Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Math and Magic. I'm Bob Pittman. On this podcast,
Speaker 2: we've talked with dozens of guests, ranging from record executives
Speaker 2: and CEOs to data strategists, musicians, and more. Much of
Speaker 2: the success we've heard about stems from innovation, those times
Speaker 2: when someone sees a gap in the market or a
Speaker 2: problem with a business model and comes up the fresh perspective.
Speaker 2: In today's bonus episode of Math and Magic, we'll hear
Speaker 2: from those innovators, and they're incredible business breakthroughs. Blake Schol
Speaker 2: is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, a company
Speaker 2: building the next generation supersonic passenger plane. If you're unfamiliar
Speaker 2: with supersonic flight, it's a marvel. I was fortunate enough
Speaker 2: to fly on the famous Concord, which flew at roughly
Speaker 2: twice the speed of sound and upwards of sixty thousand feet,
Speaker 2: making it possible to travel from London to New in
Speaker 2: under three hours. At the time, it was too expensive
Speaker 2: to sustain the Concord flu its last route in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, and commercial supersonic flight was largely put
Speaker 2: on the back burner. That's where Blake comes in. A
Speaker 2: fellow aviation nerd. He honed his chops at Amazon and
Speaker 2: Groupon before leaving to pursue his passion making commercial supersonic
Speaker 2: flight viable.
Speaker 3: I think there has always been tremendous consumer excitement and
Speaker 3: supersonic The problem was that it wasn't offered at a
Speaker 3: price or an experience that made it make sense. There
Speaker 3: has always been consumer interest in more speed, and when
Speaker 3: more speed is offered at a price point and in
Speaker 3: locations that people can really afford, it changes where we
Speaker 3: do business, It changes where we vacation, It even changes
Speaker 3: who we can fall in love with.
Speaker 2: I want to dig into some questions about the how
Speaker 2: what were the big hurdles to get this thing started?
Speaker 3: The tail end of my time at Groupon, my VP
Speaker 3: asked me to come and run a big piece of
Speaker 3: the core business, and so I was running relevance and
Speaker 3: email and a lot of what was the core of Groupon,
Speaker 3: and it was so uninspiring. I was paid very well.
Speaker 3: In my mind, I said, Okay, the money I'm saving
Speaker 3: from this gets socked away in what I called the
Speaker 3: fun fund, and in my head that was the buy
Speaker 3: an airplane fund. I actually never bought the airplane, but
Speaker 3: the savings for the airplane became the seed capital for BOOM.
Speaker 3: I had had a Google alert on supersonic jets since
Speaker 3: my mid twenties, and so I thought, Okay, take a
Speaker 3: deep breath. I'm sure there's a really good reason why
Speaker 3: no one's building supersonic jets, but I want to discover
Speaker 3: for myself what that is. I kept finding a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of stale, conventional wisdom that didn't stand up to
Speaker 3: a fresh, quantitative look at what was really possible. Everyone
Speaker 3: tends to assume everyone else has it and the right
Speaker 3: people are already on the problem. And the bizarre consequence
Speaker 3: of this is that really large of as things can
Speaker 3: go unaddressed for long periods of time because everybody assumes
Speaker 3: it's either impossible or the right people who are already
Speaker 3: on it. I think supersonic flight was one of those
Speaker 3: who wouldn't want a faster airplane. Literally everybody would benefit
Speaker 3: from flights that are faster and more convenient. So there
Speaker 3: was this implicit assumption that there had to be something
Speaker 3: wrong with that idea, or else somebody would be doing it.
Speaker 3: And then you could go on YouTube and there were
Speaker 3: plausible sounding but not actually correct explanations. Like you know,
Speaker 3: one thing that was said was you have to solve
Speaker 3: the sonic boom problem in order to find a market.
Speaker 3: Another was that when supersonic came back, you would have
Speaker 3: to be a private jet for the ultra wealthy, not
Speaker 3: an airliner. Another was that it would inherently cost more.
Speaker 3: And it turns out none of that is true. And
Speaker 3: you know, one of the lessons I learned from that
Speaker 3: experience is never accept a qualitative answer to a quantitative question.
Speaker 2: So let's go to the big question, why will you
Speaker 2: succeed when the others fay.
Speaker 3: Well, it's certainly not guaranteed that we'll succeed. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of challenge ahead of us. Fortunately, there's also some
Speaker 3: challenge in the rearview mirror. I can talk about why
Speaker 3: I think the time is right and why if Boom
Speaker 3: doesn't succeed, it'll be our failure of execution, not a
Speaker 3: failure of opportunity. You know, fifty years after Concord was designed,
Speaker 3: we've had both significant progress and basic airplane technology and
Speaker 3: huge growth in the market. So imagine Concord twenty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars ticket if airlines were charging a quarter of that,
Speaker 3: say like five grand on our plan on overture, it'd
Speaker 3: be incredibly profitable. And it has the legs not just
Speaker 3: to do a couple of headline routes, but it's economically
Speaker 3: viable one hundreds so not just New York London, but
Speaker 3: Seattle to Tokyo and La to Sydney and Miami to Madrid,
Speaker 3: just to give a few examples. And we're able to
Speaker 3: go build that airplane using only technologies that have been
Speaker 3: proven safe, reliable and efficient. So from a technological perspective,
Speaker 3: this is at the same level as a gaboe in
Speaker 3: seven eight seven, meaning it's a carbon fiber composite fuselage.
Speaker 3: It's got advanced turbofan engines, fly by wireflight controls. We
Speaker 3: could keep nerding out about it. Every single thing on
Speaker 3: the airplane has a precedent of flying on other commercial
Speaker 3: airplanes and being accepted as safe by regulators around the planet.
Speaker 2: If Blake's business gamble pays off, he'll shape how people
Speaker 2: travel for generations. I met my next guest during my
Speaker 2: MTV days. It was the nineteen eighties, and we set
Speaker 2: out to do something that hadn't been done before. Mix
Speaker 2: television and music. My friend Jerry Laborn had a similar
Speaker 2: idea Taylor television to kids with Nickelodeon. As the head
Speaker 2: of MTV Networks, which owned Nickelodeon, I gave Jerry the
Speaker 2: shot to bring her idea to life. And Jerry's approach
Speaker 2: would prove revolutionary. And it all started with a love
Speaker 2: and understanding of kids. I wanted to know where her
Speaker 2: vision came from.
Speaker 4: Well, it came from being a teacher and a researcher
Speaker 4: with kids. I love kids. I'm a natural kid advocate,
Speaker 4: and I thought that television routinely looked down at kids
Speaker 4: and condescended to them and gave them subpar creators. And
Speaker 4: I felt like if you listened to kids and you
Speaker 4: treated them as if they were really smart, you could
Speaker 4: do some pretty interesting stuff. If you remember, we had
Speaker 4: no money. I remember that we couldn't do what anybody
Speaker 4: else did. I would research everything that people said about
Speaker 4: kids TV, like program only to boys, girls who will
Speaker 4: watch anything, kids will only watch animation. I'm such a contrarian.
Speaker 4: It's like, Okay, if everybody else is going that direction,
Speaker 4: we're going to go this direction.
Speaker 2: We had just introduced the idea of a network identity
Speaker 2: as opposed to a network delivering programs with the viewer's
Speaker 2: affinity attached to just the program, and we decided that
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon could do the same thing. How did you define
Speaker 2: that and how did you make the big move from
Speaker 2: a somewhat corny silver bouncing ball for preschool or Nickelodeon
Speaker 2: to the cool new Nick you created.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I just have to say we
Speaker 4: never turned our back on preschoolers. We had the best
Speaker 4: preschool programming ever, but we had to be very careful
Speaker 4: to put it in its own bucket, so we called
Speaker 4: it Nick Junior. Our target was ten and tween, so
Speaker 4: that was a key thing because we were known for
Speaker 4: being a baby channel. I think you know the story
Speaker 4: of my son throwing his Nickelodeon hat in the closet
Speaker 4: when he was five, sobbing, and I said, what's the
Speaker 4: matter and he said, they say, Nickelodeon's a baby channel. Honestly,
Speaker 4: my inspiration for Nickelodeon was Sam. He was the coolest
Speaker 4: little five year old you ever saw, and we just
Speaker 4: grew up with them. But I'd also say that I
Speaker 4: was a student of what you were doing. I saw
Speaker 4: how right it was that if you focus on the
Speaker 4: audience and delight them and let the creative community do
Speaker 4: their best work without man handling or woman handling them,
Speaker 4: that you're going to get a really interesting result. That's
Speaker 4: what we did. We created, just like you did, a
Speaker 4: list of promises that we were the first network for kids.
Speaker 4: We were completely on their side. We were going to
Speaker 4: bring them the best creative we possibly could. One of
Speaker 4: the things we did when we started taking advertising, we
Speaker 4: would get buckets of mail. They would be decorated on
Speaker 4: the outside with kids' own shapes. Because the idea behind
Speaker 4: Nickelodeon is it's like a kid's mind constantly transforming. We
Speaker 4: knew that if we took an envelope that was decorated
Speaker 4: on the outside, we could take it into a sales
Speaker 4: meeting and just let them open the letters.
Speaker 2: And it worked.
Speaker 4: It worked, But that was a lesson from MTV get
Speaker 4: identification that kids can make their own.
Speaker 2: Jerry's vision changed children's television forever and for better. What
Speaker 2: I love most about our interview was the simplicity of
Speaker 2: her mission, listen to kids and create a brand that's unafraid.
Speaker 1: To grow with them.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a quick break Welcome back
Speaker 2: to today's bonus episode of Math and Magic. Like Jerry Paris,
Speaker 2: Hilton knows a thing or two about compelling television. When
Speaker 2: her show The Simple Life debuted in two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: it did so to record ratings, and the years since,
Speaker 2: her media ventures have included reality shows, documentaries, books, podcasts,
Speaker 2: and a successful career as a DJ, business person and CEO.
Speaker 2: And she's just getting started.
Speaker 5: I just saw the value in having a personal brand.
Speaker 5: I think it maybe just came from being brought up
Speaker 5: in the Hilton family and in the hotel business and
Speaker 5: seeing that as a brand, and then realizing that I
Speaker 5: could actually turn myself into personal brand.
Speaker 2: How did you start on that path? What was the
Speaker 2: first step that you began?
Speaker 5: Well, when I moved to New York City. Before that,
Speaker 5: I'd lived a very sheltered life. But then all of
Speaker 5: a sudden, I started getting invited to all these premieres
Speaker 5: and events, and people started sending me products, And then
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, they were paying me to wear
Speaker 5: these products and the products were selling out. So I
Speaker 5: just realized there was a power in that. You know,
Speaker 5: this was way back before there was a name for
Speaker 5: being an influencer. There was no social media. This was
Speaker 5: more the traditional media. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: I started getting paid to go to parties, and then
Speaker 5: I parlaid that into a huge business and then from
Speaker 5: there the Simple Life, and then the rest is history.
Speaker 2: Let's look at the brands, Paris brand, how do you
Speaker 2: decide what fits the brand and what doesn't fit the brand.
Speaker 5: What's fun with my brand is that I get to
Speaker 5: do everything that I love, and that was one of
Speaker 5: the reasons that we created eleven eleven Media because I
Speaker 5: have just so many different business verticals of what I do,
Speaker 5: everything from podcasting to music to film, television, building products,
Speaker 5: the metaverse. I feel that my brand has so many
Speaker 5: sides to it, whether it be the music side or
Speaker 5: more of the business side. But my brand has definitely evolved,
Speaker 5: you know. It all started with the character that I
Speaker 5: built for The Simple Life, which kind of playing on
Speaker 5: that blonde stereotype persona. Now ever since my documentary and
Speaker 5: especially now with my memoir, people now see me as
Speaker 5: a businesswoman and an advocate and everything else that I've built.
Speaker 2: Growing up. Much of Paris's story was told for her
Speaker 2: in tabloids and through the context of her family, Her
Speaker 2: breakthrough came after she took control of the narrative and
Speaker 2: turned her famous brand into a new business genre. Ted
Speaker 2: Lee Ansis is a in a very different business genre.
Speaker 2: He's a tech investor, a former executive and colleague of
Speaker 2: Mind at AOL, and the CEO and founder of Monumental
Speaker 2: Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals,
Speaker 2: and Washington Mystics. Ted is nothing short of a magician.
Speaker 2: He's an expert motivator who understands the importance of building
Speaker 2: purpose driven businesses. Ted also sees things early and in
Speaker 2: a way others can't. He's always innovating. Case in point,
Speaker 2: as the founder and CEO of Monumental Sports, he's invested
Speaker 2: in exciting technology that will transform both the player and
Speaker 2: fan experience. Think listen, you know.
Speaker 6: I came into sports in nineteen ninety nine. Everyone lived
Speaker 6: on Fax machines and we were the first team. At
Speaker 6: least we gave everyone personal computers. I gave everyone email addresses.
Speaker 6: It was basic connectivity. But then we started to say, hey,
Speaker 6: this is a platform to launch a lot of new technology,
Speaker 6: and then if it takes hold here, it can be
Speaker 6: nested if you will within sports and arenas because we
Speaker 6: touch so many people, and then move into general media,
Speaker 6: and so the first big investments that were being made
Speaker 6: were selecting of teams for coaching the players, and the
Speaker 6: amount of work that was done in high speed cameras
Speaker 6: and being able to create these heat maps on where
Speaker 6: was the optimal place for the player to take the shot.
Speaker 6: When you were playing defense, we would pixelate the floor.
Speaker 6: And I remember once Kobe Bryant were playing the Lakers
Speaker 6: and he was going to get the end of game
Speaker 6: shot and was, well, if you can move Kobe two
Speaker 6: pixels to the left, he shoots thirty eight percent. If
Speaker 6: he's those two pixels to the right, he's forty four percent.
Speaker 6: All you can do is get him to the suboptimized place.
Speaker 6: And we're the most transparent of providing that data to fans,
Speaker 6: to coaches, and now to sports betters. Right they have
Speaker 6: access to more data, certainly than a Wall Street trader
Speaker 6: has in trying to pick whether you should short a stock.
Speaker 6: So I looked at sports as being the most data
Speaker 6: rich side on the product. And now it's moved into marketing.
Speaker 6: We have a database and monumental sports and entertainment that's
Speaker 6: closing in on four million active records, where we really
Speaker 6: know who's coming into the building, how long have they
Speaker 6: been a customer, what have they spent, how do they
Speaker 6: renew who do they give their tickets to, how far
Speaker 6: do they travel? What are they're viewing habits? Are they
Speaker 6: streaming now? Are they still watching games on cable? How
Speaker 6: important is radio? One thing I'll say, radio and digital
Speaker 6: radio and podcasting has become incredibly powerful and on trend again.
Speaker 6: We have to innovate. We have to keep pushing the
Speaker 6: envelope to build our audience and really be relevant. And
Speaker 6: the only way that you'll be able to innovate and
Speaker 6: provide those services and build value is to know who
Speaker 6: they are, what they do in a real way.
Speaker 2: Build value using data, then connect the dots for your consumers.
Speaker 2: It's excellent advice for anyone looking to break through in
Speaker 2: business and a through line for all the innovators we've
Speaker 2: heard from today.
Speaker 1: I'm Bob.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this season of Math and Magic.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with the new season soon.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
Speaker 1: to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
Speaker 1: show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman Special Thanks
Speaker 1: to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent,
Speaker 1: which is no small feat. The math and magic team
Speaker 1: is Jessica Crimechitch and Baheed Fraser. Our executive producers are
Speaker 1: Ali Perry and Nikki Etoor. Until next time,