September 30, 2025 • 50 mins
In this heartfelt, high-energy conversation, Stephanie Bohn—entertainment veteran turned startup founder—traces her journey from American Express to 13 years at Warner Bros., scaling Rotten Tomatoes, a pivotal stint at Netflix, and ultimately to purpose-built entrepreneurship. Stephanie shares how “raising your hand before you feel 100% ready” opened doors to building new business lines (hello, early App Store days) and leading through ambiguity. We dig into her time as CMO at Chief, the power of peer boards for executive women, and what servant leadership looks like in practice. The episode turns deeply personal as Stephanie opens up about her daughter’s Rett syndrome diagnosis, the broken systems families navigate, and how that sparked Truly Care—a mission-driven platform connecting families with specialized caregivers and guiding them to underused respite resources. It’s a masterclass in turning obsession into action, finding champions, and designing a life that sustains both ambition and wellbeing.
We cover:
- Spotting and pitching opportunities before you’re “ready”
- Intrapreneurship at scale: apps, IP, and the Rotten Tomatoes playbook
- Inside Chief: “who mentors the mentors?” and changing the face of leadership
- Caregiving as infrastructure: access, affordability, and dignity
- Defining servant leadership and leading by removing obstacles
- Founder fuel: memoirs, The Pitch podcast, and mindset rituals that stick
Guest links:
Mic-drop moment: “If you’re obsessed with the idea, break it into nano-steps, find your champions, and build the scaffolding until it exists.”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
All right, everybody, welcome to
(00:09):
this next episode of clover andStephanie. I should have asked
you this before we started, butI don't want to mispronounce
your last name, so pleasepronounce it for me. It is bone
Okay, that's what I was gonnasay. So welcome Stephanie bone
to the show. Oh my gosh youguys, when you look at what
Stephanie has accomplished, thelist goes on and on. So super
(00:30):
honored. That is Stephaniegreat, even taking time to speak
with us today when I startedthis podcast to celebrate women
in leadership, those like youpopped into my mind, so I'm just
over the moon. You've taken thetime out. So welcome, welcome.
Welcome to the show. Reallycute. I'm happy to be here.
(00:55):
So women in leadership and I wassold, yay. It was so funny,
because before we startedrecording, Stephanie and I were
kind of chit chatting. And youknow, when you meet someone and
you're like, oh, yeah, then thishappened in my life, and they
were like, Yeah, me too. Andthen it's like, oh, and then I
did this, or I loved here, yeah,me too. That's how Stephanie and
I have been. So it's so great.
So but Stephanie, let's kick itoff with you, kind of just
(01:18):
telling us a little bit aboutyour journey, like, how, you
know, how did you start out,and, you know, how did you get
to where you are today? And youcan include some, I always think
that, like, our personal storiesintertwine, not just, you know,
I did this professionally, butyou know how that kind of
impacted you as well. Would begreat,
(01:42):
sure that's a big question, andI will try not to bore you with
the answer, like it all started,but I,
I grew up in in New York, andmy parents were married happily,
and I have a brother who's justa few years older than me,
and my I would say the the mostunique or remarkable part of my
(02:07):
childhood is that at that time,my family was was unusual in
that my mother was a corporateexecutive and my father was in
law enforcement and successfulin his own right. But most of
the people that I grew up aroundhad moms who had left the
workforce, or, you know, werewere in education, and, you
(02:29):
know, we're home most afternoonswhen their kids got home and
very present. And you know theirtheir day to day. You know,
decision making in lives. And Ihad a very brilliant, ambitious
mom who broke ceilingseverywhere she went.
When I was just maybe three orfour years old, she decided she
(02:52):
was a teacher. She wanted to goback and leave education and go
into corporate America, which,again, was very rare. And so she
just opened up the penny saverand looked at who, which types
of companies were hiring, whichtypes of jobs were available.
And she kept seeing positionsfor accounting. And so she
decided, then and there she wasgood at math, she was going to
(03:12):
pursue that as a career. And soI just watched her over the
course of a couple of years, gether her, you know, go back to
school, get her master's inaccounting, and take the CPA
exam, which, as I hear, is verydifficult and unlikely, at least
at the time, to pass in onetake. And she did with two
(03:33):
little kids in tow. And justwatch her Just Blaze her own
path with no role models. Andshe
became mine. I every it's funny.
I didn't realize it at the time,but when I was a little girl, I,
instead of collecting, you know,Barbies and Polly Pockets, I
collected bank deposit slips.
And I had boxes and boxes ofcalculators and bank deposit
(03:58):
slips in my room, and I wouldplay bank and store and
business, and all I ever dreamedof was having a corner office to
do what I didn't know I was alittle girl, and to wear Blazers
with big shoulder pads, becausethat's what my mom did, and just
wanted to be here. So, you know,that's kind of like what I think
(04:20):
planted the seed for me as I wasgoing through middle and high
school and college and thenultimately grad school. I just,
I probably had that in my headsubconsciously the whole time, I
just want to be like her. She,she passed away 10 years ago,
and I it was like, you know,losing my best friend. She was
everything to me, and also myprofessional role model.
(04:44):
And so, yeah, she's just, shehas been my beacon.
And the reason that I decided togo back to school and get my MBA
back in 2001 was so that I couldhave a masters just like her,
except at the time.
She said, that's amazing. I'm soproud of you, but I also want my
(05:05):
MBA, because she had hermaster's and CPA in accounting.
So she and I went back tobusiness school together,
which was pretty amazing. That'sincredible. She was in New York,
and I had flown out, I had movedout to LA and I went to Anderson
at UCLA, and it's a two yearprogram where we went through it
at the same time. And she helpedme with my finance and
(05:25):
accounting homework. I helpedher with her marketing homework,
which was my chosen profession.
And we had an absolute blast,kind of having even though it
was, you know, we weren't in thesame city doing it together. So
after I got to LA I decided tosow seeds here, and I had been
really interested in moving intothe entertainment industry.
(05:46):
Prior to that, I was working atAmerican Express, which I loved,
but I was I wanted to work inmovie business, and so I decided
to stay in Los Angeles, and Igot recruited to work at Warner
Brothers, where I stayed for 13years, I bounced around to
different roles and and hadamazing leadership
opportunities. But pretty coolreflecting on the fact that I
(06:06):
stayed anywhere for 13 years,that's pretty rare these days.
It is. It's almost unheard of,awesome, cool. And then you
what, what happened after, afterthere. So you stay there for 13
years, and then where did youhead next? Yeah, so I stayed at
Warner for 13 years, and I gotmy start in the home video
(06:28):
division, which is where a lotof MBAs tend to go if they're
interested in entertainment,because it's at the time it kind
of functioned like CPG, wherethey really valued having an MBA
and paid accordingly and gaveyou responsibility. And I did
that for several years, but Ifound myself itching to do
something more on the valuecreation side and product
(06:50):
creation side. And so there wasa new division that launched at
the studio right around the timethat iTunes came into the came
onto the scene and PlayStationand Xbox and all these different
digital distribution channels,and Amazon, it was called unbox
at the time.
And so studios were trying tofigure out how they distribute
(07:13):
content through digitalchannels. And so I raised my
hand to join this fledglinggroup of the studio, and that
was the kind of the first momentI got my taste for
entrepreneurialism, but I wasstill nested in this giant
studio, so it was pretty comfy.
And then different opportunitiespresented themselves. And
while I was at Warner I createda new business unit to publish
(07:38):
mobile applications, and thenWarner Brothers bought a company
called Flixster, which I'm notsure is still functioning, but
Flixster owned Rotten Tomatoes,and Rotten Tomatoes had was 15
years old at the time, but, youknow, kind of
(07:58):
a very well known brand and kindof signal of movie quality in
the industry, but it was veryunderappreciated. And so whereas
Warner Brothers was focusing onthe excitement of owning the
database that Flixster offered,I was really excited. I had my
eyes on, what more could we dowith the Rotten Tomatoes IP? And
(08:18):
so i i made a pitch to the thehead of the division, and I
said, Could I run RottenTomatoes? And he said, Have you
ever run digital publishingbefore? Have you, you know, run
a company before? And I said,Nope, but this is exactly what I
want to do it. And so, you know,he gave me a shot, which was
amazing. And that was my secondsort of test of, like, Could I
(08:39):
be an entrepreneur? Could I, youknow, do something and operate
in like absolute ambiguity,ambiguity. And I loved it. And
then in 20, in 2015,or 16, we Warner Brothers sold
rotten tomatoes to Comcast, andit was absorbed.
(09:00):
And a lot of the team decidednot not to go, and I was at this
crossroads of, you know, what doI want to do next? I grew this
brand, and we hit all of ourgrowth milestones. I was so
proud of myself, and I had anopportunity to stay within the
studio and find anotherleadership role, but I actually
decided I wanted to make abigger change, and I took a role
(09:22):
at Netflix, whichwas, you know, still, it was
growing. It was, it was reallyexciting to be there, but it
wasn't the Netflix it is today.
So it felt like a little bit ofa risk, but it was, it was
incredibly excitingand a totally different approach
to entertainment, you know,just, you know, being in this
(09:43):
kind of high growth, techforward environment.
And I'll stop there. I cananswer other questions, but
that's that was my kind of pathin the entertainment space.
Yeah, no, I love it. And thetrend that I'm hearing is that
you raised your hand, you know,like you saw.
You identified theseopportunities. And even though,
(10:04):
you know, you were like, theremay not be 100%
qualified on paper, you know, Iwant to do this, you know. And
so tell us a little bit aboutthat. Like, where did that come
from? Where you're like, Listen,I want to do this. I'm gonna
raise my hand, I gotta go forit. And how do you identify
those opportunities? And onceyou do identify them, how do you
(10:26):
go after them? Sure, there's alot of people listening who are
like, okay, that's amazing.
Like, if I see an opportunity,you know, how do I go after it?
And how do I get it if I'm not,you know, if I don't have all
the check boxes checked, as faras somebody who would typically
take that on that role,you know, the first the first
time that really showed my like,proved to myself that I could do
(10:53):
something so risky and unprovenand really put myself out there.
Was when I was at WarnerBrothers. It was around 2008
I believe, and the app store hadjust launched, and noone really
knew what to make of it. Like,what were we making games like
(11:15):
video games, or was this apromotional channel, and I was
working on Sex and the City atthe time the movie. And I
thought it would be fun, just asa promotional gimmick, to create
an experience that replicatesthe movie scene when Carrie is
moving in with Mr. Big and shehad to decide what in her closet
(11:36):
to take or leave. And so itcreated, using iOS, an
experience that allows you totake pictures of things in your
closet, or if you're shopping,and send them to your friends,
and then they could sort ofthumbs up, thumbs down, tape or
toss.
It seems so not interesting nowthat I say it, but back at the
(11:56):
time it was, it was pretty wildthat you could do that with your
phone. And we hadhundreds of 1000s of downloads,
and it was free, but it was aabsolute, like it was a
marketing gimmick that I wasjust, you know, wanting to try.
And at that moment, I thought tomyself, Man, like, if 100,000
people download this thing thatjust takes pictures and sends
texts to your friends, is thereanything that we could monetize.
(12:20):
You know, if fans are reallyexcited about
IP, we sat on Harry Potter andBatman and Lord of the Rings and
The Hobbit and Sex and the Cityand so many other amazing
franchises. What more could wedo? And so I just kind of, I
kept ruminating about this beingan actual business, but I was in
(12:42):
my head and, you know, and thenI would show up at work and feel
like there's like, suppressthose thoughts, like, who are
you? How would you ever doanything like this? But they
wouldn't go away. And so italmost to me, felt like this.
The litmus test was like, Areyou obsessed with this idea, and
are you even though you don'tknow how to get it all done
(13:03):
today, if you could break it upinto little, tiny nano chunks,
could you do those nano chunksand scaffold until you actually
built a business? And so then,and just, I kind of made a
little mini, mini, mini businessplan in my brain of like, well,
who, who would I need to dothat? I probably need a couple
of developers, maybe otherpeople at the company could kind
(13:23):
of moonlight with me, so wewould have our day jobs and then
work on this on the side, so itwasn't a real risk or investment
for the studio make a couple ofthese games or apps and then
show people put them up and seeif they're successful. And then
with those dates, little fewdata points make a case to
(13:43):
formalize this into a business.
And so it was just those, like,nano things, of like, find other
people who are interested andexcited about this. Think about
the IP that we could use get,like, you know, the the
necessary approvals along theway. But
more or less, it's aboutbuilding, building the, you
know, the support system. Andthat's, that's how I did it. And
(14:06):
we ultimately built an entireline of business. Then we
generated millions of dollarsand published dozens of apps,
and they became the global kindof headquarters for the whole
studio for publishing appsthrough, you know, through to
the App Store. It was really,really exciting to me. I felt
like I was, it was a microcosmthat I was running my own
(14:28):
business within corner.
Brothers, yeah, wow, that's likethe dream.
And so I think one importantthing to point out there is that
you got buy in, right? So youkind of created a bunch of
champions around you for theseinitiatives, which is, which is
(14:48):
huge. Instead of just kind ofgoing on your own, you were
spearheading it, but you hadthis, you built this support.
And also you built this kind oflike ecosystem.
Them, of people who are alsogrowing, you know, their
experience and their careersthrough these, you know, these
exciting initiatives, which is,which is really incredible. I
(15:09):
want to fast forward just acouple of years, I guess so
when, when we're talking about,you know, women taking on these,
these leadership roles, you thengot involved with Chief and or a
CMO over there. I definitelyrespect that organization so
much, and I would love to hearabout your time there, because
that and talk about the missionof Chief first, before I
(15:31):
obliterate it, themission is actually quite
simple. It's to help ExecutiveWomen maximize their leadership
impact. And I had joined as amember when I was working as a
CMO at a tech startup.
They had approached me onLinkedIn, as they did you know,
(15:55):
many other executive women, andwhen I first read about it, I
got so excited, becausemy mom had passed away at that
point, and I felt like she wasthis little birdie on my
shoulder saying, You need toapply to join this thing this,
this is exactly what I wouldhave done. She used to be the
president of a non profitversion of chief in New York,
(16:15):
and so I used to go to eventswith her, and I was, you know,
this kind of honorary member ofher organization when I was in
high school and college, and soI just it felt like it was, I
needed to do it, and I was soexcited when they accepted me as
a member. And it was a reallygreat opportunity to network
with other women. And this whenI joined, it was during covid,
(16:38):
and so most of their events werevirtual, and it was big, but it
hadn't achieved, I think, thescale that it did a few years
later. And so it was veryintimate, you know, and I would
join sessions around topics thatwere top of mind for me, and it
(17:01):
always felt like a very safespace to ask questions of other
leaders.
They offer a program calledcore, which is you get a group
of peers that kind of act asyour personal board of
directors, and you meet withthem on a monthly basis. And so
whereas you can network with anyother members, you have this
(17:24):
group that you're assigned to,that you bond with, and you know
you can rely on and askquestions too. And it's, it's,
it's really special.
I was a member for a few years,and then they recruited me for
their cmo role, which wasexciting, because it's really
fun, especially for a marketer,to join a company when you are
(17:45):
the target audience. I knew theproduct I was at the target so
it was, I was able to hit theground running.
Yeah, tell us more about theexperience there, because, like
you said, you were the targetdemo, right? And you know, it's,
it's doing such, such great,great work, you know, for women
in leadership, sois that, is that organization
(18:06):
constructed with many women inleadership? Like, did you kind
of feel like they talk the talkas and walk the walk as well?
I do, I do the, notsurprisingly, most of the team
members are women, but it's notentirely women, and I think that
that's important,but it is. I mean, there's, you
(18:29):
know, it was formed by twowomen, founded by two women, who
they themselves, experienced theneed for this kind of personal
board of directors. They LindsayKaplan often talked about, you
know this phrase, of like, who'smentoring the mentors? So
you're, you're often called uponto give advice to others coming
up the ladder. But what happenswhen you yourself need advice?
(18:54):
Who can you look to? And sothat's really what Chief was
chiefly about. Andsomething that I really admired
when I first became a member wasthis idea, this kind of battle
cry to change the face ofleadership, and that that speaks
to people in different ways. Forme, it was about making sure
(19:19):
that the board room, whetherthat's, you know, internal
meetings or meetings withboards, but the boardroom as a
figure of speech, was comprisedof different
perspectives and people withdifferent lived experience, and
(19:39):
that, of course, means gender,right? But it also, to me, means
people with, you know, acrossracial lines, but also people
different lived experience. Youknow, I show up in boardrooms
with so many hats, and one ofthem is, you know, I'm a parent
to two kids.
(20:00):
One of them is profoundlydisabled and like that that that
informs how I see the world, andI think about accessibility and
and inclusion and diversity. Andso the way chief went about kind
of building its network, wasreally intentional about
(20:20):
including people from all walksof life and all cultures. And,
you know, admittedly, there weremissteps, but that's that was
not from lack of the rightintention. There's just, you
know, when you're building abusiness and you're trying to
scale an idea that clearly hasstrong product market fit,
you're you're not always goingto make every decision
(20:41):
perfectly, butthe their intentions were, all
are great,and it came from a place of
necessity for both of thefounders, which I really
admired, and I think a lot ofother people do as well. Yeah,
you mentioned your daughter andkind of the importance of
(21:03):
inclusion and accessibility. Canwe talk a little bit more you
and I talked a little bit aboutthis before we started
recording, but can we talk alittle bit more about that and
how that's kind of driven you tofound truly here and tell us
about that as well. Please.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I was, Iwas put on this path very
(21:24):
unexpectedly. I My youngerdaughter has a genetic disorder
that is not an inheriteddisorder. It was the tech the
medical term is sporadic, whichjust means it was random,
nothing I could have preparedfor.
It's called Rett syndrome. AndRett syndrome is unique in that
(21:45):
it predominantly affects girls.
It's, it's a there's a gene onyour X chromosome that has a
mutation. It's, it's caused byone gene,
and boys typically can't surviveit. And so we often talk about
as a as a disease that thatimpacts girls and women,
(22:07):
and her symptoms appeared whenshe was a toddler. So even when
she was born, we thoughteverything was fine. So we were
thoroughly unprepared when welearned that she she had this
disorder, because she wasshowing some symptoms, and when
I got the news, I got it in thewrong way. I was sent an email
over July 4 break. They weren'tsupposed to send me the genetic
(22:32):
report, and they did. And sothere was no one to call for
days. And so I just took toGoogle, and I, you know, I
broke, I think, had I been giventhe news the way I was supposed
to, by a medical professional, agenetic counselor, and
explaining what this could be,what this might not be, I
probably wouldn't have had sucha traumatic experience. But my
(22:53):
husband and I were destroyed bywhat we were finding on line
about what Rett syndrome is andneeds my our daughter would lose
her ability to speak, to walk,to use her hands. She would have
intractable seizures. She wouldhave digestive issues, insomnia,
anxiety,hepatonia. The list was endless,
(23:15):
and I couldn't I couldn't evenprocess what I was learning. And
so it was a really hard time forme, also, because my mom had
passed awayonly a few months prior,
and she was diagnosed withpancreatic cancer an hour after
(23:37):
Sadie was born. So there was, itwas, yeah, yeah. I felt like I
was being punked. It was, it wasa hard it was a hard year and a
half, and I was working. Thiswas a, of course, at the time, I
had just joined Netflix, whichis a pretty intense culture, and
I felt like I had just leftWarner Brothers. After 13 years,
(23:58):
I had endless coins in the bank.
People knew my work ethic, mymy, you know, my value. And then
I joined this new company andhad to start from scratch, and,
you know, building trust andrapport and creating a name for
myself and showing people whatvalue I bring. And all the
while, my life was crumbling.
And so,yeah, I I wound up I worked for
(24:20):
a woman at Netflix who I knewpersonally before I joined, and
she knew everything that wasgoing on. I don't know if this
is answering your question, butit's an, I think it's an
interesting story that she shetold me that
one of the reasons that shehired me was
(24:43):
my the way that I handled thediagnosis and the way that I was
approachingthe solution for me, when I was
told Sadie had Rett syndrome,and it's the worst case
scenario, there was a but andthat but was that it was.
Was believed to be curablebecause that mutation was
(25:04):
correctable. And so if, if wecould get in there and correct
the mistake,in theory, the whole disease
could be reversed, and all thesymptoms would go away, and she
would resume living a normallife. And so when I heard that,
I went right back into my thesame mode I was talking before,
when I launched the business atWarner Brothers publishing apps,
(25:25):
or when I pitched RottenTomatoes, I just sort of went
into these kind of, like nanochunks of like, okay, what's my
role here? If this is apossibility, this is our only
option to pursue. I have to helpcure this. And so I launched
into this,you know, I got really active in
the Rett syndrome researchtrust, and I joined the board,
(25:46):
and I helped raise money, and Ico host the world's largest
fundraiser for Rett syndrome,and we've raised, I
think, $15 million at thispoint. It's, it was, that was
just the only way I could thinkto kind of honor her, and, you
know, tell her I was doingeverything I could but also
(26:07):
survive. So, you know, I keptworking at the time. And I did
realize that I think that theNetflix culture was not maybe
ideal for me in my currentstate.
And so that is why I eventuallywent to go to a small, early
stage startup where I couldbuild and start fresh, and it
(26:29):
was a smaller organization, andit didn't have the same kind of
like corporate expectations andbureaucracy,
but as I was kind of processingthat, I was also
beginning to assume a newidentity in the mother of a
disabled child, and that worddisability was something I had a
(26:53):
really hard time with. At first,the language is scary and it
seems permanent and it and Ididn't even know what it meant
to be part of the disabilitycommunity, and at the time, I
was in denial, probably, and Ididn't even want to make any
friends in the disabilitycommunity. I just wanted to
almost have this life where wewere, you know, helping her with
her symptoms, and thenpretending everything was normal
(27:14):
and okay, but it wasn't. And Ineeded to, you know, get her on
another path of getting theright treatment and putting her
in a different EarlyIntervention Center and getting
her caregivers. And you knowthat that experience shown, it
shined a very bright light forme, on all the iniquities in
(27:38):
like navigating this system, allthe things, it was so hard. But
because I had the businessexperience that I did, I was
able to make that list of allthe things I had to do and go
one by one, and, you know,negotiate when I had to
negotiate, and go to the mat tofight for the things she needed.
And, you know, Unturned everystone when there were blockers
(28:02):
in our wayand at the end of it, you know,
I think she has everything thatshe needs and all things
considered as living a greatlife. But I hate the fact that
anyone with like with fewerresources and fewer I think
business skills than me goesthrough life with kids like, you
know, who have really profounddisabilities, or even, you know,
(28:24):
any challenge, and they don'tknow how to access the services
and supports that are availableto them. It's just so hard to
navigate. And so the thing thatcame up for me was caregiving,
because I looked at like, Why isher life so great. And why am I
a really happy, productive,thriving person? And the answer,
again and again and again, isthat we have great caregivers in
(28:48):
our lives. Who are? You know, mydaughter doesn't have very many
friends of her own because shecan't speak. And so these the
caregivers that are in her lifeare her best pals, and they take
her places, and they shop withher, and they go to the beach
with her, and they love hangingout with her, and she's
stimulated by them, and shefeels loved and accepted. And
for me, I could never have myjob or do all of the
(29:12):
philanthropy work that I doif I didn't have a great lineup
of care for her, so that I hadthe freedom to do what most
parents can do, because theirkids get older and become
independent. Mine's just notindependent. And so care for me
and it also, I think my husbandand I, you know, back before we
(29:37):
had great care, would bickerabout the things that you would
imagine, like, who's helping,who's changing her diaper, who's
calling the doctor, or who'staking her to this appointment,
who's emptying the dishwasher,and once we had care in the home
to help offload, like some ofthe things that we knew she
needed, our marriage came back,and we were happy again and
could focus on the things thatmatter.
(30:00):
Honored, and we could also focuson our older daughter who needed
us. And so I decided to build abusiness to make accessing
caregivers easier for familieswhose kids and adult kids have
challenges. It could bebehavioral challenges, medical
challenges, the spectrum is sovast, but once you have access
(30:22):
to care, it really can. It cannot only sort of fix a problem,
it could make your lifewonderful. And that's that's
really my mission, is to getevery person the care they need
so that they can live the lifethat they that they want.
And you know, a big question fora lot of people may be, what
about affordability? This is apaid option, but there's so many
(30:46):
families who have kids and lovedones who have disabilities or
chronic illnesses that areentitled to respite care funds
they don't know about and theydon't use. So part of this is
also directing them to thoseresources, because I've done it
the hard way and making surethat they know that they can use
those resources to make thisextremely affordable. Yeah, God,
(31:10):
it's it's so important. Like youand I were talking briefly. You
know about this, and so many ofmy brothers and sisters have so
many different challenges, and Isaw my mom go through this like
she had to advocate constantlyto the point of exhaustion,
right? And like, research andlike, figure out, like, how to
get these kids the support thatthey needed, our family, the
(31:34):
support that we needed, youknow, and you're right, the
resources just aren't there. Sowhat you're doing is such a
beautiful a beautiful thing. Andwhen I think back to what you
were speaking about earlier inyour career, when you would
identify a need and figure itout, you know, and get you know
supporters, and it's just like,gosh, when you look back to
(31:54):
that, it was almost likebeautifully setting you up for
this moment, you know, and thisenvironment that you were thrown
into,that you could do this and and
you've also expanded it because,tell us, I was reading a little
bit how you also mentorearly stage founders. And then
there was one particular founderwho you helped, really. And,
yeah, so can you tell us alittle bit about, yeah, I am a
(32:18):
mentor, a friend. I am now beingmentored by her because she's a
twice, a two time founder,and I think I might be the
president of her fan club. Hername is Keeley cat wells, it's
funny. I found her through aseries of Google searches when I
was CMO of a company called bidmob. We did
(32:44):
like you know, to support our deand I initiatives. We did some
internal and with some of ourclients, webinars, just to talk
through different lifeexperiences and open our eyes
to, you know, differentdifferent paths and communities.
And I was looking for someone tospeak, someone with some
authority to speak on thedisability experience, and every
(33:07):
single Google search I did ledto this person, Kelly, cat,
well, like, Who is this person?
I mean, on LinkedIn, onInstagram, on Google, every
search pointed to her. And so Ireached out, I did a little
stalking on LinkedIn, and Isaid, I just, I need to know
you. I'm doing this thing. I'dlove you to be my, my, my, my
guest, but I also just need toknow you, because everything I
(33:27):
read about her was so special.
She herself has a disability.
She founded a company called Ctalent, which represented
disabled athletes and artistsand actors
and musicians for roles in, youknow, on TV and film, broadcast
(33:49):
and, you know, kind of set up ashop, like a little version of a
UCA or, you know, or CIA, butspecifically Representing
disabled talent. It was such abrilliant idea, and it was a
huge success. And she wound upselling the business to a
company called whaler, and so wehad a friendship for you know,
(34:14):
several months leading up to thesale, and I wound up helping.
You're just advising her on onthe sale itself. I happen to
know the folks over at whaler,and I thought it was, it was a
great partnership. And so shedecided to launch into her
second, her second startup,which is called Making space,
which is also in support of thedisability community. And this
(34:36):
is a learning and developmentplatform that helps people who
have aspirations to work increative professions and
corporate America to help getthem the training and also
access to jobs that areavailable. And so she is that
kind of learning and developmentplatform. And also I'm probably
(34:57):
doing a terrible job saying jobboard, but like that.
That, that access point, so youknow what jobs are available.
And she's working with companiesto specifically look to hire for
disability, which is not fordisability, but hire people who
who happen to have disabilities,just to make sure that, again,
we're increasing the diversityof our workforce. So she's,
she's, I mean, I mean everylike, she's won every award,
(35:18):
she's been featured on every,you know, in every interesting
article about disability, she'sbeen to the White House multiple
times.
She hangsout with Gloria Steinem. I don't
know. I can't say enough greatthings about her. She's a
wonderful, wonderful person who,I think is, is
a shining example of likeanything is possible. She hasn't
(35:41):
even cracked 30 years old yet.
She's just wow. She'sincredible. And I feed off of
stories like that to remindmyself that I can do this. And
then I, like so many founders,I'm sure, and so many women,
imposter syndrome creeps up allthe time, and the way that I
combat it is, is going back andreading stories like, Healy's
(36:04):
like, she had no businesstraining for this, you know, she
she's not even American, she'sBritish. And so she came to
America and built thesebusinesses. And
the barriers in her way are, youknow, probably seemed
insurmountable, but she did it.
And then, you know, if she coulddo it, so could I, and there's a
million scary things that areinvolved in starting a business,
(36:26):
butI did exactly with truly care,
with what I did when I was, youknow, in all these other stories
I shared was I found otherpeople who believe deeply in
what, in the in the problem Tobe solved. And the My vision for
a solution which is incrediblyvalidating, and also so many
people, not surprisingly, Iwould say, almost every person I
(36:48):
tell about truly care.
Amazingly, just like you comeback to me and say, Oh, I have a
disability story, I have achild, I have a cousin, I have a
niece, I have a brother, sister,and yeah, care has always been a
challenge, and so I can see howthis is necessary. And so
there's just, there's so manypeople that are cheering me on
(37:10):
and offering to help that now Ifeel like I have to do this,
because people are counting onme, right? We have so many
families that have signed up onour wait list. They have care
jobs to fill, and now my role isto build the pipeline of amazing
caregivers to match with thesejobs.
(37:30):
That's incredible. And what Ican't help but think that your
leadership style, obviously,servant leader, pops into my
head, and so it's likewhat you've also had so many
role I mean, you know, from likeNetflix to what you're doing
now, you know, what is that?
(37:51):
What does serve, being a servantleader, mean to you? And what
does that look like in practice,whether or not it's a high
stakes environment or, you know,or what it is like. What are
your thoughts around that?
I think servant leadershipabsolutely describes me so well
done. I think it's about makingsure that the people who you are
(38:12):
working with and who can helpyou have everything they need to
succeed.
It's not about saying yes toevery single thing that they
suggest or ask for. It's aboutmaking sure that they have the
resources they need, the supportthey need, the the
validation if they need it to dotheir best work and reach their
(38:35):
potential. That's that for me,how I've always operated, and
then get out of the way, youknow, I think earlier on in my
career, some of the, you know,I've received feedback from
teams that have worked for me,and the thing that I've had to
work on was I don't always knowthe right answer, and I
(38:56):
oftentimes, if I'm passionateabout something, Oftentimes in a
design capacity, I'll justinject my opinion, but you don't
realize, if you're coming from aposition of power, most people
just feel like they have to takeyour opinion as the answer. And
so I've learned over the yearsto just step back and empower
other people, like give themwhat they need, and empower them
(39:16):
to make the decisions and standby those choices, and if they
work amazing, if they don't,everyone's learned a lesson, and
we can move on and be betternext time. When I think about
all the different hats you'veworn and wear,
you know, senior executive foundor Founder Mentor,
(39:37):
you're also a board member, ofcourse, and so
when you're choosing which youknow board seats to fill, or you
know what organizations you kindof want to partner with, what
values come to mind, like whatyou know, how do you choose? You
know whether you're going toserve on a board or not? Yeah.
(40:00):
Yeah, so I think maybe it waslike five or so years ago, like
a lot of women who have achievedsome professional success, I
felt, to myself, now seems likea good time to join a board.
Well, it's definitely not thateasy.
And I, you know, I signed up forsome organizations and
(40:21):
nonprofits that help womenunderstand what is entailed and
serving on a board, and, youknow, listen to countless panel
discussions with women on board.
And I was like, This is great.
This is great, and it is. But Ithink at the end of the day, if
your motive is just, you know,the resume, or to have some
equity, or to just have the kindof role where you can give some
(40:45):
advice and then you don't haveto execute.
It's probably unlikely thatyou're going to find a board
opportunity that that wants youand also that fits. So I
stopped. I moved away from thatmotion to like the right thing
is going to present itself atthe right time. And I, you know,
I was a member of of Keelyadvisory board, and still am for
(41:05):
her companies, and that justgives me utter pride and joy to
help her build this businessthat you know, can really change
the world for the one in fourpeople who live with a
disabilityand help level the playing
field.
(41:27):
It means something to me, and somy primary litmus test is like,
is it time well spent, and isthe advice I'm going to give and
the effort I'm going to makegoing to materialize into
something that makes the world abetter place?
You place. The other boards thatI sat on are nonprofit boards
wherethere are always expectations
(41:48):
for being a donor when you siton a nonprofit board. And so for
me, I have funneled nearly allof my nonprofit support to the
Rett syndrome research trust,because I'm trying to cure Rett
syndrome for my daughter.
And so I sat on the a few otherboards and actually recused
(42:11):
myself because I felt like Ican't give you guys my all
anymore,and I want to make sure that I'm
making the best use of my timeand and making sure that it's as
effective as possible. And soright now, the only nonprofit
board that I serve on is Rettsyndrome research trust, because
I want to give them everything Ihave
(42:31):
no that makes that makes senseand good for you for making that
decision, right, instead of justto keep putting one foot in
front of the other, just becausethat's the easier thing to do,
and actually identifying what'swhat works best for for your
time and how best to use it,your work is deeply personal.
It's it's not light hearted.
(42:54):
It's a it carries a certainweight. I would imagine what, do
youdo to set the tone for your day?
Like, what do you do? You know,you're going through highs and
lows, you know? Is thereanything that you kind of do to
help navigate that,um, you mean for my own health
or mental health? Yeah,I have gotten so much better
(43:17):
about prioritizing my physicaland mental health in the last
few years as I stared down thebarrel of perimenopause.
So, you know, exercising moreand getting higher quality
sleep. My husband is very intothis stuff as well, so we're
(43:37):
good, like accountabilitypartners for each other,
but I love hiking. I love takinglong walks and doing yoga
and yeah, just making sure thatI'm checking in with myself and
not getting sucked into the dayto day. And then the day goes by
(43:58):
and I haven't done anything formyself.
I really, I took a peloton classrecently, and the instructor was
like, you're where you'resupposed to be. You're present.
Everything else can wait. Which,it's such a like throwaway thing
to say, but it really, it'sstuck in my brain, everything
else can wait. And that's,that's my kind of motivating
(44:18):
line that I tell myself when theyou know, evening is creeping in
and I haven't done any haven'tdone any exercise, or any, you
know, even mental health, walk,everything else can wait. Yeah,
no, that's huge. Sometimes whenI'm going to sleep, I'm like,
all you have to do right now issleep. That's all you have to
worry about. One job, one jobright now. That's the sleep.
Shut the mind off, please. Um,oh my gosh, I could talk to you
(44:42):
forever. So is there a book orpodcast or a resource that you
know, you recommend? Maybe,maybe it's made a lasting
impact. Maybe you're like, Oh, Ireally, you know, got a lot from
that. It doesn't have to bedeep. It could be just
entertainment value that youwant to.
In you knowthat is so hard for me because I
(45:03):
consume so much podcasts and Ilisten and read to books.
For me, I love my I will justgive you a category or genre I
love listening to memoirs. It'smy favorite genre, and i i
(45:25):
voraciously consume them becausethey motivate me
and they remind me to live afull life. Yeah, I
am always amazed and inspired bythe the stories shared and
memoirs and the, you know, thetrials and tribulations and
like, how someone survivedsomething, or, you know, just
(45:47):
set out to do something reallyscary,
and then it just, I think tomyself, like they could do it, I
could do it. And just as areminder to live a full life and
and have amazing experiences andlive with gratitude. So I would
just say, Yeah, long windedanswer memoirs.
(46:08):
I as a founder, yeah, as afounder. I love the show the
pitch. It's kind of like SharkTank for early stage founders,
and you can hear them pitchtheir businesses to a room full
of VCs. And I get a lot of valueout of that, because I can just
sort of hear how they're tellingtheir story and the questions
and the pushback and thevalidation that they get. Yeah,
(46:30):
no, I love that too. And it's mymom always says, like, everyone
has a story, you know? And sothat's, that's my favorite thing
as well. Where, where can peoplefind you? Online if they want to
learn more about what you'redoing or connect.
LinkedIn is the my socialnetwork of choice, Steph bone is
(46:52):
you can search for me that way.
I have, I would say, truly care.
Also has a LinkedIn presence,but we're pretty active on
Instagram. And the handle is attruly care official. And the
website is www dot, truly dotcare.
(47:14):
And, yeah, that's those areprobably the best channels for
me. Okay, perfect. We'll includethose in the in the show notes.
And okay, so I have one last funquestion that I ask every single
guest, because my husband and Iare music heads,
but if you could listen to onemusic artist the rest of your
life, who would it be? It's sucha good question and hard one to
(47:37):
answer, but I think if I'mhonest, it might be Alanis
morissa. I fell in love with herthe 90s. I have never left the
fan club.
I'm such a fan. And my dad is amusician, music and art in my
(47:58):
family as well, and he and Iwent to her concert in in the
90s, and it was just such a funexperience. That's really cool.
Yeah, and she kind of made aresurgence, I feel like,
recently, yeah,and she has a show jacket. No,
not jacket. Little girl tocalled,
oh my gosh, Meg, is calledjacket. Little girl. She has a
(48:20):
Broadway show that she producedthat I saw that's, that's
exactly, yeah, I was listeningto a podcast about it was really
incredible. Yeah, yeah, that wasgreat. What's your answer?
Beastie Boyslove it. I've met Adam Yost
before. No, I was, I was fangirling so hard, I had breakfast
with him, and we did a deal. We,yeah, this girl from Queens,
(48:47):
amazing. Yes, exactly. This girlfrom Queens is like having a
heart attack, right?
Yeah, we did it. He used to havea production company called
oscilloscope. Yes, that he, he,he started with a guy named
David Frankel, andwe, when I was at Warner
(49:07):
Brothers, we were going todistribute all the films that
they produced. And so he wantedto have an in person meeting to,
you know, get to know us a bit.
And so my colleague and I flewout to New York, and we met him
for brunch, and I remember himbeing very into herbal teas. He
had a whole setup of all thesedifferent herbal teas. He's a
(49:29):
health nut.
And I was like shaking under thetable because I bc boys might be
my second answer. I mean, Ithey're great, yeah. And the
next week, there was a anannouncement about the deal, and
the journalists had interviewedhim, and he said, they said, you
know, what do you think aboutworking with Warner Brothers?
(49:49):
And he said, Well, I met acouple of cool cats and decided
this would be a good, you know,a good plan, so let's do it. And
I got that article, and I said.
To my friends. I'm like, I'm oneof the cats. I'm a cool cat. You
guys.
Oh, my God, that's incredible.
Wow. Well, I feel cooler justknowing you're a cool cat.
(50:16):
I know my mom, whenever I likeBeastie Boys comes up, she's
like, still Aaron, and I'm like,still, mom, beasty boy.
Okay, Stephanie, literally, Icould talk to you all all day,
but I promised I would onlytake, I promised you less than
an hour of your time. And, like,apparently I lied so but we are
thankyou for being on the show and
(50:38):
taking the time. I've thoroughlyenjoyed our discussion. I
really, really appreciate it.
Likewise. Thank you for havingme. You.
All right, everybody, welcome to
(00:09):
this next episode of clover andStephanie. I should have asked
you this before we started, butI don't want to mispronounce
your last name, so pleasepronounce it for me. It is bone
Okay, that's what I was gonnasay. So welcome Stephanie bone
to the show. Oh my gosh youguys, when you look at what
Stephanie has accomplished, thelist goes on and on. So super
(00:30):
honored. That is Stephaniegreat, even taking time to speak
with us today when I startedthis podcast to celebrate women
in leadership, those like youpopped into my mind, so I'm just
over the moon. You've taken thetime out. So welcome, welcome.
Welcome to the show. Reallycute. I'm happy to be here.
(00:55):
So women in leadership and I wassold, yay. It was so funny,
because before we startedrecording, Stephanie and I were
kind of chit chatting. And youknow, when you meet someone and
you're like, oh, yeah, then thishappened in my life, and they
were like, Yeah, me too. Andthen it's like, oh, and then I
did this, or I loved here, yeah,me too. That's how Stephanie and
I have been. So it's so great.
So but Stephanie, let's kick itoff with you, kind of just
(01:18):
telling us a little bit aboutyour journey, like, how, you
know, how did you start out,and, you know, how did you get
to where you are today? And youcan include some, I always think
that, like, our personal storiesintertwine, not just, you know,
I did this professionally, butyou know how that kind of
impacted you as well. Would begreat,
(01:42):
sure that's a big question, andI will try not to bore you with
the answer, like it all started,but I,
I grew up in in New York, andmy parents were married happily,
and I have a brother who's justa few years older than me,
and my I would say the the mostunique or remarkable part of my
(02:07):
childhood is that at that time,my family was was unusual in
that my mother was a corporateexecutive and my father was in
law enforcement and successfulin his own right. But most of
the people that I grew up aroundhad moms who had left the
workforce, or, you know, werewere in education, and, you
(02:29):
know, we're home most afternoonswhen their kids got home and
very present. And you know theirtheir day to day. You know,
decision making in lives. And Ihad a very brilliant, ambitious
mom who broke ceilingseverywhere she went.
When I was just maybe three orfour years old, she decided she
(02:52):
was a teacher. She wanted to goback and leave education and go
into corporate America, which,again, was very rare. And so she
just opened up the penny saverand looked at who, which types
of companies were hiring, whichtypes of jobs were available.
And she kept seeing positionsfor accounting. And so she
decided, then and there she wasgood at math, she was going to
(03:12):
pursue that as a career. And soI just watched her over the
course of a couple of years, gether her, you know, go back to
school, get her master's inaccounting, and take the CPA
exam, which, as I hear, is verydifficult and unlikely, at least
at the time, to pass in onetake. And she did with two
(03:33):
little kids in tow. And justwatch her Just Blaze her own
path with no role models. Andshe
became mine. I every it's funny.
I didn't realize it at the time,but when I was a little girl, I,
instead of collecting, you know,Barbies and Polly Pockets, I
collected bank deposit slips.
And I had boxes and boxes ofcalculators and bank deposit
(03:58):
slips in my room, and I wouldplay bank and store and
business, and all I ever dreamedof was having a corner office to
do what I didn't know I was alittle girl, and to wear Blazers
with big shoulder pads, becausethat's what my mom did, and just
wanted to be here. So, you know,that's kind of like what I think
(04:20):
planted the seed for me as I wasgoing through middle and high
school and college and thenultimately grad school. I just,
I probably had that in my headsubconsciously the whole time, I
just want to be like her. She,she passed away 10 years ago,
and I it was like, you know,losing my best friend. She was
everything to me, and also myprofessional role model.
(04:44):
And so, yeah, she's just, shehas been my beacon.
And the reason that I decided togo back to school and get my MBA
back in 2001 was so that I couldhave a masters just like her,
except at the time.
She said, that's amazing. I'm soproud of you, but I also want my
(05:05):
MBA, because she had hermaster's and CPA in accounting.
So she and I went back tobusiness school together,
which was pretty amazing. That'sincredible. She was in New York,
and I had flown out, I had movedout to LA and I went to Anderson
at UCLA, and it's a two yearprogram where we went through it
at the same time. And she helpedme with my finance and
(05:25):
accounting homework. I helpedher with her marketing homework,
which was my chosen profession.
And we had an absolute blast,kind of having even though it
was, you know, we weren't in thesame city doing it together. So
after I got to LA I decided tosow seeds here, and I had been
really interested in moving intothe entertainment industry.
(05:46):
Prior to that, I was working atAmerican Express, which I loved,
but I was I wanted to work inmovie business, and so I decided
to stay in Los Angeles, and Igot recruited to work at Warner
Brothers, where I stayed for 13years, I bounced around to
different roles and and hadamazing leadership
opportunities. But pretty coolreflecting on the fact that I
(06:06):
stayed anywhere for 13 years,that's pretty rare these days.
It is. It's almost unheard of,awesome, cool. And then you
what, what happened after, afterthere. So you stay there for 13
years, and then where did youhead next? Yeah, so I stayed at
Warner for 13 years, and I gotmy start in the home video
(06:28):
division, which is where a lotof MBAs tend to go if they're
interested in entertainment,because it's at the time it kind
of functioned like CPG, wherethey really valued having an MBA
and paid accordingly and gaveyou responsibility. And I did
that for several years, but Ifound myself itching to do
something more on the valuecreation side and product
(06:50):
creation side. And so there wasa new division that launched at
the studio right around the timethat iTunes came into the came
onto the scene and PlayStationand Xbox and all these different
digital distribution channels,and Amazon, it was called unbox
at the time.
And so studios were trying tofigure out how they distribute
(07:13):
content through digitalchannels. And so I raised my
hand to join this fledglinggroup of the studio, and that
was the kind of the first momentI got my taste for
entrepreneurialism, but I wasstill nested in this giant
studio, so it was pretty comfy.
And then different opportunitiespresented themselves. And
while I was at Warner I createda new business unit to publish
(07:38):
mobile applications, and thenWarner Brothers bought a company
called Flixster, which I'm notsure is still functioning, but
Flixster owned Rotten Tomatoes,and Rotten Tomatoes had was 15
years old at the time, but, youknow, kind of
(07:58):
a very well known brand and kindof signal of movie quality in
the industry, but it was veryunderappreciated. And so whereas
Warner Brothers was focusing onthe excitement of owning the
database that Flixster offered,I was really excited. I had my
eyes on, what more could we dowith the Rotten Tomatoes IP? And
(08:18):
so i i made a pitch to the thehead of the division, and I
said, Could I run RottenTomatoes? And he said, Have you
ever run digital publishingbefore? Have you, you know, run
a company before? And I said,Nope, but this is exactly what I
want to do it. And so, you know,he gave me a shot, which was
amazing. And that was my secondsort of test of, like, Could I
(08:39):
be an entrepreneur? Could I, youknow, do something and operate
in like absolute ambiguity,ambiguity. And I loved it. And
then in 20, in 2015,or 16, we Warner Brothers sold
rotten tomatoes to Comcast, andit was absorbed.
(09:00):
And a lot of the team decidednot not to go, and I was at this
crossroads of, you know, what doI want to do next? I grew this
brand, and we hit all of ourgrowth milestones. I was so
proud of myself, and I had anopportunity to stay within the
studio and find anotherleadership role, but I actually
decided I wanted to make abigger change, and I took a role
(09:22):
at Netflix, whichwas, you know, still, it was
growing. It was, it was reallyexciting to be there, but it
wasn't the Netflix it is today.
So it felt like a little bit ofa risk, but it was, it was
incredibly excitingand a totally different approach
to entertainment, you know,just, you know, being in this
(09:43):
kind of high growth, techforward environment.
And I'll stop there. I cananswer other questions, but
that's that was my kind of pathin the entertainment space.
Yeah, no, I love it. And thetrend that I'm hearing is that
you raised your hand, you know,like you saw.
You identified theseopportunities. And even though,
(10:04):
you know, you were like, theremay not be 100%
qualified on paper, you know, Iwant to do this, you know. And
so tell us a little bit aboutthat. Like, where did that come
from? Where you're like, Listen,I want to do this. I'm gonna
raise my hand, I gotta go forit. And how do you identify
those opportunities? And onceyou do identify them, how do you
(10:26):
go after them? Sure, there's alot of people listening who are
like, okay, that's amazing.
Like, if I see an opportunity,you know, how do I go after it?
And how do I get it if I'm not,you know, if I don't have all
the check boxes checked, as faras somebody who would typically
take that on that role,you know, the first the first
time that really showed my like,proved to myself that I could do
(10:53):
something so risky and unprovenand really put myself out there.
Was when I was at WarnerBrothers. It was around 2008
I believe, and the app store hadjust launched, and noone really
knew what to make of it. Like,what were we making games like
(11:15):
video games, or was this apromotional channel, and I was
working on Sex and the City atthe time the movie. And I
thought it would be fun, just asa promotional gimmick, to create
an experience that replicatesthe movie scene when Carrie is
moving in with Mr. Big and shehad to decide what in her closet
(11:36):
to take or leave. And so itcreated, using iOS, an
experience that allows you totake pictures of things in your
closet, or if you're shopping,and send them to your friends,
and then they could sort ofthumbs up, thumbs down, tape or
toss.
It seems so not interesting nowthat I say it, but back at the
(11:56):
time it was, it was pretty wildthat you could do that with your
phone. And we hadhundreds of 1000s of downloads,
and it was free, but it was aabsolute, like it was a
marketing gimmick that I wasjust, you know, wanting to try.
And at that moment, I thought tomyself, Man, like, if 100,000
people download this thing thatjust takes pictures and sends
texts to your friends, is thereanything that we could monetize.
(12:20):
You know, if fans are reallyexcited about
IP, we sat on Harry Potter andBatman and Lord of the Rings and
The Hobbit and Sex and the Cityand so many other amazing
franchises. What more could wedo? And so I just kind of, I
kept ruminating about this beingan actual business, but I was in
(12:42):
my head and, you know, and thenI would show up at work and feel
like there's like, suppressthose thoughts, like, who are
you? How would you ever doanything like this? But they
wouldn't go away. And so italmost to me, felt like this.
The litmus test was like, Areyou obsessed with this idea, and
are you even though you don'tknow how to get it all done
(13:03):
today, if you could break it upinto little, tiny nano chunks,
could you do those nano chunksand scaffold until you actually
built a business? And so then,and just, I kind of made a
little mini, mini, mini businessplan in my brain of like, well,
who, who would I need to dothat? I probably need a couple
of developers, maybe otherpeople at the company could kind
(13:23):
of moonlight with me, so wewould have our day jobs and then
work on this on the side, so itwasn't a real risk or investment
for the studio make a couple ofthese games or apps and then
show people put them up and seeif they're successful. And then
with those dates, little fewdata points make a case to
(13:43):
formalize this into a business.
And so it was just those, like,nano things, of like, find other
people who are interested andexcited about this. Think about
the IP that we could use get,like, you know, the the
necessary approvals along theway. But
more or less, it's aboutbuilding, building the, you
know, the support system. Andthat's, that's how I did it. And
(14:06):
we ultimately built an entireline of business. Then we
generated millions of dollarsand published dozens of apps,
and they became the global kindof headquarters for the whole
studio for publishing appsthrough, you know, through to
the App Store. It was really,really exciting to me. I felt
like I was, it was a microcosmthat I was running my own
(14:28):
business within corner.
Brothers, yeah, wow, that's likethe dream.
And so I think one importantthing to point out there is that
you got buy in, right? So youkind of created a bunch of
champions around you for theseinitiatives, which is, which is
(14:48):
huge. Instead of just kind ofgoing on your own, you were
spearheading it, but you hadthis, you built this support.
And also you built this kind oflike ecosystem.
Them, of people who are alsogrowing, you know, their
experience and their careersthrough these, you know, these
exciting initiatives, which is,which is really incredible. I
(15:09):
want to fast forward just acouple of years, I guess so
when, when we're talking about,you know, women taking on these,
these leadership roles, you thengot involved with Chief and or a
CMO over there. I definitelyrespect that organization so
much, and I would love to hearabout your time there, because
that and talk about the missionof Chief first, before I
(15:31):
obliterate it, themission is actually quite
simple. It's to help ExecutiveWomen maximize their leadership
impact. And I had joined as amember when I was working as a
CMO at a tech startup.
They had approached me onLinkedIn, as they did you know,
(15:55):
many other executive women, andwhen I first read about it, I
got so excited, becausemy mom had passed away at that
point, and I felt like she wasthis little birdie on my
shoulder saying, You need toapply to join this thing this,
this is exactly what I wouldhave done. She used to be the
president of a non profitversion of chief in New York,
(16:15):
and so I used to go to eventswith her, and I was, you know,
this kind of honorary member ofher organization when I was in
high school and college, and soI just it felt like it was, I
needed to do it, and I was soexcited when they accepted me as
a member. And it was a reallygreat opportunity to network
with other women. And this whenI joined, it was during covid,
(16:38):
and so most of their events werevirtual, and it was big, but it
hadn't achieved, I think, thescale that it did a few years
later. And so it was veryintimate, you know, and I would
join sessions around topics thatwere top of mind for me, and it
(17:01):
always felt like a very safespace to ask questions of other
leaders.
They offer a program calledcore, which is you get a group
of peers that kind of act asyour personal board of
directors, and you meet withthem on a monthly basis. And so
whereas you can network with anyother members, you have this
(17:24):
group that you're assigned to,that you bond with, and you know
you can rely on and askquestions too. And it's, it's,
it's really special.
I was a member for a few years,and then they recruited me for
their cmo role, which wasexciting, because it's really
fun, especially for a marketer,to join a company when you are
(17:45):
the target audience. I knew theproduct I was at the target so
it was, I was able to hit theground running.
Yeah, tell us more about theexperience there, because, like
you said, you were the targetdemo, right? And you know, it's,
it's doing such, such great,great work, you know, for women
in leadership, sois that, is that organization
(18:06):
constructed with many women inleadership? Like, did you kind
of feel like they talk the talkas and walk the walk as well?
I do, I do the, notsurprisingly, most of the team
members are women, but it's notentirely women, and I think that
that's important,but it is. I mean, there's, you
(18:29):
know, it was formed by twowomen, founded by two women, who
they themselves, experienced theneed for this kind of personal
board of directors. They LindsayKaplan often talked about, you
know this phrase, of like, who'smentoring the mentors? So
you're, you're often called uponto give advice to others coming
up the ladder. But what happenswhen you yourself need advice?
(18:54):
Who can you look to? And sothat's really what Chief was
chiefly about. Andsomething that I really admired
when I first became a member wasthis idea, this kind of battle
cry to change the face ofleadership, and that that speaks
to people in different ways. Forme, it was about making sure
(19:19):
that the board room, whetherthat's, you know, internal
meetings or meetings withboards, but the boardroom as a
figure of speech, was comprisedof different
perspectives and people withdifferent lived experience, and
(19:39):
that, of course, means gender,right? But it also, to me, means
people with, you know, acrossracial lines, but also people
different lived experience. Youknow, I show up in boardrooms
with so many hats, and one ofthem is, you know, I'm a parent
to two kids.
(20:00):
One of them is profoundlydisabled and like that that that
informs how I see the world, andI think about accessibility and
and inclusion and diversity. Andso the way chief went about kind
of building its network, wasreally intentional about
(20:20):
including people from all walksof life and all cultures. And,
you know, admittedly, there weremissteps, but that's that was
not from lack of the rightintention. There's just, you
know, when you're building abusiness and you're trying to
scale an idea that clearly hasstrong product market fit,
you're you're not always goingto make every decision
(20:41):
perfectly, butthe their intentions were, all
are great,and it came from a place of
necessity for both of thefounders, which I really
admired, and I think a lot ofother people do as well. Yeah,
you mentioned your daughter andkind of the importance of
(21:03):
inclusion and accessibility. Canwe talk a little bit more you
and I talked a little bit aboutthis before we started
recording, but can we talk alittle bit more about that and
how that's kind of driven you tofound truly here and tell us
about that as well. Please.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I was, Iwas put on this path very
(21:24):
unexpectedly. I My youngerdaughter has a genetic disorder
that is not an inheriteddisorder. It was the tech the
medical term is sporadic, whichjust means it was random,
nothing I could have preparedfor.
It's called Rett syndrome. AndRett syndrome is unique in that
(21:45):
it predominantly affects girls.
It's, it's a there's a gene onyour X chromosome that has a
mutation. It's, it's caused byone gene,
and boys typically can't surviveit. And so we often talk about
as a as a disease that thatimpacts girls and women,
(22:07):
and her symptoms appeared whenshe was a toddler. So even when
she was born, we thoughteverything was fine. So we were
thoroughly unprepared when welearned that she she had this
disorder, because she wasshowing some symptoms, and when
I got the news, I got it in thewrong way. I was sent an email
over July 4 break. They weren'tsupposed to send me the genetic
(22:32):
report, and they did. And sothere was no one to call for
days. And so I just took toGoogle, and I, you know, I
broke, I think, had I been giventhe news the way I was supposed
to, by a medical professional, agenetic counselor, and
explaining what this could be,what this might not be, I
probably wouldn't have had sucha traumatic experience. But my
(22:53):
husband and I were destroyed bywhat we were finding on line
about what Rett syndrome is andneeds my our daughter would lose
her ability to speak, to walk,to use her hands. She would have
intractable seizures. She wouldhave digestive issues, insomnia,
anxiety,hepatonia. The list was endless,
(23:15):
and I couldn't I couldn't evenprocess what I was learning. And
so it was a really hard time forme, also, because my mom had
passed awayonly a few months prior,
and she was diagnosed withpancreatic cancer an hour after
(23:37):
Sadie was born. So there was, itwas, yeah, yeah. I felt like I
was being punked. It was, it wasa hard it was a hard year and a
half, and I was working. Thiswas a, of course, at the time, I
had just joined Netflix, whichis a pretty intense culture, and
I felt like I had just leftWarner Brothers. After 13 years,
(23:58):
I had endless coins in the bank.
People knew my work ethic, mymy, you know, my value. And then
I joined this new company andhad to start from scratch, and,
you know, building trust andrapport and creating a name for
myself and showing people whatvalue I bring. And all the
while, my life was crumbling.
And so,yeah, I I wound up I worked for
(24:20):
a woman at Netflix who I knewpersonally before I joined, and
she knew everything that wasgoing on. I don't know if this
is answering your question, butit's an, I think it's an
interesting story that she shetold me that
one of the reasons that shehired me was
(24:43):
my the way that I handled thediagnosis and the way that I was
approachingthe solution for me, when I was
told Sadie had Rett syndrome,and it's the worst case
scenario, there was a but andthat but was that it was.
Was believed to be curablebecause that mutation was
(25:04):
correctable. And so if, if wecould get in there and correct
the mistake,in theory, the whole disease
could be reversed, and all thesymptoms would go away, and she
would resume living a normallife. And so when I heard that,
I went right back into my thesame mode I was talking before,
when I launched the business atWarner Brothers publishing apps,
(25:25):
or when I pitched RottenTomatoes, I just sort of went
into these kind of, like nanochunks of like, okay, what's my
role here? If this is apossibility, this is our only
option to pursue. I have to helpcure this. And so I launched
into this,you know, I got really active in
the Rett syndrome researchtrust, and I joined the board,
(25:46):
and I helped raise money, and Ico host the world's largest
fundraiser for Rett syndrome,and we've raised, I
think, $15 million at thispoint. It's, it was, that was
just the only way I could thinkto kind of honor her, and, you
know, tell her I was doingeverything I could but also
(26:07):
survive. So, you know, I keptworking at the time. And I did
realize that I think that theNetflix culture was not maybe
ideal for me in my currentstate.
And so that is why I eventuallywent to go to a small, early
stage startup where I couldbuild and start fresh, and it
(26:29):
was a smaller organization, andit didn't have the same kind of
like corporate expectations andbureaucracy,
but as I was kind of processingthat, I was also
beginning to assume a newidentity in the mother of a
disabled child, and that worddisability was something I had a
(26:53):
really hard time with. At first,the language is scary and it
seems permanent and it and Ididn't even know what it meant
to be part of the disabilitycommunity, and at the time, I
was in denial, probably, and Ididn't even want to make any
friends in the disabilitycommunity. I just wanted to
almost have this life where wewere, you know, helping her with
her symptoms, and thenpretending everything was normal
(27:14):
and okay, but it wasn't. And Ineeded to, you know, get her on
another path of getting theright treatment and putting her
in a different EarlyIntervention Center and getting
her caregivers. And you knowthat that experience shown, it
shined a very bright light forme, on all the iniquities in
(27:38):
like navigating this system, allthe things, it was so hard. But
because I had the businessexperience that I did, I was
able to make that list of allthe things I had to do and go
one by one, and, you know,negotiate when I had to
negotiate, and go to the mat tofight for the things she needed.
And, you know, Unturned everystone when there were blockers
(28:02):
in our wayand at the end of it, you know,
I think she has everything thatshe needs and all things
considered as living a greatlife. But I hate the fact that
anyone with like with fewerresources and fewer I think
business skills than me goesthrough life with kids like, you
know, who have really profounddisabilities, or even, you know,
(28:24):
any challenge, and they don'tknow how to access the services
and supports that are availableto them. It's just so hard to
navigate. And so the thing thatcame up for me was caregiving,
because I looked at like, Why isher life so great. And why am I
a really happy, productive,thriving person? And the answer,
again and again and again, isthat we have great caregivers in
(28:48):
our lives. Who are? You know, mydaughter doesn't have very many
friends of her own because shecan't speak. And so these the
caregivers that are in her lifeare her best pals, and they take
her places, and they shop withher, and they go to the beach
with her, and they love hangingout with her, and she's
stimulated by them, and shefeels loved and accepted. And
for me, I could never have myjob or do all of the
(29:12):
philanthropy work that I doif I didn't have a great lineup
of care for her, so that I hadthe freedom to do what most
parents can do, because theirkids get older and become
independent. Mine's just notindependent. And so care for me
and it also, I think my husbandand I, you know, back before we
(29:37):
had great care, would bickerabout the things that you would
imagine, like, who's helping,who's changing her diaper, who's
calling the doctor, or who'staking her to this appointment,
who's emptying the dishwasher,and once we had care in the home
to help offload, like some ofthe things that we knew she
needed, our marriage came back,and we were happy again and
could focus on the things thatmatter.
(30:00):
Honored, and we could also focuson our older daughter who needed
us. And so I decided to build abusiness to make accessing
caregivers easier for familieswhose kids and adult kids have
challenges. It could bebehavioral challenges, medical
challenges, the spectrum is sovast, but once you have access
(30:22):
to care, it really can. It cannot only sort of fix a problem,
it could make your lifewonderful. And that's that's
really my mission, is to getevery person the care they need
so that they can live the lifethat they that they want.
And you know, a big question fora lot of people may be, what
about affordability? This is apaid option, but there's so many
(30:46):
families who have kids and lovedones who have disabilities or
chronic illnesses that areentitled to respite care funds
they don't know about and theydon't use. So part of this is
also directing them to thoseresources, because I've done it
the hard way and making surethat they know that they can use
those resources to make thisextremely affordable. Yeah, God,
(31:10):
it's it's so important. Like youand I were talking briefly. You
know about this, and so many ofmy brothers and sisters have so
many different challenges, and Isaw my mom go through this like
she had to advocate constantlyto the point of exhaustion,
right? And like, research andlike, figure out, like, how to
get these kids the support thatthey needed, our family, the
(31:34):
support that we needed, youknow, and you're right, the
resources just aren't there. Sowhat you're doing is such a
beautiful a beautiful thing. Andwhen I think back to what you
were speaking about earlier inyour career, when you would
identify a need and figure itout, you know, and get you know
supporters, and it's just like,gosh, when you look back to
(31:54):
that, it was almost likebeautifully setting you up for
this moment, you know, and thisenvironment that you were thrown
into,that you could do this and and
you've also expanded it because,tell us, I was reading a little
bit how you also mentorearly stage founders. And then
there was one particular founderwho you helped, really. And,
yeah, so can you tell us alittle bit about, yeah, I am a
(32:18):
mentor, a friend. I am now beingmentored by her because she's a
twice, a two time founder,and I think I might be the
president of her fan club. Hername is Keeley cat wells, it's
funny. I found her through aseries of Google searches when I
was CMO of a company called bidmob. We did
(32:44):
like you know, to support our deand I initiatives. We did some
internal and with some of ourclients, webinars, just to talk
through different lifeexperiences and open our eyes
to, you know, differentdifferent paths and communities.
And I was looking for someone tospeak, someone with some
authority to speak on thedisability experience, and every
(33:07):
single Google search I did ledto this person, Kelly, cat,
well, like, Who is this person?
I mean, on LinkedIn, onInstagram, on Google, every
search pointed to her. And so Ireached out, I did a little
stalking on LinkedIn, and Isaid, I just, I need to know
you. I'm doing this thing. I'dlove you to be my, my, my, my
guest, but I also just need toknow you, because everything I
(33:27):
read about her was so special.
She herself has a disability.
She founded a company called Ctalent, which represented
disabled athletes and artistsand actors
and musicians for roles in, youknow, on TV and film, broadcast
(33:49):
and, you know, kind of set up ashop, like a little version of a
UCA or, you know, or CIA, butspecifically Representing
disabled talent. It was such abrilliant idea, and it was a
huge success. And she wound upselling the business to a
company called whaler, and so wehad a friendship for you know,
(34:14):
several months leading up to thesale, and I wound up helping.
You're just advising her on onthe sale itself. I happen to
know the folks over at whaler,and I thought it was, it was a
great partnership. And so shedecided to launch into her
second, her second startup,which is called Making space,
which is also in support of thedisability community. And this
(34:36):
is a learning and developmentplatform that helps people who
have aspirations to work increative professions and
corporate America to help getthem the training and also
access to jobs that areavailable. And so she is that
kind of learning and developmentplatform. And also I'm probably
(34:57):
doing a terrible job saying jobboard, but like that.
That, that access point, so youknow what jobs are available.
And she's working with companiesto specifically look to hire for
disability, which is not fordisability, but hire people who
who happen to have disabilities,just to make sure that, again,
we're increasing the diversityof our workforce. So she's,
she's, I mean, I mean everylike, she's won every award,
(35:18):
she's been featured on every,you know, in every interesting
article about disability, she'sbeen to the White House multiple
times.
She hangsout with Gloria Steinem. I don't
know. I can't say enough greatthings about her. She's a
wonderful, wonderful person who,I think is, is
a shining example of likeanything is possible. She hasn't
(35:41):
even cracked 30 years old yet.
She's just wow. She'sincredible. And I feed off of
stories like that to remindmyself that I can do this. And
then I, like so many founders,I'm sure, and so many women,
imposter syndrome creeps up allthe time, and the way that I
combat it is, is going back andreading stories like, Healy's
(36:04):
like, she had no businesstraining for this, you know, she
she's not even American, she'sBritish. And so she came to
America and built thesebusinesses. And
the barriers in her way are, youknow, probably seemed
insurmountable, but she did it.
And then, you know, if she coulddo it, so could I, and there's a
million scary things that areinvolved in starting a business,
(36:26):
butI did exactly with truly care,
with what I did when I was, youknow, in all these other stories
I shared was I found otherpeople who believe deeply in
what, in the in the problem Tobe solved. And the My vision for
a solution which is incrediblyvalidating, and also so many
people, not surprisingly, Iwould say, almost every person I
(36:48):
tell about truly care.
Amazingly, just like you comeback to me and say, Oh, I have a
disability story, I have achild, I have a cousin, I have a
niece, I have a brother, sister,and yeah, care has always been a
challenge, and so I can see howthis is necessary. And so
there's just, there's so manypeople that are cheering me on
(37:10):
and offering to help that now Ifeel like I have to do this,
because people are counting onme, right? We have so many
families that have signed up onour wait list. They have care
jobs to fill, and now my role isto build the pipeline of amazing
caregivers to match with thesejobs.
(37:30):
That's incredible. And what Ican't help but think that your
leadership style, obviously,servant leader, pops into my
head, and so it's likewhat you've also had so many
role I mean, you know, from likeNetflix to what you're doing
now, you know, what is that?
(37:51):
What does serve, being a servantleader, mean to you? And what
does that look like in practice,whether or not it's a high
stakes environment or, you know,or what it is like. What are
your thoughts around that?
I think servant leadershipabsolutely describes me so well
done. I think it's about makingsure that the people who you are
(38:12):
working with and who can helpyou have everything they need to
succeed.
It's not about saying yes toevery single thing that they
suggest or ask for. It's aboutmaking sure that they have the
resources they need, the supportthey need, the the
validation if they need it to dotheir best work and reach their
(38:35):
potential. That's that for me,how I've always operated, and
then get out of the way, youknow, I think earlier on in my
career, some of the, you know,I've received feedback from
teams that have worked for me,and the thing that I've had to
work on was I don't always knowthe right answer, and I
(38:56):
oftentimes, if I'm passionateabout something, Oftentimes in a
design capacity, I'll justinject my opinion, but you don't
realize, if you're coming from aposition of power, most people
just feel like they have to takeyour opinion as the answer. And
so I've learned over the yearsto just step back and empower
other people, like give themwhat they need, and empower them
(39:16):
to make the decisions and standby those choices, and if they
work amazing, if they don't,everyone's learned a lesson, and
we can move on and be betternext time. When I think about
all the different hats you'veworn and wear,
you know, senior executive foundor Founder Mentor,
(39:37):
you're also a board member, ofcourse, and so
when you're choosing which youknow board seats to fill, or you
know what organizations you kindof want to partner with, what
values come to mind, like whatyou know, how do you choose? You
know whether you're going toserve on a board or not? Yeah.
(40:00):
Yeah, so I think maybe it waslike five or so years ago, like
a lot of women who have achievedsome professional success, I
felt, to myself, now seems likea good time to join a board.
Well, it's definitely not thateasy.
And I, you know, I signed up forsome organizations and
(40:21):
nonprofits that help womenunderstand what is entailed and
serving on a board, and, youknow, listen to countless panel
discussions with women on board.
And I was like, This is great.
This is great, and it is. But Ithink at the end of the day, if
your motive is just, you know,the resume, or to have some
equity, or to just have the kindof role where you can give some
(40:45):
advice and then you don't haveto execute.
It's probably unlikely thatyou're going to find a board
opportunity that that wants youand also that fits. So I
stopped. I moved away from thatmotion to like the right thing
is going to present itself atthe right time. And I, you know,
I was a member of of Keelyadvisory board, and still am for
(41:05):
her companies, and that justgives me utter pride and joy to
help her build this businessthat you know, can really change
the world for the one in fourpeople who live with a
disabilityand help level the playing
field.
(41:27):
It means something to me, and somy primary litmus test is like,
is it time well spent, and isthe advice I'm going to give and
the effort I'm going to makegoing to materialize into
something that makes the world abetter place?
You place. The other boards thatI sat on are nonprofit boards
wherethere are always expectations
(41:48):
for being a donor when you siton a nonprofit board. And so for
me, I have funneled nearly allof my nonprofit support to the
Rett syndrome research trust,because I'm trying to cure Rett
syndrome for my daughter.
And so I sat on the a few otherboards and actually recused
(42:11):
myself because I felt like Ican't give you guys my all
anymore,and I want to make sure that I'm
making the best use of my timeand and making sure that it's as
effective as possible. And soright now, the only nonprofit
board that I serve on is Rettsyndrome research trust, because
I want to give them everything Ihave
(42:31):
no that makes that makes senseand good for you for making that
decision, right, instead of justto keep putting one foot in
front of the other, just becausethat's the easier thing to do,
and actually identifying what'swhat works best for for your
time and how best to use it,your work is deeply personal.
It's it's not light hearted.
(42:54):
It's a it carries a certainweight. I would imagine what, do
youdo to set the tone for your day?
Like, what do you do? You know,you're going through highs and
lows, you know? Is thereanything that you kind of do to
help navigate that,um, you mean for my own health
or mental health? Yeah,I have gotten so much better
(43:17):
about prioritizing my physicaland mental health in the last
few years as I stared down thebarrel of perimenopause.
So, you know, exercising moreand getting higher quality
sleep. My husband is very intothis stuff as well, so we're
(43:37):
good, like accountabilitypartners for each other,
but I love hiking. I love takinglong walks and doing yoga
and yeah, just making sure thatI'm checking in with myself and
not getting sucked into the dayto day. And then the day goes by
(43:58):
and I haven't done anything formyself.
I really, I took a peloton classrecently, and the instructor was
like, you're where you'resupposed to be. You're present.
Everything else can wait. Which,it's such a like throwaway thing
to say, but it really, it'sstuck in my brain, everything
else can wait. And that's,that's my kind of motivating
(44:18):
line that I tell myself when theyou know, evening is creeping in
and I haven't done any haven'tdone any exercise, or any, you
know, even mental health, walk,everything else can wait. Yeah,
no, that's huge. Sometimes whenI'm going to sleep, I'm like,
all you have to do right now issleep. That's all you have to
worry about. One job, one jobright now. That's the sleep.
Shut the mind off, please. Um,oh my gosh, I could talk to you
(44:42):
forever. So is there a book orpodcast or a resource that you
know, you recommend? Maybe,maybe it's made a lasting
impact. Maybe you're like, Oh, Ireally, you know, got a lot from
that. It doesn't have to bedeep. It could be just
entertainment value that youwant to.
In you knowthat is so hard for me because I
(45:03):
consume so much podcasts and Ilisten and read to books.
For me, I love my I will justgive you a category or genre I
love listening to memoirs. It'smy favorite genre, and i i
(45:25):
voraciously consume them becausethey motivate me
and they remind me to live afull life. Yeah, I
am always amazed and inspired bythe the stories shared and
memoirs and the, you know, thetrials and tribulations and
like, how someone survivedsomething, or, you know, just
(45:47):
set out to do something reallyscary,
and then it just, I think tomyself, like they could do it, I
could do it. And just as areminder to live a full life and
and have amazing experiences andlive with gratitude. So I would
just say, Yeah, long windedanswer memoirs.
(46:08):
I as a founder, yeah, as afounder. I love the show the
pitch. It's kind of like SharkTank for early stage founders,
and you can hear them pitchtheir businesses to a room full
of VCs. And I get a lot of valueout of that, because I can just
sort of hear how they're tellingtheir story and the questions
and the pushback and thevalidation that they get. Yeah,
(46:30):
no, I love that too. And it's mymom always says, like, everyone
has a story, you know? And sothat's, that's my favorite thing
as well. Where, where can peoplefind you? Online if they want to
learn more about what you'redoing or connect.
LinkedIn is the my socialnetwork of choice, Steph bone is
(46:52):
you can search for me that way.
I have, I would say, truly care.
Also has a LinkedIn presence,but we're pretty active on
Instagram. And the handle is attruly care official. And the
website is www dot, truly dotcare.
(47:14):
And, yeah, that's those areprobably the best channels for
me. Okay, perfect. We'll includethose in the in the show notes.
And okay, so I have one last funquestion that I ask every single
guest, because my husband and Iare music heads,
but if you could listen to onemusic artist the rest of your
life, who would it be? It's sucha good question and hard one to
(47:37):
answer, but I think if I'mhonest, it might be Alanis
morissa. I fell in love with herthe 90s. I have never left the
fan club.
I'm such a fan. And my dad is amusician, music and art in my
(47:58):
family as well, and he and Iwent to her concert in in the
90s, and it was just such a funexperience. That's really cool.
Yeah, and she kind of made aresurgence, I feel like,
recently, yeah,and she has a show jacket. No,
not jacket. Little girl tocalled,
oh my gosh, Meg, is calledjacket. Little girl. She has a
(48:20):
Broadway show that she producedthat I saw that's, that's
exactly, yeah, I was listeningto a podcast about it was really
incredible. Yeah, yeah, that wasgreat. What's your answer?
Beastie Boyslove it. I've met Adam Yost
before. No, I was, I was fangirling so hard, I had breakfast
with him, and we did a deal. We,yeah, this girl from Queens,
(48:47):
amazing. Yes, exactly. This girlfrom Queens is like having a
heart attack, right?
Yeah, we did it. He used to havea production company called
oscilloscope. Yes, that he, he,he started with a guy named
David Frankel, andwe, when I was at Warner
(49:07):
Brothers, we were going todistribute all the films that
they produced. And so he wantedto have an in person meeting to,
you know, get to know us a bit.
And so my colleague and I flewout to New York, and we met him
for brunch, and I remember himbeing very into herbal teas. He
had a whole setup of all thesedifferent herbal teas. He's a
(49:29):
health nut.
And I was like shaking under thetable because I bc boys might be
my second answer. I mean, Ithey're great, yeah. And the
next week, there was a anannouncement about the deal, and
the journalists had interviewedhim, and he said, they said, you
know, what do you think aboutworking with Warner Brothers?
(49:49):
And he said, Well, I met acouple of cool cats and decided
this would be a good, you know,a good plan, so let's do it. And
I got that article, and I said.
To my friends. I'm like, I'm oneof the cats. I'm a cool cat. You
guys.
Oh, my God, that's incredible.
Wow. Well, I feel cooler justknowing you're a cool cat.
(50:16):
I know my mom, whenever I likeBeastie Boys comes up, she's
like, still Aaron, and I'm like,still, mom, beasty boy.
Okay, Stephanie, literally, Icould talk to you all all day,
but I promised I would onlytake, I promised you less than
an hour of your time. And, like,apparently I lied so but we are
thankyou for being on the show and
(50:38):
taking the time. I've thoroughlyenjoyed our discussion. I
really, really appreciate it.
Likewise. Thank you for havingme. You.
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