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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

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Speaker 2: This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: This week on the podcast, I have a fascinating and

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Speaker 2: extra special guest. Erica Ayersbadon had a background in marketing

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Speaker 2: where she worked at a variety of places from Fidelity

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Speaker 2: to Microsoft, to AOL to Yahoo before she decided to

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Speaker 2: take the role in twenty sixteen as CEO of Barstool Sports,

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Speaker 2: trying to herd the various cats at the pirate ship

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Speaker 2: run by Dave Portnoy hold Barstool Sports. She took the

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Speaker 2: firm from a couple of million dollars in revenue up

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Speaker 2: to three hundred million dollars in revenue and helped to

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Speaker 2: sell it for about half a billion dollars. She has

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Speaker 2: a fascinating career and the new book is really interesting

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Speaker 2: that basically teaches people to you know, take control of

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Speaker 2: their own careers, develop a vision and a plan, and

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Speaker 2: then execute it. I thought the book was interesting and

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Speaker 2: I found our conversation to be fascinating, and I think

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Speaker 2: you will also with no further ado my discussion with

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Speaker 2: Erica ayres Ba.

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Speaker 1: Don thank you.

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Speaker 2: Did I get your name right? I feel like Butcher,

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Speaker 2: we did a great job. Oh well, thank you. So

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Speaker 2: let's begin with your background, which doesn't really lend itself

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Speaker 2: to how your career went. You study at Colby College

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Speaker 2: in Maine and you end up with a degree in sociology.

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Speaker 2: Was there any sort of career plan there?

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Speaker 1: No, I didn't really have a I loved college. I

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Speaker 1: didn't really have a career.

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Speaker 2: Who amongst us hated college.

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Speaker 1: I made the most of it. I probably piqued.

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Speaker 2: And I know you at one point we're thinking about

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Speaker 2: law school. I was, and I went to law school,

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Speaker 2: and it's just like, how can I postpone? Right? That's

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Speaker 2: exactly right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't. I liked sociology because you could write.

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Speaker 1: It was a lot of reading, and it was a

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Speaker 1: lot of writing, and it was I liked the idea

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Speaker 1: of studying people in groups. I had a really fantastic

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Speaker 1: professor named Tom Morioni, who I found really really inspiring.

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Speaker 1: I was a philosophy minor.

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Speaker 2: I you were, Yep, absolutely, I love philosophy. And the

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Speaker 2: joke I tell is I never submitted my existential final

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Speaker 2: paper because what's the point? Right? And I wish that

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Speaker 2: was a joke, but.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't yea, but I took a bunch of I

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Speaker 1: got an internship at Fidelity Investments when I was a junior,

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Speaker 1: and it really gave me a taste for business, and

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Speaker 1: I wanted to work in business. And at the time

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Speaker 1: when I graduated, the economy was very good, so the

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Speaker 1: fact that I had a sociology degree really didn't impede,

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Speaker 1: I think, getting into business.

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Speaker 2: And you you end up in like what some would

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Speaker 2: think of as kind of a dry legalistic part of Fidelity,

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Speaker 2: the ARISA division, which focuses on retirement accounts.

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Speaker 1: It was very boring.

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Speaker 2: So did that motivate you to go to law school?

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Speaker 2: Was that like?

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Speaker 1: Oh no, No, that made me become highly allergic to

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Speaker 1: the concept of going to law school. I was bored.

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Speaker 1: I you know, I made fifty thousand dollars my first

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Speaker 1: job out of school, which for me was a lot

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Speaker 1: of money.

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Speaker 2: Big money.

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Speaker 1: What you still think it's a lot of money nineteen ninety.

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Speaker 2: Eight, oh so booming economy. Fifty grand in the nineties

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Speaker 2: for right out of college.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty good.

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Speaker 2: That's probably double the starting So they were about thirty

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Speaker 2: grand exactly.

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Speaker 1: So I you know, I I saw firsthand what it

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Speaker 1: was liked or what I perceived it would be like

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Speaker 1: to work in a law firm, and I saw firsthand

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Speaker 1: what it was like to mitigate risk, and I realized

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Speaker 1: that I hated both of those things.

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Speaker 3: So so not risk averse, not interested in the pickyune

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Speaker 3: details and small you know it totally is.

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Speaker 2: You know. The interesting thing about having a career in

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Speaker 2: business is the study show seven years post graduation, half

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Speaker 2: of the lawyers aren't practicing. Yeah, they go into business.

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Speaker 2: It's a similar sort of prep, just just sends you

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Speaker 2: in a different route. So I know you in the

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Speaker 2: book you write about wanting to come to New York

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Speaker 2: City and being like, gee, this is a little intimidating

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Speaker 2: kind of giant. So you end up in Boston, relatively

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Speaker 2: close to family in Vermont and New Hampshire. Where was

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Speaker 2: the family when you moved to Boston. They were in

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Speaker 2: New Hampshire, Okay, so a.

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Speaker 1: Short Yeah, it wasn't far and most of my friends

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Speaker 1: from college lived in Boston, so it also felt very safe.

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Speaker 2: Right. So you have a network built in at Fidelity.

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Speaker 2: You're working with the legal group doing Arissa work. When

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Speaker 2: an opportunity comes up on the Fidelity job board, for

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Speaker 2: digital marketing. So you're doing boring and suddenly there's this

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Speaker 2: new and exciting thing. What gave you the confidence to

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Speaker 2: take that leap to something wholly different from your prior experience?

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Speaker 1: You know, in hindsight, it was probably fairly reckless. You know,

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Speaker 1: I didn't have any money saved. The pay the pay

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Speaker 1: for the marketing job was seventeen nine hundred dollars and

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Speaker 1: I was making fifty thousand. But I was bored and

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Speaker 1: I just didn't I was frustrated. I didn't like the feeling.

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Speaker 2: Of being that's a third. You gave up two thirds

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Speaker 2: of your salary to take a job that had you

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Speaker 2: were interested in and perhaps would open up a different career.

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Speaker 1: Correct, And I was like, hey, you know, screw it,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to go for it.

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Speaker 2: So you leap from that position? How first of all,

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Speaker 2: how long did you stay at Fidelity in digital marketing?

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Speaker 1: I stayed another two years? Maybe three years?

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Speaker 2: Uh huh? Did you feel like you learned a lot?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Amazing?

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Speaker 2: Loved it amazing. So you think we think of Fidelity

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Speaker 2: is like this big giants, dodgy asset manager. What was

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Speaker 2: the digital marketing group? Like? There?

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Speaker 1: You know, the marketing and media group was interesting. It

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Speaker 1: was run by women. Really, yes, it was run by women,

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Speaker 1: and it was you know, at that time, radio and

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Speaker 1: television and print were the top dogs. So what you

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Speaker 1: saw was a company spending hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 1: to acquire custs.

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Speaker 2: Now, if I remember correctly, late nineties, cracks in the

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Speaker 2: facade were already showing of you know, the monolithic radio

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Speaker 2: TV advertising world.

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Speaker 1: Yep. And that's really where I got my first big break,

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Speaker 1: which was I worked in the Internet and nobody cared

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Speaker 1: about the Internet, which is why they hired me for it,

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Speaker 1: because I was woefully unqualified to work. Give it to

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Speaker 1: the kid, Give it to the kid. But I remember Fidelity.

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Speaker 1: We paid thirty million dollars to have keyword Fidelity on AOL,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, in hindsight, a preposterous.

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Speaker 2: Equation, but it worked out.

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Speaker 1: But it worked out. So I really liked Fidelity because

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Speaker 1: I saw how something operated at great scale. I saw

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Speaker 1: something very serious. You know, the marketing of an investment

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Speaker 1: firm is not to be taken lightly. And I was

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Speaker 1: also given a huge amount of opportunity because nobody believed in,

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Speaker 1: cared about or understood the Internet.

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Speaker 2: Huh, that's amazing. Even in the late nineties, it's one thing,

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Speaker 2: if you say, hey, in the early nineties, this thing

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Speaker 2: is kind of cludgy and it's got no consumer appeal.

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Speaker 2: But by the late nineties it was a full on boom.

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Speaker 2: I'm surprised. I guess that's the old pole gram line

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Speaker 2: experts or experts in the way the world used to be. Maybe, right,

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Speaker 2: So from Fidelity you end up at some pretty big firms.

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Speaker 2: What was your next stop after Fidelity?

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Speaker 1: So after Fidelity, I also found eventually myself wanting to

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Speaker 1: put my hands into things. At Fidelity, I could buy

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Speaker 1: the plan. I was a media buyer, so I could

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Speaker 1: buy what someone else proposed to me. I could negotiate it,

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Speaker 1: I could manipulate it slightly so that it worked for

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Speaker 1: our objectives. But I was really buying, and what I

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Speaker 1: wanted to do was the construction. So I left Fidelity

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Speaker 1: and went and worked at a whole bunch of ad agencies,

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Speaker 1: And I felt the ad agency experience would enable me

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Speaker 1: to create marketing, not just buy marketing, if that makes sense.

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Speaker 2: But you found out it was all sales, right.

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Speaker 1: But it was all sales exactly. So I then chewed

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Speaker 1: through that as much as I could, and it was

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Speaker 1: a great experience. You know, an agency is a great apprenticeship.

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Speaker 1: It's a great place to cut your teeth. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're on somebody else's dime, you're at somebody else's beck

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Speaker 1: and call. You have to manage young people in very dynamic,

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Speaker 1: ever changing situations. You have to travel a whole lot,

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Speaker 1: a lot, a lot, and you have to be able

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Speaker 1: to pitch. And that those were good skills for me

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Speaker 1: to develop.

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Speaker 2: So you end up going from ad agencies to technology.

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Speaker 2: You're at Microsoft, You're at AOL, you're at Yahoo. What

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Speaker 2: was the order? How did those come about? And how

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Speaker 2: different was that from the fidelity slash at agency experiences?

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Speaker 1: So you know, the same thing happened to me at

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Speaker 1: the ad agencies, where then I realized, whereas I had

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Speaker 1: realized at Filty it was just buying. At the agencies,

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Speaker 1: I realized I was just planning. I was still taking

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Speaker 1: somebody else's ideas and putting them together in an order

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Speaker 1: that made sense and delivered against an objective. But I

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Speaker 1: really wanted to go make the thing. And I think

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Speaker 1: working for Microsoft, which was the first publisher I worked for,

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Speaker 1: that was my big.

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Speaker 2: Break what division at Microsoft.

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Speaker 1: I worked for MSN, which is you know, in that day,

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Speaker 1: which is hard to conceive of now. You know, MSN,

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Speaker 1: Yahoo and AOL were it like they were the front

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Speaker 1: doors to the Internet. That's how you got your email,

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Speaker 1: that's how you got all your news, that's where you

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Speaker 1: got your entertainment.

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Speaker 2: There was your landing page on I was going to

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Speaker 2: say Chrome, but really it was Internet Explorer.

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Speaker 1: It was Explorer exactly. And I had built something when

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Speaker 1: I was at the on the age side. I had

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Speaker 1: built something for Volkswagen on MSN where I was figuring

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Speaker 1: out how MSN Music you could configure a playlist, and

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Speaker 1: I played it so that you could configure your cabriolet,

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Speaker 1: which was the car the Volkswagen was launching, uh huh.

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Speaker 1: And it was very you know, it was a rainy

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Speaker 1: day or top down playlist. So I got my first

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Speaker 1: taste of using technology and content and a user interface

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Speaker 1: to deliver something to a consumer and also to pay

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Speaker 1: pay off a brand marketing message. And I really loved it,

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Speaker 1: and I went to go work for Microsoft to do

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Speaker 1: just that.

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Speaker 2: Now, a prior guest I had Joanna brought Bradford was

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Speaker 2: also at MSN, and I know you guys know each other.

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Speaker 2: Is that where you.

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Speaker 1: Met That's where I met her?

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Speaker 2: Yes, you were working for her there.

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Speaker 1: I worked for a woman named Gail Troberman, who I

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Speaker 1: write a lot about in the book, who worked for Joanne.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I remember meeting Joanne. I I somehow

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Speaker 1: found myself invited to an MSN client retreat that Joanne

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Speaker 1: was running. And I thought Joanne was fabulous.

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Speaker 2: She was a force a nation.

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Speaker 1: She is a force of nature and she calls it

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Speaker 1: like it is. And I really just wanted to work

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Speaker 1: for Joanne. And then I did for the next twelve years.

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Speaker 1: So that was great.

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Speaker 2: So at Microsoft, at AOL, and at Yahoo.

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Speaker 1: At Microsoft and Yahoo, and then I went to a

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Speaker 1: company with Joanne pre Ipo called Demand Media.

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Speaker 2: Oh sure, I remember that.

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Speaker 1: And then I went out on my own to go

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Speaker 1: be the CMO of AOL.

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Speaker 2: And then CMO is a big position, especially at a

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Speaker 2: shop like AOL. Back in the day, they were, you know,

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Speaker 2: the eight hundred pound gorilla. So Dave Portnoy is running

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Speaker 2: this kind of regional blog that's picking up some traction,

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Speaker 2: first out of Boston, later out of New York. It

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Speaker 2: started out as a tear sheet he was handing out

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Speaker 2: at train station. Yes, eventually it becomes a little more substantive.

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Speaker 2: What on earth led you to think, I know, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to leave these giant Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and go

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Speaker 2: to this regional blog. How did that come about?

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Speaker 1: I always loved barstool, So when I lived in Boston,

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Speaker 1: Dave was handing out the paper at the train station,

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Speaker 1: until Dave figured out that pretty girls handing out of

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Speaker 1: paper would sell more papers than Dave, especially sports right

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Speaker 1: to a comedy. Ye right, So I had. I had

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Speaker 1: seen Barstool first hand, from the ground up. Most of

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Speaker 1: the guys I was friends with would send Barstool stories

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Speaker 1: in text. That's how people read barstool. That's how guys

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Speaker 1: read Barstoo. They would text it in their group chats.

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Speaker 1: And I thought they were wildly funny, like they just

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Speaker 1: had a very divine sense of humor. Rocket no holds

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Speaker 1: barre It was no holds bar They said what everybody

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Speaker 1: was thinking. They went up against every adversary they could,

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Speaker 1: and I was feeling, you know, I had made it

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Speaker 1: through the corporate ladder. I had gotten to the job

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Speaker 1: I had always wanted, which was a CMO job. I

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Speaker 1: got there and I realized, oh, I hate this, Like

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Speaker 1: I'm still desire to desiring to like create something and

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Speaker 1: build something and fix things and do things. And I

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Speaker 1: was finding myself feeling suffocated at these big companies, and

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Speaker 1: so I left AOL for a startup in music, and

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Speaker 1: we had gone to the Charning Group to raise money

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Speaker 1: and the Charning Group said, hey, you know, somebody made

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Speaker 1: a throwaway comment in the meeting of you know, we've

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Speaker 1: just invested in this company you've never heard of called

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Speaker 1: Barstool Sports, and it was the record scratch like er

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Speaker 1: and I was like, whipped out, I know Barstool Sports.

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Speaker 1: I whipped out my phone. I was like, they have

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Speaker 1: the jankiest app on the planet, but what a brilliant brand.

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Speaker 1: And then I just wouldn't shut up about barstool and

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Speaker 1: I left. I left feeling very jealous because I knew

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Speaker 1: that they would find, you know, some white guy with

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Speaker 1: an MBA who worked in sports to go run barstool,

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Speaker 1: and I was kind of obsessed in that I want

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Speaker 1: that job. I know that job is for me.

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Speaker 2: Are you was sports junkie or have a sports You know.

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Speaker 1: It cannot be right, you know it's osmosis, and it was,

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Speaker 1: you know, barstools run in the New England Sports Run,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of coincided with one another.

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Speaker 2: So you had the Celtics, you had the Red you

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Speaker 2: have the Patriots. Like that was a great couple of decades.

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Speaker 1: It was not so much anymore. But I pursued every

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Speaker 1: avenue I could to meet Dave. And I had a

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Speaker 1: mutual friend. I had a woman in my what I

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Speaker 1: would call my women's mafia, another Kolby Grad, a woman

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Speaker 1: I really respected who the Charming Group had brought on

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Speaker 1: to advise Dave. And I just said, Betsy, you've got

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Speaker 1: to introduce me to Dave. You've got to introduce me

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Speaker 1: to Dave. You got to introduce me to Dave. And

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Speaker 1: finally she did in a coffee shop in the West Village,

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Speaker 1: and I remember running down Fourteenth Street. I was late,

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Speaker 1: I was wearing a dress I like my kitten heels

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Speaker 1: were like getting caught in the cobblestones. And I showed

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Speaker 1: up like sweaty and kind of disheveled, but so excited,

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Speaker 1: and I felt very alive, and I loved what Dave

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Speaker 1: had to say, and we shared a great amount of

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Speaker 1: enthusiasm for what barstool could be. And that was really

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Speaker 1: the end of that.

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Speaker 2: So as I was reading the book and you tell

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Speaker 2: the story, albeit a very abbreviated version, I got the

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Speaker 2: sense that so turnin takes fifty one percent for a

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Speaker 2: fairly modest valuation ten or fifteen million dollars. You don't

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Speaker 2: so much say this, but the implication is, oh, and

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Speaker 2: we're giving you money. You have to professionalize, go hire

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Speaker 2: a real CEO, and we need to start seeing regular financials.

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Speaker 2: And you guys got to grow up a little bit

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Speaker 2: just on the organization. Yeside, And so did they have

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Speaker 2: any did he You know, I think of him as

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Speaker 2: day trader Davy. I don't see him hiring a white me,

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Speaker 2: a sports dude like.

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Speaker 1: That's not his that's the odd set of who right.

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Speaker 1: For people who pay attention to Dave, you would see

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Speaker 1: how that would never work. Now that said, they went

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Speaker 1: through I don't know, fifty seventy five candidates before they

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Speaker 1: got to me. I was the last. I was the

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Speaker 1: only woman, and I was the last of a long

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Speaker 1: line of sports dudes. But I think I think what

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Speaker 1: made Dave and I work and click is a couple things.

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Speaker 1: One is that Dave has this really great gift. You know.

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Speaker 1: Around that same time, I was talking to other companies,

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot of founders and especially big personality

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Speaker 1: founders who say they want a business person, but they

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Speaker 1: really don't. They want to be the business person and

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Speaker 1: the star and the personality and dat.

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Speaker 2: Delegating is really hard and giving the control. Giving up the.

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Speaker 1: Control is hard. And Dave, to his credit, really wanted

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Speaker 1: that and he had no ego in it. And I

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Speaker 1: also worked really hard to gain Dave's t trust and

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Speaker 1: I listened and I learned, and I watched everything I

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Speaker 1: possibly could so that I understood what he was trying

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Speaker 1: to do. And then I brought what I was capable

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Speaker 1: of to that and kind of the alchemy created, you know,

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Speaker 1: really really electric place.

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Speaker 2: And let's be blunt and honest, Dave Portnoy is incredibly entertaining,

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Speaker 2: even if that persona is an exaggeration of who he is.

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Speaker 2: But no one wants him doing the payroll of the healthcare.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Dave doesn't want That's like, like.

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Speaker 2: I can imagine, letting go of that stuff is really

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Speaker 2: easy to focus on what he does best, which is

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Speaker 2: the creative side, the entertainment side, the larger than life

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Speaker 2: talent and even just the silly thing like the pizza reviews,

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Speaker 2: the one by pizza reviews, Like his personality is what's

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Speaker 2: turned that into a huge success.

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Speaker 1: He's the biggest food reviewer in the world.

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Speaker 2: Crazy, right, isn't that. So we'll talk little bit about

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Speaker 2: Barstool Sports next. I want to stay with your role

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Speaker 2: as CEO. You describe yourself as the token CEO, and

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Speaker 2: not only do you embrace that label, which some people said,

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Speaker 2: oh barstool hired a woman, they hired a chick, Oh

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Speaker 2: she must be a token CEO. You literally name a

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Speaker 2: podcast token CEO. So first tell us about that label

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Speaker 2: and why you embrace it as a way to take

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Speaker 2: care of that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was so rude, you know,

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Speaker 1: people would say. I think people said it in conversation,

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Speaker 1: and then it was said in the media quite a bit. Really, yes,

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Speaker 1: definitely all the time that the only reason I was

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Speaker 1: at Barstool Sports or hired to Barstool Sports was that

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Speaker 1: I wore a skirt that I you know, that I

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Speaker 1: would wash, you know, the sins of barstool, that I

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Speaker 1: was to make barstool look something like it wasn't that

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Speaker 1: I was the beard essentially, And so the moniker people

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Speaker 1: said was that she's a token CEO.

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Speaker 2: I remember when you got hired because I had been

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Speaker 2: off in the distance. So I've been writing publicly and

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Speaker 2: on a blogs and so three, and you know, suddenly

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Speaker 2: a sports blog starts to get hot. I'm paying attention

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Speaker 2: out of the corner of my eye, and I had

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Speaker 2: the exact opposite. I'm like, if that frat house hired

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Speaker 2: a chick to be CEO, she's got to be bad.

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Speaker 2: She's got to really no sports. She's got to not

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Speaker 2: take any crap from those you know, they're a bunch

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Speaker 2: of animals. She's got to be a tough broader is

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Speaker 2: going to come in and say, here's what we're gonna do.

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Speaker 2: Let's go at it. And I'm as I was reading that,

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Speaker 2: I'm like, I just had the opposite assumption that a

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Speaker 2: token CEO would have lasted a week, right, would have

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Speaker 2: crumpled and blown away in the wind. It was just

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Speaker 2: anyone who said that had no idea what was going on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. But anyways, it made me mad

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Speaker 1: enough that I was like, Okay, well I'm just going

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Speaker 1: to own this now that.

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Speaker 2: That's really and That's what I did. So you described

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Speaker 2: the first meaning connecting with Portnoy. He's an outspoken founder,

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Speaker 2: and he surrounded himself with all these wild personalities. By

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Speaker 2: the way, the whole thing to me was very parallel

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Speaker 2: to Howard Stern and surrounding himself with that crew. How

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Speaker 2: did you find working with him and all the different

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Speaker 2: personalities at Barstool?

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Speaker 1: Oh? I loved it. I will never love a job

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Speaker 1: the way I loved Barstool. Really, I loved it. I

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Speaker 1: loved every second of it. It was amazing.

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Speaker 2: What were the challenges with such a disparate, raucous crew, You.

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Speaker 1: Know, it's I was there almost a decade, So I

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Speaker 1: look back on those early days where you know, I

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Speaker 1: was stressed about payroll. They were offending someone by the minute.

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Speaker 1: You know, I had to keep them very busy. I

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Speaker 1: kept them very busy. But we stepped in it all

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Speaker 1: the time. And the business was just very, very fragile,

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Speaker 1: and it was you know, there were in the early

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Speaker 1: probably fourteen of us in a one floor office and

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Speaker 1: nomad and then there were sixty five people crammed in

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Speaker 1: the same office. Like the growth we had, the journey

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Speaker 1: we were on the stuff, we were experimenting with the

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Speaker 1: way we were thinking about media and content and commerce,

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Speaker 1: and it was just very, very forward and it was

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Speaker 1: very free.

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Speaker 2: So when you say the business was fragile when you

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Speaker 2: first joined, the growth was explosive. They just got a

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Speaker 2: big chunk of capital from an outside investor.

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Speaker 1: Why was it so fragile, Well, most of the capital

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Speaker 1: went to the secondary so the business itself probably had

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Speaker 1: I don't know, two million dollars. So we had to

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Speaker 1: grow this business on.

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Speaker 2: Two million dollars is like a six month run if.

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Speaker 1: These days it's nothing. But we were incredibly cost conscious.

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Speaker 1: You know, when I got to Barstool, there wasn't an office,

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Speaker 1: we didn't have a P and L. There just wasn't

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Speaker 1: any infrastructure. But it was this incredible luxury where I

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Speaker 1: could build something from scratch and that's what made it

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Speaker 1: so incredibly fun. And I built it from scratch with

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Speaker 1: a bunch of people who were wildly talented but very underestimated.

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Speaker 1: And never you know, no one ever had Barstools back.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we we grew and evolved in this

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Speaker 1: very in a very challenging time and a challenging time

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Speaker 1: in comedy and a challenging time in politics, and in

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Speaker 1: a challenging time in media obviously, and to be able

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Speaker 1: to be that forward on a very small P and

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Speaker 1: L and go up against companies ten one hundred, you know,

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Speaker 1: two hundred times our size was you know, it's exhilarating.

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Speaker 2: Wow, sounds like a lot of fun. So let's talk

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Speaker 2: a little bit about what you did to take Barstool

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Speaker 2: from really a local bagtag group of maniacs that was

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Speaker 2: growing rapidly and turned them into a real business. I

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Speaker 2: assume part of the original investment the fifty one percent

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Speaker 2: from Peter Churner's media group was, Hey, you guys have

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Speaker 2: to get a real CEO. Tell us about the process

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Speaker 2: after you had the interview with Dave Portnoy. How long

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Speaker 2: was it before you became CEO?

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Speaker 1: Oh? I think I started working pretty immediately.

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Speaker 2: Like a day a week, a month, probably.

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Speaker 1: Two, you know. I think I went through two weeks

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Speaker 1: of interviews and the recruiters had to be caught up

436
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: and play caated because none of their candidates got the job.

437
00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 2: But do they get paid. I think they get paid regardless,

438
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 2: I hope, so nice nice gig.

439
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. But I started working pretty immediately because the

440
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 1: charming group had invested, and they had had six months,

441
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: you know, there in California. Dave was in Boston and

442
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,119
Speaker 1: then New York. And really what we set about doing

443
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: is we had a very clear vision to grow. We

444
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: had a very clear vision to make content and comedy,

445
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,439
Speaker 1: and Barstool is really a comedy operation dressed up as

446
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 1: sports or dressed up as lifestyle, and we wanted to

447
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: I really wanted them to move beyond the blog. When

448
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: I got to Barstool in twenty sixteen, it was it

449
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 1: was predominantly a blog operation. Podcasting was just starting Pardon

450
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 1: My Take, which is the biggest sports podcast in the world.

451
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: You know, it was probably two episodes in. KFC Radio

452
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: was maybe a month worth of episodes in. So when

453
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: I got there, we really set about exploding the amount

454
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,679
Speaker 1: of content that we made and then to be able

455
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 1: to distribute it very, very rapidly. One of the things

456
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: that was true when I got to Barstool I knew

457
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: going into it was that no one was coming to

458
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,480
Speaker 1: help us. You know, there wasn't you know, there wasn't

459
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:58,199
Speaker 1: going to be ESPN wasn't going to help us. The

460
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: big media platforms weren't going to help us. Big advertisers

461
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: would never give Barstool Sports a look the way they

462
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: do now, So we had we had to fuel ourselves

463
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: of our own propulsion. Every dollar we spent, we agonized

464
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 1: over every move that we made. We were ex maniacal

465
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 1: about is this working to gain audience or is it not?

466
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 1: And then we had the gift of insanely talented and

467
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: funny people and a time on the Internet that was

468
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 1: incredibly less cluttered than it is now.

469
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 2: Right, So, not only was social media functional back then,

470
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 2: it was relatively easy for something to pop up on

471
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 2: everybody's feed. As bulkanized as media has become over the

472
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 2: past twenty five years, the twenty tens felt like something

473
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 2: could still rise.

474
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: To the guilt stars you could break out, Like if

475
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,360
Speaker 1: you look today at twenty twenty four in music, you

476
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,360
Speaker 1: can't break out a star anymore.

477
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 2: Well, that's that woman Tail Swift seems to be done okay,

478
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 2: right because she's been around. Right, I'm trying to think

479
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 2: of who is the hottest new band. Then I come

480
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 2: up with things like imagine Dragons and they're ten years old.

481
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: Is nobody, Yeah, there's nobody.

482
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of who else is new.

483
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 1: And Barstool is the same, which is Barstool is started

484
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: by Dave in two thousand and four, and it's you know,

485
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: it's a very old internet brand by Internet brand standards.

486
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 2: So I want to get into the transition of you

487
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 2: landing as CEO and then this incredible five thousand percent

488
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 2: growth that takes it like what I do? Well, what

489
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 2: was I'm kind of curious what the first couple of

490
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 2: months were like getting your feet wet, getting to know,

491
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: really know the personalities not just from their content, and

492
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:49,359
Speaker 2: trying to impose some degree of discipline and organizational structure

493
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 2: on what vanley Fair called a pirate ship.

494
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was chaos, and it was chaos.

495
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,239
Speaker 1: You know, it was chaos in the best way. I

496
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: really believed that it was a highly volatile business and

497
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: I did not want to go back with my tail

498
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: between my legs. So I was like, we are going

499
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 1: to make this work no matter what. So the first

500
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: thing we did was to diversify the content and explode

501
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: the amount the productivity. Everything at Barstool to this day

502
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 1: is really monitored on productivity. The second was I created

503
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: a very diverse business model. When the advertisers were mad

504
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: at barstool because somebody said something stupid, we shifted to

505
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: the commerce business. When the commerce business went down, we

506
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: pivoted back to ads. So I was very intentional about

507
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: growing multiple lines of revenue. We had t shirt revenue,

508
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 1: We had AD revenue. We over time had licensing and

509
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: product development revenue. We had live events revenue. For a time,

510
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: we had subscription revenue. And so having all of those

511
00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 1: levers to pull enabled me to have become in a

512
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: sea of content and chaos and at times controversy because

513
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 1: I always knew I could dial one up and dial

514
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 1: one down, and we set to do that. The second

515
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: thing we really did was we learned how to live

516
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: on other platforms, which is something most media did not do.

517
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 2: As other platforms like YouTube, YouTube.

518
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you know, Sirius XM. Serious XM was

519
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 1: one of the first big breaks for barstool. But I

520
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 1: wanted to exist on every single platform out there, and

521
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: I wanted to make the most of that platform. So

522
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: I can remember going to Facebook. I write about this

523
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: in the book. When I was you know, twenty sixteen,

524
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: I had a meeting with Facebook that somebody gave to

525
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: me as a favor, and the like sports guy at

526
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: Facebook like pats me on the head and is like,

527
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: good luck with your regional sports blog. That was the quote,

528
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: and I was like, all right. So what I did

529
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: was Facebook Book had just launched Facebook Live and Twitter

530
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,959
Speaker 1: had just bought bought Periscope, both were live streaming platforms,

531
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: and I was like, I will show you. So we

532
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: put our talent on Facebook until we crashed their live

533
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: stream because we had so many people on it and

534
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: so many people commenting, and then I moved them over

535
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: to Periscope until we crashed Periscope, and then I would

536
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: move them back to Facebook. So it made everybody pay attention,

537
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,479
Speaker 1: and then we really set about learning how to thrive

538
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: on those platforms.

539
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 2: So you mentioned multiple lines of revenue and earlier used

540
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 2: one of my favorite words, you said, the jankiest app. Ever,

541
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 2: you would think that building an app isn't that hard

542
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 2: in the modern era. What was the problem with the

543
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 2: app and what did you do to fix that? Because

544
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 2: you know, everybody walks around with the phone in their pocket.

545
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 2: I think more people access I don't care, Instagram, TikTok,

546
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 2: whatever it is through their phone and their desktop. Right

547
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 2: even in the late twenty tens, tell us about a

548
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 2: project rebuilding the app.

549
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: Oh, the app was a disaster. I mean when I

550
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 1: got there, I think they had an IT person part time,

551
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: like fifteen hours a week or something.

552
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 2: So some high school kid working out it was a.

553
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: Really talented guy. It just so we hired him full time,

554
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: and then we hired more engineers, and we hired product people,

555
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: and you know, we made the app functional. You can

556
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 1: watch video in the app, you could read a blog

557
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: in the app, you could listen to our podcasts in

558
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: the app. So, you know, a lot of it what

559
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: we had all the right problems in a way where

560
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: we had audience, we had content that people liked and

561
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: responded to. We had a workhorse team where Barstool is

562
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: very mission driven. It is a punch above its weight.

563
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,479
Speaker 1: It's a bunch of misfits who are rallied. And we

564
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: had the right company, DNA, and we just had all

565
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: the wrong stuff that most normal companies and the places

566
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: I had been we were good at that stuff. So

567
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: it was really keeping and preserving the nucleus and then

568
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: applying that logic.

569
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: I love this quote, and we're going to talk about

570
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 2: the book in a minute, but you wrote it was

571
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 2: a heart attack every day for nine years. Yeah, that

572
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 2: sounds kind of like talk about stressful but fun.

573
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: It was amazing. I mean it was look, it was

574
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: just very alive. It was a heart attack. Every day.

575
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: It was a heart attack because you never you never

576
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: knew where stuff was coming from. You like your head

577
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: was on a swivel twenty four to seven at barstool.

578
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: And that's what made barstool so great. And you know,

579
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: I took a lot of because I had done this

580
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: interview with The New York Times and probably twenty seventeen,

581
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and I said that when I was interviewing

582
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: candidates to work at Barstool, I texted them at night

583
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: or on the weekends, and it became this like kind

584
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: of international like, oh my god, she's a you know, you.

585
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: Want to know how online they are and how quick

586
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 2: they ought to respond and are they serious?

587
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: We work in sports. Sports happens on nights and weekends

588
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: and on holiday weekend and on holidays, and the stuff

589
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: that goes wrong at barstool goes wrong Friday afternoon at

590
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: seven thirty or Friday evening. So I needed people who

591
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: were bought into that. And if you weren't going to

592
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: buy into that. You should just not come here.

593
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 2: And that's the brown m and ms with Van Halen,

594
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 2: it's the same you know, they used to put we know,

595
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 2: brown m and ms in the rider because they want

596
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 2: to know someone has read to page ten of a

597
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:39,479
Speaker 2: fifteen page rider with all the complicated electronics and set up.

598
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 2: If you're texting somebody on Thanksgiving Day, right because we're

599
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 2: watching the Ohio Michigan game, and they don't respond, they're

600
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 2: probably not yeah.

601
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: Right, they're not right to work here, and this isn't

602
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: right for them, you know, speaking of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving night,

603
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: we always launched a Black Friday sale at midnight on

604
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and we would work until four in the morning

605
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: getting people's orders, getting orders out. If you don't want

606
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: to do that, you should not work at Barstools Sports.

607
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 2: So here's the question. It's a heart attack every day,

608
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 2: the app is janky, the Times is trying to cancel you.

609
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 2: How do you morph that into five thousand percent revenue

610
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 2: gains ultimately leading multiple sales of the company for half

611
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 2: a billion dollars. That seems like quite a challenge.

612
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. I think there

613
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: was so much noise. There was so much noise that

614
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: it made it almost became quiet, if that made sense.

615
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: There was too much to pay attention to, so I

616
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: really chose to only focus on Barstool. Everyone had an opinion,

617
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: everyone had a criticism, Everyone had a sky is falling

618
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: moment about this, that or the other thing. And there

619
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: was such a cacoff any of all of that and

620
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: more that it really made it quite almost peaceful in

621
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: the inside, because.

622
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 2: I of the hurricane.

623
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: You're in the eye of the hurricane. And you know,

624
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: I said it when I joined Barstool. I don't know

625
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: if I wrote about it in the book, but I

626
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: had a choice. I had a choice to either apologize

627
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: to everyone Barstool had offended or try to placate everyone

628
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: who didn't like barstool or had concerns about Barstool. And

629
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, I did spend a huge amount

630
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 1: of time doing that, but that wasn't why I was there,

631
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: and that wasn't actually what I was very interested in.

632
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: I was interested in we had a tiger by the tail.

633
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: It was the right time in the internet, it was

634
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,479
Speaker 1: the right time in podcasting, it was the right time

635
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: in comedy. We had insanely talented people and we just

636
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: needed to let the tiger out of the cage and

637
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: like try to keep up.

638
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 2: So we have kind of a cancel culture that has

639
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 2: reared its head, especially in comedy. Do you I think

640
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 2: Barstool succeeded despite cancel culture or because of cancel culture?

641
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 2: Was it the pushback to that?

642
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:15,280
Speaker 1: It's a great question. I think Barstool always was aided

643
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: by an enemy.

644
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 2: Having an enemy, you had to have someone to fight again,

645
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 2: You had to have.

646
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: Someone to fight again, you had to have something else

647
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: to find yourself by. And look, I think most most

648
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: editorial people, business people, and certainly comics were canceled, and

649
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: the only ones who did not get canceled were those

650
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: that pushed back. And Barstool was very good at pushing back.

651
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: We're very very good at that.

652
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,320
Speaker 2: So how do you look at the media world today?

653
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 2: Be it social media and TikTok, YouTube has kind of

654
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: grown up, and even blogs have kind of become mainstreamed.

655
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 2: What do you see based on all your experiences at

656
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 2: Barstool when you look out at the world.

657
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: Oh, I think media is so interesting. I think media

658
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:13,439
Speaker 1: as most people in their fifties or you know, late

659
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: forties fifties would say it's dead. You know, traditional media

660
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: is does not have the hold. It is not defining,

661
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,479
Speaker 1: It is not definitive. Things do not have a clear

662
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: beginning and ending. Everything is amorphous. Everything is living on

663
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: different feeds and is so fast, like media has become

664
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: so very fast.

665
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 2: I know, this is it new. I've read about this

666
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 2: in the twenty late twenty tens. Eighteen nineteen twenty something

667
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 2: went a little viral over the weekend on Twitter where

668
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 2: this woman it actually comes from an insta video. She

669
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 2: and her boyfriend each on their phone. She's like, oh,

670
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 2: check out this video on instid and she sends it

671
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 2: to him and they're both kind of shocked to see

672
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,959
Speaker 2: they each have completely different comments. It's not their video,

673
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 2: they're viewing someone else's video, but because of the way

674
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 2: the algorithm, you're served up different comments. And he gets

675
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 2: these very dude oriented the chick is crazy comments and

676
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 2: she's like, I don't understand. Why is he not empathetic?

677
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 2: And it's like, wait, it's the same video, no wonder,

678
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 2: we nobody can get along. We're not even living in

679
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 2: the same media world.

680
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 1: Well exactly the world. You know, everyone is in a

681
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: bubble and they're speaking of cacophony like you only hear.

682
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: You're just served more of what you're interested in, whether

683
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:35,959
Speaker 1: it's somebody's opinion, whether it's a piece of content, whether

684
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: it's the next video, and it's a you know, it's

685
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:43,280
Speaker 1: a difficult, it's scary. I actually think it's quite scary.

686
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 2: Well, when when everybody lives in their own world, it's

687
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 2: one thing to have separate opinions. Now everybody has separate facts.

688
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 2: But that's that's a whole nother thing. So I mentioned

689
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 2: Barstool was sold. Let's go over that. So you have

690
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 2: the initial investment fifty one percent for about fifteen million dollars.

691
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 2: Three subsequent sales. In twenty twenty, Penn National Gaming acquires

692
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 2: thirty six percent for one hundred and sixty three million dollars.

693
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 2: That that gives Barstool a half a billion dollar valuation.

694
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 2: That's real money. Yes, tell us about that acquisition.

695
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was amazing. I spent a year

696
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: of my life on that deal. And you know, Dave

697
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 1: and I knew when PASPO was repealed. When PASPO was.

698
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 2: Repealed, define passbo for people who am not.

699
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 1: PASPO was legalized sports betting state by state, right, so.

700
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court case throws out correct something and then suddenly, well, bets.

701
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,320
Speaker 1: Are on, Oh, bets, we're on. And so we knew

702
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: we were always looking for an acquisition. So in the

703
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: early days of Barstool, or at least early days of

704
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: my time twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, the bet

705
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: was that it would be a media company who would

706
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: acquire Barstool. It was becoming more evident as time went

707
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: on that it was not going to be ESPN or Disney.

708
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 2: Who were sports gambling.

709
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect, and so the avenue was sports gambling. So

710
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,840
Speaker 1: that the gun went off, and you know, we met

711
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 1: with all different types of sports betting operators, and pen

712
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: you know, came to the table and became the right

713
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: partner at the time for Barstool, and so they bought

714
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: you know, they were deliberate about it, where they bought

715
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: a thirty six percent steak, and then I think two

716
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 1: or three years later they would buy the balance of

717
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: the company and that.

718
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 2: Was the remaining sixty four percent for three hundred and

719
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 2: eighty eight million dollars. Now you don't mention in the

720
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 2: book if you were incentivized with stocked. But I assume

721
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 2: you're joining a startup, of course you want some ectently

722
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 2: what led them in twenty twenty three to say, all right,

723
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 2: we want the whole thing.

724
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 1: There was a series of puts and calls in the

725
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,799
Speaker 1: in the deal obviously, and the bet that Pen was

726
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,240
Speaker 1: made was Pen needed a brand for its sports betting operation.

727
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,399
Speaker 1: They needed a partner who could drive audience, and they

728
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: had a belief at the time of driving growth profitably

729
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,360
Speaker 1: whereby you could organically acquire customers. The single biggest cost

730
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: in sports betting is the acquisition of betters. Betters are fickle,

731
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: they're smart, They're going for the best deal or offer

732
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:26,280
Speaker 1: best odds.

733
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 2: They know math.

734
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: They know math, or at least exactly exactly. And Penn

735
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 1: wanted to arrive with a brand, and they felt that

736
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 1: Barstool could offer that to them better than they could

737
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: grow themselves. And so we rode with Pen the sports

738
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:47,240
Speaker 1: betting introduction, the rollout of Cross you know nineteen twenty

739
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: twenty one States, and then when they acquired Barstool, the

740
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: intention was to grow the Barstool sports Barstool sports book brand,

741
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: which was the sports book brand, to grow downloads and

742
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: acquisitions of customers to the app, and to continue to

743
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: run the media business.

744
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 2: So this is three years or so in and then

745
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,800
Speaker 2: late last year they decide, you know what, we can't

746
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 2: stick with Barstool. It's causing other frictions. They sell it

747
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 2: back to Portnoy for a dollar along with a non compete,

748
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 2: and if he sells it they get fifty percent. What

749
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:30,839
Speaker 2: led them to saying, all right, this isn't working out

750
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 2: for us legally or financially.

751
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the marriage between Barstool and

752
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: Pen was tough, right Penn. You know, one is that

753
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 1: there's a publicly traded company, highly highly regulated sports betting

754
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: is you know, at the time was so nascent in

755
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: this country. And you know, if you think about it,

756
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: they had all of these different state regulators, they had

757
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 1: different levels of concerns. Stool would flare up in the

758
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: news and it would create a nightmare for Penn in

759
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 1: terms of how are they going to manage the street,

760
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: how are they going to placate the analysts, how are

761
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,840
Speaker 1: they going to explain this to the regulators? And it

762
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: became a lot. So that's kind of the first part

763
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: of it, and then the second part is you had

764
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: this kind of wild, free form, very organic, very exploratory comedy,

765
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 1: sports media, lifestyle brand, and you're fitting it into one

766
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: a casino operator that again is highly regulated and publicly traded.

767
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: Like the DNA, was insanely, insanely different, and you know,

768
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: I think at some point it became very obvious that

769
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: this was not going to be the right path for

770
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: Penn's sports betting platform in the future.

771
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 2: I'm always shocked when I see an acquisition where it's obvious,

772
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 2: you know, you want to get the good in the bad,

773
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,800
Speaker 2: and when you make an acquisition like that, it's warts

774
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 2: and all. But nobody can ever accuse Portnoy of saying, oh,

775
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,959
Speaker 2: you really didn't reveal who you were. I mean, it's

776
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 2: an open a book.

777
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: It was very clear who we were.

778
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 2: Kind of makes you wonder what they're thinking.

779
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: You know, look, I think I think they wanted a brand,

780
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:22,760
Speaker 1: and I think it was very smart to be honest

781
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: with you. We you know, Barstool is the most engaging,

782
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: fastest growing, covers more sports, with more level of interest,

783
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: with a very young demographic or not very young, but

784
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: you know, a twenty to thirty nine year old audience,

785
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:39,280
Speaker 1: like it's.

786
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 2: Which is tough to acquire, it's.

787
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: Impossible to acquire.

788
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 2: So was this Was this a win for PEN? I mean,

789
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 2: net net, they spend a half a billion dollars. By

790
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 2: the time they're done, it's probably closer to three quarters

791
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 2: of billion dollars over those three years. Did they capture

792
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 2: enough clients and or revenue to make this worthwhile? I mean,

793
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 2: it's obviously a win for Dave, and it's obviously a

794
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 2: win for Barstool. Did what was the Was it a

795
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:06,879
Speaker 2: break even for Pen? Was it all? Oh?

796
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: No, that's a great question. I don't think i'd be

797
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: the right person to answer that. You know, I think

798
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 1: there was an incredible database built with the Barstool Sportsbook fans.

799
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: Two is I think we all learned an incredible amount.

800
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: And three, you know, I think they you know, they'll

801
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: go into twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six,

802
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: obviously with ESPN way smarter than they went in with

803
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: us in twenty nineteen.

804
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:37,799
Speaker 2: Why did you want to write a book? It's so

805
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 2: much work.

806
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:43,280
Speaker 1: It is so much work. I wanted to write a book.

807
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: I started writing the book after the first PEN acquisition,

808
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: and I had enjoyed prior to that, a very fast paced,

809
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:59,320
Speaker 1: fast growing, highly consuming time at Barstool that was insanely creative.

810
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: And when we started to become more and more integrated

811
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: with PEN, I found my job becoming more and more

812
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:11,720
Speaker 1: about big company things versus exploring frontiers of the Internet,

813
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 1: and I was kind of missing the creativity. So I

814
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,439
Speaker 1: started to write notes on my phone on the train

815
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: on my commute. And I had started a podcast over

816
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: the pandemic because when when the lockdown first happened, I

817
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: was making a habit of emailing every person at barstool

818
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: every week, which was an insanely stupid endeavor. So I

819
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 1: would start with the a's and then I get to

820
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 1: the z's, but it was two hundred and fifty people.

821
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 2: So it wasn't a group email.

822
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 3: Now.

823
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:41,839
Speaker 1: I just like I emailed, just checking and check it,

824
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 1: which was insanely dumb. But and then I created a podcast,

825
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:48,720
Speaker 1: a ten minute a day podcast, because it was easier,

826
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: obviously to do one to many versus one to one.

827
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,320
Speaker 1: But I really had wanted to connect. And one of

828
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: the things that kind of developed out of the podcast

829
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: was I like to work. I like to talk about work.

830
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: I like to think about work. I think about work

831
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: all the time. I'm curious how people behave at work.

832
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: I have a very strong opinion about work. And we

833
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: started to create this Q and a section where now

834
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: you know, I probably get a thousand DMS a week

835
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: of just work questions like you know, my boss is

836
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: an idiot? Or I hate my coworkers, or how do

837
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 1: I ask for a raise? Or what happens after maternity leave?

838
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:24,880
Speaker 1: And what I started to realize is that there's no

839
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: one who is in the middle of their career talking

840
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,919
Speaker 1: about a career in a way that I think young

841
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: people can relate to, or identify with, or reject, but

842
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: that it's it's a conversation. Work is a conversation, and

843
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,399
Speaker 1: so I've found myself with a lot to say.

844
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 2: Hum, that's interesting. I want to ask you about the

845
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 2: writing process working with a group of people, pirate ship

846
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 2: or otherwise. It's a very collaborative, interactive process. I really

847
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 2: love writing, but I find it's it's very much you're

848
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 2: by yourself. It's very introspective and as creative as it is,

849
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,760
Speaker 2: it's so different than working with the group of people.

850
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,319
Speaker 2: How did how did you find that relative to the

851
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 2: organized chaos, you would.

852
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I had the same I had the same

853
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 1: experience barer where it's lonely, it's very intense. It's I

854
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,399
Speaker 1: find it very emotional, where it's like you have all

855
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 1: of these things spilling out of you onto this page

856
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: and you're feeling, you know, you're feeling through your fingertips.

857
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,399
Speaker 1: I found it hard to turn it off and turn

858
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: it on, you know, when you're dealing with problems at

859
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 1: work or the demands of the day, it's like, you know,

860
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: like you can just move your way through it. Writing

861
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:50,879
Speaker 1: is it's a very sedentary, the very sedentary exercise, which

862
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:55,360
Speaker 1: is very difficult for me. But I felt very strongly.

863
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: I actually wrote, we cut so much out of this book.

864
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,279
Speaker 1: I actually wrote probably a book two times this long.

865
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 2: Only then you've done better than that. What's the old joke?

866
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 2: I apologize for the length of the letter. I didn't

867
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 2: have time to make it shorter, exactly. It's the secret

868
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 2: is respecting the audience's time and cutting out anything that

869
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,399
Speaker 2: is in you know, muscle and sin you And that's hard, Yeah,

870
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 2: a lot of hard. A lot of writers find that's

871
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 2: their fail point because they fall in love with their

872
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 2: own words.

873
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: I'm religious about it.

874
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, So let's talk a little bit about the

875
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 2: book first. I got to start. I love the title

876
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,720
Speaker 2: nobody cares about your career. Give us a little color

877
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 2: on that.

878
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know, we are struggling to find

879
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: a book title. And Nobody cares about your career is

880
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: a chapter in the book. And why I like it

881
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: as a title is that it's true, like nobody cares

882
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,720
Speaker 1: about your career. You should do what makes you happy.

883
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: You should give yourself to it fully, and you should

884
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 1: make choices in your career. And I would argue your

885
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,280
Speaker 1: life that are good for you, not because you think

886
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: it's what you should be doing or it's what you

887
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: think somebody else would want from you. And so that's

888
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: really the genesis of the title, which is you have

889
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 1: to be in it for you.

890
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,720
Speaker 2: You know, I have a chapter and an upcoming book

891
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 2: about your responsible for your portfolio. I may have to

892
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 2: steal this and change it. Nobody cares about your portfolio

893
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 2: because really, what you're saying is, hey, it's and you.

894
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 2: The whole back third of the book is this is

895
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,879
Speaker 2: your life, your career. You're the one who's gonna make

896
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 2: it or break it. If you're waiting for the cavalry

897
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 2: to come. You forget I got some bad news for you.

898
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 2: So I really thought the title was great, The Ultimate

899
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 2: Playbook for crushing it at Work. How do you define

900
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 2: crushing it at work?

901
00:49:55,880 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: I think crushing it at work is loving your work.

902
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 1: I think it's very in vogue right now to not

903
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 1: love your work. I think it's popular. I think it's

904
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: kind of coolting why quitting? You know, Lazy Girl Summer

905
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:11,480
Speaker 1: blah blah blah.

906
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 2: That one I haven't heard. Oh, okay, I'm.

907
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,479
Speaker 1: Lazy Girl Summer is like, you know, I talk about

908
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: this in the book, which is Lazy Girl Summer is

909
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: like you just want to have better photos on your

910
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,760
Speaker 1: Instagram or better short videos on your TikTok about your weekend,

911
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: and you know that's what you should be living for.

912
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 1: But I really believe that work is, you know, and

913
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:35,759
Speaker 1: I write about this, is that work is tuition. It's

914
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: education that you get paid for, which is awesome. And

915
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: crushing it at work is making the most of your

916
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: work so that you get the most out of it.

917
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 1: You get the most education, you get the most experience,

918
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:55,919
Speaker 1: you develop the most resilience you can And what I

919
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 1: think people need to hear at work is you're going

920
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: to get out of it what you put into it.

921
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 1: But also even if you make a meager salary, or

922
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: you have a boss that sucks, or you hate the

923
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: industry you work in, there is something to learn and

924
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 1: something to do that you can take with you.

925
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:17,400
Speaker 2: Right, that's interesting. I've been through all those since you

926
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 2: brought up education, Let me skip ahead. Learning is everything.

927
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 2: That chapter totally resonated with me. Learn something from everyone,

928
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 2: Just shut up and listen and make learning a game.

929
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 2: Tell us about why learning is so important to somebody

930
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 2: young and new in their career.

931
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, my parents are teachers, so we whether

932
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: my brother and I wanted to or not, we were

933
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: going to be learning. Like we didn't grow up with

934
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:45,240
Speaker 1: a television. You could like play sports or stack would

935
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:47,799
Speaker 1: or read a book those or do chores. Those are

936
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,720
Speaker 1: the four options in my house. But I really believe

937
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: that learn that you can learn something from everyone. You know,

938
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 1: I talk a little bit about my first internship job

939
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: at Fidelity, and you know what, the people I could

940
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:04,160
Speaker 1: learned from were the secretaries. And I learned everything I

941
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 1: humanly could from those secretaries, and they were incredible and

942
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: They taught me so much. I learned from Steve Balmer

943
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:14,399
Speaker 1: and Joanne Bradford and other greats at Microsoft. You can

944
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: learn from the receptionists, you can learn from the janitor.

945
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: I think learning is about being curious and about putting

946
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:25,719
Speaker 1: your ego and your perception of who you are and

947
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: what you do and why you're so great. You got

948
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 1: to put all of that aside, and you're like, what's

949
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:32,080
Speaker 1: in front of me and what can I learn from this?

950
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 2: That sounds very humble, which is not the word that

951
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 2: comes to mind when you think barstool sports. Humility doesn't

952
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 2: kind of pop into your mind. But what you're really

953
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 2: describing is something that's very humble.

954
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 1: You have to be humble. You know. If I had

955
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: gone into barstool and been, you know, like King Kong

956
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 1: to the thing and like beat my chest and been

957
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 1: like I know how this is going to work, this

958
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 1: is how we're going to do it. I have it

959
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: all figured out, they would have kicked me out immediately

960
00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: because none of those are true, you know, And a

961
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: lot of what I write about in the book is

962
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: like your insecurity is one of your greatest strengths because.

963
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 2: Explaining because if you can be humble, and you can

964
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 2: recognize that while yes, you know a lot and.

965
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 1: You are capable of a great deal, you have a

966
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: lot to learn, you have a lot to assess, you

967
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: have a lot to intuitively feel and ascertain. It enables

968
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: you to still pursue your vision and pursue your accomplishments,

969
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:38,280
Speaker 1: but while gaining insight from others. And in that process

970
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: of gaining insight, you will create trust and you will

971
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 1: create you know, a tighter connection with people. And I

972
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:50,320
Speaker 1: think that's sometimes where people miss out, and it's you know, look,

973
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 1: most people right now work over zoom. It's hard to

974
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:57,840
Speaker 1: create connection over zoom. It's hard to learn over.

975
00:53:57,719 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 2: Zoom, especially for young people. You learn and through osmosis

976
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 2: through not just mentorship, but just being in the thing.

977
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: In the mix. You just got to be in the mix. So,

978
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 1: you know, I think this book is really about get

979
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: over yourself. Get over your ego, get over your insecurity,

980
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: get over whatever you think you're great at or you're

981
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:17,759
Speaker 1: terrible at. Put yourself in a situation where you can

982
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 1: gain as much information as possible, put that into your quiver,

983
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 1: and go out to battle.

984
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 2: Let's talk about failure. There are a bunch of quotes

985
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 2: in the book about why you should why failure is

986
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:35,280
Speaker 2: the best teacher. I like foling down is the best

987
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 2: way to get good at getting up. But you literally

988
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 2: start a chapter fail, seriously fail.

989
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: Explain Yeah, I think failure is good, you know, like

990
00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 1: I've failed all the time. I still fail all the time.

991
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:52,319
Speaker 1: And the thing about failing is everyone is human. They're

992
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:54,399
Speaker 1: going to fail, you know. And let's until we all

993
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,239
Speaker 1: work with robots and chat GPT, Like, there's going to

994
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 1: be failure in every enterp you go after, work, life, family,

995
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 1: you name it, health, whatever. And the problem I see

996
00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:12,720
Speaker 1: is if you do not get comfortable failing, you start

997
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 1: to calcify. And when you calcify, you become quite brittle.

998
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,880
Speaker 1: And if someone knocks you over, even ever so slightly,

999
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: you will break. And failing a lot means that you're

1000
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:28,680
Speaker 1: trying a lot of things. It's actually an indicator that

1001
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:33,800
Speaker 1: you're learning a great deal and being nimble and being

1002
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 1: fluid and being on the edge and being willing to

1003
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 1: trip and mess up and then course correct. It is

1004
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: such a shortcut to growth.

1005
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 2: If you're not failing, it really means you're too risk averse.

1006
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 1: You're not taking any chances Yeah, you're not.

1007
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 2: Trying like it not everything is bad on the ball

1008
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 2: and you make it to first exactly. Sometimes you got

1009
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:58,920
Speaker 2: to swing and that means you've got to strike out. Ye.

1010
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:02,280
Speaker 2: Actually right, people, people have the wrong attitude about failure.

1011
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,840
Speaker 2: My pet theory is what the reason Silicon Valley is

1012
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 2: as successful as it is in the United States, is

1013
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:14,359
Speaker 2: such an entrepreneurial nation is the penalty for failure in

1014
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 2: Europe is pretty egregious. You fail in the United States,

1015
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:20,440
Speaker 2: no one really thinks. So you pick yourself up, you

1016
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 2: try again.

1017
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 1: It's the American dream.

1018
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 2: There is no scarlet letter for failure. But old Europe

1019
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 2: has a very different attitude about that.

1020
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:35,439
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think failure is really, really, really important. And look,

1021
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: there are big failures and there's little failures. If you're

1022
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,879
Speaker 1: learning and trying things, you're going to fail every day.

1023
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 1: Think about an athlete. You know, you play a game

1024
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: for sixty minutes and you don't kick every ball the

1025
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,399
Speaker 1: right way, you don't make every pass the right way,

1026
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: You don't you know, execute perfectly every time. Learning how

1027
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 1: to be able to do that and to get iteratively better,

1028
00:56:57,080 --> 00:56:59,399
Speaker 1: it's actually the only way to get iteratively better.

1029
00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 2: Jordan quote I've succeeded because I've taken so many last

1030
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 2: minute shots that I've missed. I've missed eleven thousand. Where

1031
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 2: the line is is great, but I want to bring

1032
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 2: it to you. What failures can you identify in your

1033
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,160
Speaker 2: experience that ultimately led to a more positive outcome.

1034
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean so many. I fail all the time.

1035
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 1: I made so many mistakes at barstool. I made so

1036
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: many mistakes at every job before I went to Barstool.

1037
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: I'm making mistakes at food fifty two literally as we speak.

1038
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: So you know, and I think the types of mistakes are.

1039
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:36,000
Speaker 1: You know. The good thing about mistakes is it gives

1040
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: you this this ability to trust your gut, which is

1041
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: also what I talk a lot about in the book.

1042
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 1: So you know, my mistakes have been I struck the

1043
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:46,240
Speaker 1: wrong partnership. I knew what was wrong, but I did

1044
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: it anyways. I made bad hires, I made bad decisions.

1045
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: I trusted people I shouldn't. I came up short when

1046
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 1: I wished I didn't. And I think the good news

1047
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 1: about failing is one if you fail a lot, it

1048
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: just gives you something to think about and you're like,

1049
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I would have you know, my gut

1050
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: told me I should have handled it this way, and

1051
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:10,720
Speaker 1: I didn't handle it that way. Next time I'm going

1052
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 1: to And I think it's just that inner monologue of

1053
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 1: really post action review for yourself, which is partly nobody

1054
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:21,800
Speaker 1: cares about your career like you should be. You should

1055
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:25,960
Speaker 1: be post morteming yourself all the time. And I think

1056
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:31,000
Speaker 1: that review helps you internalize and make a better choice

1057
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: than next time, which in turn helps you take on

1058
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:35,000
Speaker 1: more the next time.

1059
00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 2: There are two related quotes that I have to ask

1060
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 2: you about, and they both seem to be about sports,

1061
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 2: but I wonder if they're really not. The first is

1062
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:50,400
Speaker 2: the Great Ones play Hurt, which is right from the

1063
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 2: cover of the book, from the subtitle. I mean, obviously

1064
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 2: we understand what that means in sports, but how do

1065
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 2: you relate this to your professional life?

1066
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:01,480
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think I love that line. I think it's

1067
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 1: just a great line. I trademarked it, but did you

1068
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:05,920
Speaker 1: really I did the Great Ones play Hurt.

1069
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 2: That has before.

1070
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing, Like a trademarking machine. I'll trademark anything,

1071
00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: but it's just too stupid, but I do it. The

1072
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: Great Ones Play Hurt is about resilience and you know

1073
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:22,960
Speaker 1: when you see it on the on the football field

1074
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 1: or you see it in in athletics, there's a heroism

1075
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 1: to it, you know.

1076
00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 2: So so it's exhaustion, injuries.

1077
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 1: Ships are down, you know, it's you're you're you're somehow

1078
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 1: held back or coming from behind. And what it really

1079
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:44,080
Speaker 1: is about, it's about will, and it's about perseverance, and

1080
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: it is about an inner strength that that propels you

1081
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: to go further than you buy, you know, passing observation,

1082
00:59:54,720 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: think you could. And so I think what's important at

1083
00:59:57,960 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 1: work is I think a lot of times people just

1084
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:03,880
Speaker 1: row in the towel and they say, eugh, we're behind, or.

1085
01:00:03,880 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 2: You're frustrated, and that's it.

1086
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: You know, my arm's tied behind my back or you know,

1087
01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 1: this is stupid how this is done, and then they

1088
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:13,479
Speaker 1: give up. And the reality is is that because work

1089
01:00:13,560 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: is full of humans, work is flawed. People are flawed,

1090
01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: businesses are flawed, industries are flawed. Things change and you

1091
01:00:21,320 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 1: have to be able to persevere through that even when hurt.

1092
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: And the great ones.

1093
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:30,040
Speaker 2: Do that really interesting and then the sort of related

1094
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:34,320
Speaker 2: quote that you know again another thing that resonated with me.

1095
01:00:35,040 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 2: Your environment will always be relentless.

1096
01:00:38,400 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 1: Yes, explain, I am a big believer in this one.

1097
01:00:42,200 --> 01:00:46,280
Speaker 1: So it's osmosis. We've actually talked a lot about it.

1098
01:00:46,320 --> 01:00:51,200
Speaker 1: Where your environment is relentless. If you surround yourself or

1099
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:54,960
Speaker 1: find yourself in a job, or in a social circle

1100
01:00:55,400 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: or wherever with a bunch of people who are not motivated, negative, pessimistic, complacent, comfortable,

1101
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: even if you are the biggest spark of life or

1102
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 1: the biggest amount of drive, they will get to you.

1103
01:01:12,880 --> 01:01:16,959
Speaker 1: It will, it will, it will assimilate into you. And

1104
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 1: positivity is relentless. Negativity is relentless, and so the environment

1105
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:27,040
Speaker 1: you put yourself in is critically, critically important. I always

1106
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:30,480
Speaker 1: wanted to put myself in an environment where you know,

1107
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 1: we had talked about Joanne at the beginning of this.

1108
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 1: I worked for a relentless, harsh woman. And the reason

1109
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 1: I got as close to Joanne as I humanly could

1110
01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 1: for as long as I could, because I knew that

1111
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:48,880
Speaker 1: relentlessness and the bluntness and the directness one there was

1112
01:01:48,920 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 1: a lot of love behind it, but to it would

1113
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:52,840
Speaker 1: make me better, right.

1114
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:55,720
Speaker 2: A ton of insight and a ton of She's a

1115
01:01:55,760 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 2: three dimensional chess player and.

1116
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:00,920
Speaker 1: She's got it all yeah, I knew that that was relentless,

1117
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: and I knew she could take me and morph me

1118
01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:08,320
Speaker 1: into places that I could not get to myself. And

1119
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 1: that's choosing an environment. A person can create, and a

1120
01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 1: person can create an environment.

1121
01:02:13,720 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 2: And the really interesting thing about that is there is

1122
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 2: a ton of academic literature that supports exactly what you're describing.

1123
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 2: And it goes just beyond the attitude to health outcomes

1124
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:32,160
Speaker 2: and exercise and smoking and divorce. And it's crazy that

1125
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:37,120
Speaker 2: if a certain percentage of people in your immediate thirty

1126
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:39,880
Speaker 2: group of people get divorced, the odds of your divorce

1127
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 2: goes up sure, or certain health outcomes, or.

1128
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 1: It's cancer, heart disease.

1129
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 2: It's insane, but it you know, the environment you select

1130
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 2: for yourself.

1131
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important, Yeah, it really is.

1132
01:02:51,000 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 2: So let's talk about vision. You talk about having a

1133
01:02:55,440 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 2: vision and sticking with it, make it audacious and plausible.

1134
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 1: A vision is really important, and I think most people,

1135
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people fall down for themselves

1136
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:11,840
Speaker 1: and fall down at work because they do not have

1137
01:03:11,880 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 1: a vision and of it.

1138
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 2: Let me interrupt your sex. When I started that chapter,

1139
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 2: I was like, Ugh, here comes some vision board nonsense.

1140
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 2: And by the end of the chapter, I'm like, oh, okay,

1141
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 2: I totally get what she's saying. She's dead on you.

1142
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 2: Totally won me over.

1143
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 1: That's awesome. You know, I agree with you. Vision is

1144
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 1: one of those like, ugh, like high falutin words. It's

1145
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:35,160
Speaker 1: you know, fuzzy and like wrapped in caush, squishy so

1146
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:38,920
Speaker 1: squishy word. But what I mean by vision is you

1147
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,520
Speaker 1: need to articulate something new you want to be or

1148
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:47,360
Speaker 1: someplace knew you would like to go. And the you

1149
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 1: in this case could be yourself, it could be your family,

1150
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:52,320
Speaker 1: it could be your team, it could be the project

1151
01:03:52,360 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: you're working on. But I really believe that you should

1152
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:58,640
Speaker 1: pick a point to be at a new place in

1153
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:01,600
Speaker 1: the future. And the reason I think that's important is

1154
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 1: it keeps you motivated and it gives you a north

1155
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 1: star to work towards and to look towards. One of

1156
01:04:09,800 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 1: the things I write a lot about is work is mundane.

1157
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:14,640
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of boring mondays, there's a lot

1158
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:18,439
Speaker 1: of it's a grind, and you know what, it's going

1159
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: to always be a grind, and having a vision makes

1160
01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: the grind add up to something.

1161
01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:28,880
Speaker 2: It's becomes purposeful and now you have an objective beyond

1162
01:04:29,120 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 2: exactly just the mundanity. Is that a word?

1163
01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:33,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the lemmingness of it all.

1164
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:37,240
Speaker 2: Interesting. So towards the end of the book there's an

1165
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:41,040
Speaker 2: interesting discussion, but I want to have you articulate it.

1166
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:44,440
Speaker 2: How do you decide when it's time to go? On?

1167
01:04:44,600 --> 01:04:49,360
Speaker 2: What determines when, for better or worse time to go.

1168
01:04:49,360 --> 01:04:51,560
Speaker 1: It's time to go? You know, this is a hard one.

1169
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 1: You know, I've always been really sensitive. I was always

1170
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:56,240
Speaker 1: very insecure that I would run out of a job.

1171
01:04:57,400 --> 01:04:59,480
Speaker 1: When I lived in Boston, there was a point in

1172
01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:02,440
Speaker 1: time where Austin started to feel kind of small, and

1173
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 1: I worried that with every job that I got that

1174
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:07,080
Speaker 1: there would be less jobs for me to get in

1175
01:05:07,120 --> 01:05:08,000
Speaker 1: the future, Which.

1176
01:05:07,760 --> 01:05:11,000
Speaker 2: Well, isn't that true? As you work your way there's

1177
01:05:11,040 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 2: a million people in a law firm, since you want

1178
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 2: to be a lawyer. At one point, there's a million

1179
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:19,800
Speaker 2: first year associates. Yeah, and then there's only so many

1180
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 2: middle associates, and then by the time you get to

1181
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 2: the top of the pyramid, it's one to ten ratio

1182
01:05:25,200 --> 01:05:29,080
Speaker 2: of partners exactly worker bees. So that's true in most

1183
01:05:29,080 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 2: fields right exact, the better you do the less choices.

1184
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:34,120
Speaker 1: Yea, the better you do, the less choices. And so

1185
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:36,960
Speaker 1: what I always really wanted was that for every job

1186
01:05:37,120 --> 01:05:40,280
Speaker 1: I took, that it opened the door to five new jobs,

1187
01:05:40,280 --> 01:05:44,200
Speaker 1: and it created new opportunity, and that was very That

1188
01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:46,400
Speaker 1: was very important to me, and I think that that's

1189
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:50,160
Speaker 1: important for people at work. And I think a lot

1190
01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:52,680
Speaker 1: of times what happens at work is you just get

1191
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:55,520
Speaker 1: caught up in the who did what to whom and

1192
01:05:55,560 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 1: who screwed up on what and why, And that also

1193
01:05:59,400 --> 01:06:02,760
Speaker 1: is contained. And when you find yourself distracted in that,

1194
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 1: you lose your vision, you lose your purpose, and you

1195
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:09,280
Speaker 1: lose the You know, every hour that we spend at work,

1196
01:06:09,720 --> 01:06:12,720
Speaker 1: there is somebody else who is hungrier than you, smarter

1197
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:15,160
Speaker 1: than you, with more talent than you, trying to do

1198
01:06:15,200 --> 01:06:15,720
Speaker 1: the same thing.

1199
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:19,760
Speaker 2: That environment sounds relentless. It is so well. By the way,

1200
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:21,960
Speaker 2: when I first read that quote, I thought you were

1201
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:26,560
Speaker 2: talking about the competitive nature of the world, not necessarily

1202
01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:29,320
Speaker 2: who you'd surround yourself, But both turn out to be true.

1203
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: It's true.

1204
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:34,720
Speaker 2: So given that what ultimately led you to the decision

1205
01:06:35,240 --> 01:06:37,920
Speaker 2: to join food fifty two, tell us a little bit

1206
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:41,360
Speaker 2: about it. Your new gig and how did you transition?

1207
01:06:41,520 --> 01:06:43,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, so sorry, And I missed your question on the

1208
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:45,560
Speaker 1: last one at all. So one of the funny things

1209
01:06:45,600 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 1: I think about this book is it's being written by

1210
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:50,920
Speaker 1: someone who is in the midst of her own career

1211
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 1: and making mistakes every day and making choices every day.

1212
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 1: And you know, I was finishing this book just as

1213
01:06:56,880 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: we bought the company back from Pen and and the

1214
01:07:01,040 --> 01:07:04,320
Speaker 1: you know, so it's it was an odd experience for

1215
01:07:04,360 --> 01:07:06,919
Speaker 1: me where I'm writing about whether you stay or go

1216
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:10,320
Speaker 1: in a job, and I meanwhile saying to avoiding the

1217
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:13,920
Speaker 1: question for myself, should right see.

1218
01:07:14,000 --> 01:07:16,040
Speaker 2: You can you hear the train whistle off?

1219
01:07:16,200 --> 01:07:16,360
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1220
01:07:16,360 --> 01:07:18,120
Speaker 2: I do exactly know what's coming.

1221
01:07:18,200 --> 01:07:21,400
Speaker 1: Yep, that's right. So you know, I think, for me

1222
01:07:21,960 --> 01:07:24,800
Speaker 1: someone you should always be scaring yourself. You should always

1223
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 1: be putting yourself in an environment where maybe you know

1224
01:07:27,720 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the stuff for sixty percent of the stuff,

1225
01:07:30,320 --> 01:07:33,280
Speaker 1: but you don't know forty percent of the stuff. And

1226
01:07:34,040 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 1: I was very eager. You know, the year twenty twenty three,

1227
01:07:38,960 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 1: we sold Barstool twice. We sold it first to pen

1228
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:45,720
Speaker 1: and then to Dave, And you know, I came in

1229
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:48,840
Speaker 1: twenty twenty sixteen with a goal of growing the company

1230
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:51,959
Speaker 1: I don't know to twenty five million dollars and you know.

1231
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:52,920
Speaker 2: You get to double it.

1232
01:07:53,120 --> 01:07:55,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, we crushed it. You know that barstool will do

1233
01:07:56,080 --> 01:07:59,440
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars in revenue?

1234
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:01,200
Speaker 2: Is what is that what they're up to?

1235
01:08:01,320 --> 01:08:01,560
Speaker 4: Now?

1236
01:08:02,320 --> 01:08:03,720
Speaker 2: That's a serious agari.

1237
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big media company. And I was looking

1238
01:08:08,480 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 1: at my own career and myself and saying, God, I've

1239
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:15,200
Speaker 1: exited this company twice in a year, and we're going

1240
01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:18,320
Speaker 1: to do three hundred million dollars in revenue. Dave owns

1241
01:08:18,400 --> 01:08:21,519
Speaker 1: the pirate Ship now, which is exactly how it should be.

1242
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:25,519
Speaker 1: This is the right ending to this story, Like, this

1243
01:08:25,720 --> 01:08:28,680
Speaker 1: is the right he's got this. I did what I

1244
01:08:28,720 --> 01:08:33,400
Speaker 1: came to do, and I was I always I like

1245
01:08:33,479 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 1: to work, so I you know, I wanted to still work.

1246
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:38,519
Speaker 1: I still wanted to build something. I wanted to fix things.

1247
01:08:38,600 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 1: I wanted to be curious. I wanted to learn a lot,

1248
01:08:41,400 --> 01:08:44,720
Speaker 1: but I wanted to do it in a completely and

1249
01:08:44,840 --> 01:08:49,720
Speaker 1: radically different category. And so enter Food fifty two, which is,

1250
01:08:50,479 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 1: you know, really incredible brand, built on content, built on storytelling,

1251
01:08:55,080 --> 01:08:59,599
Speaker 1: built on community. Two female founders created in their kitchen

1252
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 1: and it became, you know, a really interesting commerce platform

1253
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:09,160
Speaker 1: for home and food and table, but also a really

1254
01:09:09,200 --> 01:09:13,799
Speaker 1: interesting content platform. And I think there's a huge amount

1255
01:09:13,800 --> 01:09:17,840
Speaker 1: of potential. Home is an immensely big category. Women are

1256
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:22,880
Speaker 1: an exceptionally interesting audience. And the idea of taking what

1257
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 1: I learned at Barstool and obviously all the places before

1258
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:27,839
Speaker 1: and bringing that to this was very interesting.

1259
01:09:28,120 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 2: And if you had to pick something that was one

1260
01:09:30,360 --> 01:09:34,640
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty degrees from barstool, a woman co founded

1261
01:09:35,400 --> 01:09:39,160
Speaker 2: home and food site, I mean it's pretty much it, right.

1262
01:09:39,240 --> 01:09:42,880
Speaker 2: That's so, what has it been like teeing up? This

1263
01:09:42,960 --> 01:09:43,759
Speaker 2: is new? You started?

1264
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:47,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, brand new, you know, it's funny. Yet I had

1265
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:50,479
Speaker 1: gotten approached by a lot of companies and sports and

1266
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:53,800
Speaker 1: a lot of sports betting companies, and they're done kind

1267
01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 1: of men's lifestyle, and I was like, look, if I'm

1268
01:09:55,400 --> 01:09:57,280
Speaker 1: going to do any of that, I'm a stake. Barshool's

1269
01:09:57,280 --> 01:09:59,880
Speaker 1: the best. Like, there no chance I'm leaving Barstool if

1270
01:09:59,880 --> 01:10:00,920
Speaker 1: I want to work in sports.

1271
01:10:01,280 --> 01:10:04,240
Speaker 4: And so I see even if like an ESPN or

1272
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:07,960
Speaker 4: the athletic definitely like a you don't want to be

1273
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:11,680
Speaker 4: involved in a big, corporate owned institution like that.

1274
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:16,680
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone. I don't think any company in

1275
01:10:16,760 --> 01:10:20,080
Speaker 1: sports could replicate what we created at Barstool.

1276
01:10:20,240 --> 01:10:22,280
Speaker 2: Well, they wouldn't want to replicate it. They would want to.

1277
01:10:22,200 --> 01:10:24,320
Speaker 1: Be they want to choose. Yeah, they'd want to morph

1278
01:10:24,439 --> 01:10:26,800
Speaker 1: that into their But you know that to me is

1279
01:10:27,120 --> 01:10:29,120
Speaker 1: I feel very loyal to Barstool. So I'm like, I

1280
01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:33,760
Speaker 1: just that would feel disingenuous, I think. But it is

1281
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:37,679
Speaker 1: radically different. It is, you know, and it's a different company.

1282
01:10:37,720 --> 01:10:39,920
Speaker 1: It's been around since I don't know the you know,

1283
01:10:39,960 --> 01:10:43,760
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. It's been through a lot of eras, it's

1284
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:46,559
Speaker 1: had a lot of different management teams, so you know,

1285
01:10:46,600 --> 01:10:49,479
Speaker 1: it's very different from going into Barstool. Where Barstool there

1286
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:52,200
Speaker 1: was just nothing built, and here it's like okay, I

1287
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:53,920
Speaker 1: got to take down the scaffolding and I got to

1288
01:10:53,960 --> 01:10:57,240
Speaker 1: rebuild it back up. So it's very very different. But

1289
01:10:57,320 --> 01:10:59,040
Speaker 1: I'm learning a lot and I'm enjoying it.

1290
01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:01,839
Speaker 2: All right. So before we get to our favorite questions

1291
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:03,760
Speaker 2: that I ask all of our guests, I got to

1292
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:08,759
Speaker 2: throw one curveball question at you about the book because

1293
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:12,720
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know the answer to this. Who is

1294
01:11:12,760 --> 01:11:16,559
Speaker 2: the book written for? Because as I was prepping and

1295
01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:19,040
Speaker 2: doing the research for this, Oh, this is a book

1296
01:11:19,040 --> 01:11:21,600
Speaker 2: for a bunch of young women in their careers. But

1297
01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:24,959
Speaker 2: by the time I'm through this, that wasn't my takeaway.

1298
01:11:25,080 --> 01:11:27,280
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1299
01:11:27,439 --> 01:11:27,640
Speaker 2: Is that?

1300
01:11:27,760 --> 01:11:29,559
Speaker 1: Is that a fair question? Very?

1301
01:11:29,800 --> 01:11:30,000
Speaker 4: Uh?

1302
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:32,360
Speaker 1: But I mean it's a it's a it's list a debate.

1303
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:36,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, but in your mind, who who was the target

1304
01:11:36,400 --> 01:11:39,759
Speaker 2: audience when you began and how might that have changed

1305
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:40,880
Speaker 2: when you finished it.

1306
01:11:41,200 --> 01:11:45,360
Speaker 1: I think this book is for anybody who cares about

1307
01:11:45,360 --> 01:11:47,360
Speaker 1: what they do all day, which I realize is kind

1308
01:11:47,400 --> 01:11:51,080
Speaker 1: of a nothing answer, But I do think this book

1309
01:11:51,120 --> 01:11:55,080
Speaker 1: can speak to you if you're motivated, you care, Maybe

1310
01:11:55,120 --> 01:11:57,439
Speaker 1: you're stuck, maybe you lost your way, maybe you want

1311
01:11:57,439 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 1: to change and you're four or you're twenty. I think,

1312
01:12:02,320 --> 01:12:04,920
Speaker 1: on its face value, it looks like a book for

1313
01:12:04,960 --> 01:12:09,120
Speaker 1: twenty somethings, twenty somethings, thirty somethings. But I hope that

1314
01:12:09,160 --> 01:12:11,880
Speaker 1: when people read it, whether you know you're getting it

1315
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:15,599
Speaker 1: for your kid for graduation or you know it's funny.

1316
01:12:15,640 --> 01:12:17,840
Speaker 1: I'm noticing this thing in the world, probably because I'm

1317
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:20,479
Speaker 1: now working with more women where there's a lot of

1318
01:12:20,479 --> 01:12:23,240
Speaker 1: women who are going back to work after their kids

1319
01:12:23,240 --> 01:12:25,479
Speaker 1: are grown, and I think it's a perfect book for

1320
01:12:25,520 --> 01:12:27,280
Speaker 1: women trying to go back to work. I think it's

1321
01:12:27,320 --> 01:12:30,479
Speaker 1: a great book for thirty something men in investment banking,

1322
01:12:30,600 --> 01:12:33,559
Speaker 1: like if you're motivated, if you care to have somebody's

1323
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:37,439
Speaker 1: perspective on how to win at work and what it's

1324
01:12:37,479 --> 01:12:39,439
Speaker 1: going to take and all the things you're going to

1325
01:12:39,479 --> 01:12:42,040
Speaker 1: mess up along the way there. I think this is a.

1326
01:12:41,960 --> 01:12:43,640
Speaker 2: Good but I think it does a nice job at

1327
01:12:43,640 --> 01:12:45,599
Speaker 2: that time. Thank you, So you must be very proud

1328
01:12:45,640 --> 01:12:48,120
Speaker 2: of this, especially this is your first book. It is

1329
01:12:48,200 --> 01:12:51,920
Speaker 2: that that's a tough book. Yeah, that's good item. And

1330
01:12:52,880 --> 01:12:55,160
Speaker 2: I'm going to get to a couple of questions that

1331
01:12:55,240 --> 01:12:58,920
Speaker 2: I think you'll find interesting relative to the book. Let's

1332
01:12:59,040 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 2: jump to our favorite us, starting with what has been

1333
01:13:02,520 --> 01:13:06,599
Speaker 2: keeping you entertained these days? Be it podcasts or Netflix?

1334
01:13:06,600 --> 01:13:07,599
Speaker 2: What are you streaming now?

1335
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 1: I love content, so I know who I'm talking about.

1336
01:13:10,439 --> 01:13:13,920
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of content. I'm trying to watch

1337
01:13:13,960 --> 01:13:17,000
Speaker 1: this documentary called carter Land on Jimmy Carter. Have you

1338
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:17,519
Speaker 1: heard about this?

1339
01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:18,800
Speaker 2: I've heard of it, I haven't seen it.

1340
01:13:19,240 --> 01:13:22,519
Speaker 1: I watched it on a delta flight. I cannot find it.

1341
01:13:22,600 --> 01:13:25,360
Speaker 1: Last night I downloaded Max. I looked up Hulu, I

1342
01:13:25,479 --> 01:13:28,679
Speaker 1: was on Paramount, I was on Netflix, I was on Amazon.

1343
01:13:28,920 --> 01:13:31,760
Speaker 1: There actually is a problem, and discovery of specific.

1344
01:13:31,439 --> 01:13:34,160
Speaker 2: Discovery is the biggest challenge in such a problem, and

1345
01:13:34,200 --> 01:13:35,720
Speaker 2: nobody does it well nobody.

1346
01:13:35,840 --> 01:13:38,200
Speaker 1: So I was trying to watch that last night. I

1347
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 1: ended up watching Explained by Vox. I don't know if

1348
01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:41,720
Speaker 1: you've watched that.

1349
01:13:42,120 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 2: I know Fox does these explainers.

1350
01:13:44,280 --> 01:13:47,000
Speaker 1: Yes, it's like a great little series, Like twenty four

1351
01:13:47,040 --> 01:13:52,320
Speaker 1: minutes we watched plastic surgery, cults and fairy tales.

1352
01:13:53,080 --> 01:13:56,639
Speaker 2: Huh, that's really interesting. Like what did they say about cults?

1353
01:13:56,640 --> 01:13:58,519
Speaker 2: Because I have a great book. If that interesting?

1354
01:13:58,760 --> 01:14:02,640
Speaker 1: Was very interesting, Just the dynamics, it's all. It's all

1355
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:05,559
Speaker 1: the same fundamentals of how a cult is created.

1356
01:14:05,600 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 2: So this guy named Will Stohrer was a I want

1357
01:14:09,439 --> 01:14:12,840
Speaker 2: to say, a journalist out of Australia and he used

1358
01:14:12,880 --> 01:14:16,600
Speaker 2: to embed himself like all the wackiest cults. So it

1359
01:14:16,720 --> 01:14:24,040
Speaker 2: was the flat earthers, the Holocaust deniers like And what's

1360
01:14:24,040 --> 01:14:26,920
Speaker 2: surprised in the book was not that these people are

1361
01:14:26,960 --> 01:14:32,400
Speaker 2: all nuts. It's that something very fundamental early in their

1362
01:14:33,280 --> 01:14:36,680
Speaker 2: building of their personal model of the universe is a

1363
01:14:36,760 --> 01:14:40,000
Speaker 2: skew and everything built on top of that, is it.

1364
01:14:41,120 --> 01:14:43,320
Speaker 2: So it's not that they're crazy, it's that there's a

1365
01:14:43,400 --> 01:14:47,880
Speaker 2: mistake early in their their you know, interactions with the world,

1366
01:14:48,080 --> 01:14:51,040
Speaker 2: and they can't. You have so much invested in your

1367
01:14:51,080 --> 01:14:55,560
Speaker 2: personal sense of identity and your tribe. It's why politics

1368
01:14:55,640 --> 01:14:56,320
Speaker 2: is So.

1369
01:14:56,240 --> 01:14:58,439
Speaker 1: It's funny because that that was my take. I was like, oh,

1370
01:14:58,479 --> 01:14:59,439
Speaker 1: politics is a cult.

1371
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:03,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's very tribal. But anyway, if you're at

1372
01:15:03,080 --> 01:15:08,240
Speaker 2: all interested that, I thought, Uh, Heretics of Science by

1373
01:15:08,240 --> 01:15:11,680
Speaker 2: Will Stone. Oh that's a great fascinating all right, So

1374
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:15,120
Speaker 2: you mentioned those two any other streamers. You're a big

1375
01:15:15,160 --> 01:15:16,880
Speaker 2: podcast person, Adam big Pot.

1376
01:15:16,880 --> 01:15:20,000
Speaker 1: I mean to listen to the barstool podcasts.

1377
01:15:20,920 --> 01:15:22,720
Speaker 2: Still you haven't broken the habit yet.

1378
01:15:22,720 --> 01:15:24,840
Speaker 1: Now that's enough for me.

1379
01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:28,679
Speaker 2: Huh, that's really interesting. So normally here I ask about

1380
01:15:28,760 --> 01:15:33,000
Speaker 2: your mentors. Obviously Joanne Bradford is going to come up.

1381
01:15:33,240 --> 01:15:35,920
Speaker 2: Tell us about who helped shape your career.

1382
01:15:36,080 --> 01:15:40,120
Speaker 1: Oh, so many people. I was really really fortunate. Joanne

1383
01:15:40,200 --> 01:15:43,880
Speaker 1: was an incredible mentor. I worked for her for twelve years.

1384
01:15:43,880 --> 01:15:47,479
Speaker 1: Wenda Millard, who was kind of the opposite of Joanne

1385
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:51,519
Speaker 1: at Yahoo. She's been an incredible, incredible mentor I have

1386
01:15:52,040 --> 01:15:57,120
Speaker 1: a really great women's mafia where you know, women who

1387
01:15:57,200 --> 01:15:59,320
Speaker 1: are older than me, women who are younger than me.

1388
01:16:00,720 --> 01:16:03,400
Speaker 1: So I feel very grateful. I've been able to learn

1389
01:16:03,479 --> 01:16:06,240
Speaker 1: from most pretty much everybody.

1390
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:09,840
Speaker 2: That's great. So I mentioned that other book. Let's talk

1391
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:13,080
Speaker 2: about some of your favorites and what you're reading right now.

1392
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:15,400
Speaker 1: I'm reading a book right now called The Girl Who

1393
01:16:15,520 --> 01:16:19,160
Speaker 1: Smiled Beads, which is about the Rwandan genocide. So I

1394
01:16:19,240 --> 01:16:24,200
Speaker 1: was in Rwanda in February. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

1395
01:16:24,360 --> 01:16:26,760
Speaker 1: So I'm reading a book about the genocide. And then

1396
01:16:26,760 --> 01:16:30,080
Speaker 1: I'm very late on this novel called A Little Life,

1397
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:31,200
Speaker 1: which i'm also reading.

1398
01:16:31,720 --> 01:16:33,479
Speaker 2: Someone else recommended that.

1399
01:16:33,320 --> 01:16:36,400
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be amazing. It's like a group of

1400
01:16:36,400 --> 01:16:37,519
Speaker 1: friends in New York City.

1401
01:16:37,680 --> 01:16:42,200
Speaker 2: Huh. Interesting. And our final two questions, and the first

1402
01:16:42,200 --> 01:16:46,120
Speaker 2: one is, you know, perfect for the book. What sort

1403
01:16:46,160 --> 01:16:50,799
Speaker 2: of advice would you give a recent college grad interested

1404
01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:57,040
Speaker 2: in a career in either media contents management today?

1405
01:16:58,040 --> 01:17:02,320
Speaker 1: I would give anybody graduate from college the advice just

1406
01:17:02,439 --> 01:17:04,800
Speaker 1: to get a job and to work your butt off,

1407
01:17:05,400 --> 01:17:09,200
Speaker 1: and it really doesn't matter so much those first couple jobs.

1408
01:17:09,720 --> 01:17:13,280
Speaker 1: What industry it's in or where it's located. I think

1409
01:17:13,880 --> 01:17:16,280
Speaker 1: I was always a little bit scared when I was

1410
01:17:16,560 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: not a little bit. I was scared when I was

1411
01:17:18,439 --> 01:17:20,920
Speaker 1: in my twenties to like jump out of the nest.

1412
01:17:21,560 --> 01:17:23,479
Speaker 1: And if I were to do it all over again,

1413
01:17:23,720 --> 01:17:26,320
Speaker 1: I would have moved to California in my twenties and

1414
01:17:26,640 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 1: worked my butt off and then come back to the

1415
01:17:29,080 --> 01:17:31,640
Speaker 1: East Coast. I really think it's an incredible time in

1416
01:17:31,680 --> 01:17:36,040
Speaker 1: your life where you can do pretty much anything without

1417
01:17:36,080 --> 01:17:38,880
Speaker 1: a whole lot of of compromise and without a whole

1418
01:17:38,920 --> 01:17:42,519
Speaker 1: lot of consequence, right. And I think it's also oddly

1419
01:17:42,600 --> 01:17:44,880
Speaker 1: this time in your life where you feel most uncertain,

1420
01:17:45,600 --> 01:17:47,599
Speaker 1: and so if you can get over that and do it,

1421
01:17:47,640 --> 01:17:49,040
Speaker 1: I think great things can come from it.

1422
01:17:49,120 --> 01:17:51,439
Speaker 2: When you don't have a mortgage or kids in school,

1423
01:17:51,560 --> 01:17:53,559
Speaker 2: you could take a risk and if you fail, you'd

1424
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:54,240
Speaker 2: try over.

1425
01:17:54,080 --> 01:17:57,320
Speaker 1: Cares which you can still fail and that, you know,

1426
01:17:57,320 --> 01:17:59,400
Speaker 1: that's a big message of the book. Anyone can fail.

1427
01:17:59,439 --> 01:18:03,640
Speaker 1: Everyone does fail all the time, but the reverberations of

1428
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:06,880
Speaker 1: failure start to affect other people. You know, the older

1429
01:18:06,920 --> 01:18:07,559
Speaker 1: you get.

1430
01:18:07,439 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 2: When you have a fifty year professional horizon, you know

1431
01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:14,960
Speaker 2: you want to make mistakes earlier one through ten, not

1432
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:16,519
Speaker 2: year thirty through four.

1433
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:16,880
Speaker 1: That's right.

1434
01:18:17,400 --> 01:18:21,720
Speaker 2: The consequences are there. It's not just we had fun

1435
01:18:21,720 --> 01:18:24,200
Speaker 2: with a whole lot of vocabulary words. It's not just

1436
01:18:24,560 --> 01:18:29,000
Speaker 2: the resiliency, but the ability to recover and shake it off. Yeah,

1437
01:18:29,720 --> 01:18:32,439
Speaker 2: you don't get that when you're fifty five sixty five

1438
01:18:33,080 --> 01:18:36,439
Speaker 2: in a career. I think that's great advice. Our final question,

1439
01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:40,040
Speaker 2: what do you know about the world of media content

1440
01:18:41,080 --> 01:18:44,759
Speaker 2: marketing today? You wish you knew in the late nineties

1441
01:18:44,800 --> 01:18:46,120
Speaker 2: when you were first getting started.

1442
01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:51,519
Speaker 1: Ooh, that is a great question, Barry. I think I'm

1443
01:18:51,640 --> 01:18:55,559
Speaker 1: so grateful to have worked in content and media and

1444
01:18:55,720 --> 01:19:00,719
Speaker 1: to have tripped into this Internet in the late nineties.

1445
01:19:01,920 --> 01:19:04,800
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have this ride if I

1446
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:07,800
Speaker 1: were to jump into this now, or the luxury of

1447
01:19:07,840 --> 01:19:12,400
Speaker 1: that much change. So, you know, I think media content

1448
01:19:13,640 --> 01:19:20,879
Speaker 1: consumption consumers is they're just so fragmented and I it's

1449
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:24,160
Speaker 1: deafening the amount of fragmentation. Things that used to be

1450
01:19:24,240 --> 01:19:28,479
Speaker 1: thirty minutes are now three seconds. And so I think

1451
01:19:28,520 --> 01:19:32,760
Speaker 1: the fragmentation and the speed and the volume of content

1452
01:19:33,240 --> 01:19:38,320
Speaker 1: is really overwhelming. I wonder if the world will start

1453
01:19:38,320 --> 01:19:40,000
Speaker 1: to go more offline.

1454
01:19:40,479 --> 01:19:43,360
Speaker 2: You know, there is a discussion taking place about the

1455
01:19:43,479 --> 01:19:46,400
Speaker 2: death of the Internet. I don't know how much of

1456
01:19:46,439 --> 01:19:51,760
Speaker 2: that as an exaggeration, but the bulkanization process that you're describing,

1457
01:19:53,720 --> 01:19:57,360
Speaker 2: it's real. And you know, back in the day there

1458
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:00,400
Speaker 2: were three networks. You'd go to the off and there

1459
01:20:00,400 --> 01:20:05,800
Speaker 2: would be water cooler conversations about the broadcast show last night.

1460
01:20:06,439 --> 01:20:09,639
Speaker 2: Every word in that sentence is anachronistic. None of those things.

1461
01:20:10,800 --> 01:20:13,800
Speaker 2: There's no more water coolers, there's no more broadcasts, there

1462
01:20:13,800 --> 01:20:17,320
Speaker 2: are no real office discussions like that. The world has changed.

1463
01:20:17,400 --> 01:20:21,120
Speaker 1: Well, and to your earlier point, you and I could have, somehow,

1464
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:25,040
Speaker 1: in a miraculous fashion, watched the same thing last night.

1465
01:20:25,120 --> 01:20:27,680
Speaker 1: But what you saw and what I saw will be

1466
01:20:27,760 --> 01:20:28,639
Speaker 1: dramatically different.

1467
01:20:28,840 --> 01:20:33,439
Speaker 2: And that's the challenge of an algo driven media world,

1468
01:20:34,120 --> 01:20:38,479
Speaker 2: is that no two people are seeing the same thing anymore. Yeah, crazy, Well, Erica,

1469
01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 2: thank you for being so generous with your time. This

1470
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:46,000
Speaker 2: has been delightful. We have been speaking with Erica ayers Badon.

1471
01:20:46,400 --> 01:20:49,040
Speaker 2: She is the author of Nobody Cares About Your Career,

1472
01:20:49,479 --> 01:20:52,680
Speaker 2: Why Failure Is Good, The Great Ones, Play Hurt, and

1473
01:20:52,840 --> 01:20:57,800
Speaker 2: other hard truths. If you enjoy this conversation, well check

1474
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:00,400
Speaker 2: out any of the previous five hundred and chain we've

1475
01:21:00,439 --> 01:21:04,040
Speaker 2: had over the past ten years. You can find those

1476
01:21:04,080 --> 01:21:08,880
Speaker 2: at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

1477
01:21:09,360 --> 01:21:13,479
Speaker 2: Check out my new podcast At the Money, ten minute

1478
01:21:13,680 --> 01:21:18,680
Speaker 2: conversations with experts about your money, earning it, spending it,

1479
01:21:18,720 --> 01:21:22,360
Speaker 2: and most importantly, investing it At the Money, wherever you

1480
01:21:22,439 --> 01:21:25,720
Speaker 2: find your favorite podcasts, and here in the Masters and

1481
01:21:25,760 --> 01:21:28,760
Speaker 2: Business feed. I would be remiss if I did not

1482
01:21:28,840 --> 01:21:31,679
Speaker 2: thank the crack staff that helps with these conversations together

1483
01:21:31,760 --> 01:21:36,080
Speaker 2: each week. John Wasserman is my audio engineer. A Tek

1484
01:21:36,080 --> 01:21:40,680
Speaker 2: of Albron is my project manager. Seor Russo is my researcher.

1485
01:21:40,840 --> 01:21:44,200
Speaker 2: Anna Luke is my producer. Sage Bauman is the head

1486
01:21:44,240 --> 01:21:48,080
Speaker 2: of podcasts here at Bloomberg, I'm Barry Ridholks. You've been

1487
01:21:48,120 --> 01:21:51,760
Speaker 2: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.