Latest / Luke's English Podcast / He Took the Company Card on a _15_000 Vacation(M4A_128K)

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He Took the Company Card on a _15_000 Vacation(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is the Bad Hire, the show with the best
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: stories about the worst employees. We fired him.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Of course, people are crazy. It's like an hr nightmare. Right.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: One bad hire stole all of.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: It crazy stuff. She got what she deserved.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm your host, Ken Monroe, and every week we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: dive into real life stories from the wild world of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: work and what can happen when the wrong person gets
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the job. These stories aren't just crazy when their cautionary
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: tales about lessons learned the hard way. Let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: First off, I love just to hear more about you.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I know we've already talked a little bit, but if
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: you want to introduce yourself. I know you have some
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: interesting stories just about your life and just like what
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: you do, and I'd love to hear a bit more.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I'm Steve Stewart. I'm the CEO and co
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: founder of song Hub. My background's in the music business.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Used to be in management. I managed a band called
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Stone Temple Pilots for the first ten years of their
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: career five records with them. Had a bunch of other
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: artists signed to major labels and publishers in that meantime.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Really caught the last part of the CD era of
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: the music labels situation, before that streaming came in, before
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: file sharing came in, and it was kind of the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: last vestige of the old school record labels where you know,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: they could really make some money. They would sell a
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: CD I think retails about eighteen dollars and they probably
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: made ten dollars, so they got there's a lot of
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: fat there before streaming came in and said you're going
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to get point one zero zero zero zero one cent
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: per stream. So caught a lot of that and then
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: saw that those deals. Because of that, the record labels
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: start doing what's called three sixty deals. They would come
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: in and take a piece of your publishing, you're merchandising,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: your touring. They wanted all of it because they were
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: losing revenues on the record side, like they couldn't make
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: money selling actual records anymore, which made the deals really
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: onerous for artists. A lot of art artist could not
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: make a living because they would rely on a separate
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: publishing deal or separate touring income, and when they had
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: to start sharing that with the labels, those income streams
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: kind of dried up a little bit, so it was
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: not really a good time labels, cut their staffs back,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: cut their rosters back, and to the point where we've
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: got what we've got today, where you know, there's a
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: very thin layer of artists that do very well, and
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: then there's a lot of artists that don't do very well,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: and it's it's very difficult to get traction. There's always
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: going to be superstars and big names that do very well.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, there's it's easier to make
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: music right. Everybody can download a pro tools rig or
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: fl or. Now you've got Suno and Udio. You can
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: make music and get music out and distributed through Spotify
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: or Apple Music or Deezer much more easily than you
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: ever could before those platforms existed. So there's a lot
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: of opportunity on the tech side. And I got into
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: music tech I don't know, ten years ago, years ago
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and start building fractional rights platforms and song lub right
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: now is basically a platform that started as a collaboration
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a registration platform. We're moving into serving some of the
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: AI community with actual rights management and registration, so determining
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: which rights are human and which rights are AI and
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: then letting people register those to collect royalties. So it's
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: an interesting little niche. There's a lot of artists that
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: need to get paid properly. There's a lot of inefficiencies
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: in the music royalty system, and that's kind of my
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: mission is to solve some of that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: That's super cool. Even just your story or just your
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: background of being with a Stone Temple Pilots is super cool,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: very interesting like that. That's awesome. I'm sure you've got
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: some great and probably very interesting stories just from those days,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: but from your background. So now you know, obviously you're
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: at this kind of blend of business and music, and
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: that's where it sounds like you've been for the last
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: few years. Like, what's your background of besides that piece
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: of your story that I know with some typical Pilots,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: would you say that your background, you know, even back
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: into college days and then from there is your story
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: starting with music or starting with business or have they
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: been together the whole time.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I was in a band in high school.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Out of high school and through my college years and
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: really picked up and I ended up kind of managing
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: them and booking them and doing all the stuff on
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the business side. We made a record, so there's a
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: lot of the business stuff that I was handling at
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that point, and then right out of college I started
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: working for iced teas manager as an assistant. And when
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I was in school, I was working for Echo and
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the Buddyman B fifty two's manager also as an assistant.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So I kind of just started on that path and
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: got into management, which I wasn't I was a drummer.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I was kind of a hack drummer, and I knew
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: that wasn't my future. But I enjoyed the business. I
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: enjoyed music, and I really was taken by how you
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: could get something, you know, at a very ground level
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: entry point and then build it. And when I started
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: working for iced T's manager, I started networking and made
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: contacts with attorneys and A and R people in the business,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: and guys I grew up with with my band in
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: high school had a band and they kept asking me
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: if I could help sign them or get them signed,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and I took their tape around as a cassette tape
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: back in those days and shopped it for about a year,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know, probably two hundred denials and Atlantic records.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: So they were interested in nineteen ninety two and made
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: a deal with them, so it was kind of moving
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: from the performance and being in a band and appreciating music,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: which I've always done, into that management and business side,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: and then start my own management company when I signed
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: them and ran with that for you know, fifteen twenty years,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: so it kind of naturally morphed into it. It's interesting
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the creative there's definitely a difference between the artist and
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: the business minds. The creative mind sometimes doesn't really pay
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: attention to some of the business guide guardrails, and it's
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: hard to explain to when artists, you know, sometimes what
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: their rights are and what they're doing and sometimes what
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: they're not do right. Sometimes they think, oh, I've done this,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: you got my song on the radio. I should be
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: getting millions of dollars. It's somehow it works all the time.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: So knowing how that stuff works, being able to bridge
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that gap and explain and communicate that properly to creatives,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I think it's super important. Something has always been a
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: part of my life.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that's that's what brought you to
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: where you are. I feel like you're in the perfect
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: spot because, like you said, since there's different people with
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: different wired brains. Some are like you know, more of
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the creative type. Some are more of like the I
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: guess type A, or even just like business type, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: sometimes they miss or they don't understand the other side, right.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And so now that you've kind of come from both,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: you can apply a lot of like the actual strategic
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: management business side of things, but you still understand the
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: creative side of what they want and what they really
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: needed today too, which is awesome.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I'm recalling a story that we met with
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: the CEO of Time Warner, guy named Jerry Levin back
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: in the day, probably nineteen ninety ninety one, I think
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: maybe ninety two, was during the body count Iced Tea controversy.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And it was interesting because he was probably Time Warner
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: at that point was one of the biggest media conglomerates
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: in the world. He was their CEO. He had an
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: accounting background, and he invited us to come out to
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: New York, actually flew us out on one of their
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Gulf streams. And I was invited to that meeting and
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: it was four people, and he was he was he
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: was an accountant and I remember, you know, Ice Tea's
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: kind of an original og gangster rapper from the West Coast.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: And he was playing in a CD changer in these
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: iced ta songs like Yo Yo yo and all this
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: cuss words. And I looked at this guy and thought,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: he has no idea where iced tea is coming from, right,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: He's coming from like the streets of LA kind of
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: his background was, you know, it was not a polished
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: pedigree as Jerry's was. And he's running this record label,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: he's running a music company, a media company at that
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: point multi you know, multinational, billion dollar media company. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: here is one of his key artists. And he's from
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: a completely different background and upbringing it and it has
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a different perspective. But I thought it was interesting that
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: he was making every effort to understand and to relate
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to an artist. And that was the first, one of
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: the first times I saw that. And then I was
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: always you know, that was in my mid twenties, dealing
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: with fifty sixty year old CEOs and the music business
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: that are music business is very shoot from the hip
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: that used to be. It's become a lot more corporate
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: in the last fifteen or twenty years. But back in
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: those days, you didn't have to have a degree, you
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: didn't have to go to school. It was literally who
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: could get the best stuff on the radio, or the
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: best sales or get things done, and pretty rough and
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: tumble compared to corporate America in many respects. So seeing
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of those guys like om at Ertigan and
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Doug Morris and Danny Goldberg, the business was it was rough.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Those guys used to go into radio stations and break
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: stuff and say, you know, if you don't play my record,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to break all the other records in your
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: library right now. Crazy stuff that was. You know, some
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: of the basis for the music business goes back to
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: those days, and a lot of those guys experience that.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So it was a very loose shoot from the hip
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: kind of culture. And to see that at twenty and
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: to be able to sit in a room with the
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: CEO of you know, one of the biggest record labels
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: in the country and the world probably and negotiate I
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: learned that I had something they wanted, right I had
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: an artist that was very interesting to them and they
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: saw the potential to make money from and with that
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: type of desire and they wanted to be in business,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: you could use that as leverage to negotiate it. It
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: was kind of crazy for a kid to get in
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: that space, But that's what I learned early on.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really cool, Steve. And I'm sure that some
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: of those things that you saw at that point of
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: your career where just like that level of excuse me,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: that level of empathy, being able to see something from
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: somebody else's perspective, in your case or in that case,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: you know, somebody who's in management be able to try
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: to understand some of that I see, or one of
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: the musicians. Again, there's a generational gap, there's a background gap,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: there's a cultural gap. But then some I feel like
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: there's some and this is speaking generally, there's some people
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: in management executives who just don't care. They're like, there's
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: a big gap. Whatever, I'm just going to keep working
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: and you guys just do what I say. But I
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: think like the best people who are in hiring, who
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: are in management, who have to do with other people
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: under them, they actually try to make that conscious step
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: of trying to connect, because the better you can connect
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: and make somebody feel understood, typically the best results you
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: can create.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Nathan, that's really a good point because there's a layer
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: at record labels called A and R it stands for
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: artists and repertoire, and they're the actual people that are
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: scouts and go out and find artists and sign them.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: And their ethos and their personalities are completely different from
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: business affairs, which are the lawyers, HR which is the
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: hiring side, and even the accountants and all the other executives.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: They're almost the same kind of creative mindset as an artist,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: and they relate to them. They take them out to dinner,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: they wine and dine them. But it's interesting to see
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: where that line is and once they get hooked. Once
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: an artist is impressed by that, A and R person says, yeah,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I want to sign with War Brothers. Then the business
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: affairs guys come in, then the lawyers come in, and
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, that nice, hey, we'd love
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: to sign you. We're so excited turns into deal points
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: and legal contracts and there's some negotiation. Sometimes you're not
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: going to get everything you want, and it's interesting to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: see both sides. And I know you guys are coming
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: from an H and R background, HR background, You're right.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I think the intake the HR managers that are hiring
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: and interviewing perspective employees. They have to be a little empathetic.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: They have to have a different face than maybe some
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: of the other executives or management levels in that company,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: because they're relating to someone coming in off the street
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: many times, or they're trying to retain somebody, or they're
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: trying to recruit somebody that is coming from another company,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: maybe it's a higher level talent. They have to present
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: a company in a different way that listens to who
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: they're sitting next to, that sells the company to them
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: kind of maybe more than than other people in the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: company might have to do. So. Yeah, it's interesting that
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: intake side, where you're looking to build a team and
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: bring the best people into your organization. How do you
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: attract them, how do you retain them, and how do
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you express the strengths and potential of the company to
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: them in a way that works.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and especially on the point of rich handing people,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: I think when somebody feels understood and valued, I mean
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: that's the kind of those are kind of things that
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: keep people around, you know. And there's there's one whole
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: whole conversation I'm sure you and our CEO can well
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: we'll have here in the future. But with background checks
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: in particularly you know beat checks. They do background checks,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: And one kind of big point that he's made it
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: several times is talking about, you know, viewing somebody not
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: just as a piece of paper as their background check
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: and almost saying like you are not your background, You're
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: not your background, and almost like with background checks, giving
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the people I guess a full content. I guess it's
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: context based background screening, because you know, there's a big
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: difference between person a who made a mistake one night
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: in a bar, they got into a fight, and then
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: the police came and then they just kept doing more
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: stuff like that for ten years since it happened and
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: just never showed any improvement, versus somebody who had a
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: night in a bar, they made a mistake, the police
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: showed up, and then they changed and then they got
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: a job, and they had a family that went to
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: church and like you know, did all the different things.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And it's like, but two companies might look at that
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: one incident just the same, or there's those two people
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: just the same. And we talk of a lot about
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: having the understanding, the empathy, you know, and just things
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: like that. I think those are some of the strengths
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: again of like the best people in business, The best
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: people are in hiring and the best managers too.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you, I think alluded to you are
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: not your resume. And someone could look amazing on paper
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: and they present like wow, I person couldn't hold a conversation,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: they had nothing to answer with one of you know,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: one syllable answers. And conversely, somebody could come in with
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: a terrible resume and be really impressive. I've seen both
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: of those as well. I think it's important that you
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: connect with the person right. People nowadays, especially with AI
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and all the all the tools and resources, you can
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: make someone look amazing on paper and you go, wow,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: this person click click click click click, they chuck all
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: the boxes. But they come in and and they're they're
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: nothing like you would imagine them to be. So I
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: think that in person, that face to face is still
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: critical in the hiring process.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those are some of the stories that we come
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: across a lot at the bad hire where somebody will
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: have an amazing background, you know, they look great on
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: a resume and then they show up and like who
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: is this person? A lot of times they're either they're
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: faking it, they fake their whole resume, or they might
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: have done some amazing feats, but there they actually end
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: up pretty much being a terrible person. It's like you
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: kind to look at the whole picture when you're trying
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: to build a team, you know, I mean.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Before we dive back into the chaos on the bad hire.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by b checks. Hiring
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• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Just reminded me of an STP story, and maybe this is
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: an interesting one for your podcast, for your for your
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know, for your files, whatever you're compiling. We
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: had a tour manager who was a good tour manager
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: up to a point, but he started partying with the
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: band and that's kind of a no note, you don't
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: want to cross that line. It's kind of like managers
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and employees, and you know, there's definitely guardrails that should
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: be in place. And I got a call from the
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: band and they said, you know, we'd like to get
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: rid of him. And they of course were friendly and
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: they're not going to make any kind of you know,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: they're not ever the bad guys. They don't want to
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: have that conflict or that face to face. So I
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: fly out, I think it was Kansas City and and
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I take, you know, after the show, I get in
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the elevator with him, I said, you know, I need
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: to let you go. And he's like, what are you
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: talking about? I said, well, I've gotten reports and I've
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: been watching what you're you've been doing, and you know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: it's just not the right thing that you are socializing
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: with the band the way that you are. Your jobs
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: to be management. You're running this tour, you're responsible for
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: the production, the finances, everything, all the logistics. It's just
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: not the right look and it's and it's it's not
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: going to happen. And he goes, so what do you mean.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I said, well, I've got a guy here already who's
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: taking you over tomorrow morning, so you know, I just
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: pack your stuff and fly back to LA. So I
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: go back to La. It was fine, it was amicable,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: and and then I get an alert from my credit
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: card company because he was you know, he had a
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: he had a company credit card, and they said, did
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: you authorize this charge for like fifteen thousand dollars? I'm
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: like no, And it was two plane tickets to the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Career Ribbean and a hotel for like three nights, and
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: a bunch of other like a bunch of other stuff.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: And I called him, I go what And then I
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: realized it was his card And I called him, I
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: said what do you you know? What is this? And
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: he goes, oh, well, you know, I felt like like
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: you guys owed me, you know, some type of severance,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: and I just thought I would, you know, I met
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: a girl. I thought, I take her down, Like, are
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: you kidding me? I said, number one, if you if
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: you just went home and did like I asked, I
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: would have given you some severance. But you literally left
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the meeting that we had and bought two tickets to
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: the Caribbean and took a girl down there for like
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: a week or a weekend. What are you doing. I said,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: that's theft. Yeah, well I don't you know, I don't
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: see it that way. I said, look, here's what you're
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: gonna do. You're gonna you're gonna put that money back
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: in my bank account within twenty four hours, or I'm
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: going to call the credit car company and they will
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: come after you. I said, that's enough money that it's
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: grand larceny or grand theft, whatever it's called called. And
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I said, I'll just let them come after you. And
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: he goes okay, and and I had the money back
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: in twenty four hours. But it was it was someone
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: like that who I had trusted to be my tour
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: manager generally the hierarchy as manager tour manager and then
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: everybody else on the tour. But he was my representative
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: on the road for months and to and trust him
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: with that responsibility and then see that, you know, he
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: just threw that away in a way that was weird.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: It was shocked to me.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: But it was like, I'll just paying myself, I'll just
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: taking I'll just take care of it myself without telling anybody.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Not asking, not telling anybody. And it was it was
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: a shock, and I had never seen any behavior like
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: that before. I thought, wow, how could I have missed that?
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: And and he was fine up to that point. But
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I think he just took that the heart way and
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: and you know, sought to scratch back some way and
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: it didn't work. Well.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of surprised that he even picked up the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: phone again when you called. I feel like, typically I
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: would think that that story would be you saw that
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: fifteen thousand dollars charge and never heard from the guy again,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So it sounds interesting that
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: he's like, oh, yeah, this is just what I did.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I just stole from you and hoping it was okay.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe he thought he'd get more it was. It was interesting.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: He had a very arrogant attitude about you know, we
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: owed him something. I said, you're being let go for
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: cause it wasn't like we ran out of your job
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: or you did great. It was the end of the term.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: The band didn't want you to be their representative anymore,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: and it was my job to terminate you. So that's
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: It may have been a better choice, yeah, it made
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: have been a better choice. Those types of things are
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: always hard, you know. Even we talk a lot about
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: hiring and firing and we you know, recognize it's somebody's
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: life and it's somebody's choice. And even even the whole
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: point of the podcast, we've we've had a little bit
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: of criticisms like, oh, I don't want to laugh at
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: somebody's misfortune, and it's like, you know, stuff happens in
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: business and work and in life, and it's more just like, okay,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: when stuff goes down, how do we how do we
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: deal with it? And also for anybody listening, hopefully, how
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: do we prevent stuff like that? All the crazy things happening?
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: You know, because there's some crazy things that happen in
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: business and some managers and hires who don't turn out.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing that most of the real stories and stuff
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: that is not for cause is probably not going to
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: be on this podcast because it is sad and then
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: it's not that interesting. And if if you know, finances
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: are in a certain place or the market goes a
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: certain way, you have to cut sometimes and that's not
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: very pleasant at all. So I don't I don't know
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: that those are outrageous stories or that you know that
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: interesting sometimes, but the ones that take advantage of you,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I think those should be brought out too, because you're right,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: No one talks about that, and it happens to everyone
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: that hires anybody. They have to beware and some times
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: you can't predict that stuff. Like I said, this guy
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: was an employee for a couple of years, seemed fine,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and it just turned out one day he did something wrong.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's the hardest thing, well, a lot of things.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: When I talk to people that are getting into business
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: hiring and firing, you're not really I'll just say, you're
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: not really grown up until you've had to hire and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: fire people's It is a it's interesting and it's brutal.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: And you know, the hiring part's fun and exciting because
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: you're giving someone a chance and you're giving them an opportunity,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: and you're hopefully compensated them and you're going to you know,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: work with somebody. But the other side, when you have
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: to let someone go, is definitely very difficult, especially if
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: it's not for cause. And I've seen that many times.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: I've seen people cry, I've seen people, you know, not
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: be able to handle it very well. I've seen people
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: handle it very well actually too, but it is life
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: changing and it is something that's beyond their control. Many times,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and sometimes there's much notice. Sometimes you might get a
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks, sometimes you might get a week. But
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: it is a life changing event and if you're handling it,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I think for me the best. And I've had to
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: teach people because I've had to have other people let
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: people go too, and they came back and were crushed
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: by it, especially some of the younger people. And I said,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: you know, it just somehow doesn't work out sometimes and
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: it's no one's fault, and you have to look at
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: it like you were the employer, and you need to
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: make this right and the best way that you can
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: usually at severance, perhaps recommendations, perhaps even getting them another
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: job somewhere else. But you have to be very sensitive
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: to it, and you have to be upfront about it,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: and you can't beat around the bush. You can't make
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: an excuse or say it and no, just you just
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: have to say, look, this isn't working out. Let's have
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a discussion and figure out the right way to resolve
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: this or the best way to resolve this, so that
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: we can both walk away, you know, feeling somewhat better
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it sounds like that's the way that you're
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: describing it is the best way to it and really
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: hopefully the only way to approach it when you're trying
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: to do it well. And you know, obviously there's a
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: common disconnect where a company, a manager, a boss just
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: will lose all of that sensitivity and just be like, well,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: this is how it is, you know, and just those
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: people skills don't really come into play. And so, okay,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: this is already an unpleasant thing that happens commonly throughout businesses.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: So how is it handled with care and handled like
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: the best that can be, you know, and with the
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: bad hire And like all the stories you kind of
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: talk about on the podcast, pretty much all these are
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: with cause. And like there's stories even about interviews of
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: people who didn't pan out. I was just talking to
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: somebody today who's kind of made their story for the
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: for the podcast, and like somebody came in for an
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: interview and like wanted to use the restroom, and when
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: they said it was like a private, secure building, so sorry,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: we don't have a public bathroom right here? They win.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: They peed in the parking lot in front of in
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: front of, in front of the people there about to
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: try to work for It's crazy and it's okay. Sometimes it's
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: like not even a firing, like you're not even you're
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: not even in the in the team yet, you know,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: And that's with cause, you know. And so we talk
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: about all sorts of stories there.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I had one of those too. It was a it
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: was a kid who came in looking for a tech spot,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: and he literally went from high school to a ninety
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: day coding camp. He never went to college, never got
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: a job, never worked anywhere, straight out of high school,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: three month coding camp. I had an interview with him.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: He wanted one hundred and forty thousand dollars to start.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: This is eight years ago. Wow, and even today that's
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: as a starting salary. I think one forty's probably on
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: the high side. And I said, look, I'm not doubting
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: that you're able to do this, but you've never had
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: a job. I said, I don't know how you're going
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: to be as an employee. You have zero references, you
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: have zero experience, and you look good on paper, you
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: check all the boxes you know regarding software development. But
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: I just in good conscience, I can't hire you right now.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: And he's all about you know, days off and can
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: you work from home? And I said, look, the other
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: thing you should be aware of is when you come
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: into an interview, it's going to be slanted towards the employer.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: You're there to kind of serve their needs initially at least. Yeah,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: they're going to compensate you, but that's the balance. You
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: do the work, they pay you, and it can't be
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: if the first thing out of your mouth is what
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: are my days off? Or can I work you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: certain days from home. He didn't know, And again I
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: didn't hold it against him personally. I'm just trying to
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: help him. But I said, you keep straight out of
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: high school and you have zero experience with a work
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: with a job, and you went to a coding camp.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: You don't even have a degree, and the money you're
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: asking for is pretty healthy. I said, I'm not going
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to hire you. I might hire you at half that,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: but somebody else might and maybe you can come back
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: in six months or a year when you've got something
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: under your belt. But I just can't do it. It
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: was shocking to me that that that's where we are
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: and this is you know, la and it's it was
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of the tech stuff, but uh, it's
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: amazing it's amazing what's out there. And and again your
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: choice as a company, as a as a hiring person
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: to bring somebody on your team, you don't always have
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: to say us.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: And similar similar to that, and uh, Steve ought to
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: show you out to send you the I think we
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: have one of these recorded on our on our YouTube
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: or somewhere like on our social media. And there was
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: one story and it was for a software engineer, some
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: coding kind of job. And he kind of goes through
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: the interview process and I guess, you know, gets his
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: way through. I guess I don't know if he lies
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: through it, because somehow gets the job, uh, and then
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: gets on his first day and he's assigned to do
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: some you know, complicated coding project, and then it kind
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: of gets delayed. He kind of procrastinates, and then they've
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: come knocking on his door again like hey, where is this?
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: And then the truth comes out. He's like, I actually
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know how to code. Like I thought I
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: could learn on the spot, like I've seen I've seen
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: some YouTube videos about it. I thought I could teach
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: myself in time. And so he actually got hired for
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: a coding job without knowing how to code, and so
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: that's the kind of stuff we're talking about. Hate, Like,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: it's okay to give some people some assignments on the
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: way there before you're actually giving them the official job offer,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: instead of having the pain of oh, sorry, we accudentally
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: just hired you for a job that you don't even
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: know how to do.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: It's it's interesting because you know, usually you kind of
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: put them on a on a contingency basis for a minute,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: or maybe you give them a trial like you said,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: but yeah, some people, coding is interesting because most people
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: don't understand it right. If you're non technical, they can
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: say I've got all these qualifications, how are you going
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: to know? And a lot of companies will test you.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: A lot of companies will bring in some of their
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: dev team and say, hey, sit with this guy for
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: thirty minutes and tell me if he's real. Because an
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: average HR person or average other executive may not know
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: those kind of technical details right, And I don't speak
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to I'm no technical myself, and it's difficult sometimes when
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: someone says they have those resources, they have that capability,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: they've done it before, and then, like you said, you
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: find out, oh, and that's the extreme, But the most
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: common that I've seen is where they say they can
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: do something and they don't know that part of it,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: like maybe it's Jason's or maybe it's it's back end
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: dev or whatever it is. There's something they don't know,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: but they don't tell you that, and then when you
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: assign it to them, they shop it out and they're
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: just like, Okay, I'm going to take your you know,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: one hundred dollars an hour gig, and I'm going to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: go pay somebody in India forty dollars an hour and
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: make that sixty dollars difference. I'm like, let's not his job.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: If you don't know, just tell me you don't know, right,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: and I'll hire someone that has that other skill set.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: That makes sense. But to profess in an interview that
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: you have all this ability and then for someone to
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: find out later that you won't you don't know this
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: chunk of it over here, it's a little deceptive. Yeah.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: That happens a lot. On the tech side, it happens
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think companies and teams more and more
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: are valuing communication, and especially as there's more remote teams
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: that are built, and that starts at the start of
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: somebody's employment where it's like, hey, just just tell me,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: tell me things, and just tell me what's going on.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Just be truthful. If you're with your skill set, if
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: you don't know how to do something, just let me
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: know if something's delayed. You know, I don't just don't
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: just buy your buy yourself some time, but just let
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: me know what's going on. And I think, like, that's
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: that's really valuable.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: It's about being real. And I sometimes I see these
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: hiring processes where it's done by a machine, or your
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: your resume is at the first couple levels are sometimes
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: handled by a machine, and I'm like, they're missing out
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: on probably a lot of good people because maybe you
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: didn't your resume didn't exactly have the right stuff in
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the right place, and the machine scanned it and put
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: something else in there, or they thought they were looking
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: for something. And I'm sure there's times and I haven't
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: really seen it, but I'm sure there's times in HR
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: where you talk to someone and go, Wow, you'd be
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: right for this job, right we're looking you came in
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: on this job, but we're looking for somebody over here,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: and we think we'd put you over here because you're
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: the perfect candidate, whereas the candidate might not even know
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: that because they're just looking at one entry point. The
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: hr person understands I'm looking for, you know, five or
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: ten different positions. But I think meeting the person, I
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: think the zoom thing is that's okay. I'd rather meet
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: them in person. There's so much where you can get
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: from someone, just their posture, the way they move coming
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: into the interview, leaving the interview, stuff that you may
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: not see on camera. That is probably if you're going
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: to hire somebody for a long term position, the least
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: you could do is, I think meet them in person.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's so weird now that everything's done by
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: you know, electronics and zooms.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Steve, tell me a little bit about a
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: little bit more about song Hub. I'd love to hear
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: a little bit more about the business. This you told
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: me some earlier, but I'd love to hear more about
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: how it came to be, you know, how long it's
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: been going on, and then as you've been building the company,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: as you've been building your teams, especially on the hiring side,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: like building those teams. I love to hear more about
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: the business. It self and how it's been going, and
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: how you've been building it up and building the teams
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: around it as well.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Sure, my co founder Joe Berman was in uh, well,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: he's got a Batique music publishing company. He's been in
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the music business for almost as long as I have,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: if not longer, and he's got relationships with a lot
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: of writers in different parts of the world, and he
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: was getting calls to put them together. Hey can I
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: meet this guy in New York? Can you hook me
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: up with a guy in London? And he's but you're
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: all signed to music publishing companies, right, like majors like Sony,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: and they're like yeah, but they don't help us. So
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: we realized that there's a huge group of writers and musicians,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: most of them actually, that are not getting treatment. They're
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: not getting services by their publishers or labels, even though
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: they're signed to major labels and publishers. So the initial
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: iteration was match dot com for songwriters. We just said,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: let's just get a list of a bunch of writers,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: put in metadata on what they do. If someone's a
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: top liner or a guitar player, or they're writing folk songs,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, and let them connect because they didn't
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: have a way to do that, and songwriting is a
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: collaborative sport. Usually music's definitely collaborative, but it's hard to
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: find people to work with that you can trust, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: maybe if they're in a different country, it's very difficult.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: So we built that and then we decided it was
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: important also to bring a registration component into it, so
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: that once you are starting to work on a project,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: you can assign your song splits, you can get the
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: rights done, and then you can register them with your
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: pro publisher, US Copyright Office, etc. So we built that
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: component in, and then we added a blockchain component because
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: we thought, you know, having the rights in some immutable,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: totally accessible and accurate state that everybody can see globally
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: instead of it sits at your publisher and the other
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: publisher has a difference out of data. So we put
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: everything on blockchain, which was an interesting endeavor because there's
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of coins and crypto and tokens associated and
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: we thought and we first the first time we put
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: it out, we included that stuff and said you have
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: to have a wallet, you have to go in and
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: get gas fees, and we realized most creatives have zero
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: savvy as far as how that stuff works, and the
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: companies have nothing to do with that. So if your
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Warner Brothers or Universal, they're not going to touch a
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: touch a wallet. So we put all that back of house.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: We made it frictionless, and all the downsides to blockchain
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: we just did that in back of house. So right now,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: when you register a song, you literally click a button,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: a blockchain block is created with the information, and then
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: every time you add a file, every time you had
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: song splits, that's all written ont of the chain. But
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: we did that away from everybody else, and it's there's
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: a couple of companies that are doing blockchain stuff and
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: it's very tokenized. It's you know, here's this coin you
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: can exchange for this coin, which you know. It's like
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: it's like Intel in your laptop. Right most people don't
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: care what chip is running their laptop.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: They just want to does it work?
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Does it do what I needed to do? I don't
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: care what the chip is inside, but a lot of
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: you know, PCs have Intel inside or AMD or whatever
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: the chip is. No one needs to know that there's
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: a blockchain wallet attached. And that's so we got rid
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: of that and then we start getting attention from schools
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: early on, with pros performing rights organizations like gascat BMI.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: So Can's the Canadian one. So Can was originally our
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: initial launch customer and they didn't have a tech zero
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: tech guys. It was crazy they did not And a
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: lot of the music companies are like this. They just
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: don't have to build technology, so they don't and and
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: in some respects having that obscurity with information and transparency
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: allows them to take advantage. So they kind of don't
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: want to be the coolest, quickest, you know, highest technology
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: possible because it opens up certain windows that they may
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: not may not want opened up. So we we went
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: through a bunch of developers. This is back to hiring
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: and stuff. You know. CTOs are in my experience, it's
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: hard to define them. It's hard to find good ones.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: We went through a couple of hires that just were
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: not qualified. They're either very good at at coding, or
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: they're better at or there, or they're good at managing.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: But it's very hard to find someone that's good at
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: managing and coding, someone that can actually, you know, look
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: at someone and go, hey, this skill set is excellent,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: but this guy's better than that person or this woman's
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: really sharp. I mean, to assess and manage staff is
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: one set of skills. To code is another, and a
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: CTO typically has to have both of those skill sets
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and there's same head. So and like we said before,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: some of them don't know different areas and there's different
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: specialties and development and maybe a guy's really good at
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: front end but knows nothing about back yet. But yeah,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: again you expect them to know it, and they come
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: in and you find out six months later they don't
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: really know it, and they're either faking it or they're
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: getting information from somewhere else. It's a really tough hire.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we found a really good solution after we
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: started this maybe five years ago and we've kind of
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: bootstrapped it, but I would say three years ago we
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: found a really good solution. It was an onshore US
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: based management, but offshore developers developers are in India, so
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: they're on a I think fourteen hours away from us,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: so we could put stuff in like I got something
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: into them today and by tomorrow it'll be finished. So
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: our day is their night, their night is our day.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: It actually works pretty well cycle wise. And the management
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: again is here, so if we got to communicate at
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: a higher level, we deal with them on our they're
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: in our same time zone actually, so that works out
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: super well for us. We recommend them to others, and
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: we've brought in, you know, as references because I get
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of founders calling me saying, who you guys
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: using because we just spent you know, half a million
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: dollars and got nothing, and that's not uncommon in startup
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: in tech startups, tech startup land. So finding good talent
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: that again can be honest and tell you what their
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: capabilities are and not fudget like, hey, we don't know how
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: to do this, or we do know how to do this,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: and then they solve it. And yeah, since we've gotten
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: into this little groove of we've had very good experience
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: and very good luck with them. So yeah, it's it's
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: it's a learning process. And you know, startups are different
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: than big corp big corporations. I could always tell when
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I'm speaking with somebody from a big corporation because they
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: go just send it out to it or just send
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: it to marketing. Like you you're used to having you know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: a hundred people doing things for you and your job
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: is like this, you're just doing this and you know
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: sometimes in a startup well not sometimes a lot of
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: times you're wearing different hats. And yeah, you'll hire a
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: marketing person, but you need to be able to manage
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: them and relate with them and get in the trenches.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: And maybe you've built a marketing strategy, go to market strategy,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: and now they're coming in to handle that or make
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: it better. But it's there's a lot more chances to
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: get your fingers in more pies. And I think, you know,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: coming from a I've met people that you know, Ivy
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: League schools, Fortune one hundred companies, and God bless them,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: that's a great spot they have, they have a lot
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: of Yeah, for them to shift gears into startup culture
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: is I've never seen it work right. It's very difficult
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: to come out of that place where everything's available at
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: a push of a button and the resources are unlimited
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: and the budget it's like, oh, we will just do
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: that campaign. We'll call our a ad agency. Are you paid?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: You know that cost? No, that's handled by you know finance, Like, yeah,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: you're spending right, It's it's crazy.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: No, I totally agree. I probably at this point spent
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: over half of my career with startups, and I totally
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: agree with everything you're saying. And it's funny because even
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: within a startup, you know, you could say, oh, I'll
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: just have the social media person do it. Was like
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I'm the social media person and all the designer to
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: do it. Well, I'm kind of the designer too, like
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: you know, like you said, everybody wears multiple hats. At
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, if you want something done,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of times you just have to do it
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: because there's so many less resources, whereas the big corporation, Yeah,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: they can just sit up to whatever agency or whatever department,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: We'll get it done. I'm just focusing on this one
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: thing with there's actually I'm I'm thankful that I've spent
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: a lot of time at the startups because there's a
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: lot more ownership that's kind of into you, into just
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: how you approach things. You know, But then you will
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: collaborate with other people at different sized organizations, and sometimes
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: that's a little bit lost because like, oh, that's not
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: my job. I do this, But sometimes the startups, everything
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: kind of at the end of the day becomes your
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: job because your whole team is ten fifteen fifty fifteen
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: X people you know much smaller.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: I was in a meeting well it. It was a
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: panel with some Universal Music guys a couple of weeks ago,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: and they were, you know, and if the labels have
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: always been tough, they've always been more opaque than typical corporate.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Like if I want to find they had a marketing
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: at Nabisco or wherever, I could probably find them with
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: an email somewhere. But if you want to find they
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: had a market at Universal Records, there's layers that trying
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: to protect them. But these guys, one of their big
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: their complaints was, well, no one knows what we do,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: like like, when you come to us, you should know
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: what our job is. And I thought, there's five guys
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: sitting up there, and all their jobs seem like business development, strategic,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: you know, planning, Like like what does that mean? Because
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: there's five of you guys that are all senior vps.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: You all have kind of the same title, maybe one
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: or two words are switched.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: What are you doing over there? Yeah?
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what exactly are you doing over there? Because one
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: guy sounds like he's your boss, and you guys are like,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: but but your title is the same as his. It was,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: it was it was almost it was funny to me
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: because I thought they're so arrogant and they just expect
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: everybody to know everything about what they do. But they're
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: it's opaque and they don't explain it. And there's five
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: of them that are kind of doing the same thing
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: and you can't tell what they're doing, and but they
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: expect you to know, right And like you said, there,
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: it's very channel. If you hit them up and say
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I'm looking for this to be like, well that's I
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: don't do that. Okay, Well you're the head of business development.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I would think you know, you might have a bigger
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know, a bigger scope where you could or
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: you could tell me who to go to that does
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: that little thing. But it was interesting to see that,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: and it's not unusual. I've seen that for many years,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: but seeing it on stage in one place where they actually,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: you know, because someone asked, you know, what's the best
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: way to approach you guys like, well, first understand what
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: we do, know exactly what our channel is. Like, Well,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: I've been here for an hour watching this. None of
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: you explained anything about what you do. I've got a
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: slide on the screen that shows your job titles and
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: they all seem like the same thing.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess you know. As we're wrapping up,
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I love to hear because I love everything that you're sharing, Steve.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: I think you've got so much great insight as I
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: want to talk more and hopefully we'll get you on
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: with Cannon because I think you guys would connect over
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: a lot of different things. It's great just to be
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: connected with you, but as you're close, like I think
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people hopefully listening to this right
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: now who are in hiring, or they own a business,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: or they're in a startup, whatever kind of position they're in.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: I think there's a lot that you're sharing that's really relatable.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: But what would you say is like the best piece
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: of advice you'd pass on to anybody who's I guess,
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: building a team building a team right now, whether if
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: they're just a hiring manager or they're a business owner
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: or somebody who's trying to grow something. Because I think
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: you've been growing what you're growing, and I see it
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: continuing to grow, and I think there's a lot of
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: insight you could pass on.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: I guess at the end of the day, I would say,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: look at the person, right, meet the person, have them
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: into your office, maybe go to lunch, but sit down
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: with them and try to understand them. Forget the resume
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: for a minute, forget all the technical skills. Is this
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: someone that can work within your organization? Is this someone
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: you want on your team? Is it someone that can grow? Because,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: like you're mentioning with growth, today, this company looks like this.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow it's going to look like this, and they might
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: be two different things, but I think having people on
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: board that have kind of the same mindset, kind of
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: are open to moving with the company. And my smaller
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: startups have always been high growth and it's like this
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: potential is here, and there's equity deals and you know,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: it's a little different than getting higher at a huge company.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: But I think looking really at the person rather than
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: the resume and then thinking about how they could evolve
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a year, three, five years down the line, because hiring
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: them at this job today is different than they're going
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: to be in five years, and they will probably be
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: in a supervisory position in a short time period at
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: a high growth startup. So look at them, is are
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: they going to be able to understand the vision. Are
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: they going to be able to carry forth? Forget you know,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: the exact job title and the job description. That's that's
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: important to get people in the door. But do they
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: work across the organization as a team member? And that's
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: probably the best thing I could I could say right now.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that's that's great advice. We say a lot
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: of the same thing where it's it's not just skills
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: based hiring, you know, but it's it's like, I guess,
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: cultural fit based hiring, you know, where sometimes somebody can't
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: have enough of the skills, but they the way that
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: they lift up all the other people around them is
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: way bigger factor versus somebody who has all the skills.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: You can imagine, but they're they're they're not passing the ball.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: They're kind of selfish, They're they're poisoning the whole culture.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: They're taking other people down. It's like, okay, that's not
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: worth it. We talk about that a lot. It's like
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: you kind of have to focus on not just the
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: skills on paper by itself.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: That's a really good point, the level of energy and leadership.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And it's a kin to a sports team, right, I mean,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: there could be some guy who has the best stats
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: in the world, but he's not a team player, or
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: he's not a leader, and you get in there and
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: his mood is always sour, and you want someone that's positive.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: You want someone that's building, someone that's going to inspire.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: It's probably the biggest word is inspire, because yeah, there's
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: always gonna be differences and resources and levels of skills,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: But if someone's inspirational to somebody else, that's hard to beat.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Right If they can bring up everybody on that team,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: even if it's not their skill set or their channel,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: that works across the board every single time.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree. Okay, before we close, do you
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: have any last bad hiring stories you want to rattle
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: off that were on your mind. I know you already
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: shared a couple along the way.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I'll give you the one that I spoke with you
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: guys on earlier. We at my startup before this one,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: we had an investor and we were looking for a
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: CTO and he goes, oh, I know exactly who you
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: guys should hire. Blah blah blah. Guy's amazing. He's run this,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: he's run that, he's done this, and this guy is
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: going to invest in our company, and he actually made
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: his investment contingent upon us hiring this guy. He goes, yeah,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: you guys got to hire him, and we're like, okay,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: how much is He's like three hundred and sixty thousand.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: I said a second, how much three hundred and sixty
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year? And I was like, startup right,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: this was a seed, It was a pre seed. It
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: is like an angel round. Yeah, it was. The number
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: was shocking, but I looked at my co founder and
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: we we got no choice. If we don't hire this guy,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: we're not getting the investment. And you know, we just
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: have to do it. So we said fine, sign the
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: guy on. Went back and forth with him for probably
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: thirty He was in New York, we were in LA,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: and we had we had a couple of in person meetings.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: We flew out and sat with him. He spent one
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: whole day with us doing a whole white board and
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: showing us a roadmap and said, here's how we should
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: build this tech stack, here's how we should do this.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Spend good five hours of them great whiteboard, and then
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: we went back to LA and we checked in with
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: him a couple times a week, and I think a
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks later, we were in one of our
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: check in calls and at the end of the call,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: like just off the cuff. Informally, he's like, oh, I
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: forgot to tell you guys, I took a managing director
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: position with Goldman Sachs. But but that'll be a good thing.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: And I was like what. And we got off the
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: call and my co found a Abert Menendez. We're like,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: do we just hear that? And he's like, I don't know.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: We should probably ask him again, but I go, this
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: guy took a full time position with Goldman Sachs and
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: he's under contract full time with us for three hundred
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: and sixty thousand dollars as our CTO. I go, that's
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: and he tells us it was a good thing because
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: he's going to have time at night to work for us.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: And I thought, this is insane. And to that point
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: we had zero deliverables for him. That whiteboard is the
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: only thing he ever did for us, and had not
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: delivered anything on paper, nothing as far as hires, nothing.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: We had made one payment to him, his first payment
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: of thirty thousand dollars, and we called the investor and
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: we said, look, this guy, I don't know if he's
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: a fraud. I know you vouched for him, I know
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: he's your friend, but we got nothing from him. And
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: he just called us and said he took a full
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: time managing director position with Goldman Sachs. I go, that's
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: like a slap in the face. And he was really apologetic.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: He's like, guys, I'm so sorry. I will fix this.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about I'll take care of it. But yeah,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: going in that was our That was probably the biggest
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: slap in the face I've had, and a shock. Someone
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: that was vetted and and vouched for by our lead
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: investor who turned out to be a fraud. And his name,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: his first name was Sashin. So Robert and I made
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: that a verb and we would call that Sashind. So
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: every time we heard from another company or a founder
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: that had had an experience that was and we go,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: you got sus Shind.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's crazy.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Ken has a similar story and now just a bit
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: of it. I always call it like his Batman origin story,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: where he was in the finance industry essentially, and you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: he was helping raise funds for all these different startups
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: and things. He can explain it better, but essentially, they
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: brought on one guy who's supposed to be an advisor,
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: who somebody else vouched for him. This guy was supposed
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: to be super legit, and he threw a Ponzi scheme
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: essentially stole one hundred million dollars of of all the
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: all the different money that was raised. And then you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: the way that Ken tells it is like, you know,
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: a thirty dollars background check would have prevented the whole thing,
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: and that's kind of what propelled him into the background
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: check industry. Which is which is I think a cool story,
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: even though it's a terrible, a terrible origin story. But
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: sometimes it's like, man, just a little bit of vetting
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: goes a long way, and sometimes it happens even when
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: you have somebody vouch for the guy. But that's crazy.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: And obviously you're here now hopefully you guys have recovered.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: But that's that's got to be painful on multiple levels.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: It was more shocking than painful. It was just like
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: is he kidding? It was it was like fraud happening
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: right in front of your phone, and it was he
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: was saying that stuff like this will be better for us,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: and we're like.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, you say so, yeah, just because treated like like
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: night school. I guess just like a couple hours between
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: twelve and two for you guys at night. I don't know,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: that's probably not gonna plan.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: And you know, and and a managing director at Goldman,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing you're earning probably six fifty seven hundred thousand
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: dollars a year, so this guy's going to be a
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: million dollar a year ago. I yeah, So it was.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: It was. It was shocking. And yes, a background check
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: would have well in that case, I don't know, because
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: he had he had a pretty good resume. We didn't
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: do a full background check, but again he was coming
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: from our lead investor, and and it was contingent, so
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: we really hadn't. It was almost like you got to
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: hire my guy.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: Or I'm not going to invest So man, that's crazy.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy stories man.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm sure I'm sure you have even more.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: I do. I am happy that we're connected. So thanks
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: so much Steve for your for your time and just
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: for being on the show. You know, I said this
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: was just gonna be one one snippet for this you know,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: for the for the podcast. I much just ended up
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: putting this whole thing out because I love the conversation
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: with you so really appreciate your time, and yeah, we'll
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: keep you on a loop when even when this goes
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: out and things like that.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let me know, Nathan, happy to be part of it,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Happy to support you guys are doing. I think it's
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: really really important to get these stories out. And it's
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: not the sexiest part of business, but it's super important
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: for people to understand some of where this comes from,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: maybe get something from it. Go I should use a
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: background check every time, or never do this, or in
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: the case of this, this is how I should look
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: at things. But just I think knowing that others are
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: in the same pot sometimes makes it easier and that
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: pre knowledge. I think what you guys are doing getting
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: this out is super cool. So yeah, happy to help
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: you anyway I can. It's great to be on.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Appreciate it be thanks so much. We appreciate it all right, Steve,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: thanks so much. Talk I'm talk to you soon.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks sir.