WEBVTT - Erika Ayers Badan on Digital Innovation 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.760 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:15.200 This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.759 This week on the podcast, I have a fascinating and 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:25.040 extra special guest. Erica Ayersbadon had a background in marketing 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.120 where she worked at a variety of places from Fidelity 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.760 to Microsoft, to AOL to Yahoo before she decided to 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:40.360 take the role in twenty sixteen as CEO of Barstool Sports, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:45.000 trying to herd the various cats at the pirate ship 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.280 run by Dave Portnoy hold Barstool Sports. She took the 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.640 firm from a couple of million dollars in revenue up 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.360 to three hundred million dollars in revenue and helped to 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.000 sell it for about half a billion dollars. She has 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.440 a fascinating career and the new book is really interesting 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.080 that basically teaches people to you know, take control of 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.280 their own careers, develop a vision and a plan, and 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.280 then execute it. I thought the book was interesting and 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.600 I found our conversation to be fascinating, and I think 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:20.640 you will also with no further ado my discussion with 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:22.160 Erica ayres Ba. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:23.640 Don thank you. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:25.600 Did I get your name right? I feel like Butcher, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:27.600 we did a great job. Oh well, thank you. So 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:32.319 let's begin with your background, which doesn't really lend itself 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:37.160 to how your career went. You study at Colby College 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.920 in Maine and you end up with a degree in sociology. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:42.240 Was there any sort of career plan there? 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.640 No, I didn't really have a I loved college. I 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:45.600 didn't really have a career. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.040 Who amongst us hated college. 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:49.520 I made the most of it. I probably piqued. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:51.760 And I know you at one point we're thinking about 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.480 law school. I was, and I went to law school, 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.800 and it's just like, how can I postpone? Right? That's 0:01:58.840 --> 0:01:59.440 exactly right. 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.240 Yeah, I didn't. I liked sociology because you could write. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:04.840 It was a lot of reading, and it was a 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.600 lot of writing, and it was I liked the idea 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.679 of studying people in groups. I had a really fantastic 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:15.040 professor named Tom Morioni, who I found really really inspiring. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:17.560 I was a philosophy minor. 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:22.960 I you were, Yep, absolutely, I love philosophy. And the 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.240 joke I tell is I never submitted my existential final 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.280 paper because what's the point? Right? And I wish that 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:32.040 was a joke, but. 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.640 It wasn't yea, but I took a bunch of I 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.000 got an internship at Fidelity Investments when I was a junior, 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:44.720 and it really gave me a taste for business, and 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.799 I wanted to work in business. And at the time 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.320 when I graduated, the economy was very good, so the 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.959 fact that I had a sociology degree really didn't impede, 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:56.440 I think, getting into business. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.919 And you you end up in like what some would 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.480 think of as kind of a dry legalistic part of Fidelity, 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.720 the ARISA division, which focuses on retirement accounts. 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:09.960 It was very boring. 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.800 So did that motivate you to go to law school? 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:14.200 Was that like? 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.760 Oh no, No, that made me become highly allergic to 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.440 the concept of going to law school. I was bored. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.079 I you know, I made fifty thousand dollars my first 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:24.560 job out of school, which for me was a lot 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:24.839 of money. 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:25.280 Big money. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.440 What you still think it's a lot of money nineteen ninety. 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.359 Eight, oh so booming economy. Fifty grand in the nineties 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:32.360 for right out of college. 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:33.080 Yeah, that's pretty good. 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.280 That's probably double the starting So they were about thirty 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:36.160 grand exactly. 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:41.040 So I you know, I I saw firsthand what it 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.640 was liked or what I perceived it would be like 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.080 to work in a law firm, and I saw firsthand 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.200 what it was like to mitigate risk, and I realized 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:51.840 that I hated both of those things. 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:57.440 So so not risk averse, not interested in the pickyune 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.480 details and small you know it totally is. 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.280 You know. The interesting thing about having a career in 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:12.480 business is the study show seven years post graduation, half 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.960 of the lawyers aren't practicing. Yeah, they go into business. 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:20.200 It's a similar sort of prep, just just sends you 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.440 in a different route. So I know you in the 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:25.760 book you write about wanting to come to New York 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.000 City and being like, gee, this is a little intimidating 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.400 kind of giant. So you end up in Boston, relatively 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.280 close to family in Vermont and New Hampshire. Where was 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.359 the family when you moved to Boston. They were in 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.360 New Hampshire, Okay, so a. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:43.000 Short Yeah, it wasn't far and most of my friends 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.400 from college lived in Boston, so it also felt very safe. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.000 Right. So you have a network built in at Fidelity. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.160 You're working with the legal group doing Arissa work. When 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.280 an opportunity comes up on the Fidelity job board, for 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.160 digital marketing. So you're doing boring and suddenly there's this 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.080 new and exciting thing. What gave you the confidence to 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.880 take that leap to something wholly different from your prior experience? 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.120 You know, in hindsight, it was probably fairly reckless. You know, 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.080 I didn't have any money saved. The pay the pay 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.159 for the marketing job was seventeen nine hundred dollars and 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.720 I was making fifty thousand. But I was bored and 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.040 I just didn't I was frustrated. I didn't like the feeling. 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.320 Of being that's a third. You gave up two thirds 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.919 of your salary to take a job that had you 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.640 were interested in and perhaps would open up a different career. 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.520 Correct, And I was like, hey, you know, screw it, 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.160 I'm I'm going to go for it. 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.960 So you leap from that position? How first of all, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.479 how long did you stay at Fidelity in digital marketing? 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.719 I stayed another two years? Maybe three years? 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.080 Uh huh? Did you feel like you learned a lot? 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:54.440 Yeah? 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:55.080 Amazing? 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.680 Loved it amazing. So you think we think of Fidelity 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:03.320 is like this big giants, dodgy asset manager. What was 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:04.920 the digital marketing group? Like? There? 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.480 You know, the marketing and media group was interesting. It 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.880 was run by women. Really, yes, it was run by women, 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.240 and it was you know, at that time, radio and 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.760 television and print were the top dogs. So what you 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.160 saw was a company spending hundreds of millions of dollars 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:23.960 to acquire custs. 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.479 Now, if I remember correctly, late nineties, cracks in the 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.520 facade were already showing of you know, the monolithic radio 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.279 TV advertising world. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.320 Yep. And that's really where I got my first big break, 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:40.800 which was I worked in the Internet and nobody cared 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.839 about the Internet, which is why they hired me for it, 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.240 because I was woefully unqualified to work. Give it to 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.080 the kid, Give it to the kid. But I remember Fidelity. 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:55.000 We paid thirty million dollars to have keyword Fidelity on AOL, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.400 which is, you know, in hindsight, a preposterous. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:06:59.960 Equation, but it worked out. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.360 But it worked out. So I really liked Fidelity because 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.880 I saw how something operated at great scale. I saw 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.600 something very serious. You know, the marketing of an investment 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.160 firm is not to be taken lightly. And I was 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.200 also given a huge amount of opportunity because nobody believed in, 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:20.200 cared about or understood the Internet. 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:25.320 Huh, that's amazing. Even in the late nineties, it's one thing, 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.080 if you say, hey, in the early nineties, this thing 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.880 is kind of cludgy and it's got no consumer appeal. 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.880 But by the late nineties it was a full on boom. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.239 I'm surprised. I guess that's the old pole gram line 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.960 experts or experts in the way the world used to be. Maybe, right, 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.160 So from Fidelity you end up at some pretty big firms. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.680 What was your next stop after Fidelity? 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.800 So after Fidelity, I also found eventually myself wanting to 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.320 put my hands into things. At Fidelity, I could buy 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.040 the plan. I was a media buyer, so I could 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.520 buy what someone else proposed to me. I could negotiate it, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.800 I could manipulate it slightly so that it worked for 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.880 our objectives. But I was really buying, and what I 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.960 wanted to do was the construction. So I left Fidelity 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.480 and went and worked at a whole bunch of ad agencies, 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.360 And I felt the ad agency experience would enable me 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.200 to create marketing, not just buy marketing, if that makes sense. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.400 But you found out it was all sales, right. 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.720 But it was all sales exactly. So I then chewed 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:29.760 through that as much as I could, and it was 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.240 a great experience. You know, an agency is a great apprenticeship. 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.560 It's a great place to cut your teeth. You know, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.960 you're on somebody else's dime, you're at somebody else's beck 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:43.160 and call. You have to manage young people in very dynamic, 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.720 ever changing situations. You have to travel a whole lot, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.679 a lot, a lot, and you have to be able 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.040 to pitch. And that those were good skills for me 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:53.600 to develop. 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.120 So you end up going from ad agencies to technology. 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.559 You're at Microsoft, You're at AOL, you're at Yahoo. What 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.720 was the order? How did those come about? And how 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:07.199 different was that from the fidelity slash at agency experiences? 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.400 So you know, the same thing happened to me at 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.720 the ad agencies, where then I realized, whereas I had 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.120 realized at Filty it was just buying. At the agencies, 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.880 I realized I was just planning. I was still taking 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.160 somebody else's ideas and putting them together in an order 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.320 that made sense and delivered against an objective. But I 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.920 really wanted to go make the thing. And I think 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.400 working for Microsoft, which was the first publisher I worked for, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:32.400 that was my big. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.079 Break what division at Microsoft. 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.800 I worked for MSN, which is you know, in that day, 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.000 which is hard to conceive of now. You know, MSN, 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.600 Yahoo and AOL were it like they were the front 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.880 doors to the Internet. That's how you got your email, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:48.760 that's how you got all your news, that's where you 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:49.720 got your entertainment. 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.400 There was your landing page on I was going to 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.559 say Chrome, but really it was Internet Explorer. 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.520 It was Explorer exactly. And I had built something when 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.960 I was at the on the age side. I had 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:05.480 built something for Volkswagen on MSN where I was figuring 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.520 out how MSN Music you could configure a playlist, and 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.120 I played it so that you could configure your cabriolet, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.960 which was the car the Volkswagen was launching, uh huh. 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.920 And it was very you know, it was a rainy 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.079 day or top down playlist. So I got my first 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:26.559 taste of using technology and content and a user interface 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.400 to deliver something to a consumer and also to pay 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.959 pay off a brand marketing message. And I really loved it, 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.440 and I went to go work for Microsoft to do 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:37.920 just that. 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:43.720 Now, a prior guest I had Joanna brought Bradford was 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.720 also at MSN, and I know you guys know each other. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:47.760 Is that where you. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:49.040 Met That's where I met her? 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.440 Yes, you were working for her there. 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.360 I worked for a woman named Gail Troberman, who I 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.000 write a lot about in the book, who worked for Joanne. 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.920 But you know, I remember meeting Joanne. I I somehow 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:06.040 found myself invited to an MSN client retreat that Joanne 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.040 was running. And I thought Joanne was fabulous. 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:10.079 She was a force a nation. 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.480 She is a force of nature and she calls it 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.960 like it is. And I really just wanted to work 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.319 for Joanne. And then I did for the next twelve years. 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:20.040 So that was great. 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.480 So at Microsoft, at AOL, and at Yahoo. 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.360 At Microsoft and Yahoo, and then I went to a 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.080 company with Joanne pre Ipo called Demand Media. 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:30.280 Oh sure, I remember that. 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.280 And then I went out on my own to go 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:33.600 be the CMO of AOL. 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.640 And then CMO is a big position, especially at a 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.240 shop like AOL. Back in the day, they were, you know, 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.760 the eight hundred pound gorilla. So Dave Portnoy is running 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.560 this kind of regional blog that's picking up some traction, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:52.560 first out of Boston, later out of New York. It 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.120 started out as a tear sheet he was handing out 0:11:55.320 --> 0:12:03.679 at train station. Yes, eventually it becomes a little more substantive. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.040 What on earth led you to think, I know, I'm 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.360 going to leave these giant Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and go 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.640 to this regional blog. How did that come about? 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.200 I always loved barstool, So when I lived in Boston, 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:20.720 Dave was handing out the paper at the train station, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.719 until Dave figured out that pretty girls handing out of 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.880 paper would sell more papers than Dave, especially sports right 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.880 to a comedy. Ye right, So I had. I had 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.680 seen Barstool first hand, from the ground up. Most of 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.280 the guys I was friends with would send Barstool stories 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:42.760 in text. That's how people read barstool. That's how guys 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:44.880 read Barstoo. They would text it in their group chats. 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.880 And I thought they were wildly funny, like they just 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:55.520 had a very divine sense of humor. Rocket no holds 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.160 barre It was no holds bar They said what everybody 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.840 was thinking. They went up against every adversary they could, 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.400 and I was feeling, you know, I had made it 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.960 through the corporate ladder. I had gotten to the job 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.880 I had always wanted, which was a CMO job. I 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.320 got there and I realized, oh, I hate this, Like 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.800 I'm still desire to desiring to like create something and 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.240 build something and fix things and do things. And I 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:24.439 was finding myself feeling suffocated at these big companies, and 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.240 so I left AOL for a startup in music, and 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.880 we had gone to the Charning Group to raise money 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.400 and the Charning Group said, hey, you know, somebody made 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.880 a throwaway comment in the meeting of you know, we've 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.040 just invested in this company you've never heard of called 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.680 Barstool Sports, and it was the record scratch like er 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.960 and I was like, whipped out, I know Barstool Sports. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:47.680 I whipped out my phone. I was like, they have 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:52.400 the jankiest app on the planet, but what a brilliant brand. 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.120 And then I just wouldn't shut up about barstool and 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.960 I left. I left feeling very jealous because I knew 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.680 that they would find, you know, some white guy with 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.040 an MBA who worked in sports to go run barstool, 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:09.440 and I was kind of obsessed in that I want 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:10.960 that job. I know that job is for me. 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.480 Are you was sports junkie or have a sports You know. 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.080 It cannot be right, you know it's osmosis, and it was, 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.800 you know, barstools run in the New England Sports Run, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.040 you know, kind of coincided with one another. 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.000 So you had the Celtics, you had the Red you 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.400 have the Patriots. Like that was a great couple of decades. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.640 It was not so much anymore. But I pursued every 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.640 avenue I could to meet Dave. And I had a 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.240 mutual friend. I had a woman in my what I 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.440 would call my women's mafia, another Kolby Grad, a woman 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.240 I really respected who the Charming Group had brought on 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.160 to advise Dave. And I just said, Betsy, you've got 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:53.920 to introduce me to Dave. You've got to introduce me 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.960 to Dave. You got to introduce me to Dave. And 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.200 finally she did in a coffee shop in the West Village, 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.920 and I remember running down Fourteenth Street. I was late, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.120 I was wearing a dress I like my kitten heels 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.320 were like getting caught in the cobblestones. And I showed 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.600 up like sweaty and kind of disheveled, but so excited, 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.440 and I felt very alive, and I loved what Dave 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:17.880 had to say, and we shared a great amount of 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.920 enthusiasm for what barstool could be. And that was really 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:21.360 the end of that. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.240 So as I was reading the book and you tell 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.560 the story, albeit a very abbreviated version, I got the 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.440 sense that so turnin takes fifty one percent for a 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.720 fairly modest valuation ten or fifteen million dollars. You don't 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.680 so much say this, but the implication is, oh, and 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.400 we're giving you money. You have to professionalize, go hire 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.760 a real CEO, and we need to start seeing regular financials. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.240 And you guys got to grow up a little bit 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.160 just on the organization. Yeside, And so did they have 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.000 any did he You know, I think of him as 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.200 day trader Davy. I don't see him hiring a white me, 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.160 a sports dude like. 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.640 That's not his that's the odd set of who right. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.720 For people who pay attention to Dave, you would see 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.080 how that would never work. Now that said, they went 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.120 through I don't know, fifty seventy five candidates before they 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:15.680 got to me. I was the last. I was the 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.040 only woman, and I was the last of a long 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.000 line of sports dudes. But I think I think what 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.400 made Dave and I work and click is a couple things. 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.000 One is that Dave has this really great gift. You know. 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.080 Around that same time, I was talking to other companies, 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.640 and there's a lot of founders and especially big personality 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.640 founders who say they want a business person, but they 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.160 really don't. They want to be the business person and 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.520 the star and the personality and dat. 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.600 Delegating is really hard and giving the control. Giving up the. 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.960 Control is hard. And Dave, to his credit, really wanted 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.440 that and he had no ego in it. And I 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.560 also worked really hard to gain Dave's t trust and 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.520 I listened and I learned, and I watched everything I 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.879 possibly could so that I understood what he was trying 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.400 to do. And then I brought what I was capable 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.680 of to that and kind of the alchemy created, you know, 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:16.480 really really electric place. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:23.560 And let's be blunt and honest, Dave Portnoy is incredibly entertaining, 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.520 even if that persona is an exaggeration of who he is. 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.320 But no one wants him doing the payroll of the healthcare. 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.320 Yeah, Dave doesn't want That's like, like. 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.200 I can imagine, letting go of that stuff is really 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.359 easy to focus on what he does best, which is 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.320 the creative side, the entertainment side, the larger than life 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:49.000 talent and even just the silly thing like the pizza reviews, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.720 the one by pizza reviews, Like his personality is what's 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.440 turned that into a huge success. 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.440 He's the biggest food reviewer in the world. 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.600 Crazy, right, isn't that. So we'll talk little bit about 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.880 Barstool Sports next. I want to stay with your role 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:11.280 as CEO. You describe yourself as the token CEO, and 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.680 not only do you embrace that label, which some people said, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.640 oh barstool hired a woman, they hired a chick, Oh 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.560 she must be a token CEO. You literally name a 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:26.320 podcast token CEO. So first tell us about that label 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.160 and why you embrace it as a way to take 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:30.520 care of that. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.560 I mean, I thought it was so rude, you know, 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.919 people would say. I think people said it in conversation, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.120 and then it was said in the media quite a bit. Really, yes, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.879 definitely all the time that the only reason I was 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.320 at Barstool Sports or hired to Barstool Sports was that 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.639 I wore a skirt that I you know, that I 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:55.040 would wash, you know, the sins of barstool, that I 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.439 was to make barstool look something like it wasn't that 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.000 I was the beard essentially, And so the moniker people 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:03.679 said was that she's a token CEO. 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.120 I remember when you got hired because I had been 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.399 off in the distance. So I've been writing publicly and 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:15.280 on a blogs and so three, and you know, suddenly 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.160 a sports blog starts to get hot. I'm paying attention 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.280 out of the corner of my eye, and I had 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.520 the exact opposite. I'm like, if that frat house hired 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.880 a chick to be CEO, she's got to be bad. 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.560 She's got to really no sports. She's got to not 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.040 take any crap from those you know, they're a bunch 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.080 of animals. She's got to be a tough broader is 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.199 going to come in and say, here's what we're gonna do. 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.199 Let's go at it. And I'm as I was reading that, 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.719 I'm like, I just had the opposite assumption that a 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.680 token CEO would have lasted a week, right, would have 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:51.960 crumpled and blown away in the wind. It was just 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.600 anyone who said that had no idea what was going on. 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:56.560 Yeah, I think so. But anyways, it made me mad 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:58.040 enough that I was like, Okay, well I'm just going 0:19:58.119 --> 0:19:59.600 to own this now that. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.800 That's really and That's what I did. So you described 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:07.880 the first meaning connecting with Portnoy. He's an outspoken founder, 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.439 and he surrounded himself with all these wild personalities. By 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.680 the way, the whole thing to me was very parallel 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:22.359 to Howard Stern and surrounding himself with that crew. How 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:24.720 did you find working with him and all the different 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:26.400 personalities at Barstool? 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:28.560 Oh? I loved it. I will never love a job 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:30.959 the way I loved Barstool. Really, I loved it. I 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:32.760 loved every second of it. It was amazing. 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:37.200 What were the challenges with such a disparate, raucous crew, You. 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.639 Know, it's I was there almost a decade, So I 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.560 look back on those early days where you know, I 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:48.080 was stressed about payroll. They were offending someone by the minute. 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.080 You know, I had to keep them very busy. I 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:54.320 kept them very busy. But we stepped in it all 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.160 the time. And the business was just very, very fragile, 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.920 and it was you know, there were in the early 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.080 probably fourteen of us in a one floor office and 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.439 nomad and then there were sixty five people crammed in 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.119 the same office. Like the growth we had, the journey 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.320 we were on the stuff, we were experimenting with the 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.960 way we were thinking about media and content and commerce, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.679 and it was just very, very forward and it was 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:24.280 very free. 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.399 So when you say the business was fragile when you 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:32.600