March 26, 2026 • 39 mins
After finding success from a young age at companies like 20th Century Studios, Vestron, and BMG Entertainment, Strauss Zelnick decided to go out on his own in his 40s. He founded Zelnick Media Capital and became CEO of Take-Two Interactive, the software company behind Grand Theft Auto. Together, they’re a $55 billion enterprise. He’s spent his career at the intersection of technology and media working across film, music, and home entertainment. Not to mention he holds an MBA as well as a JD from Harvard and is the author of Becoming Ageless: The Four Secrets to Looking and Feeling Younger Than Ever. He’s also a longtime friend of Bob’s who sits down to talk about what it looks like to operate on the business side of creative industries, the importance of developing talent, his outlook on the future of technology, and his own personal commitment to health and wellness.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What drove me was not like, oh, I need to
make a whole lot of dope, and that was never
motivating for me, and I did well in working for
other people. But here's the truth. How hard can it
be when someone hands you a business card that says
president of twentieth century Fox doing something totally from scratch,
Like totally from scratch. That's challenging and that'll be a
real test.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic. Today.
We have someone who has built a career and a
life by excelling at both. He manages to find the
next creative spark and nurtured well and at the same
time put a strong business foundation under it, whether it
be large or small businesses, or cutting edge or traditional.
He wears a number of hats, but his two main
ones are as chairman and CEO of Take two Interactive Software,
(00:56):
the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, and as an astute
and successful inventster best known for Zelnik Media Capital, his
private equity firm focused on media and technology investments, and
he is a longtime friend. He's Straus Selnik. Strauss had
business success at an early age and has an incredible resume.
Let me give you a few examples. In the eighties,
(01:16):
he was president and Chief Operating officer of twentieth Century Fox,
and had been president and COO of Vestron Video back
when Vestron was the dominant player in the home video business.
In the early nineties, he was the president and CEO
of Crystal Dynamics, a super hot interactive entertainment software company startup,
and in the late nineties he was President and CEO
(01:37):
of BMG Entertainment, at that time one of the world's
largest music and entertainment companies with more than two hundred
record labels and operations in fifty four countries. He also
has an impressive academic resume. He has an MBA from
the Harvard Business School and a jd from the Harvard
Law School. He's known for his incredible commitment to physical
fitness and his commitment to the life he really wanted
(02:00):
to lead. I've been close to him for about forty
years and looking forward to digging in with him today. Strauss, welcome,
Thanks for having Dog.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Great to be here.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Before we jump in, I want to do you in
sixty seconds if you prefer cats or dogs, dogs early
riser or night out early Rassler West Coast or East Coast,
East Coast, New York or Boston, New York. Soccer or basketball, basketball,
sleep or workout, workout, coke or pepsi coke, beach or mountains, beach,
(02:28):
rock and roller, country country, coffee or tea coffee, walking
or running, walking, books or movies, books, cook or read out, cook,
Godfather or Star Wars, Star Wars, comedy or drama, comedy,
Hamburger or Tofu rap Hamburger caller text text about to
(02:48):
get harder. All time favorite music artist.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
James Taylor, first job, Columbia Pictures, Television favorite TV show.
But that's really tough, friends, smartest person you know David Remnick,
childhood hero, John F. Kennedy, secret talent, personal trainer.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Head of the film studio?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Okay, let's jump in. One of your hallmarks is how
well you manage creative people and creative hits driven businesses
yet still make them successful businesses. How do you strike
that balance and how do you build and manage your teams?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know, I try to build businesses that take enormous
creative risks and no financial risks. I try to be
creatively risk forward and financially risk averse. So my companies
are all underleveraged. If they're leveraged at all, and they
are I hope, rationally run and cash flow generating businesses.
(03:50):
And it's amazing how many people in the entertainment business
don't bother to think about that part. That's important because
if you have a strong P and L and a
strong balance sheet, creative teams understand that even if they
make a mistake, the company can live to play another day,
and the company can afford to make creative mistakes. And
if you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore
(04:12):
run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you
can't play in this business. I try really hard to recruit, retain,
and motivate the best talent in the business. I'm proud
of the fact that I've run every kind of entertainment
business there is, and my teams have had the highest
hit ratios of any teams operating the business at that time.
(04:36):
And that's without exception, and put that in context. I'm
not the one sitting in the corner office calling someone
up and giving them notes. I'm not reading scripts, I'm
not making video games, I'm not producing music, I'm not
directing TV shows, and I've never done any of that,
So what's the trick. The trick, in my opinion, is
(04:56):
truly being able to distinguish talent from almost talent, or
near talent or not talent, and then creating a structure
that not only allows talented people to pursue their passions,
but insists that they do so. I'm not sure this
is much of a skill, but the skill that I
have is that I seem to be able to identify
(05:18):
talent in others, and then I seem to be able
to encourage those talented people to work within the system
that I'm managing and to do their best work. And
I'm very proud of the fact that in my entire career,
I've never lost any talent that I didn't want to lose,
not once actually, and to this day, I think even
my competitors would have to acknowledge that Take two in
(05:41):
its affiliates have the best collection of creative talent in
the interactive entertainment business. I mean by a wide margin,
and our results reflect that our hit ratio reflects that.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
So I'm going to dig into this little bit. I've
watched you do this for decades. You've taken an interest
in developing people, not people who already had skills, not
people that everybody's bidding on because they're the person, but
you really had an interest in developing the next generation
of leaders. How do you think about that and how
do you do it? And is it driven by just
(06:12):
good business giving back or something else.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
There's an element of giving back because people bet on
me when I was young and inexperienced, and I like
to think that that paid off over and over again.
It's true that some of the very talented people who
run businesses for me today are people who I recruited
when they were unknown and inexperienced and in their twenties.
(06:38):
Carl Slatoff, was the president of Take two, has worked
with me in one enterprise or another since you graduated
from business school twenty seven or twenty eight years ago.
Andrew Vogel and Jordan Turkoitz were co CIOs of ZMC,
started with me when they were associates, very very early
in their careers, and now they're very senior at ZMC.
(07:00):
And it's a very long list actually across all of
my enterprises, and I have a whole alumni base as well.
I like to think, of course, there's an element of
being of service to others. I spend twenty to twenty
five percent of my time coaching and mentoring people, try
to help people, and most of those people are not
in any economic system of mind now and then they
(07:22):
are though, So it seems to me that the hardest
thing to do is convince established talent to leave where
they're happily employed and come to your system. And it's
a lot easier to develop your own if you have
a facility for identifying and developing talent to people, whether
they're on the creative or executive side. And as I said,
(07:42):
I think it's probably my only true skill in business.
Well maybe I'm a reasonably good capital alligator, but yes
you are. But really, I mean, because I work in
creative businesses, knowing the difference between good and great, that's
the whole shooting match, and then being willing to you know,
to work with them. So I don't think this is
(08:03):
talking out of school. When I got to Fox, Jim
Cameron was finishing up the ABYSS and he had a
reputation for being a challenging person to work with. And
I worked closely with Jim Cameron, which is to say,
whatever he wanted to do, I basically said yes to
because it was obvious to me that he was a
creative genius. It was, by the way, equally obvious that
(08:24):
I could say no or yes and he was still
going to do what he wanted. We could do this
easy way of the hard way, like why not do
it the easy way? So what I basically did was
to the extent he ever was interested in it, I
tried to hold his hand and support him, very very
very Occasionally he would be interested in my opinion or
ask for advice and I would offer it, and you know,
(08:45):
I was there to support and encourage him. And as
a result, he made more pictures for Fox, including after
I left. He had great success because I was right,
he was immensely talented, and I wasn't going to add
anything all to the creative quality of what he was doing.
So my choice was to say, let's make this experience
(09:06):
great for all involved, and like, let's get that hit
to market.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Let's talk about the people you help too. You've helped
people some on their way up, some already there. But
what do you learn from them?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I think you can learn from everyone, you know. I
have numerous friends who are decades younger, and by the way,
numerous fends who are decades older, and I can learn
and do learn from all of them. I find that today.
One of the reasons that I can continue to be
relevant and capable is that I spend a lot of
time with young people, so I don't have to play
(09:38):
catch up to figure out what TikTok is. I was
involved with Discord like days after it launched because I
have my ear of the ground with people who are
decades younger. That's very much informed what I do, particularly
in businesses like interactive entertainment, a big segment of which
is youth oriented.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
We're talking about people here. Let's take a one more
step talk a little about the power of teams and collaboration.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I have mixed feelings about that. You know, it's funny.
I worked for Joe Roth at Fox, who was chairman
of the studio when I was president, and he said,
you know, creativity is ultimately a singular exercise. I agree
with that. I defy you to show me a big
hit that truly was created by a massive team. Generally
there was one powerful creative voice driving that. On the
(10:24):
other hand, particularly in businesses like interactive entertainment, you can't
execute anything without a big team, at least not currently.
So the true creative genius is in our business as
someone who can add value as an individual contributor creatively
and motivate a massive team to create value and then
ultimately pull the property together with some element of singular
(10:46):
focus to deliver a hit. I mean, I think that's
what a great director does. I think the showrunners play
that role in television, and producers play that role and
record of music and that's why you can listen into
music and certain producers had very specific sounds associated with
(11:06):
their approach. So I think it's both. To answer your question,
there's an element of singular creative leadership and engagement, and
then there is an element of encouraging and leading and
managing and motivating a big team to usher that vision
into reality.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
You had a great career we touched on a little
bit at a very young age, huge jobs in your twenties.
Did that early head start shape you and make you
different from the leaders who are probably in their forties
before they reach those levels.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, I mean, there's nothing more pathetic than dining out
on your early success in life. I think maybe what
shape me is that I didn't get diverted later on
by stuff that maybe diverts people. So, you know, I
met all the stars, and I had a parking space
with my name on it very early in my career. Thankfully,
I'm not a person if it motivated by stuff like that,
(12:02):
So the thrill wore off really quickly, and I think
that allowed me to work and create a fields because
I'm not looking for an invitation to your cocktail party,
and I'm not starstruck, and ultimately, I don't confuse myself
with talent, and I'm not there for social purposes. I'm
(12:22):
there because I'm passionate about making extraordinary entertainment and because
I like running really good businesses. So I think maybe
doing well early allowed me to not get diverted by
stuff that does. Sometimes people who have access to these
fields later on where they're like, wow, this is amazing,
(12:45):
Like I can meet so and so and they can
come to my house and like next thing, you know,
they're making horrible business decisions as a result.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yes, we've seen a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Well I'll give you an example actually, because it's a
fun one, go for it. So as a twentieth century Fox,
and we were signing a deal to make a movie
with Warren Batty. So we're signing up this deal and
it had been long negotiated, was very tough. His order
was bird Fields. He didn't have an agent, and he
was intimately engaged with his own business affairs, and there
were some contentious elements of the deal. But finally had
(13:17):
gotten done and it was ready to be signed, and
I get a call from someone on his team saying
we're going to have a closing and we want you
to be there to sign the documents. And I was like,
I don't really do that, like like you just signed
the document, like you know, we're closing. So it wasn't
like we're buying a house. But okay, so there he said, Nope, nope,
(13:39):
mister Baty wants to have a closing and it's very
important that you'd be there to sign the documents. He
will be there to sign the documents. So I'm like
picking up the pen, ready to sign, like completely not
understanding why we're there. Very happy to meet him. By
the way, and he says, wait, wait, you know before
we sign, there are a couple things in the contract
that really, like, you know, just like mean a lot
(14:00):
to me if we could change. And he had fully
contemplated that the three or four sticking points it ultimately
had been resolved that he really wanted in a different direction.
He figured if he could get into a room with anyone,
they'd be so starstruck that they would just sign the documents.
And I said to him, Oh, sorry, I thought we're
(14:21):
here to have like a ceremonial closing, like I'm not
here to renegotiate the deal with you, mister Batty, And
I left the room. That was the end of it.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Did you ever change the points?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
No? Then when you realized the gamp it didn't work,
they sent over the signed documents.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
We did not have a certain very funny so New York.
Do you think you would have had the same level
of success if you had not been in and around
New York? Just New York give you an edge in
any way?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
You know. I did work in California for five years
so and they were the right locations for those jobs.
But when I had the opportionity to turn around and
build up a record company I was located in New York.
I was actually happy to come back, because the truth is,
I was always more of a New York type person,
East Coast person in California when I was in the
movie business in the eighties and nineties and the Tellivision business,
(15:12):
the home entertainment business. Speaking grammatically wasn't necessarily like a benefit.
You may recall, and my multiple degrees from elite Eastern schools,
that was not a benefit that was detriment. There was
there no doubt that New York was maybe a little
more congenial. But it's a great question because as you know,
I started ZMC and that led to Take two. And
(15:35):
I do think that only could have worked in New
York because we had access to capital and access to
counterparties and access to deals that I don't think would
have come our way outside of New York.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Your book, Becoming Ageless The Four Secrets to Looking and
Feeling Younger than Ever, was put out in twenty eighteen.
Your four secrets are forever fuel eating for you, unlocking
inner strength, fitness three, bulletproofing the body, health and prevention,
and finding your soul connection. Community purpose? What motivated you
to write the book and seven years later, would you
(16:12):
amend any of the secrets?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
What motivated me was people ask me all the time
how I managed to stay in reasonably good shape while
having an active professional life and an active personal life.
David Dizenko, who was at the time the editor in
chief of Men's Health, encouraged me to write the book
(16:35):
and published it through his label through Simon and Schuster. Ultimately,
I actually did it from a point of view being
of service to others. There are a number of things
I would amend. Probably the area that has evolved most
would be diet. So there's a whole bunch of diet
recommendations in the book, and they sort of err on
the side of ultra low carb and I'm no longer
(16:56):
of the view that that's a really good idea.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I like this. You're saying we can eat a lot
of carbs. Now this is the best news I have heard.
I'm saying you can eat a balanced diet that includes carbs,
and that I was low CARBD for a while. I
wouldn't publish something that wasn't accurate, and what I found
was that it really didn't allow me to be my
best self in any way, but certainly not physically. Actually
went on a cycling trip when I was in sort
(17:20):
of really low carb diet. I kept cramping up because
you can't really retain enough water to avoid cramping if
you're ultra low carb. I defy you to find a
runner a marathon or who's truly low carb, it's virtually
impossible to do. In the late nineteen nineties, we were
in Jamaica together and we worked out, and I remember
(17:40):
at that workout saying, oh, this guy's pretty serious about
his workout, but you looked nothing like you do today
in terms of what you've done. So what was it
that sort of brought this about? What sort of coalesced
around the idea of I'm going to be in shape
and I'm going to wake This very important in my life.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
If someone's avidly going to the gym and I acknowledge
some element of vanity, then they're just not being candid.
So there is an element of wanting to look my best.
My view actually is it looking your best is a
sign of respect for yourself, and part of that is
being in reasonably good shape. In my case, working out
speaks to me in so many ways. First, because I
(18:20):
actually enjoy the process itself, and secondly because I like
the result, and then third and now these days, probably
most importantly, I work out with a huge fitness community
and these people who become my tribe.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
And so do you work out every day or do
you take some days off?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, here's what one should do. If you work out avidly,
you probably ought to take one or two rest days
a week. And rest day does not mean like workout,
just less. Seriously, rest day means actually rest. In my case,
I take a rest day somewhere between you know, zero
and one day a week, but certainly within a two
week span, I will take at least one rest day.
And I do have days where the workouts are pretty light,
(18:59):
but I sometimes work out twice a day, So in
any given week, I typically work out between eight and
ten times.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
What kind of parallel do you see between your success
and business and exercise? How are the two related?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I think they're related in that I'm willing to defer
gratification and I can find pleasure in doing hard things.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Tell us one more piece. Tell us about your daily
practice of silent prayer and what that does for you
and those around you.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You know, I've engaged in a prayer practice for fourteen years,
and to be clear, it's not a particularly religious practice.
Although it is prayer, it's non denominational, and my prayer
practice takes three or four minutes. It doesn't depend on
a belief that there's anyone on the other end listening
to it, although there are days when I feel that
that might be the case, or also plenty of days
when I don't. The first part is to express gratitude
(19:52):
for all of the blessings of my life, both people
and things. The second is to ask for blessings for
people I care about and, with a little more difficulty,
people I resent. Luckily, that's a very short list. Usually
there's no one on that list, but if there is
someone on the list, I do pray for that person
(20:13):
for good things to happen in that person. And then, finally,
the third part is to set an intention for the day,
which involves not trying to barrel through life, but rather
trying to go through life with a bit of grace
and trying to listen and find beauty in the day.
That's where my practice looks like many people. I think
they'll relate to the notion that when I wake up
(20:34):
first thing in the morning, my head can be full
of random thoughts or anxiety provoking thoughts, and I find
that the prayer practice will come and center me and
set me up for a better day.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
So you talked about your community when you work out,
Let's talk about friends. How many do you need and
how important is that to life? This is such a
personal decision. In my case, it all depends on how
you define a friend. In terms of truly intimate friends,
I actually have a lot, but that numbers I don't
(21:08):
know ten people, twenty people. In terms of people that
I would say I really care about and know about.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And connect with. In my case, that's a couple hundred people.
Bob as examples our friendship, like, we don't see each
other all that often. We probably get together a few
times a year, But every time we get together we
talk about real stuff, not superficial stuff. We actually know
one another's story, we have a long history. We connect,
(21:36):
and we leave one another's presence feeling energized and happy
that we saw one another. We just to say, even
though we don't see each other all that frequently, I
consider it a relatively intimate friendship, and I'm blessed that
I have a relationship like that with many people.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Yes, I just saw I was scrolling on Instagram and
saw somebody say, why is it that the people we
are really intimate with really get us and we really
care about live a bazillion miles away. You said, we
see each other a couple of times a year. But
to me, the mark of the friend is that when
I see you, it's like we just saw each other yesterday,
that we just pack up and keep going.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And then we talk about actually real stuff. I have
a friend I don't see that often, and when we
sit down, he'll say, Okay, tell me the bad stuff.
I know there's a bunch of good stuff, tell me
the bad stuff, or which is his way of saying,
I want to connect with you on what really matters.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, that's great. So you've talked about waking up in
the morning, all those ideas anxiety in your head. Tell
me about sleep? Is it important? How much do we need?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Sleep is really important? And unless you're an actual short sleeper,
and those people do exist, you probably need seven plus
hours a night to be refreshed and to be at
your best. Candidly, I probably get somewhere between six and
seven and a half hours. No matter how much I try,
I can't generally fine time for more and still do
(23:01):
everything else I care about. But if I get much less,
I really have a rotten day. Short sleepers are people
who really can be active and refreshed and healthy on
three and a half four hours of sleep. I'm pretty
sure carl Icon is a short sleeper. For example. Being
a short sleeper is very different than someone who just
is sleep deprived all the time. And that's not a
(23:23):
good thing, and it takes a terrible toll on your
physical and mental health.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You said you get that much sleep. How much time
in bed are you to get that amount of sleep?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
My wife can confirm my head hits the pillow and
about fifteen seconds later I'm asleep.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
God, I'm jealous. I could just do a one hour
tossing and turning in the night. I consider that a
big win. Let's jump to philanthropy. You are very generous,
you and your wife. How do you think about philanthropy
in your life and business and personal and how do
you decide where are you're going with it? Who gets
to be the BENEFICIARYA what's kind of you to ask
(23:58):
very broadly I try and really emphasize try to be
of service in my life. We have a family foundation
and our sons are on the board, and we have
three or four areas of interest, and we try to
focus most of our giving on those areas of interest.
I have a friend who's very wealthy and a philanthropist,
(24:19):
and her view is, look, you know, I like to
be supportive of my friend's interests.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So we give about twenty five percent of money we
give away every year to our friend's interests, and we
kind of never say no. And seventy five percent, though,
we try to direct to the areas of interest of
our interests so that we can make a real impact.
But the bulk of what we give away we try
to focus on areas of interest, which is our local
community in Bedford, which is where we spend a lot
(24:46):
of time, and special needs education and support because our
daughter has special needs, and then a couple other areas
of interest.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
More of math and magic right after this quick break,
Welcome back to math and magic. Let's hear more from
my conversation with Strausselnik. Well, let's go back in time
to put you in context. Tell us about where you
(25:18):
grew up and paint a picture of that time and
pick out those few childhood events that you think looking back,
shaped you the most.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So I grew up in a striving, middle class family
in Boston. My father was a lawyer, my mom worked
part time. They were both highly educated and very ambitious,
and three siblings. Tragedy struck first. My parents got divorced
when I was quite young, six, and then my mother
(25:47):
suddenly passed away when I was ten, and my father
basically abandoned the family at that point, despite being a
very fancy lawyer Locally. We went to live with my uncle,
who became my second set of parents in New Jersey
when I was ten. I had pretty tragic childhood. I mean,
there are plenty of other attributes of my childhood, but
(26:09):
those are the things that really stand out. And I
think that childhood tragedy can have one of two effects.
The first is it can make you feel like you're
a victim and that the world is out to get you,
and that does not lead to good things later in life.
The other effect is that it can light a fire
under you and motivate you. And I had the latter
(26:31):
happened to me. Not all my siblings did, but I did,
and I was just of the view that if I
work hard enough, then nothing bad will ever happen to me. Again,
of course, that's a fallacy, wasn't true. Plenty of challenging
things have come my way, but I think I'm more
than a bit of a perfectionist. I've managed to moderate
that over the years. And a lot of that came
(26:53):
from my tragic childhood. I wouldn't wish it on anyone,
but it was highly motivating. There were other elements too.
I mean, despite this, my family really believed in me
and encouraged me. I said I wanted to run a
movie studio, and no one laughed. And even though like
my family had no connection to the business whatsoever, but
(27:14):
my family's willing to support me and my ambitions.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
You know, Strauss, I appreciate you sharing that. That is
very personal and it is a chilling trauma. That's exactly right,
and by the way, we see it in other people
as well, that you know, get two directions when you
get hit with that, something good came out of it.
But when did Strauss the entrepreneur emerge? Was that a
childhood thing or was that later in life? I don't
(27:41):
think I was a born entrepreneur. You know, I was
a good employee. I liked being a professional manager. I
think I was good at it. I understood like chain
of command. I had respect for my bosses. So I
was not someone who was like, oh, this is horrible,
I have to get out of here and do my
own thing. On the one hand, on the other hand,
I did want to build something. The truth is, you know,
(28:02):
by the time I started ZMC, I was not young.
I was forty three, and I had a really good career.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I was paid well running a big record business, and
you know, there were other jobs that would come my way,
and I decided to take you know, one hundred ccent
pay cut and start a business that was aiming to
build a multi billion dollar diversified technology driven media business
from scratch. But what drove me was not like, oh,
I need to make a whole lot of dop because
(28:30):
that was never motivating for me, and I did well
working for other people. But here's the truth. Like I
looked at my career and even though I'd done a
bunch of turnarounds, I thought to myself, listen, how hard
can it be when someone hands you a business card
that says president of twentieth century far it's like and
a balance sheet by the way, and like a safety net,
and you got Ruper Murdock sitting in the corner of
It's like, how hard can that be? If you can't
(28:52):
do well in that circumstance, you got to be pretty lame.
But I don't know doing something totally from scratch, Like
totally from scratch, that's challenging, and that'll be a real test.
And you know, I set out to build a twenty
billion dollar business from scratch that was, you know, a
leader in the intersection of technology and entertainment. And today
(29:15):
we have tweens emc Intake two and they, you know,
about a fifty five billion dollar enterprise that is a
leader in the intersection of technology and entertainment. This was
not a singular exercise, to say the least. It was
a team exercise. And I have something like twenty thousand
colleagues across the system who did all the hard work
and the heavy lifting. But it is also true that
it would not exist if I had not done it,
(29:36):
and that was important to me. And I remember having
the presence of mind because I've always been able to
think far into the future when I was forty, and
I thought to myself, I know, this is incredibly risky
and the odds of failure are incredibly high. But I
don't want to be at the end of my life
and look back and say could it, would have? Should have?
I got to give it a try. So maybe in
(29:59):
that way there was an element of, you know, entrepreneurial fire.
But I don't think it is typical entrepreneurial fire because
I didn't object to working for other people.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Even on those jobs. When you were working for others,
I think of you as an entrepreneurial personality that within
those companies you didn't think like the cog and the wheel,
that you really did see things differently. And I must
say I'm gonna tell one story on you. I hope
you don't mind. Is I was so impressed when you
were running BMG that you were learning German because it
was a German company, and I go, wow, that is
(30:32):
some commitment. And you actually got pretty good at it,
didn't you.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah. I surprised people too, because I didn't tell anyone
because you tard language. No, I didn't tell anyone in
the company. I was there for about two years before
I could speak it. And then one day I had
had offices all over the world and I was going
to my office in Munich. The plane was late. I
was in baggage claim. I called my office in Munich
and in German, I said, this is Strauss and I'm
(30:58):
running late. I apologize if you don't mind, could you
move My first meeting, my assistant was like in German,
was like who is this. That was like, it's yess
and she was like, you don't speak German. I was like, well,
actually I do speak German. I spoke proficiently, not fluently.
There is a difference, but I did speak well enough
to attend board meetings and actually conduct business in German.
(31:19):
And I thought it was a sign of respect to
the organization. But more to the point, you know, I'm
a good student. I like studying things, and I thought,
what a great opportunity I'll learn to speak German. Wall
in here.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
That was one more impressive things you've done in my mind.
I know you've done a lot of great business things,
but I was really impressed with that. Let's get out
the crystal ball for a minute, Ai, I know you
have some interesting views. How should we think about it
and its impact.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
The technology that people are calling AI is it is
a massive step forward in digital technology, but at the
end of the day, it's still an array of digital
tools that minimally create productivity, which is what digital tools
have always done. And I think the productivity opportunities are
really quite significant. But let's not confuse digital tools with
(32:08):
the singularity, which in my opinion is utter nonsense. That's
the merging of human brain power with digital brain power.
To the extent you can distinguish a human being from
a machine, the machine will be superior. And that is
not going to occur because the end of the day,
machines are machines that work on data, and data sets
(32:30):
are backward looking, and backward looking data is only going
to get you so far. Now, there's no doubt that
backward looking data that is used in a robust way
can answer a lot of questions. So when you see
people sort as they have in the last few year, saying, oh,
it's incredible, like AI programs can ace the l SAT,
(32:50):
it's like, well, I'm sorry, machines have been beating human
beings at chess for fifteen years, Like why are you surprised?
The l SATs are completely based on data. Of course,
machines that are data driven and good computational engines are
going to beat the human mind in anything that's based
on data. But there are a bunch of things that
(33:11):
machines are highly unlikely ever to do, because data driving
a predictive model isn't going to answer human questions. Creativity
applied to the entertainment business, which is a little world
in which I live, relies upon the unexpected for its
biggest hits. The biggest hits are, by their nature unexpected.
(33:34):
So sure, storytelling is informed by Shakespeare data. But great,
great stories well told reflect human genius that data sets
simply can't replicate. So in my world of interactive entertainment development,
will coding be much more efficient because of general of AI?
(33:55):
Unquestionably it's already happening. But will coving replace human genius?
Or more pointedly, will someone with you know, chat GPT
seventy three be able to push a button and make
a competitor to GTA six. No, And I can say
that unequivocally equally. Are all things AI going to reduce employment? Well,
(34:20):
I don't know the history of technology, which is one
thousand years old, and of the technology we understand to
be technology one hundred years old has been that technology
creates productivity. Productivity drives GDP. GDP growth drives employment. And
take a look at how many people were employed to
take to interactive eighteen years ago when I took over
(34:42):
about one thousand people. Today we employ thirteen and a
half thousand people. Take a look at the tech we
used then and the tech we use now. There's no comparison,
Absolutely no comparison. So I'm an optimist about what AI
can do, and I'm not at all worried about machine
taking over, becoming evil or condemning us to a life
(35:05):
of naval gazing.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
It's interesting. We just came out with a study which
we do every year, we do a massive study of
the consumer. This year we did it on the human consumer,
really about how the consumer's thinking about humanity, being human
and technology. And it's interesting. Seventy percent of the people
use AI, but ninety percent what they're media created by
real humans. And it was very clear that the consumer
(35:28):
is saying, I like it as a tool, I don't
ever want it masquerading as something it's not. As a
matter of fact. It's interesting. So from about seventy six
percent to ninety three percent. The idea that the most
important thing in my life are human connections. That more
important than ever. That growth came from twenty sixteen till today.
So interesting world we're living in. If you could go
(35:51):
back in time, what advice would you have for your
twenty one year old self.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Don't worry so much, It'll be okay in the end.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Good piece of advice. So we end each episode of
Matth and Magic with a shout out to the analytical
side of business. They just see business as numbers and
it comes together. And then you have the other side
that are people who just have these incredible creative ideas.
By the way, not everybody has the combo you do
of both. Who would you give the shout out to
(36:19):
on both the sort of analytical side, the number side,
and on the creative side.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
From the point of view of the entertainment business. Dick Parsons,
who we both knew well. I think he had an
extraordinary touch for business and people and data. But there's
so many other candidates. Really Jeff Ducas or really kind
of the master in this Steve Ross, and in many
ways I tried to model my career after his without
(36:44):
some of the more colorful elements on the creative side.
Jeffrey Katzenberg. He really has embodied sort of that intersection
of understanding the media in which he operates and understanding
storytelling and engaging with creative people bringing out the best
of them, and being creative himself.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Of course, Strauss, you've been an amazing friend for I
guess is more than thirty years. Your story is really
like no other, and your success is really a testament
to the leader you are. Thanks for sharing your lessons
with us today.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Strauss. One, Creative risk and financial risk are
two different things, and they don't have to mirror each other.
Strauss embraces creative risk, but demands financial security. In fact,
he believes a strong balance sheet is what allows bold
creative choices. Only when creatives have the space to make mistakes,
(37:41):
whill you see real innovation.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Two.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Recognize talent when you see it. Strauss has thrived in
the entertainment business, but he's never the one directing, writing,
or even giving notes. What he does exceptionally well is
distinguish the people who are most talented, continue to develop
their skills, and encourage their work. His retention rate says
it all. Three. Proving yourself can be a personal challenge.
(38:06):
Sometimes people strive for greatness for status or recognition. Strauss
was successful from her young age and countless people admired
his work, but he needed to prove his abilities to
himself before jumping into an entrepreneurial journey later in life.
I see it in his commitment to help and wellness too. Ultimately,
it comes from the place of respecting himself. Four Yet
(38:28):
more sleep. Lastly, I think we would all do well
to live by Strauss's example and work to prioritize in
that department. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. The Math
and Magic team is Ali Perry, Jessica Crinchitch, and Dylan Hoyer.
Special thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What drove me was not like, oh, I need to
make a whole lot of dope, and that was never
motivating for me, and I did well in working for
other people. But here's the truth. How hard can it
be when someone hands you a business card that says
president of twentieth century Fox doing something totally from scratch,
Like totally from scratch. That's challenging and that'll be a
real test.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic. Today.
We have someone who has built a career and a
life by excelling at both. He manages to find the
next creative spark and nurtured well and at the same
time put a strong business foundation under it, whether it
be large or small businesses, or cutting edge or traditional.
He wears a number of hats, but his two main
ones are as chairman and CEO of Take two Interactive Software,
(00:56):
the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, and as an astute
and successful inventster best known for Zelnik Media Capital, his
private equity firm focused on media and technology investments, and
he is a longtime friend. He's Straus Selnik. Strauss had
business success at an early age and has an incredible resume.
Let me give you a few examples. In the eighties,
(01:16):
he was president and Chief Operating officer of twentieth Century Fox,
and had been president and COO of Vestron Video back
when Vestron was the dominant player in the home video business.
In the early nineties, he was the president and CEO
of Crystal Dynamics, a super hot interactive entertainment software company startup,
and in the late nineties he was President and CEO
(01:37):
of BMG Entertainment, at that time one of the world's
largest music and entertainment companies with more than two hundred
record labels and operations in fifty four countries. He also
has an impressive academic resume. He has an MBA from
the Harvard Business School and a jd from the Harvard
Law School. He's known for his incredible commitment to physical
fitness and his commitment to the life he really wanted
(02:00):
to lead. I've been close to him for about forty
years and looking forward to digging in with him today. Strauss, welcome,
Thanks for having Dog.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Great to be here.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Before we jump in, I want to do you in
sixty seconds if you prefer cats or dogs, dogs early
riser or night out early Rassler West Coast or East Coast,
East Coast, New York or Boston, New York. Soccer or basketball, basketball,
sleep or workout, workout, coke or pepsi coke, beach or mountains, beach,
(02:28):
rock and roller, country country, coffee or tea coffee, walking
or running, walking, books or movies, books, cook or read out, cook,
Godfather or Star Wars, Star Wars, comedy or drama, comedy,
Hamburger or Tofu rap Hamburger caller text text about to
(02:48):
get harder. All time favorite music artist.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
James Taylor, first job, Columbia Pictures, Television favorite TV show.
But that's really tough, friends, smartest person you know David Remnick,
childhood hero, John F. Kennedy, secret talent, personal trainer.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Head of the film studio?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Okay, let's jump in. One of your hallmarks is how
well you manage creative people and creative hits driven businesses
yet still make them successful businesses. How do you strike
that balance and how do you build and manage your teams?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know, I try to build businesses that take enormous
creative risks and no financial risks. I try to be
creatively risk forward and financially risk averse. So my companies
are all underleveraged. If they're leveraged at all, and they
are I hope, rationally run and cash flow generating businesses.
(03:50):
And it's amazing how many people in the entertainment business
don't bother to think about that part. That's important because
if you have a strong P and L and a
strong balance sheet, creative teams understand that even if they
make a mistake, the company can live to play another day,
and the company can afford to make creative mistakes. And
if you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore
(04:12):
run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you
can't play in this business. I try really hard to recruit, retain,
and motivate the best talent in the business. I'm proud
of the fact that I've run every kind of entertainment
business there is, and my teams have had the highest
hit ratios of any teams operating the business at that time.
(04:36):
And that's without exception, and put that in context. I'm
not the one sitting in the corner office calling someone
up and giving them notes. I'm not reading scripts, I'm
not making video games, I'm not producing music, I'm not
directing TV shows, and I've never done any of that,
So what's the trick. The trick, in my opinion, is
(04:56):
truly being able to distinguish talent from almost talent, or
near talent or not talent, and then creating a structure
that not only allows talented people to pursue their passions,
but insists that they do so. I'm not sure this
is much of a skill, but the skill that I
have is that I seem to be able to identify
(05:18):
talent in others, and then I seem to be able
to encourage those talented people to work within the system
that I'm managing and to do their best work. And
I'm very proud of the fact that in my entire career,
I've never lost any talent that I didn't want to lose,
not once actually, and to this day, I think even
my competitors would have to acknowledge that Take two in
(05:41):
its affiliates have the best collection of creative talent in
the interactive entertainment business. I mean by a wide margin,
and our results reflect that our hit ratio reflects that.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
So I'm going to dig into this little bit. I've
watched you do this for decades. You've taken an interest
in developing people, not people who already had skills, not
people that everybody's bidding on because they're the person, but
you really had an interest in developing the next generation
of leaders. How do you think about that and how
do you do it? And is it driven by just
(06:12):
good business giving back or something else.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
There's an element of giving back because people bet on
me when I was young and inexperienced, and I like
to think that that paid off over and over again.
It's true that some of the very talented people who
run businesses for me today are people who I recruited
when they were unknown and inexperienced and in their twenties.
(06:38):
Carl Slatoff, was the president of Take two, has worked
with me in one enterprise or another since you graduated
from business school twenty seven or twenty eight years ago.
Andrew Vogel and Jordan Turkoitz were co CIOs of ZMC,
started with me when they were associates, very very early
in their careers, and now they're very senior at ZMC.
(07:00):
And it's a very long list actually across all of
my enterprises, and I have a whole alumni base as well.
I like to think, of course, there's an element of
being of service to others. I spend twenty to twenty
five percent of my time coaching and mentoring people, try
to help people, and most of those people are not
in any economic system of mind now and then they
(07:22):
are though, So it seems to me that the hardest
thing to do is convince established talent to leave where
they're happily employed and come to your system. And it's
a lot easier to develop your own if you have
a facility for identifying and developing talent to people, whether
they're on the creative or executive side. And as I said,
(07:42):
I think it's probably my only true skill in business.
Well maybe I'm a reasonably good capital alligator, but yes
you are. But really, I mean, because I work in
creative businesses, knowing the difference between good and great, that's
the whole shooting match, and then being willing to you know,
to work with them. So I don't think this is
(08:03):
talking out of school. When I got to Fox, Jim
Cameron was finishing up the ABYSS and he had a
reputation for being a challenging person to work with. And
I worked closely with Jim Cameron, which is to say,
whatever he wanted to do, I basically said yes to
because it was obvious to me that he was a
creative genius. It was, by the way, equally obvious that
(08:24):
I could say no or yes and he was still
going to do what he wanted. We could do this
easy way of the hard way, like why not do
it the easy way? So what I basically did was
to the extent he ever was interested in it, I
tried to hold his hand and support him, very very
very Occasionally he would be interested in my opinion or
ask for advice and I would offer it, and you know,
(08:45):
I was there to support and encourage him. And as
a result, he made more pictures for Fox, including after
I left. He had great success because I was right,
he was immensely talented, and I wasn't going to add
anything all to the creative quality of what he was doing.
So my choice was to say, let's make this experience
(09:06):
great for all involved, and like, let's get that hit
to market.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Let's talk about the people you help too. You've helped
people some on their way up, some already there. But
what do you learn from them?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I think you can learn from everyone, you know. I
have numerous friends who are decades younger, and by the way,
numerous fends who are decades older, and I can learn
and do learn from all of them. I find that today.
One of the reasons that I can continue to be
relevant and capable is that I spend a lot of
time with young people, so I don't have to play
(09:38):
catch up to figure out what TikTok is. I was
involved with Discord like days after it launched because I
have my ear of the ground with people who are
decades younger. That's very much informed what I do, particularly
in businesses like interactive entertainment, a big segment of which
is youth oriented.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
We're talking about people here. Let's take a one more
step talk a little about the power of teams and collaboration.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I have mixed feelings about that. You know, it's funny.
I worked for Joe Roth at Fox, who was chairman
of the studio when I was president, and he said,
you know, creativity is ultimately a singular exercise. I agree
with that. I defy you to show me a big
hit that truly was created by a massive team. Generally
there was one powerful creative voice driving that. On the
(10:24):
other hand, particularly in businesses like interactive entertainment, you can't
execute anything without a big team, at least not currently.
So the true creative genius is in our business as
someone who can add value as an individual contributor creatively
and motivate a massive team to create value and then
ultimately pull the property together with some element of singular
(10:46):
focus to deliver a hit. I mean, I think that's
what a great director does. I think the showrunners play
that role in television, and producers play that role and
record of music and that's why you can listen into
music and certain producers had very specific sounds associated with
(11:06):
their approach. So I think it's both. To answer your question,
there's an element of singular creative leadership and engagement, and
then there is an element of encouraging and leading and
managing and motivating a big team to usher that vision
into reality.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
You had a great career we touched on a little
bit at a very young age, huge jobs in your twenties.
Did that early head start shape you and make you
different from the leaders who are probably in their forties
before they reach those levels.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Well, I mean, there's nothing more pathetic than dining out
on your early success in life. I think maybe what
shape me is that I didn't get diverted later on
by stuff that maybe diverts people. So, you know, I
met all the stars, and I had a parking space
with my name on it very early in my career. Thankfully,
I'm not a person if it motivated by stuff like that,
(12:02):
So the thrill wore off really quickly, and I think
that allowed me to work and create a fields because
I'm not looking for an invitation to your cocktail party,
and I'm not starstruck, and ultimately, I don't confuse myself
with talent, and I'm not there for social purposes. I'm
(12:22):
there because I'm passionate about making extraordinary entertainment and because
I like running really good businesses. So I think maybe
doing well early allowed me to not get diverted by
stuff that does. Sometimes people who have access to these
fields later on where they're like, wow, this is amazing,
(12:45):
Like I can meet so and so and they can
come to my house and like next thing, you know,
they're making horrible business decisions as a result.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yes, we've seen a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Well I'll give you an example actually, because it's a
fun one, go for it. So as a twentieth century Fox,
and we were signing a deal to make a movie
with Warren Batty. So we're signing up this deal and
it had been long negotiated, was very tough. His order
was bird Fields. He didn't have an agent, and he
was intimately engaged with his own business affairs, and there
were some contentious elements of the deal. But finally had
(13:17):
gotten done and it was ready to be signed, and
I get a call from someone on his team saying
we're going to have a closing and we want you
to be there to sign the documents. And I was like,
I don't really do that, like like you just signed
the document, like you know, we're closing. So it wasn't
like we're buying a house. But okay, so there he said, Nope, nope,
(13:39):
mister Baty wants to have a closing and it's very
important that you'd be there to sign the documents. He
will be there to sign the documents. So I'm like
picking up the pen, ready to sign, like completely not
understanding why we're there. Very happy to meet him. By
the way, and he says, wait, wait, you know before
we sign, there are a couple things in the contract
that really, like, you know, just like mean a lot
(14:00):
to me if we could change. And he had fully
contemplated that the three or four sticking points it ultimately
had been resolved that he really wanted in a different direction.
He figured if he could get into a room with anyone,
they'd be so starstruck that they would just sign the documents.
And I said to him, Oh, sorry, I thought we're
(14:21):
here to have like a ceremonial closing, like I'm not
here to renegotiate the deal with you, mister Batty, And
I left the room. That was the end of it.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Did you ever change the points?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
No? Then when you realized the gamp it didn't work,
they sent over the signed documents.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
We did not have a certain very funny so New York.
Do you think you would have had the same level
of success if you had not been in and around
New York? Just New York give you an edge in
any way?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
You know. I did work in California for five years
so and they were the right locations for those jobs.
But when I had the opportionity to turn around and
build up a record company I was located in New York.
I was actually happy to come back, because the truth is,
I was always more of a New York type person,
East Coast person in California when I was in the
movie business in the eighties and nineties and the Tellivision business,
(15:12):
the home entertainment business. Speaking grammatically wasn't necessarily like a benefit.
You may recall, and my multiple degrees from elite Eastern schools,
that was not a benefit that was detriment. There was
there no doubt that New York was maybe a little
more congenial. But it's a great question because as you know,
I started ZMC and that led to Take two. And
(15:35):
I do think that only could have worked in New
York because we had access to capital and access to
counterparties and access to deals that I don't think would
have come our way outside of New York.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Your book, Becoming Ageless The Four Secrets to Looking and
Feeling Younger than Ever, was put out in twenty eighteen.
Your four secrets are forever fuel eating for you, unlocking
inner strength, fitness three, bulletproofing the body, health and prevention,
and finding your soul connection. Community purpose? What motivated you
to write the book and seven years later, would you
(16:12):
amend any of the secrets?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
What motivated me was people ask me all the time
how I managed to stay in reasonably good shape while
having an active professional life and an active personal life.
David Dizenko, who was at the time the editor in
chief of Men's Health, encouraged me to write the book
(16:35):
and published it through his label through Simon and Schuster. Ultimately,
I actually did it from a point of view being
of service to others. There are a number of things
I would amend. Probably the area that has evolved most
would be diet. So there's a whole bunch of diet
recommendations in the book, and they sort of err on
the side of ultra low carb and I'm no longer
(16:56):
of the view that that's a really good idea.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I like this. You're saying we can eat a lot
of carbs. Now this is the best news I have heard.
I'm saying you can eat a balanced diet that includes carbs,
and that I was low CARBD for a while. I
wouldn't publish something that wasn't accurate, and what I found
was that it really didn't allow me to be my
best self in any way, but certainly not physically. Actually
went on a cycling trip when I was in sort
(17:20):
of really low carb diet. I kept cramping up because
you can't really retain enough water to avoid cramping if
you're ultra low carb. I defy you to find a
runner a marathon or who's truly low carb, it's virtually
impossible to do. In the late nineteen nineties, we were
in Jamaica together and we worked out, and I remember
(17:40):
at that workout saying, oh, this guy's pretty serious about
his workout, but you looked nothing like you do today
in terms of what you've done. So what was it
that sort of brought this about? What sort of coalesced
around the idea of I'm going to be in shape
and I'm going to wake This very important in my life.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
If someone's avidly going to the gym and I acknowledge
some element of vanity, then they're just not being candid.
So there is an element of wanting to look my best.
My view actually is it looking your best is a
sign of respect for yourself, and part of that is
being in reasonably good shape. In my case, working out
speaks to me in so many ways. First, because I
(18:20):
actually enjoy the process itself, and secondly because I like
the result, and then third and now these days, probably
most importantly, I work out with a huge fitness community
and these people who become my tribe.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
And so do you work out every day or do
you take some days off?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, here's what one should do. If you work out avidly,
you probably ought to take one or two rest days
a week. And rest day does not mean like workout,
just less. Seriously, rest day means actually rest. In my case,
I take a rest day somewhere between you know, zero
and one day a week, but certainly within a two
week span, I will take at least one rest day.
And I do have days where the workouts are pretty light,
(18:59):
but I sometimes work out twice a day, So in
any given week, I typically work out between eight and
ten times.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
What kind of parallel do you see between your success
and business and exercise? How are the two related?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I think they're related in that I'm willing to defer
gratification and I can find pleasure in doing hard things.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Tell us one more piece. Tell us about your daily
practice of silent prayer and what that does for you
and those around you.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
You know, I've engaged in a prayer practice for fourteen years,
and to be clear, it's not a particularly religious practice.
Although it is prayer, it's non denominational, and my prayer
practice takes three or four minutes. It doesn't depend on
a belief that there's anyone on the other end listening
to it, although there are days when I feel that
that might be the case, or also plenty of days
when I don't. The first part is to express gratitude
(19:52):
for all of the blessings of my life, both people
and things. The second is to ask for blessings for
people I care about and, with a little more difficulty,
people I resent. Luckily, that's a very short list. Usually
there's no one on that list, but if there is
someone on the list, I do pray for that person
(20:13):
for good things to happen in that person. And then, finally,
the third part is to set an intention for the day,
which involves not trying to barrel through life, but rather
trying to go through life with a bit of grace
and trying to listen and find beauty in the day.
That's where my practice looks like many people. I think
they'll relate to the notion that when I wake up
(20:34):
first thing in the morning, my head can be full
of random thoughts or anxiety provoking thoughts, and I find
that the prayer practice will come and center me and
set me up for a better day.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
So you talked about your community when you work out,
Let's talk about friends. How many do you need and
how important is that to life? This is such a
personal decision. In my case, it all depends on how
you define a friend. In terms of truly intimate friends,
I actually have a lot, but that numbers I don't
(21:08):
know ten people, twenty people. In terms of people that
I would say I really care about and know about.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And connect with. In my case, that's a couple hundred people.
Bob as examples our friendship, like, we don't see each
other all that often. We probably get together a few
times a year, But every time we get together we
talk about real stuff, not superficial stuff. We actually know
one another's story, we have a long history. We connect,
(21:36):
and we leave one another's presence feeling energized and happy
that we saw one another. We just to say, even
though we don't see each other all that frequently, I
consider it a relatively intimate friendship, and I'm blessed that
I have a relationship like that with many people.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Yes, I just saw I was scrolling on Instagram and
saw somebody say, why is it that the people we
are really intimate with really get us and we really
care about live a bazillion miles away. You said, we
see each other a couple of times a year. But
to me, the mark of the friend is that when
I see you, it's like we just saw each other yesterday,
that we just pack up and keep going.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And then we talk about actually real stuff. I have
a friend I don't see that often, and when we
sit down, he'll say, Okay, tell me the bad stuff.
I know there's a bunch of good stuff, tell me
the bad stuff, or which is his way of saying,
I want to connect with you on what really matters.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, that's great. So you've talked about waking up in
the morning, all those ideas anxiety in your head. Tell
me about sleep? Is it important? How much do we need?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Sleep is really important? And unless you're an actual short sleeper,
and those people do exist, you probably need seven plus
hours a night to be refreshed and to be at
your best. Candidly, I probably get somewhere between six and
seven and a half hours. No matter how much I try,
I can't generally fine time for more and still do
(23:01):
everything else I care about. But if I get much less,
I really have a rotten day. Short sleepers are people
who really can be active and refreshed and healthy on
three and a half four hours of sleep. I'm pretty
sure carl Icon is a short sleeper. For example. Being
a short sleeper is very different than someone who just
is sleep deprived all the time. And that's not a
(23:23):
good thing, and it takes a terrible toll on your
physical and mental health.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
You said you get that much sleep. How much time
in bed are you to get that amount of sleep?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
My wife can confirm my head hits the pillow and
about fifteen seconds later I'm asleep.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
God, I'm jealous. I could just do a one hour
tossing and turning in the night. I consider that a
big win. Let's jump to philanthropy. You are very generous,
you and your wife. How do you think about philanthropy
in your life and business and personal and how do
you decide where are you're going with it? Who gets
to be the BENEFICIARYA what's kind of you to ask
(23:58):
very broadly I try and really emphasize try to be
of service in my life. We have a family foundation
and our sons are on the board, and we have
three or four areas of interest, and we try to
focus most of our giving on those areas of interest.
I have a friend who's very wealthy and a philanthropist,
(24:19):
and her view is, look, you know, I like to
be supportive of my friend's interests.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So we give about twenty five percent of money we
give away every year to our friend's interests, and we
kind of never say no. And seventy five percent, though,
we try to direct to the areas of interest of
our interests so that we can make a real impact.
But the bulk of what we give away we try
to focus on areas of interest, which is our local
community in Bedford, which is where we spend a lot
(24:46):
of time, and special needs education and support because our
daughter has special needs, and then a couple other areas
of interest.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
More of math and magic right after this quick break,
Welcome back to math and magic. Let's hear more from
my conversation with Strausselnik. Well, let's go back in time
to put you in context. Tell us about where you
(25:18):
grew up and paint a picture of that time and
pick out those few childhood events that you think looking back,
shaped you the most.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So I grew up in a striving, middle class family
in Boston. My father was a lawyer, my mom worked
part time. They were both highly educated and very ambitious,
and three siblings. Tragedy struck first. My parents got divorced
when I was quite young, six, and then my mother
(25:47):
suddenly passed away when I was ten, and my father
basically abandoned the family at that point, despite being a
very fancy lawyer Locally. We went to live with my uncle,
who became my second set of parents in New Jersey
when I was ten. I had pretty tragic childhood. I mean,
there are plenty of other attributes of my childhood, but
(26:09):
those are the things that really stand out. And I
think that childhood tragedy can have one of two effects.
The first is it can make you feel like you're
a victim and that the world is out to get you,
and that does not lead to good things later in life.
The other effect is that it can light a fire
under you and motivate you. And I had the latter
(26:31):
happened to me. Not all my siblings did, but I did,
and I was just of the view that if I
work hard enough, then nothing bad will ever happen to me. Again,
of course, that's a fallacy, wasn't true. Plenty of challenging
things have come my way, but I think I'm more
than a bit of a perfectionist. I've managed to moderate
that over the years. And a lot of that came
(26:53):
from my tragic childhood. I wouldn't wish it on anyone,
but it was highly motivating. There were other elements too.
I mean, despite this, my family really believed in me
and encouraged me. I said I wanted to run a
movie studio, and no one laughed. And even though like
my family had no connection to the business whatsoever, but
(27:14):
my family's willing to support me and my ambitions.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
You know, Strauss, I appreciate you sharing that. That is
very personal and it is a chilling trauma. That's exactly right,
and by the way, we see it in other people
as well, that you know, get two directions when you
get hit with that, something good came out of it.
But when did Strauss the entrepreneur emerge? Was that a
childhood thing or was that later in life? I don't
(27:41):
think I was a born entrepreneur. You know, I was
a good employee. I liked being a professional manager. I
think I was good at it. I understood like chain
of command. I had respect for my bosses. So I
was not someone who was like, oh, this is horrible,
I have to get out of here and do my
own thing. On the one hand, on the other hand,
I did want to build something. The truth is, you know,
(28:02):
by the time I started ZMC, I was not young.
I was forty three, and I had a really good career.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I was paid well running a big record business, and
you know, there were other jobs that would come my way,
and I decided to take you know, one hundred ccent
pay cut and start a business that was aiming to
build a multi billion dollar diversified technology driven media business
from scratch. But what drove me was not like, oh,
I need to make a whole lot of dop because
(28:30):
that was never motivating for me, and I did well
working for other people. But here's the truth. Like I
looked at my career and even though I'd done a
bunch of turnarounds, I thought to myself, listen, how hard
can it be when someone hands you a business card
that says president of twentieth century far it's like and
a balance sheet by the way, and like a safety net,
and you got Ruper Murdock sitting in the corner of
It's like, how hard can that be? If you can't
(28:52):
do well in that circumstance, you got to be pretty lame.
But I don't know doing something totally from scratch, Like
totally from scratch, that's challenging, and that'll be a real test.
And you know, I set out to build a twenty
billion dollar business from scratch that was, you know, a
leader in the intersection of technology and entertainment. And today
(29:15):
we have tweens emc Intake two and they, you know,
about a fifty five billion dollar enterprise that is a
leader in the intersection of technology and entertainment. This was
not a singular exercise, to say the least. It was
a team exercise. And I have something like twenty thousand
colleagues across the system who did all the hard work
and the heavy lifting. But it is also true that
it would not exist if I had not done it,
(29:36):
and that was important to me. And I remember having
the presence of mind because I've always been able to
think far into the future when I was forty, and
I thought to myself, I know, this is incredibly risky
and the odds of failure are incredibly high. But I
don't want to be at the end of my life
and look back and say could it, would have? Should have?
I got to give it a try. So maybe in
(29:59):
that way there was an element of, you know, entrepreneurial fire.
But I don't think it is typical entrepreneurial fire because
I didn't object to working for other people.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Even on those jobs. When you were working for others,
I think of you as an entrepreneurial personality that within
those companies you didn't think like the cog and the wheel,
that you really did see things differently. And I must
say I'm gonna tell one story on you. I hope
you don't mind. Is I was so impressed when you
were running BMG that you were learning German because it
was a German company, and I go, wow, that is
(30:32):
some commitment. And you actually got pretty good at it,
didn't you.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah. I surprised people too, because I didn't tell anyone
because you tard language. No, I didn't tell anyone in
the company. I was there for about two years before
I could speak it. And then one day I had
had offices all over the world and I was going
to my office in Munich. The plane was late. I
was in baggage claim. I called my office in Munich
and in German, I said, this is Strauss and I'm
(30:58):
running late. I apologize if you don't mind, could you
move My first meeting, my assistant was like in German,
was like who is this. That was like, it's yess
and she was like, you don't speak German. I was like, well,
actually I do speak German. I spoke proficiently, not fluently.
There is a difference, but I did speak well enough
to attend board meetings and actually conduct business in German.
(31:19):
And I thought it was a sign of respect to
the organization. But more to the point, you know, I'm
a good student. I like studying things, and I thought,
what a great opportunity I'll learn to speak German. Wall
in here.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
That was one more impressive things you've done in my mind.
I know you've done a lot of great business things,
but I was really impressed with that. Let's get out
the crystal ball for a minute, Ai, I know you
have some interesting views. How should we think about it
and its impact.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
The technology that people are calling AI is it is
a massive step forward in digital technology, but at the
end of the day, it's still an array of digital
tools that minimally create productivity, which is what digital tools
have always done. And I think the productivity opportunities are
really quite significant. But let's not confuse digital tools with
(32:08):
the singularity, which in my opinion is utter nonsense. That's
the merging of human brain power with digital brain power.
To the extent you can distinguish a human being from
a machine, the machine will be superior. And that is
not going to occur because the end of the day,
machines are machines that work on data, and data sets
(32:30):
are backward looking, and backward looking data is only going
to get you so far. Now, there's no doubt that
backward looking data that is used in a robust way
can answer a lot of questions. So when you see
people sort as they have in the last few year, saying, oh,
it's incredible, like AI programs can ace the l SAT,
(32:50):
it's like, well, I'm sorry, machines have been beating human
beings at chess for fifteen years, Like why are you surprised?
The l SATs are completely based on data. Of course,
machines that are data driven and good computational engines are
going to beat the human mind in anything that's based
on data. But there are a bunch of things that
(33:11):
machines are highly unlikely ever to do, because data driving
a predictive model isn't going to answer human questions. Creativity
applied to the entertainment business, which is a little world
in which I live, relies upon the unexpected for its
biggest hits. The biggest hits are, by their nature unexpected.
(33:34):
So sure, storytelling is informed by Shakespeare data. But great,
great stories well told reflect human genius that data sets
simply can't replicate. So in my world of interactive entertainment development,
will coding be much more efficient because of general of AI?
(33:55):
Unquestionably it's already happening. But will coving replace human genius?
Or more pointedly, will someone with you know, chat GPT
seventy three be able to push a button and make
a competitor to GTA six. No, And I can say
that unequivocally equally. Are all things AI going to reduce employment? Well,
(34:20):
I don't know the history of technology, which is one
thousand years old, and of the technology we understand to
be technology one hundred years old has been that technology
creates productivity. Productivity drives GDP. GDP growth drives employment. And
take a look at how many people were employed to
take to interactive eighteen years ago when I took over
(34:42):
about one thousand people. Today we employ thirteen and a
half thousand people. Take a look at the tech we
used then and the tech we use now. There's no comparison,
Absolutely no comparison. So I'm an optimist about what AI
can do, and I'm not at all worried about machine
taking over, becoming evil or condemning us to a life
(35:05):
of naval gazing.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
It's interesting. We just came out with a study which
we do every year, we do a massive study of
the consumer. This year we did it on the human consumer,
really about how the consumer's thinking about humanity, being human
and technology. And it's interesting. Seventy percent of the people
use AI, but ninety percent what they're media created by
real humans. And it was very clear that the consumer
(35:28):
is saying, I like it as a tool, I don't
ever want it masquerading as something it's not. As a
matter of fact. It's interesting. So from about seventy six
percent to ninety three percent. The idea that the most
important thing in my life are human connections. That more
important than ever. That growth came from twenty sixteen till today.
So interesting world we're living in. If you could go
(35:51):
back in time, what advice would you have for your
twenty one year old self.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Don't worry so much, It'll be okay in the end.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Good piece of advice. So we end each episode of
Matth and Magic with a shout out to the analytical
side of business. They just see business as numbers and
it comes together. And then you have the other side
that are people who just have these incredible creative ideas.
By the way, not everybody has the combo you do
of both. Who would you give the shout out to
(36:19):
on both the sort of analytical side, the number side,
and on the creative side.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
From the point of view of the entertainment business. Dick Parsons,
who we both knew well. I think he had an
extraordinary touch for business and people and data. But there's
so many other candidates. Really Jeff Ducas or really kind
of the master in this Steve Ross, and in many
ways I tried to model my career after his without
(36:44):
some of the more colorful elements on the creative side.
Jeffrey Katzenberg. He really has embodied sort of that intersection
of understanding the media in which he operates and understanding
storytelling and engaging with creative people bringing out the best
of them, and being creative himself.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Of course, Strauss, you've been an amazing friend for I
guess is more than thirty years. Your story is really
like no other, and your success is really a testament
to the leader you are. Thanks for sharing your lessons
with us today.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Strauss. One, Creative risk and financial risk are
two different things, and they don't have to mirror each other.
Strauss embraces creative risk, but demands financial security. In fact,
he believes a strong balance sheet is what allows bold
creative choices. Only when creatives have the space to make mistakes,
(37:41):
whill you see real innovation.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Two.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Recognize talent when you see it. Strauss has thrived in
the entertainment business, but he's never the one directing, writing,
or even giving notes. What he does exceptionally well is
distinguish the people who are most talented, continue to develop
their skills, and encourage their work. His retention rate says
it all. Three. Proving yourself can be a personal challenge.
(38:06):
Sometimes people strive for greatness for status or recognition. Strauss
was successful from her young age and countless people admired
his work, but he needed to prove his abilities to
himself before jumping into an entrepreneurial journey later in life.
I see it in his commitment to help and wellness too. Ultimately,
it comes from the place of respecting himself. Four Yet
(38:28):
more sleep. Lastly, I think we would all do well
to live by Strauss's example and work to prioritize in
that department. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. The Math
and Magic team is Ali Perry, Jessica Crinchitch, and Dylan Hoyer.
Special thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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