WEBVTT - Steve Boom 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.520 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to this week's edition of the Bob 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.360 Left Sets podcast, not recorded live at the tune In 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.240 studio in Venice, California, but if the Music Media Summit 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.560 in Santa Barbara, California, back in May. My guest this 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.880 week is Steve Boom, who's head of Amazon Music. The 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.119 fact that you may not be familiar with his name, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.960 you're certainly familiar with the Amazon Music. You should check 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.080 this out because it's a stealth operation and it's got 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.400 a lot of customers. You should know what's going on. So, 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.840 without further ado, Steve Boom is the Music Media Summit. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:41.960 Last time I got together with Stevie was so formal 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:43.839 that I thought that was his image. Now we's so 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.720 relaxed after we evaluate my perception. Anyway, we were at 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.400 lunch and a friend of ours, the Worse for Concord Music, 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.520 which now owns Razor and Tie, said that the number 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:59.400 one streams music on your service is kids Bob. Is 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:08.199 that correct? No? Uh, because I said it was Garth Brooks. Uh. 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:14.800 Kids Bob's pretty up there. Okay, Uh, so's Garth Um. 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.640 I think our service the number one artists I have 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.919 to check, but most recently was Bruno Mars. Okay, stop 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.039 is up there. We have a lot of people, you know, 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.119 when you have an inexpensive device. A lot of people 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.440 have put Echo dots in their kids rooms, and we 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.959 family has always been a really important part of the 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.479 Amazon customer base. So UM, I think we make up 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.959 the converse of that, though, is true. I'm sure that 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.000 we're the number one streamer four kids bop. If I 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.720 looked across the different streaming services, I think that would 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:49.600 be a runaway. Well. If you look at Spotify, where 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.000 all everything is totally you can see the Spotify Top 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:57.040 fifty very dominated by urban music. Okay, and Apple does 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:01.600 not stop trumpeting how they're breaking records with their urban streams. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.840 Rumor has it that the complexion of music on Amazon 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.400 that people listening to is different. Is that correct? That's 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.320 not a rumor, that's fact. Absolutely. Um. If you look 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.880 at if you just look at our charts, you would 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:21.480 see a much greater diverse profile of listening. Um. Urban 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.240 is important to our streaming service, like every other streaming service. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:26.240 It's kind of strange to kind of cran my neck 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.240 here a little, but you'd see a much greater blend 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.160 you'd see a lot of country songs, you te rock, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.280 you t pop, um, if you go down past the 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.320 top fifty you might even see a classical track or 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.959 two after Really yeah, Um, so you know it's it's 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.239 it is very different. I think when we see who 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.040 our customers are, you know, and we compare that to 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.600 the charts and the other services, we feel pretty confident 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.480 in saying that, you know, we're reaching new segments of 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.560 the of the of the streaming addressable market and bringing 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.560 those people into paid streaming. And a lot of people 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.000 don't know a lot about Amazon, you zick. So if 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.360 you have the Amazon Prime, what can you listen to? 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.000 If you listen? If you have Amazon Prime, you get 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.280 a catalog of about two million songs, But you get 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:13.919 two of the three major companies for all three majors. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.040 Or you get all three majors. Now, when did the 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.560 third major come on board? Oh gosh, two and a 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.440 half three years ago, Yeah, quite a while ago. Um, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.079 you get all three majors most indies. Um, but it's 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.200 a limited catalog. So you know, we launched Prime Music, 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.120 and the whole premise back then was you have to 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.120 remember dial back right. Spotify was much much smaller. Apple 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.080 Music didn't exist. There was a bunch of startups who 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.760 were offering ten dollars a month, and we knew we wanted, 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.160 we needed to be in streaming. But we also knew 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.480 from our own music store that back in very very 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.440 few people were actually spending anything close to twenty dollars 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.200 a year, which is what ten dollars a month adds 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.520 up to. In fact, the bottom of our customers, we're 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.840 spending about fifteen dollars a year a year, right, So 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.040 our idea behind Prime Music was, let's put out let's 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.360 give these people a lot of music. They're more casual 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.360 music listeners, but let's take out all that friction that 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:15.240 we talked to people. What do you not like about 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.560 the free music services. I don't like the ads, I 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.359 don't like the fact that I can't take it offline. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:21.480 I don't like the fact that I can have limited 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.880 on my limited skips and all that stuff. So the 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.560 idea behind Prime Music was, let's make a music service 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.440 for everybody else because at the time, the only people 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.160 who were interested in ten dollars a month. And the 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.680 market has totally moved since then, um, but back then 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.520 it was it was very It was a small sliver 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:39.440 of people who wanted ten dollars a month, probably everyone 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.120 in this room, but you guys aren't representative of the 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.440 average consumer. And you know, out of the gate, the 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.839 whole industry misunderstood it, um, but consumers didn't because it 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.359 was adopted really really quickly. And yeah, so that and 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.320 there's a lot of curation involved. You know, we have 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.520 a team so that routine. How would you see the 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:06.880 market today, Um, there's definitely been so that that whole 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.080 segment still exists and is still growing rapidly. Um. And 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.920 we always got to remember that of the US population 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.280 or any other population historically hasn't spent anything on music 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.719 Lettleon ten bucks a month. Um, there's two. There's just 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.560 there's There's always been tress or radio, There's always been 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.160 almost always been cable music choice and YouTube and all 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.839 these other alternatives. Um. So that's still growing. But what 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.120 seems to have happened in the last three years is 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.640 a shift in mentality among consumers. I don't know if 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.719 there's this greater awareness of how what a great value 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.880 ten bucks a month really is for all that music. 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.360 I think I think Netflix and Hulu and all these 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.800 other services have helped. Right, people are used to subscribing 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.280 to things and not thinking that as I'm paying for music, 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.640 but I'm paying for entertainment. I think devices like the 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.240 Echo UM lower the barrier because it's something you use 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.960 so frequently and it's frictionless. And so we see that. 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.719 You know, the projections that existed for the size of 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.359 the ten dollar month market, um, you know those were 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:13.240 those are wrong now. I mean, it's clear that the 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.599 market's grown more quickly than anyone anticipated. And if the 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:20.359 percentage is on your service you have baked into Amazon 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.680 prompt you're not being charged per month you have are 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.080 to listen on an Echo, you have essentially a ten 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:32.159 dollar program to listen to Alla, Spotify, Apple Music. How 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:38.599 do the subscribers or the listeners breakdown amongst those three choices? Yeah, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.800 I mean, so the three is really the same. It's 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.920 we have two services, Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited. 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.320 Prime is a limited catalog unlimited, as the name might suggest, 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.120 a full catalog service. UM. But one of the innovations 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.640 that we had was at launches, say, you know, can 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.640 we we think the Echo is incomplete without a full 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.240 catalog of music service. If you've ever used one. You've 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.520 got an intelligent assistant. You want to ask her anything 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.159 you know. And the analogy I always give people's imagine 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.520 if you said, hey, Alexa, you know what's the weather 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.760 in Santa Barbara and she'd say, well, I'm sorry, the 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.760 weather in Santa Barbara is not included with your prime membership. 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.720 I only have the weather in San Francisco and Seattle. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.239 Not a great experience, and so we are. We've always 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.920 felt that for that device where it has no screen 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.840 where you can ask her anything, she's intelligent and always 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:35.880 getting more intelligent and you so you expect her to 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.120 be able to give you what you want. That it 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.800 demands a full catalog, and we took the approach of 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:43.280 saying went to the labels and said, you know, we 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.840 think there's a real opportunity here. Two for the first 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:48.680 time have what a lot of people called a mid 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.240 tier service, but not a dumb down service. It's a 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.680 full catalog, has all the features and functionality. The one 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.560 limitations that you're restricted to that single device. Um, but 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.080 it is Amazon Music Limit. There's abolutely nothing different about 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.800 it except that you can only play on that one echo. Uh. 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.240 That's been really successful for us, and we've seen a 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.440 pretty significant percentage of people who come on to that 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.560 on ramp leave and go to the full price plan, 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.360 whether an individual planks that would listen on their phone 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.280 or a family plan because they might have multiple echoes 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.840 and they like to have concurrent streams. Um. So Prime 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:24.720 Music has been around. To answer your question more directly, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:26.840 I mean the Prime Music has been around for four years. 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.560 Next in the month, next month, next in June. Amazon 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:35.160 Music and Limited been around for eighteen months. Um. You 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.080 know it's it's uh, not quite fifty fifty, but it's 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.319 it's getting close. Um. And so Amazon Music Limb is 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.079 growing really really fast. Um, and Prime Music continues to 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.319 grow faster than Prime. So we're pretty happy there too. Okay, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.000 let's go back. You don't come from the music business, 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.000 Uh No, although lass six and a half years I do. Okay. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.880 So for we always like to get where someone's coming from. 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.280 We've discussed before. But for the people who are not here, 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.840 you grow up a lot of places. I was born 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.439 in New Jersey, grew up overseas and in New Jersey, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.720 um until I was twelve, and then moved to Houston, Texas. Uh, 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.840 my parents are immigrants from Belgium, and so I spent 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.440 a lot of time in Europe growing up, and uh 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.720 then came out to California for college. And you know 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.440 my adult life, have lived a bunch more places, so 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.120 a bit all over. But after college you went to 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.559 law school, yep, I did. And when you went to 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.920 law school, what was your intention relative to practicing. So 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.120 my original plan, because I was an engineering guy. I 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.880 was an electrical engineer in college as well as a 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.720 history major. And you know, the life plan was, oh, 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:49.680 go work as an engineer for a few years, go 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.720 get an m b A and do that. And I 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.160 did work as an engineer for Compact Computer. If anybody 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.000 remembers that brand, um, yeah, there's enough people my agent here, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.559 I certainly remember. Was I mean, I just was addressing Uh. 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.600 I was Amazon's got a small offense in Santa Barbara, 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:07.840 and I was going to talk to the people there 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:09.400 before coming here, and I was like, I think I'm 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.560 twenty years older than every single person in this room. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.120 But I realized I didn't really enjoy being an engineer, 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:17.920 so I decided to go to law school. So the 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.120 plan was always go practiced for a few years, but 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.679 just take a different path to the same end point, 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.440 which is to to get into the business world in 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.079 one way or another. And what kind of law did 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:31.480 you practice? Uh? Corporate law starting in Washington, d c. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.559 And that was miserable. And then UM moved back out 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.720 to northern California and met at my five year college 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.680 reunion a partner in a very small tech law firm, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.360 and UH, by the end of launch, I was ready 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.800 to come out and started there the day that Yahoo 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.680 went public and it was in this company. This law 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.160 firm represented Yahoo. It's a very exciting day at that 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:58.840 law firm is one of you know, that was the 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.280 beginning of the Internet. UM Netscape had gone public six 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.079 months or year prior, and it was just a crazy, 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.480 crazy time. So I worked with startups for about two 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:08.959 and a half three years. And what did you actually 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.640 do as the lawyer? UM? A variety of things. So, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.319 you know, you do finance work, work with the venture 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.200 capitalists to raise money, take companies public, two mergers. But 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.240 the fun stuff that we did was actually we really 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:26.040 kind of acted as their outsourced general counsel, you know, 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.520 because those are small companies. They may have money in 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.000 the bank from Sequoia or one of these big vcs. 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:35.040 But um so when it came to doing partnerships commercial 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.160 partnerships with people, um we would get involved at a 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.079 much earlier stage than you would normally associate with the 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.960 law a legal team. Normally it's like, hey, we've negotiated 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.080 a deal paper it. Uh, that's not how we worked. 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.000 We were in there a lot of the guys and 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:50.520 this was the early days of the Internet, A lot 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.599 of the guys that were the busines, dev guys, the 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.720 business own guys that these companies. I didn't know crap, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:57.560 I don't know anything about the Internet. No one did. 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.160 But we actually knew more just because you know, we 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.760 would represent ten companies, you would see ten things. All 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.000 these people were straight out of business school and they 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.240 were just in their little lane with their one company. 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.760 So we got involved very early in hand in hand 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:13.400 it was. It was a lot of fun. So you 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.440 enjoyed that as opposed to working in Washington, d C. Yeah, 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.840 I enjoyed it until I realized the learning curve started 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.800 to flatten out, you know, and thinking any job you 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.000 probably look up and say that the people you work 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.679 for do I want to be that person? And as 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:31.400 people I was would be happy to be them. They 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.240 were really nice guys, but I didn't want to be 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:34.559 in their job. I didn't want to be a partner 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.000 at that firm. So, so how'd you segue into your 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.840 next role? I reached out to some clients, and so 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.439 you were actively looking to get out? Yeah, I decided 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.760 I had one of those moments. I still remember it. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.679 I was at a wedding of a friend of mine 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.480 back east, and uh, I was flying back with my 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.120 now wife and we're sitting watching a movie and I 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.120 just I wasn't watching the movie. My brain was just 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.160 going a mile a minute. And I remember just out 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.880 blurting out, I'm done. And she looked at me, she 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.200 what'd you say? I said, I'll tell you later watch 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:09.959 the movie. Um. Yeah, I just had one of those 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.120 moments where like, I'm I don't want to do this anymore, 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.319 And so I started reaching out to clients. Now at 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.520 the time, was your soon to be wife. Was she working? 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.560 So was there any issue of economic instability or you 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.160 say I'm not leaving the law until I find another thing. Yeah, 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.199 I didn't. I didn't leave until I found a job 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.440 that was a lesson my My father taught me. It's like, 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.280 I've got more leverage if you're still working. So okay, 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:34.959 So you reach out your clients. What do you find 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:40.200 a lot of interests, UM and I, you know, I 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.640 talked to both startups and then I talked to Yahoo. 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:49.240 And Yahoo at that time was a newly public startup. Basically, um. 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.080 You know, it's hard a lot of people here are 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.160 old enough to remember, but it was the hottest company 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.680 in the world bar none. Um and UH. They were 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.000 looking for someone at the time. They're starting to expand 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.400 in Europe and they Europe generally was a couple of 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.679 years behind the US from an Internet accepting except in Scandinavia, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.240 but in Maine, you know, Big five was kind of 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.160 behind the US, and so there weren't They've been looking 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.439 and it couldn't find anyone. And they're looking for someone 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.240 to run business development, and uh, I have a European 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.880 background and and and so that helped, and they said, 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:23.640 do you want to give it a shot? And like, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.200 if you'll give a shot on me, I'll take it. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.360 And so we moved to London. And so if you're 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.480 moving in London, you're you know, eight time zones away, 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.640 so one would think you're pretty much running your own show. Yeah, 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.120 you get a lot of autonomy. Um, you know, you 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.120 you spend a lot of time back in California the 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.480 company of that age, and doing business to all means 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.840 like doing partnerships that doesn't mean selling advertising means like 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:53.080 product type integrations, right and which means you need engineering support, 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.160 which happens in California. So you spent a lot of 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.760 time on Uh just say you get you get a 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:00.240 lot of phone calls when you're ready to go to 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.920 bed from people, right, and then you're bringing his firing 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.800 and you can't go exactly, So I supposed loved it. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.320 It was a great four years in London and ultimately 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.720 a success or a frustration in terms of executing on 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.600 your role. Oh it was great. No, there were frustrations, 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.680 but I haven't had a job that doesn't have frustrations. 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.480 So but the net, the net output was great. And 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.480 when you were done four years later, our Yang and 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.960 his original partners still in charge. Oh yeah, yeah, Well 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.400 Jerry was there when I left the company. He he 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:40.480 had just become CEO. Um, we were at our second 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.080 CEO and said Tim Coogel was the original CEO of 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.160 of Yahoo and then Terry Simul had joined while I 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.840 was based in London. Okay, so how do you decide 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.920 we're at the end of Yahoo. Well, first they brought 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.280 me back, got promoted, did a bunch of other things, 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.560 spent I spent totally ten years there, first forward in London. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.000 Then I may maybe I misunderstood, I forgot. So the 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.120 next six years, when you're back in the valley, what 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.040 is your role? It evolved to be head of UM 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.400 Mobile effectively, so I was the s VP of Mobile 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.920 to date myself. This was mostly in the feature phone era. 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.440 We did a lot of J two me apps, We 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:26.440 used whap browsers. Um. Uh, it's like getting flashbacks. Um. 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:32.320 The I left Yahoo two months after the app store launched. Okay, 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.120 so so we were but we were there on Jerry 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.280 was on stage with Steve when the iPhone launched. Yeah, 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.040 who was a big part of that launch. UM Yahoo 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.280 Mail was embedded in the service and to the Yahoo 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:50.640 the stocks and weather apps, though they were called widgets 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.800 back then by Apple. We're all powered by Yahoo. So, um, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.760 what's when we knew the world had changed? Like the 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.000 first day when iPhones actually hit the market in June 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.760 two thousand seven. You may remember this, but they went 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.080 on sale at six pm, but six pm and each 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.919 time zone. So we sat in California, they were on 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.560 sale in New York on the East coast, and we 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:15.760 just sat with the engineers and just watched the data 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.639 of people using it, and it just it blew us 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.399 away because you know, you were like for years the 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.119 perennial question that someone to ask you. It's probably similar 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.400 to what was going on streams, Like you could take 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.399 this story and apply to streaming. But every year, you know, 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.960 you have your business plan review and Jerry Yang or 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.440 Terry selling, when is mobile actually finally going to be big? 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.680 And you're like, it's two years away? Every years, two years. 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.960 The analogy I always use is digital photography. We heard 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.640 for ten years the digital photography is going to come 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.520 in and kill Kodak, and then all of a sudden, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.359 one year it happened everything and it's like wow, And 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.879 when iPhone happened and we and we had you know, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.879 we've seen blackberries were the most used devices for mobile 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.360 internet then, but they were really horrible for mobile internet. 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.760 You know, they weren't designed for it, but but most 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:06.760 people had them were being their companies were paying for 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.120 their data, so you'd use it anyway. And then iPhone 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.000 came in and despite their being you know how many 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.320 few devices actually went online that day is like these 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.240 spikes and we all sat around like the world changed, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.520 changed forever, and that, by the way, it's what changed 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.080 for music as well. I mean the iPhone smartphones are 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.280 really the foundation of a streaming of the streaming evolution 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.240 over the last ten years. Okay, looking at Yahoo which 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:38.159 has now been sold, what's it savable? And if it 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:43.240 was savable, what should they have done differently? Was it savable? 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.960 I don't think it was by the time. By the 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.840 time it got to that point, I think Yahoo suffered. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:51.520 And one of the things that attracted me about coming 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:57.480 to Amazon, um it never had the kind of visionary CEO. 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.800 Jerry is an amazing guy, for he's never the CEO, 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.200 never wanted to be, and he was only when he 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.000 was forced to because there was no one else who 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:10.240 wanted the job. Um he's an amazing guy, and uh 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.000 had a good had a really good vision, but he 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.360 he wasn't the CEO that could just galvanize the whole 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.320 company behind it. And and yeah, who got stuck. Are 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.240 we a media company or a technology company? And it 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.280 was never never land Um had it decided that years before? 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:29.159 Perhaps savable, but I think by the time Jerry became CEO, 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.400 I don't think it was. And you could see look 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.400 at the succession of CEOs after that, they all followed 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:36.840 despite saying they were doing a new strategy, was pretty 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:41.800 much the same strategy. And Terry Summel big mistake or 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.920 nothing he could done. I love Terry, Terry is a 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.000 great guy. I don't want to I'm not here to talk, 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.560 you know. No, It's just interesting because we see this 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.000 in the music business, both famously with Andy lack Now 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.879 I was back in the news business. Came in and 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.399 he really didn't understand the business. So we look at 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.240 Terry Semmel, who came from enter Tinman. Was he a 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.560 fish out of water and really did not understand the 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:08.520 technology business? Um. You know, I think they're probably people 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:10.119 who are in better position to answer that than me. 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:11.760 To be honest with you, I didn't work that closely 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.600 with Terry Um. I was off kind of doing my 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.000 own thing in mobile and he was okay. So you 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:18.680 wake up one day on a plane and say I'm 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.359 done at Yahoo. Uh. It was coming for a while 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:29.120 longer than that. You know, the company got bigger, and UM, 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:30.920 I don't know, just I kind of had an itch 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.720 to go do something smaller. I think politics had changed 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:36.560 in the company. It wasn't as fun as it once was. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.560 Um and uh I kind of waited around, you know, 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.880 because I remember Microsoft bid for Yahoo and a hostile 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.760 takeover thing, and then carl Icon got involved. And that 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:50.400 was a moment where you like, I never thought I'd 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.919 worked for a company that carl Icon was making a 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.720 bid for it. Just it just it was time. It 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.399 was time to do something different. And the next step 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.680 was so I went to a couple of different startups. 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.199 I really wanted to be CEO of something, and so 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.879 I went to one company that I stayed in the 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.639 mobile world, and it was a social networking app that 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.959 had taken off. I was on feature phones and um 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.119 that was it was called meg thirty three, and you know, 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:21.720 Android was almost non existent at this point. This is 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:27.040 now fall of two eight, Um and Uh. It had 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:31.480 taken off in places like Indonesia, India, Malaysia, a little 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:36.560