Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to another episode of Strictly Business, where
Speaker 1: we talked to some of the brightest minds working in
Speaker 1: media today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety. As long time
Speaker 1: listeners know, every now and then, this podcast skips over
Speaker 1: the usual executives to talk about business with performers, as
Speaker 1: we've done in the past with the likes of Kevin
Speaker 1: Hart and Tyra Banks. This week we're checking in with
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey, who you know from his many TV gigs,
Speaker 1: from Family Feud to his own daytime talk show. But
Speaker 1: what you don't know is that there's a lot more
Speaker 1: to his sprawling business interests. I caught up with him
Speaker 1: last month in Las Vegas to talk about it all
Speaker 1: at Variety's annual conference at CES. I just learned from
Speaker 1: you backstage, this is your first c E S. What
Speaker 1: what brought you out here? I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what existed. I'm sixty woman. I just
Speaker 1: stopped putting stuff on index cards, so you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know. Uh, my son's I have all of
Speaker 1: my children on Millennials and my oldest son is twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, Dad, you gotta go. It's the
Speaker 1: cutting edge is where everything is that's moving forward. You know,
Speaker 1: I've had to do a lot in terms of technology
Speaker 1: that to keep my business in the forefront. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not just a television guy. You know, I'm a businessman.
Speaker 1: So I've had to do a lot to learn about
Speaker 1: technology to keep myself in the forefront. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not happy with every aspect of technology, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting there. But the key for me is I
Speaker 1: surround myself with a lot of young people, you know,
Speaker 1: who are more used to this. You know, So what
Speaker 1: what kind of technology trends or things are catching your
Speaker 1: eye out here? You know, the apps, the apps are
Speaker 1: crazy right now. You know, I've got a couple of
Speaker 1: fintemp investments in a couple of apps out there now
Speaker 1: with finance and things like that. Harvey's Hundreds is doing
Speaker 1: good in the app world right now, which is a
Speaker 1: game that I do on my talk show that I
Speaker 1: turned into an app that's doing really well. And I
Speaker 1: just look for right now, and I just I just
Speaker 1: look for cutting edge opportunities. You know, things is out there.
Speaker 1: You know, because as as a businessman, you know, I've
Speaker 1: made the majority of my money making appearances. You know
Speaker 1: that's all. That's a tough way to make a living,
Speaker 1: you know, when you always got to be on something.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm probably on TV more than anybody in the country.
Speaker 1: I have more television appearances right now than anybody. But
Speaker 1: that's a tough way to make a living. Why is
Speaker 1: that because people would assume, all, you're the star of
Speaker 1: the show, You're making millions. I mean, you know you
Speaker 1: should ask your accounting maybe, yeah. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know that people understand the grind that that is.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a difficult job. You know. When
Speaker 1: I go to work, I don't have the luxury that
Speaker 1: I can sit back and just chill. I can't put
Speaker 1: my feet up, I can't get a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: I can't lay back on the phone, I can't go No.
Speaker 1: When I come to work, I'm on I'm on the
Speaker 1: radio every single day, talking to seven and a half
Speaker 1: to nine million people a week. Then I turned around
Speaker 1: and I do my talk show two to three shows
Speaker 1: a day, and then on the weekend I'm doing either
Speaker 1: Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud, Little Big Shots, Show Time
Speaker 1: with the Apollo, Oh Miss Universe that they didn't think
Speaker 1: i'd ever be back on that now. Whatever do you mean?
Speaker 1: Little little accident happened one year. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: really my fault, but I took the book laid on
Speaker 1: that one. You know, I read the teleprompter. I read
Speaker 1: exactly what the teleprompter said. They said and the new
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen Miss Universe is it said it. And
Speaker 1: the dude in my ear said, read the next name, Ms. Columbia,
Speaker 1: and I said, Miss Columbia, great job, Steve, go to
Speaker 1: the back and I went to the back. Everything was cool,
Speaker 1: and then some dude came out and said, you said
Speaker 1: the wrong name. I said, I didn't say wrong. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to cuss. And that was you know,
Speaker 1: but you know, I do a lot, man, and so
Speaker 1: you know, being on it is difficult, but I don't
Speaker 1: have the luxury like I was saying, like most people
Speaker 1: are being able to just sit around and chill. So
Speaker 1: when you work like that, man, I've already proven myself
Speaker 1: to be the hardest working man, and show business is
Speaker 1: now with my global business opportunities and things like that,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to work a lot smarter instead are harder
Speaker 1: so much, you know, I get it, But you know,
Speaker 1: because you've got so much going on in daytime in particular,
Speaker 1: people might be thinking, all right, he'll just do that
Speaker 1: show for for years to come. But how do you
Speaker 1: look at the TV business right now? Do you see
Speaker 1: the kind of show, for instance, your talk show right now?
Speaker 1: Is that something that could just go on infinitely or
Speaker 1: are we different? Are we dealing with a different kind
Speaker 1: of Hollywood these days? We're dealing definitely different. Television is dying.
Speaker 1: Daytime television is dying. My show, uh, Steve is the
Speaker 1: only show over the past seven years that came into
Speaker 1: syndication and stuck. Nothing else has stuck. There has been
Speaker 1: no syndicated TV shows launched in seven years that have stopped.
Speaker 1: Queen Got Out, Ricky Lake got out, Mardi Vera got out,
Speaker 1: Bethany got out. Everything that launched failed. It's a very
Speaker 1: tough space right now. Plus, because of technology, people watch
Speaker 1: TV when they want to. Now, nobody's sitting at the
Speaker 1: house at one thirty Steve coming on. Now, y'all tape
Speaker 1: it and then I don't get the credit for it.
Speaker 1: And the Nielsen's system has sucked from day one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know who thought this was a great ass
Speaker 1: way of measuring a person's success. But Nielsen is like
Speaker 1: the most archaic thing ever created. That's why Facebook and
Speaker 1: YouTube now prove out so much different. You know, exactly
Speaker 1: how many people are watching It's only thirty five um
Speaker 1: thousand Nielsen boxes in the country. It's over three fifty
Speaker 1: million people here, and those thirty five thousand people determine
Speaker 1: what shows it here or not. That's that's archaic, you know.
Speaker 1: So what do you what what becomes the next step?
Speaker 1: Do you look at the facebooks of the world and say,
Speaker 1: maybe that's where my show's got to be. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: trying to corner me now, because corner is such a
Speaker 1: harsh Yeah, you know, you gotta look at it. I
Speaker 1: gotta look at it. I gotta be smart, you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta think about it because that's where it's headed.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not in network television anymore. Syndication is dead.
Speaker 1: They didn't even they didn't even present a show last year.
Speaker 1: Nothing was presented. No new shows came in. Is that
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Nothing was at Napty where they launched
Speaker 1: and introduced new shows in January and Miami. Nothing was
Speaker 1: introduced the first time ever no syndicated shows were introduced,
Speaker 1: and that was that was a clear sign to me,
Speaker 1: you know, an NBC university who I'm with, you know,
Speaker 1: is they're making other decisions, you know, because oh, well,
Speaker 1: you staying with NBC Universal. Is that deal going forward?
Speaker 1: I thought I was until they made an announcement a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago that they wanted to give Kelly
Speaker 1: Clarkson the owned and operated NBC Networks and that's my slot.
Speaker 1: Uh it didn't. I don't know if it's sold. It's
Speaker 1: not selling like they thought. But you know, I thought
Speaker 1: it would have been nice of them to come to me,
Speaker 1: has been the only dude that survived for them for
Speaker 1: seven years, and say, Steve, we're thinking about doing this.
Speaker 1: But no, they just made an announcement. So when you
Speaker 1: do that, I gotta make announcements too, you know. I
Speaker 1: got something to say, something, something new that you know,
Speaker 1: the public demands it. You know, we can't all just here.
Speaker 1: You can't make announcements that don't expect they have to
Speaker 1: hear one yourself. And so I'm I'm working it'll it'll
Speaker 1: be something real cute. Um, I don't you know, I
Speaker 1: don't I just you know, I'm an honorable guy. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm just an old school guy. Man. I just thought
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to talk to people and go, look,
Speaker 1: you've been good business for us. This is what we're
Speaker 1: thinking of doing. Are you okay with that? Now? You
Speaker 1: don't just put something in the paper and say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this move right here, because it's crazy.
Speaker 1: And you look at the numbers on my show as
Speaker 1: number four, and daytime television is holding right there. I
Speaker 1: gotta hit so somebody's gonna recognize that. Yeah. Well, also
Speaker 1: you you might be in good company recently, Ellen degenerous
Speaker 1: even indicated and everything. Who are this is my I'm
Speaker 1: the working variety, that's you know. Damn. I mean, if
Speaker 1: Ellen's getting out, potentially, I think everyone's looking at the sidelines.
Speaker 1: I just did a show two weeks ago, and Ellen
Speaker 1: and I are friends. A matter of fact, we do
Speaker 1: little big shots together. And um, she is talking about it.
Speaker 1: Her brother wants her to stay. A girl says, go,
Speaker 1: I don't know what she's gonna do. She's like the
Speaker 1: Ellen is the most popular person in television, no one,
Speaker 1: I'm second take him seriously. I hope she do leave
Speaker 1: so I could just so I could just be number
Speaker 1: one for chick. I'm so sick of being second. I
Speaker 1: mean congeniality, likability, trustworthy factor. Do you feel if you
Speaker 1: was number two all the day on time? You know?
Speaker 1: So Ellen is really good man, She's a super sweet person. Man.
Speaker 1: I love him. I wanted to do what's best for
Speaker 1: her health, and to do what's best for that because sometimes, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta consider your health even I I gotta look, man,
Speaker 1: it's stressful and you're doing so many different My doctors
Speaker 1: have told me, hey, man, what what how long you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna do this? And I said, well, you know, hell,
Speaker 1: I ain't digging ditches. And I worked at Ford Motor Company. Man,
Speaker 1: I used to put eight spark plugs in eight engines
Speaker 1: a day. That's stressful, jokes, that's pretty cool. So I
Speaker 1: mean it honestly, maybe in your best interest to not
Speaker 1: do a talk show anymore. It's not like you don't
Speaker 1: have plenty of other irons in the fire, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: The biggest joggonnaut for me is family. Few Nothing is
Speaker 1: bigger than that. It's such a huge, huge, and the
Speaker 1: the money that's generated off social media from the clips,
Speaker 1: the clips I'm in every clip, so you would know
Speaker 1: that alone. I mean, I'm just looking at it right now. Man,
Speaker 1: if you can get like, for example, or the other day,
Speaker 1: I had a dance off on my show between my
Speaker 1: warm up who I invited down to dance with a
Speaker 1: kid that was on the show. It ended up getting
Speaker 1: twenty two million views in like ten days. The money
Speaker 1: that the talk show generates off of that alone. They're
Speaker 1: walking around bragging about this one clip and the hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands, a couple hundred thousand they made, and it
Speaker 1: just starts you to thinking, Man, that world over there,
Speaker 1: that YouTube, that Facebook world is intriguing. It's money right now.
Speaker 1: There's no delayed gratification out there in this space that
Speaker 1: that money shows up now and goes into your account. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just gotta figure out how to have a damn
Speaker 1: dance off every day. Well, my guess is when you
Speaker 1: did the deal for Family Feud, what social clips would
Speaker 1: be doing. That probably didn't even enter into your mind. Man,
Speaker 1: I missed that. You know, my deal is it's nine
Speaker 1: years now on Family Feud. Uh. And when I you know,
Speaker 1: Family Few was already a twenty year old franchise and
Speaker 1: it's so tied up in ownership and who created it
Speaker 1: and everything. I never could garner ownership of it. So
Speaker 1: I just charged as much as I could to be
Speaker 1: the host of the show. And I'm choking him, I'm
Speaker 1: choking her. Got a strangle hold on them. But and
Speaker 1: I you know, the show was one four when I
Speaker 1: took over. It's like a seven too, which is virtually
Speaker 1: impossible to get in television anymore. So they're very happy
Speaker 1: with me. I'm really happy with them. Freemantle has been
Speaker 1: a great partner, so that that one you could see
Speaker 1: continuing for a long time. I want to do another
Speaker 1: game show I wanted, is that right? Yeah? What what
Speaker 1: kind of things are you? I'm looking at one something
Speaker 1: that's just real simple. People don't like Jeopardy, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, don't tell the funks the Jeopardy And I'm
Speaker 1: just telling you the truth. It's like, who wants to
Speaker 1: be a millionaire? Who don't mean? You don't you know?
Speaker 1: Come on, you ever seen them give away the million
Speaker 1: on that show? That's crazy. You play a game show?
Speaker 1: Who want to be a million? Never give away the million?
Speaker 1: That's Nobody wants to watch Jeopardy and not know nothing.
Speaker 1: I watched Jeopardy for two weeks. One time I didn't
Speaker 1: answer a single question. You sit there. So what family
Speaker 1: Feud is is a game that anybody can play, and
Speaker 1: so I'm looking at a couple of games show ideas
Speaker 1: right now that's for people can play along and actually
Speaker 1: get it. Get no one to answer. I don't like
Speaker 1: watching Jeopardy. You see a guy with a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight thousand dollars and he didn't answer every single question.
Speaker 1: You go, did you have a bike? You know? You
Speaker 1: ever been swimming? Ever? Do you know how to run?
Speaker 1: Because you gotta be really looking in a book an
Speaker 1: awful lot of time to know all of that. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like really now you're talking about room to
Speaker 1: say that is it? Go ahead? You were talking about
Speaker 1: doing game shows, but you're also in the gaming business
Speaker 1: with apps like what why does Steve Harvey even decide
Speaker 1: to be an app to do getting into the gaming
Speaker 1: business that way? Well, Honestly, as successful and blessed as
Speaker 1: I've been in the TV business, I can't leave none
Speaker 1: of that to my kids. I can't leave the kings
Speaker 1: of comedy to my kids. I can't leave none of
Speaker 1: I can't leave any of this to my kids, nothing,
Speaker 1: because it's not owned the stuff I own, like Little
Speaker 1: Big Shots and my talk show and and and the
Speaker 1: other shows that I have ownership. And you know, when
Speaker 1: I leave doing that, that check isn't big enough. You know.
Speaker 1: That's I can't leave my career to my kids. I
Speaker 1: don't have that type of career. I tell jokes, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I've got to generate businesses that can secure
Speaker 1: something for my family. It's very important to me that
Speaker 1: I leave not only a legacy of being a pretty
Speaker 1: successful entertainer, but I gotta leave them something. You can't
Speaker 1: leave them. So if I don't get into these apps,
Speaker 1: if I don't take my business, which is Steve Harvey
Speaker 1: Global and expand globally, if I don't look at Africa,
Speaker 1: and I don't look at the U a E And
Speaker 1: the business opportunities that's there, if I don't look in
Speaker 1: the text space, I have no way of leaving them anything.
Speaker 1: And that's been a hard push for me lately. I'm
Speaker 1: really that's a big part of the grind, because you know,
Speaker 1: I want to leave them something, you know. Um, that's
Speaker 1: that's a really the important part of it. Is Steve
Speaker 1: Harvey a glow Bull brand. Absolutely, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I look at there's research that bags it up. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it. Out in India, I'm the number one
Speaker 1: celebrity outside of India. But now I guess that, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. In Africa. I'm very very popular
Speaker 1: in Africa, and in the U a E. I'm extremely
Speaker 1: and I'm number one in the Philippines because you know
Speaker 1: when I said Miss Columbia and and turned around and
Speaker 1: gave it to the Philippines. The next year, we did
Speaker 1: all Miss Universe in the Philippines. Seriously, it's the king,
Speaker 1: it's Miss Philippines and then this Steve Hark and that's
Speaker 1: really you know. And I've started, uh taking business meetings
Speaker 1: and and looking at all the opportunities out there, and
Speaker 1: it's been really hard warming for me. Africa is very
Speaker 1: important to me because when I go to Africa, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this will mean anything any of you,
Speaker 1: but for me, it was like going back home to
Speaker 1: a place I've never been. And so when you're African American,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we were taken from a place,
Speaker 1: but when you go back to the place when you
Speaker 1: land on the continent of Africa. You're you're at home.
Speaker 1: It's it's an amazing feeling and um so that's very
Speaker 1: important for me to uh, to go there and to
Speaker 1: help develop without taking they've been so ravaged and taken.
Speaker 1: I do motivational speaking over there now developing a coding
Speaker 1: program in Botswana where I'm trying because Botswana is a
Speaker 1: country over there all education is free. They have the
Speaker 1: most educated people in Botswana, but when they all graduate
Speaker 1: with these degrees from college and everything, the country is
Speaker 1: only two million people where they're gonna work. So they
Speaker 1: have all these educated people and just not enough jobs
Speaker 1: there yet. So I'm introducing them to coding. R my
Speaker 1: my foundation here to Stephen Marjorie Harvey Foundation this year
Speaker 1: for the first time at the Chick fil A ranch. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're introducing a coding program to get young people interested
Speaker 1: in coding, because that's the future, you know. Stop telling
Speaker 1: our young kids to get into heating and air. Goodbody
Speaker 1: give it about you fixing the refrigerator. Just you got
Speaker 1: to get into coding. I'm sorry, I'm just I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That's that's how I talk put out. We get it
Speaker 1: of course three times. I'm so happy. My wife ain't
Speaker 1: here because she Now you're a mong friend, curse all
Speaker 1: you like? Yes, you're streaming. Yeah, so you're also an investor?
Speaker 1: What what kind of businesses? What do you respond to?
Speaker 1: His investor is a dynamics founder of particular kind of technology.
Speaker 1: What are the things that attract you? Oh? You know,
Speaker 1: I've invested in quite a few things. Man. Oh more
Speaker 1: than the more sold than the idea. I invested in
Speaker 1: the person more sold than the idea. See this new generation,
Speaker 1: this text savvy group. I look for people who have
Speaker 1: a bit of old school in them. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? No, Because okay, well let me tell you technology.
Speaker 1: Because I have a house full of millennials. My youngest
Speaker 1: child is twenty one. Because I have a house full
Speaker 1: of millennials. Tech can make you lazy because they got
Speaker 1: you thinking. If you google it, you now know it.
Speaker 1: But I'm sorry. There's two things you can't google. You
Speaker 1: can google anything, you can know anything by google it.
Speaker 1: You can't google success, and you can't google exposure. And
Speaker 1: until you meet people who understand what it is to
Speaker 1: grind and grit to become successful, the hustler. I look
Speaker 1: for the hustler. I look for the for the for
Speaker 1: the young man or young woman that's got that grit
Speaker 1: that's been knocked down a bunch of times and got
Speaker 1: back up and kept going with the idea. I invest
Speaker 1: money in that person right there, because that's the person
Speaker 1: that ain't gonna give up. That's I'll give them what
Speaker 1: your idea is. If you soft, it ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 1: So you find people who have that old school sense
Speaker 1: that you know, they're not sort of spoon fed. But
Speaker 1: do you feel that the tech world is a place
Speaker 1: you can invest as well? Yeah, absolutely, because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of that's it's some of the brightest minds in
Speaker 1: that tech world. Man. It took me a minute to
Speaker 1: understand that, because you know, I was old school. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't work to get it, you don't know. But now, man,
Speaker 1: you can actually think your way into millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: There's some people that just think then thought they asked
Speaker 1: in two millions and millions of dollars while I'm out
Speaker 1: here just working my ass off, and I went, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, I gotta start finding them. People that's just
Speaker 1: thinking of stuff, you know, like the dude that invented WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: There's his whole story and what and how he went
Speaker 1: back to the house to sign the contract on the
Speaker 1: door that they had put any eviction notice. So this
Speaker 1: guy just kept hustling and hustling and hustle. But see
Speaker 1: he comes from an impoblished background. See I would have
Speaker 1: had rested in him because of his background. The once
Speaker 1: app was outstanding. But you know what really got him
Speaker 1: to the top. That grit, that grind, that hustle. That
Speaker 1: I've been poor, I've been knocked out. They invicted me
Speaker 1: and my mama, and that dude just grinded it out
Speaker 1: and he signed that contract and what for how many billions?
Speaker 1: It was definitely a be I'll signed anything for a billion.
Speaker 1: He's taken off. But what you can have my kids
Speaker 1: all the houses I got, I got some nice houses.
Speaker 1: You can't have all of them and the kids if
Speaker 1: you got a billion dollars, they'll be all right. My kids.
Speaker 1: I wanted to put three of them in foster care
Speaker 1: an now. But it's a sense that you have a
Speaker 1: complicated relationship with technology. It's not all of it is good.
Speaker 1: I'm it's kind of a recurring theme in this conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean, so social media, it's been good for you though.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a platform you're out there. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? It's I have mixed emotions about
Speaker 1: social media, be honest with you. Social media has made
Speaker 1: the price of fame too costly. It used to be
Speaker 1: fun to be famous. It's no longer fun anymore, and
Speaker 1: social media has taken that away. The worst invention of
Speaker 1: all time was the phone camera. The camera phone. That's
Speaker 1: the worst because everybody got one. You know, you used
Speaker 1: to remember people used to come up to you back
Speaker 1: in the eighties and go, Steve, what I wish I
Speaker 1: had my camera? I take a picture. But they all
Speaker 1: got more now, and so now the picture request is mounted,
Speaker 1: and now they don't even have to request the picture.
Speaker 1: You crossed the room with your finger in your mouth,
Speaker 1: and there's the picture, and that's the one that show
Speaker 1: is up on social media. And then social media is
Speaker 1: like for me, it's like the devil's playground. It's like
Speaker 1: every imp that's out there that's ever wanted to be
Speaker 1: a hater has a voice. Now you have some small,
Speaker 1: insignificant human beings that has a computer or a keypad
Speaker 1: and type something about you. You busting your ass out here?
Speaker 1: Every day, trying to make a name for yourself, provide
Speaker 1: for your family, and this little has I'm sorry, has
Speaker 1: access to a fake page and he starts printing stuff.
Speaker 1: Then they get picked up by buzz Feed and the
Speaker 1: shade Room and media takeout, and now all of a
Speaker 1: sudden digeneration of people who get their news from the internet,
Speaker 1: no fact checking, and all of a sudden, I find
Speaker 1: myself in a meeting with a sponsor having to explain
Speaker 1: how I did not provide a home for one of
Speaker 1: my children. And I'm going, what, well, there's a report
Speaker 1: that you didn't provide a home life for your son
Speaker 1: and that him and your exes homeless. My son lives
Speaker 1: with me. I've been taking care of him since he
Speaker 1: was six. I've never put anybody out. But I'm at
Speaker 1: a meeting explaining this to a board of people who
Speaker 1: didn't got wind of it because it caught legs on
Speaker 1: social media. Fake news, that's what it is. I mean
Speaker 1: fake news. I didn't coin that friend, but the whole
Speaker 1: room got quiet. They said fake news. They went this
Speaker 1: is not the Republican crowd, because they went, But social
Speaker 1: media has been good to you in the sense that
Speaker 1: you're able it's it's like the TV network that you
Speaker 1: yourself own. You're able to broadcast your message. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's the good side of it too, because my wife
Speaker 1: is actually more into social media than I am. She
Speaker 1: puts it all out there with the grandkids, the kids, Marjorie,
Speaker 1: where she travels, and she likes to keep it asked
Speaker 1: for racial. You say something negative on her page, you
Speaker 1: get a delete and a block so fast. She don't
Speaker 1: she don't tolerate it. I don't even know if you're
Speaker 1: saying nothing about me because I don't have time to
Speaker 1: read it. But it has allowed me to talk about
Speaker 1: my foundation. It has allowed me to show the lives
Speaker 1: of the young people that I get to change. So
Speaker 1: it kind of changes the narrative bit from the negative.
Speaker 1: I get more positive that I do negative. The only
Speaker 1: problem is hate is louder than love. That's the only problem.
Speaker 1: You know, when somebody hating, it's just so loud. People
Speaker 1: who love you, they just love you. You You know, we
Speaker 1: with you, Steve, don't worry about that. But people who
Speaker 1: hate you, they posted. People don't always post love. That's
Speaker 1: my man, that's my girl. I love their boom. They
Speaker 1: may not post it, but when they hate you taters post.
Speaker 1: So do you I mean, between all the social media,
Speaker 1: multiple TV shows, do you worry about overexposure? Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: not me, as long as they'll have you. I'm in
Speaker 1: sixty six percent of all American households on one of
Speaker 1: my platforms. That's three fifty some million people in America.
Speaker 1: But the world is almost eight billion people. And here's
Speaker 1: what I tell people all the time, because some people say, Steve,
Speaker 1: what about overexposure? Everywhere I go, I see the Nike swoosh.
Speaker 1: I don't care where I go I see the Nike swoosh.
Speaker 1: They ain't stopped making tennis shoes. They ain't stopped making
Speaker 1: jogging suits. They ain't stopped making basketballs. That Nike swooshes everywhere.
Speaker 1: I saw it in Thailand, I've seen it in the Philippines,
Speaker 1: Africa to UAE, and they keep on making shoes. You
Speaker 1: don't think it's enough Nike out here? No, But Nike
Speaker 1: just keep on because no matter how popular you are,
Speaker 1: that are far more people who have no idea who
Speaker 1: I am than do. I might be in sixty six
Speaker 1: percent of American home, but I'm just in their home.
Speaker 1: That don't mean they know me. That don't mean they
Speaker 1: know my name. My face recognition is really really high,
Speaker 1: and name recognition I get all get good ratings with
Speaker 1: all of that. But man, I can't worry about that
Speaker 1: because it's it's crazy. It's new people boring every day.
Speaker 1: Like for example, little big shots introduced me to a
Speaker 1: whole new and base. I've going places. I got six
Speaker 1: year olds, because you know when six year olds see you,
Speaker 1: they just see you. They don't reason. I was in
Speaker 1: Walmart late one night buying some fishing gear like two
Speaker 1: am at a super Walmart, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to do. Really yeah, I go to like
Speaker 1: Walmart and like two in the morning, cause ain't nobody
Speaker 1: in there. I get to see what regular America is doing.
Speaker 1: Like I forgot that they hear pig feet in a jar.
Speaker 1: I forgot that ship because I got money now, so
Speaker 1: I forgot. So I go to Walmart and I stay
Speaker 1: posted well one two in the morning. I was buying
Speaker 1: some fishing equipment. I was gonna go fishing early one morning,
Speaker 1: and the little boy goes, Mommy, that's Steve Harvey's right there. Boy,
Speaker 1: ain't no Steve Harvey in no Walmart. The little boy
Speaker 1: went around the corner and he goes, Mommy, I want
Speaker 1: to go and say hi to Steve Harvey. If you
Speaker 1: don't shut up talking about Steve Harvey. He ain't in
Speaker 1: no damn Walmart. Why would he be in a Walmart.
Speaker 1: I had to go around the corner because a little
Speaker 1: boy was just taking an unnecessary ass. It's on you.
Speaker 1: So I went around the corner and said, ma'am, your
Speaker 1: son is absolutely right it ste because you know, kids
Speaker 1: just see what they see. They don't rationalize it the
Speaker 1: way like adult stud So little bit shots introduced me
Speaker 1: to a whole another group of people. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have fans that six years old and then family feud.
Speaker 1: It's old people. The old people loved me, and then
Speaker 1: middle aged people love me because family feud covers the basis.
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty good. From four to a hundred and sixteen,
Speaker 1: pretty nice sweet spot for the down. Well, Steve, wish
Speaker 1: you the best of luck in nineteen with everything that
Speaker 1: you're doing. We're all watching and thanks for coming out
Speaker 1: to that. Hey man. It was one of the one
Speaker 1: of the queens interviews I had. Thank you all, really good.
Speaker 1: Thank you for thanks for tuning into another episode of
Speaker 1: strictly Business. Come back next week for another podcast and
Speaker 1: we sit down with some of the brightest minds and
Speaker 1: entertainment