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From Silicon Valley CEO to Musician: Michele Bettencourt's Next Chapter · The Spectrum

• Linda: Hello and welcome to The Spectrum. Today's episode was recorded on November 2nd. Our guest today is Michelle Bettencourt, who's it turns out has led a really, really interesting life. so Michelle, thanks for coming on today and tell us a little bit about yourself. Michele Bettencourt: Well first of all, thanks for having me. Born and raised in California, I've got four daughters, triplet daughters that are thirty-nine and our youngest is thirty. So all lovely young women. I've been married to my wife for thirty-three years. I came out in twenty seventeen. It was a shock to everybody except myself. and it was a chaotic, messy time. At the time I was CEO and chair of a public software company. And I Linda: It would be completely software. Michele Bettencourt: just opened the New York Stock Exchange and then six months later opened the Nasdaq and it unraveled shortly after the Nasdaq opening. Linda: To make sure that everybody watching or listening has the context, when you say you came out, what does that mean in this case? Michele Bettencourt: Yes, I was Anthony Betancourt, and I came out as Michelle. And everyone that I was that I was by France. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Linda: Okay. So you I you identify as female but were assigned male at birth. Okay. How long had you known this about yourself? Michele Bettencourt: I'd always felt different. Maybe age of five s and six on, somewhere in there when I was quite young. Didn't know what it was. Linda: Mm-hmm. Michele Bettencourt: I was caught in my mother's bathing suit or something when I was five or six. It was a chaotic, all crying, sad night at home, and it was never discussed again. I mean it was never discussed. And so I thought I'm either insane or a pervert, or something. None of it good, by the way. And so I didn't even mention it to anybody ever. But, you know, I would go out in my early twenties dressed in Los Angeles. I worked in tech, and so I'd got a business trip and I'd go and I'd go to the Queen Mary in LA, which was which was the best drag bar probably in Southern California. And they had a bar adjacent to that that was, you know, dingy and dark, and I would go there. And then I would have a makeover at Jim Bridges who did great makeup and did movie makeup at one point. And that was kind of my secret. And I'd binge and purge. And as I got older, weight goes up and weight goes down. So when weight was up, I didn't feel I was very good in public when it was up, and when it went down, I was better. In my 40s, suddenly I was running companies. And I had two very different lives. I had the Michelle life at night, when I was traveling. And I travelled a lot by the way for work. I'd be gone you know, three hundred thousand miles a year, traveling for work. And during the day I'd be AB. So in an MB life and an AB life. Linda: Okay. What happened in twenty seventeen? Obviously you'd led a very successful professional life. It sounds like you were married and were raising children by that point. What happened in twenty seventeen to cause you to say, I have to do this? Michele Bettencourt: I never quite thought I would transition. I just thought I would deal with it the way it was. I got to a point in life where I couldn't. I could not do that anymore. And I also wanted to wait until I thought my daughters were of an age where at least they'd listen. Hopefully understand, but at least listen. The other piece is I was afraid of losing everything. 'Cause suddenly Linda: That's certainly a common theme. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, I I thought my career would be gone. And to an extent it was, in part because of my own actions. and the other is just, you know, Silicon Valley is a kind of a bro culture. And I knew that. So I was afraid of careers, afraid of family mostly. And I didn't know what to do. And I got to a point where I could not keep it together anymore. Linda: It's a familiar story. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, so they're all similar, but they're all quite different as well. Yeah. Linda: I When you told your family, what happened? Michele Bettencourt: I didn't think it would work with her. She's a very lovely -- she's very sweet. She's bright. She's quite brilliant. I was gone so much. Our relationship felt fractured, and I thought there was no way this would work. And so I left. I left her. I went to New York to transition. At the time I was again running a company. The company put me into corporate housing. I got a psychiatrist and I worked through it. And it was really, really difficult for everybody. I was off the rails quite a bit. My wife so did not understand. My my daughters were a bit angry that I never told them. And I get that, because it was like secrets. And then Linda: Yeah. Michele Bettencourt: eventually the daughters came back and said we don't really understand, but what do you want us to call you? And I said, "Well, I'm dad. I'm I'm Dad. I'm dad in public, I'm Dad at home. If you want to call me MB or Michelle, you can, but call me Dad." And then once I kind of worked through my stuff Linda: Right. Michele Bettencourt: and I came back to California in 2019, my wife and I tried to reconcile. We really wanted to try to reconcile because we've got lovely children and a family and a bunch of stuff to try to preserve and not wreck. And I don't want to wreck it. About a year after I was home, back in California, all three of them, or all four of them separately, and they all did they they were separate conversations. They all said, "Dad, I get it." I said, "You get what?" They used to refer to me as airport dad. I want to be at the airport two hours early. I was strict, regimented. They said, "You're not that anymore. You're loving, you're dad, but you're there now. We want to have a conversation, you're connected, and you're not running around all the time." And so, everybody leaned in to try to make it work, which I did not expect. Linda: Everybody leaned to make it work. Which to me was I didn't That's an amazing story. You don't hear that often. In many ways, to be fair to spouses on the other side of this, it's not what they thought they were signing up for. Michele Bettencourt: I think it was a - it was a deception. I didn't mean to be deceiving, but it was a deception. I remember when we first got back together again, for the first four months being home, I thought just how could she put up with this? There's gotta be embarrassment with her friends. We live in a small neighborhood. Everyone kinda knows everyone's business. And I remember telling her if you want me to go, I'll go. And she said, "No, I want you to be here. But just realize, you're a package. I'm a package. It's you know, relationships have ups and downs. And so long as the good outweighs the bad, I'm in." And she never said, if you go this far in your transition, I'm done. We never had that conversation. Linda: Your friend Michele Bettencourt: And I began to be more and more comfortable. Although at first I didn't know what to wear at home. I was in New York, I had a wardrobe and I'd go out at night and I had friends and I'd lived quite a good life in New York City. I had an apartment on the Upper East Side and all of a sudden my wife and I are here and we're gonna go out to dinner locally and I don't know what wear. I kind of wanted to wear a dress. I didn't want to embarrass her. And she would say, "Honey, wear what you want to wear. And if you want to wear that lipstick, it's pretty. Do what you want to do. It's fine." We fell in love again in ways I can't quite explain. We have a very easy, relaxing life these days. It was tough in twenty twenty, it was tough in twenty twenty one, 'cause that was the the time we had figure each other out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. COVID trapped Linda: Yeah, you were trapped together. Michele Bettencourt: us. It and and it was it was one of the best things that could have happened. We were trapped. And, that turned into us taking a lot of time and talking and understanding each other. And look, we don't have a lot of deep discussions about my transition. It's just as I've told her, there's that's a time in my life that we're not gonna talk about. You don't need to know how I lived in New York. We have friends that come visit us, they come stay with us that I met in New York, that Karen loves, my wife loves. Norman and Devin are are a couple, they've been married for thirty years and they just he comes out and just celebrated his seventieth birthday with us. They stay a week and my wife makes the cake. We've built a very different life and we've kept most of our friends. A couple we lost and I'll blame myself on that. Most we kept and it's not a thing anymore, which is nice. Linda: Wow. That's amazing to hear. I can count on probably one hand the number of couples that I know that have stayed together. What happened after that? You you were obviously in a very public role in a in a company at that point in Silicon Valley. What happened professionally? Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, I I stepped down. So it was 2017 and a public company, you've got shareholders, and we were market cap was about a billion six at the time for the company, $350 million company. And I stepped down from the CEO role. The way it came out is an activist investor who put 120 million of his company's money into ours found out. I was probably getting sloppy on Facebook. Honestly. I was getting less disciplined than I should have been. He found out and ran into one of my board members at a conference and dumped. And at the time I was in I was in Argentina getting a deal done. And it was a pretty important thing for me to to get cleaned up 'cause it could have forced a restatement of our earnings. So it was pretty kinda messy. Messy upon messy, if you will. Linda: what Michele Bettencourt: And I landed back in New York and my email and voicemail were full. And Linda: what's working Michele Bettencourt: the board was calling. And I realized what had happened. And, I was really pissed off. Linda: And you had transitioned at work at this point? Michele Bettencourt: Because I was just starting to. It was not public. But, I was heading in that direction. I was unreasonable because like I couldn't figure it out after fifty seven years. And I was expecting my board to figure it out after six months of figuring this out, of of learning about it. And, my decision was I replaced myself as CEO. I was chair of board. And in February of '18, I left the board entirely. The company sold six months later for 2.1 billion. But, I was unemployed. Now candidly I am really fortunate and I waited until I thought my being unemployed would okay. Honestly. A number of factors led to me make the decision when I made it. And when I came back to California, I so wanted to go back to work. I missed that, but I realized I was probably a little unhinged on occasion. And I didn't know how I would react and nor did I understand how people would react to me. And, an opportunity came up in June of that year of twenty twenty. I got a call about a Linda: Yeah, I'm trying to call it. Michele Bettencourt: CEO job. I pursued a few others before that and no callbacks and and it was just I was I thought, I'm done. And, this call came in and I just dismissed it and said no, not interested And then he called back. I met with the CEO. I met with the board, At the last minute, we agreed that I would just take the role of executive chair of the company. We had an internal candidate to be CEO, Brian Dye, who's wonderful by the way. Company's Corelight amazing. a great cybersecurity company. We Linda: by the way. Companies Corelight great fight security Michele Bettencourt: had an agreement where Brian would be the CEO. The ex-CEO, who was the founder of the company, would be the SVP, senior vice president, and I would be the chair of the board. We formed kind of a triumvirate and we spoke often and from day one it was "she" and "her". We'd get in the meetings and say, "Yeah, well, you know, she's doing it." And I was overwhelmed by the kindness. And I was shocked by the company's reaction to me. They were sweet. I was surprised by the board, who would say, "Wear what you want to wear to board meetings." Everybody leaned in. And I had a few awkward moments, but for the most part, I think people really, really tried hard to make me feel welcome. And that Linda: It it sounds like if I'm not putting words in your mouth that you were going through that period where you're still figuring out who you are now that you finally get to be who you are. That's a tumultuous period in anyone's life when they're figuring that out, regardless of their circumstances. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, I think I'm always feeling I think I'm still figuring that out by the I think that's just ongoing for me, but it gets better and better. And so I ended up taking the chair role there. And then I was given another opportunity to join another board, which I did. And another board, which I did, and that board be went public. I became chair of that board and we sold it for one point six billion in twenty twenty four. I had a great career as one person. And I got to come back as me and have phase two of my career. Very very public, you know, public companies again. And then I hit a point in twenty twenty-four where I wanted to be involved in music. I'd written a record in twenty eighteen when I lived in New York. And it was good music. I had Cindy Lauper's bass player. I'd I had Tommy Mandel, who was Brian Adams' keyboard player for eighteen years, then he went to Dire Straits. I had Carly Simon's guitarist. I played the drums on most of the tracks Linda: He gives it dark grey Michele Bettencourt: and I wrote the most of the songs. I co-wrote the songs. I was vocals on everything, and it was good. It was a very personal record called New Normal. And it was about my transition and my ending up where I'm ending up. And in twenty twenty-four, I thought I'd do another one. I got involved with the same foundational guitar player who wrote the songs with. Everett Bradley joined us. Everett's a vocalist and percussionist for Bon Jovi. He was with Bruce Springsteen touring for two years. The writing came faster, it was more political. The album I released last year called Vampire Time, Michele Bettencourt and Vampire Time. I ended up meeting a gentleman named Kerry Brown. And Kerry produced fifty Smashing Pumpkin songs and wrote the soundtrack for Blow. His wife, Stacey Sher, produced the the film Verity that just came out with Anne Hathaway, produced The Heretic, produced Pulp Fiction. So I I was suddenly in this flow of meeting them and Kerry and I decided to co-found a vinyl record pressing business. I put some money in. Our third partner is Danny Harrison, George Harrison's son. And while we were doing that, I was doing the music on the side, and Kerry heard a couple of songs and didn't say much. And he called me about a month later on the weekend. We're supposed to talk Linda: It's about the song of the songs. Michele Bettencourt: about the record business. And he said, I like what you're doing and I want to help. I don't want to screw up your process though. So Kerry got involved and we moved all the recording and production to LA from New York and Carmine Rojas, who was Bowie's bass player in the Let's Dance record, and two after that became the bass player, and Russ McKinnon was Barry Manilow's drummer for 17 years and also Tower of Power and also Joe Cocker and Elton John and Bette Midler and a bunch of folks. They became the the the rhythm section for the music. And so I went from doing tech, which I was pretty good at. to doing music, which I was clearly an amateur at. Linda: I listened to the album and I actually really enjoyed it, so not that much of an amateur. Michele Bettencourt: thank you. No, I'm thankful. I guess what I mean is that I'm surrounded by really great professionals. You know, Hendrik Helmer is a guitarist and Sari Greenberg does keys and is a just an amazing, beautiful vocalist. Linda: What drew you to making this amazing, like a hundred and fifty degree turn from tech to music? Michele Bettencourt: I really became disenchanted with tech as it moved from being an endeavor that, in the day, I really do think focused on "Let's go solve a really vexing problem. And if we do it right, we're gonna get paid." To "Let's go get paid. Who cares if we solve a problem or not? In fact, let's go create more problems. Let's tackle the white space and let's figure out the most unregulated areas of the world where we can go in where others are regulated," such as the taxi business and the name another business. It became about data and eyeballs and that crap. I got tired. Linda: A as Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, the other piece is when you're CEO of a company and it's a public company, you have to do certain things to keep the stock price up. You have to lower expenses and you have to lay people off and I got tired of that. I just I didn't understand it anymore. I didn't want to be a part of it and I got out of it. Once I got out of it I had time to clear my head. And when that happened I thought, I'm gonna write music again, except I'm gonna write music about politics and anarchy and and and the political disenfranchisement and and the oligarchs and I want to write music that says something. Linda: Some Michele Bettencourt: It just happened so quickly. The music came rapidly. I've got a recording studio here in my office and I would be up at two o'clock in the morning and a song would come out in thirty minutes. Melody and lyrics. Linda: And I would in two o'clock in the morning and somebody come out in three minutes. Michele Bettencourt: I'd capture it on a recorder. And it would happen quickly. And in twenty eighteen it happened, but it was a d it was a a different kind of music 'cause it was really introspective and you know, a little bit of my own pity party, I think, 'cause that's what I was thinking about. And this time I was not thinking about that stuff. I was thinking about how to change the world and and how to maybe tear down the divide between red and blue and I'm clearly blue. Yeah, but I think a lot of people have been hoodwinked and I think both parties have kinda screwed the American public. Linda: We could very easily segue into a conversation about the evils of political parties. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, yeah. Linda: But you said something that kind of triggered something in my brain, which is the music that you're doing is very politically focused and in some ways a very different feel to the music, but it reminds me of kind of the early Bob Dylan stuff, which was very socially Michele Bettencourt: Thank you. Linda: progressive and focused. Michele Bettencourt: Thank you. There's a song called Ten Thousand Flowers on the Record. And I was thinking, what would Joan Baez be writing right now if she were in her twenties in the year twenty twenty six? Or Linda: Yeah, I get that. I get how you could be coming from that direction in it. I was very young when their music was at its peak. So I wasn't really listening to it then, but as I became an adult it started to resonate with me. And Michele Bettencourt: You I was born in nineteen sixty. And so my mother had me when she was nineteen. My mother was bit of a messy person too, and a lot of depression. And so I remember when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. We had Janice Joplin and Crosby Stills & Nash. And that was in the household. That that was on the record player. The Columbia Record Club. so that's that's what I grew up on. Linda: Yeah. In this nine years since twenty seventeen, your life has gone through a lot of changes, and on the whole it sounds like you're very happy with those changes. Is that true? Michele Bettencourt: I'm, yes, I'm blessed. it could have gone in a lot of bad directions. And instead it has gone in a progressively great direction. We have a grandson who's three years old. We spent Halloween trick-or-treating. This is my second marriage. It's thirty three years in length, so you it it's forever. My first wife and I were married nine years and we had the triplets together. My first wife, Joan, and her husband, Patrick, they've been married thirty years. Karen and I, we all go over and see our daughters. And we play with a grandson and we go away for the weekend and we have family trips together. And I get to do what I want to do these days. I get to do music when I want to do it. I spend time with my family, I'm home. When you're hiding something forever Linda: your daughter and your grandpa and they go away for the weekend and they have family trips together. I get to do what I don't have to do these days. I think but I spent interview Michele Bettencourt: you put distance in between you and your partner. There's a lot of untruth. You're also trying to keep the secret so it doesn't come back and wreck everything. And secrets create distance. And those secrets are gone. Linda: not you're trying not Looking at the potential flip sides of your transition and what's happened since then, do you see any downsides, any negatives to what's happened? I mean, there's the obvious of the animus that's directed at trans people in general, but other than that do you see a downside to what you've done? Michele Bettencourt: No, I'm happy. I have a very easy life. I was a white male in the Silicon Valley who was CEO, who opened stock markets. No one screwed with me. No one did. And for a time I'd go out and people would hassle me because of how I was dressed, or I'd go into a bar and I'd be called a faggot or I'd be called something. That shocked the crap out of it. It never happened to me. So yeah, that was a wake up call that my life has been a bubble. and not deservedly so. I got lucky. I learned a lot. I keep learning because I see how bad it is for the trans population. I'm incensed by what happens in the red states. Like my family came from Tennessee in the 30s. and I will never ever set foot in those states. I just won't. I won't do business with those states. Linda: Then that's it. Good file. Do this to the stage. Michele Bettencourt: I'm angry, 'cause I don't understand it. I just don't understand the animus and the bigotry. I haven't been affected in a negative way per se. I can't go back to work really. I don't want to anyway. But I couldn't be a CEO anymore. I really wouldn't fit the mold. Even as a board member I didn't always fit the mold. But that's just my personal stuff. I've been lucky. Linda: It's great to hear success stories. Stories like that let other people, who are maybe just discovering who they are, learn that there can be good outcomes, that the stories that they hear on television aren't necessarily true. Michele Bettencourt: The view of trans people, we get get all the negatives of drug addiction, of suicide, of prostitution. Right? That's the trope a lot of the time. And that's couldn't be further from the truth. It's a convenient way to marginalize the one and a half percent of the country who's having a difficult time. That's all it is. Linda: Yeah. So let's go back to your band for a second. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah. Please. Linda: Where can people find your music? You said the Michele Bettencourt: So Linda: the album was called Vampire Time. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, the album is available for sale at Licorice Pizza Records so anyone want the record, it's quite good. The packaging's fabulous. It's also on Spotify, of course for free. Good. Thank you. And it's on YouTube. So we've got we've got music Linda: And I found it on Apple Music, so it's there too. No. Michele Bettencourt: videos on YouTube as well. The latest song we put out is called "Taking Out the Trash." It's about politics. It's about both sides being less than responsive to the country. It's great video. We filmed it in the Hollywood Hills. It's kinda cool. Linda: I'll have to look for the video. I just heard the audio. Aside from putting out an album, does the band tour or do anything like that? Michele Bettencourt: We've played a couple of times so far. It's just tricky to get everyone together. So we meet up in LA to record a lot. We do more recording than touring. We'll probably play a show in LA late this year and play a few shows next year. I'm at the point in my life where I like being home at night with my wife. We're now the couple that watches Jeopardy at seven PM and then watches streaming after that until ten o'clock and then we to bed and just have a pretty pedestrian life. I Linda: You're gonna ruin the reputation of musicians around the world. Michele Bettencourt: No, we're all the same actually. Carmine Rojas was Bowie's bass player. Carmine and I will go record and we'll leave the city at eight o'clock, I'll take him home. I'll drive him to his house, you know, around the corner and where he he can hang out with his wife. No, we're an older, happy lot at this point. Linda: Is there a website where people can follow your band? Michele Bettencourt: on Instagram at Michele Bettencourt I'm also on Facebook as Michele Bettencourt So a lot of stuff I just post there to keep it easy. And we're releasing a new song, I believe later this month, given it's November now. Great song called "Runaway Type." I wrote it for my wife. She is not the runaway type and I am the runaway type. It's a duet with Sari Greenberg and she and I wrote it together. It's quite lovely. Jeff Babco, who is Jimmy Kimmel's keyboard player, plays keys on it. Carmine is again bass, Russ is drums. And we've got just some great great guitar work. Andrew Sinowitz, who is Miley Cyrus's guitarist and tours with The Who and Elton John, a lot of folks, does the guitar tracks on that one. Linda: That's pretty amazing. It's inspiring to hear a story like yours where you were willing to basically give up what many people would call an incredible, perfect life to actually be honest about who you were. And, you managed to come out of that and still be an amazing, successful person. So I think that says a lot about both you and the stories about trans people in general. Michele Bettencourt: Thank you. I think the life right now is perfect. I think the life before was it looked great on the outside. It wasn't so good on the inside. And but I but let me ask one Linda: It's go ahead. Michele Bettencourt: more thing if you don't, I apologize to I didn't mean to talk over you. Linda: you're fine. Michele Bettencourt: We were, as a band, having some rehearsals for a show we played in LA last year. The drum tech came in and we were talking about something and came back in the room five minutes later and pulled me aside and said, "I really want to apologize. I misgendered you." And I said, "What? I don't know what you mean." He said, "Well, I referred to you as ..." and I said, "I don't pay attention to that." Because, typically people aren't trying to hurt your feelings. It's just hard to grok. Because if you're not used to this, what are you gonna say? Hell, I half the time I look like you're more of a musician than anything else, right when I'm out. And, my drummer pulled me aside. And he said, "I just don't want us ever to upset you. We love the music and we love being with you and playing." Linda: it's going to Michele Bettencourt: The response I get in life, I get very kind of weepy and emotional about it, not because I'm sad. It's because I'm just grateful. And so I Linda: I I get that. I get that. And it's amazing to be surrounded by people who care that much that they want to make sure that you're okay. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah. Yeah. Linda: Don't feel bad about the interruption because what I was about to say is is there's something that we haven't talked about that you think is important. So you Michele Bettencourt: Please. Linda: just beat me to the punch. Michele Bettencourt: I've been surprised during most of it because the kind of response I get from folks I record with and do music with and you know and friends I've met post-transition has been quite interesting. I've got a good friend of mine in San Francisco, he does real estate. We go to dinner and talk and we talk about work stuff on occasion. He refers to me as his dudette. I th that's what he calls me. And I thought, What a sweet thing to say. What is for me at least. I know others might not think of that as sweet, but I I kind of Linda: I had a coworker who used to refer to the dudes and dudettes, so I get it. Michele Bettencourt: Yeah, Had I not done this in my life, my wife and I would not have the relationship we have. We would have just collapsed and my daughters and I would not be as close as we are now. Yeah, life life has turned out to be quite glorious. Linda: I'm glad to hear it. I know personally I couldn't be happier about where my life is, and I'm glad to hear that's true for other people. Michele, thank you so much for talking to me today. This was wonderful. We could probably sit here and talk for three hours, but then I'd have an editing job that would be impossible. Michele Bettencourt: A lot of edit, yeah. Well Thank you for the honor of being on your show. I appreciate this. Linda: The purpose of this podcast is to humanize the lives of LGBTQ+ people for the wider world that doesn't have any real experience with us. As you mentioned earlier, there's a lot of commonality in our stories, but each one is unique. You said things that really resonated with me. The only difference was I reached my breaking point a lot earlier than you did. in many ways, it's like I recognize that, I recognize that, I recognize that. and to see the kind of success that you've had and to see what you've continued to make of your life, I hope will be inspiring for others, as others as much as it is for me. So thanks for sharing that. Michele Bettencourt: Thank you. I appreciate your time. Have have a good day. Thank you again. Linda: Thanks. Thanks everybody for watching this episode of The Spectrum and until next time, take care.