May 16, 2019 • 35 mins
Few people hustle as hard as Scooter Braun. This episode, Bob discovers how the renowned entrepreneur, investor and entertainment exec dropped out of college to place a bet on himself (and a young Justin Bieber); why David Geffen means so much to him, and why a “burn the ships” mentality is key to spotting the greatest talent.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of My
Heart Radio. When I did this, people thought I was crazy.
I mean I went to every label, and every label
was saying no to me. They were like, Scooter, your
grade at marketing, but like it's a YouTube kid, And
I'm like, you guys are not understanding. There's a sleeping
giant over here. You're not paying attention. I had one
(00:22):
of the most impressive executives in music history, tell me,
where's the sex appeal. He's a young kid. I don't
get it. There's no sex appeal. And then I said, well,
you need to look at YouTube and this person who's
running a major, major label group. They said, well, can
you get us a DVD? And I said, you just
all I gotta do is type it in and look
at the YouTube numbers. And they said, well, he doesn't
(00:42):
use the internet. And I discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube.
I'm Bob Pittman and welcome to Math and Magic. Stories
from the Frontiers and Marketing. I've had a lot of
jobs over the years. I co founded MTV, I started businesses.
I'm also the chairman and CEO of I Heart Media,
(01:03):
America's number one audio company. And that's part of my story,
but also started out in a little town in Mississippi,
son of a minister, got my first real job at
a radio station when I was fifteen. It's where my
roots are, music voices, hearing people's stories, and one of
the things I've always loved is trying to decode how
big ideas find their way into the world. Each episode,
(01:25):
I chat with someone I truly admire to hear all
about the data and the creativity, the math and magic
that goes into the world's greatest marketing. We've had the
analytical mathematicians and the wildly creative magicians on the podcast.
Today we have someone who defies all the labels. As
(01:46):
I was thinking about it that I really was at
a loss really to describe Scooter Braun born in the
dawn of the eighties. Grew up in Connecticut, serious high
school basketball star. Looking at him and he's smiling. I
guess that's right. Emory University drop out when display the
music business, became a very students successful investor, family guy,
and you've made it a point to use your brains
(02:07):
and influence to make the world a better place too.
So names he's associated with Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Kanye,
Carli Class, Dory, Kelly, Black Eyed peas, Uber, Spotify, Casper, Pinterest.
We welcome Scooter Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate
being here. We're gonna do you in sixty seconds. Quick
questions Lightning Brown style. Don't think too long to say
(02:29):
the first thing that comes to your mind exactly. So
here we go. Ready. Do you prefer Atlanta or l A?
Now l A because I have my kids in l A.
Pancakes or waffles, pancakes, Chess or checkers, Chess, Superman or Batman,
Superman one time or baby both of a special place
(02:51):
in my heart. I'll go with baby, Giants or Jets.
I hate the Giants. I'm a die hard jets man.
Easy care we go, It's about to get harder. Favorite
song walking in Memphis. Smartest person you know probably David
Gett's childhood hero, my dad. Historical idol, historical idol that
(03:12):
was tough. A lot of people have admired from history.
I was obsessed with Abraham Lincoln as a kid. We'll
take him. If you could have one superpower, what would
it be to control the weather? Quote, to live by,
be kind for everyone, walks a hard journey, worst fat
or fashion trend in music? Face tattoos. I just don't
(03:33):
get it. And I got friends who have them. And
what are you most proud of? My family? Okay, let's
start with your name. How did you get Scooter? My
real name is Scott. I went to a birthday party,
probably when I was in second or third grade, and
there was like a clown magician and he said, what's
your name? And I said Scott. He goes, oh, Scooter,
(03:53):
and I said, that is now my name. And my
brother saw the aggravation that I had with this name Scooter,
and that is all he needed to see for him
to want to haunt me with the name throughout the
rest of my life, because that's what little brothers do.
My sophomore year of high school, I think it was
I came out of the gym, you know, dribbling the
basketball as the point guard, and my brother had a
(04:15):
bunch of my friends like holding signs like ride the
scooter to victory and Scooter this, scooter that. And then
when I went to college my first year, my buddy
bet me a hundred bucks. And when he came to
visit me later on in the school year and my
freshman year of college that I couldn't convince everyone my
name was Scooter, and I just took the bet. So
I went in there and they'd say, okay, freshman orientation
(04:35):
Scott Braun. I would be like, hah no, it's actually
a mistake. My name of Scooter. And and then I
started my business pretty much right away freshman year, and
Scooter became a marketing tool. Scott something you forget, Scooter,
you don't forget. I'm a Gemini. So the sign of
the twin. So there's Scott and there's Scooter. My wife
calls me Scott. I'm Scott at home, and Scooter is
(04:56):
somebody who's outside the house. I've seen you with your parents,
and you have this incredible relationship with your parents, very
obvious sort of oozes that love and support. How was
your childhood. I'm very lucky. I had two incredibly supportive,
loving parents. But my dad was really really tough on me.
My dad understood how to work each one of his kids.
(05:18):
If you actually look at the five of us, were
all successful in our own way, and it's really remarkable
how well they've done with us. And I hope that
I can raise my kids the same level that my
parents did have. Not only that we all successful, but
we're all very close and we're all extremely loving. But
my dad realized with me that I was probably the
toughest one to raise. I was the most rebellious, and
(05:39):
his way of getting the most out of me one
stand on my ass, but also disrespecting me a lot
to make me do the right thing, because he knew
that I would run in the direction of disrespect. So
I remember playing basketball and him insulting me to the
point of tears, but I'd go out and play like
an animal to prove him wrong. For me, it worked.
(06:00):
But he was also the coach at every game, and
you know, in the stands for every game, And when
I started acting out in seventh grade and beyond, he
never gave up with me. And he was tough as hell.
And when I was eighteen, I was like, I'm gonna
go to Atlanta and get far away from these people.
And you know, I love him, but I'm gonna be
my own man. And then you kind of go in
(06:20):
the cycle. You realize you're trying to prove something to
someone who already loved you, and now I say that
out of any man in the world. If you ask
me who I admire the most, it's him. So let
me ask you a question. Will you use this technique
with your kids if they're like me. My brother didn't
need it, Adam, my sister didn't need it, and he
wasn't tough on them. He was tough on them, but
not to the level of the way he was with me.
(06:42):
I could have gone really in the wrong direction with
how rebellious I was. When a young man is being
that rebellious, he's looking for boundaries. He wants to know
somebody gives a damn. And my dad said boundaries, and
he fought me like hell, and he showed me he
gave a damn. So how about as a manager, you
wind up using this technique on anybody. No, I haven't
(07:03):
seen anybody completely like me. There were times with Justin
where you get competitive, and I pushed him in that
direction a little bit. I've perfected my dad's methods because
I've molded in my mom's methods. And my mom was idealistic,
she was comforting, she was tough, but she was always
beyond supportive, and she didn't use those methods. And I
think kind of Combining the two of them is where
I'm at now. But I definitely all the great things
(07:26):
that my dad taught me I have implemented into my
life as as an executive, as a manager, as an entrepreneur.
Sounds like basketball was a real theme growing up. What
did you learn from it? I think basketball taught me
one this brotherhood of support, to the idea that you
can't win without a team, and three play your role
(07:48):
and play it well because you're part of a larger
you know, a larger thing. It's not about you. You know,
my name is on the door, my company, all these
different things, but I stand on the shoulders of everyone else.
What do you do to build a team? There? Get
people they're smarter than you and things that you're not
good at. I'm really good at things I'm good, and
I'm really bad at the things I'm not. I heavily
(08:11):
depend on other people to do their job well. I
need my power forward, I need my center, I need
I need my Alice and k who's been with me
for a decade, who is brilliant at all the things
that I am not. And I've been lucky enough to
not be the smartest person in the room. So how
do you drive the team? People have different skills. You're
not using your dad's technique exactly. How do I motivate
(08:31):
my team? One, You've got to set the example. You
set the example of drive and effort, and I think
it starts from the top. You've got to show people
the passion in the drive, in the work ethic. I think,
if it's eleven o'clock at night or twelve o'clock at
night or one o'clock in the morning and something isn't done,
no one's going to stay and get it done unless
they care about you. So let's go back to the
(08:51):
beginning to college. You go to Emery Great School in Atlanta.
You said you started the business in your freshman year.
What kind of business? Um? I was helping young people
receive identification. You can figure out what that means. Oh,
they were good, they were very good. But I was
(09:12):
a business person and how I did it, and that's
a much longer story. And I turned it into a
very profitable business very quickly. But my partner kind of
broke my protocol. So I walked away from that cold
turkey because I knew if he broke the protocol, we
get caught and I didn't want that to define me
in my future, so I stopped doing that. And then
I walked by a nightclub in Buckhead and Atlanta, Georgia,
and I saw this club that was empty, and I said, Hey,
(09:32):
if I bring people here next week, would you pay me?
And he was like, yeah, sure. How many people? Does
it all the eight hundred? I said, okay, I'll bring
it under and he looked at me like I was crazy.
When to Kinko has made flyers, called it Kryptonite entertainment
because I'm a Superman fan, got all these freshman girls
to help me and through my first party and eight
people came very quickly. I learned the ropes from a
local promoter who was an Ethiopian immigrant named Alex get A,
(09:54):
one who started off as a parking lot of tenant
and became guy, passed out flyers and became a promoter
and now is the bigest club owner in Atlanta. And
he took a liking to me and taught me the
ropes Tuesday nights at Velvet Room, where I was the
only white boy in the room, and he used to
stay with his stutter la let the white boy in
and then I would take the money I made on
Thursdays and spend it with Alex's club, kind of faking
(10:17):
until I make it. And I learned the ropes and
became a very big party promoter in Atlanta, Georgia. Is
that why you left college? I left college because I
was doing that. But then I started helping artists at
my parties. Jermaine Dupri approached me after I had worked
with this new up and coming artist who was Chris
lovel Love on the Radio's name was Ludicrous. Jermaine asked
me to come help him and he made me verse
(10:37):
the executive director of marketing and then the VP of
Marketing at Socio Deft Records. And I was twenty years
old and Emery didn't offer night classes or internet classes.
I still wanted to make it work, but I was
now in academic probation because I was missing so many classes.
And I got brought into a counselor's office and I
told him, no, no, there's no drug brom there's no
nothing like. I'm not reprobation because I'm working hard, and
(11:00):
and he told me the story of Robert Woodruff, the
founder of Coca Cola. At the largest sendowment in Emery
and what a great entrepreneur he was. And I'm thinking,
this guy gets me. All of a sudden, he turns
to me and he says, and the chance of you
being Robert Woodruff is wanted a billion, So we need
to turn this around. You need to focus on academics.
And like I said, I don't deal well with disrespect.
So I looked at him and I said, no, I
(11:20):
need to do. He goes, we're gonna turn around. I said, yes,
I'm withdrawing, and I dropped out of school and never
looked back. This was the end of your junior year,
midway through my sophomore year. I'm glad to say that
I've actually started working with a lot of young entrepreneurs
at Emery now, and the new leadership and Emery the
dean's there now. They're supportive of these young people in
their entrepreneurial dreams. I probably wouldn't have dropped out if
(11:41):
they existed back then. And you stayed in Atlanta for
how long till I was thirty years old? I've stayed
there for when I was eighteen till I was thirty.
I built the entire business in Atlanta. Atlanta was the
place where young entrepreneur, could you know, pay cheap rent
and build something significant. I had incredible mentors and so
port there from guys like Shaka Zulu who was ludacrous
(12:02):
as manager, to this guy Shakier Stewart passed away who
was one of the first people who believed in me.
Then Steve Rifkin came in my life and I signed
Asher Roth. I ended up staying there until I realized
there was one year where two weeks out of the
year I slept in my own bed, and I always
on breaks be find myself in l A and New York,
and I knew I needed to make a change, and
I decided to move to l A. I still own
(12:24):
my apartment in Atlanta. Is it available in Airbnb? It
is not. It is the apartment that I discovered justin Bieber.
Funny enough, that's pretty cool. So you're in Atlanta, you're
working for a company, and then you go out on
your own. What happened there? I'm working for Jermaine. I
decided to stop doing parties Cold Turkey because I wanted
to stop being labeled a promoter when I was this
(12:47):
young VP and everyone still said, oh, he's a big promoter.
I don't like labels. I think that's what kind of
encourages me to jump from one thing to the next.
I don't like being listed as anything. Entrepreneur is all
I really want, or Dad that would work for me too.
I would like to say that I had the courage
like a Jimmy Ivan when he could just walk away.
(13:07):
It starts with me new But I didn't have that courage.
I had the idea, I knew it's what I wanted
to do, but I was still scared. I was scared
of being this young VP and having the credibility of
Germaine and what am I without it? And sometimes the
universe has an incredible way of fixing things for you
when you don't have the courage. And one day something
happened at the office and I was let go, not
(13:28):
by Germaine, by his mom um Jermaine. I went to
go see him like are you kidding me? Like I'm
one of the you know, the winners here, and he said,
I'll just give it two more weeks and I'll figure
it out. And I realized, this isn't where I want
to have a career the rest of my life. This
is actually what I wanted. I was just too scared.
I drove to this Kroger parking lot near my apartment
(13:49):
and I remember sitting on the hood of my car
being like, what the hell am I going to do? Now?
My brother was backpacking, you know, roughing around South America,
and I had been reading his blog journal entries fifteen
dollar bus rides and five dollar hostels, and I bought
a one way ticket to Chile, bought a backpack, filled
(14:10):
it up, and I left for a month. And I
always thought backpacking was the thing, like rich kids did
to escape their lives. And I realized when I was
down there, these aren't rich kids, and these people are
actually living adventures. Every single day they wake up and
they're going to do something new. They're not just going
back to the same old thing. It not only re
energized me, but it restored my faith in humanity because
(14:31):
I was dealing with a cash business in Atlanta, Georgia
when Atlanta, Georgia was dangerous. I just didn't trust people
at that point. I was looking for a snake everywhere
I went. Now I'm in this hostel and my brothers like, yeah,
put your bag over there, and I'm like, where do
we lock things up, and he's like, oh, you just
have to trust people. I'm like, we don't know these people,
and he goes, you gotta believe. By the way, I
wouldn't encourage people to live like that. I don't. I
(14:53):
locked my doors, but it did make me realize the
better way to live is to live thinking something good
is going to happen, and then assuming something bad is
going to happen. And when I came back, I chose
to make that decision on how I wanted to live.
Started my own company, did a big deal for Ludicrous.
So I had a calling card in marketing, and I said,
I'm gonna sign acts that no one wants, and I'm
(15:13):
gonna prove my thesis with social media. And you found
Justin Bieber, first Astra Roth on my Space and then
Justin Bieber on YouTube. Your thesis was social media. No
one knew about it. You knew about it. They were
too old, too out of touch. Yeah. I mean I'm
sitting here with my Space, you know, seeing people use music,
and then with YouTube, I'm like, this is touching people
(15:35):
all around the world. These views are getting bigger and bigger.
I could see the analytics on where it's happening in
different countries, and every time I bring it up to someone,
they're like, oh, YouTube stars don't become real stars. And
I'm like, well, look at the views and now it's
you know, commonplace and ours are like what are your
YouTube views? And but when I did this, people thought
I was crazy. I mean I went to every label
and every label was saying no to me. They were like, Scooter,
(15:56):
your grade at marketing, but like, it's a YouTube kid,
And I'm like, you guys are not understanding. There's a
sleeping giant over here. You're not paying attention. I had
one of the most impressive executives in music history, tell
me where's the sex appeal? He's a young kid. I
don't get it. There's no sex appeal. And then I said,
well you need to look at YouTube and this person
who's running a major, major label group. They said, well,
(16:18):
can you get us a DVD? And I said, you
just all I gotta do is type it in and
look at the YouTube numbers. And they said, well, he
doesn't use the internet. I said, how do you not
use the internet if you're running a major label group
with the future of where music is going? And I
realized there's a big opportunity here. I was able to
team up with Usher and I wanted a label deal
for us, and I was just like, I'll help you
(16:39):
get this deal. Took six months to get the deal
done because no one believed get the deal done, and
then they don't open a budget for me. And I
had to go to Tricky Stewart and Dream, who I
was friends with, and get them to produce Justin's record
with me for free. I made the first eight songs
for free on SPEC out of my relationships because I
couldn't get a budget opened from the major label. There
(17:00):
was someone at the label who I was excited to
work with, who went to l A and said, don't
make me work with the Internet kid. And that's always
how it works. It's the things that no one pays attention.
So when you played the songs said they say, wow,
this is great. No, they didn't get it. They were like,
oh this is this has better we thought, but like,
what are we gonna do with this kid? There's a
longer story and how it happened. In our movie, we
definitely made it look like you know, boom boom boom,
(17:23):
but it's just great things don't happen that way. Great
things like Ariana Grande, she was on Nickelodeon. Why is
she not have a record deal with Nickelodeon because they said, yes,
you can leave. You know you're not a recording artist.
People all the time pass over on the great things.
If everybody is paying attention, it wants it. I usually
shy away. Do you think that people pigeonhole people and
(17:47):
miss opportunities because they can't see anybody any broader than
what they initially thought somebody was. Drives me crazy. Drives
me crazy when I see people say I saw that
three years ago, things evolved. If you saw it three
years ago and they actually took your advice, they should
come back better than they were before. But if you're
not taking the time to look at something because you've
(18:07):
already created a narrative in your head, you're missing out
an opportunity. And by the way, there are going to
be things in my career that I've missed out on.
I always leave a meeting saying the same thing. If
you leave here and you proved me wrong in the
years to come, good on you. I'm rooting for you.
I've got a few more questions for Scooter from why
you decided to cold call David Geffen how you think
(18:29):
about your investments. But before we get to that, let's
take a quick break. Welcome back to math and magic.
We're sitting here today with the genius of marketing, Scooter Braun.
You're new, Scooter Braun, You're not the Internet kid anymore.
Still feel like that kid? But when you go in now,
do people still say I saw that three years ago?
(18:50):
Or do they trust? You? Probably see something they don't see. No,
now they trust. But I also, can I be honest
with you, I probably was better then. I'm thirty seven,
about thirty eight years old in June. This is a
youth driven business. I now want the young kids. I
want those kids telling me what's next, because I'd be
naive if I could tell you I'm as good of
(19:12):
an A and R as I was at twenty seven
or twenty five or twenty two. That's bs. So now
that I have the power and the trust, I need
to share that with young people who are telling me
what's next, because I cannot be as good as I
used to be. It's just not how it works. When
the first people I've heard talk about that, when we
started MTV. We roll in our twenties and we used
to say, no one over the age of thirty has
(19:33):
any good ideas, So let's keep hiring that two year
old and populate the channel with it. And by the way,
for many, many years they did that. So talk a
little bit about the creative process. You know, you're talking
about finding stuff, not being caught in stereotypes, not letting
past narratives cloud your view of the future. How do
you think the creative process works? And you know, at
(19:55):
the heart of it, sort of what do you think
creativity is and how do you spot it? It's a
very interesting, hard question to answer. When it comes to music.
The artists I work with usually have extraordinary ears because
they're artists. What they hear is not what the general
public is going to hear. That's why most artists aren't
great a and rs of their own projects, and they,
(20:16):
you know, need help deciding what they hit is. Most
artists don't even like their hits. My job is to
be the person with the ordinary ears in the room.
If I like it, millions of other people should like it,
because there's nothing extraordinary about me. My job is to
help them understand what the consumer would gravitate towards and
find that middle ground where we're still pushing the needle
and that following the consumer. How big a fight is that.
(20:37):
I think it's not a fight if you show each
other mutual respect and you actually earn respect over time.
If you're just yelling at someone and say you need
to listen to me, I don't think that's a good
way to do anything. You have to start from a
place of respect and meet in the middle. It's definitely
been an interesting dynamic over the years getting to some
of these hits. Sometimes if they just walk into the
door and they got it. Sometimes it's a narrative and
a dance, and sometimes I'm wrong, sometimes they're wrong, but
(20:59):
we create a rapport and we act like family towards
each other and we get results. The one common thing
when you talk about creativity in the process, I don't
think there's a substitute for passion. That's the one thing
I think is consistent. Whether it be an entrepreneur you're
betting on or an artist you're betting on. There's a
(21:19):
lot of talented people in the world in all walks
of life. I don't believe talent is enough. Sometimes it's
enough to get you a moment, but I don't think
it's enough to ever make you sustain. There's too many
talented people in the world. There's moments where Ariana this
album she made, it happened quickly, it was magic. She
just kept writing. All the passion came out boom. There
(21:42):
are times where artists needs, you know, purpose. With Justin
it was a year writing, writing, writing, then finally discovering
the path, but the passion was there in both respects.
So you know, talking about this broad view of creativity
and business sounds an awful like your mentor David Geff
extraordinary investor, extraordinary talent manager, record company executive films had
(22:05):
a good run that guy, Yeah, exactly, real estate name.
What have you learned from David or did you find
you were just sort of in sync with David. It's
not what I learned, it's what I continue to learn.
And my biggest pinched me moment in my life is
probably that you even can say that that person is
my mentor. I read about David when I was nineteen
years old. He was the inspiration for me to go
(22:27):
towards this career path. I remember sitting in my dorm
room freshman year, reading about David going after John Lennon's
solo career and yelling out loud, go to yoko Ono,
and then turning the page and seeing David was the
one person who went to Yokoo, and having this revelation
that I think, like this, I can do this, and
David saying, movies take years, TV takes years, finance could
(22:49):
take years. A song can change your life in a night.
When I was thirty, Jimmy Iven introduced us quickly at
a restaurant, and then I decided about a month later
to pick up the phone and cold call his office
to say thank you to him for the inspiration. And
he was kind of appreciative, but very like, I gotta
go onto my next thing. And I was like, oh,
(23:10):
he's never gonna speak to me again. And when I
got to the office the next day, his assistant had
called and said, David wants to have lunch with you.
Next week's on your schedule. And that first lunch was
three hours. We've been having lunch and dinner ever since,
for the last seven years. And when that man loves you,
he loves you. We have never done business together. We
have no intention of doing business together. But he is
(23:32):
passionate about giving me real advice. He's passionate about making me,
in his mind, better than he was as a person.
All I wanted my whole life from that point in
nineteen years old was to have the advice of someone
like David Geffen and now I have it. And it's
a really great thing when someone lives up to your
expectation of them, and he has for me. It's interesting
with David. He's i think, reached out to a lot
(23:53):
of people and has mentored them, did for me and
a period of my career when I really needed it,
and wants nothing in return. Thing do you do that
with others? Yes? No one's gonna say when they die,
guess what deal I did? You know they're going to
look back on the deep conversations, the moments with their family,
their moments of their friends. What did I do? And
then you're gone. What's the point of not lifting someone up.
(24:17):
That's the greatest thing you can do for your legacy.
You know, when you're gone, you want someone to speak
highly of you and say they helped me and they
asked for nothing in return. In addition to mentoring people,
you've also helped a lot of people. Your chair the
advisory board of Pencils for Promise, if you are on
the board of cancer organizations started by your wife, make
a wish. I think your organizations fulfill more wishes than
(24:39):
anyone else. You raised about seventy million dollars for Hurricane
Harvey relief, twenty million for One Love Manchester. What drives
you and how do you think about that in relation
to the rest of your life. I just think it's
so crazy what's happened in my life that the idea
that you don't share and give back is absurd. What
(25:01):
is the point of continually pouring water into one glass.
It's going to overflow and just make a mess. You
have to pour the water into other glasses before you
make the mess. The most gratifying parts of my professional
career have been concerts helping others. I wish those tragedies
didn't happen, but it was incredibly gratifying for myself, my team,
and the artist that I work with. To be a
part of the Children's March, to be a part of
(25:24):
One Love Manchester, to be a part of the hurricane relief.
There's fifty percent that you should do publicly, and then
there's fifty percent you should do privately because theft you
do publicly, you're gonna get criticized. People say you're doing
it for the wrong reasons. Who cares what they say.
They're haters, that's their own bullshit. But you need to
do publicly to inspire others to do the same. I
know what I come from, and I know that the
(25:45):
person in need was just a generation to go for
my family. My grandparents were Holocaust concentration camp survivors. My
mom grew up with very little. I want to set
that example for my kids, make sure they understand that
that's a legacy they have to keep going forward. So
let's move on to the future. What's the future of
the music business as we know it? The record companies, managers, publishers. Look,
(26:08):
I think the great part of the music business in
general is that there's never a supply and demand issue.
People are always gonna want music. The question is how
do you monetize it and how is it distributed. I
think things are on the rise because there have been
gigantic populations outside of this country India, China that have
(26:30):
never been monetized before. Southeast Asia never been monetized before
huge populations that love music. I've toured there, they love music,
and the monetization through streaming is coming for those areas.
So I think we're about to see a very, very
big growth for the music business. I think whoever is
closest to the artists will always play an important roles,
So managers will play an important role. But I think
(26:52):
value is going to be an ownership of assets. As
I move forward, I want to continue doing the service
business because I enjoy it. I love the artist that
I work with. I love being a part of their journey.
I went to Ariana's opening night last night, and knowing
the hard work that she put in and how remarkable
the show is. I get joy out of seeing her
happiness and the happiness of her fans. But she and
I have to go now build access for her, something
(27:13):
that's sustainable, so she doesn't have to walk on stage
every single night, and she can take a break and
start a family some day if she wanted. So Uber, Spotify, Pinterest,
you are early invested in all and then left left
and so we look at those businesses. Are those businesses
that you think are fully priced or do you think
they have so much growth ahead of them that people
don't point. I really don't know. I'm not I don't know.
(27:35):
I know these are great businesses. I know that the
opportunity for growth is there, that the value in the
future is there. You talk about a grab or an
uber or a lift, which are all rides sharing services
and payment services. The amount of the population that is
actually using them is still very, very low. So the
opportunity for how big they can become. Could they become
(27:57):
trillion dollar business? And that you You really don't know.
But they're great, great businesses, and I was lucky enough
to be around them early enough, so you've had as
good a nose for investments as you've had for music.
I don't know. Maybe it's okay, let's say you have.
I think both of them I got lucky. I think
you've made your luck. But let's move into what do
you look at into business passion? So you look at
(28:18):
a person, not the idea. I'd like to look at
the idea and understand it. But if you meet someone
who has a burned the ship's mentality and what do
I mean by burn the ships? You and I have
talked about this before. It's you arrive on the shores
your enemy. The generals say, the only way you go
home to your families is if you take the ships
of your enemies. There is no retreat. Burned the ships.
When you meet an entrepreneur who has a burned the
(28:38):
ship's mentality, it doesn't matter what they're starting. They will
pivot and move until they figure it out. And that's
what you want to see. When someone says I'm a
serial entrepreneur, run for the hills, all that means is
they start a lot of businesses. When I met Travis
from Uber burn the Ships. Funny enough, his competitor John
Zimmer burned the Ships, Anthony from Burn the Ships. These
(29:01):
people are relentless. They will not give up, They will
not be silenced. Like they are going to figure it out.
You see the same thing an artist. That's what I'm
talking about, passion and all in all aspects. Ariana. You
know she's gone through a lot of stuff the last
couple of years, but I know she is so much
stronger than even she realizes. I've seen it. She has
(29:23):
had really hard, hard times in dark moments, but she
always prevails because she is not a quitter. Justin is
not a quitter. You know, before purpose we had so
many people talking ship. But he is not a quitter.
And I think when you see people with that kind
of passion, when you see the people with that kind
of drive, get on board and hold on tight. So
(29:43):
we'll go back to the future about social Social media
has changed my life. It has helped me build my career.
But I also see how people who made social media
are not allowing their children to participate. There's something to
be said for that. It isn't evil. It is a
very good thing. That's something bad can happen in a
country across the world and we can care because of
(30:04):
social media. That is incredible thing that's happening. But it
isn't good when the person right next to you is struggling,
you can't see it. Everything has to become kind of
a balance. We have to start with our own relationships,
stop trying to scale it to how do we change
lives for millions of people? Start with five people, Start
with your core people around you that you love, and
(30:26):
start asking them, are you okay? Let's shut off our phones,
Let's go for a drink, Let's go for an activity
of coffee. Just engage with people on a one on
one and your life will be better and so were
there's do you shut yourself? Yeah, there are times I
definitely shut up. I'm getting better about it. I still
need to work on it. Forecast, you've been around radio,
You've been a great partner of ours at I heart
for ever and ever. What do you think of the
(30:47):
future of audio? And I'm really talking radio, streaming, music services,
podcast look, trends are trends. People like audio. You know,
Spotify as announced they're going to spend half a billion
dollars on podcast this year alone. Asia. Podcasts are huge.
People still enjoy a conversation, they like driving somewhere and
(31:09):
being able to listen to something. They're thirsty for conversation,
They're thirsty for knowledge. So I think the future of
audio is bright. You've hit all of the stuff that
you dreamed of. Did you ever dream you'd be here?
Yes and no. I dreamed of what would that be like?
But I didn't think when I realized how hard it
was to make five grand I was like, that doesn't
seem feasible. And now I realized it's not monetary things
(31:31):
that have anything to do with what I think about
a success. My holding companies called Ithaca, and someone asked me, like,
did you go to Cornell? You go to Ithaca? Like, no,
I didn't. Ithaca is based on a Greek poem by
Cafafi called Ithaca. David Geffen showed me this poem, and
it basically says, You're journeying to the island of Ithaca,
(31:51):
one of the Greek islands, and along your journey you'll
only see monsters like Lithogonian cyclops if you let them
into your heart. I only have negativity if you let
it in. And along the way you'll meet great philosophers
and you'll see amazing things. And if you reach Ithaca
and you find her poor, she did not fool you
because it was always about the journey. And I think
(32:12):
that's life. I'm on a journey. There's gonna be ups
and downs. No matter how much success I get. I
will have nights that I still still cry myself to
sleep because I'm scared of what tomorrow brings. And it's
an up and down journey. There's days you're happy and
there's days you're sad, and that's just what life is.
And you continue the journey, you have fun. I try
to do right by others because it doesn't make sense
(32:36):
to me why this happened to me. But I'm grateful
for it, and I don't believe the blessings continue unless
I give blessings. So I gotta keep pouring into other
glasses so mine doesn't make a mess. We've talked about
this incredible success you've had. Tell me about the failures
along the way. There's nothing that's really a failure unless
you did something malicious and shameful. Otherwise you should have
(32:57):
no regrets. They're teaching moments I can put on this
perfect picture of success and confidence and everything else just
not realistic. It's not real. I still question things all
the time. I questioned myself. I questioned my own motives.
I questioned my need to sometimes tell people about my
success because of how insecure I am in the moment
(33:17):
that I want them to know what I've done, because
I might not be enough. Because I always thought vulnerability
was a bad thing. I didn't understand it was a strength.
And there were a few people along the way they
taught me that. One of the people who did that
for me, who didn't know they did it, was a
guy who admired from a distance. Dinner relationship. One day,
I got an email and the purpose said I want
to come see you, and they came over to my
(33:37):
house and I just thought, oh, they're coming to see me,
and they're gonna come talk business and what can we
do together and everything else. And this person didn't talk
any business. This person talked to me about their life.
They asked me questions about my life, and they said,
I just wanted to get to know you. And I
walked away realizing how much respect I had for that person,
how much I appreciated them taking the time, and how
(33:58):
I need to do more of that in my life.
And person's name was Bob Pittman. Came to my house,
sat with me, didn't ask me for any business, and
you took time to get to know me and took
hours out of your day for no reason whatsoever, with
no agenda, to say, I've admired you from a distance
and I want you to know who I am and
I want to know you. And you've never asked for
anything in return. And it was an important lesson in
(34:21):
my life of how to treat people. So thank you, well,
you're very nice. Thank you. So let's end with and
this podcast it's math and Magic, excluding you, who's the
greatest mathematician, you know, that analytical type who just blows
your mind. I really admire Howard Marks from Oakstrey Capital.
I think he's a really really brilliant guy. But he
(34:42):
also looks at it and all the right ways and
all the right angles, and I admire so the greatest
magician David geff Is analytical skills are pretty good too, incredible.
Thanks Scooter for giving us the time today. Appreciate great
lessons from somebody who's done it the right way. Thanks.
(35:09):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio.
This show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to
Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which
is no small feat Nikki Etre for pulling research bill plaques,
and Michael Azar for their recording help, our editor Ryan Murdoch,
and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and
(35:32):
everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until
next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of My
Heart Radio. When I did this, people thought I was crazy.
I mean I went to every label, and every label
was saying no to me. They were like, Scooter, your
grade at marketing, but like it's a YouTube kid, And
I'm like, you guys are not understanding. There's a sleeping
giant over here. You're not paying attention. I had one
(00:22):
of the most impressive executives in music history, tell me,
where's the sex appeal. He's a young kid. I don't
get it. There's no sex appeal. And then I said, well,
you need to look at YouTube and this person who's
running a major, major label group. They said, well, can
you get us a DVD? And I said, you just
all I gotta do is type it in and look
at the YouTube numbers. And they said, well, he doesn't
(00:42):
use the internet. And I discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube.
I'm Bob Pittman and welcome to Math and Magic. Stories
from the Frontiers and Marketing. I've had a lot of
jobs over the years. I co founded MTV, I started businesses.
I'm also the chairman and CEO of I Heart Media,
(01:03):
America's number one audio company. And that's part of my story,
but also started out in a little town in Mississippi,
son of a minister, got my first real job at
a radio station when I was fifteen. It's where my
roots are, music voices, hearing people's stories, and one of
the things I've always loved is trying to decode how
big ideas find their way into the world. Each episode,
(01:25):
I chat with someone I truly admire to hear all
about the data and the creativity, the math and magic
that goes into the world's greatest marketing. We've had the
analytical mathematicians and the wildly creative magicians on the podcast.
Today we have someone who defies all the labels. As
(01:46):
I was thinking about it that I really was at
a loss really to describe Scooter Braun born in the
dawn of the eighties. Grew up in Connecticut, serious high
school basketball star. Looking at him and he's smiling. I
guess that's right. Emory University drop out when display the
music business, became a very students successful investor, family guy,
and you've made it a point to use your brains
(02:07):
and influence to make the world a better place too.
So names he's associated with Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Kanye,
Carli Class, Dory, Kelly, Black Eyed peas, Uber, Spotify, Casper, Pinterest.
We welcome Scooter Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate
being here. We're gonna do you in sixty seconds. Quick
questions Lightning Brown style. Don't think too long to say
(02:29):
the first thing that comes to your mind exactly. So
here we go. Ready. Do you prefer Atlanta or l A?
Now l A because I have my kids in l A.
Pancakes or waffles, pancakes, Chess or checkers, Chess, Superman or Batman,
Superman one time or baby both of a special place
(02:51):
in my heart. I'll go with baby, Giants or Jets.
I hate the Giants. I'm a die hard jets man.
Easy care we go, It's about to get harder. Favorite
song walking in Memphis. Smartest person you know probably David
Gett's childhood hero, my dad. Historical idol, historical idol that
(03:12):
was tough. A lot of people have admired from history.
I was obsessed with Abraham Lincoln as a kid. We'll
take him. If you could have one superpower, what would
it be to control the weather? Quote, to live by,
be kind for everyone, walks a hard journey, worst fat
or fashion trend in music? Face tattoos. I just don't
(03:33):
get it. And I got friends who have them. And
what are you most proud of? My family? Okay, let's
start with your name. How did you get Scooter? My
real name is Scott. I went to a birthday party,
probably when I was in second or third grade, and
there was like a clown magician and he said, what's
your name? And I said Scott. He goes, oh, Scooter,
(03:53):
and I said, that is now my name. And my
brother saw the aggravation that I had with this name Scooter,
and that is all he needed to see for him
to want to haunt me with the name throughout the
rest of my life, because that's what little brothers do.
My sophomore year of high school, I think it was
I came out of the gym, you know, dribbling the
basketball as the point guard, and my brother had a
(04:15):
bunch of my friends like holding signs like ride the
scooter to victory and Scooter this, scooter that. And then
when I went to college my first year, my buddy
bet me a hundred bucks. And when he came to
visit me later on in the school year and my
freshman year of college that I couldn't convince everyone my
name was Scooter, and I just took the bet. So
I went in there and they'd say, okay, freshman orientation
(04:35):
Scott Braun. I would be like, hah no, it's actually
a mistake. My name of Scooter. And and then I
started my business pretty much right away freshman year, and
Scooter became a marketing tool. Scott something you forget, Scooter,
you don't forget. I'm a Gemini. So the sign of
the twin. So there's Scott and there's Scooter. My wife
calls me Scott. I'm Scott at home, and Scooter is
(04:56):
somebody who's outside the house. I've seen you with your parents,
and you have this incredible relationship with your parents, very
obvious sort of oozes that love and support. How was
your childhood. I'm very lucky. I had two incredibly supportive,
loving parents. But my dad was really really tough on me.
My dad understood how to work each one of his kids.
(05:18):
If you actually look at the five of us, were
all successful in our own way, and it's really remarkable
how well they've done with us. And I hope that
I can raise my kids the same level that my
parents did have. Not only that we all successful, but
we're all very close and we're all extremely loving. But
my dad realized with me that I was probably the
toughest one to raise. I was the most rebellious, and
(05:39):
his way of getting the most out of me one
stand on my ass, but also disrespecting me a lot
to make me do the right thing, because he knew
that I would run in the direction of disrespect. So
I remember playing basketball and him insulting me to the
point of tears, but I'd go out and play like
an animal to prove him wrong. For me, it worked.
(06:00):
But he was also the coach at every game, and
you know, in the stands for every game, And when
I started acting out in seventh grade and beyond, he
never gave up with me. And he was tough as hell.
And when I was eighteen, I was like, I'm gonna
go to Atlanta and get far away from these people.
And you know, I love him, but I'm gonna be
my own man. And then you kind of go in
(06:20):
the cycle. You realize you're trying to prove something to
someone who already loved you, and now I say that
out of any man in the world. If you ask
me who I admire the most, it's him. So let
me ask you a question. Will you use this technique
with your kids if they're like me. My brother didn't
need it, Adam, my sister didn't need it, and he
wasn't tough on them. He was tough on them, but
not to the level of the way he was with me.
(06:42):
I could have gone really in the wrong direction with
how rebellious I was. When a young man is being
that rebellious, he's looking for boundaries. He wants to know
somebody gives a damn. And my dad said boundaries, and
he fought me like hell, and he showed me he
gave a damn. So how about as a manager, you
wind up using this technique on anybody. No, I haven't
(07:03):
seen anybody completely like me. There were times with Justin
where you get competitive, and I pushed him in that
direction a little bit. I've perfected my dad's methods because
I've molded in my mom's methods. And my mom was idealistic,
she was comforting, she was tough, but she was always
beyond supportive, and she didn't use those methods. And I
think kind of Combining the two of them is where
I'm at now. But I definitely all the great things
(07:26):
that my dad taught me I have implemented into my
life as as an executive, as a manager, as an entrepreneur.
Sounds like basketball was a real theme growing up. What
did you learn from it? I think basketball taught me
one this brotherhood of support, to the idea that you
can't win without a team, and three play your role
(07:48):
and play it well because you're part of a larger
you know, a larger thing. It's not about you. You know,
my name is on the door, my company, all these
different things, but I stand on the shoulders of everyone else.
What do you do to build a team? There? Get
people they're smarter than you and things that you're not
good at. I'm really good at things I'm good, and
I'm really bad at the things I'm not. I heavily
(08:11):
depend on other people to do their job well. I
need my power forward, I need my center, I need
I need my Alice and k who's been with me
for a decade, who is brilliant at all the things
that I am not. And I've been lucky enough to
not be the smartest person in the room. So how
do you drive the team? People have different skills. You're
not using your dad's technique exactly. How do I motivate
(08:31):
my team? One, You've got to set the example. You
set the example of drive and effort, and I think
it starts from the top. You've got to show people
the passion in the drive, in the work ethic. I think,
if it's eleven o'clock at night or twelve o'clock at
night or one o'clock in the morning and something isn't done,
no one's going to stay and get it done unless
they care about you. So let's go back to the
(08:51):
beginning to college. You go to Emery Great School in Atlanta.
You said you started the business in your freshman year.
What kind of business? Um? I was helping young people
receive identification. You can figure out what that means. Oh,
they were good, they were very good. But I was
(09:12):
a business person and how I did it, and that's
a much longer story. And I turned it into a
very profitable business very quickly. But my partner kind of
broke my protocol. So I walked away from that cold
turkey because I knew if he broke the protocol, we
get caught and I didn't want that to define me
in my future, so I stopped doing that. And then
I walked by a nightclub in Buckhead and Atlanta, Georgia,
and I saw this club that was empty, and I said, Hey,
(09:32):
if I bring people here next week, would you pay me?
And he was like, yeah, sure. How many people? Does
it all the eight hundred? I said, okay, I'll bring
it under and he looked at me like I was crazy.
When to Kinko has made flyers, called it Kryptonite entertainment
because I'm a Superman fan, got all these freshman girls
to help me and through my first party and eight
people came very quickly. I learned the ropes from a
local promoter who was an Ethiopian immigrant named Alex get A,
(09:54):
one who started off as a parking lot of tenant
and became guy, passed out flyers and became a promoter
and now is the bigest club owner in Atlanta. And
he took a liking to me and taught me the
ropes Tuesday nights at Velvet Room, where I was the
only white boy in the room, and he used to
stay with his stutter la let the white boy in
and then I would take the money I made on
Thursdays and spend it with Alex's club, kind of faking
(10:17):
until I make it. And I learned the ropes and
became a very big party promoter in Atlanta, Georgia. Is
that why you left college? I left college because I
was doing that. But then I started helping artists at
my parties. Jermaine Dupri approached me after I had worked
with this new up and coming artist who was Chris
lovel Love on the Radio's name was Ludicrous. Jermaine asked
me to come help him and he made me verse
(10:37):
the executive director of marketing and then the VP of
Marketing at Socio Deft Records. And I was twenty years
old and Emery didn't offer night classes or internet classes.
I still wanted to make it work, but I was
now in academic probation because I was missing so many classes.
And I got brought into a counselor's office and I
told him, no, no, there's no drug brom there's no
nothing like. I'm not reprobation because I'm working hard, and
(11:00):
and he told me the story of Robert Woodruff, the
founder of Coca Cola. At the largest sendowment in Emery
and what a great entrepreneur he was. And I'm thinking,
this guy gets me. All of a sudden, he turns
to me and he says, and the chance of you
being Robert Woodruff is wanted a billion, So we need
to turn this around. You need to focus on academics.
And like I said, I don't deal well with disrespect.
So I looked at him and I said, no, I
(11:20):
need to do. He goes, we're gonna turn around. I said, yes,
I'm withdrawing, and I dropped out of school and never
looked back. This was the end of your junior year,
midway through my sophomore year. I'm glad to say that
I've actually started working with a lot of young entrepreneurs
at Emery now, and the new leadership and Emery the
dean's there now. They're supportive of these young people in
their entrepreneurial dreams. I probably wouldn't have dropped out if
(11:41):
they existed back then. And you stayed in Atlanta for
how long till I was thirty years old? I've stayed
there for when I was eighteen till I was thirty.
I built the entire business in Atlanta. Atlanta was the
place where young entrepreneur, could you know, pay cheap rent
and build something significant. I had incredible mentors and so
port there from guys like Shaka Zulu who was ludacrous
(12:02):
as manager, to this guy Shakier Stewart passed away who
was one of the first people who believed in me.
Then Steve Rifkin came in my life and I signed
Asher Roth. I ended up staying there until I realized
there was one year where two weeks out of the
year I slept in my own bed, and I always
on breaks be find myself in l A and New York,
and I knew I needed to make a change, and
I decided to move to l A. I still own
(12:24):
my apartment in Atlanta. Is it available in Airbnb? It
is not. It is the apartment that I discovered justin Bieber.
Funny enough, that's pretty cool. So you're in Atlanta, you're
working for a company, and then you go out on
your own. What happened there? I'm working for Jermaine. I
decided to stop doing parties Cold Turkey because I wanted
to stop being labeled a promoter when I was this
(12:47):
young VP and everyone still said, oh, he's a big promoter.
I don't like labels. I think that's what kind of
encourages me to jump from one thing to the next.
I don't like being listed as anything. Entrepreneur is all
I really want, or Dad that would work for me too.
I would like to say that I had the courage
like a Jimmy Ivan when he could just walk away.
(13:07):
It starts with me new But I didn't have that courage.
I had the idea, I knew it's what I wanted
to do, but I was still scared. I was scared
of being this young VP and having the credibility of
Germaine and what am I without it? And sometimes the
universe has an incredible way of fixing things for you
when you don't have the courage. And one day something
happened at the office and I was let go, not
(13:28):
by Germaine, by his mom um Jermaine. I went to
go see him like are you kidding me? Like I'm
one of the you know, the winners here, and he said,
I'll just give it two more weeks and I'll figure
it out. And I realized, this isn't where I want
to have a career the rest of my life. This
is actually what I wanted. I was just too scared.
I drove to this Kroger parking lot near my apartment
(13:49):
and I remember sitting on the hood of my car
being like, what the hell am I going to do? Now?
My brother was backpacking, you know, roughing around South America,
and I had been reading his blog journal entries fifteen
dollar bus rides and five dollar hostels, and I bought
a one way ticket to Chile, bought a backpack, filled
(14:10):
it up, and I left for a month. And I
always thought backpacking was the thing, like rich kids did
to escape their lives. And I realized when I was
down there, these aren't rich kids, and these people are
actually living adventures. Every single day they wake up and
they're going to do something new. They're not just going
back to the same old thing. It not only re
energized me, but it restored my faith in humanity because
(14:31):
I was dealing with a cash business in Atlanta, Georgia
when Atlanta, Georgia was dangerous. I just didn't trust people
at that point. I was looking for a snake everywhere
I went. Now I'm in this hostel and my brothers like, yeah,
put your bag over there, and I'm like, where do
we lock things up, and he's like, oh, you just
have to trust people. I'm like, we don't know these people,
and he goes, you gotta believe. By the way, I
wouldn't encourage people to live like that. I don't. I
(14:53):
locked my doors, but it did make me realize the
better way to live is to live thinking something good
is going to happen, and then assuming something bad is
going to happen. And when I came back, I chose
to make that decision on how I wanted to live.
Started my own company, did a big deal for Ludicrous.
So I had a calling card in marketing, and I said,
I'm gonna sign acts that no one wants, and I'm
(15:13):
gonna prove my thesis with social media. And you found
Justin Bieber, first Astra Roth on my Space and then
Justin Bieber on YouTube. Your thesis was social media. No
one knew about it. You knew about it. They were
too old, too out of touch. Yeah. I mean I'm
sitting here with my Space, you know, seeing people use music,
and then with YouTube, I'm like, this is touching people
(15:35):
all around the world. These views are getting bigger and bigger.
I could see the analytics on where it's happening in
different countries, and every time I bring it up to someone,
they're like, oh, YouTube stars don't become real stars. And
I'm like, well, look at the views and now it's
you know, commonplace and ours are like what are your
YouTube views? And but when I did this, people thought
I was crazy. I mean I went to every label
and every label was saying no to me. They were like, Scooter,
(15:56):
your grade at marketing, but like, it's a YouTube kid,
And I'm like, you guys are not understanding. There's a
sleeping giant over here. You're not paying attention. I had
one of the most impressive executives in music history, tell
me where's the sex appeal? He's a young kid. I
don't get it. There's no sex appeal. And then I said,
well you need to look at YouTube and this person
who's running a major, major label group. They said, well,
(16:18):
can you get us a DVD? And I said, you
just all I gotta do is type it in and
look at the YouTube numbers. And they said, well, he
doesn't use the internet. I said, how do you not
use the internet if you're running a major label group
with the future of where music is going? And I
realized there's a big opportunity here. I was able to
team up with Usher and I wanted a label deal
for us, and I was just like, I'll help you
(16:39):
get this deal. Took six months to get the deal
done because no one believed get the deal done, and
then they don't open a budget for me. And I
had to go to Tricky Stewart and Dream, who I
was friends with, and get them to produce Justin's record
with me for free. I made the first eight songs
for free on SPEC out of my relationships because I
couldn't get a budget opened from the major label. There
(17:00):
was someone at the label who I was excited to
work with, who went to l A and said, don't
make me work with the Internet kid. And that's always
how it works. It's the things that no one pays attention.
So when you played the songs said they say, wow,
this is great. No, they didn't get it. They were like,
oh this is this has better we thought, but like,
what are we gonna do with this kid? There's a
longer story and how it happened. In our movie, we
definitely made it look like you know, boom boom boom,
(17:23):
but it's just great things don't happen that way. Great
things like Ariana Grande, she was on Nickelodeon. Why is
she not have a record deal with Nickelodeon because they said, yes,
you can leave. You know you're not a recording artist.
People all the time pass over on the great things.
If everybody is paying attention, it wants it. I usually
shy away. Do you think that people pigeonhole people and
(17:47):
miss opportunities because they can't see anybody any broader than
what they initially thought somebody was. Drives me crazy. Drives
me crazy when I see people say I saw that
three years ago, things evolved. If you saw it three
years ago and they actually took your advice, they should
come back better than they were before. But if you're
not taking the time to look at something because you've
(18:07):
already created a narrative in your head, you're missing out
an opportunity. And by the way, there are going to
be things in my career that I've missed out on.
I always leave a meeting saying the same thing. If
you leave here and you proved me wrong in the
years to come, good on you. I'm rooting for you.
I've got a few more questions for Scooter from why
you decided to cold call David Geffen how you think
(18:29):
about your investments. But before we get to that, let's
take a quick break. Welcome back to math and magic.
We're sitting here today with the genius of marketing, Scooter Braun.
You're new, Scooter Braun, You're not the Internet kid anymore.
Still feel like that kid? But when you go in now,
do people still say I saw that three years ago?
(18:50):
Or do they trust? You? Probably see something they don't see. No,
now they trust. But I also, can I be honest
with you, I probably was better then. I'm thirty seven,
about thirty eight years old in June. This is a
youth driven business. I now want the young kids. I
want those kids telling me what's next, because I'd be
naive if I could tell you I'm as good of
(19:12):
an A and R as I was at twenty seven
or twenty five or twenty two. That's bs. So now
that I have the power and the trust, I need
to share that with young people who are telling me
what's next, because I cannot be as good as I
used to be. It's just not how it works. When
the first people I've heard talk about that, when we
started MTV. We roll in our twenties and we used
to say, no one over the age of thirty has
(19:33):
any good ideas, So let's keep hiring that two year
old and populate the channel with it. And by the way,
for many, many years they did that. So talk a
little bit about the creative process. You know, you're talking
about finding stuff, not being caught in stereotypes, not letting
past narratives cloud your view of the future. How do
you think the creative process works? And you know, at
(19:55):
the heart of it, sort of what do you think
creativity is and how do you spot it? It's a
very interesting, hard question to answer. When it comes to music.
The artists I work with usually have extraordinary ears because
they're artists. What they hear is not what the general
public is going to hear. That's why most artists aren't
great a and rs of their own projects, and they,
(20:16):
you know, need help deciding what they hit is. Most
artists don't even like their hits. My job is to
be the person with the ordinary ears in the room.
If I like it, millions of other people should like it,
because there's nothing extraordinary about me. My job is to
help them understand what the consumer would gravitate towards and
find that middle ground where we're still pushing the needle
and that following the consumer. How big a fight is that.
(20:37):
I think it's not a fight if you show each
other mutual respect and you actually earn respect over time.
If you're just yelling at someone and say you need
to listen to me, I don't think that's a good
way to do anything. You have to start from a
place of respect and meet in the middle. It's definitely
been an interesting dynamic over the years getting to some
of these hits. Sometimes if they just walk into the
door and they got it. Sometimes it's a narrative and
a dance, and sometimes I'm wrong, sometimes they're wrong, but
(20:59):
we create a rapport and we act like family towards
each other and we get results. The one common thing
when you talk about creativity in the process, I don't
think there's a substitute for passion. That's the one thing
I think is consistent. Whether it be an entrepreneur you're
betting on or an artist you're betting on. There's a
(21:19):
lot of talented people in the world in all walks
of life. I don't believe talent is enough. Sometimes it's
enough to get you a moment, but I don't think
it's enough to ever make you sustain. There's too many
talented people in the world. There's moments where Ariana this
album she made, it happened quickly, it was magic. She
just kept writing. All the passion came out boom. There
(21:42):
are times where artists needs, you know, purpose. With Justin
it was a year writing, writing, writing, then finally discovering
the path, but the passion was there in both respects.
So you know, talking about this broad view of creativity
and business sounds an awful like your mentor David Geff
extraordinary investor, extraordinary talent manager, record company executive films had
(22:05):
a good run that guy, Yeah, exactly, real estate name.
What have you learned from David or did you find
you were just sort of in sync with David. It's
not what I learned, it's what I continue to learn.
And my biggest pinched me moment in my life is
probably that you even can say that that person is
my mentor. I read about David when I was nineteen
years old. He was the inspiration for me to go
(22:27):
towards this career path. I remember sitting in my dorm
room freshman year, reading about David going after John Lennon's
solo career and yelling out loud, go to yoko Ono,
and then turning the page and seeing David was the
one person who went to Yokoo, and having this revelation
that I think, like this, I can do this, and
David saying, movies take years, TV takes years, finance could
(22:49):
take years. A song can change your life in a night.
When I was thirty, Jimmy Iven introduced us quickly at
a restaurant, and then I decided about a month later
to pick up the phone and cold call his office
to say thank you to him for the inspiration. And
he was kind of appreciative, but very like, I gotta
go onto my next thing. And I was like, oh,
(23:10):
he's never gonna speak to me again. And when I
got to the office the next day, his assistant had
called and said, David wants to have lunch with you.
Next week's on your schedule. And that first lunch was
three hours. We've been having lunch and dinner ever since,
for the last seven years. And when that man loves you,
he loves you. We have never done business together. We
have no intention of doing business together. But he is
(23:32):
passionate about giving me real advice. He's passionate about making me,
in his mind, better than he was as a person.
All I wanted my whole life from that point in
nineteen years old was to have the advice of someone
like David Geffen and now I have it. And it's
a really great thing when someone lives up to your
expectation of them, and he has for me. It's interesting
with David. He's i think, reached out to a lot
(23:53):
of people and has mentored them, did for me and
a period of my career when I really needed it,
and wants nothing in return. Thing do you do that
with others? Yes? No one's gonna say when they die,
guess what deal I did? You know they're going to
look back on the deep conversations, the moments with their family,
their moments of their friends. What did I do? And
then you're gone. What's the point of not lifting someone up.
(24:17):
That's the greatest thing you can do for your legacy.
You know, when you're gone, you want someone to speak
highly of you and say they helped me and they
asked for nothing in return. In addition to mentoring people,
you've also helped a lot of people. Your chair the
advisory board of Pencils for Promise, if you are on
the board of cancer organizations started by your wife, make
a wish. I think your organizations fulfill more wishes than
(24:39):
anyone else. You raised about seventy million dollars for Hurricane
Harvey relief, twenty million for One Love Manchester. What drives
you and how do you think about that in relation
to the rest of your life. I just think it's
so crazy what's happened in my life that the idea
that you don't share and give back is absurd. What
(25:01):
is the point of continually pouring water into one glass.
It's going to overflow and just make a mess. You
have to pour the water into other glasses before you
make the mess. The most gratifying parts of my professional
career have been concerts helping others. I wish those tragedies
didn't happen, but it was incredibly gratifying for myself, my team,
and the artist that I work with. To be a
part of the Children's March, to be a part of
(25:24):
One Love Manchester, to be a part of the hurricane relief.
There's fifty percent that you should do publicly, and then
there's fifty percent you should do privately because theft you
do publicly, you're gonna get criticized. People say you're doing
it for the wrong reasons. Who cares what they say.
They're haters, that's their own bullshit. But you need to
do publicly to inspire others to do the same. I
know what I come from, and I know that the
(25:45):
person in need was just a generation to go for
my family. My grandparents were Holocaust concentration camp survivors. My
mom grew up with very little. I want to set
that example for my kids, make sure they understand that
that's a legacy they have to keep going forward. So
let's move on to the future. What's the future of
the music business as we know it? The record companies, managers, publishers. Look,
(26:08):
I think the great part of the music business in
general is that there's never a supply and demand issue.
People are always gonna want music. The question is how
do you monetize it and how is it distributed. I
think things are on the rise because there have been
gigantic populations outside of this country India, China that have
(26:30):
never been monetized before. Southeast Asia never been monetized before
huge populations that love music. I've toured there, they love music,
and the monetization through streaming is coming for those areas.
So I think we're about to see a very, very
big growth for the music business. I think whoever is
closest to the artists will always play an important roles,
So managers will play an important role. But I think
(26:52):
value is going to be an ownership of assets. As
I move forward, I want to continue doing the service
business because I enjoy it. I love the artist that
I work with. I love being a part of their journey.
I went to Ariana's opening night last night, and knowing
the hard work that she put in and how remarkable
the show is. I get joy out of seeing her
happiness and the happiness of her fans. But she and
I have to go now build access for her, something
(27:13):
that's sustainable, so she doesn't have to walk on stage
every single night, and she can take a break and
start a family some day if she wanted. So Uber, Spotify, Pinterest,
you are early invested in all and then left left
and so we look at those businesses. Are those businesses
that you think are fully priced or do you think
they have so much growth ahead of them that people
don't point. I really don't know. I'm not I don't know.
(27:35):
I know these are great businesses. I know that the
opportunity for growth is there, that the value in the
future is there. You talk about a grab or an
uber or a lift, which are all rides sharing services
and payment services. The amount of the population that is
actually using them is still very, very low. So the
opportunity for how big they can become. Could they become
(27:57):
trillion dollar business? And that you You really don't know.
But they're great, great businesses, and I was lucky enough
to be around them early enough, so you've had as
good a nose for investments as you've had for music.
I don't know. Maybe it's okay, let's say you have.
I think both of them I got lucky. I think
you've made your luck. But let's move into what do
you look at into business passion? So you look at
(28:18):
a person, not the idea. I'd like to look at
the idea and understand it. But if you meet someone
who has a burned the ship's mentality and what do
I mean by burn the ships? You and I have
talked about this before. It's you arrive on the shores
your enemy. The generals say, the only way you go
home to your families is if you take the ships
of your enemies. There is no retreat. Burned the ships.
When you meet an entrepreneur who has a burned the
(28:38):
ship's mentality, it doesn't matter what they're starting. They will
pivot and move until they figure it out. And that's
what you want to see. When someone says I'm a
serial entrepreneur, run for the hills, all that means is
they start a lot of businesses. When I met Travis
from Uber burn the Ships. Funny enough, his competitor John
Zimmer burned the Ships, Anthony from Burn the Ships. These
(29:01):
people are relentless. They will not give up, They will
not be silenced. Like they are going to figure it out.
You see the same thing an artist. That's what I'm
talking about, passion and all in all aspects. Ariana. You
know she's gone through a lot of stuff the last
couple of years, but I know she is so much
stronger than even she realizes. I've seen it. She has
(29:23):
had really hard, hard times in dark moments, but she
always prevails because she is not a quitter. Justin is
not a quitter. You know, before purpose we had so
many people talking ship. But he is not a quitter.
And I think when you see people with that kind
of passion, when you see the people with that kind
of drive, get on board and hold on tight. So
(29:43):
we'll go back to the future about social Social media
has changed my life. It has helped me build my career.
But I also see how people who made social media
are not allowing their children to participate. There's something to
be said for that. It isn't evil. It is a
very good thing. That's something bad can happen in a
country across the world and we can care because of
(30:04):
social media. That is incredible thing that's happening. But it
isn't good when the person right next to you is struggling,
you can't see it. Everything has to become kind of
a balance. We have to start with our own relationships,
stop trying to scale it to how do we change
lives for millions of people? Start with five people, Start
with your core people around you that you love, and
(30:26):
start asking them, are you okay? Let's shut off our phones,
Let's go for a drink, Let's go for an activity
of coffee. Just engage with people on a one on
one and your life will be better and so were
there's do you shut yourself? Yeah, there are times I
definitely shut up. I'm getting better about it. I still
need to work on it. Forecast, you've been around radio,
You've been a great partner of ours at I heart
for ever and ever. What do you think of the
(30:47):
future of audio? And I'm really talking radio, streaming, music services,
podcast look, trends are trends. People like audio. You know,
Spotify as announced they're going to spend half a billion
dollars on podcast this year alone. Asia. Podcasts are huge.
People still enjoy a conversation, they like driving somewhere and
(31:09):
being able to listen to something. They're thirsty for conversation,
They're thirsty for knowledge. So I think the future of
audio is bright. You've hit all of the stuff that
you dreamed of. Did you ever dream you'd be here?
Yes and no. I dreamed of what would that be like?
But I didn't think when I realized how hard it
was to make five grand I was like, that doesn't
seem feasible. And now I realized it's not monetary things
(31:31):
that have anything to do with what I think about
a success. My holding companies called Ithaca, and someone asked me, like,
did you go to Cornell? You go to Ithaca? Like, no,
I didn't. Ithaca is based on a Greek poem by
Cafafi called Ithaca. David Geffen showed me this poem, and
it basically says, You're journeying to the island of Ithaca,
(31:51):
one of the Greek islands, and along your journey you'll
only see monsters like Lithogonian cyclops if you let them
into your heart. I only have negativity if you let
it in. And along the way you'll meet great philosophers
and you'll see amazing things. And if you reach Ithaca
and you find her poor, she did not fool you
because it was always about the journey. And I think
(32:12):
that's life. I'm on a journey. There's gonna be ups
and downs. No matter how much success I get. I
will have nights that I still still cry myself to
sleep because I'm scared of what tomorrow brings. And it's
an up and down journey. There's days you're happy and
there's days you're sad, and that's just what life is.
And you continue the journey, you have fun. I try
to do right by others because it doesn't make sense
(32:36):
to me why this happened to me. But I'm grateful
for it, and I don't believe the blessings continue unless
I give blessings. So I gotta keep pouring into other
glasses so mine doesn't make a mess. We've talked about
this incredible success you've had. Tell me about the failures
along the way. There's nothing that's really a failure unless
you did something malicious and shameful. Otherwise you should have
(32:57):
no regrets. They're teaching moments I can put on this
perfect picture of success and confidence and everything else just
not realistic. It's not real. I still question things all
the time. I questioned myself. I questioned my own motives.
I questioned my need to sometimes tell people about my
success because of how insecure I am in the moment
(33:17):
that I want them to know what I've done, because
I might not be enough. Because I always thought vulnerability
was a bad thing. I didn't understand it was a strength.
And there were a few people along the way they
taught me that. One of the people who did that
for me, who didn't know they did it, was a
guy who admired from a distance. Dinner relationship. One day,
I got an email and the purpose said I want
to come see you, and they came over to my
(33:37):
house and I just thought, oh, they're coming to see me,
and they're gonna come talk business and what can we
do together and everything else. And this person didn't talk
any business. This person talked to me about their life.
They asked me questions about my life, and they said,
I just wanted to get to know you. And I
walked away realizing how much respect I had for that person,
how much I appreciated them taking the time, and how
(33:58):
I need to do more of that in my life.
And person's name was Bob Pittman. Came to my house,
sat with me, didn't ask me for any business, and
you took time to get to know me and took
hours out of your day for no reason whatsoever, with
no agenda, to say, I've admired you from a distance
and I want you to know who I am and
I want to know you. And you've never asked for
anything in return. And it was an important lesson in
(34:21):
my life of how to treat people. So thank you, well,
you're very nice. Thank you. So let's end with and
this podcast it's math and Magic, excluding you, who's the
greatest mathematician, you know, that analytical type who just blows
your mind. I really admire Howard Marks from Oakstrey Capital.
I think he's a really really brilliant guy. But he
(34:42):
also looks at it and all the right ways and
all the right angles, and I admire so the greatest
magician David geff Is analytical skills are pretty good too, incredible.
Thanks Scooter for giving us the time today. Appreciate great
lessons from somebody who's done it the right way. Thanks.
(35:09):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio.
This show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to
Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which
is no small feat Nikki Etre for pulling research bill plaques,
and Michael Azar for their recording help, our editor Ryan Murdoch,
and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and
(35:32):
everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until
next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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