vice chairman
- 1:01:06of the board we sold the Disney for four and a half billion dollars from bankruptcy 10 years
- 1:01:11earlier what was the biggest bet that you took because you said you didn't mess with what worked
- 1:01:19you preserve the culture you stayed out of the lanes of the writers and the producers because that's
- 1:01:25not what you knew but was there a bet that you took like something that you brought in it was I
- 1:01:30mean like I know a little bit about Robert Downey Jr being involved in Disney at this point that
- 1:01:37was I'm assuming one bet was that a big bet that came some in the number of years later I wasn't
- 1:01:44to CEO anymore I was on the board as vice chairman and essentially we had abandoned our joint
- 1:01:54uh ventures with big studios and we're starting it's really restarting way back in the early 90s
- 1:02:02Marlowe had had its own studio it had not done well so this was a rejuvenation of Marvel studios
- 1:02:09and the first film was going to be Iron Man and Tony Stark being the name of the character
- 1:02:15we needed to cast someone great we really had a lot writing on on this we had raised 500
- 1:02:22and 25 million dollars in debt to fund Marvel Studios a deal that will never be done again we
- 1:02:30have really no equity if you can believe that but at that point we had we had been the most
- 1:02:36successful film producers in history as measured by average worldwide box office for our films
- 1:02:43and so it was it was hard but we still were able to get very very good terms on the debt
- 1:02:52and so we had to but we had to have a winner out of the box and the board initially did not
- 1:03:00you know was very anti-tasting Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark because Robert had had some
- 1:03:06brushes with the law as you probably know not not soon before his mug shot was on all the media
- 1:03:13everywhere and the board naturally was um was definitely concerned about casting him as the
- 1:03:23primary role we knew he was a great actor however Robert screen tested and the board saw the
- 1:03:30screen test and it was so good that when the lights came on the board including me or we're saying
- 1:03:38you know together do it and the rest is history so so we did take a risk no one else at that
- 1:03:45point I think would touch Robert and he delivered and he's and that was 20 years ago so so you know
- 1:03:55and he said great movies and he's still playing on Iron Man and uh he's a great actor just one
- 1:04:02award for best supporting actor if you remember and uh god bless him he's been very was there any
- 1:04:09bets that you took a little bit earlier on when you were still in CEO role when it was you know
- 1:04:17it was just coming out of bankruptcy that were more stressful bigger bets things that you weren't
- 1:04:23sure if they were going to work out but you went with anyways um you know I'd be lying if I
- 1:04:31said there was any one's huge huge bet that I made or I got the board to make with me any huge
- 1:04:39bet would would require of course board approval um but I I don't think that there was any one big
- 1:04:48huge amazing bet I'll mention something to you wasn't so much of a bet but this may qualify for
- 1:04:54your question so after six months I've been on the job six months of CEO my CFO quit and went to
- 1:05:03another job and rather than hire a new CFO you might call us a bet I took the job myself so I was
- 1:05:11now the CEO and the CFO at the same time for a public company and by the way Scott today you couldn't
- 1:05:18get away with this this something called Sarbanes Oxley came along after this okay with a law change
- 1:05:27there was no way this would be acceptable but I wanted to do the CFO job the two because I wanted
- 1:05:34I was going to understand the business just so much faster if I understood all of the numbers
- 1:05:40where they were coming from why they were good why they weren't good what could we do to change
- 1:05:47our different businesses so that you know so that our financial situation improved and I actually
- 1:05:55was CFO for two years I was a CEO for almost four years but the CEO before I hired someone else but
- 1:06:04it gave me great insight you know the numbers are like blood in the person's body you know the numbers
- 1:06:13flow around from different parts of the body different parts of the organization and you want to
- 1:06:18understand you know the chemistry whether the numbers are good or bad whatever very very important
- 1:06:26and for someone who doesn't going to a business they didn't know it's really important so I didn't
- 1:06:33want to see a photo leave but since that was his decision and got something better you know
- 1:06:40so so I grabbed it and so big bet I don't know about a big bet but it was certainly very radical
- 1:06:47and very different and of course the investors in a public company you know what are they thinking
- 1:06:54what the CEO is crazy he wants to be the CFO also so it certainly wasn't popular initially
- 1:07:03after a while though when we started doing well everyone forgot about it just one last thought on
- 1:07:08just sort of your decision making framework because obviously Marvel was a successful story
- 1:07:13you've had multiple is it seven turn around so you've made some pretty good decisions across
- 1:07:18your career but you make big decisions you deal with companies that are at their worst point ever
- 1:07:25what is your advice for making decisions and understanding if they're going to be brilliant or
- 1:07:30if they're going to bankrupt your company like you take risk but it works out so there's some
- 1:07:35framework that you follow what is it it's purely instinct and I would love to tell you that every
- 1:07:41decision I make and every turn around was correct that wouldn't be the case I have my flaws like
- 1:07:47other people I had a good batting average yes okay I had a good batting average and I think I
- 1:07:54knew generally what was important and what have you but there's no formula it's it's it's a much of
- 1:08:00it is instinct and that instinct that you've developed over the years in dealing with people
- 1:08:07and when when you get you know you're going to need some new people you may not know day one
- 1:08:13who will wear but it's inevitable and you know also that there's going to be some people who
- 1:08:20won't make the trip they just won't support you they'll think what your new strategy your new
- 1:08:26culture whatever is wrong and if anything there'll be a negative there'll be a cancer on the
- 1:08:32organization they'll be talking you down there'll be whatever and they have to go and you can try
- 1:08:40for a little while to turn them around but I never tried for very long because I didn't have time
- 1:08:44on my side and so they those people had to exit the company and you should not take too long to
- 1:08:53make that decision and make it happen mo many unsuccessful leaders simply can't make they can't
- 1:09:02bring themselves to make that decision that because it's hard it is hard it's not about it
- 1:09:07and unfortunately it's too late area orphan for them where can people connect with you I know
- 1:09:15you mentioned your website where else should they go if they want to consume more of your content
- 1:09:20listens your podcast read your book all of it so my my let's take each one my podcast is on
- 1:09:27petercunio.com it's also on amazon Spotify iHeart the normal places you'd go we did film season two we
- 1:09:36did not film season one so we are on youtube with season two as well and so you could see two people
- 1:09:44sitting there talking to each other for 40 minutes not sure why people would want to do this but it's
- 1:09:50apparently it's a trend popular now i think people put it on in the background now i think i think
- 1:09:54right so that's the podcast podcast is all about me interviewing great leaders all different types
- 1:10:01talk about diversity all different industries the military uh you know other places as well where
- 1:10:09they've been great leaders um the uh the i have a book coming out called superhero leadership by
- 1:10:16the way the podcast is petercunio.com but the excuse me the website is petercunio.com the podcast is
- 1:10:24superhero leadership with petercunio i have a book coming out in february that ties into all of this
- 1:10:32including a lot of the stuff we've just been talking about uh it's my take on you mentioned 32
- 1:10:39essentials for superhero leadership it's actually now 28 um just because we consolidated four into
- 1:10:46the other 28 um when we wrote the book so it's 28 but it's really the same 32 and um and that's
- 1:10:56the form of the book that these essentials for superhero leadership are one liners things i think
- 1:11:02that i've learned in my life of of leadership and they are instincts they are philosophies they are
- 1:11:11behaviors they are ways of just set your mind all of these different things and i think for
- 1:11:19perspective leaders really go to petercunio.com you can see the 28 there you can copy them
- 1:11:26and with the last thing i would say i still grate myself on the 28 every once in a while
- 1:11:32and i think other people can grade themselves as well if the honest with yourself they can
- 1:11:37grade other people they want that way too i wish i could give myself an a on every world 28
- 1:11:43skyd i gotta be honest i'm not i'm not straight a i'm trying very hard even at this age
- 1:11:50if you could look back and out of all the wisdom that you've learned over your life
- 1:11:55and throughout your career and you could tell your 20 year old self sort of one last piece of wisdom
- 1:12:01or even like one piece of wisdom that you'd want to pass on to your kids what would that
- 1:12:05less than be and why lead a diverse life diversity as i said in terms of who you
- 1:12:12who you meet who your friends are um business challenges or or non profit challenges if that's
- 1:12:20the way you go whatever whatever you decide to make a career of make sure that you you know you
- 1:12:29become wiser and you make better decisions when you've had diverse exposures to people