Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcasts featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 1: guest is Sergio Alfaro, founder and CEO of invent TV.
Speaker 1: Alfaro grew up in the Pasadena area in an apartment
Speaker 1: that didn't even have a television. Now he produces dozens
Speaker 1: of hours of TV every year. Invent TV is a
Speaker 1: busy unscripted production banner that has handled production for a
Speaker 1: range of shows. Invent TV is a busy banner that
Speaker 1: has handled production for a range of shows from Doctor
Speaker 1: Pimple Popper, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City to
Speaker 1: numerous Oprah Winfrey TV specials over the years. He launched
Speaker 1: the company about ten years ago in partnership with investor
Speaker 1: and philanthropist Jeffrey Soros. Alfaro is truly a modern day
Speaker 1: Horatio Alger. He started out in entertainment stocking dressing rooms
Speaker 1: and cleaning up debauchery after live performances. Today he's a
Speaker 1: business owner who was courted for prestigious board seats and
Speaker 1: in the twenty five years in between, he had a
Speaker 1: rise and a fall with the previous company. Alfaro explains
Speaker 1: how he built it back up and what he learned
Speaker 1: from the hard process of failure, and he gives us
Speaker 1: a producer's i view on the unscripted TV marketplace. Right now,
Speaker 1: that's all coming up after this break, and we're back
Speaker 1: with a conversation with Invent TV founder and CEO Sergio Alfaro.
Speaker 2: Sergio Alfaro, CEO of Invent TV, thank you for joining
Speaker 2: me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having.
Speaker 2: Me, and dear listeners. Sergio is from Pasadena, which is
Speaker 2: my hometown, and he brought me a gorgeous pie from
Speaker 2: Pie and Burger. That is a very sweet gesture and
Speaker 2: a very Pasadena gesture. Thank you. You have a fantastic
Speaker 2: backstory and inspiring You are a born entrepreneur backstory, and
Speaker 2: I want to talk about that, but I want to
Speaker 2: start by you are also right now in the trench's
Speaker 2: selling shows. Right now, we are five months in to
Speaker 2: the macroeconomic roller coaster ride that has been the second
Speaker 2: Trump administration. What is your sense out there right now?
Speaker 2: Are people still finding their way through the fog?
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of fear in general job security.
Speaker 3: What's the next hit, and I think it goes globally.
Speaker 3: It's not just the production company's feeling it. I think
Speaker 3: the networks are feeling it as well. Their next bet
Speaker 3: may be the wrong bet, and then that costs them
Speaker 3: their jobs and everybody else's jobs. So I think people
Speaker 3: are playing it safe right now. I think that eventually
Speaker 3: somebody's going to take some swings again and get a
Speaker 3: huge hit on the air, and that might rejigger things
Speaker 3: again and put it back to normal. I think this
Speaker 3: is cyclical.
Speaker 2: In the business of pitching and getting show commissions from outlets,
Speaker 2: we've seen a lot of consolidation. Now. We have in
Speaker 2: many cases, not every single case, but of the major platforms,
Speaker 2: you have single execs or single teams overseeing for broadcasts,
Speaker 2: for streaming, for a cable. How has that been for you?
Speaker 2: As a seller, we try and be a lot.
Speaker 3: More focused on who we're pitching and selling to. I
Speaker 3: think it's like buying a home these days. You can
Speaker 3: name a network and know exactly what kind of programming
Speaker 3: they have. So if you go in kind of open ended,
Speaker 3: here's a general idea, it only works if you have
Speaker 3: some major talent and a lot of buyers that are
Speaker 3: going to go into it. You know, if you're going
Speaker 3: to the NBCs of the world and CBS, then yeah,
Speaker 3: you better come with big talent, big format, big big big,
Speaker 3: and you can get a bidding war. In the unscripted world,
Speaker 3: it's pretty tailored, you know, it's pretty well focused, like
Speaker 3: here's something that suits you, the buyer, and then they
Speaker 3: decide if they're going to put it on their linear
Speaker 3: channel or their streaming channel if they have one. But
Speaker 3: we try and be very focused and thankfully because of
Speaker 3: the relationships we have, whether it's a Lane one of
Speaker 3: my favorite executives in Angelo over Elane's at A and
Speaker 3: E and Angelo's at we TV. We text them, you know,
Speaker 3: we say, hey, here's an idea, and they're so wonderful
Speaker 3: with us to just say not for us, or that's interesting,
Speaker 3: tell us more. Then we focus in on that and
Speaker 3: develop it further and further, and it's it's like anything else.
Speaker 3: It's like a relationship. I feel like we are we
Speaker 3: are trying to sell something like a real estate agent.
Speaker 3: Let me show you a couple of homes. It's not
Speaker 3: always going to be the first home you see. Let
Speaker 3: me show you another one, and that kind of words
Speaker 3: but put a pool in it. Okay, sure, but we
Speaker 3: can't afford the pool.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting analogy, and all my years of talking
Speaker 2: to producers, nobody else has ever made that analogy. But
Speaker 2: that's a great one. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what we do. We got to show options,
Speaker 3: and we can be precious either. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people get precious about their idea, especially newcomers, you know,
Speaker 3: people coming into the industry and here's my idea, and
Speaker 3: it's so great. We've heard it before. We call it
Speaker 3: a mop most often pitched. If I hear one more
Speaker 3: person say this is the Anthony Bourdain of like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, that is like a weekly thing. Still and
Speaker 3: we all smile when they say it, you know.
Speaker 2: Rest in peace, Rest in peace, Love Kitchen Confidential, one
Speaker 2: of the great books of the nineteen.
Speaker 3: Ninety Yeah, these, I mean, but nobody's Anthony boardaining.
Speaker 2: So but let me ask you, is the process with
Speaker 2: the consolidation and the fact that there's fewer people overseeing credit,
Speaker 2: over seeing more platforms, is that appreciably better? Yeah? For
Speaker 2: a pitcher, is it appreciably worse?
Speaker 3: I think it's much better because you know, you don't
Speaker 3: have to pitch to a bunch of different teams, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to go through so many more layers.
Speaker 3: There's still plenty of layers, don't get me wrong, but
Speaker 3: it's you're going to one person that could actually think
Speaker 3: about multiple options. Oh, this doesn't work for this linear channel,
Speaker 3: but this could work for our streamers. So I think
Speaker 3: you're pitching into one person that has several options, you know,
Speaker 3: So I think it actually works better quite frankly. But
Speaker 3: the workload for them, I really that's tough. I mean,
Speaker 3: the amount of hats that they're wearing now and the
Speaker 3: things that they're juggling. I have a lot of respect
Speaker 3: for the network executives that are just wearing too many hats.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, it's tough. I have a really hard.
Speaker 2: Job that the scarcity of executive jobs is definitely is
Speaker 2: definitely notable. Let me ask you, is it still fair
Speaker 2: to say that, you know, basically the kind of the
Speaker 2: hierarchy of budget is broadcast, you'll have a pretty solid
Speaker 2: budget because it's kind of got to be big streaming obviously,
Speaker 2: because in some cases to print their own money it's
Speaker 2: a little old school. But and then cable obviously is
Speaker 2: very you know, very much the you know, stretch stretcher
Speaker 2: dollars and make them work, but we'll give you a
Speaker 2: sixty episode order. Is that kind of basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it all works the same and at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, it's everything is manageable. It really is.
Speaker 3: And I feel that again going to people being precious.
Speaker 3: I think right now there's a lot of production companies
Speaker 3: I don't understand why they do it, or they'll literally
Speaker 3: pass on a network because it's not enough money. Like
Speaker 3: roll up your sleeves, figure it out. You know, there's
Speaker 3: you've got to change with the times, and the networks
Speaker 3: are very accommodating to what those needs are and those
Speaker 3: financial changes. You know, it's across the board, so the
Speaker 3: showrunners know what's going on, the camera operators know what's
Speaker 3: going on, the vendors know what's going on. So if
Speaker 3: you want the business, you've got to change with us.
Speaker 3: And thankfully we haven't had struggles working within you know,
Speaker 3: tighter confines with some of the buyers and some of
Speaker 3: the networks. We call our people and thankfully, I mean
Speaker 3: I've been in the business a long time. We have
Speaker 3: a lot of loyalty. We're good to our people. If
Speaker 3: we have the money, we use the same people and
Speaker 3: we take care of them and what we don't. It's
Speaker 3: not even an ask, you know, I'm not asking for
Speaker 3: a favor. I just say, hey, this is what we have.
Speaker 3: We're incredibly transparent with our partners, our vendors, everybody, and
Speaker 3: I think being kind, being honest, being consistent really works
Speaker 3: long term. It does.
Speaker 2: Do you are there sort of advantages Do you enjoy
Speaker 2: working in the kind of three major mediums, whether it's
Speaker 2: for streamer, broadcast, k but you flex different muscles for sure.
Speaker 3: My favorite is still live. You know, I started with
Speaker 3: Ken Rlick that way back in the day. But whenever
Speaker 3: I'm on a live set, that's family. It's different because
Speaker 3: unscripted projects and scripted projects are very contingent to the genre,
Speaker 3: the network, and there are certain people that I would
Speaker 3: consider family within those groups. Live events it's the same people.
Speaker 3: The only person changing is on top the production company
Speaker 3: and the executive producer Serjo.
Speaker 2: This is a great segue. Tell us what it was
Speaker 2: about live events that that was your path into the industry.
Speaker 3: So I got offered a job in the mid nineties
Speaker 3: on a show called Motown Live. So when I grew
Speaker 3: up we didn't have a television. We had a radio
Speaker 3: on top of a refrigerator and we played radio. It's
Speaker 3: a Spanish station that was just always on. And I
Speaker 3: was raised by a single mom, me and my brother,
Speaker 3: and she was always working. She was an auditor and
Speaker 3: travel a lot. My brother and I just kind of
Speaker 3: raised ourselves. We play out on the streets and listen
Speaker 3: to the Spanish radio. So when I got it, when
Speaker 3: I got a job in television, I didn't know what
Speaker 3: that really meant. I was dating somebody at the time
Speaker 3: and the father offered me a job to do dressing rooms.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what that meant. So I went to
Speaker 3: this show a Motel live at Renmar Studios, and I
Speaker 3: would work after college. I would work from i'd say
Speaker 3: about four pm till about three in the morning, sometimes
Speaker 3: two in the morning, and my job was to put
Speaker 3: drinks and sodas and waters and towels in dressing rooms
Speaker 3: of celebrities and motown Live if you know that was
Speaker 3: like Snoop Dog and Bust the Rhymes and just all
Speaker 3: kinds of rowdy groups in the mid nineties.
Speaker 2: These were live TV special live TV.
Speaker 3: Specials, correct, and my job was to fill them with
Speaker 3: supplies when they're there, and then hang out and at
Speaker 3: the end of the night, which was the crazy part.
Speaker 3: It was like the scene of sixteen Candles at the
Speaker 3: end with the pizza on the record player and things
Speaker 3: thrown everywhere, and I would walk in and scratch my
Speaker 3: head and clean up. And this was my job, Like
Speaker 3: I didn't like it, and I was making I think
Speaker 3: it was like seventy five dollars a day. It was
Speaker 3: bad then it's bad now twenty five cents a mile.
Speaker 3: My car only started half the time. By the way,
Speaker 3: I had a seventy one Volkswagen that to this day
Speaker 3: I back in everywhere I go, not because I'm cool,
Speaker 3: but because I'm just you know, I'm scarred. My car
Speaker 3: never started, so I'd have to open the door, put
Speaker 3: it in neutral. If you know how to jump a car,
Speaker 3: push it down the hill, jump in, put it in second,
Speaker 3: pop the clutch, and then I get to go.
Speaker 2: So it facing front.
Speaker 3: Are conduc always so at the end of the season,
Speaker 3: you know, people liked my work ethic. I never complained.
Speaker 3: I just did the job, kept my head down, and
Speaker 3: they offered me another job to go work on another project.
Speaker 3: So at the end of the season. I got offered
Speaker 3: a job to do the Grammys. I didn't know what
Speaker 3: that was. And I would be doing more dressing rooms
Speaker 3: for more celebrities. And I was like, oh, I don't
Speaker 3: know if I want to do that. That doesn't sound appealing.
Speaker 3: But I would be now the coordinator, which is that's
Speaker 3: the guy that was telling me what to do that
Speaker 3: did nothing. Wow, that sounds interesting, and am I going
Speaker 3: to make a little bit more money? And yes, it
Speaker 3: was like twelve hundred dollars. Now I'm nineteen, maybe twenty
Speaker 3: at the time, and I got offered twelve hundred dollars
Speaker 3: a week. That was just out of my mind. I
Speaker 3: mean I still remember to this day. I walked into
Speaker 3: a bank called Washington Mutual at the time it's now
Speaker 3: I don't even know what has transitioned into and after
Speaker 3: taxes like eight hundred and seventy something dollars. I don't
Speaker 3: know what my problem was, but I thought I was busted,
Speaker 3: Like this check is not going to clear, this is
Speaker 3: some sort of this is so much money. There's no
Speaker 3: way that a bank that I don't even have a
Speaker 3: bank account is going to cash this eight hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy something dollars check. So I was paranoid walking into
Speaker 3: the bank. They asked for my ID. I swear I
Speaker 3: was robbing the place. I just felt so much anxiety
Speaker 3: and stress. And then they counted out the money and
Speaker 3: then I'm freaking out that I have eight hundred dollars
Speaker 3: in my pocket and somebody's going to rob me as
Speaker 3: if the world knows and I have eight hundred dollars
Speaker 3: in my pocket. So then I opened to bank account
Speaker 3: so I wouldn't have to carry around that kind of
Speaker 3: large though.
Speaker 2: And that was it.
Speaker 3: I actually there are three moments in my life where
Speaker 3: I feel I have had like this feeling of the
Speaker 3: world changing. That was one of those moments. When I
Speaker 3: was cashing that check and opening an account, I stopped
Speaker 3: for a moment to think, this is a career, Like
Speaker 3: I could actually do this for a living, and if
Speaker 3: I'm making this now, And this is where that epiphany came.
Speaker 3: I had this like flash of Kennerlick's house and his
Speaker 3: cars and the people that I was around from Ricky Minor,
Speaker 3: who now does all these major shows at the time, was,
Speaker 3: you know, starting as a musical director. I don't know
Speaker 3: about starting, but he was definitely on the come up
Speaker 3: in the nineties to Paul Sandwise, who was a music
Speaker 3: like I went to all these people's homes as a
Speaker 3: as a runner, and I just saw everything and how
Speaker 3: beautiful it was and the things that they had, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my god, if I'm this young working here,
Speaker 3: And that was the epiphany, where will I be in
Speaker 3: ten years? That's it? What does the next person do?
Speaker 3: And what does the next person do? And just went
Speaker 3: through that. The other two are pretty basic, not basic,
Speaker 3: but equally as beautiful.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. We'll be back with more from Invent
Speaker 1: TV CEO Sergio Alfaro after this break, and we're back
Speaker 1: with more from Invent TV CEO Sergio alfarow.
Speaker 3: The other one was when I got on my knee
Speaker 3: to propose to my wife, and I knew I was
Speaker 3: doing it. I bought the ring. She was out of town.
Speaker 3: When she left town, I realized we had been together
Speaker 3: two years. I can't live without her. That's what my
Speaker 3: determining factor was. So when I bought a ring, and
Speaker 3: I had this whole plan of when she comes back,
Speaker 3: I'm going to take her to where we had our
Speaker 3: first date. I'm going to propose to her, and when
Speaker 3: I put my knee down on the ground, it was
Speaker 3: like in the movies where like a sonic wave went
Speaker 3: through my body went through the earth earth of responsibility.
Speaker 3: This is it, this is my person for life. And
Speaker 3: it was a great decision. We've been together twenty years.
Speaker 3: Name Tiffany, Tiffany Alfaro, She's a love. And the third
Speaker 3: one was when my first son was born. Not that
Speaker 3: I don't love all my children, but I didn't know
Speaker 3: what it was like to have a child. And I
Speaker 3: think until you do, you really don't know the meaning
Speaker 3: of life at all. You don't know true love. Not
Speaker 3: that I don't love my mom and my grandmother. There's
Speaker 3: something instinctual about having your own child that just changes
Speaker 3: absolutely everything. And the moment my son was born, that
Speaker 3: changed everything for me. And again that same wave of responsibility,
Speaker 3: and it was instant. The moment I held that kid
Speaker 3: in the emergency room, that was it. I knew love
Speaker 3: in a different way. I knew responsibility in a different way.
Speaker 3: And yeah, those are those are the big the big three.
Speaker 2: I guess for me based on what she said, the
Speaker 2: work that you grew up with, what would you say then,
Speaker 2: in like the next five to ten years. What were
Speaker 2: the steps that you took that led you to now
Speaker 2: being the head of your own company and having juggling
Speaker 2: this portfolio of multiple ventures.
Speaker 3: So I was with Kenny for literally, I think it
Speaker 3: was thirteen years. And in Kenny's house there was really
Speaker 3: four people. You know, there was kennerlick Ron Vacilly, Lisa Gears,
Speaker 3: and Paige Hapley.
Speaker 2: All names that you know from credits of a gazillion.
Speaker 3: Show of a gazillion shows. And it didn't matter which
Speaker 3: whether it was the Emmy's or and Grammy's was a
Speaker 3: little different because I was always tied with Cosette. So
Speaker 3: we we would build the shows, just a small group
Speaker 3: of us and knock them down, and it was over
Speaker 3: and over and over, and we would.
Speaker 2: Do and you're talking about physical sets, every rigging cameras.
Speaker 3: Every single thing. So, you know, a show would come
Speaker 3: in and say here's the idea, and then you know,
Speaker 3: Kenny would come up with, you know, some of the
Speaker 3: ideas of the talent and who we're going to use
Speaker 3: for staging and lighting and all these different things, and
Speaker 3: then we would find those people, we would hire those people.
Speaker 3: But again, like I said earlier, it's all the same people. Right,
Speaker 3: It's literally family, and I grew up with all of
Speaker 3: them like literally my entire career. So the transition really
Speaker 3: came for me now running the companies is there was
Speaker 3: a writer strike at the same time there was a
Speaker 3: market crash. This was how many years ago.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: So at that time I had two kids. I now
Speaker 3: had three at a house. I bought a second house
Speaker 3: that I was going to try and flip because I
Speaker 3: thought it was the right thing to do. Everything came
Speaker 3: to a crashing halt at the same time. There was
Speaker 3: no work for me anywhere. And it's not something I'm
Speaker 3: proud of, but I you know, I'm the breadwinner of
Speaker 3: my household. I don't have a family with wealth that
Speaker 3: I could turn to. I lost my house and I
Speaker 3: had a transition into this new smut business called reality television.
Speaker 3: What the hell is that? I literally had no clue.
Speaker 2: There was this wonderful guy and in your mind it
Speaker 2: had kind of used to call the smut business. It
Speaker 2: had a kind of a negative connotation.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're doing the Emmys and the Oscars, and
Speaker 3: you're doing these huge shows with the biggest stars in
Speaker 3: red carpet. You just think you're so cool. So there's
Speaker 3: this wonderful human being, one of my favorite in the
Speaker 3: industry named Jay Peterson. He brought me into do a
Speaker 3: development tape for a company that he was going to
Speaker 3: called Original Media, not Original Pictures of Original Media. People
Speaker 3: always confuse that. And I came in and I did
Speaker 3: this project. What was crazy is it was a development project.
Speaker 3: And now, having gone through everything I went through, you know,
Speaker 3: losing my home, you know, having losing both homes actually
Speaker 3: because it was I couldn't make the payments, and I
Speaker 3: got offered a job from Jay to be I forgot
Speaker 3: what it was. It was some like development tape, like
Speaker 3: just overseeing eight projects, a tiny little thing. And I
Speaker 3: think I got paid twelve hundred dollars that many years
Speaker 3: later to oversee this project. But it had hope for
Speaker 3: this other job that he was looking at to bring
Speaker 3: me in over to Original Media. So I did it.
Speaker 3: I didn't care, like, look, I need I don't care
Speaker 3: what the job is. I need a job I wasn't
Speaker 3: proud to take less. I get this job and I
Speaker 3: do it, and I'm asking Jay a lot of questions
Speaker 3: that he's so polite and so kind that I'm sure
Speaker 3: I irritated him because it was a development. Now I understand,
Speaker 3: like it was just a sizzle like relax. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: who's doing the books? He's like the books?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 3: The books? You know?
Speaker 2: And who's getting the insurance?
Speaker 3: You get the insurance? Like you keep out? Just do it, like,
Speaker 3: stop asking me all these questions. The good thing is
Speaker 3: he saw what I was capable of and he offered
Speaker 3: me a job to be a line producer at Original Media.
Speaker 3: So I went over there and.
Speaker 2: Edited by one Charlie Corwin. Charlie went an alumnus of
Speaker 2: this podcast and alumnus of Imagine Entertainment and also in
Speaker 2: the Maullshine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they made me a line producer on a
Speaker 3: show called La Inc. We had just brought over Kat
Speaker 3: Vondie from Miami and we were doing this series called
Speaker 3: La Inc. And they wanted me to just look at
Speaker 3: the LA office. Let me know what I think of
Speaker 3: how things are being run and how things are going and.
Speaker 2: Kind of production logistics.
Speaker 3: Christ I wasn't on the creative side yet. I was
Speaker 3: just looking at the numbers. And I because I come
Speaker 3: from a live events background, I tried to apply that
Speaker 3: business acumen to the unscripted world, which worked well. I
Speaker 3: felt there was a lot of waste in my opinion
Speaker 3: that we were just doing I mean, we were just
Speaker 3: there was a lot of I don't know if this
Speaker 3: is appropriate to say, so, I don't know, it's kind
Speaker 3: of great, it was very wasteful. So I was doing
Speaker 3: LA Inc. They brought me into Light Produce la Inc.
Speaker 3: And quickly they're like, hey, could you take on another project?
Speaker 3: The way on scripted working, you can give me ten projects.
Speaker 3: This is not a difficult job for me by comparison
Speaker 3: of what I used to do, you know, even from.
Speaker 2: Creating a big, gigantic live event to all come together
Speaker 2: in one two hour time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean like live events is, you're working on
Speaker 3: it for a few months, you do it in one day,
Speaker 3: and you knock it down in a week.
Speaker 2: You get out and you get no second take.
Speaker 3: No, and you're out. And I'm looking at these budgets
Speaker 3: and fourteen weeks of edit per episode, Like I was like,
Speaker 3: what is it? That's crazy? Like I couldn't wrap my
Speaker 3: head around it. So I was looking at the economics
Speaker 3: of it, and I came up with a few business
Speaker 3: plans and I presented them to Charlie and Jay and
Speaker 3: ultimately I ran the LA office for a long time.
Speaker 3: I started looking for some venture capital folks to see,
Speaker 3: you like, put somebody back my company, and I found one.
Speaker 2: You weren't scared off of jumping in some of the
Speaker 2: shark infested VC waters.
Speaker 3: I was scared. I'm always scared. So I partnered with
Speaker 3: William Johnson from Demorest. William Johnson is Franklin Temple dit
Speaker 3: Johnson's I'm still friends with him. I now help him
Speaker 3: with his stem cell rejuvenation hospitals in Thailand. I am
Speaker 3: not a doctor, but they're still friends. That company, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a good stepping stone to learn wasn't the
Speaker 3: long term company I was going to stay with. And
Speaker 3: then I was fortunate enough to find somebody that was
Speaker 3: also in media, Jeffrey Sorrows, who started Los Angeles Media Fund,
Speaker 3: and we've been partners. I think it's nine years now
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken, and he's great, I mean, just
Speaker 3: solid human being. He believed in he believed in me,
Speaker 3: he believed in the vision of what we were going
Speaker 3: to do. We've done it. It's definitely ups and downs
Speaker 3: throughout the nine years. But he's about as solid of
Speaker 3: a person as they come. He's a good human, he's
Speaker 3: a good father, and that's that's what I try and
Speaker 3: look for now. I grew up in the world Don
Speaker 3: Mischer about Baying great Sales, Kenderly, you know Lewis J.
Speaker 2: Horror, that's a hall of fame of you know, big
Speaker 2: TV events the last thirty forty years for sure. Let
Speaker 2: me ask you about Jeffrey Soros, what is it about
Speaker 2: your partnership and the way that that whether the how
Speaker 2: the investment works or what level of input they have.
Speaker 2: What is it about that partnership that works. We've seen
Speaker 2: examples of times when private equity combining with creative people
Speaker 2: doesn't work. What is it? What is it you think
Speaker 2: that has allowed it to work in your case, in
Speaker 2: the case of invent TV.
Speaker 3: Well, he's very smart. So he's not you know, he's
Speaker 3: not a passive investor that doesn't understand the industry. He
Speaker 3: knows the business, he knows the trends. He's very well read,
Speaker 3: not just in general, but like he's well read in
Speaker 3: the industry. I mean, he knows he has a pulse
Speaker 3: on the market. So when we're having conversations about ideas
Speaker 3: or shows. We talk every week, sometimes more. But it's
Speaker 3: not you know, here's money, go go do something. It's
Speaker 3: you know, we're strategic with each other. We have conversations.
Speaker 3: He asks smart questions. You know, he watches our sizzles
Speaker 3: when we're going to sell a show. He gives good
Speaker 3: input on those cuts. And he brings ideas as well.
Speaker 3: He's like, hey, what if we do this project? And
Speaker 3: he brings ideas to the table. And he's obviously well connected,
Speaker 3: so sometimes he brings talent or relationships to the table
Speaker 3: as well. So I feel like he's not you know,
Speaker 3: Goldman sachs Or or Chase Bank or some lender that says,
Speaker 3: here's money, let us know what the numbers are. He's
Speaker 3: obviously interested in the numbers as well, but it's he's
Speaker 3: very collaborative and he cares. It's not again and cares
Speaker 3: in a different way. It's not just where's the money,
Speaker 3: what's now? He cares about the greater good of the company.
Speaker 2: So do your career path has been really interesting and
Speaker 2: illuminating about how the media business works and where entrepreneurs
Speaker 2: can find can find their ins Entrepreneurs and hardworking inventive
Speaker 2: people what would you say your goals five to ten
Speaker 2: years for invent TV. Do you kind of like where
Speaker 2: you are? Do you want to grow?
Speaker 3: I definitely want to grow. One thing that's working well
Speaker 3: right now is you know, I'm on eight boards, soon
Speaker 3: to be nine. It's learning. These boards that I'm on
Speaker 3: teach me a lot of what we're doing, what we're
Speaker 3: not doing, where things are going. There's a company I'm
Speaker 3: on the board of right now called Partners in Kind
Speaker 3: and going back to the you know, just doing kind
Speaker 3: and doing what's right for the world. Like this is
Speaker 3: a phenomenal organization. They're doing shows that have an impact
Speaker 3: on the world. So they're co financing ideas and projects.
Speaker 3: But it's not just like feel good projects. It has
Speaker 3: to have an impact campaign that follows so that long
Speaker 3: term we're actually making a difference in the world. We're
Speaker 3: actually doing something that's going to better things, whether it's
Speaker 3: climate change or awareness of certain issues, whether it's autism
Speaker 3: or down syndrome, or I have a kid on the spectrum.
Speaker 3: So that's very important to us. But they're not just
Speaker 3: going to finance shows that's a one off, right. They
Speaker 3: want to make sure that it has legacy and that
Speaker 3: it follows and that people actually do something, And that
Speaker 3: to me is just phenomenal approach on our industry. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't it be great to watch a show that you
Speaker 3: walk away a better person or that you make an
Speaker 3: actual difference just by consuming it. Like I'm going to
Speaker 3: watch this show and I'm going to binge watch it,
Speaker 3: and unlike you White Lotus, I'm not going to go
Speaker 3: kill somebody for their money, but rather, I'm going to
Speaker 3: learn to live a more sustainable life. I'm going to
Speaker 3: learn to be more appreciative of a certain ailment somebody
Speaker 3: may have, whether it's Luke or anything, just to just
Speaker 3: to be a better human in general. To be able
Speaker 3: to get that from consuming goes back to like what
Speaker 3: I said about Housewives. Right, you watch Housewives and it's
Speaker 3: a mess, but you turn off the TV and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm happy with what I have. I would love to
Speaker 3: be able to create content that just brings hope, inspiration
Speaker 3: and changes, you know, the out the outcome of something
Speaker 3: that could have been negative. Like American Idol. I love
Speaker 3: that show because somebody from Middle America with nothing stands
Speaker 3: on a stage and sings a song that we all
Speaker 3: fall in love with that person. How do we create
Speaker 3: something that somebody falls in love with, doing right by
Speaker 3: the world, doing right by a community, doing right by
Speaker 3: by everybody, and in turn helping other people, keeping employment,
Speaker 3: keeping ratings, keeping you know, investors in like I want
Speaker 3: to keep growing and teaching as well. Like I love
Speaker 3: being on these boards because they also, you know, learn
Speaker 3: from each other. So long term, I hope to join
Speaker 3: more boards that can benefit invent and that we can
Speaker 3: help as well be strategic partners. I'm really getting a
Speaker 3: kick out of that. I think it's a it's a
Speaker 3: good education. It's a lot of work, but it's a
Speaker 3: good education as well on both sides.
Speaker 2: Well. That is incredibly high standards. Sergio, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for this conversation. Thank you, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or Amazon Music.
Speaker 2: We love to hear from listeners.
Speaker 1: Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for
Speaker 1: the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to
Speaker 1: tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business.