Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Troy Carter

Transcript

Troy Carter · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, This week we have a very special episode my
0:07
Speaker 1: interview with Troy Carter at the Music Media Summit in
0:11
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara, California. Yes, today, Troy is director of Creative
0:16
Speaker 1: Services that Spotify, really spearheading change in the music business.
0:20
Speaker 1: But before that he was a manager. He managed Lady Gaga,
0:25
Speaker 1: Broke Lady Gaga. What John legend Back has done so
0:29
Speaker 1: many things with acts. You're gonna hear about his ops
0:32
Speaker 1: and his downs. Troy is completely honest. I know you'll
0:35
Speaker 1: love this. So, Troy, how did you get into this
0:46
Speaker 1: crazy business? I started off just as a kid in
0:51
Speaker 1: West Billy. Uh grew up loving hip hop music and
0:55
Speaker 1: hip hop culture. Um. I wanted to be a rapper.
1:00
Speaker 1: I wanted to write graffiti. I wanted to be a breakdancer.
1:03
Speaker 1: So anything that was immersive and hip hop culture, you know,
1:07
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be around it. So you're not
1:10
Speaker 1: a woman, I can ask this question. How old are
1:11
Speaker 1: you today? Forty five? So when you get into it,
1:17
Speaker 1: MTV ruled okay, But Philadelphia always had a heavy soul culture.
1:22
Speaker 1: So how did you first get infected by music? But
1:24
Speaker 1: we didn't we didn't have cable. We only had the
1:28
Speaker 1: five channels and um, and we have Friday Night videos
1:34
Speaker 1: and the USA Networkers on NBC. It was I forget
1:38
Speaker 1: which network it was. It might have been NBC. David
1:41
Speaker 1: Benjamin ran that I remember, but it was like, um,
1:44
Speaker 1: you know, it would come on late at night, and
1:46
Speaker 1: it was before music was segregated, so you would watch
1:50
Speaker 1: run Dy m C. You would watch Blondie, Michael Jackson,
1:54
Speaker 1: Prince you know. So it was all types of music there.
1:58
Speaker 1: So it kind of exposed me to pop music, rock music.
2:01
Speaker 1: But and you know, and and like I said, and
2:04
Speaker 1: I love hip hop. So but it made me well
2:06
Speaker 1: round it from from a music Was there music in
2:08
Speaker 1: your house growing up? It's a ton of music in
2:11
Speaker 1: my house growing up. So. Um. It was a station
2:14
Speaker 1: in Philly called w d A S and UM, which
2:17
Speaker 1: it was a local station. A guy named butter Ball
2:20
Speaker 1: ran the station and um, but it was a lot
2:22
Speaker 1: of the Philly International records, UM, a lot everything from Uh,
2:28
Speaker 1: Marvin Gaye was big in our house. Earth Wind and
2:30
Speaker 1: Fire was big. Um she Stevie Wonder. So I grew
2:36
Speaker 1: up on a lot of souls. Did you play an
2:37
Speaker 1: instrument growing up? Nope, didn't play an didn't play an instrument. Okay,
2:41
Speaker 1: so you're listening to music and you're watching Friday Night videos.
2:45
Speaker 1: At what point do you say I can do that?
2:48
Speaker 1: You know what? My my, my brother and my cousin
2:50
Speaker 1: they used to DJ and. Um, so I tried DJ
2:54
Speaker 1: and I was terrible. And then I said, um, well,
2:57
Speaker 1: maybe you know I'm gonna try to be a rapper.
3:00
Speaker 1: So I so I started rapping. And in ninth grade,
3:03
Speaker 1: me and my best friend had this idea. We met
3:06
Speaker 1: in English class and we said, you know, if if
3:08
Speaker 1: we ever meet Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince, they're gonna
3:11
Speaker 1: give us a record deal. So we used to go
3:14
Speaker 1: and and try to hang out at Jazzy Jeff's studio,
3:17
Speaker 1: go down there almost every single day. Um, Jeff never
3:21
Speaker 1: would let us into the studio. How many other people
3:24
Speaker 1: were hanging out other than the two of you? It
3:25
Speaker 1: just it was three. It was three of us. The
3:27
Speaker 1: group was called too too many, and um we called
3:30
Speaker 1: ourselves too too many because we only used to have
3:33
Speaker 1: enough money for one of us. So so it was
3:38
Speaker 1: three of us that used to hang out in front
3:40
Speaker 1: of But when you were hanging out, uh where, there
3:42
Speaker 1: are also a lot of other people want to be
3:44
Speaker 1: hanging out at the studio. No, so they were all
3:47
Speaker 1: inside the studio, so we were trying to get in,
3:49
Speaker 1: so we would only want to bees and um so so,
3:53
Speaker 1: and we sincerely had this idea like we were that
3:56
Speaker 1: naive that we were gonna meet Jazzy Jeff and Fresh
3:59
Speaker 1: Prince and they are going to give us a record deal.
4:01
Speaker 1: And my best friend, he used to always say, thoughts
4:04
Speaker 1: become things. You gotta think positive, you gotta think positive.
4:08
Speaker 1: And one day they let us in and we auditioned
4:10
Speaker 1: for him, and what happened. They gave us a record
4:12
Speaker 1: deal with a lot of experience under your belt. This
4:19
Speaker 1: is not the way the story usually goes. Do you
4:22
Speaker 1: think you were deserving of a record deal? Yes, but
4:25
Speaker 1: you know what, what we found out though that we sucked,
4:27
Speaker 1: you know, so I think you know Will what Will?
4:30
Speaker 1: We met Will Uh DJ, Jazzy Jeff and his manager
4:36
Speaker 1: James Lasseter. It was like a whole crew of guys
4:38
Speaker 1: hanging out in the studio and we popped in our
4:40
Speaker 1: demo and you know, um and Will said, how are
4:43
Speaker 1: you guys getting home? And we said we don't know.
4:46
Speaker 1: So he said, okay, I'll give you guys a ride home,
4:48
Speaker 1: and he drove drove us home that night, and he
4:50
Speaker 1: told our families, you know, dropped us off, and he said,
4:52
Speaker 1: you know I got them, and um, but we I
4:56
Speaker 1: think more than anything else, more than even the music.
4:59
Speaker 1: He was expected our hustle and you know, we were
5:02
Speaker 1: silly kids, and you know so I think he liked us.
5:06
Speaker 1: So what happened? Maybe you gave you a record deal? Yes,
5:09
Speaker 1: and we signed. We signed the Jive Records through Will's
5:11
Speaker 1: production company, and we put out a record and got dropped.
5:15
Speaker 1: It was like all within like all within like a
5:20
Speaker 1: year and a half is like the super this kind
5:22
Speaker 1: of whirl and uh, oh my god, our dreams came
5:26
Speaker 1: true to oh my god, this is the biggest disaster.
5:28
Speaker 1: My life is over. Did you get an advance? Did
5:31
Speaker 1: you get any money? Got in advance? I think we
5:33
Speaker 1: we got in advance of about I think it was
5:36
Speaker 1: like thirty five thousand dollars, which might have been thirty
5:40
Speaker 1: five million dollars and um, you know, because we had
5:43
Speaker 1: never gotten any money like you know before and um,
5:46
Speaker 1: and we divided it up amongst the three of us.
5:49
Speaker 1: And what did you do with your twelve grand I
5:51
Speaker 1: went straight to the car dealership like every rapper and uh,
5:57
Speaker 1: and I bought a used OUTI five thousand. That was
6:02
Speaker 1: a stick shift and I had never driven a stick
6:05
Speaker 1: shift before, but I wanted that car. And I think
6:08
Speaker 1: I burned out the clutch by the time I got home.
6:12
Speaker 1: So I burned through the money in the clutch within
6:14
Speaker 1: like weeks, just because you told me the story, and
6:17
Speaker 1: I don't want to forget it. You do tell a
6:19
Speaker 1: story of buying a Lexus use Lexus and getting stopped
6:23
Speaker 1: for driving while black. How long after this was? That?
6:27
Speaker 1: That was? That was after? That was? That was years later?
6:31
Speaker 1: And um, I started promoting shows in Philadelphia, so I
6:35
Speaker 1: would promote these concerts. Um so like Notorious b I, G.
6:40
Speaker 1: Jay Z, Foxy Brown, a bunch of the New Woutang clan,
6:43
Speaker 1: a bunch of the New York rappers, and um and
6:46
Speaker 1: I bought a car off of Foxy Brown's manager, a
6:50
Speaker 1: guy named Don Poo and UM and you know, I
6:53
Speaker 1: drove the car back to Philly and that next week, No,
6:56
Speaker 1: with no exaggeration, within one week, I had gotten holed
7:00
Speaker 1: over by the police six times within one week. But
7:05
Speaker 1: you know it was one time. You know, it was
7:07
Speaker 1: a Saturday afternoon, and um, I had bags like luggage
7:11
Speaker 1: and the trunk and I pull up and up, um
7:14
Speaker 1: and up at Derby and I get pulled over by
7:16
Speaker 1: the police and they make me get out of the
7:18
Speaker 1: car sit on the side of the curb while they
7:21
Speaker 1: throw all of my stuff out on the street. And
7:24
Speaker 1: so where I was at it was like a shopping district.
7:27
Speaker 1: So it's a Saturday afternoon in front of the movie theater,
7:31
Speaker 1: hundreds of people. You know, it was it was the
7:34
Speaker 1: most it was probably one of the most belittling things.
7:37
Speaker 1: And then once everything checked out, you know, the cops said,
7:40
Speaker 1: you know, put your ship back in the car, and
7:42
Speaker 1: just you know, they put they pull off and I'm
7:44
Speaker 1: left putting my underwear and everything else back into the
7:47
Speaker 1: you know, into into the into into my car. So
7:51
Speaker 1: you know, it's so you have an experience like that
7:55
Speaker 1: where many experiences like and that's right, was going but
7:59
Speaker 1: that was a experienced before I was gonna ask you
8:01
Speaker 1: about previous growing up. How does that what where does
8:04
Speaker 1: that leave your viewpoint in terms of race relations. Um,
8:09
Speaker 1: you know it's complicated, right, because I think you know,
8:12
Speaker 1: I think you got so it was more police relations
8:17
Speaker 1: than race relations, where where where I grew up because
8:20
Speaker 1: it was only black people who where where I grew up.
8:23
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really any real racial issues. But we're
8:27
Speaker 1: the cops black or white both, so blue is what
8:31
Speaker 1: they were, right and um and and so we were
8:36
Speaker 1: harassed and and and profiled and we didn't have It
8:41
Speaker 1: wasn't a thing where when things happened in your neighborhood
8:45
Speaker 1: you called the police, you know, so um and that
8:48
Speaker 1: and that was the that was the relationship and um
8:51
Speaker 1: so So I didn't really learn about race relations until
8:56
Speaker 1: I really started traveling to a lot of places, you know,
8:59
Speaker 1: through through out throughout the country, and um and then
9:03
Speaker 1: that that's when I really started, you know, seeing Philly
9:07
Speaker 1: is very segregated, but it was very segregated, gated by
9:11
Speaker 1: the way. So Italians lived in a certain area, Blacks
9:14
Speaker 1: lived in a certain area, Puerto Ricans lived in a
9:16
Speaker 1: certain area, Jews lived in a certain area, and it
9:19
Speaker 1: wasn't a thing where it was any real I never
9:24
Speaker 1: felt that sort of tension because everybody stayed in their
9:29
Speaker 1: own pockets for the most part, almost kind of like
9:32
Speaker 1: l a Alas racially segregated too. But when you were
9:35
Speaker 1: making the deal with dj Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith.
9:40
Speaker 1: Are you still in high school? Yeah? I dropped out
9:43
Speaker 1: of high school and then, um, I dropped out in
9:46
Speaker 1: eleventh grade and my mom she put me in a
9:50
Speaker 1: program called job Corps, which is like jail meets college
9:56
Speaker 1: and uh and it's and it was important to posit
10:00
Speaker 1: in Maryland. So basically she said, if you want to
10:02
Speaker 1: do this music thing, you better come home with a
10:05
Speaker 1: piece of paper. And you know, because I just wanted
10:08
Speaker 1: to pursue music. And at eleventh grade, I quit school.
10:11
Speaker 1: Just stopping there for a second. You quit school because
10:14
Speaker 1: you were that excited about music, or you're also a
10:16
Speaker 1: poor student or an attentive student. It was I just
10:19
Speaker 1: was bored, Like I would I would go to school,
10:23
Speaker 1: check in with my advisor, hang out with my friends,
10:26
Speaker 1: and then we would go on these adventures you know,
10:29
Speaker 1: sometimes like for me is crazy. I would end up.
10:33
Speaker 1: I would end up at a library some days and
10:36
Speaker 1: just studying subjects that I wanted to study. We would
10:39
Speaker 1: have or we would have hooky parties, you know until
10:42
Speaker 1: my mom got home from work and then we would
10:45
Speaker 1: clear the house out and um, but we every day
10:48
Speaker 1: was this sort of adventure. But school I just I
10:53
Speaker 1: was curious about learning, but not what they would teach
10:56
Speaker 1: me in school. So how long did the job Corps
10:58
Speaker 1: program last? I stayed in AP Corps for a little.
11:01
Speaker 1: I got my I got my g D and record time.
11:05
Speaker 1: It was like I was trying to get out of
11:06
Speaker 1: this place as fast as you could. How fast did
11:09
Speaker 1: you get the GD? Probably? I think a little under
11:12
Speaker 1: a year maybe, And it was like, because it's the worst,
11:16
Speaker 1: this is where the courts a point juvenile delinquents, so Virginia,
11:22
Speaker 1: New York, d C. You know, so they just put
11:25
Speaker 1: you all in one place essentially, and um, and you
11:29
Speaker 1: want to get out as fast as you can. But
11:32
Speaker 1: isn't that the place that would tend you know, their
11:34
Speaker 1: theory on jail is you got to jail you to
11:36
Speaker 1: learn how to become a criminal. When you're in this program,
11:39
Speaker 1: did you learn how to act bad? Yes? So so
11:41
Speaker 1: job Corps it was, um, it was. It was definitely
11:47
Speaker 1: a place where you had it was many sort of
11:50
Speaker 1: many criminal imprise enterprises and clicks built around and it.
11:55
Speaker 1: You know, you had gang members on campus from different gangs,
11:59
Speaker 1: you know, through throughout uh, you know, the Northeast corridor
12:03
Speaker 1: and I think because I was always small, you know,
12:07
Speaker 1: and and you know, and I didn't get caught up
12:10
Speaker 1: and being just with the guys from Philly. So I
12:13
Speaker 1: would hang out with the New York guys, the Virginia
12:15
Speaker 1: guys and kind of stay away from any sort of
12:21
Speaker 1: the the the warring factions with with within within within
12:25
Speaker 1: job corps. And so how long were you in job
12:27
Speaker 1: Corps overall? For for almost a year? Okay, So when
12:30
Speaker 1: you got your g D you were out. I was out.
12:32
Speaker 1: And the deal, the record deal was after you. That
12:34
Speaker 1: was after Okay, So the act fails, you've blown the money,
12:38
Speaker 1: then what? UM? You know, I remember being at my
12:42
Speaker 1: grandmother's house when I got the call that they were
12:45
Speaker 1: dropping us from from the record label and UM and
12:50
Speaker 1: I and I was in her in my grandmother's room,
12:52
Speaker 1: and because I was on the phone, I got the
12:55
Speaker 1: call and it broke my heart because, you know, it
12:59
Speaker 1: was something I felt like we worked really hard for. UM.
13:02
Speaker 1: I really didn't have a plan B of what I
13:05
Speaker 1: was gonna do. I was embarrassed that, you know, we
13:08
Speaker 1: had gotten this far and and and now you know,
13:10
Speaker 1: how do we tell people this? UM? And from there,
13:16
Speaker 1: I just I started I learned a lot about the
13:20
Speaker 1: business from that from that experience, and UM, and I
13:25
Speaker 1: asked James Lasseter, who was Will Smith's manager, UM, could
13:29
Speaker 1: I start working with him? And I started working at
13:31
Speaker 1: the recording studio and I was his assistant. Was it
13:34
Speaker 1: pretty much just that fast? It was probably over, if
13:39
Speaker 1: I had to guess, maybe over a six month time
13:41
Speaker 1: period where I sort of transitioned into more of the business,
13:46
Speaker 1: because we ever have a straight job working at the supermarket?
13:50
Speaker 1: Any of that? Did I while I was a kid? No,
13:53
Speaker 1: while in this interim between h getting dropped from the
13:56
Speaker 1: label and going to work for the management, I had
13:59
Speaker 1: one period where I couldn't find It was that sort
14:03
Speaker 1: of And I don't know if I even if I
14:06
Speaker 1: ever told this this story before, but UM, I remember
14:10
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a job, and I didn't have any money.
14:15
Speaker 1: I had kind of given up on on the on
14:17
Speaker 1: the record business. And at one point I've filed for
14:23
Speaker 1: UH for for welfare and I got I had gotten
14:27
Speaker 1: one check, and I remember giving the money from my
14:31
Speaker 1: check to my aunt because my younger cousin had just
14:34
Speaker 1: gotten killed, and you know, they were doing this funeral
14:36
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then I'm like, it's just uh that
14:40
Speaker 1: was It was just like a low point and I'm like,
14:42
Speaker 1: this isn't what I want my my life to be.
14:45
Speaker 1: And um, but as a kid, I worked at McDonald's,
14:48
Speaker 1: I worked at Burger King, I worked at um uh
14:52
Speaker 1: Olga's kitchen, which was like a restaurant, and so I
14:55
Speaker 1: had all types of odd jobs here, here and there.
14:58
Speaker 1: And so you go to work in the record eating
15:00
Speaker 1: studio and for your the manager lasseter, what are you doing?
15:03
Speaker 1: Um everything car getting car wash, booking sessions for DJ
15:07
Speaker 1: Jazz Jeff, carrying records for Jazz Jeff. Um. But you know,
15:12
Speaker 1: with James, when I was James's assistant, the best part
15:15
Speaker 1: of it was I used to have to run his
15:17
Speaker 1: phone calls. So I had to listen in on every
15:20
Speaker 1: phone call that he did by rolling his calls. So
15:23
Speaker 1: it kind of taught me the sort of vernacular and
15:26
Speaker 1: and sort of cadence how people talk to each other
15:29
Speaker 1: on on the phone, you know. And I think one
15:32
Speaker 1: of the biggest things was, you know, I thought everything
15:36
Speaker 1: was all business with people, but you know, just hearing
15:39
Speaker 1: them talk about people's families and kids and you know,
15:42
Speaker 1: people they would talk for ten fifteen minutes about everything
15:45
Speaker 1: else before they kind of got into this. I think
15:48
Speaker 1: people you're so hungry when you get into the business,
15:50
Speaker 1: you have meetings, immediately started the sales pitch. They don't
15:53
Speaker 1: really people want to know who are you, what's going on?
15:55
Speaker 1: You are reasonable person. So so that that was good
15:57
Speaker 1: for me to learn very lead because um and and
16:01
Speaker 1: James and he and are still really really close to
16:04
Speaker 1: this day. But he he was a guy who we
16:08
Speaker 1: grew up eight blocks away from each other, like and
16:12
Speaker 1: what we didn't know My mom and his mom used
16:14
Speaker 1: to catch the bus together, and you know, he had
16:17
Speaker 1: become Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince's manager because he was
16:20
Speaker 1: the only guy in the neighborhood with a car, like
16:23
Speaker 1: you know, because because back back then you used to
16:25
Speaker 1: have to put you know, turntables and everything and load
16:29
Speaker 1: the cars up or whatever. He was the only guy
16:31
Speaker 1: with a car. So um So seeing a guy who
16:35
Speaker 1: grew up, you know, right in our neighborhood, it kind
16:38
Speaker 1: of showed me like, okay, if James can do it
16:41
Speaker 1: and talk to like studio executives and record company heads,
16:45
Speaker 1: and it just made it less than a little less
16:48
Speaker 1: in timidity and for for me, And so what was
16:50
Speaker 1: your breakthrough from being assistent gopher to the next level. Um, James,
16:56
Speaker 1: uh So, so like in between that time, you know,
17:00
Speaker 1: I was promoting these shows and and Philly and okay,
17:04
Speaker 1: just a little bit slow. You're promoting him yourself or
17:06
Speaker 1: with James. So so James h ended up moving to
17:09
Speaker 1: l A and he was doing he started doing Fresh
17:12
Speaker 1: Prince of bel Air. I had come out to l
17:14
Speaker 1: A for a little bit. I went back to Philly
17:17
Speaker 1: and I was from promoting. I started off promoting like clubs,
17:21
Speaker 1: and then I would get acts to performing in the
17:23
Speaker 1: clubs and um, and I would collect money from guys
17:28
Speaker 1: and my neighborhood essentially, so it would be guys who
17:32
Speaker 1: have money. I said, you know, at that time, I
17:34
Speaker 1: didn't know it was called money laundering because guys would
17:37
Speaker 1: give me money like hey, this is great. And so
17:40
Speaker 1: in reality you were money laundering. You were just unaware.
17:43
Speaker 1: I just was unaware. Now, no statue and all those
17:46
Speaker 1: guys are probably in jail. Um. But I would do
17:51
Speaker 1: these do these shows with all of the rappers. And
17:55
Speaker 1: this is before it was Live Nation and all of
17:58
Speaker 1: the big conglomerate it's and it was a local guy
18:01
Speaker 1: in Philly. Named Larry Maggott who used to promote the
18:04
Speaker 1: concerts in Philly if their spectrum where the roof blew exactly,
18:08
Speaker 1: and but they didn't do hip hop because hip hop shows,
18:11
Speaker 1: you know, and then fights and shootings and couldn't get
18:14
Speaker 1: insured and um, and I was one of the crazy
18:18
Speaker 1: guys who would do it. And I've started meeting all
18:21
Speaker 1: of these people through these relationships, and I met Puffy
18:26
Speaker 1: through promoteing a notorious b I bit slower. Being a
18:30
Speaker 1: promoter is a license to go out of business. Okay,
18:34
Speaker 1: people usually like even Leor, he had one successful gig
18:37
Speaker 1: and then he lost all that money and more on
18:38
Speaker 1: the next gig. So in your a particular case, every
18:41
Speaker 1: gig I didn't think would be in the black. No,
18:44
Speaker 1: it's you know, you had really really really great nights
18:49
Speaker 1: and you had some really really really bad nights, and
18:52
Speaker 1: you know it was it was. I remember it was
18:54
Speaker 1: a rap group on Jive called foos Chnickens and um
18:58
Speaker 1: and I used to love their music, and I think
19:00
Speaker 1: I might have been the only person that loved the
19:02
Speaker 1: music because literally, no exaggeration, I had five people show up,
19:07
Speaker 1: but I still paid him a hundred percent of the
19:09
Speaker 1: money built the relationship. It was bad shows where we
19:15
Speaker 1: were down, but every single act got paid. So but
19:20
Speaker 1: wasn't it the money of the so called criminals that
19:23
Speaker 1: was paying them? Yeah, and what of the criminals? What
19:26
Speaker 1: are the criminals say when they were losing money? They
19:29
Speaker 1: were happy to be there. It's like you're hanging out
19:31
Speaker 1: with Biggie, Okay. So it's like hanging you're hanging out.
19:38
Speaker 1: So so everybody, everybody, and and was funny about hip
19:42
Speaker 1: hop as the streets and music. We were all contemporaries,
19:49
Speaker 1: So j and Dame and their whole crew. They were
19:53
Speaker 1: street guys from New York coming to hang out with
19:56
Speaker 1: us Big and Don Poo and Mark Pitts and all
20:00
Speaker 1: of those guys. They were street guys coming out to
20:02
Speaker 1: hang with us. Wu Tang from Staten Island. So it
20:06
Speaker 1: was it was a thing where everybody felt it was
20:11
Speaker 1: everybody was really respectful of of of each other in
20:15
Speaker 1: that way because we knew what it took to get there.
20:19
Speaker 1: And and it was almost a thing where you couldn't
20:22
Speaker 1: go out the back door. It's just, you know, just
20:25
Speaker 1: from a street code perspective, you can't leave out of
20:28
Speaker 1: the back door. So you got these guys to come.
20:31
Speaker 1: And this is before it was like bank wiring and
20:34
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. So you would pay them that
20:37
Speaker 1: money up front, the front up front, but when they
20:40
Speaker 1: showed up, you better have you know, you had to
20:43
Speaker 1: have the rest of that. You're talking about the street
20:45
Speaker 1: you know, cred and the similarity. But getting people from
20:49
Speaker 1: different communities, was there also friction? Never mind the money,
20:53
Speaker 1: you know what, most of the most of the friction
20:55
Speaker 1: sort of came from just the nature of the beast
20:58
Speaker 1: of doing these type of shows and these type of neighborhoods. Right,
21:04
Speaker 1: so it's you got rival factions that are gonna are
21:08
Speaker 1: gonna show up, and um, it could be a bad
21:11
Speaker 1: night when somebody steps on somebody's shoe and they don't say,
21:17
Speaker 1: you know, excuse me or I'm sorry, and that could
21:19
Speaker 1: end up in something or it might have been something
21:22
Speaker 1: that happened weeks before that. You know, people just happened
21:26
Speaker 1: to to to see each other, so you and um,
21:30
Speaker 1: it's par for the course. Okay, So we didn't know,
21:34
Speaker 1: to be honest though, we didn't know any different. So
21:39
Speaker 1: it wasn't you know, sort of and it wasn't strange.
21:42
Speaker 1: It wasn't like it's kind of like that movie Hoop
21:44
Speaker 1: Dreams when they celebrate the kids sixteenth birthday and they said,
21:48
Speaker 1: we're thrilled he just made it to sixteen. And when
21:52
Speaker 1: when I said, it took to me eighteen and twenty
21:55
Speaker 1: one in my mind with what were the ages in
21:58
Speaker 1: my mind that that I made it to eight teen,
22:00
Speaker 1: and that that I made it the one and my
22:02
Speaker 1: closest cousin. He and I grew up together and we
22:05
Speaker 1: were like this. Um, he got killed when he was
22:08
Speaker 1: when he was seventeen years seventeen. What was what precipitated
22:12
Speaker 1: his death? He was out at the Chinese restaurant, Chinese Takeout,
22:16
Speaker 1: getting chicken wings, and somebody decided that they were going
22:20
Speaker 1: to rob the restaurant, drobed the guys who were at
22:23
Speaker 1: the restaurant that night, and I ended up The guy
22:25
Speaker 1: who killed them was a guy who I grew up
22:28
Speaker 1: with and we went to school with and everything else.
22:31
Speaker 1: He didn't even know it was my cousin. So um
22:34
Speaker 1: and yeah, ended up killing him. Did that guy go
22:37
Speaker 1: to jail? Yeah, they went to jail. Okay, So in
22:39
Speaker 1: your pursuits you meet Puffy and how do you maximize
22:45
Speaker 1: that relationship? Well, Puff, um, it was. It was a
22:49
Speaker 1: concert that I was throwing with Notorious b I g
22:53
Speaker 1: Um and Wootang and a few other acts on Penn's
22:56
Speaker 1: campus and um, and I got a call that Notoria,
23:00
Speaker 1: Notorious b I g was Um, he wasn't gonna make
23:04
Speaker 1: it down in time for the show because he was
23:05
Speaker 1: shooting the video for Big Papa at that time. And
23:09
Speaker 1: I get into an argument with Mark Pitts on the
23:12
Speaker 1: phone that turns into an argument with Puffy on the
23:15
Speaker 1: phone and um, and but yet they still came down.
23:19
Speaker 1: The show was over. You know, we had the refund
23:22
Speaker 1: a few people, but he didn't make it and um,
23:25
Speaker 1: but they told Biggs manager make sure Troy gets his
23:29
Speaker 1: money back. Um, we'll give you another show. And we
23:33
Speaker 1: were hanging out that night. I was having an after
23:35
Speaker 1: party and Puff was holding court and you know, v
23:39
Speaker 1: I p section and you know, I'm talking and I said,
23:42
Speaker 1: you know what, you know, I want to come work
23:43
Speaker 1: for you, And he said, all right, well your first
23:46
Speaker 1: job is get me that girl from behind the bar.
23:51
Speaker 1: And um, and I got puffed the girl from behind
23:53
Speaker 1: the bar. And then a couple of weeks later, I
23:55
Speaker 1: was interning that bad boy. Then you moved to New York. No,
23:59
Speaker 1: I commute three days a week. I would commute on
24:03
Speaker 1: peter Pan trailways, um seven I think it was seven
24:08
Speaker 1: dollars each way peter Pan Trailways from Philly to uh
24:13
Speaker 1: to uh To to New York. And so you're interning,
24:17
Speaker 1: you're obviously, you know, doing your best to do a
24:19
Speaker 1: good job. What's your break a bad Boy? You know,
24:23
Speaker 1: I didn't get a break at Bad Boy, um, you know,
24:26
Speaker 1: but what I did get was an education you know
24:30
Speaker 1: Puff and even still to this day, you get a
24:33
Speaker 1: sort of master class and hustle and just seeing this
24:36
Speaker 1: guy operate that company just off of like I would
24:42
Speaker 1: see Puff at the club at night, and then I
24:47
Speaker 1: would see Puff in the office in the morning, and
24:51
Speaker 1: then at he had his recording studio called Daddy's House
24:54
Speaker 1: where he you know, would be where he would make records.
24:57
Speaker 1: So you know, it just it was this sort of
25:00
Speaker 1: NonStop thing, but this sort of masterful dance of being
25:05
Speaker 1: able to navigate sort of hip hop culture in the
25:09
Speaker 1: streets with corporate America and uh so that it just
25:14
Speaker 1: was that master class. So I didn't get a break
25:16
Speaker 1: in terms of uh, you know, I made it. It
25:20
Speaker 1: was you got cursed out. You got um worked to
25:27
Speaker 1: death and you just wanted more of it, like you know,
25:30
Speaker 1: I just I couldn't get enough of it? And what
25:33
Speaker 1: was your next journey after that? Um? Afterwards, I started, UM.
25:39
Speaker 1: I went back to work for James Lasseter in in
25:42
Speaker 1: l A. And UM, he and Will started a movie
25:45
Speaker 1: production company called Overbrook Entertainment and UM, so I was
25:48
Speaker 1: James's assistant and I did that and UM and James
25:53
Speaker 1: ended up firing me. I think after like a year
25:55
Speaker 1: and a half, he ended up firing me and UM
25:58
Speaker 1: sending me back to Philly. And then that's when that
26:01
Speaker 1: was my big break. When he fired you because you've
26:04
Speaker 1: done a good job. I didn't he do or he said,
26:06
Speaker 1: I'm colding you back, keeping you here. Um, I wish
26:09
Speaker 1: I wish he was holding me back, keeping me here.
26:12
Speaker 1: I was arrogant as you can you could get. UM.
26:15
Speaker 1: I thought I knew everything and James like it was
26:20
Speaker 1: no humility. And I remember, you know, I didn't have
26:23
Speaker 1: a I didn't have a car when I living in
26:25
Speaker 1: l A. And if you live in l A, you
26:27
Speaker 1: know how hard it is not to have a car.
26:29
Speaker 1: And UM, and at one point I was dating this
26:31
Speaker 1: girl and Um and I would take the car service
26:35
Speaker 1: to go visit this girl. But and at the end
26:38
Speaker 1: of the week, I would just pay the general manager
26:41
Speaker 1: of the company when I got my check, here's the
26:44
Speaker 1: car service, you know, here's the money for the car service.
26:46
Speaker 1: And for some reason she told James Troy's been using
26:50
Speaker 1: the car service. And he came in the office and
26:56
Speaker 1: aired me out and you know, in front of everybody,
26:59
Speaker 1: and told me, you know, he kicked me out of California.
27:03
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, he fired me on the spot,
27:05
Speaker 1: kicked me out of California. Me and him get into
27:08
Speaker 1: this huge shouting match in his office, and Will and
27:11
Speaker 1: Jada actually walked in like right after and Um and
27:16
Speaker 1: Will said, you know what, go back to Philly. You know,
27:20
Speaker 1: we'll give you a severance, but go back to Philly
27:23
Speaker 1: and you know, get get yourself together. And I went
27:26
Speaker 1: back to Philly with my tail between my legs. And
27:29
Speaker 1: what would would you start up in Philly? UM? I
27:33
Speaker 1: started up UM. It was. It was a company called
27:35
Speaker 1: Black Friday that guys from my neighborhood that I knew.
27:39
Speaker 1: They basically UM started this management company. It was like
27:46
Speaker 1: a management production company. And they asked if I would
27:50
Speaker 1: come and basically run the company for him. Can I could?
27:53
Speaker 1: I could? I build it and started up for him,
27:55
Speaker 1: and Eve was even Beanie Seagull where the client there.
28:01
Speaker 1: And it was a hot mess, and I ended up,
28:07
Speaker 1: you know, after a while, I'm like, I can't do
28:09
Speaker 1: this anymore. It was a lot of disorganization. One one client,
28:15
Speaker 1: UM came into the office. One day. I got a
28:18
Speaker 1: call that the client got into an argument with one
28:21
Speaker 1: of the guys who owned the company and start shooting
28:24
Speaker 1: at him in the office. And that was it for
28:27
Speaker 1: me and I and I ended up that and I
28:30
Speaker 1: left at that point, and Eve was leaving and she
28:33
Speaker 1: had enough, and she asked if I would help her
28:36
Speaker 1: find the manager. I took her to meet with Chris
28:39
Speaker 1: Lighty a few other managers, and then she asked if
28:41
Speaker 1: I would do it. Okay, so you do it and
28:46
Speaker 1: tell me how you ultimately get to there to making
28:48
Speaker 1: your deal with Sanctuary. So I started managing Eve UM.
28:53
Speaker 1: I ended up signing a few other clients. Me m
28:56
Speaker 1: up my partner at that time, Jay Irving. We built
29:00
Speaker 1: company called Irving Wonder in Philadelphia, which was like you know,
29:03
Speaker 1: boutique management company and UM and we got a call
29:07
Speaker 1: from Matthew Knowles one day and Matthew asked if we
29:11
Speaker 1: would I want to sell our company to Sanctuary. He
29:14
Speaker 1: had just sold this company to Sanctuary. They were looking
29:17
Speaker 1: to build their urban music division and U and he
29:24
Speaker 1: basically told me how much money? And I said, when
29:26
Speaker 1: where do I sign? Because I never, like, I had
29:30
Speaker 1: never seen that type of money in my life. So,
29:33
Speaker 1: you know, without asking, I'm like, let's go, let's get
29:35
Speaker 1: this done. And how did it end with Sanctuary? Terrible?
29:39
Speaker 1: But you kept on money, right, Yeah? But you know
29:41
Speaker 1: the thing is what I what I learned about Sanctuary,
29:43
Speaker 1: Like with the Sanctuary situation, I was so focused on
29:48
Speaker 1: the exit and the money that I was that it
29:51
Speaker 1: blinded me from all of the red flags that I
29:55
Speaker 1: should have noticed as they were doing their diligence on us.
29:59
Speaker 1: We should have been on our diligence on them, on
30:02
Speaker 1: them and um and it just wasn't that. We went
30:06
Speaker 1: from a really cool culture at our company, like actually
30:10
Speaker 1: Jay Irvan and and his wife, Um, that's who I'm
30:13
Speaker 1: up here in Santa Barbara with this weekend. You know,
30:15
Speaker 1: it was me and my best friend we built this company.
30:19
Speaker 1: We hung out every day. We hung out with our employees,
30:22
Speaker 1: we hung out with our artists, and then we sold
30:24
Speaker 1: this company the Sanctuary and the culture it just with.
30:29
Speaker 1: The culture was terrible and um, and the leadership wasn't great.
30:34
Speaker 1: Um and I'm just being honesty. They were terrible people.
30:39
Speaker 1: The you know, the guy running the company was a
30:41
Speaker 1: terrible person, and he ended up we you know, we
30:45
Speaker 1: were trying to buy our company back. And because you know, I,
30:50
Speaker 1: like I said, I grew up like I love the
30:52
Speaker 1: music business. I love what I do. Um, I grew
30:55
Speaker 1: up loving this business. I grew up loving the music.
30:58
Speaker 1: And then it felt like I didn't want to go
31:00
Speaker 1: to work in the morning. I didn't want to go
31:02
Speaker 1: into the office, and I wanted to buy the company back.
31:06
Speaker 1: And so I started this negotiation to buy the company back,
31:10
Speaker 1: and we couldn't reach a deal. And then somebody told me,
31:14
Speaker 1: who works in finance, They said, hold out for a
31:18
Speaker 1: little bit longer, because if you hold out, I don't
31:21
Speaker 1: even think they're gonna be able to make salary. They're
31:24
Speaker 1: not even gonna make your your your uh your paycheck.
31:28
Speaker 1: So I'm walking into a restaurant and I never forget
31:32
Speaker 1: it's on my birthday. I'm walking into a restaurant and
31:36
Speaker 1: my attorney at that time, David Landy, calls me up
31:39
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, are you by yourself? I
31:41
Speaker 1: said no, but I can walk out. I said, what's up?
31:44
Speaker 1: He said, Sanctuary. I just got a facts from Sanctuary
31:48
Speaker 1: and they're suing you and Jay for calls. I said,
31:52
Speaker 1: what's the cause? He said, they don't have a cause.
31:56
Speaker 1: And what we found out was the cause was they
31:58
Speaker 1: couldn't make our page checks and they didn't want to
32:01
Speaker 1: pay us out. And and you know, our business is
32:05
Speaker 1: very rare when anybody in our business gets suit for calls.
32:09
Speaker 1: And to have that on the front cover of a variety,
32:16
Speaker 1: you know, magazine or whatever, and to know that like
32:21
Speaker 1: it just was they just with terrible people, and we
32:24
Speaker 1: ended up being able to you know, they ended up
32:27
Speaker 1: having to pay us out, and you know, I you know,
32:29
Speaker 1: I ended up starting a new company. But it was
32:32
Speaker 1: a valuable lesson and culture and people and that the
32:38
Speaker 1: new company is atom Factory, right, Adom Factory until the audience,
32:41
Speaker 1: Why you named it atom factory? Um? The idea where
32:44
Speaker 1: Adam Factory was you know thinking about it was something
32:48
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, something small but yet powerful. And
32:51
Speaker 1: you know, and and and the name Adam just kind
32:54
Speaker 1: of some summarized it for me, like you know, um,
32:57
Speaker 1: you know, because I never wanted, you know, talent roster
33:01
Speaker 1: with a hundred people on the roster. But how can
33:04
Speaker 1: I build a small company but that still has some
33:08
Speaker 1: gravitizing importance? So how do you sign leading gaga? UM?
33:13
Speaker 1: Got guy I met got got through a guy named
33:16
Speaker 1: Vincent Herbert. And Vincent Um I had known since I
33:19
Speaker 1: was coming up in the business. And he caught me
33:21
Speaker 1: up one day and he said, I got this girl
33:24
Speaker 1: who you have to meet. Um, I'm flying her from
33:27
Speaker 1: New York tomorrow and I'm gonna bring aodbye. And you know,
33:31
Speaker 1: he showed up and she walked in with you know,
33:34
Speaker 1: these big sunglasses on and you know, no pants and
33:38
Speaker 1: fishnet stockings and played hit after hit. Um it was
33:46
Speaker 1: what what I loved. What I loved was it looked
33:50
Speaker 1: like she landed from another planet, but she owned it.
33:55
Speaker 1: And I told Vince, I said, you gotta bring her back, Like,
33:59
Speaker 1: just promise me you'll you'll bring her back. And a
34:01
Speaker 1: few months later he he actually he lived up to
34:04
Speaker 1: that promise and he bought her back. Now, when you
34:07
Speaker 1: signed or did anybody else want her? No, she had
34:10
Speaker 1: she had just gotten dropped from deaf Jam. Um, probably
34:15
Speaker 1: a few months prior toized meeting, she had gotten dropped
34:17
Speaker 1: from deaf Jam. And UM, you know she kind of
34:21
Speaker 1: I went to West Virginia for a while and like
34:24
Speaker 1: spent some time with a grandmother and um. And so
34:28
Speaker 1: she was like, you know, it was one of those
34:30
Speaker 1: things with where you had nothing to lose, like you
34:33
Speaker 1: know I had. I was going through a terrible time financially.
34:37
Speaker 1: You know, this was like two thousand and seven when
34:40
Speaker 1: we met, going like so right, you know, I had
34:43
Speaker 1: invested everything into this new company, even fired me right
34:48
Speaker 1: before that. And um, and you know my wife and I,
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, we were losing our house. You know, her
34:54
Speaker 1: and my mother in law literally pawned their wedding rings
34:58
Speaker 1: to save our house. They Um, you know, our kids
35:01
Speaker 1: were getting kicked, you know, like we couldn't pay school
35:04
Speaker 1: tuition or anything like that. So financially I was completely wiped.
35:10
Speaker 1: Um and when Gaga came, that was like the only
35:15
Speaker 1: thing I had to work on essentially, And she had
35:20
Speaker 1: just gotten dropped. And I think it was one of
35:22
Speaker 1: those things where is you have nothing to lose and
35:26
Speaker 1: like you gotta make it work. And we both really
35:30
Speaker 1: really had to make it work. And what did you
35:32
Speaker 1: tell her to get her to sign with you? You know,
35:34
Speaker 1: I took her to a fancy restaurant called Spaghetti Warehouse.
35:42
Speaker 1: We went to Spaghetti Warehouse, I swear to you, and
35:49
Speaker 1: um and uh, and we just talked. I think we
35:53
Speaker 1: spent like a couple of hours together. And then I
35:56
Speaker 1: remember I think it was I think it was. Wasn't
36:01
Speaker 1: it Layla's birthday? Baby? Yeah, and because I remember it
36:05
Speaker 1: was my daughter's birthday and um, and it's and I
36:09
Speaker 1: had to stop for cupcakes on the way home. So
36:13
Speaker 1: it's literally me and Gaga standing on um little Santa
36:17
Speaker 1: Monica at like Sprinkles cupcakes. Remember it used to be
36:20
Speaker 1: like a line outside the door, and like you know,
36:23
Speaker 1: she's you know, looking like Gaga on like in front
36:28
Speaker 1: at Sprinkles and we're but we hit it off right away,
36:33
Speaker 1: like we like it was we got each other right away.
36:38
Speaker 1: And um, I believed in in her vision and she
36:43
Speaker 1: trusted me with everything and we we you know, and
36:47
Speaker 1: and but a few things like this is what's interesting,
36:55
Speaker 1: Like like a lot of times, you know, you you
36:59
Speaker 1: you hear, you know, the sort of romantic stories about
37:02
Speaker 1: you know, how everything happened or whatever. But you know,
37:06
Speaker 1: Vincent Herbert had just walked away from his record label
37:12
Speaker 1: UM that he had with a guy, Barry Hankerson. So
37:15
Speaker 1: Vincent kind of left his record label behind. So this
37:17
Speaker 1: was his new thing and Goga was the only thing
37:20
Speaker 1: he had. Jimmy was in the middle of his divorce
37:24
Speaker 1: at that time, UM, and you know, Interscope was probably
37:30
Speaker 1: this was probably one of Interscope's tough as years, you know,
37:33
Speaker 1: during during that time period or whatever, and so Jimmy
37:38
Speaker 1: was kind of doing his thing and left us alone
37:42
Speaker 1: on the guy got projects, so basically kind of gave
37:45
Speaker 1: us carte blanche. So we were kind of running doing
37:48
Speaker 1: our own thing. So she was making these records and
37:51
Speaker 1: he was focused on Pussycat Dolls. So every record that
37:55
Speaker 1: she would make, Jimmy was taking the records, like you know,
37:59
Speaker 1: and she would give records to Pussycat Dolls or Rodney Jerkins.
38:03
Speaker 1: I remember one record that you know, uh, she had
38:07
Speaker 1: written with Rodney Jerkins and she wanted it for herself
38:10
Speaker 1: and Rodney's like, no, she's a new artist, I'm not
38:13
Speaker 1: giving her this record. I need to get this record
38:15
Speaker 1: to Britney Spears. Brittany is you know, she's a superstar.
38:18
Speaker 1: We're giving this record the Britney Spears and Goga was pissed.
38:23
Speaker 1: Um the record was called Telephone, so of course, you know,
38:29
Speaker 1: Gaga becomes gay gay and Brittney recorded the record as
38:33
Speaker 1: a demo and she's like, nope, get that record back.
38:36
Speaker 1: And she put Beyonce on that record, and that record became,
38:39
Speaker 1: you know, a number one hit. But she couldn't keep
38:42
Speaker 1: a record because everybody would take it because she wasn't
38:44
Speaker 1: a big star. But I started keeping making sure we
38:47
Speaker 1: could keep those records. So just Dance we kept, which
38:51
Speaker 1: became a number one record. Um, Love Game we kept,
38:55
Speaker 1: became a number one run record. Poker Face we kept
38:58
Speaker 1: that one became a number one record, and um so
39:01
Speaker 1: it just was really fighting and so did a block
39:04
Speaker 1: in and tackling. We'll take a quick break and come
39:11
Speaker 1: back with more of my conversation with Director of Creative
39:13
Speaker 1: Services and Spotify, Troy Carter, recorded live at the Music
39:18
Speaker 1: Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. This week. I'm speaking
39:23
Speaker 1: with Troy Carter. Recently, I interviewed Brian Fogel, who created
39:27
Speaker 1: Oscar winning documentary Chous. Be the first to hear next
39:31
Speaker 1: week's episode by subscribing to the podcast I'm tuned in
39:35
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast or your podcast Apple Troice. While you're there,
39:39
Speaker 1: be sure to rate and review the podcast. Okay, let's
39:43
Speaker 1: get back to my conversation with Troy Carter. Now. The
39:47
Speaker 1: story is she was making dance music at a time
39:50
Speaker 1: dance music was not on the chart or on the radio,
39:53
Speaker 1: and the interscope went to the wall for you. Is
39:56
Speaker 1: that true? Yeah, it was. We were getting a lot
39:59
Speaker 1: of push back from Top forty radio because they thought
40:02
Speaker 1: that it was too electronic because it was sort of
40:05
Speaker 1: four on the floor and read one who was the
40:07
Speaker 1: music producer was just um, you know, he came out
40:11
Speaker 1: of Sweden, so it was you know, sort of Swedish
40:13
Speaker 1: sound at that time. And we didn't take no for
40:17
Speaker 1: an answer, but neither did Brenda Romano, who was working
40:21
Speaker 1: Top forty radio at that time, and so she just
40:24
Speaker 1: kept knocking on those doors. And but the Internet and
40:29
Speaker 1: being able to kind of build that story and come
40:32
Speaker 1: back to radio was really important. So we were building
40:35
Speaker 1: audiences um on YouTube and you know, and building this
40:40
Speaker 1: sort of international following on YouTube. We were doing the
40:44
Speaker 1: same thing on Twitter, We were doing the same thing,
40:46
Speaker 1: um on a couple other platforms. And then NAT started
40:50
Speaker 1: translating into call out at radio, so they would put
40:53
Speaker 1: the record on and kids already knew the record. You know,
40:56
Speaker 1: the radio was late at that time because kids were
40:58
Speaker 1: already familiar with the sort of what's happening with Spotify now.
41:02
Speaker 1: But saving that for a little bit later. Okay, Gaga
41:06
Speaker 1: blows up. It must be an amazing learning experience for you. Yeah,
41:12
Speaker 1: you know, it's It's what I realized was, you know,
41:15
Speaker 1: it's levels you know, and the business and its levels
41:19
Speaker 1: in life. You know, um, because with Eve, Eve had
41:22
Speaker 1: a wildly successful career for hip hop artists, you know,
41:29
Speaker 1: and and even you know, we did her TV show
41:31
Speaker 1: and it lasted for you know, a few years, but
41:34
Speaker 1: you know that was primarily you know, it was African
41:37
Speaker 1: American audiences that was consuming you know, the the TV show.
41:42
Speaker 1: So we weren't we didn't have that level of pop
41:45
Speaker 1: exposure at at at that time. So and I had
41:49
Speaker 1: glimpses of it through Sanctuary because Destiny's Child was you know,
41:53
Speaker 1: managed by Sanctuary and a few other pop acts. But
41:56
Speaker 1: I wasn't personally exposed to it. So with Gaga, only
42:00
Speaker 1: had experience as a hip hop manager, so I kind
42:04
Speaker 1: of managed her like a hip hop act. So we
42:06
Speaker 1: were doing three shows a night. Um, you know, the
42:10
Speaker 1: sound was terrible half the time. You know, you know rappers,
42:13
Speaker 1: you know they're holding the micro like this or whatever,
42:15
Speaker 1: and um, so we didn't know sound, and um, you know,
42:19
Speaker 1: Jimmy Iveen. She was opening for New Kids on the Block.
42:23
Speaker 1: And I remember Jimmy pulling me to the side after
42:25
Speaker 1: the first show at Staples Center and he said, the
42:29
Speaker 1: show was great, sound was terrible. This is what you
42:32
Speaker 1: need to do to fix the sound. You know, this
42:35
Speaker 1: is the guy you need to call to fix the sound.
42:37
Speaker 1: And he taught me, you know, sort of sonically with
42:41
Speaker 1: pop acts as supposed to sound like. And then I
42:44
Speaker 1: met Arthur Fogel and Michael Rapino and they taught me
42:48
Speaker 1: what pop acts as supposed to tour like. You know,
42:51
Speaker 1: So it was it was I was I felt like
42:53
Speaker 1: I was in school learning a lot of this stuff.
42:56
Speaker 1: So where I knew this sort of basic um fundamentals
43:01
Speaker 1: of protect your client with everything you have, and so
43:07
Speaker 1: my instincts were worked, you know, in terms of of
43:11
Speaker 1: protecting a client, but in terms of global touring and
43:16
Speaker 1: making and building a global superstar. I've gone to countries
43:20
Speaker 1: I had never gone to, and you know, it just
43:23
Speaker 1: was a whole new experience. And at any time in
43:26
Speaker 1: the height of her career did another manager try to
43:28
Speaker 1: steal your act all the time? You know, I remember
43:31
Speaker 1: I remember getting a call from um just this is
43:35
Speaker 1: as she was really this is as the first single
43:38
Speaker 1: was taken off, and her lawyer, Um, her first lawyer,
43:43
Speaker 1: called up and and said, um, uh, I'm not even
43:50
Speaker 1: gonna mention him. Uh. Big, big, big manager calls calls
43:55
Speaker 1: up and he wants to take a meeting uh with
43:58
Speaker 1: with with Uh. This is why I love her. By
44:01
Speaker 1: the way, big manager called up the lawyer tried to
44:06
Speaker 1: set the meeting up and and like around me and
44:12
Speaker 1: she called me. She called me and she said fire
44:20
Speaker 1: him the lawyer. Yeah, that's great. But eventually it does
44:25
Speaker 1: end with Stephanie. Now we've talked about that. But for
44:29
Speaker 1: people who don't know the story in retrospect, I know
44:32
Speaker 1: there was an issue she had to do boyfriend, etcetera.
44:34
Speaker 1: Did you see it coming? No, you know, I don't
44:37
Speaker 1: think you ever see that ce ce ce that type
44:41
Speaker 1: of thing coming and um and you know, and and
44:44
Speaker 1: of course you know I can't get into any of
44:47
Speaker 1: the specifics or anything like that, you know, Um, but
44:51
Speaker 1: and I and I don't want to sit here and
44:54
Speaker 1: bullsit you and and and you know, say any sort
44:57
Speaker 1: of fake story. But you know the reality is, you know,
45:01
Speaker 1: she and I had an incredible relationship, like and even
45:06
Speaker 1: to this day, I still I still love her despite
45:08
Speaker 1: anything that's happened with her. Uh No, we don't we
45:11
Speaker 1: know contact with her right now. And um, but you know,
45:15
Speaker 1: I think it's hard to go through that sort of
45:21
Speaker 1: period of time and and where you're pretty much living
45:24
Speaker 1: on a bus together. You know, you're traveling the world together,
45:28
Speaker 1: you know, um, just down to like you know, birth
45:32
Speaker 1: of kids and you know everything. So where and and
45:38
Speaker 1: it's not like I had a big roster, you know,
45:41
Speaker 1: for the first when I was managing Goga, I think
45:43
Speaker 1: for the at least for the first couple of years,
45:46
Speaker 1: she was really the only client that I was that
45:48
Speaker 1: I was focused on. So she and I were really tight,
45:51
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't so when when it when it comes,
45:58
Speaker 1: I don't think you ever prepared for word, you know,
46:00
Speaker 1: so and and it's emotional. You go through the sort
46:04
Speaker 1: of the emotions of hurt and anger, and and and
46:09
Speaker 1: and everything else or whatever. But the reality is, you know,
46:12
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I wouldn't give it back for the world
46:15
Speaker 1: because I think it was an incredible experience. She helped
46:19
Speaker 1: my career just as much as I helped her career.
46:21
Speaker 1: We both came up in and and and the business
46:24
Speaker 1: together and m and life happens, man like you know,
46:29
Speaker 1: life life happening. Now since you've managed her, stop manager,
46:33
Speaker 1: she has not had a hit. She's had very successful
46:37
Speaker 1: road business. First with Tony Bennet, she's brought If you
46:40
Speaker 1: were to manage her again, what do you think she
46:43
Speaker 1: should do to sustain and build her career. The The
46:48
Speaker 1: good thing is, you know we're talking about and I'm
46:51
Speaker 1: not just saying this, she's probably one of the most
46:57
Speaker 1: and when I say one of the most, I'm not
46:59
Speaker 1: even saying broadly. I'm talking, you know, top five most
47:03
Speaker 1: talented artists and in the business. And it's very hard,
47:12
Speaker 1: you know, probably you know, when you look at her
47:15
Speaker 1: live show, it's probably only a couple of artists you
47:20
Speaker 1: know that that is up on that level in terms
47:23
Speaker 1: of live live concert performances, playing like piano is you know,
47:30
Speaker 1: it's vocalists like you know, performance artists, top top top, top,
47:34
Speaker 1: top level find it's just getting the records. That's all
47:40
Speaker 1: it boils down to. It's like you know, if, if,
47:43
Speaker 1: who who are you collaborating with and and the reality
47:47
Speaker 1: is finding making making great records with superstars is hard
47:58
Speaker 1: and it's a villain because you have to have incredibly
48:05
Speaker 1: strong producers in the room who can push back. You
48:12
Speaker 1: have to have an incredibly strong person at the top
48:16
Speaker 1: of that record label because Jimmy, basically Jimmy was tough,
48:21
Speaker 1: Like you know, you bring records in. Jimmy's a record producer,
48:24
Speaker 1: so Jimmy's gonna tell you how that record sounds or whatever.
48:28
Speaker 1: Vincent was a record producer and a songwriter, so Vince
48:31
Speaker 1: is gonna tell you how to how that record sounds
48:33
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so it's a filter that it goes through.
48:37
Speaker 1: So it's not just the people in the room that
48:38
Speaker 1: are that are collaborating and you put the record out,
48:41
Speaker 1: you gotta beat you gotta beat that record up, and
48:44
Speaker 1: you gotta be tough on tough on that record. But
48:46
Speaker 1: I think she I'm not worried about her. To be
48:49
Speaker 1: honest with you, it's like, you know, artists like she
48:53
Speaker 1: She's just one of those artists. She's gonna be around
48:56
Speaker 1: for fifty years. Certainly. See was like that. So while
49:01
Speaker 1: she's at the peak of her success, you meet a
49:04
Speaker 1: guy who guides you into the investment tech world. Can
49:09
Speaker 1: you tell the simple multitude about that? Yeah, it was um.
49:13
Speaker 1: You know, we were doing we were doing a lot
49:14
Speaker 1: of experimenting, um with social media and I and I've
49:18
Speaker 1: always been curious around other businesses, you know, so that's
49:23
Speaker 1: been a thing where I just want to learn everything
49:26
Speaker 1: I can about what you do. Like so if I'm curious,
49:29
Speaker 1: I'm going down the rabbit hole. And um, and we started.
49:34
Speaker 1: I remember I got invited to do a day trip
49:38
Speaker 1: to Silicon Valley and I never gone to the valley before,
49:42
Speaker 1: and never gone to Palo Altoo before. And um, and
49:45
Speaker 1: I flew in in the morning and my first meeting
49:48
Speaker 1: was with I think it was David simmon off from Yahoo,
49:52
Speaker 1: a like at a coffee shop at like eight o'clock
49:55
Speaker 1: in the morning, and you know, and just he's telling
49:58
Speaker 1: me about the valley and you know, and just his
50:01
Speaker 1: history and everything and very very interesting. And then my
50:05
Speaker 1: second meeting was at Palentteer and UM and if you
50:10
Speaker 1: if if Palanteer is probably the most sophisticated technology company
50:17
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and it was founded by a guy
50:21
Speaker 1: named Joe Lonsdale who was Peter Tiels like you know protege,
50:27
Speaker 1: you know, as Peter was coming out of PayPal, and
50:30
Speaker 1: you know, I go into their offices and it's like
50:33
Speaker 1: the TV show twenty four And what Palentteer basically does
50:37
Speaker 1: is they track um, terroristic algorithms on the internet. So
50:44
Speaker 1: and so when after nine eleven, when the FBI was
50:49
Speaker 1: building air thing and c i A was building an
50:52
Speaker 1: air thing, the d A was building air thing, none
50:55
Speaker 1: of the technology talked to each other and you know,
50:59
Speaker 1: and really worked in a way, and Palatiner figured it out.
51:03
Speaker 1: So I'm seeing this with my own I'm like, am
51:06
Speaker 1: I even you know, it's like, you know, some serious stuff.
51:09
Speaker 1: And then we went to Facebook and all of these
51:12
Speaker 1: companies and then and that night they threw me a
51:14
Speaker 1: barbecue at Joe Linsdale's house and UM, and I'm talking
51:19
Speaker 1: to all of these guys and you know, people could
51:22
Speaker 1: barely look you in the face and you know, there's
51:24
Speaker 1: like as Berger's Convention. I told my wife, I'm like,
51:31
Speaker 1: I'm doing this wrong in l A right now, and
51:34
Speaker 1: like it's like everybody's driving I'm driving a Rolls Royce
51:37
Speaker 1: and these billionaires are driving prius Is and uh and
51:40
Speaker 1: this is revenge in the nerds and the nerds one
51:43
Speaker 1: big and um. And then they started inviting me into
51:49
Speaker 1: into deals and said, you know, you want to invest here,
51:52
Speaker 1: And I started investing here and then investing there. Look
52:00
Speaker 1: it into my conversation with director of Creative Services at Spotify,
52:03
Speaker 1: Troy Carter, recorded live at the Music Media Summit in
52:06
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara, California. I hope you're enjoying listening to this
52:12
Speaker 1: episode of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want
52:15
Speaker 1: to listen to sound bites from the interviews and see
52:17
Speaker 1: some of my guests, check it out. It at tuned
52:20
Speaker 1: in on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Now we're of my
52:23
Speaker 1: conversation with the director of Creative Services at Spotify, Troy Carter,
52:27
Speaker 1: on The Bob Left Sets Podcast. You were pretty much
52:30
Speaker 1: the first person, certainly in the music business who was
52:33
Speaker 1: investing you know what, because I went in and I
52:38
Speaker 1: would probably go to the valley at least twice a week.
52:43
Speaker 1: So I would be in l A three days a week,
52:47
Speaker 1: and I'd be in San Francisco and Palo Alto two
52:49
Speaker 1: days a week, and I would start parking myself and
52:53
Speaker 1: people's offices and setting up shop in their offices during
52:56
Speaker 1: the day. And um, and then when I remembered it
53:00
Speaker 1: was um. One of the guys I met was it
53:02
Speaker 1: was a guy named Shervin Pishevar and Shervin Um. He
53:08
Speaker 1: had just sold his business and he started um investing
53:11
Speaker 1: at a firm called Menlo. And he caught me up
53:14
Speaker 1: and he said, I want to do this thing like
53:16
Speaker 1: this sort of uh, we're gonna be like this, this
53:18
Speaker 1: sort of Jedi investment group, and I just want you
53:21
Speaker 1: to be one of the Jedies. And um, and he
53:24
Speaker 1: caught me up about I think Warby Parker was one
53:28
Speaker 1: of the Was it the first deal that Shervin Um
53:30
Speaker 1: asked me about? And then um the second deal was
53:35
Speaker 1: was uber. But then he said, well, you know I
53:37
Speaker 1: want to do. I want to start putting l A
53:39
Speaker 1: people into into the deals. Can you help introduce me
53:43
Speaker 1: to some people in in l A? And UM, so
53:46
Speaker 1: I started introducing them to to some people in l A.
53:49
Speaker 1: And we put some l A people into the Uber
53:51
Speaker 1: deal and then kind of started building this thing that
53:54
Speaker 1: sort of bridge between San Francisco and and in l A.
53:58
Speaker 1: Did you get compensated were establishing those relationships? Uh, just
54:02
Speaker 1: as an investor. So so just for my my my
54:06
Speaker 1: compensation was Shervan would put me into people would put
54:13
Speaker 1: me into more deals, and then the way. And this
54:16
Speaker 1: is the other thing I loved about the valley that
54:18
Speaker 1: was so different from the music business. The music business
54:22
Speaker 1: is zero sum. It's like some in order for you
54:26
Speaker 1: to win, somebody has to lose. And then when and
54:30
Speaker 1: then the structure of a record label, um, whenever there's
54:34
Speaker 1: sort of a windfall, only the people at the very
54:37
Speaker 1: very top of the pyramid get get wealthy and nobody
54:41
Speaker 1: else gets gets wealthy essentially, and um and in technology
54:46
Speaker 1: and an investment, the way it works is the opposite,
54:49
Speaker 1: because you you you want the healthiest syndicate around the
54:54
Speaker 1: deal so that the entrepreneur and the company has the
54:57
Speaker 1: best chance of success. So if I know that this
55:04
Speaker 1: person here and this person here and this person here
55:07
Speaker 1: could be very helpful, I want them, then I want
55:10
Speaker 1: them in the deal because I'm gonna do better. And
55:13
Speaker 1: so that's how that's how this sort of is a
55:15
Speaker 1: network effect. So like you know, Rocking, I would put
55:19
Speaker 1: rock Nation into deals, then they would put me into deals. Um,
55:23
Speaker 1: you know, Scooter and I start putting each other into deals. Gayo,
55:26
Speaker 1: Siri and I started putting each other into deals. Um,
55:30
Speaker 1: you know. I remember is funny enough one of our companies,
55:33
Speaker 1: one of the first companies I invested in UM. It
55:36
Speaker 1: was a company called zim Ride that came to my
55:38
Speaker 1: office and we invested and they would calm work out
55:43
Speaker 1: of our offices in l A and then UM after
55:47
Speaker 1: Uber launch, the founder caught me up and he's and
55:51
Speaker 1: he said, I want to see can you connect me
55:53
Speaker 1: with Live Nation because they have these festivals and we
55:56
Speaker 1: have this our car pooling business. I want to see
55:58
Speaker 1: if we can car pool people back and forth. So
56:01
Speaker 1: I called up microL Rapino. UM, Michael was great. He
56:05
Speaker 1: did the deal, and Michael put you know, put some
56:08
Speaker 1: money into the company. And fast forward, that company went
56:11
Speaker 1: from zim Ride to become in Lift. So you know,
56:14
Speaker 1: and this is eight years ago. So in terms of
56:17
Speaker 1: that that sort of value at that particular time, seven
56:21
Speaker 1: or eight years ago and when it becomes now that's
56:24
Speaker 1: how you That's so when you say the compensation, is
56:27
Speaker 1: that sort of flow that that that that happens. But
56:30
Speaker 1: I'm not asking anybody for money or anything in return.
56:33
Speaker 1: In your office, you have a whole wall of the
56:36
Speaker 1: companies you've invested in at this point in time. How
56:39
Speaker 1: many companies do you think you've invested in? Um is
56:41
Speaker 1: probably about a hundred and twenty. And of a hundred
56:45
Speaker 1: and twenty, how many went completely bust? Uh, completely bust?
56:50
Speaker 1: Probably thirty or forty? Probably third about thirty I would say,
56:56
Speaker 1: are completely bust? How many winners? Probably forty? I would
57:04
Speaker 1: put him in in and a third, a third and
57:07
Speaker 1: a third. You got you got winner, you got winners,
57:12
Speaker 1: neutral and and dogs. Okay, so you're doing this. You're
57:18
Speaker 1: done with Gaga and then he's like record label. I
57:20
Speaker 1: might just have a record label, right, and then you
57:23
Speaker 1: have Making Trainer. Okay. The interesting thing from the outside observer,
57:27
Speaker 1: when you're involved with Making Trainer, she's everywhere and successful,
57:32
Speaker 1: and since you've been gone, she has not achieved that
57:35
Speaker 1: level of success, showing that your ability. But at what
57:38
Speaker 1: point do you you were an investor in Spotify, At
57:41
Speaker 1: what point do you wake up and say I'm gonna
57:43
Speaker 1: cross the street from being a manager to working for Spotify.
57:47
Speaker 1: So I invested in Spotify, and I think it was
57:51
Speaker 1: like two thousand and eleven, two thousand eleven, and UM
57:55
Speaker 1: and Daniel and I we we ended up. We we
58:01
Speaker 1: didn't initially meet when I invested, and then I think
58:04
Speaker 1: it had to be about six or seven months later.
58:08
Speaker 1: UM as a group called called Charity Water out of
58:11
Speaker 1: New York, a guy named Scott Harrison. He put together
58:14
Speaker 1: a group of probably fifteen or twenty founders to go
58:19
Speaker 1: to spend a week and a half in Ethiopia and
58:22
Speaker 1: UM and basically you build UM wells and different villages
58:28
Speaker 1: through throughout Ethiopia. And Daniel was on that trip. And
58:34
Speaker 1: when you when you're in uh and and suv for
58:40
Speaker 1: four hours with somebody going through villages and you know
58:45
Speaker 1: you're you're seeing you know some you know, it's it's
58:49
Speaker 1: it's incredible. It is very emotional, you know, kind of
58:53
Speaker 1: visiting these different places like just in but like if
58:58
Speaker 1: not even in a sad way, it's like the people
59:02
Speaker 1: they are fantastic. But he and I didn't meet. Sitting
59:06
Speaker 1: across the desk from each other. And I think that
59:10
Speaker 1: connected us in a way where we got to know
59:12
Speaker 1: each other personally before we did any sort of business together.
59:17
Speaker 1: And so when Spotify was, you know, had come to America,
59:22
Speaker 1: I would, you know, he and I would talk strategy,
59:25
Speaker 1: whether it was people who were holding back albums from
59:28
Speaker 1: you know, from the from the service, you know, some
59:31
Speaker 1: communication strategy, you know, some introductions to managers and things
59:36
Speaker 1: like that. But every time he would come to l A,
59:38
Speaker 1: he and I would spend a bunch of time together.
59:40
Speaker 1: And he had just become one of my favorite, my
59:43
Speaker 1: favorite people. And then you know, a couple of years ago,
59:46
Speaker 1: you know, I was, I was so burned out from
59:50
Speaker 1: being a manager. And I've done it. I've done it
59:53
Speaker 1: for seventeen years and um and like you said, you know,
59:57
Speaker 1: Megan Trainer, Charlie Pooth and a few other clients you
1:00:00
Speaker 1: know where like my my the last clients on the roster.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: And I saw, you know, I get I get signs
1:00:07
Speaker 1: in my life. It's almost like gott to pull the
1:00:10
Speaker 1: rug up from under me sometimes, like you know, but
1:00:13
Speaker 1: you know, if if I don't want to make the
1:00:14
Speaker 1: decision myself, and I saw I started to see some
1:00:19
Speaker 1: of the cracks and Adam Factory's business. UM I started
1:00:23
Speaker 1: to look at the future of like the management business
1:00:26
Speaker 1: for myself. And I I wasn't getting up in the
1:00:29
Speaker 1: morning excited. Um and you know, to to the amount
1:00:37
Speaker 1: of I don't I don't phone it in, Like I
1:00:42
Speaker 1: just don't have the thing where I can phone it in.
1:00:44
Speaker 1: And if I'm working for a client, I'm putting my
1:00:49
Speaker 1: soul into it. And when you put your soul into something,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: and you know, you get punched in the gut and
1:00:56
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you're not appreciated, and you know,
1:00:59
Speaker 1: it's like you know sometimes you know some clients, you
1:01:03
Speaker 1: know you you you got to drag them across the
1:01:05
Speaker 1: finish line and you gotta explain to him why should
1:01:09
Speaker 1: you shouldn't cancel a show, or you should you should
1:01:12
Speaker 1: show up one time, or you should do that. I
1:01:15
Speaker 1: just was ready to do something different. And Daniel and
1:01:18
Speaker 1: I started having these conversations. And I remember I was
1:01:21
Speaker 1: sitting at the Soho house. He and I were working
1:01:24
Speaker 1: on a project together. Um I was. I was testing
1:01:27
Speaker 1: something out for him on on the Spotify platform, and
1:01:31
Speaker 1: we were at the Soho house and we started talking
1:01:35
Speaker 1: about what this sort of creator services thing would look
1:01:39
Speaker 1: would look like, you know, sort of from the outside end.
1:01:43
Speaker 1: And um, and we started having one of those what
1:01:47
Speaker 1: ifs conversations and I remember, you know, I talked to
1:01:53
Speaker 1: my wife about it. I got cold feet. Like I
1:01:55
Speaker 1: had agreed to it, then I got cold feet and
1:01:58
Speaker 1: I told him, you know, I don't think I'm gonna
1:01:59
Speaker 1: do it. And you know, we went back and forth
1:02:02
Speaker 1: and no exaggeration. Within a six week period, I had
1:02:07
Speaker 1: wound you know, I wound down Atom Factory and was
1:02:13
Speaker 1: in Spotify about six six I've lived with you through
1:02:16
Speaker 1: a lot of challenges is Spotify, but now streaming is one.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: Revenues are up. What you are the major challenges you're
1:02:23
Speaker 1: facing now? Um. You know, I think so you know
1:02:28
Speaker 1: this the streaming business. I think we're still in its
1:02:31
Speaker 1: infancy right now. So you know, I think you have
1:02:34
Speaker 1: some markets that are mature, like Sweden's very like a
1:02:38
Speaker 1: very mature market. Um. America to me is still a
1:02:43
Speaker 1: young streaming market. UM. You look at places like India
1:02:47
Speaker 1: that's still you know, young, and what's gonna happen in
1:02:50
Speaker 1: and so to Africa. UM, and you know some of
1:02:53
Speaker 1: the other markets as well. I think it's I think
1:02:58
Speaker 1: in terms, I think what we this is more of
1:03:01
Speaker 1: an industry thing. It's sort of defining as companies what
1:03:10
Speaker 1: our relationship is with the rest of the with with
1:03:14
Speaker 1: the rest of the industry, because I, you know, I
1:03:16
Speaker 1: definitely foresee you know what, what what all of our
1:03:22
Speaker 1: roles are right now are gonna look much much different
1:03:26
Speaker 1: over the next ten years, meaning what it is to
1:03:30
Speaker 1: be a record label, what it is to be a
1:03:32
Speaker 1: talent manager, what it means to be a promoter, you know,
1:03:36
Speaker 1: and what it means to be an artist by the way,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: so all of this is gonna look different. So I
1:03:42
Speaker 1: think just the thing is being able to um get
1:03:48
Speaker 1: who gets to the future, Who gets to the future
1:03:51
Speaker 1: the fastest? Okay, um I got a number of questions.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: Let me think of the one. Let's go to the
1:03:59
Speaker 1: one that everybody is concerned about. Playlists. What are we
1:04:02
Speaker 1: here on the street. We hear the individual playlist or
1:04:06
Speaker 1: is being squeezed out by the major labels. We hear that,
1:04:10
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that when you say that
1:04:11
Speaker 1: they were saying that, you know that it's the major
1:04:14
Speaker 1: label playlists who are major labels playlists and the Spotify
1:04:18
Speaker 1: playlists are getting most of the streams, and that the
1:04:22
Speaker 1: the major labels have power on Spotify akin to their
1:04:27
Speaker 1: power at radio with their promotion teams. I don't, I don't.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: I don't agree at all, because you know, I think
1:04:34
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that this is my point. That is
1:04:36
Speaker 1: what people say, yeah, yeah, and which I which I don't,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: I don't agree, And um, you know, and I talked
1:04:41
Speaker 1: to the indie labels all the time, and you know,
1:04:44
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because you know, the indies like people
1:04:47
Speaker 1: that have this sort of big narrative out there. And
1:04:51
Speaker 1: then you know, and then I asked him a simple question,
1:04:55
Speaker 1: are the indie labels doing better, you know now that
1:04:57
Speaker 1: that Spotify is here? And then they were but four
1:05:00
Speaker 1: and and uh unanimously the answers, yes, you know, because
1:05:04
Speaker 1: the Indians are doing are doing much better now, Um,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: I think. And as as far as playlists are concerned,
1:05:12
Speaker 1: so just we we have forty playlists owned and operated
1:05:18
Speaker 1: by Spotify, all different types of niche like niche playlists
1:05:24
Speaker 1: as well, So we do have the sort of flagships
1:05:28
Speaker 1: to you know, today's top pits, Hot Country, Viva Latino, Rap,
1:05:32
Speaker 1: Caviare R and B like all of those flagships, But
1:05:36
Speaker 1: then you've got a ton of other sort of mid
1:05:39
Speaker 1: tier and feeder playlists that kind of feed up into them.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: For most of the artists that that that we're talking about,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: we're talking about artists who will who would never get
1:05:52
Speaker 1: on radio. By the way, like we know how top
1:05:55
Speaker 1: forty works, You better have a huge budget if you
1:05:58
Speaker 1: want to get if you want to a can record
1:06:00
Speaker 1: all formats, be prepared to have a half a half
1:06:03
Speaker 1: a million dollars to to go all formats to get
1:06:06
Speaker 1: a top ten record at radio UM and so, and
1:06:10
Speaker 1: you need you need a real system to be to
1:06:12
Speaker 1: be able to be able to to to to do that,
1:06:15
Speaker 1: and then you have to have a certain type of
1:06:17
Speaker 1: record with a certain type of sound. And so if
1:06:20
Speaker 1: you're looking at top forties specifically, you figure it's let's
1:06:26
Speaker 1: call it twenty five slots, and then let's call it
1:06:30
Speaker 1: twenty artists that are gonna fulfill those those twenty those
1:06:34
Speaker 1: twenty slots. And you know, because of the artists who
1:06:36
Speaker 1: are gonna have multiple songs and those slots, so you
1:06:39
Speaker 1: got uh uh one tenth of a percent, and then
1:06:45
Speaker 1: you got the one percent, and you know then then
1:06:47
Speaker 1: then it kind of breaks down from there. So I
1:06:50
Speaker 1: think the sort of ecosystem of our playlist gives a
1:06:54
Speaker 1: fair shot to the entire industry at that at that point.
1:06:58
Speaker 1: And what what The one thing I like, what I
1:07:01
Speaker 1: love about you know, Spotify is that people can't figure
1:07:06
Speaker 1: it out. You can't. It's no, it's no hype. So
1:07:11
Speaker 1: it's not you can't come in there and and and
1:07:14
Speaker 1: sort of hype your record to get us to put
1:07:17
Speaker 1: it on on on on a playlist. The data doesn't lie,
1:07:22
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, okay, but if you talk
1:07:24
Speaker 1: to like Daniel Glass, he comes to l A, you'll
1:07:26
Speaker 1: hang out at Apple Music, it'll go to Spotify. To
1:07:28
Speaker 1: what degree is the personal relationship important? Per Personal relationships
1:07:33
Speaker 1: are always going to be important, right, but they're only
1:07:35
Speaker 1: gonna be important to a certain extent because as much
1:07:40
Speaker 1: as I love Daniel, and if Daniel doesn't walk in
1:07:43
Speaker 1: the door with a great record, Daniel's record is gonna
1:07:46
Speaker 1: be treated like everybody else's record essentially lucky enough, you know,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: Daniel walks in with Jade Bird and she becomes one
1:07:53
Speaker 1: of my favorite artists and we're carrying a jay Bird
1:07:56
Speaker 1: flag throughout throughout the building or whatever. But would that
1:07:59
Speaker 1: being said, a lot of the stuff that major labels
1:08:04
Speaker 1: are signing right now aren't coming through any label. They're
1:08:08
Speaker 1: coming through Spotify. So it's we were it's between our editors,
1:08:14
Speaker 1: um sort of looking at blogs, living on SoundCloud, you know,
1:08:18
Speaker 1: sort of digging in the crates, kind of finding new
1:08:21
Speaker 1: stuff because they want to discover things. I get calls
1:08:24
Speaker 1: from our editors basically saying, um, hey, hey, Troy, I
1:08:28
Speaker 1: found this record. Um, we gotta they gotta figure out
1:08:32
Speaker 1: to aggregator to put it through because there's no record label,
1:08:35
Speaker 1: and then this act will end up with fifty million
1:08:38
Speaker 1: streams and they'll end up with a record deal and
1:08:40
Speaker 1: then the labels that you know are are signing them.
1:08:43
Speaker 1: So that's not a lot of the rap caviare stuff
1:08:46
Speaker 1: is with stuff that our editors found. Even on the
1:08:49
Speaker 1: pop side, Mike Mike Baggage finds things and then he
1:08:54
Speaker 1: puts it into the pop playlist and then they end
1:08:57
Speaker 1: up getting signed. So if we what do you see
1:09:01
Speaker 1: the future? Because we can go on Spotify right now,
1:09:04
Speaker 1: we can see the Spotify Top fifty changes every day.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: We can see the number of streams and except for
1:09:09
Speaker 1: the Superstar of Superstars with one single radio is way behind.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: They won't add multiple tracks, they're off the months behind.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: What do you foresee the future there? You know, I
1:09:20
Speaker 1: think I think radio's in trouble, you know readio radio
1:09:23
Speaker 1: as we know, it's in trouble, and I think it's
1:09:25
Speaker 1: inevitable because the only way from radio that you make
1:09:31
Speaker 1: your business better is to build the uh an experience.
1:09:37
Speaker 1: That's worse for the consumer, meaning you know, you gotta
1:09:41
Speaker 1: put more ads into and into into the product. So
1:09:45
Speaker 1: you know, I even know when if I go and
1:09:47
Speaker 1: out and I turn on radio, is a high probability
1:09:50
Speaker 1: that is going to be commercials on so soon as
1:09:52
Speaker 1: soon as I turn it on. So that's one sort
1:09:54
Speaker 1: of friction point, you know, out of the gate. Then
1:09:57
Speaker 1: the second friction point is radio relies so much on
1:10:01
Speaker 1: research because they want to do they need to de
1:10:04
Speaker 1: risk it or whatever. So you know, it's not like
1:10:07
Speaker 1: when uh DJs and programmers could make independent decisions before
1:10:13
Speaker 1: and they felt something and they could put it in,
1:10:15
Speaker 1: they could put it in right away. A lot of
1:10:17
Speaker 1: the radio stations are looking at Spotify data and kind
1:10:20
Speaker 1: of using that to decide which which records they're they're
1:10:23
Speaker 1: gonna put in. So by the time they hear that
1:10:27
Speaker 1: that record is old on Spotify. So you know, So
1:10:30
Speaker 1: for my kids who get in the car and they're
1:10:34
Speaker 1: you know, going on Spotify and YouTube to kind of
1:10:36
Speaker 1: consume their music, if they turn on Top forty radio,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: whatever they're hearing is already months old by that time.
1:10:42
Speaker 1: So I think you lose a consumer at that point,
1:10:45
Speaker 1: or it starts feeling like, um, almost like an adult
1:10:49
Speaker 1: Top forty because you know, you're you're planning old music.
1:10:53
Speaker 1: So I think that's a big I think this is
1:10:55
Speaker 1: a gap. And for us, we can't you know, and
1:11:00
Speaker 1: think this is a big you know sort of gap
1:11:02
Speaker 1: and friction point where you know, Spotify and and and
1:11:06
Speaker 1: frontline record labels, we can't keep your record in while
1:11:10
Speaker 1: you're going for your radio plan because our consumer has
1:11:13
Speaker 1: already moved on to your second or third single by
1:11:17
Speaker 1: the time you know you're getting added at at radio.
1:11:20
Speaker 1: So you know. So I think that's the part that
1:11:24
Speaker 1: from an industry perspective, I think on the label side,
1:11:27
Speaker 1: they have to figure out what's what's gonna be, what's
1:11:30
Speaker 1: important to you, you know, being current with the consumers
1:11:34
Speaker 1: and being able to have you know, songs within the
1:11:36
Speaker 1: within these playlists or you know, getting added at top forty.
1:11:41
Speaker 1: So we'll see how to and if we go on
1:11:43
Speaker 1: the US Top fifty, it is very much urban slash
1:11:47
Speaker 1: hip hop. So the question that's obviously illustrating demand, but
1:11:51
Speaker 1: to what degree does Spotify have a responsibility to give
1:11:57
Speaker 1: attention to other formats? Let me just say for myself,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: let me give an experience. I want to know what's
1:12:02
Speaker 1: going on, So I'll go to the Spotify Top fifty.
1:12:04
Speaker 1: I'll listen. Then if I think of all the other genres, country, electronic,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work and there are a lot
1:12:10
Speaker 1: of acts today forget that you people don't teem to
1:12:13
Speaker 1: understand that you get paid based on whether people stream
1:12:15
Speaker 1: you or not. But is is are we purely speaking
1:12:19
Speaker 1: to the public's demand or is there any way or
1:12:23
Speaker 1: is there responsibility for Spotify to boost other formats? So so,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: and as a really really really good question, so where
1:12:32
Speaker 1: um so, But so we'll separate it for a second.
1:12:35
Speaker 1: So when you look at the top fifty, that's just demand, right,
1:12:38
Speaker 1: So that is that is the pulse of what people
1:12:43
Speaker 1: on our platform are are actually listening to. Because the
1:12:47
Speaker 1: difference with radio is push, the difference with Spotify is
1:12:51
Speaker 1: poll So that is consumers actually listening to that to
1:12:55
Speaker 1: that music because they can easily skip through it, right,
1:12:58
Speaker 1: So this is what this is. He so urban hip
1:13:01
Speaker 1: hop is really top forty right now in terms is
1:13:05
Speaker 1: pop music in terms of popularity UM if you look
1:13:09
Speaker 1: at you know, we talked last week we announced UM
1:13:12
Speaker 1: the new the new free app on on Spotify, and
1:13:16
Speaker 1: a lot of what we talked about was personalization because
1:13:20
Speaker 1: when the beauty of the beauty of of of data
1:13:24
Speaker 1: is being able to give everybody in this room or
1:13:27
Speaker 1: personalized experience. So and and that's that that was a
1:13:31
Speaker 1: that's a big friction point because if you're a country
1:13:34
Speaker 1: music fan and you show up and the first thing
1:13:38
Speaker 1: you see is is me goes, you know, and in
1:13:40
Speaker 1: the platform, you might churn out at that point, or
1:13:43
Speaker 1: if you can't, or if you feel sort of it's
1:13:46
Speaker 1: almost like you're walking into a room and not feeling welcome,
1:13:50
Speaker 1: you know, So how do you make people feel welcome
1:13:53
Speaker 1: when they walk into that room. So a lot of
1:13:55
Speaker 1: the stuff that we're working on right now is built
1:13:57
Speaker 1: around personalization. So I think what what what people see
1:14:01
Speaker 1: in the in the new free app from the onboarding
1:14:04
Speaker 1: we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, allow you to tell
1:14:06
Speaker 1: us about yourself and and so when you come to Spotify,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: how do we give you a personalized experience? And then um,
1:14:14
Speaker 1: but you know, it's almost like the personalized experience would
1:14:19
Speaker 1: be to a the A story and the B story
1:14:22
Speaker 1: is more to shared experience, you know. And I think
1:14:24
Speaker 1: right now it's a little bit of the opposite where
1:14:27
Speaker 1: it was in the past. It was the opposite where
1:14:30
Speaker 1: it was the shared story was for was out in front,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: and then the personalization was more in to discover weekly
1:14:38
Speaker 1: product and and things like that. We'll plause here for
1:14:45
Speaker 1: a brief moment and get right back to the Director
1:14:48
Speaker 1: of Creative Services and Spotify, Troy Carter. As you probably know,
1:14:55
Speaker 1: I'm mainly a writer and you can read my work
1:14:57
Speaker 1: at left sets dot com. If you sign up for
1:15:00
Speaker 1: the newsletter, not only will you get my commentary on music,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: tech and my life in general, you'll be the first
1:15:06
Speaker 1: to find out when we publish a new conversation. Go
1:15:09
Speaker 1: to left steps dot com and sign up now more
1:15:13
Speaker 1: were the director of Creative Services, that's Spotify, Troy Carter,
1:15:16
Speaker 1: recorded live at the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. Okay,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: we're gonna open up the questions now. Two things, One
1:15:24
Speaker 1: wait for a mic, and to please ask a question
1:15:29
Speaker 1: as opposed to giving your opinion. We're certainly interested in
1:15:31
Speaker 1: your opinion, but everybody may not. It's certainly for dinner
1:15:34
Speaker 1: or other times. So I have Troy here, please make
1:15:38
Speaker 1: it a question. Since you're talking about personalization, so you're
1:15:44
Speaker 1: saying that you're getting receiving enough qualitative data to give somebody,
1:15:50
Speaker 1: uh human behavior personalization. That's that's how much data you
1:15:54
Speaker 1: guys are receiving too, to personalize your face for that person,
1:16:00
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So just understanding how people listening to, how
1:16:04
Speaker 1: how people listen to music and um, what types of
1:16:09
Speaker 1: people are listening to what types of music allows us
1:16:13
Speaker 1: to give a better listening experience. So in terms and
1:16:19
Speaker 1: in that you know, it's funny because when when you
1:16:25
Speaker 1: talk about data now because of the Facebook thing, you know,
1:16:28
Speaker 1: it kind of freaks people out right. Um, but data
1:16:32
Speaker 1: used in the right way can give you an incredible experience.
1:16:36
Speaker 1: So if you look at ten years of understanding the
1:16:43
Speaker 1: way tens and tens of millions, over a hundred million
1:16:48
Speaker 1: people listening listen to music. You really understand how to
1:16:52
Speaker 1: personalize and experience and that's how that's why I discover
1:16:55
Speaker 1: Weekly worked really well, Release Radar worked really well, and
1:16:59
Speaker 1: then um daily Mix worked really well. And now UM,
1:17:04
Speaker 1: I think we're we're we're we're able to dial it
1:17:06
Speaker 1: in even even better. Next question, Jim, we have to Mike,
1:17:13
Speaker 1: So if someone else get a Mike Jake. UM, I
1:17:17
Speaker 1: have a question, if you guys have ever looked at
1:17:20
Speaker 1: the genre of music against the free service versus the
1:17:25
Speaker 1: paid service? Can you? I think what he means is
1:17:29
Speaker 1: do people listen who are paying listen to different stuff
1:17:32
Speaker 1: from the people who are not paying? Yeah, and and
1:17:36
Speaker 1: and do you have data on that? So the answer
1:17:39
Speaker 1: would be, I'm a pent sure we have data data
1:17:42
Speaker 1: on that. Um. I wouldn't be able to break down specifically.
1:17:49
Speaker 1: I could say it broadly, you know, in terms of
1:17:51
Speaker 1: like sort of premium premium versus free, but um not
1:17:55
Speaker 1: really specifically right right now, okay, general and right here,
1:18:00
Speaker 1: Hey Trow, I'm here from Sweden. There's a lot of
1:18:02
Speaker 1: debate um back where I'm from about the sort of
1:18:06
Speaker 1: payment models from Spotify little bit a little bit louder
1:18:09
Speaker 1: places the payment models from Spotify to the labels, and
1:18:13
Speaker 1: from the labels to the artists and the sort of
1:18:16
Speaker 1: royalty pool that's being built up. Do you know if
1:18:19
Speaker 1: Spotify is planning to change anything in the model in
1:18:22
Speaker 1: the nearest future or instead of discussion that happens in
1:18:25
Speaker 1: the office. Well, um, and this is is a is
1:18:30
Speaker 1: a good question. You know. The reality is, you know,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: you kind of we I think we've gone through the
1:18:39
Speaker 1: sort of in a very very beginning of Spotify when
1:18:45
Speaker 1: when people said Spotify doesn't pay pay out, they were
1:18:49
Speaker 1: right because it was no scale, right, So it's just,
1:18:52
Speaker 1: you know, it's only a certain amount of paying customers
1:18:56
Speaker 1: on the platform, So the royalty payments were We're smaller
1:19:00
Speaker 1: in the beginning. You fast forward, now we we paid
1:19:04
Speaker 1: out over eight billion euros you know, to to to
1:19:08
Speaker 1: the music industry, and but how that's distributed to artists
1:19:14
Speaker 1: and creators is based off of individual deals. So at
1:19:19
Speaker 1: that point, you know, it's we can't make um, rights
1:19:23
Speaker 1: holders pay out any specific way, you know, is their
1:19:27
Speaker 1: individual deals with individual artists. Um. But the reality is,
1:19:32
Speaker 1: I think quite naturally, UM, just what what I see
1:19:37
Speaker 1: happening generally in the industry the next ten years are
1:19:42
Speaker 1: gonna look a lot different because you have a lot
1:19:45
Speaker 1: of are you got. I'm seeing artists that are um
1:19:51
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna speak very candidly. I'm seeing a
1:19:54
Speaker 1: lot of artists that are opting to stay independent because
1:19:57
Speaker 1: they're seeing how much, you know, you can really make,
1:20:00
Speaker 1: you can really make a living and you get you
1:20:02
Speaker 1: get real cash flow in terms of not having to wait,
1:20:06
Speaker 1: you know, along along if you are independent, how often
1:20:08
Speaker 1: you get paid from Spotify, um you get. It depends
1:20:11
Speaker 1: on your aggregator and how your aggregator works. But let's
1:20:13
Speaker 1: say on average you get a monthly payment that trails. Right,
1:20:16
Speaker 1: So if I didn't mean to interrupt, do you get
1:20:19
Speaker 1: a monthly payment that that trails. But let's just talk
1:20:21
Speaker 1: about the future of the business. Right If we look
1:20:23
Speaker 1: at the future of the business, and we look at
1:20:26
Speaker 1: a cross and this isn't me predicting Spotify, I'm just
1:20:29
Speaker 1: talking specifically for the industry and looking at other types
1:20:32
Speaker 1: of industry, why shouldn't artists get paid If uber drivers
1:20:37
Speaker 1: and lift drivers now can say cash out after their
1:20:41
Speaker 1: drive and that and it goes directly into their bank
1:20:44
Speaker 1: account of PayPal account, my guess is artists in the future,
1:20:48
Speaker 1: are gonna be able to cash out after a day
1:20:50
Speaker 1: of streams, how whenever they meet, whenever they need that money.
1:20:53
Speaker 1: And cash flow is a big problem with artists. We
1:20:56
Speaker 1: know you might need to pay rent, you might need
1:20:58
Speaker 1: to buy gear, you might be going on tour, whatever,
1:21:01
Speaker 1: you might need to buy a car, whatever you need
1:21:03
Speaker 1: to do. Cash flows an issue. So when historically you
1:21:08
Speaker 1: know record labels have taken care of a cash flow problem,
1:21:12
Speaker 1: But in so I think UM, the question, the bigger
1:21:17
Speaker 1: question becomes value proposition. Well, the value proposition UM for
1:21:26
Speaker 1: of giving up eighty five of your of your revenue
1:21:30
Speaker 1: in exchange for marketing, promotion, cash advance, whatever is it
1:21:37
Speaker 1: gonna be worth it? And that's I think that's gonna
1:21:41
Speaker 1: be That's gonna be the biggest trick. But I think
1:21:44
Speaker 1: I don't think deals are gonna stay the same. I
1:21:46
Speaker 1: think that the whole value chain is gonna change. I
1:21:50
Speaker 1: think record labels are gonna um evolve their their value proposition.
1:21:56
Speaker 1: I think managers are gonna evolve their value proposition. I
1:21:59
Speaker 1: think UM those services are gonna start looking like each other.
1:22:03
Speaker 1: Management companies will look like labels, labels will look like
1:22:06
Speaker 1: management companies, and UM and then, But from there, I
1:22:10
Speaker 1: think it's going to be about the value that the
1:22:12
Speaker 1: artists feel like they can capture in the end. Does
1:22:16
Speaker 1: that answer? Does that help well? The other the other?
1:22:19
Speaker 1: But the other thing about I think you're addressing is
1:22:21
Speaker 1: at this point in time, is it's sixty seven or
1:22:23
Speaker 1: sixty eight percent of every dollar goes to right soldiers
1:22:27
Speaker 1: um from from Spotify. Yes, some somewhere in the area. Right,
1:22:30
Speaker 1: So what happened if you to deal with an aggregator
1:22:33
Speaker 1: like tune in, you pay, I mean the tune cord
1:22:35
Speaker 1: you paid once a year, all that money will be yours,
1:22:37
Speaker 1: assuming you both write the song and record the song.
1:22:40
Speaker 1: But if there's someone in between, like a label, assuming
1:22:43
Speaker 1: they're paying you at all, your deal maybe fifteen cents
1:22:46
Speaker 1: on the dollar that they get. But the issue this
1:22:50
Speaker 1: is also an interesting issue because they don't really want
1:22:53
Speaker 1: Spotify if they really start talking about this and pointing
1:22:56
Speaker 1: at the labels, their partners. The labels don't like it
1:22:59
Speaker 1: to be talked about. And we don't have to point
1:23:01
Speaker 1: like it, I think, And that's the whole thing, Like
1:23:04
Speaker 1: it's you know where where it's it's we We are
1:23:07
Speaker 1: a very transparent company and you know we don't. We
1:23:11
Speaker 1: don't play hide the ball with with with record labels.
1:23:14
Speaker 1: We talked very openly about the about our business to them. Um.
1:23:19
Speaker 1: We also talked to to to the record labels about
1:23:22
Speaker 1: what the future the business is gonna look like. And
1:23:26
Speaker 1: Daniels a guy who he lives ten years in the
1:23:29
Speaker 1: in in the future, like that's that's how he he thinks.
1:23:34
Speaker 1: And you know, my and you know and I laugh
1:23:37
Speaker 1: because at times I say, hold on you your ten
1:23:39
Speaker 1: years in the future. Sometimes I'm dealing with people who
1:23:42
Speaker 1: are ten years in the past. I gotta client of clothes.
1:23:45
Speaker 1: I gotta close the gap a little because mine very quickly. Okay, No,
1:23:53
Speaker 1: So I think Spotify is great, and I think that
1:23:55
Speaker 1: the okay and the payout is to rear to all distributions.
1:24:01
Speaker 1: So that's all great. I'm what part of my question
1:24:04
Speaker 1: was relating to the sort of pool what happens if
1:24:07
Speaker 1: I pay my I don't know what it's here not so,
1:24:12
Speaker 1: But what you're addressing is if I pay ten dollars
1:24:15
Speaker 1: and only listen to bandex, should be index get all
1:24:18
Speaker 1: of my ten dollars. About five years ago, somebody ran
1:24:21
Speaker 1: the numbers and they found that people were actually going
1:24:24
Speaker 1: to make less under that basis. I haven't seen the
1:24:26
Speaker 1: numbers run recently, but I would just go to the
1:24:30
Speaker 1: bottom line is but it goes to the pool, right Yeah.
1:24:32
Speaker 1: Spotify pays based on the listens, and every at least
1:24:37
Speaker 1: once a week somebody emails being something that's got fifty
1:24:39
Speaker 1: million streams that I have never heard of. It's not
1:24:41
Speaker 1: on a label. So people email me all the time
1:24:44
Speaker 1: that they're getting not even a million streams. Why are
1:24:47
Speaker 1: they not making money? The demand is not that high,
1:24:50
Speaker 1: but interesting topics just want to gainst other people a chance. Gentlemen,
1:24:53
Speaker 1: when Lady back there in a million, a million streams
1:24:56
Speaker 1: isn't a lot on our platform, I'm gonna switch topics
1:25:01
Speaker 1: just very quickly. I've loved this so much. Thank you.
1:25:04
Speaker 1: My background, I'm a Silicon Valley nerd and worked in
1:25:08
Speaker 1: digital audio forever, started off at digit Design and I
1:25:11
Speaker 1: have to hear, uh, what the tip was that Jimmy
1:25:15
Speaker 1: Ivan gave you to make Lady Gagas sound better on tour.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: I've just been dying to know what that was. That
1:25:22
Speaker 1: was what we we fired our front of house guy.
1:25:28
Speaker 1: I worked with a lot of sound engineers, so I
1:25:31
Speaker 1: know Horace, so hopefully it wasn't well. By the way,
1:25:33
Speaker 1: I love Horrors. By the way Hars we were Horrors
1:25:36
Speaker 1: was out with us for a long time. He's great.
1:25:38
Speaker 1: By the way, he did some of our best tours. Okay,
1:25:42
Speaker 1: we probably got hard right over here on the left,
1:25:44
Speaker 1: just to show we have interest over here. While he's standing,
1:25:46
Speaker 1: he can get it. We'll get next. Hi. Try great.
1:25:50
Speaker 1: This was a great discussion, moderation aside. I thought it
1:25:53
Speaker 1: was fantastic. Um. I mean talking ten years down down
1:25:59
Speaker 1: the road, the way Daniel seems to look at things. Um,
1:26:02
Speaker 1: some of us also try to look that way in
1:26:05
Speaker 1: terms of you know, you you mentioned a lot of
1:26:07
Speaker 1: strategic partnerships that you've had in your other business dealings.
1:26:11
Speaker 1: What about in terms of touring. Has Spotify looked towards
1:26:16
Speaker 1: strategic partnerships in that respect? You know, I talked we
1:26:20
Speaker 1: we talked about touring a lot, just because you know,
1:26:23
Speaker 1: it's it's an industry that we feel is it's it's broken,
1:26:30
Speaker 1: you know. Um. I was talking to one of our
1:26:34
Speaker 1: engineers about you know, product, and I was telling them
1:26:38
Speaker 1: it was I think it was with Gaga we sold out.
1:26:43
Speaker 1: We would put a tour up and I got a
1:26:46
Speaker 1: call from the promoter and they said, hey, we sold
1:26:49
Speaker 1: out four gardens and X amount of time, and you
1:26:53
Speaker 1: know we had we we had another two or three
1:26:55
Speaker 1: in the queue. I'm thinking, I'm like, that's not good news.
1:27:00
Speaker 1: Somebody should have known that it was you know, enough,
1:27:03
Speaker 1: we could have done three more gardens instead of us
1:27:07
Speaker 1: having to go to fucking Jersey after New York. Because
1:27:12
Speaker 1: to be able to monetize not have to pack up
1:27:16
Speaker 1: and move your show, not have to be hard on
1:27:20
Speaker 1: the artist's physical body by having to move them around
1:27:24
Speaker 1: is so many inefficiencies and in touring, and so the
1:27:28
Speaker 1: way towards around it right now is not through data,
1:27:31
Speaker 1: is basically through guys who have been out on the road,
1:27:34
Speaker 1: through booking agents, um, through hey, uh, this pop act
1:27:40
Speaker 1: did this amount of O two so you should be
1:27:43
Speaker 1: able to do this amount of O twos or whatever.
1:27:45
Speaker 1: There's no data. The merchandise business is the same exact thing.
1:27:50
Speaker 1: It's no it's no data. So we feel like, you know,
1:27:53
Speaker 1: there's enough data at least that we have where we
1:27:57
Speaker 1: can identify super fans on on the platform and specific markets,
1:28:01
Speaker 1: and if with access to other types of data be
1:28:06
Speaker 1: at venue data pollstar data, you know, the artists, you know, UM,
1:28:10
Speaker 1: their their fan site data, some other things. You can
1:28:14
Speaker 1: really make well informed decisions on touring, but not even
1:28:20
Speaker 1: the getta getta my. But I think even the product
1:28:32
Speaker 1: now though, to me, is remedial in terms of what's available.
1:28:36
Speaker 1: Like to be honest with you, I like routing the
1:28:40
Speaker 1: tour is the easiest part, right, but understanding who is
1:28:56
Speaker 1: I'm doing that now? I'm doing it now. I did
1:29:00
Speaker 1: three hundred of them last year probably, so we you know,
1:29:04
Speaker 1: we probably sold close to a hundred million and tickets
1:29:07
Speaker 1: for people, so we we Well, so it's supposed to
1:29:11
Speaker 1: be clear. I get that email who's playing in my
1:29:13
Speaker 1: neighborhood from Spotify, but not not that okay, so I'm
1:29:18
Speaker 1: aware of that. Tell me about selling the super fans.
1:29:20
Speaker 1: So so basically yes, So basically what happens is UM
1:29:26
Speaker 1: booking agents come to us or managers that come to us,
1:29:29
Speaker 1: and we do two things. So we either can help
1:29:33
Speaker 1: UM a lot of like superstars that come to us,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: and they'll say, we only want our super fans and
1:29:41
Speaker 1: x amount in the first few rows throughout the entire tour.
1:29:45
Speaker 1: So can you market the show with this? With the
1:29:49
Speaker 1: with this ticket allocation to our super fans. So that's
1:29:53
Speaker 1: one one part of it, so where we'll market the
1:29:55
Speaker 1: show to the super fans on our through our platform
1:29:58
Speaker 1: essentially through our data. And then the other piece of
1:30:01
Speaker 1: it is distressed inventory, So for shows that aren't selling,
1:30:05
Speaker 1: being able to identify those super fans and those markets
1:30:09
Speaker 1: who may not know that the show's coming through and
1:30:12
Speaker 1: being able to to sell the distressed inventory as well.
1:30:15
Speaker 1: So what you'll see and by the way, even with
1:30:18
Speaker 1: the amount of tickets that we sold through there, um,
1:30:21
Speaker 1: we still think it's remedial. So the products that you
1:30:25
Speaker 1: know we're working on right now, we feel like it's
1:30:27
Speaker 1: gonna get better and better. So one like one of
1:30:30
Speaker 1: the things Daniel talked about on our investor relations day, um,
1:30:34
Speaker 1: you know a couple of months ago, was this idea
1:30:37
Speaker 1: about a mark building out a marketplace. So essentially spotify
1:30:41
Speaker 1: is is will evolve into a marketplace where artists don't
1:30:45
Speaker 1: need us to do it. They'll be able to come
1:30:47
Speaker 1: on there and reach their fans directly, sell their tickets
1:30:50
Speaker 1: to their fans, directly merchandise message their fans, and to
1:30:54
Speaker 1: kind of build this relationship. Okay, who has the mic
1:30:57
Speaker 1: right now, I got I got one over here. I
1:30:59
Speaker 1: just round it. Thank you, thank you. UM. You brought
1:31:05
Speaker 1: up India verses or artists wanting to stay indy. I
1:31:08
Speaker 1: think one of the biggest points of that is to
1:31:11
Speaker 1: have control. How many artists have recorded records and are
1:31:14
Speaker 1: just sitting there. So I think the biggest factor and
1:31:16
Speaker 1: staying independent is to have that control of of doing
1:31:20
Speaker 1: your career the way you wanted to. UM. I've been
1:31:23
Speaker 1: on both sides of the majors in the Indies. I
1:31:26
Speaker 1: spent my first fifty or sixty decades at a major
1:31:29
Speaker 1: and my last sixty decades on the indie side. UM.
1:31:33
Speaker 1: I think right now, you know the answer is. I
1:31:36
Speaker 1: don't think it's radio or Spotify or TV or festivals
1:31:40
Speaker 1: or it's almost like what you did with Gaga is
1:31:43
Speaker 1: you ran around and did everything. You know. I think
1:31:45
Speaker 1: the future kind of is the past. I was preceded
1:31:48
Speaker 1: by a guy named Juggie Gayles, and Juggie was like
1:31:52
Speaker 1: a song he was. He was a plugger. They called
1:31:54
Speaker 1: him song Fluggers, and they just went everywhere they went,
1:31:57
Speaker 1: you know, and you go everywhere. You have this intuition
1:32:00
Speaker 1: and you navigate it and try to you know fan
1:32:03
Speaker 1: the flames. I I think you know you brought up
1:32:05
Speaker 1: research and radio's research. I don't think the concept of
1:32:09
Speaker 1: research isn't incorrect. Like I look at the research on Spotify,
1:32:13
Speaker 1: you look at what people are really doing. I think
1:32:15
Speaker 1: radio built this archaic, um call out research paradigm where
1:32:20
Speaker 1: they feel they can look in the rear view mirror
1:32:23
Speaker 1: or as those are the people who are listening to
1:32:24
Speaker 1: their stations. And that's that's what the problem is. It's
1:32:27
Speaker 1: it's they're so entrenched in that system and that's what's
1:32:31
Speaker 1: hurting them to, you know, to move to towards the future. Um.
1:32:35
Speaker 1: I was um thinking about Spotify. I was thinking about consumption.
1:32:40
Speaker 1: Everything is about you know you when you look at
1:32:42
Speaker 1: the numbers on wrap or Wrap Cavy or a hip hop,
1:32:45
Speaker 1: there tend to one right oh and yet where you
1:32:49
Speaker 1: may tend to one in terms of like I look
1:32:51
Speaker 1: at the amount of followers, the amount of listeners, the
1:32:54
Speaker 1: amount how how huge hip hop is right now? And
1:32:58
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the live business, about about these
1:33:02
Speaker 1: festivals where I'm getting to the question, um, when when
1:33:06
Speaker 1: you're looking at these festivals now Lallapalooza, bonar ruays here
1:33:10
Speaker 1: every day, there's more and more festivals and what's driving them,
1:33:13
Speaker 1: and it's it's um. The irony is that it's a
1:33:17
Speaker 1: time when people can be alone, they can sit in
1:33:19
Speaker 1: their house and be on the internet. They're all going
1:33:22
Speaker 1: out to these festivals and all you know, it's it's
1:33:26
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to me. And when I look at these
1:33:29
Speaker 1: festivals and I look at again, I'm not in the
1:33:31
Speaker 1: touring side. I'm on the record of music side, but
1:33:35
Speaker 1: that that's being driven a lot by alternative and rock
1:33:38
Speaker 1: more than I think, you know, on the hip hop side.
1:33:40
Speaker 1: And my question to you is, why do you think
1:33:43
Speaker 1: there's such a disparity between you know, the recorded music side,
1:33:47
Speaker 1: the hip hop and the wrap and the live business
1:33:50
Speaker 1: where these people are coming out in droves. Why is
1:33:52
Speaker 1: the recorded music and have such a higher demand, you know,
1:33:56
Speaker 1: on the hip hop side compared to I don't think
1:33:59
Speaker 1: it's a already at all. Like you know, you see
1:34:04
Speaker 1: hip hop acts that are selling you know, arenas out
1:34:07
Speaker 1: every every single night of a week, So I like,
1:34:10
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I don't think it's a disparity.
1:34:12
Speaker 1: And then when you look at you know, I think
1:34:15
Speaker 1: they're especially with the younger consumer like a Cachella consumer
1:34:19
Speaker 1: or or lollapalooza. You know, you look at the festival
1:34:22
Speaker 1: lineups and is diverse, you know, and I think the diversity, Yeah,
1:34:26
Speaker 1: I think the diversity and and um, even with this
1:34:30
Speaker 1: past Catchella is a reflection of the way you know,
1:34:34
Speaker 1: kids are listening to music, so where they are listening
1:34:36
Speaker 1: to all different all different types. Huh it was Mike
1:34:41
Speaker 1: right here. I don't, I don't. It's not that it's
1:34:43
Speaker 1: catching up. I don't think it was ever behind. Actually
1:34:46
Speaker 1: I think it was behind. I think a lot of
1:34:47
Speaker 1: the festivals were booked by old white guys. But but
1:34:51
Speaker 1: when you say live, live and festivals are two different things.
1:34:54
Speaker 1: The lot, the lot, the live business has never been,
1:34:57
Speaker 1: never been behind. But like I think festival realized they
1:35:01
Speaker 1: had to wake up and diversify the business if they
1:35:03
Speaker 1: wanted to keep with the with the consumer. Okay, gentlemen here, Okay, yeah, um,
1:35:20
Speaker 1: going back, I think Bob, you're you actually asked a
1:35:22
Speaker 1: question about uh, possibly labels controlling too much of what
1:35:26
Speaker 1: gets to the list. Um, you made a comment about hype.
1:35:31
Speaker 1: Is you know there's no hype, it's the numbers don't lie,
1:35:35
Speaker 1: which list though well, because it's paylists right, right, So
1:35:40
Speaker 1: here's my question is of those how many how many
1:35:44
Speaker 1: editors are there? And then sort of the part two is,
1:35:47
Speaker 1: let's take an act that has no touring base, right,
1:35:50
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna use some old terms, but you can
1:35:53
Speaker 1: never get to call out without having the ad, right,
1:35:55
Speaker 1: So you've got to have that initial ad before you
1:35:57
Speaker 1: can get the call out. So before you can get
1:36:00
Speaker 1: to numbers, there have to be some amount of hype
1:36:02
Speaker 1: or some amount of connection to those editors, right, No,
1:36:05
Speaker 1: not at all, like it's it's just a it's a
1:36:07
Speaker 1: handful like so to answer, I'll answer if you your questions.
1:36:12
Speaker 1: So is is a few hundred editors globally at Spotify,
1:36:17
Speaker 1: across the across the different genres. Our editors especially and
1:36:24
Speaker 1: in certain specific genres, they pride like part of their
1:36:29
Speaker 1: culture is you got to find stuff before everybody else
1:36:33
Speaker 1: finds it. That's like that's part of hip hop culture,
1:36:36
Speaker 1: by the way, and part of Latin culture is as well.
1:36:39
Speaker 1: You want to get there early before anybody gets it.
1:36:43
Speaker 1: So they're looking for and they're competing with other services
1:36:46
Speaker 1: as well trying to find stuff. So a lot of
1:36:49
Speaker 1: the stuff that um our editors are finding like record
1:36:54
Speaker 1: companies call me every single day of the week trying
1:36:58
Speaker 1: to sign acts that are independent on on on Spotify.
1:37:02
Speaker 1: They're trying to sign these records that are that that
1:37:05
Speaker 1: are doing well. And then you know, in the reality
1:37:08
Speaker 1: and just when we look at some of the big categories,
1:37:13
Speaker 1: major labels are over index and a hit records you got,
1:37:17
Speaker 1: you know, so you know, when we talk about you know,
1:37:19
Speaker 1: certain name like certain categories that people come to me
1:37:25
Speaker 1: sort of complaining about, they can't name me any big
1:37:29
Speaker 1: acts in that in that category in the first place.
1:37:32
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, I think major labels do
1:37:34
Speaker 1: an incredible job at making big top forty records, so
1:37:39
Speaker 1: that quite naturally they're gonna control a big portion of
1:37:44
Speaker 1: big top forty playlists. You know. When it comes to
1:37:48
Speaker 1: jazz music, maybe not so much. It comes to some
1:37:51
Speaker 1: of the categories, maybe maybe not so much. But I
1:37:55
Speaker 1: think it's um I think it's one of those things
1:37:58
Speaker 1: that people have started talking about so much that people
1:38:02
Speaker 1: start believing that that that's actually the case. And I
1:38:05
Speaker 1: just come from I come from a school of hit
1:38:11
Speaker 1: records work, hit records work. Doug Morris, I remember going
1:38:18
Speaker 1: into Doug Morris's office after he left Universal and right
1:38:21
Speaker 1: before he went into Sony and UM, and he was
1:38:24
Speaker 1: asking me about, um, what a record that that we
1:38:29
Speaker 1: that that I put out on one of our acts,
1:38:32
Speaker 1: and you know, and I said, you know what, the
1:38:33
Speaker 1: video was too dark? You know, I kind of saw this,
1:38:36
Speaker 1: you know, just change with the consumer. And you know
1:38:39
Speaker 1: it wasn't popping up. He said, no, it wasn't a hit.
1:38:44
Speaker 1: He said, it wasn't a hit. And that's the reality.
1:38:49
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to admit when their records aren't hits. So
1:38:52
Speaker 1: most of the complaints I get from people don't they
1:38:55
Speaker 1: don't have hit records over here. You mentioned that streaming
1:39:04
Speaker 1: is in its infancy. What does it look like when
1:39:06
Speaker 1: it's matured? And also based on the data, what emerging
1:39:09
Speaker 1: genres are there that you guys are seeing. Well, you know,
1:39:12
Speaker 1: I think you know when you talk about when when
1:39:14
Speaker 1: it's matured, you know, and this is where I think
1:39:17
Speaker 1: we underestimate, you know, the size of of what the
1:39:21
Speaker 1: global recorded music market is going to be. So everybody
1:39:25
Speaker 1: talks about the sort of heyday of the record business
1:39:30
Speaker 1: at its height, and you know, when we were selling
1:39:32
Speaker 1: selling a lot of C D s more people are
1:39:35
Speaker 1: on on this planet are gonna have mobile phones than
1:39:38
Speaker 1: they had CD players. So and when you look at
1:39:42
Speaker 1: the amount of youth, the youth population that's rising in
1:39:48
Speaker 1: Africa and in India, you look at China that you
1:39:52
Speaker 1: know that's never been a factor. And how and the
1:39:56
Speaker 1: and the paid music market I think is gonna. I
1:40:01
Speaker 1: think the music industry is gonna undergo exponential growth like
1:40:05
Speaker 1: we've never seen before. I think what we have to
1:40:08
Speaker 1: adjust to, you know, we are I think as and
1:40:14
Speaker 1: I'm just saying is just generally speaking the music industry
1:40:18
Speaker 1: we operate as elite like, as elitists. So where we're
1:40:22
Speaker 1: under this impression that everybody is gonna buy a subscription
1:40:27
Speaker 1: and everybody in the world can afford. And if you
1:40:30
Speaker 1: look at the price of gas this week, people can't
1:40:34
Speaker 1: afford to put gas in their tank. People are barely
1:40:37
Speaker 1: making it in this country. People are struggling. And I
1:40:41
Speaker 1: think it's finding ways where Okay, whether it's through uh,
1:40:47
Speaker 1: you know, advertising subsidies or whatever. I think there's ways
1:40:50
Speaker 1: to monetize you know, a billion plus consumer base across
1:40:56
Speaker 1: you know, the the entire music industry. Um, I think
1:40:59
Speaker 1: day the plans you know, and that's one of the
1:41:02
Speaker 1: things we talked about last week with the new free
1:41:04
Speaker 1: tier was being able to you know, we built you know,
1:41:07
Speaker 1: lighter data plans because you know, so on on your phone,
1:41:10
Speaker 1: it's not eating up your data plan. So I think
1:41:12
Speaker 1: what's ahead of us is gonna is it's gonna. I
1:41:17
Speaker 1: think we're gonna see something like we we've never seen before.
1:41:20
Speaker 1: But but the market is UM. I don't want to
1:41:26
Speaker 1: say a number, but I think it's way, way bigger
1:41:28
Speaker 1: than what we've ever seen. Young lady right here, you've
1:41:31
Speaker 1: been waiting. I UM. What about the role um of
1:41:36
Speaker 1: curators on the platform and independent curators. Is Spotify developing
1:41:40
Speaker 1: a program even for example radio stations, blogs, um, just
1:41:44
Speaker 1: independent curators. What I don't see anything being done for
1:41:48
Speaker 1: profiles for those entities and people. You you have independent
1:41:52
Speaker 1: curators that um, that are on the platform where you
1:41:56
Speaker 1: know where they and some people do a really good
1:41:59
Speaker 1: job at promo in their playlists and they you know,
1:42:01
Speaker 1: built followers. UM. You know, for us, our priority had
1:42:05
Speaker 1: to be our own and operated playlists, you know, because
1:42:09
Speaker 1: I think we were able to control the integrity of
1:42:12
Speaker 1: those playlists. And what I mean by that is just
1:42:15
Speaker 1: making sure it doesn't turn to a place where people
1:42:19
Speaker 1: can pay people to get on playlist and you know
1:42:22
Speaker 1: so and I think you know, when that ecosystem was
1:42:25
Speaker 1: open in the in the beginning, a lot of you know,
1:42:28
Speaker 1: we had to change the terms of services because you
1:42:31
Speaker 1: had a lot of people paying to get on playlists
1:42:34
Speaker 1: or you know, exchanging favors to get on to get
1:42:37
Speaker 1: on playlists. And the only thing that does is makes
1:42:40
Speaker 1: for uh a terrible consumer experience versus best song wins.
1:42:47
Speaker 1: So essentially, if we can program in a way where
1:42:51
Speaker 1: where best song wins is a better experience for the
1:42:54
Speaker 1: for the consumer. But we're not like there are a
1:42:58
Speaker 1: lot of brands and people who are built than their
1:43:00
Speaker 1: their profiles. But our priority is is owned and operated.
1:43:05
Speaker 1: Who has the mic? Now? Yeah, right here, I try
1:43:08
Speaker 1: just going back to the future of streaming, UM, we
1:43:12
Speaker 1: see pricing differentiation for hires players like COB's entitle UM.
1:43:17
Speaker 1: Do you think that's sustainable? And my second question is,
1:43:20
Speaker 1: UM there's new UM streaming platforms like prime Phonic, which
1:43:24
Speaker 1: are focused on classical music. Do you think the future
1:43:27
Speaker 1: will be sort of based on differentiation by genre or
1:43:30
Speaker 1: do you think the hardware ecosystem will dominate. You know,
1:43:33
Speaker 1: I think, you know, just in my my opinion, I
1:43:36
Speaker 1: think UM, having a niche UM a knee service is
1:43:41
Speaker 1: deaf is difficult, right, you know, because when you can
1:43:44
Speaker 1: get and and everything essentially that you pretty much want
1:43:49
Speaker 1: to listen to and in one place, UM, you gotta
1:43:53
Speaker 1: have a compelling value proposition to drive somebody to pay
1:43:57
Speaker 1: specifically for that niche service and in UM this sort
1:44:01
Speaker 1: of financial models to operate as a business around that,
1:44:04
Speaker 1: and my I just think would be and it would
1:44:07
Speaker 1: be challenging, you know, especially as you're competing against you know,
1:44:10
Speaker 1: some some of the some of the larger players UM
1:44:13
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, fidelity you know you got
1:44:18
Speaker 1: I'm one of the the niche consumers that cares about
1:44:22
Speaker 1: you know, sound and and for me, its specifically for
1:44:26
Speaker 1: jazz music, Like when I listen to jazz and UM,
1:44:29
Speaker 1: you know, I got high fidelity speakers. I want to
1:44:31
Speaker 1: listen to it and and and and high fidelity UM.
1:44:35
Speaker 1: But for a lot of the other records, is like
1:44:40
Speaker 1: you don't need to listen to it in high fidelity, right,
1:44:42
Speaker 1: but you got to find a big enough audience that's
1:44:45
Speaker 1: willing to pay for it. Um, I'd love to get
1:44:49
Speaker 1: to a place where everybody cares about how how records
1:44:52
Speaker 1: you know, were intended to sound. But you know, I
1:44:55
Speaker 1: don't know if the general population, uh if that if
1:44:58
Speaker 1: that's something that they really genuinely care about, and I
1:45:02
Speaker 1: don't think we've been able to, um how like, so
1:45:09
Speaker 1: when the jump from cassette to c D was so
1:45:14
Speaker 1: exponential in terms of sound, and the jump from VHS too,
1:45:19
Speaker 1: you know, DVD was so was was exponential in terms
1:45:23
Speaker 1: of you know, a visual and sound, we haven't been
1:45:27
Speaker 1: able to kind of give any sort of exponential jump
1:45:30
Speaker 1: yet to make people want to leap from from this
1:45:33
Speaker 1: to that. Ye just talking about Yeah, I don't okay, Jamie, Jamie,
1:45:49
Speaker 1: you have a question. I probably good to see. Yeah, Um,
1:45:56
Speaker 1: I have two questions and I want to I'll cut
1:45:57
Speaker 1: it down to one. And so I'm Lars Maria used
1:46:01
Speaker 1: to be at Pandora. The question that I have that
1:46:03
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's asked you, what is the lowest
1:46:05
Speaker 1: hanging fruit that you think people are not picking off
1:46:09
Speaker 1: of Spotify right now? Used to drive me crazy that
1:46:12
Speaker 1: there were things I couldn't explain or I could explain,
1:46:14
Speaker 1: and people just wouldn't do it, Like, what are they
1:46:16
Speaker 1: not doing? I mean, I think going back to what
1:46:18
Speaker 1: market you say, people, and it's just I'm talking about
1:46:21
Speaker 1: the the industry, you know. Um, you know, Mark was
1:46:24
Speaker 1: talking about how are you selling tickets? And you're like,
1:46:26
Speaker 1: we just sold a hundred million dollars worth of tickets?
1:46:28
Speaker 1: Like what what across the board is the thing that
1:46:31
Speaker 1: people should be thinking about that they're not. I don't know,
1:46:35
Speaker 1: you know, um, I think I don't know if I
1:46:38
Speaker 1: have an answer for the low hanging fruit, but I
1:46:41
Speaker 1: do think the industry one of the biggest problems that
1:46:46
Speaker 1: I see is this sort of people haven't been able
1:46:52
Speaker 1: to differentiate. People haven't been able to fully move into
1:46:56
Speaker 1: a new model yet because people still think we're a
1:46:59
Speaker 1: retail were not a retailer. Um, people still think we're
1:47:04
Speaker 1: like radio, where we're not radio like. So even down
1:47:07
Speaker 1: to the point where the people still haven't figured out
1:47:11
Speaker 1: who at the company should really interface with us yet.
1:47:13
Speaker 1: Should it be a promo guy? Is that the sales team?
1:47:16
Speaker 1: Is it marketing? Like? So I think it's kind of
1:47:19
Speaker 1: understanding that this is a totally new system. The way
1:47:26
Speaker 1: the old system work doesn't work with with with with this,
1:47:29
Speaker 1: with this new system, and then so so and even
1:47:32
Speaker 1: down to going back to I get so many calls
1:47:36
Speaker 1: from people that say, I'm at a million streams and
1:47:39
Speaker 1: I'm like, a million streams is nothing, Like it's not
1:47:43
Speaker 1: there yet. You gotta get there, like it's um but
1:47:46
Speaker 1: because people in the record business think a million records
1:47:49
Speaker 1: your platinum, a million streams isn't platinum, you know. So
1:47:53
Speaker 1: it's like, so it's this sort of uh chasm you
1:47:57
Speaker 1: got that that hasn't been crossed yet. So if I
1:47:59
Speaker 1: can steal a quick follow up on that, cycles, how
1:48:01
Speaker 1: do you do you have insight to tell everybody about cycles?
1:48:06
Speaker 1: And how I mean cycles are different now in a stream?
1:48:09
Speaker 1: What types of cycles? Song cycles? Uh, career cycles, album cycles,
1:48:14
Speaker 1: all of that. Who's doing it? Right? So? So the
1:48:17
Speaker 1: way so I look at it as perpetual cycles, right,
1:48:20
Speaker 1: So it's not it's no more on on on and off.
1:48:23
Speaker 1: And you know what what we see now is you
1:48:27
Speaker 1: know you look at um you know two good examples
1:48:31
Speaker 1: of like a Bruno Mars or at Sharon where their
1:48:35
Speaker 1: former albums just continue to kind of perform well. And
1:48:43
Speaker 1: chain Smokers there, you know, I think Adam and and
1:48:47
Speaker 1: and those guys are are really brilliant in terms of
1:48:50
Speaker 1: how they they're They're just innovative in their approach to
1:48:53
Speaker 1: to release the music, the hip hop game in general.
1:48:57
Speaker 1: I would just say, you know, they win loose. You know,
1:49:00
Speaker 1: they went gold star in terms of being able to um,
1:49:05
Speaker 1: to cater to new conc to the way consumers consume
1:49:09
Speaker 1: and um. And it's just it bugs me out because
1:49:14
Speaker 1: the record business we used to be so forward and
1:49:20
Speaker 1: how like when we we turned Tuesdays into events right
1:49:26
Speaker 1: where it was, you know, when we put out albums,
1:49:30
Speaker 1: the way we set up set up albums, film studios
1:49:33
Speaker 1: were envied away. You know that that that we did it,
1:49:37
Speaker 1: and but yet Netflix is kicking our ass and innovation
1:49:44
Speaker 1: of releases. You know, so when you released you know,
1:49:51
Speaker 1: I was telling I was at one of the record
1:49:54
Speaker 1: labels and they were talking about all of their new
1:49:57
Speaker 1: acts that broke on you know, because I I was
1:50:00
Speaker 1: complaining about artists development, and I'm like, you gotta build stars,
1:50:04
Speaker 1: Like just because they're getting streams don't mean that their stars.
1:50:08
Speaker 1: And they're telling me what we broke this act this year,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: this act, this year, this act this year, and this
1:50:12
Speaker 1: act this year. I said I'll tell you what if
1:50:17
Speaker 1: you took those four artists right now and they got
1:50:20
Speaker 1: out of their car in front of the school that's
1:50:23
Speaker 1: across the street, and you took the kids from Stranger
1:50:26
Speaker 1: Things and they got out of the car, every kid's
1:50:30
Speaker 1: gonna run to the kids from Stranger Things. Like that's
1:50:34
Speaker 1: this year's one direction. We don't have a one direction
1:50:37
Speaker 1: right now. That's one direction right now. You look at
1:50:41
Speaker 1: how we're still releasing single single, single album. You're releasing
1:50:47
Speaker 1: three singles before album, and Netflix is dropping the whole
1:50:51
Speaker 1: season on you day day one because everybody wants it there.
1:50:56
Speaker 1: And I asked the record I asked the record label,
1:50:58
Speaker 1: I said, why are you still doing it like that?
1:50:59
Speaker 1: But as a radio you want to build up a
1:51:03
Speaker 1: certain audience first, because the first week, first week means zero,
1:51:08
Speaker 1: first week means nothing anymore. So, so it's kind of
1:51:12
Speaker 1: just getting people to cross over to the new world.
1:51:14
Speaker 1: And and and I'm seeing some younger labels and some
1:51:18
Speaker 1: younger artists right now, and that has no historical baggage.
1:51:23
Speaker 1: That are, you know, plowing their way into into into
1:51:26
Speaker 1: the new world very quickly. Single album. If you're a
1:51:31
Speaker 1: new artist, should people even bother to make albums or
1:51:34
Speaker 1: continue to put out a continuous dreament product. If if
1:51:36
Speaker 1: you can make a great album, make an album. The
1:51:39
Speaker 1: problem is, you know, making a great album. That's a
1:51:43
Speaker 1: big challenge. Jamie, you said something, uh that really kind
1:51:49
Speaker 1: of perked my ears up a bit. Um. You said
1:51:54
Speaker 1: that radio is in trouble, and I absolutely agree. And
1:51:58
Speaker 1: I think that you're that Spotify as integration into automobiles
1:52:02
Speaker 1: is going to even put another nail in that coffin.
1:52:05
Speaker 1: But we aren't there yet. We aren't. Radio is not
1:52:08
Speaker 1: dead yet. So you had said something that you did
1:52:12
Speaker 1: with Gaga where it was um social media and YouTube
1:52:18
Speaker 1: and getting the music out there so that by the
1:52:20
Speaker 1: time it went to radio and they were doing their testing,
1:52:24
Speaker 1: that everybody was already familiar with it, so it tested
1:52:27
Speaker 1: really well. Later you said that labels kind of have
1:52:32
Speaker 1: to pick. Are you going to go the radio route
1:52:35
Speaker 1: where you put a half million dollars behind a track
1:52:38
Speaker 1: or are you going to go the Spotify route? And like,
1:52:43
Speaker 1: I does a label really have to choose or should
1:52:46
Speaker 1: they just be working it back? So let me let
1:52:48
Speaker 1: me clarify it. So so I don't think you have
1:52:51
Speaker 1: to choose between going to Spotify or going to radio.
1:52:55
Speaker 1: Um So, I was talking specifically around if you have
1:52:58
Speaker 1: a single and you start the single off on Spotify,
1:53:05
Speaker 1: by the time you build up that big enough story
1:53:08
Speaker 1: for radio, chances are it is gonna be Oh, that
1:53:11
Speaker 1: single is gonna be over on our platform. Yes, so so,
1:53:15
Speaker 1: but what we get a lot is complaints that we're
1:53:19
Speaker 1: not hanging in there long enough on the single because
1:53:22
Speaker 1: it's not building, it's not uh linking in uh, it's
1:53:25
Speaker 1: not fused with their radio stories essentially, And I think
1:53:29
Speaker 1: for us it's not our that that's just not our
1:53:33
Speaker 1: problem because because only we gotta we gotta do. We
1:53:38
Speaker 1: have to build the great experience for the consumer. That's
1:53:41
Speaker 1: the like, that's our number one thing. It has to
1:53:43
Speaker 1: be a great experience for the consumer. And um so,
1:53:47
Speaker 1: so that's where that's the sort of catch twenty two
1:53:50
Speaker 1: that we're finding, you know, some some of the labels
1:53:53
Speaker 1: in Okay, this gentleman, this is the last question for now,
1:53:57
Speaker 1: my Troy um bit of a tech nerd question, because
1:54:02
Speaker 1: you were saying you're building out a marketplace and then
1:54:05
Speaker 1: Daniel living ten years ahead of us, how much is
1:54:10
Speaker 1: which extent is AI and blockchain part of the discussion. UM.
1:54:19
Speaker 1: You know, UM, some I can comment on, some I
1:54:22
Speaker 1: can't comment on. UM. I think it's just AI in general.
1:54:26
Speaker 1: You know, it's the future, you know. I think, you know,
1:54:32
Speaker 1: machine learning as part of what we already do in
1:54:35
Speaker 1: terms off you look at Discover weekly, Discover weekly as
1:54:37
Speaker 1: machine learning and UM and I think the more data
1:54:43
Speaker 1: that you get, the better than machines get. Right. So
1:54:46
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna play a huge role. And I
1:54:50
Speaker 1: don't think it necessarily has as much to do with
1:54:53
Speaker 1: marketplace as much as it has to do with the
1:54:56
Speaker 1: personalization that that that that we're talking about, and just
1:55:00
Speaker 1: being able to make the experience better for you when
1:55:02
Speaker 1: you when you come up come on the platform. But
1:55:05
Speaker 1: I just don't think, you know, when we kind of
1:55:07
Speaker 1: got a sense of where machine learning is gonna gonna
1:55:10
Speaker 1: take us, the marketplace was more directed towards the block chain.
1:55:14
Speaker 1: I can't calm it. Thank you, But you've been very
1:55:18
Speaker 1: open and honest. We've put you through the rigger for
1:55:20
Speaker 1: two hours. And by the way, I love Bob and
1:55:30
Speaker 1: Aga had these conversations. I got so many questions in
1:55:34
Speaker 1: my head, and I mean, we're off the audience. But
1:55:36
Speaker 1: when I say on some level, we only scratched the surface.
1:55:39
Speaker 1: That's supposed to Howard Stern saying you said everything, You've
1:55:41
Speaker 1: only said a little bit. But it's been so wonderful
1:55:45
Speaker 1: that you've come here and uh endured this for two hours. Troy,
1:55:48
Speaker 1: thanks again, thank you, thank you. Hey. This week we
1:56:02
Speaker 1: have a very special episode my interview with Troy Carter
1:56:05
Speaker 1: at the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. Yes. Today,
1:56:11
Speaker 1: Troy is director of Creative Services that Spotify really spearheading
1:56:15
Speaker 1: change in the music business. But before that he was
1:56:19
Speaker 1: a manager. He managed Lady Gaga, Broke Lady Gaga what
1:56:23
Speaker 1: John legend Back has done so many things with acts.
1:56:27
Speaker 1: You're gonna hear about his ups and his downs. Troy
1:56:31
Speaker 1: is completely honest. I know you'll love this. So, Troy,
1:56:42
Speaker 1: how'd you get into this crazy business? I started off
1:56:46
Speaker 1: just as a kid in West Philly. Uh grew up
1:56:50
Speaker 1: loving hip hop music and hip hop culture. Um. I
1:56:55
Speaker 1: wanted to be a rapper. I wanted to write graffiti.
1:56:58
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a breakdancer. So anything that was
1:57:02
Speaker 1: immersive and hip hop culture, you know, I just wanted
1:57:04
Speaker 1: to be around it. So you're not a woman, I
1:57:07
Speaker 1: can ask this question, how old are you today? Forty five?
1:57:11
Speaker 1: So when you get into it, MTV ruled, okay, but
1:57:16
Speaker 1: Philadelphia always had a heavy soul culture. So how did
1:57:19
Speaker 1: you first get infected by music? We didn't we didn't
1:57:22
Speaker 1: have cable. We only had the five channels and um
1:57:28
Speaker 1: and we have Friday Night videos and the USA Networkers
1:57:33
Speaker 1: on NBC. It was I forget which network it was.
1:57:36
Speaker 1: It might have been NBC. David Benjamin ran that I remember,
1:57:39
Speaker 1: but it was like, um, you know, it would come
1:57:42
Speaker 1: on late at night, and it was before music was segregated,
1:57:46
Speaker 1: so you would watch Rundy m C. You would watch Blondie,
1:57:50
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, Prince, you know, so it was all types
1:57:53
Speaker 1: of music there. So it kind of exposed me to
1:57:56
Speaker 1: pop music, rock music. But and you know, and and
1:58:00
Speaker 1: like I said, and I love hip hop. So but
1:58:02
Speaker 1: it made me well round it from from a music
1:58:05
Speaker 1: was there music in your house growing up? It's a
1:58:07
Speaker 1: ton of music in my house growing up. So um.
1:58:10
Speaker 1: It was a station in Philly called w d A
1:58:12
Speaker 1: S and UM, which it was a local station. A
1:58:15
Speaker 1: guy named butter Ball ran the station and um, but
1:58:18
Speaker 1: it was a lot of the Philly International records, Um
1:58:22
Speaker 1: a lot, everything from Uh, Marvin Gaye was big in
1:58:26
Speaker 1: our house. Earth Wind and Fire was big. Um she
1:58:30
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder. So I grew up on a lot of souls.
1:58:33
Speaker 1: Did you play an instrument growing up? Nope, didn't play
1:58:36
Speaker 1: an didn't play an instrument. Okay, so you're listening to
1:58:39
Speaker 1: music and you're watching Friday Night videos. At what point
1:58:43
Speaker 1: do you say I can do that? You know what?
1:58:45
Speaker 1: My my, my brother and my cousin they used to
1:58:48
Speaker 1: DJ and UM. So I tried DJ and and I
1:58:51
Speaker 1: was terrible. And then I said, um, well, maybe you
1:58:54
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna try to be a rapper. So I
1:58:57
Speaker 1: so I started rapping. And in ninth grade, me and
1:59:00
Speaker 1: my best friend had this idea. We met in English
1:59:03
Speaker 1: class and we said, you know, if if we ever
1:59:06
Speaker 1: meet Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince, they're gonna give us
1:59:08
Speaker 1: a record deal. So we used to go and and
1:59:11
Speaker 1: try to hang out at Jazzy Jeff's studio, go down
1:59:14
Speaker 1: there almost every single day. Um, Jeff never would let
1:59:18
Speaker 1: us into the studio. How many other people are hanging
1:59:21
Speaker 1: out other than the two of you? It just it
1:59:22
Speaker 1: was three. It was three of us. The group was
1:59:24
Speaker 1: called too too many, and um we called ourselves to
1:59:28
Speaker 1: too many because we only used to have enough money
1:59:31
Speaker 1: for one of us. So so it was three of
1:59:35
Speaker 1: us that used to hang out in front of it.
1:59:36
Speaker 1: But when you were hanging out, uh where there are
1:59:39
Speaker 1: also a lot of other people want to be hanging
1:59:41
Speaker 1: out at the studio. No, so they were all inside
1:59:44
Speaker 1: the studio, So we were trying to get in, and
1:59:46
Speaker 1: so we would only want to bees and um so so,
1:59:49
Speaker 1: and we sincerely had this idea like we were that
1:59:53
Speaker 1: naive that we were gonna meet Jazzy Jeff and Fresh
1:59:56
Speaker 1: Prince and they were going to give us a record deal.
1:59:58
Speaker 1: And my best friend he used to always he say,
2:00:00
Speaker 1: thoughts become things. You gotta think positive, you gotta think positive.
2:00:04
Speaker 1: And one day they let us in and we auditioned
2:00:06
Speaker 1: for him, and what happened. They gave us a record
2:00:09
Speaker 1: deal with a lot of experience under your belt. This
2:00:16
Speaker 1: is not the way the story usually goes. Do you
2:00:19
Speaker 1: think you were deserving of a record deal? Yes? But
2:00:21
Speaker 1: you know what what we found out though that we sucked,
2:00:24
Speaker 1: you know, so I think you know will what will
2:00:27
Speaker 1: we met will uh DJ Jazzy Jeff and his manager
2:00:33
Speaker 1: James Lasseter. It was like a whole crew of guys
2:00:35
Speaker 1: hanging out in the studio and we popped in our
2:00:37
Speaker 1: demo and you know, um and Will said, how are
2:00:40
Speaker 1: you guys getting home? And we said we don't know.
2:00:42
Speaker 1: So he said, okay, I'll give you guys a ride
2:00:44
Speaker 1: home and he drove drove us home that night, and
2:00:46
Speaker 1: he told our families, you know, dropped us off, and
2:00:49
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I got them and um, but
2:00:52
Speaker 1: we I think more than anything else, more than even
2:00:55
Speaker 1: the music. He respected our hustle and you know, we
2:00:59
Speaker 1: were silly kids and you know, so I think he
2:01:02
Speaker 1: liked us. So what happened? Maybe you gave you a
2:01:05
Speaker 1: record deal? Yes, and we signed. We signed the Jive
2:01:07
Speaker 1: Records through Will's production company, and we put out a
2:01:11
Speaker 1: record and got dropped. It was like all within, like
2:01:16
Speaker 1: all within like a year and a half is like
2:01:18
Speaker 1: the super this kind of whirl and uh, oh my god,
2:01:21
Speaker 1: our dreams came true to oh my god, this is
2:01:24
Speaker 1: the biggest disaster. My life is over. Did you get
2:01:27
Speaker 1: an advance? Did you get any money? Got in advance?
2:01:29
Speaker 1: I think we we got in advance of about I
2:01:32
Speaker 1: think it was like thirty five thousand dollars, which might
2:01:36
Speaker 1: have been thirty five million dollars. And um, you know,
2:01:39
Speaker 1: because we had never gotten any money like you know before,
2:01:42
Speaker 1: and um, and we divided it up amongst the three
2:01:45
Speaker 1: of us. And what did you do with your twelve
2:01:48
Speaker 1: grand I went straight to the car dealership like every
2:01:53
Speaker 1: rapper and uh and I bought a used Autie five
2:01:58
Speaker 1: thousand that was a stick ship if and I had
2:02:00
Speaker 1: never driven a stick shift before, but I wanted that car.
2:02:04
Speaker 1: And I think I burned out the clutch by the
2:02:06
Speaker 1: time I got home. So I burned through the money
2:02:10
Speaker 1: in the clutch within like weeks, just because you told
2:02:13
Speaker 1: me the story, and I don't want to forget it.
2:02:15
Speaker 1: You do tell a story of buying a Lexus use
2:02:18
Speaker 1: Lexus and getting stopped for driving while black. How long
2:02:22
Speaker 1: after this was? That? That was? That was after? That was?
2:02:26
Speaker 1: That was years later? And Um, I started promoting shows
2:02:31
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, so I would promote these concerts. Um so
2:02:35
Speaker 1: like Notorious b I, G. Jay Z, Foxy Brown, a
2:02:38
Speaker 1: bunch of the New Woutang clan, a bunch of the
2:02:40
Speaker 1: New York rappers, and um and I bought a car
2:02:44
Speaker 1: off of Foxy Brown's manager, a guy named Don Poo,
2:02:48
Speaker 1: and um, and you know I drove the car back
2:02:51
Speaker 1: to Philly and that next week, no, with no exaggeration,
2:02:54
Speaker 1: within one week, I had gotten pulled over by the
2:02:57
Speaker 1: police six times within one week. But you know it
2:03:02
Speaker 1: was one time. You know, it was a Saturday afternoon
2:03:05
Speaker 1: and um, I had bags like luggage and the trunk
2:03:09
Speaker 1: and I pull up and up and up at Derby
2:03:11
Speaker 1: and I get pulled over by the police and they
2:03:14
Speaker 1: make me get out of the car sit on the
2:03:16
Speaker 1: side of the curb while they throw all of my
2:03:19
Speaker 1: stuff out on the street. And so where I was
2:03:21
Speaker 1: at it was like a shopping district. So it's a
2:03:24
Speaker 1: Saturday afternoon in front of the movie theater, hundreds of people.
2:03:29
Speaker 1: You know, it was it was the most it was
2:03:31
Speaker 1: probably one of the most belittling things. And then once
2:03:34
Speaker 1: everything checked out, you know, the cops said, you know,
2:03:37
Speaker 1: put your ship back in the car, and just you know,
2:03:39
Speaker 1: they they pull off and I'm left putting my underwear
2:03:42
Speaker 1: and everything else back into the you know, into into
2:03:45
Speaker 1: the into into my car. So you know, it's so
2:03:49
Speaker 1: you have an experience like that, where does that many
2:03:53
Speaker 1: experiences like And that's where I was going. But that
2:03:56
Speaker 1: was a peak experience before I was gonna ask you
2:03:58
Speaker 1: about previous growing up. How does that what where does
2:04:01
Speaker 1: that leave your viewpoint in terms of race relations? Um,
2:04:05
Speaker 1: you know it's complicated, right because I think you know,
2:04:09
Speaker 1: I think you got so it was more police relations
2:04:13
Speaker 1: than race relations where where where I grew up, because
2:04:16
Speaker 1: it was only black people where where I grew up,
2:04:20
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really any real racial issues. But there
2:04:23
Speaker 1: were the cops black or white both, so blue is
2:04:27
Speaker 1: what they were, right and um and and so we
2:04:32
Speaker 1: were harassed and and and profiled and we didn't have
2:04:37
Speaker 1: It wasn't a thing where when things happened in your
2:04:41
Speaker 1: neighborhood you called the police, you know. So, um and
2:04:44
Speaker 1: that and that was the that was the relationship and
2:04:47
Speaker 1: um so So I didn't really learn about race relations
2:04:52
Speaker 1: until I really started traveling to a lot of places,
2:04:56
Speaker 1: you know, through throughout throughout the country. And um and
2:04:59
Speaker 1: then that's when I really started, you know, seeing Philly
2:05:04
Speaker 1: is very segregated, but it was very segregated, gated by
2:05:07
Speaker 1: the way. So Italians lived in a certain area, Blacks
2:05:10
Speaker 1: lived in a certain area. Of Puerto Ricans lived in
2:05:13
Speaker 1: a certain area Jews lived in a certain area and
2:05:16
Speaker 1: it wasn't a thing where it was any real I
2:05:20
Speaker 1: never felt that sort of tension because everybody stayed in
2:05:25
Speaker 1: their own pockets for the most part, almost kind of
2:05:28
Speaker 1: like l a Alas racially segregated too. But when you
2:05:32
Speaker 1: were making the deal with DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith,
2:05:37
Speaker 1: are you still in high school? Yeah? I dropped out
2:05:39
Speaker 1: of high school and then um, I dropped out in
2:05:42
Speaker 1: eleventh grade and my mom she put me in a
2:05:47
Speaker 1: program called job Corps, which is like jail meets college
2:05:52
Speaker 1: and um and it's and it was Import Deposit Maryland.
2:05:57
Speaker 1: So basically she said, if you want to do this
2:06:00
Speaker 1: music thing, you better come home with a piece of paper.
2:06:03
Speaker 1: And you know, because I just wanted to pursue music.
2:06:06
Speaker 1: And at eleventh grade, I quit school. Just stopping there
2:06:09
Speaker 1: for a second. You quit school because you were that
2:06:11
Speaker 1: excited about music, or you're also a poor student or
2:06:14
Speaker 1: an attentive student. It was I just was bored. Like
2:06:18
Speaker 1: I would I would go to school, check in with
2:06:21
Speaker 1: my advisor, hang out with my friends, and then we
2:06:24
Speaker 1: would go on these adventures, you know, sometimes like for
2:06:27
Speaker 1: me is crazy. I would end up I would end
2:06:31
Speaker 1: up at a library some days and just studying subjects
2:06:34
Speaker 1: that I wanted to study. We would have or we
2:06:37
Speaker 1: would have hooky parties, you know, until my mom got
2:06:40
Speaker 1: home from work and then we would clear the house
2:06:42
Speaker 1: out and um, but we every day was this sort
2:06:46
Speaker 1: of adventure. But school, I just I was curious about learning,
2:06:52
Speaker 1: but not what they would teach me in school. So
2:06:54
Speaker 1: how long did the job Corps program last? I stayed
2:06:56
Speaker 1: in job Corps for a little. I got my I
2:06:59
Speaker 1: got my g D and record time. It was like
2:07:02
Speaker 1: I was trying to get out of this place as
2:07:04
Speaker 1: fast as you could. How fast did you get the
2:07:07
Speaker 1: probably I think a little under a year maybe, And
2:07:11
Speaker 1: it was like, because it's the worst. This is where
2:07:14
Speaker 1: the courts appoint juvenile delinquents, so Virginia, New York, d C.
2:07:20
Speaker 1: You know, so they just put you all in one
2:07:23
Speaker 1: place essentially, and um, and you want to get out
2:07:26
Speaker 1: as fast as you can. But isn't that the place
2:07:29
Speaker 1: that would tend you know? Their theory on jail is
2:07:32
Speaker 1: you got to jail, you learn how to become a criminal.
2:07:34
Speaker 1: When you were in this program, did you learn how
2:07:36
Speaker 1: to act bad? Yes? So so job Corps it was Um,
2:07:42
Speaker 1: it was. It was definitely a place where you had
2:07:46
Speaker 1: it was many sort of many criminal imprise enterprises and
2:07:50
Speaker 1: clicks built around and you know, you had gang members
2:07:54
Speaker 1: on campus from different gangs, you know, through throughout you know,
2:07:57
Speaker 1: the Northeast corridor. And I think because I was always small,
2:08:03
Speaker 1: you know, and and you know, and I didn't get
2:08:06
Speaker 1: caught up and being just with the guys from Philly.
2:08:10
Speaker 1: So I would hang out with the New York guys,
2:08:11
Speaker 1: the Virginia guys and kind of stay away from any
2:08:17
Speaker 1: sort of the the the warring factions with with within
2:08:21
Speaker 1: within within job Corps. And so how long were you
2:08:24
Speaker 1: in job Corps overall? For for almost a year? Okay,
2:08:26
Speaker 1: So when you got your g D you were out.
2:08:28
Speaker 1: I was out. And the deal, the record deal was
2:08:30
Speaker 1: after you. That was after okay. So the act fails,
2:08:34
Speaker 1: you've blown the money, then what? Um. You know, I
2:08:38
Speaker 1: remember being at my grandmother's house when I got the
2:08:41
Speaker 1: call that they were dropping us from from the record label.
2:08:44
Speaker 1: And um, and I and I was in her in
2:08:48
Speaker 1: my grandmother's room and because I was on the phone,
2:08:51
Speaker 1: I got the call and it broke my heart because
2:08:55
Speaker 1: you know, it was something I felt like we worked
2:08:57
Speaker 1: really hard for UM. I really we didn't have a
2:09:00
Speaker 1: plan B of what I was gonna do. I was
2:09:02
Speaker 1: embarrassed that, you know, we had gotten this far and
2:09:06
Speaker 1: and and now you know, how do we tell people this? UM?
2:09:10
Speaker 1: And from there, I just I started. I learned a
2:09:16
Speaker 1: lot about the business from that. From that experience and
2:09:21
Speaker 1: UM and I asked James Lasseter, who was Will Smith's manager,
2:09:25
Speaker 1: UM could I start working with him? And I started
2:09:28
Speaker 1: working at the recording studio and I was his assistant.
2:09:31
Speaker 1: Was it pretty much just that fast? It was probably over,
2:09:35
Speaker 1: if I had to guess, maybe over a six month
2:09:38
Speaker 1: time period where I sort of transitioned into more of
2:09:42
Speaker 1: the business, because we ever have a straight job working
2:09:45
Speaker 1: at the supermarket? Any of that? Did I while I
2:09:49
Speaker 1: was a kid? No, While in this interim between UH
2:09:52
Speaker 1: getting dropped from the label and going to work for
2:09:54
Speaker 1: the management, I had one period where I couldn't find
2:09:59
Speaker 1: It was as sort of and I don't know if
2:10:02
Speaker 1: I even if I ever told this this story before,
2:10:05
Speaker 1: but UM, I remember I couldn't find a job, and
2:10:10
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money. I had kind of given
2:10:13
Speaker 1: up on on the on the record business. And at
2:10:17
Speaker 1: one point I've I've filed for uh for for welfare
2:10:21
Speaker 1: and I got I had gotten one check, and I
2:10:26
Speaker 1: remember giving the money from my check to my aunt
2:10:29
Speaker 1: because my younger cousin had just gotten killed and you know,
2:10:32
Speaker 1: they were doing this funeral or whatever. And then I'm like,
2:10:34
Speaker 1: it's just, uh that was it was just like a
2:10:38
Speaker 1: low point and I'm like, this isn't what I want
2:10:40
Speaker 1: my my life to be. And um, but as a kid,
2:10:44
Speaker 1: I worked at McDonald's, I worked at Burger King. I
2:10:46
Speaker 1: worked at um uh Olga's Kitchen, which was like a restaurant,
2:10:51
Speaker 1: and so I had all types of ide jobs here
2:10:54
Speaker 1: here and there. And so you go to work in
2:10:56
Speaker 1: the recording studio and for your the manager lasseter or
2:10:59
Speaker 1: what do you do, Um everything car getting car wash,
2:11:03
Speaker 1: booking sessions for DJ Jazz Jeff, carrying records for Jazz Jeff. Um.
2:11:08
Speaker 1: But you know, with James, when I was James's assistant,
2:11:11
Speaker 1: the best part of it was I used to have
2:11:13
Speaker 1: to run his phone calls, So I had to listen
2:11:16
Speaker 1: in on every phone call that he did by rolling
2:11:19
Speaker 1: his calls. So it kind of taught me the sort
2:11:21
Speaker 1: of vernacular and and sort of cadence how people talk
2:11:25
Speaker 1: to each other on on the phone, you know. And
2:11:29
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest things was, you know,
2:11:32
Speaker 1: I thought everything was all business with people, but you know,
2:11:35
Speaker 1: just hearing them talk about people's families and kids and
2:11:38
Speaker 1: you know, people they would talk for ten fifteen minutes
2:11:41
Speaker 1: about everything else before they kind of got into this.
2:11:44
Speaker 1: I know, people, you're so hungry when you get into
2:11:46
Speaker 1: the business. You have meetings, immediately started the sales pitch.
2:11:49
Speaker 1: They don't really people want to know who are you,
2:11:51
Speaker 1: what's going on? You are a reasonable person. So so
2:11:53
Speaker 1: that that was good for me to learn very early
2:11:57
Speaker 1: because um and and James and he and I are
2:11:59
Speaker 1: still really really close to this day. But he he
2:12:03
Speaker 1: was a guy who we grew up eight blocks away
2:12:07
Speaker 1: from each other, like and what we didn't know My
2:12:10
Speaker 1: mom and his mom used to catch the bus together.
2:12:13
Speaker 1: And you know, he had become Jazzy Jeff and Fresh
2:12:16
Speaker 1: Prince's manager because he was the only guy in the
2:12:18
Speaker 1: neighborhood with a car, like you know, because back back
2:12:22
Speaker 1: then you used to have to put you know, turntables
2:12:24
Speaker 1: and everything and load the cars up or whatever. He
2:12:27
Speaker 1: was the only guy with a car, so um so
2:12:30
Speaker 1: seeing a guy who grew up, you know, right in
2:12:33
Speaker 1: our neighborhood. It kind of showed me like, okay, if
2:12:37
Speaker 1: James can do it and talk to like studio executives
2:12:40
Speaker 1: and record company heads, and it just made it less
2:12:43
Speaker 1: than a little less in timidity and for me. And
2:12:46
Speaker 1: so what was your breakthrough from being consistent gopher to
2:12:50
Speaker 1: the next level? Um, James? Uh So, So like in
2:12:55
Speaker 1: between that time, you know, I was promoting these shows
2:12:58
Speaker 1: and Philly and okay, just a little bit slow. You're
2:13:01
Speaker 1: promoting him yourself or with James. So so James h
2:13:05
Speaker 1: ended up moving to l A and he was doing
2:13:07
Speaker 1: he started during Fresh Prince of bel Air. I had
2:13:10
Speaker 1: come out to l A for a little bit. I
2:13:12
Speaker 1: went back to Philly and I was from promoting. I
2:13:15
Speaker 1: started off promoting like clubs, and then I would get
2:13:19
Speaker 1: acts to perform in the in the clubs and um,
2:13:22
Speaker 1: and I would collect money from guys in my neighborhood essentially,
2:13:26
Speaker 1: so it would be guys who have money. I said,
2:13:30
Speaker 1: you know, at that time, I didn't know it was
2:13:31
Speaker 1: called money laundering, because guys would give me money like hey,
2:13:35
Speaker 1: this is great. And so in reality you were money laundering.
2:13:39
Speaker 1: You were just unaware. I just was unaware. Now, no
2:13:41
Speaker 1: statue and all those guys are probably in jail. Um.
2:13:46
Speaker 1: But I would do these do these shows with all
2:13:50
Speaker 1: of the rappers. And this is before it was Live
2:13:54
Speaker 1: Nation and all of the big conglomerates. And it was
2:13:57
Speaker 1: a local guy in Philly named Larry Maggott. We used
2:14:00
Speaker 1: to promote the concerts in Philly if the Spectrum where
2:14:03
Speaker 1: the roof blew exactly and um, but they didn't do
2:14:06
Speaker 1: hip hop because hip hop shows, you know, and then
2:14:09
Speaker 1: fights and shootings and couldn't get insured. And and I
2:14:14
Speaker 1: was one of the crazy guys who would do it.
2:14:16
Speaker 1: And I've started meeting all of these people through these relationships.
2:14:21
Speaker 1: And I met Puffy through promoteing a notorious b I
2:14:25
Speaker 1: bit slower. Being a promoter is a license to go
2:14:28
Speaker 1: out of business, Okay, people usually like even Lior, he
2:14:32
Speaker 1: had one successful gig and then he lost all that
2:14:34
Speaker 1: money and more on the next gig. So in your
2:14:36
Speaker 1: a particular case, every gig I didn't think would be
2:14:39
Speaker 1: in the black. No, it's you know, you had really
2:14:44
Speaker 1: really really great nights and you had some really really
2:14:47
Speaker 1: really bad nights, and you know it was it was
2:14:51
Speaker 1: I remember It was a rap group on Jive called
2:14:53
Speaker 1: Foosh Nickens and Um and I used to love their music,
2:14:56
Speaker 1: and I think I might have been the only person
2:14:58
Speaker 1: that loved the music because literally, no exaggeration, I had
2:15:02
Speaker 1: five people show up, but I still paid him a
2:15:05
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the money built the relationship. It was
2:15:10
Speaker 1: bad shows where we were down, but every single act
2:15:15
Speaker 1: got paid. So but wasn't it the money of the
2:15:18
Speaker 1: so called criminals that was paying them? Yeah, and what
2:15:22
Speaker 1: of the criminals? What are the criminals say when they
2:15:24
Speaker 1: were losing money? They were happy to be there. It's
2:15:27
Speaker 1: like you're hanging out with Biggie, Okay, So it's like
2:15:34
Speaker 1: hanging your hanging out. So so everybody everybody and and
2:15:38
Speaker 1: was funny about hip hop as the streets and music.
2:15:44
Speaker 1: We were all contemporaries, So J and Dame and their
2:15:48
Speaker 1: whole crew. They were street guys from New York coming
2:15:52
Speaker 1: to hang out with us Big and Don Poo and
2:15:56
Speaker 1: Mark Pitts and all of those guys. They were street
2:15:58
Speaker 1: guys coming out the with us Wu Tang from Staten Island.
2:16:02
Speaker 1: So it was it was a thing where everybody felt
2:16:07
Speaker 1: it was. Everybody was really respectful of of of each
2:16:12
Speaker 1: other in that way because we knew what it took
2:16:15
Speaker 1: to get there, and and it was almost a thing
2:16:17
Speaker 1: where you couldn't go out the back door. It's just
2:16:21
Speaker 1: you know, just from a street code perspective, you can't
2:16:24
Speaker 1: leave out of the back door. So you got these
2:16:27
Speaker 1: guys to come, and this is before it was like
2:16:30
Speaker 1: bank wiring and all of that stuff. So you would
2:16:33
Speaker 1: pay them that money up front, the first pent up front,
2:16:36
Speaker 1: but when they showed up, you better have you know,
2:16:39
Speaker 1: you had to have the rest of that. You're talking
2:16:42
Speaker 1: about the street you know, cred and the similarity, but
2:16:44
Speaker 1: getting people from different communities was there also friction. Never
2:16:49
Speaker 1: mind the money, you know what, most of the most
2:16:51
Speaker 1: of the friction sort of came from just the nature
2:16:54
Speaker 1: of the beast of doing these type of shows and
2:16:59
Speaker 1: the these type of neighborhoods. Right, so it's you got
2:17:02
Speaker 1: rival factions that are gonna are gonna show up, and um,
2:17:07
Speaker 1: it could be a bad night when somebody steps on
2:17:10
Speaker 1: somebody's shoe and they don't say, you know, excuse me
2:17:15
Speaker 1: or I'm sorry, and that could end up in something
2:17:17
Speaker 1: or it might have been something that happened weeks before that.
2:17:21
Speaker 1: You know, people just happened to to to see each other.
2:17:25
Speaker 1: So you and um, it's par for the course. Okay.
2:17:30
Speaker 1: So we didn't know, to be honest though, we didn't
2:17:34
Speaker 1: know any different. So it wasn't you know, sort of
2:17:37
Speaker 1: and it wasn't strange. It wasn't like it's kind of
2:17:40
Speaker 1: like that movie Hoop Dreams when they celebrate the kids
2:17:43
Speaker 1: sixteenth birthday and they said, we're thrilled he just made
2:17:46
Speaker 1: it to sixty and when when I said, it took
2:17:50
Speaker 1: to me eighteen and twenty one in my mind with
2:17:53
Speaker 1: what were the ages in my mind that that I
2:17:56
Speaker 1: made it to eighteen and that that I made it
2:17:58
Speaker 1: to one And my closest cousin, he and I grew
2:18:01
Speaker 1: up together and we were like this. Um, he got
2:18:04
Speaker 1: killed when he was when he was seventeen years seventeen.
2:18:07
Speaker 1: What was what precipitated his death? He was out at
2:18:11
Speaker 1: the Chinese restaurant, Chinese Takeout, getting chicken wings, and somebody
2:18:16
Speaker 1: decided that they were going to rob the restaurant, drobed
2:18:19
Speaker 1: the guys who were at the restaurant that night, and
2:18:21
Speaker 1: I ended up The guy who killed them was a
2:18:24
Speaker 1: guy who I grew up with, and we went to
2:18:26
Speaker 1: school with and everything else. He didn't even know it
2:18:29
Speaker 1: was my cousin. So um and yeah, ended up killing him.
2:18:33
Speaker 1: Did that guy go to jail? Yeah, they went to jail. Okay,
2:18:36
Speaker 1: So in your pursuits you meet Puffy and how do
2:18:41
Speaker 1: you maximize that relationship? Well, Puff, Um, it was. It
2:18:45
Speaker 1: was a concert that I was throwing with Notorious b
2:18:49
Speaker 1: I g Um and Wootang and a few other acts
2:18:52
Speaker 1: on Penn's campus and um, and I got a call
2:18:55
Speaker 1: that Notorious Notorious b I g was Um, he wasn't
2:19:00
Speaker 1: gonna make it down in time for the show because
2:19:02
Speaker 1: he was shooting the video for Big Papa at that time.
2:19:05
Speaker 1: And I get into an argument with Mark Pitts on
2:19:08
Speaker 1: the phone, that turns into an argument with Puffy on
2:19:11
Speaker 1: the phone and m and but yet they still came down.
2:19:16
Speaker 1: The show was over. You know, we had to refund
2:19:18
Speaker 1: a few people, but he didn't make it. And but
2:19:22
Speaker 1: they told Biggs manager and make sure Troy gets his
2:19:26
Speaker 1: money back. Um, we'll give you another show. And we
2:19:30
Speaker 1: were hanging out that night. I was having an after
2:19:32
Speaker 1: party and Puff was holding court and you know, v
2:19:35
Speaker 1: I p section and you know I'm talking and I said,
2:19:38
Speaker 1: you know what you know, I want to come work
2:19:40
Speaker 1: for you. And he said, all right, well your first
2:19:43
Speaker 1: job is get me that girl from behind the bar
2:19:48
Speaker 1: and um, and I got puffed the girl from behind
2:19:50
Speaker 1: the bar. And then a couple of weeks later I
2:19:52
Speaker 1: was interning that bad Boy. Then he moved to New York. No,
2:19:56
Speaker 1: I would commute three days a week. I would commute
2:19:59
Speaker 1: on p there Pan trailways. Um seven do I think
2:20:04
Speaker 1: it was seven dollars each way Peter Pan trailways from
2:20:08
Speaker 1: Philly to uh to uh To to New York. And
2:20:12
Speaker 1: so you're interning, you're obviously, you know, doing your best
2:20:16
Speaker 1: to do a good job. What's your break a bad boy?
2:20:19
Speaker 1: You know. I didn't get a break at Bad Boy, Um,
2:20:23
Speaker 1: you know, but what I did get was an education,
2:20:26
Speaker 1: you know Puff and even still to this day, you
2:20:29
Speaker 1: get a sort of master class and hustle and just
2:20:32
Speaker 1: seeing this guy operate that company just off of like
2:20:39
Speaker 1: I would see Puff at the club at night, and
2:20:44
Speaker 1: then I would see Puff in the office in the morning,
2:20:47
Speaker 1: and then at he had his recording studio called Daddy's House,
2:20:51
Speaker 1: where he you know, would be where he would make records.
2:20:54
Speaker 1: So you know, it just it was this sort of
2:20:56
Speaker 1: NonStop thing, but this sort of of masterful dance of
2:21:02
Speaker 1: being able to navigate sort of hip hop culture in
2:21:06
Speaker 1: the streets with corporate America and uh so that it
2:21:10
Speaker 1: just was that master class. So I didn't get a
2:21:12
Speaker 1: break in terms of uh, you know, I made it.
2:21:16
Speaker 1: It was you got cursed out, you got um worked
2:21:24
Speaker 1: to death, and you just wanted more of it, like
2:21:27
Speaker 1: you know, I just I couldn't get enough of it?
2:21:29
Speaker 1: And what was your next journey after that? Um? Afterwards,
2:21:34
Speaker 1: I started, UM. I went back to work for James
2:21:37
Speaker 1: Lasseter in in l a And UM, he and Will
2:21:41
Speaker 1: started a movie production company called Overbrook Entertainment, and UM
2:21:45
Speaker 1: so I was James's assistant and I did that and
2:21:48
Speaker 1: UM and James ended up firing me. I think after
2:21:51
Speaker 1: like a year and a half he ended up firing
2:21:53
Speaker 1: me and um sending me back to Philly. And then
2:21:57
Speaker 1: that's when my that was my big break when he
2:21:59
Speaker 1: fired did you because you've done a good job? I
2:22:01
Speaker 1: didn't you do? Or he said I'm colding you back,
2:22:04
Speaker 1: keeping you here. Um I wish I wish he was
2:22:07
Speaker 1: holding me back, keeping me there. I was arrogant as
2:22:10
Speaker 1: you can you could get. UM, I thought I knew everything,
2:22:14
Speaker 1: and James like it was no humility. And I remember,
2:22:19
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't have a I didn't have a
2:22:21
Speaker 1: car when I living in l A. And if you
2:22:23
Speaker 1: live in l A, you know how hard it is
2:22:25
Speaker 1: not to have a car. And um, and at one
2:22:27
Speaker 1: point I was dating this girl and um, and I
2:22:30
Speaker 1: would take the car service to go visit this girl.
2:22:34
Speaker 1: But and at the end of the week, I would
2:22:36
Speaker 1: just pay the general manager of the company when I
2:22:39
Speaker 1: got my check, here's the car service, you know, here's
2:22:41
Speaker 1: the money for the car service. And for some reason,
2:22:44
Speaker 1: she told James Troy has been using the car service.
2:22:49
Speaker 1: And he came in the office and aired me out
2:22:53
Speaker 1: and you know, in front of everybody, and told me,
2:22:57
Speaker 1: you know, he kicked me out of California. And he said,
2:23:00
Speaker 1: you know, he fired me on the spot, kicked me
2:23:02
Speaker 1: out of California. Me and him get into this huge
2:23:05
Speaker 1: shouting match in his office, and Will and Jada actually
2:23:09
Speaker 1: walked in like right after, and um, and Will said,
2:23:13
Speaker 1: you know what, go back to Philly. You know, we
2:23:17
Speaker 1: we'll give you a severance, but go back to Philly,
2:23:20
Speaker 1: and you know, get get yourself together. And I went
2:23:23
Speaker 1: back to Philly with my tail between my legs and
2:23:26
Speaker 1: what would would you start up in Philly? UM? I
2:23:29
Speaker 1: started up UM. It was it was a company called
2:23:32
Speaker 1: Black Friday that guys from my neighborhood that I knew.
2:23:36
Speaker 1: They basically UM started this management company. It was like
2:23:42
Speaker 1: a management production company. And they asked if I would
2:23:47
Speaker 1: come and basically run the company for him? Can I could?
2:23:50
Speaker 1: I could? I build it and started up for him
2:23:52
Speaker 1: and Eve was even Beanie Seagull where the clients there.
2:23:57
Speaker 1: And it was a hot mess and I ended up.
2:24:04
Speaker 1: You know, after a while, I'm like, I can't do
2:24:06
Speaker 1: this anymore. It was a lot of disorganization. One one
2:24:11
Speaker 1: client UM came into the office. One day, I got
2:24:14
Speaker 1: a call that the client got into an argument with
2:24:18
Speaker 1: one of the guys who owned the company and start
2:24:21
Speaker 1: shooting at him in the office. And that was it
2:24:24
Speaker 1: for me and I and I ended up that and
2:24:27
Speaker 1: I left at that point, and Eve was leaving and
2:24:30
Speaker 1: she had enough and she asked if I would help
2:24:32
Speaker 1: her find the manager. I took her to meet with
2:24:35
Speaker 1: Chris Lighty a few other managers, and then she asked
2:24:38
Speaker 1: if I would do it. Okay, so you do it
2:24:42
Speaker 1: and tell me how you ultimately get to there to
2:24:45
Speaker 1: making your deal with Sanctuary. So I started managing eve UM.
2:24:50
Speaker 1: I ended up signing a few other clients, me and
2:24:53
Speaker 1: up my partner at that time, Jay Irving. We built
2:24:56
Speaker 1: this company called Irving Wonder in Philadelphia, which was like
2:24:59
Speaker 1: you know, utique management company and UM. And we got
2:25:03
Speaker 1: a call from Matthew Knowles one day and Matthew asked
2:25:07
Speaker 1: if we would I want to sell our company to Sanctuary.
2:25:11
Speaker 1: He had just sold this company to Sanctuary. They were
2:25:13
Speaker 1: looking to build their urban music division and and he
2:25:20
Speaker 1: basically told me how much money? And I said, when
2:25:23
Speaker 1: where do I sign? Because I never, like, I had
2:25:27
Speaker 1: never seen that type of money in my life. So
2:25:30
Speaker 1: you know, without asking, I'm like, let's go, let's get
2:25:32
Speaker 1: this done. And how did it end with Sanctuary? Terrible?
2:25:36
Speaker 1: But you kept the money right? Yeah? But you know
2:25:38
Speaker 1: the thing is what I what I learned about Sanctuary.
2:25:40
Speaker 1: Like with the Sanctuary situation, I was so focused on
2:25:44
Speaker 1: the exit and the money that I was that it
2:25:48
Speaker 1: blinded me from all of the red flags that I
2:25:52
Speaker 1: should have noticed as they were doing their diligence on us.
2:25:56
Speaker 1: We should have been doing there our diligence on them,
2:25:58
Speaker 1: on them and um. And it just wasn't that. We
2:26:03
Speaker 1: went from a really cool culture at our company, like
2:26:06
Speaker 1: actually Jay Irvan and and his wife. UM, that's who
2:26:09
Speaker 1: I'm up here in Santa Barbara with this weekend. You know.
2:26:12
Speaker 1: It was me and my best friend. We built this company.
2:26:16
Speaker 1: We hung out every day, We hung out with our employees,
2:26:19
Speaker 1: we hung out with our artists. And then we sold
2:26:21
Speaker 1: this company the Sanctuary and the culture it just with
2:26:25
Speaker 1: the culture was terrible and um and the leadership wasn't great.
2:26:31
Speaker 1: Um and I'm just being honesty. They were terrible people.
2:26:35
Speaker 1: The you know, the guy running the company was a
2:26:37
Speaker 1: terrible person and he ended up we you know, we
2:26:42
Speaker 1: were trying to buy our company back. And because you know, I,
2:26:46
Speaker 1: like I said, I grew up like I love the
2:26:49
Speaker 1: music business. I love what I do. Um, I grew
2:26:52
Speaker 1: up loving this business. I grew up loving the music.
2:26:55
Speaker 1: And then it felt like I didn't want to go
2:26:57
Speaker 1: to work in the morning. I didn't want to go
2:26:59
Speaker 1: into the office is and I wanted to buy the
2:27:01
Speaker 1: company back. And so I started this negotiation to buy
2:27:05
Speaker 1: the company back, and we couldn't reach a deal. And
2:27:09
Speaker 1: then somebody told me, who works in finance. They said,
2:27:14
Speaker 1: hold out for a little bit longer, because if you
2:27:17
Speaker 1: hold out, I don't even think they're gonna be able
2:27:19
Speaker 1: to make salary. They're not even gonna make your your
2:27:22
Speaker 1: your uh, your paycheck. So I'm walking into a restaurant
2:27:28
Speaker 1: and I never forget it's on my birthday. I'm walking
2:27:31
Speaker 1: into a restaurant, and my attorney at that time, David Landy,
2:27:35
Speaker 1: calls me up and he said, you know, are you
2:27:37
Speaker 1: by yourself? I said no, but I can walk out.
2:27:40
Speaker 1: I said, what's up? He said, Sanctuary. I just got
2:27:42
Speaker 1: a fact from Sanctuary and they're suing you and Jay
2:27:47
Speaker 1: for calls. I said, what's the calls? He said, they
2:27:50
Speaker 1: don't have a cause. And what we found out was
2:27:54
Speaker 1: the cause was they couldn't make our paychecks and they
2:27:57
Speaker 1: didn't want to pay us out. And and you know,
2:28:00
Speaker 1: our business is very rare when anybody in our business
2:28:04
Speaker 1: gets suit for calls. And to have that on the
2:28:11
Speaker 1: front cover of a variety, you know, magazine or whatever,
2:28:15
Speaker 1: and to know that, like it just was they just
2:28:19
Speaker 1: with terrible people, and we ended up being able to
2:28:23
Speaker 1: you know, they ended up having to pay us out.
2:28:25
Speaker 1: And you know, I, you know, I ended up starting
2:28:27
Speaker 1: a new company, but it was a valuable lesson and
2:28:31
Speaker 1: culture and people and that the new company is atom Factory.
2:28:36
Speaker 1: Was Adom Factory until the audience Why you named it
2:28:39
Speaker 1: atom Factory? Um? The idea what Adom Factory was? You know?
2:28:43
Speaker 1: Thinking about it was something I wanted to do, something
2:28:46
Speaker 1: small but yet powerful, and you know, and and and
2:28:49
Speaker 1: the name Adam just kind of some summarized it for me,
2:28:52
Speaker 1: like you know, um, you know, because I never wanted,
2:28:56
Speaker 1: you know, a talent roster with a hundred people on
2:28:59
Speaker 1: the roster. But how can I build a small company
2:29:03
Speaker 1: but that still has some gravitizing importance? So how do
2:29:07
Speaker 1: you sign Leady Gaga? Um? Got guy I met Gay
2:29:11
Speaker 1: got through a guy named Vincent Herbert and Vincent Um
2:29:14
Speaker 1: I had known since I was coming up in the business.
2:29:18
Speaker 1: And he caught me up one day and he said,
2:29:19
Speaker 1: I got this girl who you have to meet. Um,
2:29:23
Speaker 1: I'm flying her from New York tomorrow and I'm gonna
2:29:26
Speaker 1: bring her by. And you know, he showed up and
2:29:30
Speaker 1: she walked in with you know, these big sunglasses on
2:29:33
Speaker 1: and you know, no pants and fishnet stockings and played
2:29:39
Speaker 1: hit after hit. Um, it was what what I loved.
2:29:44
Speaker 1: What I loved was it looked like she landed from
2:29:48
Speaker 1: another planet. But she owned it. And I told Vince,
2:29:54
Speaker 1: I said, you gotta bring her back, like just promised
2:29:56
Speaker 1: me you'll you'll bring her back. And a few months
2:29:59
Speaker 1: later he he actually he lived up to that promise
2:30:02
Speaker 1: and he bought her back. Now, when you signed or
2:30:04
Speaker 1: did anybody else want her? No, she had she had
2:30:07
Speaker 1: just gotten dropped from deaf Jam. Um, probably a few
2:30:12
Speaker 1: months prioritized meeting, she had gotten dropped from deaf Jam
2:30:16
Speaker 1: and um, you know she kind of I went to
2:30:19
Speaker 1: West Virginia for a while and like spent some time
2:30:22
Speaker 1: with a grandmother and um, and so she was like,
2:30:26
Speaker 1: you know, it was one of those things with where
2:30:28
Speaker 1: you had nothing to lose, like you know I had.
2:30:31
Speaker 1: I was going through a terrible time financially. You know,
2:30:34
Speaker 1: this was like two thousand and seven when we met,
2:30:38
Speaker 1: going like so right, you know, I had invested everything
2:30:41
Speaker 1: into this new company, even fired me right before that,
2:30:45
Speaker 1: and um, and you know my wife and I, you know,
2:30:49
Speaker 1: we were losing our house. You know, her and my
2:30:51
Speaker 1: mother in law literally pawned their wedding rings that to
2:30:55
Speaker 1: save our house. They you know, our kids were getting kicked.
2:30:59
Speaker 1: You know, we couldn't pay school tuition or anything like that,
2:31:03
Speaker 1: so financially I was completely wiped. Um and when Gaga came,
2:31:10
Speaker 1: that was like the only thing I had to work
2:31:13
Speaker 1: on essentially, and she had just gotten dropped. And I
2:31:18
Speaker 1: think it was one of those things where is you
2:31:21
Speaker 1: have nothing to lose, and like you gotta make it work.
2:31:25
Speaker 1: And we both really really had to make it work.
2:31:28
Speaker 1: And what did you tell her to get her to
2:31:30
Speaker 1: sign with you? You know, I took her to a
2:31:33
Speaker 1: fancy restaurant called Spaghetti Warehouse. We went to Spaghetti Warehouse,
2:31:44
Speaker 1: I swear to you, and um and uh, and we
2:31:48
Speaker 1: just talked. I think we spent like a couple of
2:31:51
Speaker 1: hours together. And then I remember I think it was
2:31:57
Speaker 1: I think it was. Wasn't it Layla's birthday? Baby? Yeah,
2:32:00
Speaker 1: and because I remember it was my daughter's birthday and um,
2:32:05
Speaker 1: and it's and I had to stop for cupcakes on
2:32:08
Speaker 1: the way home. So it's literally me and Gaga standing
2:32:12
Speaker 1: on um little Santa monicat like sprinkles cupcakes. Remember it
2:32:16
Speaker 1: used to be like a line outside the door, and like,
2:32:19
Speaker 1: you know, she's you know, looking like Gaga on like
2:32:24
Speaker 1: in front at Sprinkles and we're but we hit it
2:32:29
Speaker 1: off right away, like we like it was. We got
2:32:33
Speaker 1: each other right away. And um, I believed in in
2:32:37
Speaker 1: her vision and she trusted me with everything, and we
2:32:42
Speaker 1: we you know, and and but a few things like
2:32:47
Speaker 1: this is what's interesting, Like like a lot of times,
2:32:54
Speaker 1: you know, you you you hear, you know, the sort
2:32:57
Speaker 1: of romantic stories about you know, how every thing happened
2:33:00
Speaker 1: or whatever. But you know, Vincent Herbert had just walked
2:33:06
Speaker 1: away from his record label, UM that he had with
2:33:10
Speaker 1: a guy Barry Hankerson. So Vincent kind of left his
2:33:13
Speaker 1: record label behind. So this was his new thing and
2:33:16
Speaker 1: Goga was the only thing he had. Jimmy was in
2:33:20
Speaker 1: the middle of his divorce at that time, UM, and
2:33:24
Speaker 1: you know, Interscope was probably this was probably one of
2:33:28
Speaker 1: Interscope's tough as years, you know, during during that time
2:33:31
Speaker 1: period or whatever. And so Jimmy was kind of doing
2:33:36
Speaker 1: his thing and left us alone on the guy got projects,
2:33:40
Speaker 1: so basically kind of gave us carte blanche. So we
2:33:43
Speaker 1: were kind of running doing our own thing. So she
2:33:47
Speaker 1: was making these records and he was focused on Pussycat Dolls.
2:33:50
Speaker 1: So every record that she would make Jimmy was taking
2:33:54
Speaker 1: the records like you know, and she would give records
2:33:57
Speaker 1: to Pussycat Dolls or Rodney jerk And I remember one
2:34:01
Speaker 1: record that you know, uh, she had written with Rodney
2:34:04
Speaker 1: Jerkins and she wanted it for herself and Rodney's like, no,
2:34:08
Speaker 1: she's a new artist. I'm not giving her this record.
2:34:11
Speaker 1: I need to get this record to Britney Spears. Brittany
2:34:14
Speaker 1: is you know, she's a superstar. We're giving this record
2:34:16
Speaker 1: the Britney Spears and Goga was pissed. Um. The record
2:34:21
Speaker 1: was called Telephone, so of course, you know, Gaga becomes
2:34:27
Speaker 1: gay guy. And Brittany had recorded the record as a
2:34:29
Speaker 1: demo and she's like, nope, get that record back. And
2:34:33
Speaker 1: she put Beyonce on that record, and that record became,
2:34:36
Speaker 1: you know, a number one hit. But she couldn't keep
2:34:39
Speaker 1: a record because everybody would take it because she wasn't
2:34:41
Speaker 1: a big star. But I started keeping making sure we
2:34:44
Speaker 1: could keep those records. So just Dance we kept, which
2:34:48
Speaker 1: became a number one record. Um, Love Game we kept
2:34:52
Speaker 1: became a number one run record. Poker Face we kept
2:34:54
Speaker 1: that one became a number one record, and um so
2:34:58
Speaker 1: it just was really fighting and and sort of a
2:35:00
Speaker 1: blocking and tackling. We'll take a quick break and come
2:35:07
Speaker 1: back with more of my conversation with director of Creative
2:35:10
Speaker 1: Services that Spotify, Troy Carter, recorded live at the Music
2:35:14
Speaker 1: Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. This week, I'm speaking
2:35:20
Speaker 1: with Troy Carter. Recently I interviewed Brian Fogel, who created
2:35:24
Speaker 1: Oscar winning documentary LUs. Be the first to hear next
2:35:28
Speaker 1: week's episode by subscribing to the podcast I'm tuned in
2:35:32
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast or your podcast Apple Troys. While you're there,
2:35:36
Speaker 1: be sure to rate and review the podcast. Okay, let's
2:35:40
Speaker 1: get back to my conversation with Troy Carter. Now. The
2:35:44
Speaker 1: story is she was making dance music at a time
2:35:47
Speaker 1: dance music was not on the chart or on the radio,
2:35:50
Speaker 1: and the interscope went to the wall for you. Is
2:35:53
Speaker 1: that true? Yeah, it was. We were getting a lot
2:35:56
Speaker 1: of pushback from Top forty radio because they thought that
2:35:59
Speaker 1: it was to electronic because it was sort of four
2:36:02
Speaker 1: on the floor and read one who was the music
2:36:04
Speaker 1: producer was just um, you know, he came out of Sweden,
2:36:08
Speaker 1: so it was you know, sort of Swedish sound at
2:36:10
Speaker 1: that time, and we didn't take no fin answer, but
2:36:15
Speaker 1: neither did Brenda Romano, who was working Top forty radio
2:36:19
Speaker 1: at that time, and so she just kept knocking on
2:36:22
Speaker 1: those doors. And but the Internet and being able to
2:36:27
Speaker 1: kind of build that story and come back to radio
2:36:30
Speaker 1: was really important. So we were building audiences um on
2:36:35
Speaker 1: YouTube and you know, and building this sort of international
2:36:38
Speaker 1: following on YouTube. We were doing the same thing on Twitter,
2:36:42
Speaker 1: We were doing the same thing um on a couple
2:36:45
Speaker 1: other platforms. And then NAT started translating into call out
2:36:48
Speaker 1: at radio so they would put the record on and
2:36:51
Speaker 1: kids already knew the record. You know, the radio was
2:36:53
Speaker 1: late at that time because kids were already familiar with
2:36:56
Speaker 1: the record. Sort of what's happening with Spotify now, but
2:36:59
Speaker 1: saving that for a little bit later. Okay, Gaga blows up.
2:37:04
Speaker 1: It must be an amazing learning experience for you. Yeah,
2:37:08
Speaker 1: you know, it's It's what I realized was, you know,
2:37:11
Speaker 1: it's levels you know, and the business and its levels
2:37:15
Speaker 1: in life, you know, um, because with Eve, Eve had
2:37:19
Speaker 1: a wildly successful career for hip hop artists, you know,
2:37:25
Speaker 1: and and even you know, we did her TV show
2:37:28
Speaker 1: and it lasted for you know a few years, but
2:37:31
Speaker 1: you know, that was primarily you know, it was African
2:37:33
Speaker 1: American audiences that was consuming you know, the the TV show,
2:37:39
Speaker 1: So we weren't We didn't have that level of pop
2:37:42
Speaker 1: exposure at at at that time. So and I had
2:37:46
Speaker 1: glimpses of it through Sanctuary because Destiny's Child was you know,
2:37:50
Speaker 1: managed by Sanctuary and a few other pop acts, but
2:37:53
Speaker 1: I wasn't personally exposed to it. So with Gaga, only
2:37:57
Speaker 1: had experience as a hip hop manager, so I kind
2:38:00
Speaker 1: of managed her like a hip hop act. So we
2:38:03
Speaker 1: were doing three shows a night. Um, you know, the
2:38:06
Speaker 1: sound was terrible half the time. You know, you know rappers,
2:38:10
Speaker 1: you know they're holding the micro like this or whatever,
2:38:12
Speaker 1: and um, so we didn't know sound. And um, you
2:38:15
Speaker 1: know Jimmy Iveen. She was opening for New Kids on
2:38:19
Speaker 1: the Block. And I remember Jimmy pulling me to the
2:38:21
Speaker 1: side after the first show at Staples Center and he said,
2:38:25
Speaker 1: the show was great, sound was terrible. This is what
2:38:29
Speaker 1: you need to do to fix the sound. You know,
2:38:31
Speaker 1: this is the guy you need to call to fix
2:38:33
Speaker 1: the sound. And he taught me, you know, sort of
2:38:37
Speaker 1: sonically with pop acts as supposed to sound like. And
2:38:40
Speaker 1: then I met Arthur Fogel and Michael Rapino, and they
2:38:44
Speaker 1: taught me what pop acts as supposed to tour like,
2:38:47
Speaker 1: you know, So it was it was I was I
2:38:49
Speaker 1: felt like I was in school learning a lot of
2:38:52
Speaker 1: this stuff. So where I knew this sort of basic
2:38:56
Speaker 1: um fundamentals of protect your client with everything you have.
2:39:03
Speaker 1: And so my instincts were worked, you know, in terms
2:39:07
Speaker 1: of of protecting a client, but in terms of global
2:39:12
Speaker 1: touring and making and building a global superstar. I've gone
2:39:16
Speaker 1: to countries I had never gone to, and you know,
2:39:19
Speaker 1: it just was a whole new experience. And at any
2:39:22
Speaker 1: time in the height of her career did another manager
2:39:25
Speaker 1: try to steal your act all the time? You know.
2:39:27
Speaker 1: I remember I remember getting a call from UM just
2:39:31
Speaker 1: this is as she was really this is as the
2:39:34
Speaker 1: first single was taken off, and her lawyer, Um, her
2:39:39
Speaker 1: first lawyer called up and and said, um, uh, I'm
2:39:47
Speaker 1: not even gonna mention him. Uh big, big, big manager
2:39:51
Speaker 1: calls calls up and he wants to take a meeting
2:39:54
Speaker 1: uh with with with uh And this is why I
2:39:57
Speaker 1: love her. By the way, big manager called up the
2:40:01
Speaker 1: lawyer tried to set the meeting up and and like
2:40:06
Speaker 1: around me and she called me, Wow, she called me,
2:40:13
Speaker 1: and um, she said fire him the lawyer. Yeah, that's great,
2:40:20
Speaker 1: But eventually it does end with Stephanie. Now we've talked
2:40:24
Speaker 1: about that. But for the people who don't know the
2:40:26
Speaker 1: story in retrospect, I know there was an issue she
2:40:29
Speaker 1: had to do boyfriend, etcetera. Did you see it coming? No,
2:40:33
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think you ever see that ce
2:40:36
Speaker 1: C C that type of thing coming. And um, and
2:40:40
Speaker 1: you know, and and of course you know I can't
2:40:43
Speaker 1: get into any of the specifics or anything like that,
2:40:46
Speaker 1: you know, Um, but and I and I don't want
2:40:49
Speaker 1: to sit here and bullsit you and and and you know,
2:40:53
Speaker 1: say any sort of fake story. But you know, the
2:40:56
Speaker 1: reality is, you know, she and I had a credible relationship,
2:41:01
Speaker 1: like and even to this day, I still I still
2:41:04
Speaker 1: love her despite anything that's happened with her. H No,
2:41:08
Speaker 1: we don't we know contact with her right now. And um,
2:41:11
Speaker 1: but you know, I think it's hard to go through
2:41:16
Speaker 1: that sort of period of time and and where you're
2:41:20
Speaker 1: pretty much living on a bus together. You know, you're
2:41:23
Speaker 1: traveling the world together. You know, UM, just down to
2:41:28
Speaker 1: like you know, birth of kids and you know everything,
2:41:32
Speaker 1: so where and and it's not like I had a
2:41:36
Speaker 1: big roster, you know, for the first when I was
2:41:39
Speaker 1: managing GOG. I think for the at least for the
2:41:41
Speaker 1: first couple of years, she was really the only client
2:41:44
Speaker 1: that I was that I was focused on, So she
2:41:46
Speaker 1: and I were really tight. So I wouldn't yet So
2:41:53
Speaker 1: when when it when it comes, I don't think you've
2:41:55
Speaker 1: ever prepared for it, you know, so and and it's emotional.
2:42:00
Speaker 1: You go through the sort of the motions of hurt
2:42:04
Speaker 1: and anger, and and and and everything else or whatever.
2:42:07
Speaker 1: But the reality is, you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't
2:42:11
Speaker 1: give it back for the world because I think it
2:42:13
Speaker 1: was an incredible experience. She helped my career just as
2:42:17
Speaker 1: much as I helped her career. We both came up
2:42:19
Speaker 1: and in the business together, and um, and life happens,
2:42:25
Speaker 1: man like you know, life, life happened. Now, since you've
2:42:28
Speaker 1: managed her, stop manager, she has not had a hit.
2:42:32
Speaker 1: She's had very successful road business. First with Tony Bennet,
2:42:36
Speaker 1: she's brought If you were to manager again, what do
2:42:39
Speaker 1: you think she should do to sustain and build her career.
2:42:44
Speaker 1: The good thing is, you know we're talking about and
2:42:47
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying this. She's probably one of the most.
2:42:54
Speaker 1: And when I say one of the most, I'm not
2:42:55
Speaker 1: even saying broadly. I'm talking, you know, top five most
2:43:00
Speaker 1: talented artists and in the business. And it's very hard.
2:43:09
Speaker 1: You know, probably you know when you look at her
2:43:12
Speaker 1: live show, it's probably only a couple of artists you
2:43:17
Speaker 1: know that that is up on that level in terms
2:43:20
Speaker 1: of live live concert performances, playing like piano is you know,
2:43:26
Speaker 1: it's vocalists, like you know, performance artists, top top top, top,
2:43:31
Speaker 1: top level. Find it's just getting the records. That's all
2:43:37
Speaker 1: it boils down to. It's like you know, if if, who,
2:43:40
Speaker 1: who are you collaborating with? And and the reality is
2:43:45
Speaker 1: finding making making great records with superstars is hard and
2:43:56
Speaker 1: it's a village because you got have to have incredibly
2:44:02
Speaker 1: strong producers in the room who can push back. You
2:44:08
Speaker 1: have to have an incredibly strong person at the top
2:44:13
Speaker 1: of that record label because Jimmy, basically Jimmy was tough.
2:44:18
Speaker 1: Like you know, you bring records in. Jimmy's a record producer,
2:44:21
Speaker 1: so Jimmy's gonna tell you how that record sounds or whatever.
2:44:24
Speaker 1: Vincent was a record producer and a songwriter, so Vince
2:44:27
Speaker 1: is going to tell you how to how that record
2:44:29
Speaker 1: sounds or whatever. And so it's a filter that it
2:44:33
Speaker 1: goes through, so it's not just the people in the
2:44:35
Speaker 1: room that are that are collaborating. And you put the
2:44:37
Speaker 1: record out, you gotta beat you gotta beat that record up,
2:44:40
Speaker 1: and you gotta be tough on tough on that record.
2:44:43
Speaker 1: But I think she I'm not worried about her, to
2:44:46
Speaker 1: be honest with you. It's like, you know, artists like she,
2:44:50
Speaker 1: She's just one of those artists. She's gonna be around
2:44:52
Speaker 1: for fifty years. It certainly seems like that. So while
2:44:58
Speaker 1: she's at the peak of her success, you meet a
2:45:00
Speaker 1: guy who guide you into the investment tech world. Can
2:45:06
Speaker 1: you tell the simple multitude about that? Yeah, it was um.
2:45:09
Speaker 1: You know, we were doing we were doing a lot
2:45:11
Speaker 1: of experimenting, UM with social media and I and I've
2:45:15
Speaker 1: always been curious around other businesses, you know, so that's
2:45:20
Speaker 1: been a thing where I just want to learn everything
2:45:23
Speaker 1: I can about what you do. Like so if I'm curious,
2:45:26
Speaker 1: I'm going down the rabbit hole. And UM, and we started.
2:45:31
Speaker 1: I remember I got invited to do a day trip
2:45:35
Speaker 1: to Silicon Valley and I never gone to the valley
2:45:38
Speaker 1: before and never gone to Palo altoo before and UM
2:45:42
Speaker 1: and I flew in in the morning and my first
2:45:44
Speaker 1: meeting was with I think it was David simmon off
2:45:47
Speaker 1: from Yahoo, like at a coffee shop at like eight
2:45:51
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and you know, and just he's
2:45:54
Speaker 1: telling me about the valley and you know, and just
2:45:57
Speaker 1: his history and everything and very very interesting. And then
2:46:01
Speaker 1: my second meeting was at Palentteer and UM and if
2:46:06
Speaker 1: you if if Palentteer is probably the most sophisticated technology
2:46:14
Speaker 1: company in Silicon Valley. And it was founded by a
2:46:18
Speaker 1: guy named Joe Lonsdale who was Peter Tiel's like you know, protege,
2:46:24
Speaker 1: you know, as Peter was coming out of PayPal, and
2:46:27
Speaker 1: you know, I go into their offices and it's like
2:46:29
Speaker 1: the TV show twenty four And what Palentteer basically does
2:46:34
Speaker 1: is they track um, terroristic algorithms on the Internet. So
2:46:41
Speaker 1: and so when after nine eleven, when the FBI was
2:46:46
Speaker 1: building air thing and CIA was building air thing, the
2:46:50
Speaker 1: d A was building air thing, none of the technology
2:46:53
Speaker 1: talked to each other and you know, and really worked
2:46:57
Speaker 1: in a way to and Palenteer figured it out. So
2:47:01
Speaker 1: I'm seeing this with my own I'm like, am I
2:47:03
Speaker 1: even you know, it's like, you know, some serious stuff.
2:47:06
Speaker 1: And then we went to Facebook and all of these companies,
2:47:09
Speaker 1: and then and that night they threw me a barbecue
2:47:11
Speaker 1: at Joe Linsdale's house and and I'm talking to all
2:47:16
Speaker 1: of these guys and you know, people could barely look
2:47:19
Speaker 1: you in the face. And you know, there's like as
2:47:22
Speaker 1: Berger's Convention. I told my wife, I'm like, I'm doing
2:47:28
Speaker 1: this wrong in l A right now. Like it's like
2:47:31
Speaker 1: everybody's driving I'm driving a Rolls Royce and these billionaires
2:47:35
Speaker 1: are driving prius Is and uh and this is revenge
2:47:38
Speaker 1: in the nerds and the nerds one big and um.
2:47:44
Speaker 1: And then they started inviting me into into deals and said,
2:47:47
Speaker 1: you know, you want to invest here. And I started
2:47:49
Speaker 1: investing here and then invest in there. You're listening to
2:47:57
Speaker 1: my conversation with Director of Creative Services and spot By
2:48:00
Speaker 1: Troy Carter, recorded live at the Music Media Summit in
2:48:03
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara, California. I hope you're enjoying listening to this
2:48:09
Speaker 1: episode of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want
2:48:11
Speaker 1: to listen to sound bites from the interviews and see
2:48:14
Speaker 1: some of my guests, check it out it at tuned
2:48:16
Speaker 1: in on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Now we're of my
2:48:20
Speaker 1: conversation with the director of Creative Services at Spotify, Troy
2:48:24
Speaker 1: Carter on the Bob Left Sets podcast. You were pretty
2:48:27
Speaker 1: much the first person, certainly in the music business who
2:48:29
Speaker 1: was investing. You know what, because I went in and
2:48:34
Speaker 1: I would probably go to the valley at least twice
2:48:39
Speaker 1: a week, so I would be in l A three
2:48:43
Speaker 1: days a week, and i'd be in San Francisco and
2:48:45
Speaker 1: Palo Alto two days a week, and I would start
2:48:48
Speaker 1: parking myself and people's offices and setting up shop in
2:48:52
Speaker 1: their offices during the day and um. And then when
2:48:55
Speaker 1: I remembered it was one of the guys I met
2:48:59
Speaker 1: was it was a guy named Shervin Pishavar and Shervin
2:49:03
Speaker 1: Um he had just sold his business and he started
2:49:07
Speaker 1: um investing at a firm called Menlo. And he caught
2:49:10
Speaker 1: me up and he said, I want to do this
2:49:12
Speaker 1: thing like this sort of uh, we're gonna be like this,
2:49:15
Speaker 1: this sort of Jedi investment group, and I just want
2:49:18
Speaker 1: you to be one of the Jedis and um, and
2:49:21
Speaker 1: he caught me up about I think Warby Parker was
2:49:24
Speaker 1: one of the was it the first deal that Shervin
2:49:27
Speaker 1: Um asked me about and then um the second deal
2:49:31
Speaker 1: was was Uber. But then he said, well, you know
2:49:34
Speaker 1: I want to do I want to start putting l
2:49:36
Speaker 1: A people into into the deals. Can you help introduce
2:49:40
Speaker 1: me to some people in in l A. And Um,
2:49:42
Speaker 1: so I started introducing them to to some people in
2:49:45
Speaker 1: l A. And we put some l A people into
2:49:47
Speaker 1: the Uber deal and then kind of started building this
2:49:50
Speaker 1: thing that sort of bridge between San Francisco and and
2:49:54
Speaker 1: in l A. Did you get compensated for establishing those relationships? Uh,
2:49:59
Speaker 1: just as an invest or, so so just from my
2:50:02
Speaker 1: my my compensation was Shervan would put me into he
2:50:09
Speaker 1: people would put me into more deals, and then the
2:50:12
Speaker 1: way And this is the other thing I loved about
2:50:14
Speaker 1: the valley that was so different from the music business.
2:50:18
Speaker 1: The music business is zero sum. It's like some in
2:50:22
Speaker 1: order for you to win, somebody has to lose. And
2:50:25
Speaker 1: then when and then the structure of a record label, um,
2:50:30
Speaker 1: whenever there's sort of a windfall, only the people at
2:50:33
Speaker 1: the very very top of the pyramid get get wealthy
2:50:37
Speaker 1: and nobody else gets gets wealthy essentially, and um and
2:50:42
Speaker 1: in technology and an investment. The way it works is
2:50:45
Speaker 1: the opposite, because you you you want the healthiest syndicate
2:50:50
Speaker 1: around the deal so that the entrepreneur and the company
2:50:54
Speaker 1: has the best chance of success. So if I know
2:50:58
Speaker 1: that this person here and this person here and this
2:51:03
Speaker 1: person here could be very helpful, I want them, then
2:51:06
Speaker 1: I want them in the deal because I'm gonna do better.
2:51:09
Speaker 1: And so that's how that's how this sort of is
2:51:12
Speaker 1: a network effect. So like you know, Rocking, I would
2:51:15
Speaker 1: put rock Nation into deals, then they would put me
2:51:18
Speaker 1: into deals. Um you know, Scooter and I start putting
2:51:22
Speaker 1: each other into deals. Gayo, Siri and I started putting
2:51:24
Speaker 1: each other into deals. Um you know, I remember it
2:51:27
Speaker 1: is funny enough. One of our companies, one of the
2:51:30
Speaker 1: first companies I invested in um it was a company
2:51:33
Speaker 1: called zim Ride that came to my office and we
2:51:37
Speaker 1: invested and they would calm work out of our offices
2:51:41
Speaker 1: in l A and then um after Uber launch, the
2:51:45
Speaker 1: founder caught me up and he's and he said, I
2:51:48
Speaker 1: want to see can you connect me with Live Nation
2:51:51
Speaker 1: because they have these festivals and we have this our
2:51:54
Speaker 1: car pooling business. I want to see if we can
2:51:56
Speaker 1: car pool people back and forth so I called up
2:51:59
Speaker 1: micro Rapino UM. Michael was great, he did the deal
2:52:03
Speaker 1: and Michael put you know, put some money into the company.
2:52:06
Speaker 1: And fast forward, that company went from zim Ride to
2:52:09
Speaker 1: become in Lift. So you know, and this is eight
2:52:12
Speaker 1: years ago. So in terms of that that sort of
2:52:14
Speaker 1: value at that particular time seven or eight years ago
2:52:19
Speaker 1: and when it becomes now, that's how you That's so
2:52:22
Speaker 1: when you say the compensation, is that sort of flow
2:52:25
Speaker 1: that that that that happens. But I'm not asking anybody
2:52:28
Speaker 1: for money or anything in return. In your office, you
2:52:32
Speaker 1: have a whole wall of the companies you've invested in
2:52:34
Speaker 1: at this point in time. How many companies do you
2:52:36
Speaker 1: think you've invested in? UM is probably about a hundred
2:52:40
Speaker 1: and twenty. And if a hundred and twenty, how many
2:52:43
Speaker 1: went completely bust? Uh, completely bust? Probably thirty or forty?
2:52:51
Speaker 1: Probably third about thirty I would say, are completely bust,
2:52:57
Speaker 1: probably forty. I would put him in in and a
2:53:03
Speaker 1: third a third and a third. You got you got winner,
2:53:07
Speaker 1: you got winners, neutral and and dogs. Okay, so you're
2:53:13
Speaker 1: doing this, You're done with Gaga, and then you'd like
2:53:16
Speaker 1: record label. I might just have a record label, right,
2:53:19
Speaker 1: and then you have Making Trainer. Okay, the interesting thing
2:53:23
Speaker 1: from the outside observer, when you're involved with Making Trainer,
2:53:26
Speaker 1: she's everywhere and successful, and since you've been gone, she
2:53:30
Speaker 1: has not achieved that level of success, showing that your ability.
2:53:34
Speaker 1: But at what point do you you were an investor
2:53:37
Speaker 1: in Spotify, at what point do you wake up and say,
2:53:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cross the street from being a manager to
2:53:42
Speaker 1: working for Spotify. So I invested in Spotify, and I
2:53:47
Speaker 1: think it was like two thousand and eleven, two thousand eleven,
2:53:51
Speaker 1: and UM and Daniel and I we we ended up.
2:53:57
Speaker 1: We we didn't initially meet when I'm used it and
2:54:01
Speaker 1: then I think it had to be about six or
2:54:03
Speaker 1: seven months later. UM as a group called called Charity
2:54:07
Speaker 1: Water out of New York, a guy named Scott Harrison.
2:54:10
Speaker 1: He put together a group of probably fifteen or twenty
2:54:14
Speaker 1: founders to go to spend a week and a half
2:54:17
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia and UM and basically you you build um
2:54:23
Speaker 1: wells and different villages through throughout Ethiopia. And Daniel was
2:54:27
Speaker 1: on that trip. And when you when you're in uh
2:54:35
Speaker 1: and and suv for four hours with somebody going through
2:54:39
Speaker 1: villages and you know, you're you're seeing you know some
2:54:45
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's incredible. It is very emotional,
2:54:49
Speaker 1: you know, kind of visiting these different places like just
2:54:52
Speaker 1: in but like if not even in a sad way,
2:54:56
Speaker 1: but it's like the people they are fa tastic. But
2:55:02
Speaker 1: he and I didn't meet sitting across the desk from
2:55:04
Speaker 1: each other, and I think that connected us in a
2:55:08
Speaker 1: way where we got to know each other personally before
2:55:11
Speaker 1: we did any sort of business together. And so when
2:55:16
Speaker 1: Spotify was, you know, had come to America, I would,
2:55:20
Speaker 1: you know, he and I would talk strategy, whether it
2:55:22
Speaker 1: was people who were holding back albums from you know,
2:55:26
Speaker 1: from the from the service, you know, some communication strategy,
2:55:30
Speaker 1: you know, some introductions to managers and things like that.
2:55:33
Speaker 1: But every time he would come to l A, he
2:55:35
Speaker 1: and I would spend a bunch of time together. And
2:55:38
Speaker 1: he had just become one of my favorite, my favorite people.
2:55:41
Speaker 1: And then, you know, a couple of years ago, you know,
2:55:44
Speaker 1: I was, I was so burned out from being a manager.
2:55:48
Speaker 1: And I've done it. I've done it for seventeen years
2:55:52
Speaker 1: and um and like you said, you know, Megan Trainer,
2:55:54
Speaker 1: Charlie Pooth and a few other clients you know where
2:55:57
Speaker 1: like my my the last clients on the roster or
2:56:00
Speaker 1: and I saw, you know, I get I get signs
2:56:04
Speaker 1: in my life. It's almost like gott to pull the
2:56:07
Speaker 1: rug up from under me sometimes, like you know, but
2:56:09
Speaker 1: you know, if if I don't want to make the
2:56:11
Speaker 1: decision myself, and I saw I started to see some
2:56:16
Speaker 1: of the cracks and Adam Factory's business. Um, I started
2:56:20
Speaker 1: to look at the future of like the management business
2:56:23
Speaker 1: for myself. And I I wasn't getting up in the
2:56:26
Speaker 1: morning excited. Um and you know, to to the amount
2:56:34
Speaker 1: of I don't I don't phone it in, Like I
2:56:39
Speaker 1: just don't have the thing where I can phone it in.
2:56:41
Speaker 1: And if I'm working for a client, I'm putting my
2:56:46
Speaker 1: soul into it. And when you put your soul into something,
2:56:50
Speaker 1: and you know, you get punched in the gut and
2:56:53
Speaker 1: it's like you know, you're not appreciated, and you know
2:56:56
Speaker 1: it's like you know, sometimes you know, some clients to
2:57:00
Speaker 1: you know, you you you got to drag them across
2:57:02
Speaker 1: the finish line and you gotta explain to him why
2:57:05
Speaker 1: should you shouldn't cancel a show, or you should you
2:57:09
Speaker 1: should show up one time, or you should do that
2:57:11
Speaker 1: I just was ready to do something different. And Daniel
2:57:15
Speaker 1: and I started having these conversations. And I remember I
2:57:18
Speaker 1: was sitting at the Soho house. He and I were
2:57:20
Speaker 1: working on a project together. Um I was. I was
2:57:24
Speaker 1: testing something out for him on on the Spotify platform.
2:57:27
Speaker 1: And we were at the Soho house and we started
2:57:32
Speaker 1: talking about what this sort of creator services thing would
2:57:36
Speaker 1: look would look like, you know, sort of from the
2:57:38
Speaker 1: outside end, and um, and we started having one of
2:57:43
Speaker 1: those what ifs conversations, and I remember, you know, I
2:57:49
Speaker 1: talked to my wife about it. I got cold feet.
2:57:52
Speaker 1: Like I had agreed to it, then I got cold
2:57:54
Speaker 1: feet and I told him, you know, I don't think
2:57:56
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it, And you know, we went back
2:57:58
Speaker 1: and forth and no saggeration. Within a six week period,
2:58:03
Speaker 1: I had wound you know, I had wound down Atom
2:58:07
Speaker 1: Factory and was in Spotify about six six I've lived
2:58:12
Speaker 1: with you through a lot of challenges of Spotify, but
2:58:15
Speaker 1: now streaming is one. Revenues are up. What you are
2:58:19
Speaker 1: the major challenges you're facing now. Um, you know, I
2:58:24
Speaker 1: think so you know this the streaming business. I think
2:58:27
Speaker 1: we're still in its infancy right now. So you know,
2:58:30
Speaker 1: I think you have some markets that are mature, like
2:58:34
Speaker 1: Sweden's very like a very mature market. Um. America to
2:58:39
Speaker 1: me is still a young streaming market. Um. You look
2:58:42
Speaker 1: at places like India that's still you know, young, and
2:58:46
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen in and sort of Africa, um, and
2:58:49
Speaker 1: you know some of the other markets as well. I
2:58:52
Speaker 1: think it's I think in terms, I think what we
2:58:56
Speaker 1: had this is more of an industry thing. It's so
2:59:00
Speaker 1: out of defining as companies what our relationship is with
2:59:09
Speaker 1: the rest of the with with the rest of the industry,
2:59:12
Speaker 1: because you know, I definitely foresee you know what, what
2:59:18
Speaker 1: what all of our roles are right now are gonna
2:59:21
Speaker 1: look much much different over the next ten years, meaning
2:59:26
Speaker 1: what it is to be a record label, what it
2:59:28
Speaker 1: is to be a talent manager, what it means to
2:59:31
Speaker 1: be a promoter, you know, and what it means to
2:59:34
Speaker 1: be an artist by the way, so all of this
2:59:37
Speaker 1: is gonna look different. So I think just the thing
2:59:40
Speaker 1: is being able to um get who gets to the future,
2:59:46
Speaker 1: Who gets to the future the fastest? Okay, um, I
2:59:52
Speaker 1: got a number of questions. Let me think of the one.
2:59:55
Speaker 1: Let's go to the one that everybody is concerned about playlists.
2:59:59
Speaker 1: What are we here in the street. We hear the
3:00:01
Speaker 1: individual playlist or is being squeezed out by the major labels.
3:00:05
Speaker 1: We hear that what do you mean by that when
3:00:07
Speaker 1: you say that? They were saying that, you know that
3:00:10
Speaker 1: it's the major label playlists who are major labels playlists,
3:00:14
Speaker 1: and the Spotify playlists are getting most of the streams,
3:00:18
Speaker 1: and that the the major labels have power on Spotify
3:00:23
Speaker 1: akin to their power at radio with their promotion teams.
3:00:27
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I don't agree at all, because
3:00:30
Speaker 1: you know, I think I'm not saying that. This is
3:00:32
Speaker 1: my point. That was what people say, yeah, yeah, and
3:00:34
Speaker 1: which I which I don't, I don't agree, And um,
3:00:37
Speaker 1: you know, and I talked to the indie labels all
3:00:39
Speaker 1: the time, and you know, it's it's funny because you know,
3:00:43
Speaker 1: the indies like people that have this sort of big
3:00:46
Speaker 1: narrative out there. And then you know, and then I
3:00:49
Speaker 1: asked him a simple question, are the indie labels doing
3:00:53
Speaker 1: better you know now that that Spotify is here than
3:00:56
Speaker 1: than they were before? And and uh, unanimously to answers,
3:01:00
Speaker 1: s you know, because the indies are doing are doing
3:01:03
Speaker 1: much better now. Um, I think, and as as far
3:01:06
Speaker 1: as playlists are concerned, So just we we have forty
3:01:12
Speaker 1: playlists owned and operated by Spotify, all different types of
3:01:19
Speaker 1: niche like niche playlists as well. So we do have
3:01:23
Speaker 1: the sort of flagships to you know, Today's top Pits,
3:01:27
Speaker 1: Hot Country, Viva Latino, Rap, Caviare, R and B like
3:01:31
Speaker 1: all of those flagships, but then you've got a ton
3:01:34
Speaker 1: of other sort of mid tier and feeder playlists that
3:01:37
Speaker 1: kind of feed up into them for most of the
3:01:43
Speaker 1: artists that that that we're talking about, we're talking about
3:01:47
Speaker 1: artists who will who would never get on radio. By
3:01:50
Speaker 1: the way, like we know how Top forty works, you
3:01:53
Speaker 1: better have a huge budget if you want to get
3:01:56
Speaker 1: if you want to take a record all formats, be
3:01:58
Speaker 1: prepared to have a half a million dollars to to
3:02:01
Speaker 1: go all formats to get a top ten record at
3:02:04
Speaker 1: radio um and so, and you need you need a
3:02:07
Speaker 1: real system to be to be able to be able
3:02:10
Speaker 1: to to to to do that. And then you have
3:02:12
Speaker 1: to have a certain type of record with a certain
3:02:15
Speaker 1: type of sound. And so if you're looking at Top
3:02:19
Speaker 1: forties specifically, you figure it's let's call it twenty five
3:02:24
Speaker 1: slots and then let's call it twenty artists that are
3:02:28
Speaker 1: gonna fulfill those those twenty those twenty slots, and you know,
3:02:32
Speaker 1: because of the artists who are gonna have multiple songs
3:02:34
Speaker 1: and in those slots. So you got uh one tenth
3:02:40
Speaker 1: of a percent, and then you got the one percent,
3:02:43
Speaker 1: and you know, then then then it kind of breaks
3:02:45
Speaker 1: down from there. So I think the sort of ecosystem
3:02:49
Speaker 1: of our playlist gives a fair shot to the entire
3:02:53
Speaker 1: industry at that at that point. And what what I
3:02:56
Speaker 1: the the one thing I like what I love about
3:02:59
Speaker 1: you know, spot if I is that people can't figure
3:03:03
Speaker 1: it out. You can't. There's no it's no hype. So
3:03:08
Speaker 1: it's not you can't come in there and and and
3:03:11
Speaker 1: sort of hype your record to get us to put
3:03:14
Speaker 1: it on on on on a playlist. The data doesn't lie.
3:03:18
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, okay, but if you talk
3:03:21
Speaker 1: to like Daniel Glass, he comes to l A, you'll
3:03:22
Speaker 1: hang out at Apple Music, will go to Spotify. To
3:03:25
Speaker 1: what degree is the personal relationship important? Per Personal relationships
3:03:29
Speaker 1: are always going to be important, right, but they're only
3:03:32
Speaker 1: gonna be important to a certain extent. Because as much
3:03:36
Speaker 1: as I love Daniel and if Daniel doesn't walk in
3:03:40
Speaker 1: the door with a great record, Daniel's record is gonna
3:03:43
Speaker 1: be treated like everybody else's record. Essentially lucky enough, you know,
3:03:47
Speaker 1: Daniel walks in with Jade Bird and she becomes one
3:03:50
Speaker 1: of my favorite artists and we're carrying a jay Bird
3:03:53
Speaker 1: flag throughout throughout the building or whatever. But with that
3:03:56
Speaker 1: being said, a lot of the stuff that major labels
3:04:01
Speaker 1: are signing right now aren't coming through any label. They're
3:04:05
Speaker 1: coming through Spotify. So it's we were it's between our editors,
3:04:10
Speaker 1: um sort of looking at blogs, living on SoundCloud, you know,
3:04:15
Speaker 1: sort of digging in the crates, kind of finding new
3:04:18
Speaker 1: stuff because they want to discover things. I get calls
3:04:21
Speaker 1: from our editors basically saying, um, hey hey, Troy, I
3:04:25
Speaker 1: found this record. Um, we gotta they gotta figure out
3:04:28
Speaker 1: to aggregator to put it through because there's no record label,
3:04:31
Speaker 1: and then this act will end up with fifty million
3:04:35
Speaker 1: streams and they'll end up with a record deal and
3:04:37
Speaker 1: then the labels you know, are are signing them. So
3:04:40
Speaker 1: that's not a lot of the rap caviare stuff is
3:04:43
Speaker 1: with stuff that our editors found. Even on the pop side.
3:04:47
Speaker 1: Mike Mike baggage finds things and then he puts it
3:04:51
Speaker 1: into the pop playlist and then they end up getting signed.
3:04:55
Speaker 1: So if we what do you see the future, Because
3:05:00
Speaker 1: we can go on Spotify right now, we can see
3:05:01
Speaker 1: the Spotify Top fifty changes every day. We can see
3:05:04
Speaker 1: the number of streams and except for the Superstar of
3:05:07
Speaker 1: superstars with one single, radio is way behind. They won't
3:05:11
Speaker 1: add multiple tracks, they're off the months. Find what do
3:05:14
Speaker 1: you foresee the future? There? You know, I think I
3:05:17
Speaker 1: think radio's in trouble, you know readio radio as we know,
3:05:20
Speaker 1: it's in trouble, and I think it's inevitable because the
3:05:24
Speaker 1: only way from radio that you make your business better
3:05:29
Speaker 1: is to build the uh an experience that's worse for
3:05:34
Speaker 1: the consumer, meaning you know, you gotta put more ads
3:05:39
Speaker 1: into and into into the product. So you know, I
3:05:42
Speaker 1: even know when if I go and out and I
3:05:44
Speaker 1: turn on radio, is a high probability that is going
3:05:47
Speaker 1: to be commercials on so soon as soon as I
3:05:49
Speaker 1: turn it on. So that's one sort of friction point,
3:05:52
Speaker 1: you know, out of the gate. Then the second friction
3:05:55
Speaker 1: point is radio relies so much on research because they
3:05:59
Speaker 1: want to do they need to de risk it or whatever.
3:06:02
Speaker 1: So you know, it's not like when uh DJs and
3:06:06
Speaker 1: programmers could make independent decisions before, and they felt something
3:06:11
Speaker 1: and they could put it in, they could put it
3:06:12
Speaker 1: in right away. A lot of the radio stations are
3:06:15
Speaker 1: looking at Spotify data and kind of using that to
3:06:18
Speaker 1: decide which which records they're they're gonna put in, So
3:06:21
Speaker 1: by the time they hear that, that record is old
3:06:25
Speaker 1: on Spotify. So, you know, so for my kids who
3:06:29
Speaker 1: get in the car and they're you know, going on
3:06:31
Speaker 1: Spotify and YouTube to kind of consume their music, if
3:06:34
Speaker 1: they turn on Top forty radio, whatever they're hearing is
3:06:37
Speaker 1: already months old by that time. So I think you
3:06:40
Speaker 1: lose a consumer at that point or it starts feeling like, um,
3:06:45
Speaker 1: almost like an adult Top forty because you know, you're
3:06:48
Speaker 1: you're playing old music. So I think that's a big
3:06:51
Speaker 1: I think this is a gap and for us, we
3:06:55
Speaker 1: can't you know, and I think this is a big,
3:06:57
Speaker 1: you know, sort of gap and friction point it you know,
3:07:00
Speaker 1: Spotify and and and frontline record labels, we can't keep
3:07:06
Speaker 1: your record in while you're going for your radio plan
3:07:09
Speaker 1: because our consumer has already moved on to your second
3:07:13
Speaker 1: or third single. By the time you know, you're getting
3:07:16
Speaker 1: added at at radio, so you know, so I think
3:07:19
Speaker 1: that's the part that from an industry perspective, I think
3:07:23
Speaker 1: on the label side, they have to figure out what's
3:07:25
Speaker 1: gonna be what's important to you, you know, being current
3:07:30
Speaker 1: with the consumers and being able to have you know,
3:07:32
Speaker 1: songs within the within these playlists, or you know, getting
3:07:36
Speaker 1: added at top forty. So we'll see how to and
3:07:39
Speaker 1: if we go on the US Top fifty, it is
3:07:42
Speaker 1: very much urban slash hip hop. So the question that's
3:07:45
Speaker 1: obviously illustrating demand, but to what degree does Spotify have
3:07:52
Speaker 1: a responsibility to give attention to other formats? Let me
3:07:56
Speaker 1: just say for myself, let me give an experience. I
3:07:58
Speaker 1: want to know what's going on, So I'll go to
3:08:00
Speaker 1: Spotify Top fifty. I'll listen. Then if I think of
3:08:02
Speaker 1: all the other genres, country, electronic, it's a lot of
3:08:05
Speaker 1: work and there are a lot of acts today forget that.
3:08:08
Speaker 1: You know, people don't seem to understand that you get
3:08:11
Speaker 1: paid based on whether people stream you or not. But
3:08:13
Speaker 1: is is are we purely speaking to the public's demand,
3:08:18
Speaker 1: or is there any way or is there responsibility for
3:08:21
Speaker 1: Spotify to boost other formats. So so and as a
3:08:25
Speaker 1: really really really good question, so where um so, But
3:08:29
Speaker 1: so we'll separate it for a second. So when you
3:08:32
Speaker 1: look at the top fifty, that's just demand, right, So
3:08:36
Speaker 1: that is that is the pulse of what people on
3:08:40
Speaker 1: our platform are are actually listening to. Because the difference
3:08:44
Speaker 1: with radio is push, the difference with Spotify is pull.
3:08:48
Speaker 1: So that is consumers actually listening to that to that
3:08:52
Speaker 1: music because they can easily skip through it. Right, So
3:08:55
Speaker 1: this is what this is urban. So urban hip hop
3:08:58
Speaker 1: is lead top forty right now in terms is pop
3:09:02
Speaker 1: music in terms of popularity UM if you look at
3:09:06
Speaker 1: you know, we talked last week we announced UM the
3:09:10
Speaker 1: new the new free app on on Spotify, and a
3:09:13
Speaker 1: lot of what we talked about was personalization because when
3:09:18
Speaker 1: the beauty of the beauty of of of data is
3:09:21
Speaker 1: being able to give everybody in this room a personalized experience.
3:09:25
Speaker 1: So and and that's that that was a that's a
3:09:29
Speaker 1: big friction point because if you're a country music fan
3:09:32
Speaker 1: and you show up and the first thing you see
3:09:35
Speaker 1: is is me goes you know in the platform, you
3:09:38
Speaker 1: might churn out at that point, or if you can't,
3:09:41
Speaker 1: or if you feel sort of it's almost like you're
3:09:44
Speaker 1: walking into a room and not feeling welcome, you know,
3:09:47
Speaker 1: So how do you make people feel welcome when they
3:09:50
Speaker 1: walk into that room. So a lot of the stuff
3:09:52
Speaker 1: that we're working on right now is built around personalization.
3:09:56
Speaker 1: So I think, what you what what people see in
3:09:58
Speaker 1: the in the new free app from the onboarding, we're gonna,
3:10:01
Speaker 1: we're gonna, you know, allow you to tell us about
3:10:04
Speaker 1: yourself and and so when you come to Spotify, how
3:10:07
Speaker 1: do we give you a personalized experience? And then um,
3:10:11
Speaker 1: but you know, it's almost like the personalized experience would
3:10:15
Speaker 1: be to a the A story and the B story
3:10:19
Speaker 1: is more to shared experience, you know. And I think
3:10:21
Speaker 1: right now it's a little bit of the opposite where
3:10:24
Speaker 1: it was in the past. It was the opposite where
3:10:26
Speaker 1: it was the shared story was for was out in front,
3:10:31
Speaker 1: and then the personalization was more in to discover weekly
3:10:35
Speaker 1: product and and things like that. We'll pause here for
3:10:42
Speaker 1: a brief moment and get right back to the director
3:10:45
Speaker 1: of Creative Services and Spotify, Troy Carter. As you probably know,
3:10:52
Speaker 1: I'm mainly a writer and you can read my work
3:10:53
Speaker 1: at left sets dot com if you sign up for
3:10:56
Speaker 1: the newsletter not only will you get my commentary, i'm music,
3:10:59
Speaker 1: tech and my life in general. You'll be the first
3:11:03
Speaker 1: to find out when we publish a new conversation. Go
3:11:06
Speaker 1: to left steps dot com and sign up now more.
3:11:09
Speaker 1: Were the director of creative services that Spotify. Troy Carter
3:11:13
Speaker 1: recorded live at the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. Okay,
3:11:18
Speaker 1: we're gonna open up to questions. Now. Two things, One
3:11:21
Speaker 1: wait for a mic, and to please ask a question
3:11:26
Speaker 1: as opposed to giving your opinion. We're certainly interested in
3:11:28
Speaker 1: your opinion, but everybody may not. It's certainly for dinner
3:11:31
Speaker 1: or other times. So I have Troy here, please make
3:11:34
Speaker 1: it a question. Since you're talking about personalization, so you're
3:11:41
Speaker 1: saying that you're getting receiving enough qualitative data to give somebody,
3:11:47
Speaker 1: uh human behavior personalization. That's that's how much data you
3:11:51
Speaker 1: guys are receiving too, to personalize get your face for
3:11:55
Speaker 1: that person exactly, exactly. So just understanding how people listening to,
3:12:01
Speaker 1: how how people listen to music, and um, what types
3:12:05
Speaker 1: of people are listening to, what types of music allows
3:12:10
Speaker 1: us to give a better listening experience. So in terms
3:12:15
Speaker 1: and in that you know it's funny because when when
3:12:21
Speaker 1: you talk about data now because of the Facebook thing,
3:12:24
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of freaks people out right. Um,
3:12:28
Speaker 1: but data used in the right way can give you
3:12:31
Speaker 1: an incredible experience. So if you look at ten years
3:12:37
Speaker 1: of understanding the way tens and tens of millions over
3:12:44
Speaker 1: a hundred million people listening listen to music, you really
3:12:48
Speaker 1: understand how to personalize and experience. And that's how That's
3:12:51
Speaker 1: why I discover Weekly worked really well, release Radar worked
3:12:55
Speaker 1: really well, and then um daily Mix worked really well.
3:12:59
Speaker 1: And now know, UM, I think we're we're we're we're
3:13:02
Speaker 1: able to dial it in even even better. Next question, Jim,
3:13:09
Speaker 1: we have to Mike, So if someone else get a
3:13:11
Speaker 1: Mike Jake. UM, I have a question, if you guys
3:13:15
Speaker 1: have ever looked at the genre of music against the
3:13:19
Speaker 1: free service versus the paid service? Can you I think
3:13:24
Speaker 1: what he means is do people listen who are paying
3:13:28
Speaker 1: listen to different stuff from the people who are not paying? Yeah,
3:13:32
Speaker 1: and and and do you have data on that? So
3:13:35
Speaker 1: the answer would be I'm add percent sure we have
3:13:38
Speaker 1: data data on that. UM. I wouldn't be able to
3:13:41
Speaker 1: break down specifically, I could say it broadly, you know,
3:13:47
Speaker 1: in terms of like sort of premium premium versus free,
3:13:51
Speaker 1: but um, not really specifically right right now, okay, gentlemen,
3:13:56
Speaker 1: right here, hey Troy, I'm here from Sweden. There's a
3:13:59
Speaker 1: lot of debate eight um back where I'm from about
3:14:02
Speaker 1: the sort of payment models from Spotify little bit a
3:14:05
Speaker 1: little bit louder place, the payment models from Spotify to
3:14:09
Speaker 1: the labels and from the labels to the artists, and
3:14:12
Speaker 1: the sort of royalty pool that's being built up. Do
3:14:15
Speaker 1: you know if Spotify is planning to change anything in
3:14:18
Speaker 1: the model in the nearest future or instead of discussion
3:14:21
Speaker 1: that happens in the office. Well, well, um, and this
3:14:26
Speaker 1: is is a is a good question. You know. The
3:14:29
Speaker 1: reality is, you know you kind of we I think
3:14:32
Speaker 1: we've gone through this sort of in a very very
3:14:37
Speaker 1: beginning of Spotify, when when people said Spotify doesn't pay
3:14:44
Speaker 1: pay out, they were right because it was no scale, right,
3:14:48
Speaker 1: So it's just you know, it's only a certain amount
3:14:51
Speaker 1: of paying customers on the platform, So the royalty payments
3:14:56
Speaker 1: were smaller in the beginning. You fast forward and out
3:15:00
Speaker 1: we paid out over eight billion euros, you know, to
3:15:04
Speaker 1: to to the music industry. And but how that's distributed
3:15:10
Speaker 1: to artists and creators is based off of individual deals.
3:15:15
Speaker 1: So at that point, you know, it's we can't make
3:15:19
Speaker 1: UM rights holders pay out any specific way you know
3:15:23
Speaker 1: is their individual deals with individual artists. UM. But the
3:15:27
Speaker 1: reality is, I think quite naturally, UM, just what what
3:15:33
Speaker 1: I see happening generally in the industry. The next ten
3:15:38
Speaker 1: years are gonna look a lot different because you have
3:15:41
Speaker 1: a lot of are you got I'm seeing artists that
3:15:45
Speaker 1: are UM and I'm just gonna speak very candidly, I'm
3:15:50
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of artists that are opting to stay
3:15:52
Speaker 1: independent because they're seeing how much, you know, you can
3:15:56
Speaker 1: really make, you can really make a living and you
3:15:59
Speaker 1: get you get real hash flow in terms of not
3:16:01
Speaker 1: having to wait you know, along along if you are independent,
3:16:05
Speaker 1: how often you get paid from Spotify um you get
3:16:07
Speaker 1: It depends on your aggregator and how your aggregator works.
3:16:10
Speaker 1: But let's say on average you get a monthly payment
3:16:12
Speaker 1: that trails. Right, So if I didn't interrupt, do you
3:16:15
Speaker 1: get a monthly payment that that trails. But let's just
3:16:18
Speaker 1: talk about the future of the business. Right, If we
3:16:20
Speaker 1: look at the future of the business, and we look
3:16:22
Speaker 1: at a cross and this isn't me predicting Spotify. I'm
3:16:26
Speaker 1: just talking specifically for the industry and looking at other
3:16:29
Speaker 1: types of industry. Why shouldn't artists get paid If uber
3:16:33
Speaker 1: drivers and lift drivers now can say cash out after
3:16:37
Speaker 1: their drive and that and it goes directly into their
3:16:40
Speaker 1: bank account of PayPal account, my guess is artists in
3:16:44
Speaker 1: the future are gonna be able to cash out after
3:16:46
Speaker 1: a day of streams how whenever they need, whenever they
3:16:49
Speaker 1: need that money. And cash flow is a big problem
3:16:52
Speaker 1: with artists. We know you might need to pay rent,
3:16:55
Speaker 1: you might need to buy gear, you might be going
3:16:57
Speaker 1: on tour, whatever, you might need to buy a car,
3:16:59
Speaker 1: whatever you need to do. Cash flows an issue. So
3:17:02
Speaker 1: when historically you know, record labels have taken care of
3:17:07
Speaker 1: a cash flow problem. But in so I think, um,
3:17:12
Speaker 1: the question, the bigger question becomes value proposition. Well, the
3:17:18
Speaker 1: value proposition um for of giving up eighty five of
3:17:25
Speaker 1: your of your revenue and exchange for marketing promotion, cash advanced,
3:17:32
Speaker 1: whatever is it gonna be worth it? And that's I
3:17:37
Speaker 1: think that's gonna be That's gonna be the biggest trick.
3:17:40
Speaker 1: But I think I don't think deals are gonna stay
3:17:42
Speaker 1: the same I think that the whole value chain is
3:17:46
Speaker 1: gonna change. I think record labels are gonna um evolve
3:17:50
Speaker 1: their their value proposition. I think managers are gonna evolve
3:17:54
Speaker 1: their value proposition. I think UM those services are gonna
3:17:58
Speaker 1: start looking very like each other. Management companies will look
3:18:01
Speaker 1: like labels, labels will look like management companies and UM
3:18:05
Speaker 1: and then but from there, I think it's going to
3:18:07
Speaker 1: be about the value that the artists feel like they
3:18:10
Speaker 1: can capture. In the end, does that answer? Does that help? Well?
3:18:14
Speaker 1: The other? The other? But the other thing about I
3:18:17
Speaker 1: think you're addressing is at this point in time, is
3:18:19
Speaker 1: it's sixty seven or sixty eight percent of every dollar
3:18:22
Speaker 1: goes to right soldiers, UM from from Spotify, Yes, some
3:18:26
Speaker 1: somewhere in the area. Right, So what happened If you've
3:18:29
Speaker 1: had to deal with an aggregator like tune in you pay,
3:18:31
Speaker 1: I mean the tune corret you paid once a year.
3:18:33
Speaker 1: All that money will be yours, assuming you both write
3:18:35
Speaker 1: the song and record the song. But if there's someone
3:18:38
Speaker 1: in between, like a label, assuming they're paying you at all,
3:18:41
Speaker 1: your deal maybe fifteen cents on the dollar that they get.
3:18:45
Speaker 1: But the issue this is also an interesting issue because
3:18:48
Speaker 1: they don't really want Spotify if they really start talking
3:18:52
Speaker 1: about this and pointing at the labels their partners, the
3:18:55
Speaker 1: labels don't like it to be talked about. And we
3:18:57
Speaker 1: don't have to point like it, I think. And that's
3:18:59
Speaker 1: the thing, like it's you know where we're it's it's
3:19:03
Speaker 1: we We are a very transparent company and you know
3:19:07
Speaker 1: we don't we don't play hide the ball with with
3:19:10
Speaker 1: with record labels. We talked very openly about the about
3:19:14
Speaker 1: our business to them. Um. We also talked to to
3:19:17
Speaker 1: to the record labels about what the future the business
3:19:20
Speaker 1: is gonna look like. And Daniels a guy who he
3:19:25
Speaker 1: lives ten years in the in in the future, like
3:19:28
Speaker 1: that's that's how he he thinks. And you know, my
3:19:32
Speaker 1: and you know and I laugh because at times I say,
3:19:35
Speaker 1: hold on you your ten years in the future. Sometimes
3:19:38
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with people who are ten years in the past.
3:19:40
Speaker 1: I gotta client of clothes. I gotta close the gap
3:19:43
Speaker 1: a little because mine very quickly. Okay, No, So I
3:19:50
Speaker 1: think Spotify is great, and I think that the okay
3:19:55
Speaker 1: and the payout is similar to own distributions. So that's
3:19:58
Speaker 1: all great. I'm what part of my question was relating
3:20:01
Speaker 1: to the sort of pool. What happens if I pay
3:20:04
Speaker 1: my I don't know what it's here not. So what
3:20:09
Speaker 1: you're addressing is if I pay ten dollars and only
3:20:12
Speaker 1: listen to bandex, should be index get all of my
3:20:15
Speaker 1: ten dollars. About five years ago somebody ran the numbers
3:20:19
Speaker 1: and they found that people were actually going to make
3:20:21
Speaker 1: less under that basis. I haven't seen the numbers run recently,
3:20:25
Speaker 1: but I would just go to the bottom line is
3:20:27
Speaker 1: but it goes to the pool, right Yeah. Spotify pays
3:20:31
Speaker 1: based on the listens, and every at least once a
3:20:34
Speaker 1: week somebody emails being something that's got fifty million streams
3:20:37
Speaker 1: that I've never heard of. It's not on a label.
3:20:39
Speaker 1: So people email me all the time that they're getting
3:20:42
Speaker 1: not even a million streams. Why are they not making money?
3:20:45
Speaker 1: The demand is not that high, but interesting topics just
3:20:48
Speaker 1: want to gainst other people a chance. Gentlemen, lady back
3:20:51
Speaker 1: there in a million. A million streams isn't a lot
3:20:53
Speaker 1: on our platform. I'm gonna switch topics just very quickly.
3:20:59
Speaker 1: I've loved to this so much. Thank you. My background
3:21:02
Speaker 1: I'm a Silicon Valley nerd and worked in digital audio
3:21:05
Speaker 1: forever started off at digit Design, and I have to hear,
3:21:09
Speaker 1: uh what the tip was that Jimmy Ivan gave you
3:21:13
Speaker 1: to make Lady Gagas sound better on tour. I've just
3:21:16
Speaker 1: been dying to know what that was. That was what
3:21:20
Speaker 1: we fired. We fired our front of house guy. I've
3:21:25
Speaker 1: worked with a lot of sound engineers, so I know Horace.
3:21:28
Speaker 1: So hopefully it wasn't well. By the way, I love Horrors.
3:21:31
Speaker 1: By the way Harors we were. Horrors was out with
3:21:33
Speaker 1: us for a long time. He's great. By the way,
3:21:35
Speaker 1: he did some of our best tours. Okay, we probably
3:21:39
Speaker 1: got hard right over here on the left, just to
3:21:41
Speaker 1: show we have interest over here while he's standing, he
3:21:43
Speaker 1: can get it. We'll get next. Hi. Try great. This
3:21:47
Speaker 1: was a great discussion, moderation aside. I thought it was fantastic. Um,
3:21:54
Speaker 1: I mean talking ten years down down the road, the
3:21:57
Speaker 1: way Daniel seems to look at things. Um, some of
3:21:59
Speaker 1: us also try to look that way. In terms of
3:22:03
Speaker 1: you know you, you mentioned a lot of strategic partnerships
3:22:05
Speaker 1: that you've had in your other business dealings. What about
3:22:08
Speaker 1: in terms of touring. Has Spotify looked towards strategic partnerships
3:22:15
Speaker 1: in that respect? You know, I talked, we we talked
3:22:17
Speaker 1: about touring a lot just because you know, it's it's
3:22:20
Speaker 1: an industry that we feel is it's it's broken, you know. Um.
3:22:29
Speaker 1: I was talking to one of our engineers about you know, product,
3:22:33
Speaker 1: and I was telling them it was I think it
3:22:36
Speaker 1: was with Gaga, we sold out we would put a
3:22:41
Speaker 1: tour up. And I got a call from the promoter
3:22:44
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, we sold out for gardens and
3:22:48
Speaker 1: X amount of time and you know we had we
3:22:50
Speaker 1: we had another two or three in the queue. Said
3:22:54
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I'm like, that's not good news. Somebody should
3:22:57
Speaker 1: have known that it was you know enough, we could
3:23:00
Speaker 1: have done three more gardens instead of us having to
3:23:04
Speaker 1: go to fucking Jersey after New York. Because to be
3:23:09
Speaker 1: able to monetize not have to pack up and move
3:23:13
Speaker 1: your show, not have to be hard on the artist's
3:23:18
Speaker 1: physical body by having to move them around is so
3:23:21
Speaker 1: many inefficiencies and in touring, and so the way towards
3:23:25
Speaker 1: around it right now is not through data. Is basically
3:23:29
Speaker 1: through guys who have been out on the road, through
3:23:31
Speaker 1: booking agents. UM, through hey, uh this pop act did
3:23:38
Speaker 1: this amount of O two so you should be able
3:23:40
Speaker 1: to do this amount of O twos or whatever. There's
3:23:42
Speaker 1: no data. The merchandise business is the same exact thing.
3:23:47
Speaker 1: It's no, it's no data. So we feel like, you know,
3:23:50
Speaker 1: there's enough data at least that we have where we
3:23:53
Speaker 1: can identify super fans on on the platform and specific markets.
3:23:58
Speaker 1: And if with access to other types of data be
3:24:02
Speaker 1: at venue data, poll Star data, you know, the artists
3:24:06
Speaker 1: you know, um, their their fan site data some other things,
3:24:10
Speaker 1: you can really make well informed decisions on touring. But
3:24:16
Speaker 1: not even the Getta Getta. But I think even the
3:24:28
Speaker 1: product now though to me, is remedial in terms of
3:24:32
Speaker 1: what's available. Like, to be honest with you, I like
3:24:36
Speaker 1: routing the tour is the easiest part, right, but understanding
3:24:42
Speaker 1: who is I'm doing that now? I'm doing it now.
3:24:56
Speaker 1: I did three hundred of them last year probably, so
3:25:00
Speaker 1: we you know, we probably sold close to a hundred
3:25:03
Speaker 1: million and tickets for people, so we we Well, so
3:25:07
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be clear. I get that email who's
3:25:09
Speaker 1: playing in my neighborhood from Spotify, but not not that okay,
3:25:14
Speaker 1: so but I'm aware of that, tell me about the
3:25:16
Speaker 1: super fans. So so basically, yes, so basically what happens
3:25:20
Speaker 1: is UM booking agents come to us or managers that
3:25:25
Speaker 1: come to us, and we do two things. So we
3:25:28
Speaker 1: either can help UM a lot of like superstars that
3:25:33
Speaker 1: come to us and they'll say, we only want our
3:25:36
Speaker 1: super fans and x amount in the first few rows
3:25:40
Speaker 1: throughout the entire tour, So can you market the show
3:25:44
Speaker 1: with this with the with this ticket allocation to our
3:25:47
Speaker 1: super fans. So that's one one part of it, so
3:25:51
Speaker 1: where we'll market the show to the super fans on
3:25:53
Speaker 1: our through our platform essentially through our data. And then
3:25:57
Speaker 1: the other piece of it is distressed inventory, So for
3:26:00
Speaker 1: shows that aren't selling, being able to identify those super
3:26:04
Speaker 1: fans and those markets who may not know that the
3:26:07
Speaker 1: show's coming through and being able to to sell the
3:26:10
Speaker 1: distressed inventory as well. So what you'll see and by
3:26:14
Speaker 1: the way, even with the amount of tickets that we
3:26:16
Speaker 1: sold through their UM, we still think it's remedial. So
3:26:21
Speaker 1: the products that you know we're working on right now,
3:26:23
Speaker 1: we feel like it's gonna get better and better. So
3:26:26
Speaker 1: one like one of the things Daniel talked about on
3:26:28
Speaker 1: our investor relations day UM you know a couple of
3:26:32
Speaker 1: months ago, was this idea about a building out a marketplace.
3:26:36
Speaker 1: So essentially Spotify is is will evolve into a marketplace
3:26:41
Speaker 1: where artists don't need us to do it. They'll be
3:26:44
Speaker 1: able to come on there and reach their fans directly,
3:26:46
Speaker 1: sell their tickets to their fans, directly, merchandise, message their fans,
3:26:51
Speaker 1: and to kind of build this relationship. Okay, who has
3:26:54
Speaker 1: the mic right now? I got I got one over here.
3:26:56
Speaker 1: I just found it. Thank you, thank you. UM. You
3:27:01
Speaker 1: brought up India verses or artists wanting to stay Indy.
3:27:05
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest points of that is
3:27:07
Speaker 1: to have control. How many artists have recorded records and
3:27:11
Speaker 1: they're just sitting there. So I think the biggest factor
3:27:13
Speaker 1: and staying independent is to have that control of of
3:27:16
Speaker 1: doing your career the way you wanted to. UM. I've
3:27:19
Speaker 1: been on both sides of the majors in the Indies.
3:27:22
Speaker 1: I spent my first fifty or sixty decades at a
3:27:26
Speaker 1: major and my last sixty decades on the indie side. UM.
3:27:29
Speaker 1: I think right now you know the answer is. I
3:27:32
Speaker 1: don't think it's radio or Spotify or TV or festivals
3:27:37
Speaker 1: or it's almost like what you did with Gaga is
3:27:40
Speaker 1: you ran around and did everything you know, I think
3:27:42
Speaker 1: the future kind of is the past. I was preceded
3:27:45
Speaker 1: by a guy named Juggie Gayles, and Juggie was like
3:27:49
Speaker 1: a song he was he was a plugger. They called
3:27:51
Speaker 1: him song Fluggers and they just went everywhere they went,
3:27:54
Speaker 1: you know, and you go everywhere. You have this intuition
3:27:57
Speaker 1: and you navigate it and try to you know, fan
3:27:59
Speaker 1: the aims. I I think, you know, you brought up
3:28:02
Speaker 1: research and radio's research. I don't think the concept of
3:28:06
Speaker 1: research isn't incorrect. Like I look at the research on Spotify.
3:28:10
Speaker 1: You're looking at what people are really doing. I think
3:28:12
Speaker 1: radio buildings archaic um call out research paradigm where they
3:28:17
Speaker 1: feel they can look in the rear view mirror or
3:28:19
Speaker 1: as those are the people who are listening to their stations.
3:28:22
Speaker 1: And that's that's what the problem is. It's it's they're
3:28:25
Speaker 1: so entrenched in that system and that's what's hurting them to,
3:28:29
Speaker 1: you know, to move to towards the future. Um. I
3:28:32
Speaker 1: was um thinking about Spotify. I was thinking about consumption.
3:28:37
Speaker 1: Everything is about you know, you when you look at
3:28:39
Speaker 1: the numbers on wrap or Wrap Cavy or a hip hop,
3:28:42
Speaker 1: there tend to one right. Oh and yet where you
3:28:46
Speaker 1: may tend to one in terms of like I look
3:28:48
Speaker 1: at the amount of followers, the amount of listeners, the amount,
3:28:52
Speaker 1: how how huge hip hop is right now, And I
3:28:55
Speaker 1: was thinking about the live business, about about these festivals.
3:29:00
Speaker 1: I'm getting to the question, um, when when you're looking
3:29:03
Speaker 1: at these festivals now, Lallapalooza, bonar Ruaisia. Every day there's
3:29:08
Speaker 1: more and more festivals and what's driving them and it's it's, Um,
3:29:12
Speaker 1: the irony is that it's a time when people can
3:29:15
Speaker 1: be alone, they can sit in their house and be
3:29:17
Speaker 1: on the internet. They're all going out to these festivals
3:29:20
Speaker 1: and all you know, it's it's it's fascinating to me.
3:29:25
Speaker 1: And when I look at these festivals and I look
3:29:27
Speaker 1: at again, I'm not in the touring side. I'm on
3:29:29
Speaker 1: the recorded music side, but that that's being driven a
3:29:33
Speaker 1: lot by alternative and rock more than I think, you know,
3:29:36
Speaker 1: on the hip hop side. And my question to you is,
3:29:39
Speaker 1: why do you think there's such a disparity between you know,
3:29:43
Speaker 1: the recorded music side, the hip hop and the wrap
3:29:45
Speaker 1: and the live business where these people are coming out
3:29:48
Speaker 1: in droves. Why is the recorded music and have such
3:29:51
Speaker 1: a higher demand, you know, on the hip hop side
3:29:54
Speaker 1: compared to I don't think it's a disparity at all. Like,
3:29:58
Speaker 1: you know, you see hip hop acts that are selling
3:30:03
Speaker 1: you know, arenas out every every single night of the week.
3:30:06
Speaker 1: So I like, I don't think it's I don't think
3:30:08
Speaker 1: it's a disparity. And then when you look at you know,
3:30:11
Speaker 1: I think they're especially with the younger consumer like a
3:30:14
Speaker 1: Cachella consumer or or Lollapalooza. You know, you look at
3:30:18
Speaker 1: the festival lineups and its diverse, you know, and I
3:30:21
Speaker 1: think the diversity, yeah, I think the diversity and and um,
3:30:26
Speaker 1: even with this past Catchella is a reflection of the
3:30:29
Speaker 1: way you know, kids are listening to music, so where
3:30:33
Speaker 1: they are listening to all different all different types. Huh,
3:30:37
Speaker 1: it was Mike right here. I don't, I don't. It's
3:30:39
Speaker 1: not that it's catching up. I don't think it was
3:30:41
Speaker 1: ever behind. Actually I think it was behind. I think
3:30:44
Speaker 1: a lot of the festivals were booked by old white guys.
3:30:47
Speaker 1: But but when you say live, live and festivals are
3:30:50
Speaker 1: two different things. The lot, the lot, the live business
3:30:53
Speaker 1: has never been, never been behind. But like I think
3:30:56
Speaker 1: festivals realized they had to wake up and diversify the business.
3:30:59
Speaker 1: If they wanted to keep with the with the consumer. Okay,
3:31:12
Speaker 1: gentlemen here, Okay, yeah, um, going back, I think Bob,
3:31:17
Speaker 1: you're you actually asked a question about uh, possibly labels
3:31:22
Speaker 1: controlling too much of what gets to the list. Um
3:31:25
Speaker 1: you made a comment about the hype. Is you know
3:31:28
Speaker 1: there's no hype, it's the numbers don't lie? Um which
3:31:32
Speaker 1: list though? Well, because it's fortylists right, right, So here's
3:31:37
Speaker 1: my question is of those how many? How many editors
3:31:41
Speaker 1: are there? And then sort of the part two is,
3:31:44
Speaker 1: let's take an act that has no touring base, right,
3:31:47
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna use some old terms, but you can
3:31:49
Speaker 1: never get to call out without having the ad, right,
3:31:52
Speaker 1: So you've got to have that initial ad before you
3:31:54
Speaker 1: can get to call out. So before you can get
3:31:57
Speaker 1: the numbers, there has to be some amount of hype
3:31:59
Speaker 1: or some amount of connection to those editors, right, No,
3:32:02
Speaker 1: not at all, Like it's it's just a it's a
3:32:04
Speaker 1: handful like So to answer, I'll answer if you your questions.
3:32:09
Speaker 1: So is is a few hundred editors globally at Spotify,
3:32:14
Speaker 1: across the across the different genres. Our editors especially and
3:32:20
Speaker 1: in certain specific genres, they pride like part of their
3:32:26
Speaker 1: culture is you got to find stuff before everybody else
3:32:30
Speaker 1: finds it. That's like that's part of hip hop culture,
3:32:33
Speaker 1: by the way, and part of Latin culture is as well.
3:32:36
Speaker 1: You want to get there early before anybody gets it.
3:32:39
Speaker 1: So they're looking for and they're competing with other services
3:32:43
Speaker 1: as well trying to find stuff. So a lot of
3:32:45
Speaker 1: the stuff that um Our editors are finding, like record
3:32:51
Speaker 1: companies call me every single day of the week trying
3:32:55
Speaker 1: to sign acts that are independent on on on Spotify.
3:32:59
Speaker 1: They're trying to nine these records that are that that
3:33:01
Speaker 1: are doing well. And then you know, in the reality
3:33:05
Speaker 1: and just when we look at some of the big categories,
3:33:09
Speaker 1: major labels are over index and all hit records you got,
3:33:13
Speaker 1: you know, so you know, when we talk about you know,
3:33:15
Speaker 1: certain name like certain categories that people come to me
3:33:22
Speaker 1: sort of complaining about, they can't name me any big
3:33:26
Speaker 1: acts in that in that category in the first place.
3:33:28
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, I think major labels do
3:33:31
Speaker 1: an incredible job at making big top forty records, so
3:33:35
Speaker 1: that quite naturally they're gonna control a big portion of
3:33:40
Speaker 1: big top forty playlists. You know, when it comes to
3:33:45
Speaker 1: jazz music, maybe not so much. It comes to some
3:33:48
Speaker 1: other categories maybe maybe not so much, but I think
3:33:52
Speaker 1: it's um. I think it's one of those things that
3:33:54
Speaker 1: people have started talking about so much that people start
3:33:59
Speaker 1: believing that that that's actually the case. And I just
3:34:02
Speaker 1: come from I come from a school of hit records work,
3:34:10
Speaker 1: hit records work, Doug Morris. I remember going into Doug
3:34:15
Speaker 1: Morris's office after he left Universal and right before he
3:34:18
Speaker 1: went into Sony and UM, and he was asking me about, UM,
3:34:24
Speaker 1: what a record that that we that that I put
3:34:27
Speaker 1: out on one of our acts, and you know, and
3:34:29
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, the video was too dark?
3:34:32
Speaker 1: You know, I kind of saw this, you know, just
3:34:34
Speaker 1: change with the consumer, and you know it wasn't popping up.
3:34:37
Speaker 1: He said, no, it wasn't a hit. He said, it
3:34:42
Speaker 1: wasn't a hit. And that's the reality. Nobody wants to
3:34:46
Speaker 1: admit when their records aren't hits. So most of the
3:34:50
Speaker 1: complaints I get from people they don't have hit records.
3:34:58
Speaker 1: Over here. You mentioned that streaming is in its infancy.
3:35:02
Speaker 1: What does it look like when it's matured? And also
3:35:04
Speaker 1: based on the data, what emerging genres are there that
3:35:07
Speaker 1: you guys are seeing, Well, you know, I think you know,
3:35:09
Speaker 1: when you talk about when when it's mature, you know,
3:35:12
Speaker 1: and this is where I think we underestimate, you know,
3:35:16
Speaker 1: the size of of what the global recorded music market
3:35:20
Speaker 1: is going to be. So everybody talks about the sort
3:35:23
Speaker 1: of heyday of the record business at its height. And
3:35:28
Speaker 1: you know when we were selling selling a lot of CDs.
3:35:31
Speaker 1: More people are on on this planet are gonna have
3:35:34
Speaker 1: mobile phones than they had CD players. So and when
3:35:37
Speaker 1: you look at the amount of youth, the youth population
3:35:43
Speaker 1: that's rising in Africa and in India, you look at
3:35:48
Speaker 1: China that you know that's never been a factor, and
3:35:51
Speaker 1: how and the and the paid music market, I think
3:35:56
Speaker 1: it's gonna I think the music industry is gonna to
3:36:00
Speaker 1: go exponential growth like we've never seen before. I think
3:36:04
Speaker 1: what we have to adjust to, you know, we are
3:36:07
Speaker 1: I think as and I'm just saying is and just
3:36:12
Speaker 1: generally speaking the music industry we operate as elite like
3:36:17
Speaker 1: as elitists. So where we're under this impression that everybody
3:36:21
Speaker 1: is gonna buy a subscription, and everybody in the world
3:36:25
Speaker 1: in a ford. And if you look at the price
3:36:28
Speaker 1: of gas this week, people can't afford to put gas
3:36:32
Speaker 1: in their tank. People are barely making it in this country.
3:36:35
Speaker 1: People are struggling, and I think it's finding ways where Okay,
3:36:41
Speaker 1: whether it's through uh, you know, advertising subsidies or whatever.
3:36:46
Speaker 1: I think there's ways to monetize you know, a billion
3:36:51
Speaker 1: plus consumer base across you know, the the entire music industry. UM.
3:36:56
Speaker 1: I think data plans, you know, And that's one of
3:36:58
Speaker 1: the things we talked about last week with the new
3:37:00
Speaker 1: free tier was being able to you know, we built
3:37:03
Speaker 1: you know, lighter data plans because you know, so on
3:37:06
Speaker 1: on your phone, it's not eating up your data plan.
3:37:08
Speaker 1: So I think what's ahead of us is gonna is
3:37:13
Speaker 1: it's gonna. I think we're gonna see something like we
3:37:15
Speaker 1: we've never seen before. But but the market is um.
3:37:22
Speaker 1: I don't want to say a number, but I think
3:37:24
Speaker 1: it's way, way bigger than what we've ever seen. Young lady,
3:37:27
Speaker 1: right here, have you been waiting? I? UM? What about
3:37:31
Speaker 1: the role um of curators on the platform and independent curators.
3:37:36
Speaker 1: Is Spotify developing a program even for example radio stations, blogs, um,
3:37:41
Speaker 1: just independent curators. What I don't see anything being done
3:37:44
Speaker 1: for profiles for those entities and people. You you have
3:37:48
Speaker 1: independent curators that um, that are on the platform where
3:37:53
Speaker 1: you know where they and some people do a really
3:37:55
Speaker 1: good job at promoting their playlists and they you know,
3:37:58
Speaker 1: built followers. Uh um. You know, for us, our priority
3:38:02
Speaker 1: had to be our own and operated playlists, you know,
3:38:05
Speaker 1: because I think we were able to control the integrity
3:38:08
Speaker 1: of those playlists. And what I mean by that is
3:38:11
Speaker 1: just making sure it doesn't turn to a place where
3:38:15
Speaker 1: people can pay people to get on playlist and you
3:38:18
Speaker 1: know so and I think you know, when that ecosystem
3:38:22
Speaker 1: was open in the in the beginning, a lot of
3:38:24
Speaker 1: you know, we had to change the terms of services
3:38:27
Speaker 1: because you had a lot of people paying to get
3:38:30
Speaker 1: on playlists or you know, exchanging favors to get on
3:38:34
Speaker 1: to get on playlists. And the only thing that does
3:38:37
Speaker 1: is makes for uh a terrible consumer experience versus best
3:38:43
Speaker 1: song wins. So essentially, if we can program in a
3:38:47
Speaker 1: way where where best song wins is a better experience
3:38:51
Speaker 1: for the for the consumer. But we're not like there
3:38:54
Speaker 1: are a lot of brands and people who are building
3:38:56
Speaker 1: their their profiles. But our priority is is is owned
3:39:00
Speaker 1: and operated. Who has the mic? Now? Ye right here?
3:39:04
Speaker 1: I try just going back to the future of streaming UM,
3:39:09
Speaker 1: we see pricing differentiation for hires players like COB's entitle.
3:39:13
Speaker 1: UM do you think that's sustainable? And my second question is, UM,
3:39:17
Speaker 1: there's new UM streaming platforms like Prime Phonic, which are
3:39:21
Speaker 1: focused on classical music. Do you think the future will
3:39:24
Speaker 1: be sort of based on differentiation by genre or do
3:39:27
Speaker 1: you think the hardware ecosystem will dominate? You know, I
3:39:30
Speaker 1: think you know, just in my my opinion, I think UM,
3:39:34
Speaker 1: having a niche UM a knee service is deaf is difficult, right,
3:39:39
Speaker 1: you know, because when you can get and and everything
3:39:44
Speaker 1: essentially that you pretty much want to listen to him
3:39:47
Speaker 1: in one place, UM, you gotta have a compelling value
3:39:51
Speaker 1: proposition to drive somebody to pay specifically for that niche
3:39:55
Speaker 1: service and then UM this sort of financial models to
3:39:59
Speaker 1: operate as a business around that. And my I just
3:40:02
Speaker 1: think would be and it would be challenging, you know,
3:40:05
Speaker 1: especially as you're competing against you know, some some of
3:40:08
Speaker 1: the some of the larger players UM in terms of
3:40:10
Speaker 1: you know, fidelity you know you got I'm one of
3:40:15
Speaker 1: the the niche consumers that cares about you know, sound
3:40:20
Speaker 1: and and for me it's specifically for jazz music. Like
3:40:23
Speaker 1: when I listen to jazz and um, you know, I
3:40:26
Speaker 1: got high fidelity speakers. I want to listen to it
3:40:29
Speaker 1: and and and high fidelity. Um. But for a lot
3:40:33
Speaker 1: of the other records, is like, you don't need to
3:40:37
Speaker 1: listen to it in high fidelity, right, but you got
3:40:39
Speaker 1: to find a big enough audience that's willing to pay
3:40:43
Speaker 1: for it. Um. I'd love to get to a place
3:40:46
Speaker 1: where everybody cares about how how records you know, were
3:40:49
Speaker 1: intended to sound. But you know, I don't know if
3:40:52
Speaker 1: the general population, uh if that if that's something that
3:40:56
Speaker 1: they really genuinely care about. And I don't think you've
3:41:00
Speaker 1: been able to, um, how like, so when the jump
3:41:08
Speaker 1: from cassette to CD was so exponential in terms of sound,
3:41:13
Speaker 1: and the jump from vhs too, you know, DVD was
3:41:17
Speaker 1: so was was exponential in terms of you know, a
3:41:21
Speaker 1: visual and sound, we haven't been able to kind of
3:41:24
Speaker 1: give any sort of exponential jump yet to make people
3:41:28
Speaker 1: want to leap from from this to that. Ye just
3:41:38
Speaker 1: talk Yeah, I don't okay, Jamie, Jamie, you have a question.
3:41:50
Speaker 1: I probably good to see. Yeah, Um, I have two
3:41:53
Speaker 1: questions and I want to I'll cut it down to one.
3:41:55
Speaker 1: And so I'm large. Maria used to be at Pandora.
3:41:58
Speaker 1: The question that I have that I don't think anybody's
3:42:01
Speaker 1: asked you, what is the lowest hanging fruit that you
3:42:04
Speaker 1: think people are not picking off of Spotify right now?
3:42:07
Speaker 1: Used to drive me crazy that there were things I
3:42:09
Speaker 1: couldn't explain or I could explain, and people just wouldn't
3:42:12
Speaker 1: do it, Like what are they not doing? I mean,
3:42:14
Speaker 1: I think going back to what you say, People and
3:42:16
Speaker 1: lois just I'm talking about the the industry, you know, Um,
3:42:20
Speaker 1: you know, Mark was talking about how are you selling tickets?
3:42:22
Speaker 1: You're like, we just sold a hundred million dollars worth
3:42:24
Speaker 1: of tickets? Like what what across the board is the
3:42:27
Speaker 1: thing that people should be thinking about that they're not.
3:42:31
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, Um, I think I don't
3:42:34
Speaker 1: know if I have an answer for the low hanging fruit,
3:42:37
Speaker 1: but I do think the industry one of the biggest
3:42:42
Speaker 1: problems that I see is this sort of people haven't
3:42:48
Speaker 1: been able to differentiate. People haven't been able to fully
3:42:52
Speaker 1: move into a new model yet because people still think
3:42:55
Speaker 1: we're a retailer. We're not a retailer. Um. People's to
3:43:00
Speaker 1: think we're like radio, where we're not radio like so
3:43:03
Speaker 1: even down to the point where the people still haven't
3:43:07
Speaker 1: figured out who at the company should really interface with
3:43:10
Speaker 1: us yet. Should it be a promo guy, is that
3:43:12
Speaker 1: the sales team? Is it marketing? Like? So, I think
3:43:15
Speaker 1: it's kind of understanding that this is a totally new system.
3:43:22
Speaker 1: The way the old system work doesn't work with with
3:43:25
Speaker 1: with with this, with this new system. And then so
3:43:28
Speaker 1: so and even down to going back to I get
3:43:31
Speaker 1: so many calls from people that say, I'm at a
3:43:34
Speaker 1: million streams and I'm like, a million streams is nothing, Like,
3:43:39
Speaker 1: it's not there yet. You gotta get there, like it's
3:43:42
Speaker 1: um but because people in the record business think a
3:43:44
Speaker 1: million records your platinum, a million streams isn't platinum, you know.
3:43:50
Speaker 1: So it's like, so it's this sort of uh chasm
3:43:53
Speaker 1: you got that that hasn't been crossed yet. So if
3:43:55
Speaker 1: I can steal a quick follow up on that. Cycles,
3:43:58
Speaker 1: how do you do you have insight to tell everybody
3:44:02
Speaker 1: about cycles? And how I mean cycles are different now
3:44:05
Speaker 1: in a streaming with types of cycles, song cycles, uh,
3:44:09
Speaker 1: career cycles, album cycles, all of that, who's doing it? Right? So?
3:44:13
Speaker 1: So the way so I look at it as perpetual cycles, right,
3:44:16
Speaker 1: so it's not there's no more on on on and off.
3:44:20
Speaker 1: And you know what what we see now is, you know,
3:44:24
Speaker 1: you look at Um you know, two good examples of
3:44:28
Speaker 1: like a Bruno Mars or at Sharon where their former
3:44:33
Speaker 1: albums just continue to kind of perform well. And Chain
3:44:41
Speaker 1: Smokers there. You know, I think Adam and And and
3:44:44
Speaker 1: those guys are are really brilliant in terms of how
3:44:47
Speaker 1: they they're They're just innovative in their approach to to
3:44:50
Speaker 1: release the music, the hip hop game in general. I
3:44:54
Speaker 1: would just say, you know, they win blue you know,
3:44:57
Speaker 1: they win gold Star in terms of being able to um,
3:45:02
Speaker 1: to cater to new concert to the way consumers consume
3:45:06
Speaker 1: and um. And it's just it bugs me out because
3:45:10
Speaker 1: the record business we used to be so forward and
3:45:17
Speaker 1: how like when we we turned Tuesdays into events right
3:45:23
Speaker 1: where it was, you know, when we put out albums,
3:45:27
Speaker 1: the way we set up set up albums, film studios
3:45:30
Speaker 1: were envied away. You know that that that we did it.
3:45:33
Speaker 1: And but yet Netflix is kicking our ass and innovation
3:45:41
Speaker 1: of releases. You know, so when you released you know,
3:45:48
Speaker 1: I was telling I was at one of the record
3:45:50
Speaker 1: labels and they were talking about all of their new
3:45:53
Speaker 1: acts that broke on, you know, because I was complaining
3:45:57
Speaker 1: about artists development, and I'm like, you gotta build stars,
3:46:01
Speaker 1: Like just because they're getting streams don't mean that their stars.
3:46:05
Speaker 1: And they're telling me what we broke this act this year,
3:46:07
Speaker 1: this act, this year, this act this year, and this
3:46:09
Speaker 1: act this year. I said, I'll tell you what if
3:46:14
Speaker 1: you took those four artists right now and they got
3:46:17
Speaker 1: out of their car in front of the school that's
3:46:19
Speaker 1: across the street, and you took the kids from Stranger
3:46:23
Speaker 1: Things and they got out of the car, every kid's
3:46:27
Speaker 1: gonna run to the kids from Stranger things. Like that's
3:46:31
Speaker 1: this year's one direction. We don't have a one direction
3:46:34
Speaker 1: right now. That's one direction right now. You look at
3:46:37
Speaker 1: how we're still releasing single single, single album. You're releasing
3:46:44
Speaker 1: three singles before album, and Netflix is dropping the whole
3:46:48
Speaker 1: season on you day day one because everybody wants it there.
3:46:52
Speaker 1: And I asked the record I asked the record label,
3:46:54
Speaker 1: I said, why are you still doing it like that?
3:46:56
Speaker 1: Because the radio, you want to build up a an
3:47:00
Speaker 1: audience first, because the first week, first week means zero,
3:47:05
Speaker 1: first week means nothing anymore. So, so it's kind of
3:47:08
Speaker 1: just getting people to cross over to the new world.
3:47:11
Speaker 1: And and and I'm seeing some younger labels and some
3:47:15
Speaker 1: younger artists right now and that has no historical baggage.
3:47:19
Speaker 1: That are you know, plowing their way into into into
3:47:23
Speaker 1: the new world very quickly. Single album? If you're a
3:47:28
Speaker 1: new artist, should people even bother to make albums or
3:47:30
Speaker 1: continue to put out a continuous dreament product? If if
3:47:33
Speaker 1: you can make a great album, make an album. The
3:47:36
Speaker 1: problem is, you know, making a great album. That's a
3:47:40
Speaker 1: big challenge. Jamie. You said something, uh that really kind
3:47:46
Speaker 1: of perked my ears up a bit. Um. You said
3:47:51
Speaker 1: that radio is in trouble, and I absolutely agree. And
3:47:54
Speaker 1: I think that you're that Spotify's integration into automobiles is
3:47:59
Speaker 1: going to even put another nail in that coffin. But
3:48:02
Speaker 1: we aren't there yet. We aren't. Radio is not dead yet.
3:48:06
Speaker 1: So you had said something that you did with Gaga
3:48:10
Speaker 1: where it was um social media and YouTube and getting
3:48:15
Speaker 1: the music out there so that by the time it
3:48:17
Speaker 1: went to radio and they were doing their testing, that
3:48:21
Speaker 1: everybody was already familiar with it, so it tested really well.
3:48:25
Speaker 1: Later you said that labels kind of have to pick.
3:48:29
Speaker 1: Are you going to go the radio route where you
3:48:32
Speaker 1: put a half million dollars behind a track, or are
3:48:35
Speaker 1: you going to go the Spotify route? And like, I
3:48:40
Speaker 1: does a label really have to choose or should they
3:48:43
Speaker 1: just be working it back? So let me let me
3:48:45
Speaker 1: clarify it. So so I don't think you have to
3:48:48
Speaker 1: choose between going to Spotify or going to radio. So
3:48:52
Speaker 1: I was talking specifically around if you have a single
3:48:56
Speaker 1: and you start the single off and Spotify, by the
3:49:02
Speaker 1: time you build up that big enough story for radio,
3:49:06
Speaker 1: chances are it's gonna be old. That single is gonna
3:49:09
Speaker 1: be over on our platform. Yes, so so, but what
3:49:13
Speaker 1: we get a lot is complaints that we're not hanging
3:49:16
Speaker 1: in there long enough on the single because it's not building,
3:49:19
Speaker 1: it's not uh linking in uh, it's not fused with
3:49:23
Speaker 1: their radio stories essentially. And I think for us, it's
3:49:28
Speaker 1: not our that that's just not our problem because because
3:49:32
Speaker 1: only we gotta we gotta do we have to build
3:49:36
Speaker 1: the great experience for the consumer. That's the like, that's
3:49:39
Speaker 1: our number one thing. It has to be a great
3:49:41
Speaker 1: experience for the consumer. And um so so that's where
3:49:44
Speaker 1: that's the sort of catch twenty two that we're finding.
3:49:48
Speaker 1: You know, some some of the labels in Okay, this gentleman,
3:49:51
Speaker 1: this is the last question for now, my Troy. UM
3:49:56
Speaker 1: a bit of a tech nerd question because you were
3:49:59
Speaker 1: saying you've building out a marketplace and then Daniel living
3:50:04
Speaker 1: ten years ahead of us. How much is which extent
3:50:08
Speaker 1: is AI and blockchain part of the discussion? UM? You know, UM,
3:50:17
Speaker 1: some I can comment on, some I can't comment on. UM.
3:50:20
Speaker 1: I think it's just AI in general. You know, it's
3:50:27
Speaker 1: the future, you know, I think, you know, machine learning
3:50:30
Speaker 1: as part of what we already do in terms if
3:50:32
Speaker 1: you look at Discover weekly, Discover weekly as machine learning
3:50:35
Speaker 1: and UM, and I think the more data that you
3:50:40
Speaker 1: get the better than machines get. Right, So I think
3:50:43
Speaker 1: it's gonna play a huge role. And I don't think
3:50:47
Speaker 1: it necessarily has as much to do with marketplace as
3:50:51
Speaker 1: much as it has to do with the personalization that
3:50:54
Speaker 1: that that that we're talking about and just being able
3:50:57
Speaker 1: to make the experience better for you when you when
3:50:59
Speaker 1: you up come on the platform. But I just don't think,
3:51:02
Speaker 1: you know, we we kind of got a sense that
3:51:05
Speaker 1: where machine learning is gonna gonna take us, the marketplace
3:51:08
Speaker 1: was more directed towards the block chain. I can't comment,
3:51:13
Speaker 1: thank you, but you've been very open and honest. We've
3:51:16
Speaker 1: put you through the rigger for two hours. And by
3:51:26
Speaker 1: the way, I love Bob and Aga Hattie's conversations. I say,
3:51:29
Speaker 1: I got so many questions in my head, and I mean,
3:51:31
Speaker 1: we're off the audience. But when I say, on some level,
3:51:34
Speaker 1: we only scratched the surface. That's supposed to Howard Stern
3:51:37
Speaker 1: saying you said everything, You've only said a little bit.
3:51:40
Speaker 1: But it's been so wonderful that you've come here and
3:51:43
Speaker 1: uh endured this for two hours. Troy, thanks again, thank you,
3:51:46
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm sure you dug that I loved. Troy
3:51:56
Speaker 1: is such an animated character, whether he's telling stories working
3:52:00
Speaker 1: in Spotify now, are hustling back in the early days
3:52:04
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia and in California. So once again you're listening
3:52:10
Speaker 1: to the Bob left Sex Podcast Troy Carter, recorded live
3:52:15
Speaker 1: at the Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara, California. I
3:52:18
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this conversation. I know you love Troy
3:52:22
Speaker 1: just like me. Until next time, I'm Bob left Sez
3:52:30
Speaker 1: Meta