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He Took the Company Card on a _15_000 Vacation · NO FILTER

0:00
Speaker 1: This is The Bad Hire, the show with the best
0:02
Speaker 1: stories about the worst employees.
0:05
Speaker 2: We fired him, of course.
0:06
Speaker 3: People are crazy. It's like an HR nightmare.
0:08
Speaker 1: Right? One bad hire stole all of it.
0:12
Speaker 2: 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 work
0:23
Speaker 1: and what can happen when the wrong person gets the job.
0:27
Speaker 1: These stories aren't just crazy, they're cautionary tales about lessons
0:31
Speaker 1: learned the hard way. Let's get started.
0:35
Speaker 2: First off, I'd love to hear more about you. I
0:38
Speaker 2: know we've already talked a little bit, but if you
0:39
Speaker 2: want to introduce yourself, I know you have some interesting
0:42
Speaker 2: stories about your life and what you do, and I'd
0:45
Speaker 2: love to hear a bit more.
0:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm Steve Stewart. I'm the CEO and co-founder
0:50
Speaker 3: of SongHub. My background's in the music business. I used
0:55
Speaker 3: to be in management. I managed a band called Stone
0:56
Speaker 3: Temple Pilots for the first 10 years of their career.
0:59
Speaker 3: Made five records with them. Had a bunch of other
1:03
Speaker 3: artists signed to major labels and publishers in that meantime.
1:08
Speaker 3: Really caught the last part of the CD era going.
1:13
Speaker 3: of the music labels situation before that streaming came in,
1:16
Speaker 3: before file sharing came in. And it was kind of
1:18
Speaker 3: the last vestige of the old school record labels where,
1:21
Speaker 3: you know, they could really make some money. They would
1:24
Speaker 3: sell a CD, I think retails about $ 18 and they
1:27
Speaker 3: probably made $ 10. So they got, there's a lot of
1:30
Speaker 3: fat there before streaming came in and said, you're going
1:33
Speaker 3: to get 0.10001 cent per stream. So caught a lot
1:38
Speaker 3: of that. And then saw that those deals because of that,
1:43
Speaker 3: the record labels start doing what's called 360 deals. They
1:45
Speaker 3: would come in and take a piece of your publishing,
1:47
Speaker 3: your merchandising, your touring. They wanted all of it because
1:50
Speaker 3: they were losing revenues on the record side. Like they
1:53
Speaker 3: couldn't make money selling actual records anymore, which made the
1:57
Speaker 3: deals really onerous for artists. A lot of artists could
2:00
Speaker 3: not make a living because they would rely on a
2:03
Speaker 3: separate publishing deal or separate touring income. And when they
2:06
Speaker 3: had to start sharing that with the labels, those income
2:09
Speaker 3: streams kind of dried up a little bit. So it
2:11
Speaker 3: was not really a good time. labels cut their staffs back,
2:14
Speaker 3: cut their rosters back. And to the point where we've got,
2:18
Speaker 3: we've got today where, you know, there's a very thin
2:22
Speaker 3: layer of artists that do very well. And then there's
2:25
Speaker 3: a lot of artists that don't do very well. And it's,
2:28
Speaker 3: it's very difficult to get traction. There's always going to
2:31
Speaker 3: be superstars and big names that do very well, but
2:35
Speaker 3: at the same time, there's, it's easier to make music, right?
2:38
Speaker 3: Everybody can download a, Pro Tools Rig or FL, or
2:41
Speaker 3: now you've got Suno and Udio. You can make music
2:45
Speaker 3: and get music out and distributed through Spotify or Apple
2:48
Speaker 3: Music or Deezer much more easily than you ever could
2:51
Speaker 3: before those platforms existed. So there's a lot of opportunity
2:55
Speaker 3: on the tech side. And I got into music tech,
2:57
Speaker 3: I don't know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and
3:00
Speaker 3: start building fractional rights platforms. And SongHub right now is
3:05
Speaker 3: basically a platform that started as a collaboration or registration platform.
3:09
Speaker 3: We're moving into serving some of the AI community with
3:12
Speaker 3: actual rights management and registration. So determining which rights are
3:17
Speaker 3: human and which rights are AI and then letting people
3:19
Speaker 3: register those to collect royalties. So it's an interesting little niche.
3:24
Speaker 3: There's a lot of artists that need to get paid properly.
3:27
Speaker 3: There's a lot of inefficiencies in the music royalty system.
3:29
Speaker 3: And that's kind of my mission is to solve some
3:32
Speaker 3: of that.
3:33
Speaker 2: That's super cool. Even just your story or just your
3:36
Speaker 2: background of being with the Stone Temple Pilots is super cool. Um,
3:40
Speaker 2: very interesting. Like that.
3:41
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
3:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've got some great and probably very interesting
3:45
Speaker 2: stories just from, from those days, but from your background.
3:47
Speaker 2: So now, you know, obviously you're at this kind of
3:50
Speaker 2: blend of business and music and that's where it sounds
3:52
Speaker 2: like you've been for the last few years. Like what's,
3:55
Speaker 2: what's your background besides that piece of your story that
3:59
Speaker 2: I know with the Stone Temple Pilots, would you say
4:02
Speaker 2: that your background, you know, even, even back into college
4:06
Speaker 2: days and then from there, Is your story starting with
4:10
Speaker 2: music or starting with business or have they been together
4:12
Speaker 2: the whole time?
4:14
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I was in a band in high school,
4:17
Speaker 3: out of high school and through my college years and
4:20
Speaker 3: really picked up and I ended up kind of managing
4:23
Speaker 3: them and booking them and doing all the stuff on
4:25
Speaker 3: the business side. We made a record. So there's a
4:28
Speaker 3: lot of the business stuff that I was handling at
4:30
Speaker 3: that point. And then right out of college, I started
4:34
Speaker 3: working for Ice-T's manager as an assistant. And when I
4:38
Speaker 3: was in school, I was working for Echo and the Bunnyman,
4:40
Speaker 3: B-52's manager also as an assistant. So I kind of
4:44
Speaker 3: just started on that path and got into management, which
4:48
Speaker 3: I wasn't, I was a drummer. I was kind of
4:49
Speaker 3: a hack drummer and I knew that wasn't good for
4:52
Speaker 3: my future, but I enjoyed the business. I enjoyed music.
4:55
Speaker 3: And I really was taken by how you could get something,
4:59
Speaker 3: you know, at a very ground level entry point and
5:03
Speaker 3: then build it and When I started working for Ice-T's manager,
5:06
Speaker 3: I started networking and made contacts with attorneys and A
5:09
Speaker 3: & R people in the business. And guys I grew
5:12
Speaker 3: up with, with my band in high school, had a band.
5:15
Speaker 3: And they kept asking me if I could help sign
5:17
Speaker 3: them or get them signed. And I took their tape around.
5:19
Speaker 3: It was a cassette tape back in those days. And
5:22
Speaker 3: shopped it for about a year. Got, I don't know,
5:24
Speaker 3: probably 200 denials in Atlantic Records. So they were interested
5:29
Speaker 3: in 1992 and made a deal with them. So it was.
5:33
Speaker 3: Kind of moving from the performance and being in a
5:36
Speaker 3: band and appreciating music, which I've always done, into that
5:39
Speaker 3: management and business side. And then started my own management
5:42
Speaker 3: company when I signed them and ran with that for 15,
5:46
Speaker 3: 20 years. So it kind of naturally morphed into it.
5:51
Speaker 3: It's interesting. There's definitely a difference between the artist and
5:55
Speaker 3: the business minds. The creative mind sometimes doesn't really pay
6:00
Speaker 3: attention to some of the business guardrails. And it's hard
6:04
Speaker 3: to explain to an artist, you know, sometimes what their
6:07
Speaker 3: rights are and what they're due and sometimes what they're
6:09
Speaker 3: not due.
6:10
Speaker 1: Right.
6:10
Speaker 3: Sometimes they think, oh, I've done this. You got my
6:12
Speaker 3: song on the radio. I should be getting millions of dollars.
6:14
Speaker 3: It's not how it works all the time. So knowing
6:17
Speaker 3: how that stuff works, being able to bridge that gap
6:20
Speaker 3: and explain and communicate that properly to creatives, I think
6:24
Speaker 3: is super important. Something that's always been a part of
6:26
Speaker 3: my life.
6:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's. that's what brought you to where
6:30
Speaker 2: you are. I feel like you're in the perfect spot.
6:32
Speaker 2: Cause like you said, since there's different people with different
6:36
Speaker 2: wired brains, some are like, you know, more of the
6:38
Speaker 2: creative type. Some are more of like the, I guess
6:41
Speaker 2: type a, or even just like business type. And sometimes they,
6:44
Speaker 2: they miss or they don't understand the other side.
6:46
Speaker 1: Right.
6:47
Speaker 2: And so now that you've kind of come from both,
6:50
Speaker 2: you can apply a lot of like the actual strategic
6:52
Speaker 2: management business side of things, but you still understand, the
6:57
Speaker 2: creative side of what they want and what they really
6:59
Speaker 2: need at the end of the day too, which is awesome.
7:01
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I'm recalling a story that we met with
7:05
Speaker 3: the CEO of Time Warner, a guy named Jerry Levin
7:08
Speaker 3: back in the day, probably 1990, 91, I think, maybe 92.
7:13
Speaker 3: It was during the body count iced tea controversy. And
7:17
Speaker 3: it was interesting because he was probably, you know, Time
7:20
Speaker 3: Warner at that point was one of the biggest media
7:22
Speaker 3: conglomerates in the world. He was their CEO. He had
7:25
Speaker 3: an accounting background and, And he invited us to come
7:28
Speaker 3: out to New York, actually flew us out on one
7:30
Speaker 3: of their golf streams. And I was invited to that
7:33
Speaker 3: meeting and it was four people. And he was, he was, he,
7:39
Speaker 3: he was an accountant. And I remember, you know, Ice-T's
7:42
Speaker 3: kind of an original OG gangster rapper from the West coast.
7:46
Speaker 3: And he was playing in a CD changer, these Ice-T songs.
7:50
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, yo, yo, and all this cuss words. And,
7:53
Speaker 3: and I looked at this guy and thought he has
7:55
Speaker 3: no idea what, where Ice-T is coming from, right? He's
7:58
Speaker 3: coming from like the streets of LA, kind of his
8:01
Speaker 3: background was, you know, it was not a polished pedigree
8:05
Speaker 3: as Jerry's was. And he's running this record label. He's
8:09
Speaker 3: running a music company, a media company at that point, multi,
8:12
Speaker 3: you know, multinational billion dollar media company. And here is
8:16
Speaker 3: one of his key artists. And he's from a completely
8:19
Speaker 3: different background and upbringing and has a different perspective. But
8:23
Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting that he was making every
8:25
Speaker 3: effort to understand and to relate to an artist. And
8:29
Speaker 3: that was the first, one of the first times I
8:31
Speaker 3: saw that. And then I was always, you know, I
8:33
Speaker 3: was in my mid twenties dealing with 50, 60 year
8:37
Speaker 3: old CEOs in the music business that, that are music
8:40
Speaker 3: business is very shoot from the hip. It used to be, it's,
8:42
Speaker 3: it's become a lot more corporate in the last 15
8:44
Speaker 3: or 20 years. But back in those days, you didn't
8:47
Speaker 3: have to have a degree. You didn't have to go
8:49
Speaker 3: to school. It was, it was literally who could get
8:52
Speaker 3: the best stuff on the radio or the best sales
8:54
Speaker 3: or get things done. and pretty rough and tumble compared
8:58
Speaker 3: to corporate America in many respects. So seeing a lot
9:02
Speaker 3: of those guys like Ahmaud Erdogan and Doug Morris and
9:04
Speaker 3: Danny Goldberg, um, the business was, it was rough. Those
9:09
Speaker 3: guys used to go into radio stations and break stuff
9:12
Speaker 3: and say, you know, if you don't play my record,
9:14
Speaker 3: I'm going to break all the other records in your
9:17
Speaker 3: library right now. Crazy stuff that, that was, you know,
9:20
Speaker 3: some of the basis for the music business goes back
9:23
Speaker 3: to those days. And, um, a lot of those guys
9:26
Speaker 3: experienced that. So it was a very loose shoot from
9:29
Speaker 3: the hip kind of culture. And to see that at
9:31
Speaker 3: 20 and to be able to sit in a room
9:34
Speaker 3: with the CEO of, you know, one of the biggest
9:36
Speaker 3: record labels in the country and the world probably, um,
9:39
Speaker 3: and negotiate, um, I learned that they, I had something
9:43
Speaker 3: they wanted, right. I had an artist that was very
9:45
Speaker 3: interesting to them and they saw the potential to make
9:48
Speaker 3: money from, and with that type of desire and they
9:52
Speaker 3: wanted to be in business, you could use that as
9:55
Speaker 3: leverage to negotiate. It was, it's kind of crazy for
9:58
Speaker 3: a kid to get in that space, but. that's what
10:00
Speaker 3: I learned early on.
10:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really cool, Steve. And I'm sure that some
10:06
Speaker 2: of those things that you saw at that point of
10:08
Speaker 2: your career, where just like that level of, excuse me,
10:12
Speaker 2: that level of empathy or being able to see something
10:15
Speaker 2: from somebody else's perspective in your case, or in that case,
10:20
Speaker 2: you know, somebody who's in management, be able to try
10:23
Speaker 2: to understand somebody like I see, or one of the musicians,
10:26
Speaker 2: which again, there's a generational gap. There's a background gap.
10:30
Speaker 2: There's a cultural gap, but then some, I feel like
10:32
Speaker 2: there's some, and this is speaking generally, there's some people in,
10:36
Speaker 2: in management executives who just don't care. They're like, there's
10:39
Speaker 2: a big gap, whatever. I'm just going to keep working.
10:41
Speaker 2: And you guys just do what I say. But I
10:44
Speaker 2: think like the best people who are in hiring, who
10:47
Speaker 2: are in management, who are, have to do with other
10:51
Speaker 2: people under them, they actually try to make that conscious
10:54
Speaker 2: step of trying to connect because the better you can
10:56
Speaker 2: connect and make somebody feel understood, typically the best results
11:00
Speaker 2: you can create.
11:02
Speaker 3: Nathan, that's really a good point because there's a layer
11:04
Speaker 3: at record labels called A & R. It stands for
11:06
Speaker 3: artists and repertoire. And they're the actual people that are
11:09
Speaker 3: scouts and go out and find artists and sign them.
11:13
Speaker 3: And their ethos and their personalities are completely different from
11:17
Speaker 3: business affairs, which are the lawyers, HR, which is the
11:19
Speaker 3: hiring side, and even the accountants and all the other executives,
11:24
Speaker 3: they're almost the same kind of creative mindset as an artist.
11:29
Speaker 3: And they relate to them, they take them out to dinner,
11:31
Speaker 3: they wine and dine them. But it's interesting to see
11:34
Speaker 3: where that line is. And once they get hooked, once
11:37
Speaker 3: an artist is impressed by that A & R person says, yeah,
11:39
Speaker 3: I want to sign with Warner Brothers, then the business
11:42
Speaker 3: affairs guys come in, then the lawyers come in, and
11:44
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, That nice, hey, we'd love
11:47
Speaker 3: to sign you, we're so excited, turns into deal points
11:51
Speaker 3: and legal contracts. And there's some negotiations. Sometimes you're not
11:54
Speaker 3: going to get everything you want. And it's interesting to
11:58
Speaker 3: see both sides. And I know you guys are coming
11:59
Speaker 3: from an HR background. You're right. I think the intake,
12:06
Speaker 3: the HR managers that are hiring and interviewing prospective employees,
12:11
Speaker 3: they have to be a little empathetic. They have to
12:13
Speaker 3: have a different face then maybe some of the other
12:16
Speaker 3: executives or management levels in that company, because they're relating
12:20
Speaker 3: to someone coming in off the street many times, or
12:22
Speaker 3: they're trying to retain somebody, or they're trying to recruit
12:25
Speaker 3: somebody that is coming from another company. Maybe it's, you know,
12:28
Speaker 3: a higher level talent. They have to present a company
12:31
Speaker 3: in a different way that listens to who they're sitting
12:34
Speaker 3: next to, that sells the company to them kind of
12:37
Speaker 3: maybe more than other people in the company might have
12:40
Speaker 3: to do. So yeah, it's interesting that intake side where
12:44
Speaker 3: You're looking to build a team and bring the best
12:46
Speaker 3: people into your organization. How do you attract them? How
12:49
Speaker 3: do you retain them? And how do you express the
12:52
Speaker 3: strengths and potential of the company to them in a
12:55
Speaker 3: way that works?
12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. And especially on the point of retaining people, I
13:01
Speaker 2: think when somebody feels understood and valued, I mean, those
13:07
Speaker 2: are the kind of things that keep people around. And
13:10
Speaker 2: there's one whole conversation I'm sure you and our CEO, Ken,
13:15
Speaker 2: will have here in the future. But with background checks
13:19
Speaker 2: in particular, you know, B-checks, they do background checks. And
13:22
Speaker 2: one kind of big point that he's made several times
13:24
Speaker 2: is talking about, you know, viewing somebody not just as
13:29
Speaker 2: a piece of paper, as their background check, and almost
13:31
Speaker 2: saying like, you are not your background. You're not your background.
13:34
Speaker 2: And almost like with background checks, giving the people, I guess,
13:38
Speaker 2: a full context-based background screening. Because, you know, there's a
13:42
Speaker 2: big difference between person a who made a mistake one
13:47
Speaker 2: night in a bar they got into a fight and
13:48
Speaker 2: then the police came and then they just kept doing
13:52
Speaker 2: more stuff like that for 10 years since it happened
13:54
Speaker 2: and just never showed any improvement versus somebody who had
13:58
Speaker 2: a night in a bar they made a mistake the
14:00
Speaker 2: police showed up and then they changed and then they
14:02
Speaker 2: got a job and they had a family that went
14:05
Speaker 2: to church and like you know did all the different
14:06
Speaker 2: things and it's like but two companies might look at
14:09
Speaker 2: that one incident just the same or there's those two
14:11
Speaker 2: people just the same and we talk a lot about
14:14
Speaker 2: having that understanding, that empathy, you know, and just things
14:17
Speaker 2: like that. I think those are some of the strengths again,
14:19
Speaker 2: of like the best people in business, the best people
14:22
Speaker 2: are in hiring and the best managers too. Yeah.
14:25
Speaker 3: And like you, I think alluded to, you are not
14:27
Speaker 3: your resume and someone could look amazing on paper and
14:30
Speaker 3: they present like, wow, I person couldn't hold a conversation.
14:35
Speaker 3: They had nothing to answer with more than, you know,
14:37
Speaker 3: one syllable answers. And conversely, somebody could come in with
14:41
Speaker 3: a terrible resume and, and be really impressive. I've seen
14:44
Speaker 3: both of those as well. I think it's important that
14:47
Speaker 3: you connect with the person, right? People nowadays, especially with
14:50
Speaker 3: AI and all the tools and resources, you can make
14:53
Speaker 3: someone look amazing on paper and you go, wow, this person, click, click, click, click, click.
14:58
Speaker 3: They check all the boxes, but they come in and
15:01
Speaker 3: they're nothing like you would imagine them to be. So
15:04
Speaker 3: I think that in-person, that face-to-face is still critical in
15:08
Speaker 3: the hiring process.
15:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are some of the stories that we come
15:13
Speaker 2: across a lot at the bat hire where somebody will
15:16
Speaker 2: have an amazing background. You know, they look great on
15:19
Speaker 2: a resume and then they show up and like, who
15:22
Speaker 2: is this person? A lot of times they're either they're
15:23
Speaker 2: faking it, they fake their whole resume or they might
15:27
Speaker 2: have done some amazing feats, but they actually end up
15:29
Speaker 2: pretty much being a terrible person. It's like you got
15:32
Speaker 2: to look at the whole picture when you're trying to
15:33
Speaker 2: build a team. You know what 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 shouldn't
15:41
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16:19
Speaker 3: You just reminded me of an STP story, and maybe
16:22
Speaker 3: this is an interesting one for your podcast, for your,
16:24
Speaker 3: I don't know, for your files, whatever you're compiling. We
16:28
Speaker 3: had a tour manager who was a good tour manager
16:32
Speaker 3: up to a point, And, but he started partying with
16:35
Speaker 3: the band and that's kind of a no, no, you
16:38
Speaker 3: don't want to cross that line. It's kind of like
16:40
Speaker 3: managers and employees and, you know, there's definitely guardrails that
16:43
Speaker 3: should be in place. And I got a call from
16:46
Speaker 3: the band and they said, you know, we'd like to
16:49
Speaker 3: get rid of him. And they, of course were friendly
16:52
Speaker 3: and they're not going to make any kind of, you know,
16:54
Speaker 3: they're not ever the bad guys. They don't want to
16:55
Speaker 3: have that conflict or that face-to-face. So I fly out,
16:58
Speaker 3: I think it was Kansas city. And, and I take,
17:02
Speaker 3: you know, after the show, I get in the elevator
17:04
Speaker 3: with him and I said, you know, I need to
17:06
Speaker 3: let you go. And he's like, what are you talking about?
17:09
Speaker 3: I said, well, I've gotten reports and I've been watching
17:12
Speaker 3: what you've been doing. And, you know, it's just not
17:14
Speaker 3: the right thing that you are socializing with the band
17:17
Speaker 3: the way that you are. Your job's to be management.
17:20
Speaker 3: You're running this tour. You're responsible for the production, the finances, everything,
17:24
Speaker 3: all the logistics. It's just not the right look. And
17:28
Speaker 3: it's not going to happen. And he goes, so what
17:30
Speaker 3: do you mean? I said, well, I've got a guy
17:32
Speaker 3: here already who's taking over tomorrow morning. So, you know,
17:36
Speaker 3: just pack your stuff and fly back to LA. So
17:40
Speaker 3: I go back to LA. It was fine. It was amicable.
17:44
Speaker 3: And then I get an alert from my credit card
17:47
Speaker 3: company because he had a company credit card. And they said,
17:52
Speaker 3: did you authorize this charge for like $ 15, 000? I'm like, no.
17:54
Speaker 3: And it was terrible. two plane tickets to the Caribbean
18:01
Speaker 3: and our hotel for like three nights and a bunch
18:05
Speaker 3: of other, like a bunch of other stuff. And I
18:08
Speaker 3: call him, I go, what? And I, then I realized
18:11
Speaker 3: it was his card and I called them. I said,
18:15
Speaker 3: what do you, you know, what is this? And he goes, oh, well,
18:18
Speaker 3: you know, I felt like, like you guys owed me,
18:21
Speaker 3: you know, some type of severance. And I just thought
18:25
Speaker 3: I would, you know, I met a girl. I thought
18:26
Speaker 3: I'd take her down. Are you kidding me? I said,
18:31
Speaker 3: number one, if you, if you just went home and did,
18:34
Speaker 3: like I asked, I would have given you some severance,
18:37
Speaker 3: but you literally left the meeting that we had and
18:40
Speaker 3: bought two tickets to the Caribbean and took a girl
18:43
Speaker 3: down there for like a week or a weekend. What
18:46
Speaker 3: are you doing? I said, that's theft. Yeah. Well, I don't,
18:51
Speaker 3: you know, I don't see it that way. I said, look,
18:53
Speaker 3: Here's what you're going to do. You're going to put
18:55
Speaker 3: that money back in my bank account within 24 hours,
18:58
Speaker 3: or I'm going to call the credit card company and
19:00
Speaker 3: they will come after you. I said, that's enough money
19:03
Speaker 3: that it's grand larceny or grand theft, whatever it's called.
19:07
Speaker 3: And I said, I'll just let them come after you.
19:11
Speaker 3: And he goes, okay. And I had the money back
19:14
Speaker 3: in 24 hours, but it was someone like that who
19:17
Speaker 3: I trusted to be my tour manager. Generally, the hierarchy
19:20
Speaker 3: is manager, tour manager and then everybody else on the tour. Um,
19:25
Speaker 3: but he was my representative on the road for months
19:29
Speaker 3: and to entrust him with that responsibility and then see that,
19:33
Speaker 3: you know, he just threw that away in a way
19:36
Speaker 3: that was weird. It was shocking to me.
19:38
Speaker 2: But I'll just pay myself. I'll just take, I'll just
19:43
Speaker 2: take care of it myself without telling anybody, not asking.
19:47
Speaker 3: Not telling anybody. And it was, it was a shock. shock.
19:50
Speaker 3: And I'd never seen any behavior like that before. And
19:52
Speaker 3: I thought, wow, how could I have missed that? And
19:56
Speaker 3: he was fine up to that point. But I think
19:57
Speaker 3: he just took that the hard way and sought to
20:02
Speaker 3: scratch back some way and it didn't work.
20:04
Speaker 2: Well, I'm kind of surprised that he even picked up
20:07
Speaker 2: the phone again when you called. I feel like typically
20:10
Speaker 2: I would think that that story would be, you saw
20:13
Speaker 2: that $ 15, 000 charge and never heard from the guy again.
20:16
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? So it sounds interesting that
20:18
Speaker 2: he's like, Oh yeah, this is just what I did.
20:19
Speaker 2: I just stole from you and hope it was okay.
20:22
Speaker 3: Maybe he thought he'd get more. I, it was, it
20:24
Speaker 3: was interesting. He had a very arrogant attitude about, you know,
20:28
Speaker 3: we owed him something. I said, you're being let go
20:30
Speaker 3: for cause it wasn't like we ran out of your
20:34
Speaker 3: job or you did great. And it was the end
20:35
Speaker 3: of the term. The band, didn't want you to be
20:38
Speaker 3: their representative anymore. And it was my job to terminate you.
20:42
Speaker 3: So that's, it.
20:44
Speaker 2: Was, it may have been a choice.
20:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
20:46
Speaker 2: It may have been a better choice. Those types of
20:49
Speaker 2: things are always hard. You know, even we talk a
20:51
Speaker 2: lot about hiring and firing and we, you know, recognize
20:54
Speaker 2: it's somebody's life and it's somebody's choice. And even, even
20:58
Speaker 2: the whole point of the podcast, we've, we've had a
21:00
Speaker 2: little bit of criticism, like, Oh, I don't want to
21:02
Speaker 2: laugh at somebody's misfortune. It's like, you know, stuff happens
21:06
Speaker 2: in business and work and in life. And it's more
21:08
Speaker 2: just like, okay, when stuff goes down, how do we,
21:12
Speaker 2: how do we deal with it? And also for anybody listening, hopefully,
21:15
Speaker 2: how do we prevent stuff like that? All the crazy
21:18
Speaker 2: things happening, you know, because there's some crazy things that
21:21
Speaker 2: happen in business and some managers and hires who don't
21:24
Speaker 2: turn out.
21:24
Speaker 3: I'm guessing that most of the real stories and stuff
21:28
Speaker 3: that is not for cause is probably not going to
21:31
Speaker 3: be on this podcast because it's, It is sad that
21:33
Speaker 3: it's not that interesting. And if, you know, finances are
21:36
Speaker 3: in a certain place or the market goes a certain way,
21:38
Speaker 3: you have to cut sometimes. And that's not very pleasant
21:41
Speaker 3: at all. So I don't know that those are outrageous
21:44
Speaker 3: stories or that, you know, that interesting sometimes. But the
21:47
Speaker 3: ones that take advantage of you, I think those should
21:51
Speaker 3: be brought out, too, because you're right. No one talks
21:54
Speaker 3: about that. And it happens to everyone that hires anybody. Um,
21:58
Speaker 3: they have to be aware. And sometimes you can't predict
22:00
Speaker 3: that stuff. Like I said, this guy was an employee
22:02
Speaker 3: for a couple of years, seemed fine. And it just
22:05
Speaker 3: turned out one day he did something wrong. Um, but yeah,
22:09
Speaker 3: it's the hardest thing. Well, a lot of things when
22:12
Speaker 3: I talk to people that are getting into business, I'm
22:15
Speaker 3: like hiring and firing. You're not really, I'll just say,
22:19
Speaker 3: you're not really a grownup until you've had to hire
22:21
Speaker 3: and fire people. It's, it is a, it's interesting and
22:26
Speaker 3: it's brutal. And, um, you know, the hiring part's fun
22:29
Speaker 3: and exciting because you're giving someone a chance and you're
22:32
Speaker 3: giving them an opportunity and you're hopefully compensating them and
22:34
Speaker 3: you're going to work with somebody. But the other side,
22:37
Speaker 3: when you have to let someone go is definitely very difficult,
22:41
Speaker 3: especially if it's not for cause. And I've seen that
22:45
Speaker 3: many times. I've seen people cry. I've seen people, you know,
22:49
Speaker 3: not be able to handle it very well. I've seen
22:51
Speaker 3: people handle it very well actually too. But, um, it
22:54
Speaker 3: is life changing and it is something that's beyond their
22:57
Speaker 3: control many times. And sometimes there's not much notice, right?
23:01
Speaker 3: Sometimes you might get a couple of weeks, sometimes you
23:02
Speaker 3: might get a week, but it's, it is a life
23:06
Speaker 3: changing event. And if you're handling it I think for
23:12
Speaker 3: me the best, and I've had to teach people cause
23:14
Speaker 3: I've had to have other people let people go to,
23:16
Speaker 3: and they, they came back and were crushed by it,
23:19
Speaker 3: especially some of the younger people. And I said, you know,
23:22
Speaker 3: It just somehow doesn't work out sometimes. And it's no
23:24
Speaker 3: one's fault. And you have to look at it like
23:27
Speaker 3: you were the employer and you need to make this
23:29
Speaker 3: right in the best way that you can. Usually that's severance,
23:33
Speaker 3: perhaps recommendations, perhaps even getting them another job somewhere else.
23:38
Speaker 3: But you have to be very sensitive to it and
23:40
Speaker 3: you have to be upfront about it. And you can't
23:41
Speaker 3: beat around the bush. You can't make an excuse or
23:44
Speaker 3: say I didn't know. You just have to say, look,
23:46
Speaker 3: this isn't working out. Let's have a discussion and figure
23:49
Speaker 3: out the right way to resolve this or the best
23:50
Speaker 3: way to resolve this. so that we can both walk
23:52
Speaker 3: away feeling somewhat better about it.
23:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it sounds like that's the way that you're
23:57
Speaker 2: describing it is the best way to approach it. And really,
24:01
Speaker 2: hopefully the only way to approach it when you're trying
24:03
Speaker 2: to do it well. And obviously there's a common disconnect
24:08
Speaker 2: where a company, a manager, a boss just will lose
24:14
Speaker 2: all of that sensitivity and just be like, well, this
24:16
Speaker 2: is how it is. And just those people skills don't
24:18
Speaker 2: really come into play It's okay. This is already an
24:21
Speaker 2: unpleasant thing that happens commonly throughout businesses. So how is
24:26
Speaker 2: it handled with care and handled like the best that
24:28
Speaker 2: can be, you know, and with the bad hire and
24:32
Speaker 2: like all the stories you kind of talk about on
24:33
Speaker 2: the podcast, pretty much all of these are with cause.
24:37
Speaker 2: And like there's stories even about interviews of people who
24:41
Speaker 2: didn't pan out. I was just talking to somebody today
24:43
Speaker 2: who was kind of submitting their story for the, for
24:45
Speaker 2: the podcast. And like somebody came in for an interview and,
24:49
Speaker 2: and like wanted to use a restroom. And when they said,
24:52
Speaker 2: it was like a private secure building. So like, sorry,
24:54
Speaker 2: we don't have a public bathroom right here. They went
24:57
Speaker 2: and they peed in the parking lot in front of
25:00
Speaker 2: the people they're about to try to work for. It's crazy.
25:04
Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, sometimes it's like not even a firing.
25:06
Speaker 2: Like you're not even in the team yet, you know?
25:09
Speaker 2: And that's with cause, you know? And so we talk
25:12
Speaker 2: about all sorts of stories there.
25:14
Speaker 3: I had one of those too. It was a kid.
25:17
Speaker 3: who came in looking for a tech spot, and he
25:22
Speaker 3: literally went from high school to a 90-day coding camp.
25:26
Speaker 3: He never went to college, never got a job, never
25:28
Speaker 3: worked anywhere. Straight out of high school, three-month coding camp.
25:33
Speaker 3: I had an interview with him. He wanted $ 140, 000 to start.
25:35
Speaker 3: This was eight years ago.
25:36
Speaker 1: Wow.
25:40
Speaker 3: And even today, that's a starting salary. I think 140
25:43
Speaker 3: is probably on the high side. And I said, look,
25:47
Speaker 3: I'm not doubting that you're able to do this, but
25:51
Speaker 3: you've never had a job. I said, I don't know
25:53
Speaker 3: how you're going to be as an employee. You have
25:55
Speaker 3: zero references. You have zero experience. And you look good
25:59
Speaker 3: on paper. You check all the boxes regarding software development.
26:02
Speaker 3: But I just, in good conscience, I can't hire you
26:06
Speaker 3: right now. And he's all about, you know, days off
26:09
Speaker 3: and can you work from home? And I said, look,
26:13
Speaker 3: the other thing you should be aware of is when
26:14
Speaker 3: you come into an interview, it's going to be slanted
26:17
Speaker 3: towards the employer. You're there to kind of serve their
26:20
Speaker 3: needs initially, at least. Yeah, they're going to compensate you,
26:23
Speaker 3: but that's the balance. You do the work, they pay you.
26:26
Speaker 3: And it can't be the first thing out of your
26:28
Speaker 3: mouth is what are my days off or can I work,
26:30
Speaker 3: you know, certain days from home? He didn't know. And again,
26:33
Speaker 3: I didn't hold it against him personally. I was just
26:35
Speaker 3: trying to help him. But I said, you straight out
26:38
Speaker 3: of high school and you have zero experience with, with
26:41
Speaker 3: a work, with a job. And you, you went to
26:42
Speaker 3: a coding camp. You don't even have a degree. And
26:46
Speaker 3: the money you're asking for is pretty healthy. I said,
26:49
Speaker 3: I'm not going to hire you. I might hire you
26:51
Speaker 3: at half that somebody else might. And maybe you can
26:54
Speaker 3: come back in six months or a year when you've
26:56
Speaker 3: got something under your belt, but I just can't do it.
26:58
Speaker 3: It was shocking to me that, that that's where we are.
27:02
Speaker 3: And this is, you know, LA and it's, it was,
27:05
Speaker 3: you know, kind of the tech stuff, but, uh, It's amazing.
27:09
Speaker 3: It's amazing what's out there. And again, your choice as
27:13
Speaker 3: a company, as a hiring person to bring somebody on
27:16
Speaker 3: your team, you don't always have to say yes.
27:19
Speaker 2: And similar to that, and Steve, I'll have to show you,
27:23
Speaker 2: I'll have to send you the, I think we have
27:25
Speaker 2: one of these recorded on our YouTube or somewhere like
27:28
Speaker 2: on our social media. And there was one story and
27:32
Speaker 2: it was for a software engineer, some coding kind of job.
27:36
Speaker 2: And he kind of goes through the interview process and
27:39
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, gets his way through, I guess,
27:42
Speaker 2: I don't know if he lies through it, but he
27:45
Speaker 2: kind of somehow gets the job and then gets on
27:49
Speaker 2: his first day and he's assigned to do some, you know,
27:51
Speaker 2: complicated coding project. And then it kind of gets delayed.
27:55
Speaker 2: He kind of procrastinates. And then they come knocking on
27:57
Speaker 2: his door again, like, hey, where is this? And then
28:00
Speaker 2: the truth comes out. He's like, I actually, I don't
28:03
Speaker 2: know how to code. Like I thought I could learn
28:05
Speaker 2: on the spot. Like I've seen, I've seen some YouTube
28:08
Speaker 2: videos about it. I thought I could teach myself in time.
28:11
Speaker 2: And so he actually got hired for a coding job
28:13
Speaker 2: without knowing how to code. And so that's the kind
28:16
Speaker 2: of stuff we're talking about. Hey, like it's okay to
28:19
Speaker 2: give some people some assignments on the way there before
28:22
Speaker 2: you're actually giving them the official job offer instead of
28:25
Speaker 2: having the pain of oh, sorry, we accidentally just hired
28:29
Speaker 2: you for a job that you don't even know how
28:31
Speaker 2: to do.
28:32
Speaker 3: It's interesting because, you know, usually you kind of put
28:36
Speaker 3: them on a contingency basis for a minute, or maybe
28:39
Speaker 3: you give them a trial, like you said. But yeah,
28:42
Speaker 3: some people, coding is interesting because most people don't understand it, right?
28:46
Speaker 3: If you're non-technical, they can say, I've got all these qualifications.
28:51
Speaker 3: How are you going to know? And a lot of
28:52
Speaker 3: companies will test you. A lot of companies will bring
28:54
Speaker 3: in some of their dev team and say, hey, sit
28:56
Speaker 3: with this guy for 30 minutes and tell me if
28:58
Speaker 3: he's real. Because an average HR person or average other
29:02
Speaker 3: executive may not know those kind of technical details, right?
29:06
Speaker 3: And I don't speak, I'm non-technical myself and it's difficult
29:10
Speaker 3: sometimes when someone says they have those resources, they have
29:14
Speaker 3: that capability, they've done it before. And then like you said,
29:17
Speaker 3: you find out, oh, and that's the extreme. But the
29:21
Speaker 3: most common that I've seen is, Where they say they
29:24
Speaker 3: can do something and they don't know that part of it.
29:27
Speaker 3: Like maybe it's JSONs or maybe it's, it's backend dev
29:30
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. There's something they don't know, but
29:32
Speaker 3: they don't tell you that. And then when you assign
29:34
Speaker 3: it to them, they shop it out and they're just like, okay,
29:37
Speaker 3: I'm going to take your, you know, a hundred dollars
29:39
Speaker 3: an hour.
29:40
Speaker 2: Gig.
29:40
Speaker 3: And I'm going to go pay somebody in India, $ 40
29:43
Speaker 3: an hour and make that $ 60 difference.
29:46
Speaker 2: That's not their job.
29:47
Speaker 3: If you don't know, just tell me you don't know. Right.
29:50
Speaker 3: And I'll hire someone that has that other skillset that
29:53
Speaker 3: makes sense. But to, to profess in an interview that
29:56
Speaker 3: you have all this ability to And then for someone
29:59
Speaker 3: to find out later that you don't know this chunk
30:02
Speaker 3: of it over here, it's a little deceptive. It happens
30:05
Speaker 3: a lot. On the tech side, it happens a lot.
30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think companies and teams more and more
30:11
Speaker 2: are valuing communication. And especially as there's more remote teams
30:16
Speaker 2: that are built. And that starts at the start of
30:19
Speaker 2: somebody's employment, where it's like, hey, just tell me things.
30:23
Speaker 2: Just tell me what's going on. Just be truthful with
30:26
Speaker 2: your skill set. If you don't know how to do something,
30:28
Speaker 2: just let me know. If something's delayed, don't just buy
30:33
Speaker 2: yourself some time, but just let me know what's going on.
30:35
Speaker 2: And I think that's really valuable.
30:38
Speaker 3: It's about being real. And sometimes I see these hiring
30:42
Speaker 3: processes where it's done by a machine or your resumes
30:45
Speaker 3: at the first couple levels are sometimes handled by a machine.
30:49
Speaker 3: And I'm like, they're missing out on probably a lot
30:51
Speaker 3: of good people because maybe you didn't, your resume didn't
30:54
Speaker 3: exactly have the right stuff in the right place. And
30:57
Speaker 3: the machine scanned it and put something else in there,
31:00
Speaker 3: or they thought they were looking for something. And I'm
31:02
Speaker 3: sure there's times, and I haven't really seen it, but
31:04
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's times in HR where you talk to
31:06
Speaker 3: someone and go, wow, you'd be right for this job, right?
31:09
Speaker 3: We're looking, you came in on this job, but we're
31:11
Speaker 3: looking for somebody over here. And we think we'd put
31:13
Speaker 3: you over here because you're the perfect candidate. Whereas the
31:16
Speaker 3: candidate might not even know that because they're just looking
31:18
Speaker 3: at one entry point. The HR person understands that they're
31:22
Speaker 3: looking for, you know, five or 10 different positions. But
31:25
Speaker 3: I think meeting the person, I think the Zoom thing is,
31:29
Speaker 3: it's okay. I'd rather meet them in person. There's so
31:32
Speaker 3: much more you can get from someone, just their posture,
31:34
Speaker 3: the way they move, coming into the interview, leaving the
31:37
Speaker 3: interview stuff that you may not see on camera. That
31:41
Speaker 3: is probably, if you're going to hire somebody for a
31:43
Speaker 3: long-term position, the least you could do is I think
31:46
Speaker 3: meet them in person. I mean, that's so weird now
31:49
Speaker 3: that everything's done by electronics and Zooms.
31:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Steve, tell me a little bit more about SongHub.
31:57
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear a little bit more about the business.
32:01
Speaker 2: You told me some earlier, but I'd love to hear
32:03
Speaker 2: more about how it came to be, how long it's
32:06
Speaker 2: been going on. And then as you've been building the company,
32:10
Speaker 2: as you've been building your teams, especially on the hiring side,
32:13
Speaker 2: like building those teams- I'd love to hear more about
32:15
Speaker 2: the business itself and how it's been going and how
32:17
Speaker 2: you've been building it up and building the teams around
32:20
Speaker 2: it as well.
32:21
Speaker 3: Sure. My co-founder, Joe Berman, he's got a boutique music
32:27
Speaker 3: publishing company. He's been in the music business for almost
32:30
Speaker 3: as long as I have, if not longer. And he's
32:33
Speaker 3: got relationships with a lot of writers in different parts
32:35
Speaker 3: of the world. And he was getting calls to put
32:38
Speaker 3: them together. Hey, can I meet this guy in New York?
32:41
Speaker 3: Can you hook me up with a guy in London?
32:43
Speaker 3: And he's, but you're all signed to music publishing companies, right?
32:45
Speaker 3: Like majors, like Sony. And they're like, yeah, but they
32:48
Speaker 3: don't help us. So we realized that there's a huge
32:51
Speaker 3: group of writers and musicians, most of them actually, that
32:54
Speaker 3: are not getting treatment. They're not getting services by their
32:57
Speaker 3: publishers or labels, even though they're signed to major labels
33:01
Speaker 3: and publishers. So the initial iteration was match.com for songwriters.
33:06
Speaker 3: We just said, let's just get a list of a
33:08
Speaker 3: bunch of writers and put in metadata on what they do.
33:11
Speaker 3: If someone's a top liner or a guitar player, or
33:13
Speaker 3: they're writing folk songs, whatever it is, and let them
33:16
Speaker 3: connect because they didn't have a way to do that.
33:19
Speaker 3: And songwriting is a collaborative sport. Usually music's definitely collaborative,
33:24
Speaker 3: but it's hard to find people to work with that
33:26
Speaker 3: you can trust. And maybe if they're in a different country,
33:28
Speaker 3: it's very difficult. So we built that. And then we
33:32
Speaker 3: decided it was important also to bring a registration component
33:35
Speaker 3: into it so that once you are starting to work
33:38
Speaker 3: on a project, You can assign your song splits, you
33:40
Speaker 3: can get the rights done, and then you can register
33:42
Speaker 3: them with your PRO, publisher, US Copyright Office, et cetera.
33:46
Speaker 3: So we built that component in. And then we added
33:49
Speaker 3: a blockchain component because we thought having the rights in
33:52
Speaker 3: some immutable, totally accessible and accurate state that everybody can
33:57
Speaker 3: see globally instead of it sits at your publisher and
34:00
Speaker 3: the other publisher has a different set of data. So
34:02
Speaker 3: we put everything on blockchain, which was an interesting endeavor
34:05
Speaker 3: because there's a lot of, coins and crypto and tokens associated.
34:10
Speaker 3: And the first time we put it out, we included
34:13
Speaker 3: that stuff and said, you have to have a wallet,
34:14
Speaker 3: you have to go in and get gas fees. And
34:17
Speaker 3: we realized most creatives have zero savvy as far as
34:21
Speaker 3: how that stuff works. And the companies have nothing to
34:24
Speaker 3: do with that. So if you're Warner Brothers or Universal,
34:27
Speaker 3: they're not going to touch a wallet. So we put
34:29
Speaker 3: all of that back of house. We made it frictionless.
34:32
Speaker 3: And all the downsides to blockchain, we just did that
34:36
Speaker 3: in back of house. So right now, when you register
34:38
Speaker 3: a song, you literally click a button, a blockchain block
34:42
Speaker 3: is created with the information. And then every time you
34:45
Speaker 3: add a file, every time you had song splits, that's
34:47
Speaker 3: all written onto the chain. But we did that away
34:50
Speaker 3: from everybody else. And it's, there's a couple of companies
34:53
Speaker 3: are doing blockchain stuff and it's very tokenized. It's, you know,
34:57
Speaker 3: here's this coin you can exchange for this coin, which,
34:59
Speaker 3: you know, it's like, it's like Intel in your laptop, right?
35:04
Speaker 3: Most people don't care. what chip is running their laptop.
35:07
Speaker 3: They just want to know, yeah, does it work? Does
35:10
Speaker 3: it do what I need it to do? I don't
35:11
Speaker 3: care what the chip is inside, but a lot of,
35:14
Speaker 3: you know, PCs have Intel inside or AMD or whatever
35:17
Speaker 3: the chip is. No one needs to know that there's
35:21
Speaker 3: a blockchain wallet attached. And that's, so we got rid
35:24
Speaker 3: of that. And then we start getting attention from schools
35:30
Speaker 3: early on with PROs, performing rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI,
35:34
Speaker 3: SOCAN is the Canadian one. SoCam was originally our initial
35:38
Speaker 3: launch customer and they didn't have a tech, zero tech guys.
35:42
Speaker 3: It was crazy. They did not. And a lot of
35:44
Speaker 3: the music companies are like this. They just don't have
35:47
Speaker 3: to build technology. So they don't. And in some respects,
35:52
Speaker 3: having that obscurity with information and transparency allows them to
35:58
Speaker 3: take advantage. So they kind of don't want to be
36:02
Speaker 3: the coolest, quickest, highest technology possible because it opens up
36:08
Speaker 3: certain windows that they may not want opened up. So
36:13
Speaker 3: we went through a bunch of developers. This is back
36:16
Speaker 3: to hiring and stuff. CTOs are, in my experience, it's
36:23
Speaker 3: hard to define them. It's hard to find good ones.
36:26
Speaker 3: We went through a couple of hires that just were
36:28
Speaker 3: not qualified. They're either very good at coding and or
36:34
Speaker 3: they're better at, or they're, or they're good at managing,
36:37
Speaker 3: but it's very hard to find someone that's good at
36:39
Speaker 3: managing and coding someone that can, you know, look at
36:43
Speaker 3: someone and go, Hey, this skillset is excellent, or this
36:45
Speaker 3: guy's better than that person, or this woman's really sharp.
36:47
Speaker 3: I mean, to assess and manage staff is, is one
36:54
Speaker 3: set of skills to code is another. And a CTO
36:57
Speaker 3: typically has to have both of those skillsets in their
37:00
Speaker 3: same head. So Um, and like we said before, some
37:03
Speaker 3: of them don't know different areas and there's different specialties
37:07
Speaker 3: and development and maybe a guy's really good at front end,
37:10
Speaker 3: but knows nothing about back end. But again, you expect
37:13
Speaker 3: them to know it and they come in and you
37:15
Speaker 3: find out six months later, they don't really know it
37:17
Speaker 3: and they're either faking it or they're getting information from
37:20
Speaker 3: somewhere else. Um, just, it's a really tough hire. Um,
37:25
Speaker 3: so yeah, we, we found a really good solution after.
37:29
Speaker 3: we started this maybe five years ago and we've kind
37:31
Speaker 3: of bootstrapped it, but I would say three, three years ago,
37:36
Speaker 3: we found a really good solution. It was an onshore
37:40
Speaker 3: U S based management, but offshore developers, developers are in India.
37:47
Speaker 3: So they're, they're on a, I think 14 hours away
37:50
Speaker 3: from us. So we could put stuff in, like I
37:53
Speaker 3: got something into them today. And by tomorrow we, it'll
37:57
Speaker 3: be finished. So our day is their night. Their night
37:59
Speaker 3: is our day. It actually works pretty well cycle wise.
38:02
Speaker 3: And the management again is here. So if we, we
38:05
Speaker 3: got to communicate on a higher level, we deal with
38:07
Speaker 3: them on our, they're in our same time zone actually.
38:10
Speaker 3: So that works out super well for us. We recommend
38:13
Speaker 3: them to others and we've brought in, you know, as references,
38:16
Speaker 3: cause I get a lot of founders calling me saying,
38:19
Speaker 3: who are you guys using? Cause we just spent, you know,
38:22
Speaker 3: half a million dollars and got nothing.
38:23
Speaker 1: And wow.
38:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:25
Speaker 3: Not uncommon. in, in, in startup and tech startups, tech
38:28
Speaker 3: startup land. Um, so finding good talent that again, can
38:32
Speaker 3: be honest and tell you what their capabilities are and
38:35
Speaker 3: not fudge it like, Hey, we don't know how to
38:37
Speaker 3: do this, or we do know how to do this.
38:39
Speaker 3: And then they solve it. And, um, yeah, since we've
38:42
Speaker 3: gotten into this little groove, uh, we we've had very
38:45
Speaker 3: good experience and very good luck with them. So yeah, it's, it's,
38:49
Speaker 3: it's a learning process and, you know, startups are different
38:54
Speaker 3: than big corp, big corporations are I can always tell
38:57
Speaker 3: when I'm speaking with somebody from a big corporation, cause
38:59
Speaker 3: they go, just, just send it out to it or
39:01
Speaker 3: just send it to marketing. Like you have, you're used
39:03
Speaker 3: to having, you know, a hundred people doing things for
39:07
Speaker 3: you and your job is like this, you're just doing this.
39:12
Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes in a startup, well, not sometimes
39:15
Speaker 3: a lot of times you're wearing different hats and yeah,
39:19
Speaker 3: you'll hire a marketing person, but you need to be
39:21
Speaker 3: able to manage them and relate with them and get
39:23
Speaker 3: in the trenches. And maybe you've built, a marketing strategy,
39:26
Speaker 3: go-to-market strategy, and now they're coming in to handle that
39:29
Speaker 3: or make it better. But it's, I don't know, there's
39:33
Speaker 3: a lot more chances to get your fingers in more pies.
39:35
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, coming from a, I've met
39:38
Speaker 3: people that, you know, Ivy League schools, Fortune 100 companies,
39:43
Speaker 3: and God bless them. That's a great spot. They have,
39:47
Speaker 3: they have a lot of, yeah, for them to shift
39:50
Speaker 3: gears into startup culture is I've never seen it work.
39:54
Speaker 2: Right.
39:54
Speaker 3: It's very difficult to come out of that place where
39:57
Speaker 3: everything's available at a push of a button and the
40:01
Speaker 3: resources are unlimited and the budget it's like, Oh, we
40:04
Speaker 3: would just do that campaign. We'll call her our ad
40:07
Speaker 3: ad agency. Are you paid? Do you know what that costs? No,
40:11
Speaker 3: that's handled by, you know, finance. You know, you're spending right. It's,
40:16
Speaker 3: it's crazy.
40:17
Speaker 2: No, I totally agree. I probably at this point spent
40:20
Speaker 2: over half of my career with startups. And I totally
40:23
Speaker 2: agree with everything you're saying. And it's funny because even
40:27
Speaker 2: within a startup, you know, you could say, oh, I'll
40:29
Speaker 2: just have the social media person do it. It was like,
40:31
Speaker 2: I'm the social media person. And oh, what does the
40:34
Speaker 2: designer do it? Well, I'm kind of the designer too. Like,
40:36
Speaker 2: you know, like you said, everybody kind of wears multiple
40:38
Speaker 2: hats at the end of the day. If you want
40:40
Speaker 2: something done, a lot of times you just have to
40:42
Speaker 2: do it because you There's so many less resources, whereas
40:45
Speaker 2: the big corporation, yeah, they can just send it off
40:47
Speaker 2: to whatever agency or whatever department. We'll get it done.
40:50
Speaker 2: I'm just focusing on this one thing. Actually, I'm thankful
40:55
Speaker 2: that I've spent a lot of time at startups because
40:57
Speaker 2: there's a lot more ownership that's kind of built into
41:01
Speaker 2: just how you approach things. But then you will collaborate
41:05
Speaker 2: with other people at different size organizations. And sometimes that's
41:08
Speaker 2: a little bit lost because like, oh, that's not my job.
41:10
Speaker 2: I do this. But sometimes at startups, everything kind of
41:14
Speaker 2: at the end of the day becomes your job because
41:16
Speaker 2: your whole team is 10, 15, 50 max people, you know,
41:21
Speaker 2: much smaller.
41:22
Speaker 3: I was in a meeting. It was a panel with
41:25
Speaker 3: some universal music guys a couple of weeks ago. And
41:29
Speaker 3: they were, you know, and the labels have always been tough.
41:32
Speaker 3: They've always been more opaque than typical corporate. Like if
41:35
Speaker 3: I want to find the head of marketing at Nabisco
41:38
Speaker 3: or wherever, I could probably find them. with an email somewhere,
41:41
Speaker 3: but if you want to find the head of marketing
41:42
Speaker 3: at Universal Records, there's layers that try to protect them.
41:46
Speaker 3: But these guys, one of their big, their complaints was, well,
41:50
Speaker 3: no one knows what we do. Like, like when you
41:52
Speaker 3: come to us, you should know what our job is.
41:56
Speaker 3: And I thought there's five guys sitting up there and
41:59
Speaker 3: all their jobs seem like business development, strategic, you know, planning, like, Like,
42:05
Speaker 3: what does that mean? Because there's five of you guys
42:07
Speaker 3: are all senior VPs. You all have kind of the
42:10
Speaker 3: same title. Maybe one or two words are switched.
42:13
Speaker 2: What are you doing over there?
42:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
42:15
Speaker 3: What exactly are you doing over there? Because one guy
42:17
Speaker 3: sounds like he's your boss and you guys are like, but,
42:20
Speaker 3: but your title is the same as his. It was,
42:23
Speaker 3: it was, it was almost, it was funny to me
42:26
Speaker 3: because I thought they're so arrogant and they just expect
42:30
Speaker 3: everybody to know everything about what they do, but they're,
42:32
Speaker 3: it's opaque and, And they don't explain it. And there's
42:35
Speaker 3: five of them that are kind of doing the same thing.
42:37
Speaker 3: And you can't tell what they're doing. And, but they
42:41
Speaker 3: expect you to know, right. And like you said, they're,
42:44
Speaker 3: it's very channeled. If you hit them up and say,
42:46
Speaker 3: I'm looking for this to be, Oh, that's, I don't
42:48
Speaker 3: do that. Okay. Well, you're the head of business development.
42:51
Speaker 3: I would think, you know, you might have a bigger,
42:53
Speaker 3: I don't know, a bigger scope where you could, or
42:56
Speaker 3: you could tell me who to go to that does
42:58
Speaker 3: that little thing. But it was interesting to see that.
43:01
Speaker 3: And it's not unusual. I've seen that for many years,
43:03
Speaker 3: but seeing it on stage in one place where they actually,
43:06
Speaker 3: you know, because someone asked, you know, what's the best
43:08
Speaker 3: way to approach you guys? Like, well, first understand what
43:11
Speaker 3: we do. Know exactly what our channel is. Like, well,
43:15
Speaker 3: I've been here for an hour watching this. None of
43:17
Speaker 3: you explained anything about what you do. I've got a
43:20
Speaker 3: slide on the screen that shows your job titles and
43:22
Speaker 3: they all seem like the same thing.
43:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I guess as we're wrapping up, I'd love
43:29
Speaker 2: to hear, because I love everything that you're sharing, Steve.
43:32
Speaker 2: I think you've got so much to create. And so honestly,
43:34
Speaker 2: I want to talk more and hopefully we'll get you
43:35
Speaker 2: on with Kenny because I think you guys would connect
43:37
Speaker 2: over a lot of different things. It's great just to
43:39
Speaker 2: be connected with you. But as we close, I think
43:42
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people hopefully listening to this right
43:45
Speaker 2: now who are in hiring or they own a business
43:47
Speaker 2: or they're in a startup, whatever kind of position they're in.
43:49
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot that you're sharing that's really relatable.
43:52
Speaker 2: But what would you say is like the best piece
43:55
Speaker 2: of advice you'd pass on to anybody who's, I guess,
43:58
Speaker 2: building a team, building a team right now, whether if
44:00
Speaker 2: they're just a hiring manager or they're a business owner
44:03
Speaker 2: or somebody who's trying to grow something. Cause I think you,
44:07
Speaker 2: you've been growing what you're growing and I see it
44:10
Speaker 2: continuing to grow. And I think there's a lot of
44:12
Speaker 2: insight you could pass on.
44:14
Speaker 3: I guess at the end of the day, I would say,
44:17
Speaker 3: look at the person, right? Meet the person, have them
44:21
Speaker 3: into your office, maybe go to lunch. But sit down
44:24
Speaker 3: with them and try to understand them. Forget the resume
44:27
Speaker 3: for a minute. Forget all the technical skills. Is this
44:30
Speaker 3: someone that can work within your organization? Is this someone
44:33
Speaker 3: you want on your team? Is it someone that can grow?
44:35
Speaker 3: Because like you're mentioning with growth, today, this company looks
44:39
Speaker 3: like this. Tomorrow, it's going to look like this. And
44:41
Speaker 3: they might be two different things. But I think having
44:45
Speaker 3: people on board that have kind of the same mindset,
44:48
Speaker 3: kind of are open to moving with the company and
44:51
Speaker 3: engaging my smaller startups have always been high growth and
44:55
Speaker 3: it's like this potential is here and there's equity deals. And,
44:58
Speaker 3: you know, it's a little different than getting hired at
45:00
Speaker 3: a huge company. But I think looking really at the
45:04
Speaker 3: person rather than the resume, and then thinking about how
45:07
Speaker 3: they could evolve a year, three, five years down the line,
45:11
Speaker 3: because hiring them at this job today is different than
45:14
Speaker 3: they're going to be in five years. And they will
45:16
Speaker 3: probably be in a supervisory position in a short time
45:19
Speaker 3: period at a high growth startup. So, Look at them as,
45:22
Speaker 3: are they going to be able to understand the vision?
45:24
Speaker 3: Are they going to be able to carry forth? Forget
45:26
Speaker 3: the exact job title, the job description. That's important to
45:31
Speaker 3: get people in the door. But do they work across
45:35
Speaker 3: the organization as a team member? And that's probably the
45:38
Speaker 3: best thing I could say right now.
45:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's great advice. We say a lot of
45:43
Speaker 2: the same thing where it's not just skills-based hiring, but
45:49
Speaker 2: it's like, I guess... cultural fit based hiring, you know,
45:53
Speaker 2: where sometimes somebody can't have enough of the skills, but they,
45:57
Speaker 2: the way that they lift up all the other people
45:59
Speaker 2: around them is way bigger factor versus somebody who has
46:03
Speaker 2: all the skills you can imagine, but they're, they, they're, uh,
46:07
Speaker 2: they're not passing the ball. They're kind of selfish. They're,
46:09
Speaker 2: they're poisoning the whole culture. They're taking other people down.
46:12
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, that's not worth it. We, we talk
46:14
Speaker 2: about that a lot. It's like, you kind of have
46:15
Speaker 2: to focus on not just the skills on paper by itself.
46:19
Speaker 3: That's a really good point. The level of energy and leadership.
46:22
Speaker 3: And it's akin to a sports team, right? I mean,
46:25
Speaker 3: there could be some guy that has the best stats
46:27
Speaker 3: in the world, but he's not a team player or
46:29
Speaker 3: he's not a leader. And you get in there and
46:32
Speaker 3: his mood is always sour. And you want someone that's positive.
46:36
Speaker 3: You want someone that's building, someone that's going to inspire.
46:38
Speaker 3: It's probably the biggest word is inspired. Because yeah, there's
46:43
Speaker 3: always going to be differences in resources and levels of skills,
46:47
Speaker 3: but if someone's inspirational to somebody else, that's hard to beat, right?
46:51
Speaker 3: If they can bring up everybody on that team, even
46:53
Speaker 3: if it's not their skillset or their channel, that works
46:57
Speaker 3: across the board every single time.
46:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree.
47:00
Speaker 1: Okay.
47:00
Speaker 2: Before we close, do you have any last bad hiring
47:03
Speaker 2: stories you want to rattle off that were on your mind? Yeah.
47:05
Speaker 2: I know you already shared a couple along the way.
47:08
Speaker 3: I'll give you the, the, the one that I spoke
47:09
Speaker 3: with you guys on earlier. Um, We, at my startup
47:14
Speaker 3: before this one, we had an investor and we were
47:18
Speaker 3: looking for a CTO. And he goes, oh, I know
47:21
Speaker 3: exactly who you guys should hire, blah, blah, blah. This
47:24
Speaker 3: guy's amazing. He's run this, he's run that, he's done this.
47:27
Speaker 3: And this guy's going to invest in our company. And
47:29
Speaker 3: he actually made his investment contingent upon us hiring this guy.
47:34
Speaker 3: He goes, yeah, you guys got to hire him. And
47:36
Speaker 3: we're like, okay, how much is he? He's like 360,000.
47:39
Speaker 3: I said, hold on a second. How much? $ 360, 000 a year.
47:43
Speaker 3: And I was like, startup, right? This was a seed.
47:50
Speaker 3: It was a pre-seed. This is like an angel round.
47:54
Speaker 3: It was, the number was shocking, but I looked at
47:58
Speaker 3: my co-founder and we go, we've got no choice. If
48:01
Speaker 3: we don't hire this guy, we're not getting the investment.
48:04
Speaker 3: And you know, we just have to do it. So
48:07
Speaker 3: we said, fine, sign the guy on, went back and
48:10
Speaker 3: forth with them for He was in New York. We
48:13
Speaker 3: were in LA. And we had a couple of in-person meetings.
48:17
Speaker 3: We flew out and sat with him. He spent one
48:19
Speaker 3: whole day with us doing a whole whiteboard and showing
48:21
Speaker 3: us a roadmap and said, here's how we should build
48:24
Speaker 3: this tech stack. Here's how we should do this. Spent
48:27
Speaker 3: a good five hours with him. Great whiteboard. And then
48:30
Speaker 3: we went back to LA and we checked in with
48:32
Speaker 3: him a couple times a week. And I think a
48:36
Speaker 3: couple weeks later, we were in one of our check-in calls.
48:40
Speaker 3: And at the end of the call, like just off
48:43
Speaker 3: the cuff, informally, he's like, oh, I forgot to tell
48:46
Speaker 3: you guys, I took a managing director position with Goldman Sachs,
48:51
Speaker 3: but that'll be a good thing. And I was like, what?
48:56
Speaker 3: And we got off the call and my co-founder, Robert Menendez,
49:00
Speaker 3: we're like, do we just hear that? And he's like,
49:04
Speaker 3: I don't know. We should probably ask him again, but
49:06
Speaker 3: I go, this guy took a full-time position with Goldman
49:10
Speaker 3: Sachs and he's under contract full-time with us for $ 360, 000
49:13
Speaker 3: as our CTO. I go, that's, and he tells us
49:17
Speaker 3: it was a good thing because he's going to have
49:19
Speaker 3: time at night to work for us. And I thought,
49:21
Speaker 3: this is insane. And to that point, we had zero
49:24
Speaker 3: deliverables for him. That whiteboard is the only thing he
49:26
Speaker 3: ever did for us and had not delivered anything on paper,
49:30
Speaker 3: nothing as far as hires, nothing. We had made one
49:33
Speaker 3: payment to him, his first payment of $ 30, 000. And we
49:36
Speaker 3: called the investor and, and we said, look, this guy,
49:39
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's a fraud. I know you
49:42
Speaker 3: vouched for him. I know he's your friend, but we
49:45
Speaker 3: got nothing from him. And he just called us and said,
49:48
Speaker 3: he took a full-time managing director position with Goldman Sachs.
49:51
Speaker 3: I go, that's like a slap in the face. And
49:54
Speaker 3: he was really apologetic. He's like, guys, I'm so sorry.
49:57
Speaker 3: I will fix this. Don't worry about it. I'll take
50:00
Speaker 3: care of it. But yeah, going in, that was our,
50:03
Speaker 3: that was probably the biggest slap in the face I've
50:05
Speaker 3: had And a shock, someone that was vetted and vouched
50:09
Speaker 3: for by our lead investor who turned out to be
50:12
Speaker 3: a fraud. And his name, his first name was Sachin.
50:16
Speaker 3: So Robert and I made that a verb and we
50:18
Speaker 3: would call that Sachin. So every time we heard from
50:21
Speaker 3: another company or founder that had had an experience, it was,
50:24
Speaker 3: we go, you got Sachin.
50:26
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. That's crazy, man. Ken has a similar story.
50:30
Speaker 2: I know just a bit. I always call it like
50:33
Speaker 2: his Batman origin story where, he was in the finance
50:36
Speaker 2: industry essentially. And, you know, he was helping raise funds for,
50:41
Speaker 2: for all these different startups and things. He can explain
50:44
Speaker 2: it better, but essentially they brought on one guy who
50:46
Speaker 2: was supposed to be an advisor who somebody else vouched
50:49
Speaker 2: for him. This guy was supposed to be super legit.
50:51
Speaker 2: And he threw a Ponzi scheme, essentially stole a hundred
50:54
Speaker 2: million dollars of, of all the, all the different money
50:58
Speaker 2: that was raised. And then, you know, the, the way
51:00
Speaker 2: that Ken tells it is like, you know, a $ 30
51:03
Speaker 2: background check would have prevented the whole thing. And that's
51:06
Speaker 2: kind of what propelled him into the background check industry,
51:08
Speaker 2: which is, which is, I think a cool story, even
51:11
Speaker 2: though it's a terrible, a terrible origin story, but sometimes
51:14
Speaker 2: it's like, man, just a little bit of vetting goes
51:16
Speaker 2: a long way. And sometimes it happens even when you
51:18
Speaker 2: have somebody vouch for the guy, but that that's crazy.
51:21
Speaker 2: And obviously you're here now, hopefully you guys have recovered,
51:24
Speaker 2: but that's, that's gotta be painful on multiple levels.
51:28
Speaker 3: It was more shocking than painful. It was just like,
51:32
Speaker 3: is he kidding? It was, it was like fraud happening
51:35
Speaker 3: right in front of your face. And it was, he
51:37
Speaker 3: was saying this stuff like this will be better for us.
51:40
Speaker 2: And we're like, okay. You say so.
51:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
51:43
Speaker 2: Just cause you're treated like, like night school, I guess,
51:45
Speaker 2: just like a couple hours between 12 and two for
51:48
Speaker 2: you guys at night. I don't know. That's probably not
51:50
Speaker 2: a good plan.
51:51
Speaker 3: And a managing director at Goldman, I'm guessing you're earning
51:54
Speaker 3: probably $ 650, 000, $ 700, 000 a year. So this guy is going
51:58
Speaker 3: to be a million dollar a year guy.
52:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
52:02
Speaker 3: So it was shocking. And yes, a background check would have, well,
52:07
Speaker 3: in that case, I don't know. Because he had a
52:09
Speaker 3: pretty good resume. We didn't do a full background check.
52:12
Speaker 3: But again, he was coming from our lead investor and
52:16
Speaker 3: it was contingent. So we really had no, it was
52:18
Speaker 3: almost like you got to hire my guy or I'm
52:19
Speaker 3: not going to invest.
52:21
Speaker 2: So that's crazy.
52:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. Crazy stories, man.
52:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'm sure I'm sure you have even more.
52:27
Speaker 2: I do. I am happy that we're connected. So thanks
52:30
Speaker 2: so much, Steve, for your for your time and just
52:32
Speaker 2: for being on the show. You know, I said this
52:34
Speaker 2: was just going to be one one snippet for the show,
52:37
Speaker 2: for the for the podcast. I might just end up
52:39
Speaker 2: putting this whole thing out because I love the conversation
52:40
Speaker 2: with you. So really appreciate your time. And yeah, we'll
52:43
Speaker 2: keep you in the loop when even when this goes
52:45
Speaker 2: out and things like that.
52:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me know, Nathan, happy to be a part
52:47
Speaker 3: of it. Happy to support you guys are doing. I
52:49
Speaker 3: think it's really important, really important to get these stories
52:51
Speaker 3: out and it's not the sexiest part of business, but
52:55
Speaker 3: it's super important for people to understand some of where
52:58
Speaker 3: this comes from. Maybe they get something from a go.
53:01
Speaker 3: I should use a background check every time or never
53:03
Speaker 3: do this. Or in the case of this, this is
53:05
Speaker 3: how I should look at things. But just, I think
53:08
Speaker 3: knowing that others are in the same pot sometimes makes,
53:11
Speaker 3: makes it easier. And that's pure knowledge. I think what
53:14
Speaker 3: you guys are doing, getting this out is super cool.
53:16
Speaker 3: So yeah, happy to help you any way I can.
53:18
Speaker 3: It's great to be on.
53:19
Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
53:19
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. We appreciate it. All right, Steve. Thanks
53:22
Speaker 2: so much. Talk soon.
53:23
Speaker 3: Talk to you soon. Thanks, sir.