June 13, 2025 • 25 mins
Charlie Fink is a leading voice in the world of innovation, extended reality (XR), and technology storytelling. Best known for his Forbes column, the AI/XR Podcast, and a decades-long career spanning Disney Animation, AOL, and multiple startups, Charlie shares his insider’s journey from the VHS era of Disney classics to the frontlines of AI-generated media.
Key Takeaways:
- Decades in Innovation: Charlie started in Hollywood as a production assistant, quickly rising to become the youngest Vice President of Animation at Disney, working on classics like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.”
- Full-Circle Creative Career: Though he moved from animation to live-action (and learned the lessons of following one’s instincts in the entertainment industry), Charlie’s career brought him back to animation—now powered by AI and collaboration with industry legends like Rob Minkoff.
- Digital Media Trailblazer: At AOL, Charlie was among the first to shape original, interactive online content and recognized (ahead of its time) the potential for LinkedIn-style social networks within AOL’s platform.
- Hands-On with XR and AI: Today, Charlie produces the AI/XR Podcast, teaches at Chapman and ASU, writes a weekly Forbes column, and advises countless startups. He’s currently working on a new book and a series of animated shorts created with AI.
- Lessons for Innovators: Charlie highlights the importance of helping others without expecting anything in return, embracing the unknown, and not missing new waves of innovation—even if you’re already successful.
- Foundational Influence: As someone who’s both witnessed and helped shape pivotal shifts in media and tech, Charlie’s story is about the power of curiosity, adaptability, and community.
Subscribe for more inspiring stories of innovation.
About Charlie Fink ---
Charlie Fink writes a weekly technology column for Forbes covering AI and XR, and co-hosts its companion show, The AI/XR Podcast. He is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse (2017) and Convergence: How the World Will Be Painted With Data (2019).
Fink teaches emerging media at Chapman University in Orange, CA, and at Arizona State University’s graduate program in Narrative and Emerging Media in Los Angeles. He is also CEO of Sprocketdyne, an AI animation studio he co-founded with film director Rob Minkoff.
Fink's forty-year career at the intersection of storytelling and technology began at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he famously conceived the idea for The Lion King and subsequently became the studio’s youngest-ever vice president of creative affairs.
Fink's work in immersive technology began in 1992 as COO of Virtual World Entertainment, a groundbreaking location-based VR company founded by Tim Disney.
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nathan C Bowser (00:00):
Hey everybody, this is Nathan.
Welcome to The Glow Up.
We've got a really specialepisode for you this week.
We're talking this week withCharlie Fink, you know him as a
producer of worldwideentertainment properties.
You know him as a podcast host.
You know him as a bestsellingauthor of some of the seminal
(00:22):
books on spatial computing.
He is an adjunct faculty.
He is a columnist.
He is a super fan and a serialinnovative creator whose story I
think you're really going toenjoy.
We're gonna run two episodesthis week and next week.
(00:42):
We're gonna split the episode inhalf so you can hear an amazing
story of Charlie's journey ininnovation and the incredible
projects and view that he's hadon the development of immersive
technologies, storytelling, andthe current new media landscape.
I think you'll really enjoy it.
(01:04):
Now, let's dive in! Hello andwelcome to The Glow Up Fabulous
conversations with innovativeminds.
Today I am here with the one,the only Charlie Fink of Forbes,
and so many other amazingprojects.
Charlie, it is so great to seeyou here today.
Thank you!
Charlie Fink (01:23):
Thanks for the invitation, Nathan.
I love nothing more than talkingabout myself.
Nathan C Bowser (01:26):
We've got a whole episode dedicated, so
let's jump on in! I know you assomebody who has advised almost
every startup that I've had thepleasure of working with and
somebody who is a fixture at XRevents.
But you do a lot more than justadvising.
Can you introduce yourself andtell us a little bit about all
(01:47):
the amazing things that you'reup to?
Charlie Fink (01:49):
Sure.
I'm a producer among otherthings, I produce the weekly
AI/XR Podcast, which I co-hostwith Ted Schilowitz, a former
futurist for Paramount and Fox.
And Rony Abovitz, who is thefounder of MAKO Robotics.
And of course we all know him asthe founder of Magic Leap.
He is most recently the founderof an AI startup called
(02:10):
SynthBee, which is focused onethical AI, if there is such a
thing.
I teach at Chapman Universityand Arizona State University, on
emerging media XR and AI.
With regard to my otherendeavors, I may be working on a
new book.
Of course I write my Forbescolumn every week, which is a
(02:33):
news roundup with somecommentary going on eight years.
I'm sure I'm leaving somethingout.
Oh! I'm working on an animatedmovie, a series of animated
shorts for social media that aremade primarily with AI, with an
old friend, Rob Minkoff, who isthe co-director of The Lion
King, and directed Stuart Littleand Haunted Mansion and
(02:55):
Forbidden Kingdom and half adozen other movies.
It's really fun to be workingwith an old friend.
I did not think I, I producedmany things, books, podcasts,
videos, but I never thought Iwould be back producing an
animated content again but Iguess that's where I started my
career and I guess that's whereit's gonna end.
Nathan C Bowser (03:14):
That's amazing! I wanna get back to that sort of
full circle journey here in asecond.
Doing lots of innovative thingsacross a number of categories
and channels working with oldfriends who are quite
accomplished, can you tell us alittle bit more about your
journey in innovation and howyou got to where you are today?
Charlie Fink (03:36):
That's gonna involve telling my life story,
which takes a little while whenyou're my age.
Let me start out by saying Istarted out like every young
person who wants to be in theentertainment business with no
one and nothing to help me.
I didn't go to an Ivy Leagueschool.
I went to art school.
You know, I didn't have anyother advantages except it was
(03:57):
the eighties.
And if you were a young Jewishguy on the make, you had plenty
of people to hire you who areexactly like you.
You know, and that's how Itended to hire people as well,
much to my regret, because I cansee clearly somebody like me is
not a suitable employee for abig company.
So I'm trapped in a consultingworld.
You know, as you said I consultwith many companies.
(04:19):
Some pay me, some don't.
I write about some of them, someI don't.
The money that I do make fromconsulting is de minimus.
I don't charge very much when Ido charge, although I am working
with somebody now who's no.
We're gonna turn this into abusiness." So that's exciting
because I've never reallyprofessionalized, my consulting
business.
(04:39):
You know, there are people whomake a pretty nice living from
it who don't know as much as Ido, but you have to package it
up and you have to have somebodyout there selling it.
Getting back to my journey, so Ibroke into the entertainment
industry.
I started out as a PA and then Iwas a location manager.
This is in Chicago where I wentto graduate school.
There were several Hollywoodmovies that got shot in Chicago
(05:00):
at that time.
It was a popular location, itwas inexpensive.
And it offered a fresh city anda fresh look that, other films
did not have.
There was a period there where adozen well-known films,
including"Ferris Bueller's DayOff" and several films that I
worked on, including"Nothing inCommon" which was a Tom Hanks
and Jackie Gleason vehicle.
Most students don't know whoJackie Gleason is, so it's so
(05:24):
funny.
You ask them about performersfrom the thirties, forties, and
the fifties, or even the sixtiesthat were so famous when I was
growing up, they have noknowledge of them.
Going back to my journey inHollywood, I met on"Nothing in
Common" Alex Rose, who was theproducer of"Norma Rae" and she
was producing this film for GaryMarshall and went on to do five
(05:44):
films with Gary, so she lost herstory editor.
Typically, if you're a producer,some studio pays for your
development assistant and younetwork your way through town
meeting other assistants andpeople at events and you start
building up a network andeventually you start hearing
about jobs.
"Oh, do you know the Paramount'slooking for this?""Did you know
(06:06):
they're interviewing for thatover at Columbia Pictures?" I
heard from a friend of mine,Cynthia Sherman, who moved to LA
and she had been working inChicago Theater and I had
friends in Chicago Theaternaturally from going to grad
school there, and they're like,"Oh, Charlie Fink moved to
Hollywood.""When you get there,look him up." So we had lunch
together and, she's a lovelyperson and had worked, you know,
(06:29):
in the artistic director'soffice and had some sense of
dramaturgy and she may have evenhad a degree in theater.
In any event, like the day afterwe have lunch, Bette Midler and
Bonnie Bruckheimer are walkingout of Gary's office and Bonnie
Bruckheimer liked me.
So she stops at my desk and sheraps on it, you know,'cause
there's like a bullpen of sixpeople sitting outside of Gary's
(06:53):
office and she goes,"I need aCharlie.
Anybody who knows a Charlie,have them contact my office." So
I get on the phone and I callCynthia Sherman, and that office
at that time was on the Disneylot.
So Cynthia goes over there, theyhire her like the next day.
So a couple weeks later, she'swalking across the Disney lot
and she runs into PeterSchneider, who she knew from
(07:16):
Chicago Theater when she was anintern.
Peter was one of the producersof the Olympics Arts Festival,
so he got to know JeffKatzenberg.
When Katzenberg moved to Disney,he brought Peter with him as the
VP of Animation.
So she's walking across the lotand she runs into him doing
development with Bette Midler,which probably meant exactly
what I was doing for Gary, whichwas reading scripts and running
(07:38):
out for lunch.
And he says to her,"Do you knowdevelopment people?
I need to have a developmentperson inside a feature
animation." And she goes,"Ohyeah.
I know a guy who went to artschool." So I got a job as a
junior executive, this was 1986at Disney Animation.
And my job at Disney Animationwas to help them develop ideas
(07:59):
for animated movies.
And the ideas that we wereworking on that time were"Beauty
and the Beast" and"Aladdin".
And there were some other lesserpictures,"The Rescuers Down
Under" which was a sequel to avery sweet, old fashioned movie.
I worked on other things likethe"Duck Tales" movie and
prosaic titles like that, Mickeystarring in"Prince and the
(08:20):
Pauper" But, obviously workingon those classic animated movies
was you know,"Little Mermaid"wasn't in production when I was
there.
Alan Menken had an office nextto mine where he would endlessly
play that beginning vamp from"Aladdin" Boom, ba boom! So my
first year at Disney was scoredby the opening for"Aladdin"
'cause I think he'd just bang itout while he was thinking.
Nathan C Bowser (08:44):
Oh my gosh, I have to take a minute and just
celebrate, you're in that likelarge white box,
VHS-cassette-era of Disneyclassics.
You're speaking you know, to ageneration, to my generations
very specifically.
This was foundational contentthat we're consuming.
I also have to point out, theAladdin Magic Carpet VR ride is
(09:07):
often signaled as a lot ofpeople's first entry or
inspiration about virtualreality.
I love that you're such an OGyou were there when they were
developing"Aladdin" as an idea!
Charlie Fink (09:21):
I was.
They had a million consultantson that project, including Avi
Bar-Zeev.
Nathan C Bowser (09:27):
Yes! There's
Charlie Fink (09:28):
a guy you should get on your show.
Nathan C Bowser (09:30):
Oh, we've talked with Avi on The AR minute
and, it's been too many minutessince we've chatted with him.
Charlie Fink (09:36):
Like Rony.
He knows a lot about a lot.
Nathan C Bowser (09:39):
I love this idea, Charlie, that as an art
student with really not a lot ofhandholds to pull yourself up
by, with community, with grit,and with being in the right
place, being helpful, in theright moments gave you this
opportunity.
Charlie Fink (09:57):
That's a great insight because you have to help
people without expectinganything in return.
So first of all, while a juniorexecutive, I came up with this
idea for Bambi in Africa.
We were looking for boy moviesand I said, let's do Bambi in
Africa with African music and,you know, world music was really
big then.
Then I was into Ladysmith BlackMambazo, who ended up actually
(10:20):
providing some of the score forthe film because we wanted to
make it feel authentic.
They promoted me to VicePresident of Animation.
I was the youngest studio vicepresident.
I was there two years beforethey promoted me.
So I was the youngest studiovice president for a while, and
I have coasted on that my entirecareer.
I wanted to go work inlive-action.
I felt like that's where theaction was.
(10:41):
This is probably one of my firsthuge strategic mistakes in my
career because I did not trulyunderstand how huge animation
was gonna become.
I should have seen it, but Ididn't see it.
I had this sort of seventies,eighties vision of Hollywood and
I wanted to be a big producer.
I wanted to be a studioexecutive in live-action.
You have to understand, this isback in 1991, animation was
(11:03):
still viewed as a backwater forexecutives.
I was working on"Fantasia 2000"in 1991, so I kind of felt like
there's not a lot of action inanimation for me.
So when I got offered a job tomove over to live-action, I took
it.
Unfortunately I was working fora sociopath, and a well-known
(11:24):
sociopath in Hollywood.
I won't name his name justbecause who knows who listens
and what trouble, but everybodywho knew Disney knows who this
guy was.
They kept him around for a longtime because he was a brilliant
film producer.
And, like the old Woody Allenjoke, they needed the eggs.
But those were the days beforeHR departments where you could
(11:45):
really be like Scott Rudin andthrow telephones at people and
just act out in a childish,vicious way.
Eventually Roy Disney, who was amentor, but also a friend and
was with Peter, overseeing theanimation department.
He was, chairman.
And we were having lunch.
Oh God, Roy was a funny and sobrilliant.
(12:05):
But it was fun to have lunchwith him except he ate with a
burning cigarette in his hand.
That's how addicted to nicotinehe was, he couldn't stand the
feeling of being full with foodand all the blood rushing
through his stomach, withoutdiminishing the amount of
nicotine in his body.
He was in his late seventiesuntil he died of stomach cancer.
(12:26):
But Roy said,"You should team upwith my son Tim.
He wants to buy, a technologycompany or an entertainment
technology company.
You guys would be naturalpartners." So Tim and I started
looking for a company toacquire, and we found this
company in Chicago calledVirtual World.
it was called Virtual WorldEntertainment.
The product was calledBattleTech.
(12:48):
And it was, essentially modifiedflight simulators.
And instead of putting you inthe sky where it's very
difficult to find people and tointeract with them you're mostly
firing missiles going 600 milesan hour at things that are 10
miles away.
But on the planet Solaris, whereyou were piloting a mech and you
(13:08):
know, the other people in thesimulation were piloting the
other mechs you saw outside ofyour quote unquote"window." So
we joined forces with them.
We continuously improved thatproduct until, you know, four
years later.
It was a fantastic cockpitexperience and we built a lot of
outposts for Dave and Busters,but it was a terrible business.
(13:30):
And location-based entertainmentgenerally is a terrible
business.
I see some companies succeedingwith it but it is the kid's
birthday party business, right?
You've gotta fill that place upon Saturday during the day, not
just Saturday night.
Not to go down that rabbit hole,but that was the business that
Tim and I were in.
And as a result of being in thatbusiness, I came to be viewed as
(13:52):
a digital media executive at atime when there were few of
those beasts.
So I got recruited by AOL to betheir senior vice president of
original content.
So that was AOL Studios, AOLGreenhouse.
Eventually I ended up runningAOL's entertainment and
lifestyle channels, includinggames.
(14:12):
I did that for about a year.
Then, you know, AOL was acompany like many tech companies
that did a re-org every year.
So eventually a re-org came forme and I was promoted to being
Vice President of SpecialProjects, which means I sat in
an office by myself and I got topitch things to my bosses until
it was, you know, I had a bigcontract with severance and
(14:34):
everything else.
So they had to choose the righttime to cut me loose and pay me
off, which came with theNetscape acquisition.
But my last act at AOL was topitch a product called AOL
Business Cards.
So you'd put yourself on AOLwith your resume and your work
history and you'd be in acategory like let's say dentists
in Washington DC.
(14:55):
So you could find all the otherdentists and the dentists could
find you, or you're a contractorand you wanna find carpenters in
your area, or you know peoplewho do framing or what's
concrete, whatever.
And so they said,"You can't selladvertising against business
cards.
It's a stupid idea!" In the nextyear Reid Hoffman started
LinkedIn! But AOL had so manyopportunities like that we
(15:17):
really could not see the forestthrough the trees.
AOL was the first social networkand they didn't even realize it.
Nathan C Bowser (15:23):
This idea of being like a leading technology
mega corporation.
In the nineties, AOL was yourinternet service provider.
It was a content provider.
It was, music and entertainment.
It was search.
We thought we'd be in
Charlie Fink (15:41):
the banking business.
We were like, you know Meta istoday just so arrogant and so
full of assumptions.
It's actually made me rathertimid as an investor because,
you know, I know that theinternal workings of these
companies are quite differentthan our experience of them from
the other side of the wall.
Nathan C Bowser (15:59):
That idea that a company so big and enigmatic
might not necessarily understandthe opportunity in front of it
is a really juicy one, right?
To know that even at the highestlevels there could be blinders
to what makes a successfulbusiness or how to bring an
innovative innovation to themarket.
(16:20):
And it also shows like whyupstart innovators can sometimes
turn a whole industry upsidedown because they're paying
attention.
Charlie Fink (16:29):
They turn the industry upside down, but they
weren't the ones who benefitedfrom it.
Nathan C Bowser (16:33):
Yep.
Love it!
Charlie Fink (16:34):
They also could not sustain their advantage.
We knew at the time that we hada temporary advantage, and the
company was so anxious to showrevenue at that point to show
positive revenue that theycouldn't focus on anything else.
Wall Street had, run up theirvalue as trading like crazy.
We think a tech company today is30x and a growth company, maybe
(16:57):
like Nvidia was at some pointlike 100x.
AOL was like that company, itwas like 100x.
So they had to show revenue,they had to show momentum,
acquisitions.
AOL passed on acquiring Google.
Probably would not have wonsearch had they done so.
AOL was protecting the,unprotectable part of the
(17:21):
business, which is ad sales,which just follows consumer
activity, has no loyalty to aplatform.
Remember, we had good reason tothink we were the internet, but
we also knew that the web was ahuge threat.
AOL ended up losing the game toupstarts like Google and
Facebook, who recognized thatAOL was doing those things, but
(17:43):
so poorly that an outsidecompany would have much more
success.
And again, these were web-basedcompanies, which, grown up on
the early internet worryingabout how to reach AOL's
audience.
So I left AOL and I immediatelystarted a company based on an
idea I had an AOL that had beenshot down, called eAgents.
(18:03):
And the idea is that you wouldfill out a form.
You know, it was the Yahoohomepage, a customized Yahoo
homepage delivered to you viaemail because the Yahoo homepage
didn't exist.
And the first place everybodywent online was email.
Nobody had a smartphone.
Nobody had social media.
Social media at that time wasInstant Messenger.
And then ICQ came along and wasthe web-based version of Instant
(18:25):
Messenger.
And of course, AOL acquired themnot quite understanding how
important messaging was gonna beon smartphones.
And they should have beenbecause email, was a huge
innovation in asynchronouscommunication, right?
It combined instant withasynchronicity.
So it wasn't as long as gettinga letter in the mail, but you
(18:48):
didn't have to respond to itimmediately, and that was a
revolutionary change incommunications.
And again, I don't think AOL sawthat.
So I started eAgents I raised$3million.
We made a deal with Yahoo, whichbasically using opt out, gave us
like 8 million users.
So along comes AmericanGreetings.
(19:09):
It says you have 8 million usersof your email thing.
We want that product for our adsales deal with AOL.
So they bought the company.
I became President and ChiefCreative Officer of American
Greetings in Cleveland.
I commuted from NorthernVirginia where we had moved
while I was working for AOL andstarted commuting to Cleveland.
So I'd, you know, be out Sundaynight and be back Thursday
(19:32):
night.
And, you know, we lived that wayfor three or four years.
But we, I wasn't gonna move toCleveland.
And so at a certain point, youknow, I switched to a
non-executive chairman role onthe board.
Eventually, American Greetingsbrought that company.
When they bought our company,they were thinking they were
gonna spin that off as an IPO asa separate company.
(19:54):
But then 2000 happened andeventually in 2004, they went
private with the company afternegotiating with the outside
investors like my VCs.
after American Greetings, I feltyou know what?
I did not want to be anexecutive.
I don't wanna move again.
I don't want to do all thethings you do when you take a
(20:16):
job as a senior VP someplace.
I started doing creative things.
I joined the board of the NewYork Musical Festival.
I ultimately became its producerand chairman.
I did that for 10 years.
And I kind of just watched theother kids play at around 2012
or 2013, I thought this kindasucks.
(20:38):
I need to get back to work.
You know work is what reallygives life meaning.
And just, you know, theater issuch a weird job.
I was like, this is a weird jobI gave myself, and all I do is
spend money on it.
So I wanted to get back intotech and it was too late,
Nathan.
I was a 53-year-old ex-CEO whohadn't been relevant in 10
(20:58):
years.
So people were like, I went tosee Jim Bankoff, who had worked
for me at AOL and started VoxMedia, right?
He's chairman of Vox.
So Jim and I are having lunchand I share with him that I
wanna go back to work.
And he goes, that's great.
What can you do?" And I said youknow what I can do." And he said
I don't really, because thecontext then was that you were
(21:21):
AOL's entertainment guy fromDisney and you were super
relevant and you knew all theHollywood people and AOL needed
you.
But now that's not thesituation, so what can you do?"
You know, I guess that was tooka lot of wind outta my sails in
terms of getting another job.
I started to think about thingsand I had started when I first
(21:43):
went to college I wanted to be awriter, and writing has always
been a big part of my career,right?
We read and write more than weever have because of
smartphones.
We're reading most of the day.
I know people are listening tomusic and playing games, but at
least for myself and I thinkpeople who are professionals,
we're reading all day.
In any event, I started writingand posting on Medium.
(22:05):
This was a result of runninginto Gary Vaynerchuk, who I had
worked with at AOL.
When he was running Wine Libraryfor his parents, he came to
visit AOL.
The account management peopleare like,"Should we bring him
by?
Do you wanna meet him?" I'mlike,"Oh f#ck yes!" And he's 15!
I am like,"How can you sellliquor?" He goes it's my
parents' liquor store.
They just didn't understand theinternet." So that was Gary's
start as becoming the biggestmarketing expert on social
(22:29):
media.
So he wrote this book and I raninto him in New York and the
first thing he says is,"Yeah, Ican drink the wine now." And
Nathan C Bowser (22:39):
That guy's got a memory!
Charlie Fink (22:40):
We started talking.
Yeah.
Incredible! But a lot of guysare like that.
Like, why would Gary you know,he's got so many people to
remember! I said,"You know, I'dlove to write a book." And he
said how's your blog going?" AndI said,"My blog?" He said if you
can't write a blog, how are yougonna write a book?" So I
thought, oh yeah, this is soobvious.
(23:01):
So I started writing on Medium,this is like 2014 maybe, and I
wrote about everything I hadever done.
I wrote about film, I wroteabout social media, I wrote
about theater, I wrote aboutDisney.
I wrote 30 articles oneverything, and they were
roundly ignored.
And then I ran into a guy that Ihad worked with at Disney
Imagineering, and he goes to me,"Oh, you're writing, that's
(23:23):
great! You should write aboutVR! VR.
Weren't you?
Mr.
VR in the nineties?
Why aren't you writing about VR?
Palmer Luckey just sold Oculusto Facebook for 3 million
dollars.
You should be Mr.
VR again!" I'm like,"Oh, come onBrian." That was 25 years ago.
And then my wife says if youdon't like the results writing
(23:43):
about what you think you shouldwrite about, maybe you should
write about what Brian thinksyou should write about." So I
spent about two weeks doingresearch.
I knew nothing about augmentedreality at this moment, or AI.
And I wrote this 2015 what isAR?
What is VR?
Is it valuable?
Is it happening?
What's with the Oculus story?
Now that I'm an experiencedonline journalist and opinion
(24:06):
writer, who's gonna read 2000words in the New York Times
anymore?! For whatever reason,that story got more hits in 24
hours than the previous 30 puttogether.
I don't know why it was maybethe right keywords, but maybe it
was in this young community, myvoice and my perspective was
(24:29):
welcomed.
And I didn't really know that atthe time.
I just knew that I had atremendous dopamine hit, so I
did it again and again.
And three months later, in lessthan three months, the phone
rings and it's Lewis DVorkin,who's the Chief Creative Officer
of Forbes.
And he used to be a colleague atDisney.
So he knew me better than I knewhim, and he calls me up and
(24:51):
says,"Hey, we see you writingabout VR.
We need somebody to cover VR.
I'm like,"Oh, that's great.
I'm not really, you know thatmuch of a technology expert." He
said,"Don't worry.
When you're hired by Forbes,you're an expert." And, you
know, basically I got a master'sdegree in XR from the people in
(25:12):
the community.
Hey everybody, this is Nathan.
Welcome to The Glow Up.
We've got a really specialepisode for you this week.
We're talking this week withCharlie Fink, you know him as a
producer of worldwideentertainment properties.
You know him as a podcast host.
You know him as a bestsellingauthor of some of the seminal
(00:22):
books on spatial computing.
He is an adjunct faculty.
He is a columnist.
He is a super fan and a serialinnovative creator whose story I
think you're really going toenjoy.
We're gonna run two episodesthis week and next week.
(00:42):
We're gonna split the episode inhalf so you can hear an amazing
story of Charlie's journey ininnovation and the incredible
projects and view that he's hadon the development of immersive
technologies, storytelling, andthe current new media landscape.
I think you'll really enjoy it.
(01:04):
Now, let's dive in! Hello andwelcome to The Glow Up Fabulous
conversations with innovativeminds.
Today I am here with the one,the only Charlie Fink of Forbes,
and so many other amazingprojects.
Charlie, it is so great to seeyou here today.
Thank you!
Charlie Fink (01:23):
Thanks for the invitation, Nathan.
I love nothing more than talkingabout myself.
Nathan C Bowser (01:26):
We've got a whole episode dedicated, so
let's jump on in! I know you assomebody who has advised almost
every startup that I've had thepleasure of working with and
somebody who is a fixture at XRevents.
But you do a lot more than justadvising.
Can you introduce yourself andtell us a little bit about all
(01:47):
the amazing things that you'reup to?
Charlie Fink (01:49):
Sure.
I'm a producer among otherthings, I produce the weekly
AI/XR Podcast, which I co-hostwith Ted Schilowitz, a former
futurist for Paramount and Fox.
And Rony Abovitz, who is thefounder of MAKO Robotics.
And of course we all know him asthe founder of Magic Leap.
He is most recently the founderof an AI startup called
(02:10):
SynthBee, which is focused onethical AI, if there is such a
thing.
I teach at Chapman Universityand Arizona State University, on
emerging media XR and AI.
With regard to my otherendeavors, I may be working on a
new book.
Of course I write my Forbescolumn every week, which is a
(02:33):
news roundup with somecommentary going on eight years.
I'm sure I'm leaving somethingout.
Oh! I'm working on an animatedmovie, a series of animated
shorts for social media that aremade primarily with AI, with an
old friend, Rob Minkoff, who isthe co-director of The Lion
King, and directed Stuart Littleand Haunted Mansion and
(02:55):
Forbidden Kingdom and half adozen other movies.
It's really fun to be workingwith an old friend.
I did not think I, I producedmany things, books, podcasts,
videos, but I never thought Iwould be back producing an
animated content again but Iguess that's where I started my
career and I guess that's whereit's gonna end.
Nathan C Bowser (03:14):
That's amazing! I wanna get back to that sort of
full circle journey here in asecond.
Doing lots of innovative thingsacross a number of categories
and channels working with oldfriends who are quite
accomplished, can you tell us alittle bit more about your
journey in innovation and howyou got to where you are today?
Charlie Fink (03:36):
That's gonna involve telling my life story,
which takes a little while whenyou're my age.
Let me start out by saying Istarted out like every young
person who wants to be in theentertainment business with no
one and nothing to help me.
I didn't go to an Ivy Leagueschool.
I went to art school.
You know, I didn't have anyother advantages except it was
(03:57):
the eighties.
And if you were a young Jewishguy on the make, you had plenty
of people to hire you who areexactly like you.
You know, and that's how Itended to hire people as well,
much to my regret, because I cansee clearly somebody like me is
not a suitable employee for abig company.
So I'm trapped in a consultingworld.
You know, as you said I consultwith many companies.
(04:19):
Some pay me, some don't.
I write about some of them, someI don't.
The money that I do make fromconsulting is de minimus.
I don't charge very much when Ido charge, although I am working
with somebody now who's no.
We're gonna turn this into abusiness." So that's exciting
because I've never reallyprofessionalized, my consulting
business.
(04:39):
You know, there are people whomake a pretty nice living from
it who don't know as much as Ido, but you have to package it
up and you have to have somebodyout there selling it.
Getting back to my journey, so Ibroke into the entertainment
industry.
I started out as a PA and then Iwas a location manager.
This is in Chicago where I wentto graduate school.
There were several Hollywoodmovies that got shot in Chicago
(05:00):
at that time.
It was a popular location, itwas inexpensive.
And it offered a fresh city anda fresh look that, other films
did not have.
There was a period there where adozen well-known films,
including"Ferris Bueller's DayOff" and several films that I
worked on, including"Nothing inCommon" which was a Tom Hanks
and Jackie Gleason vehicle.
Most students don't know whoJackie Gleason is, so it's so
(05:24):
funny.
You ask them about performersfrom the thirties, forties, and
the fifties, or even the sixtiesthat were so famous when I was
growing up, they have noknowledge of them.
Going back to my journey inHollywood, I met on"Nothing in
Common" Alex Rose, who was theproducer of"Norma Rae" and she
was producing this film for GaryMarshall and went on to do five
(05:44):
films with Gary, so she lost herstory editor.
Typically, if you're a producer,some studio pays for your
development assistant and younetwork your way through town
meeting other assistants andpeople at events and you start
building up a network andeventually you start hearing
about jobs.
"Oh, do you know the Paramount'slooking for this?""Did you know
(06:06):
they're interviewing for thatover at Columbia Pictures?" I
heard from a friend of mine,Cynthia Sherman, who moved to LA
and she had been working inChicago Theater and I had
friends in Chicago Theaternaturally from going to grad
school there, and they're like,"Oh, Charlie Fink moved to
Hollywood.""When you get there,look him up." So we had lunch
together and, she's a lovelyperson and had worked, you know,
(06:29):
in the artistic director'soffice and had some sense of
dramaturgy and she may have evenhad a degree in theater.
In any event, like the day afterwe have lunch, Bette Midler and
Bonnie Bruckheimer are walkingout of Gary's office and Bonnie
Bruckheimer liked me.
So she stops at my desk and sheraps on it, you know,'cause
there's like a bullpen of sixpeople sitting outside of Gary's
(06:53):
office and she goes,"I need aCharlie.
Anybody who knows a Charlie,have them contact my office." So
I get on the phone and I callCynthia Sherman, and that office
at that time was on the Disneylot.
So Cynthia goes over there, theyhire her like the next day.
So a couple weeks later, she'swalking across the Disney lot
and she runs into PeterSchneider, who she knew from
(07:16):
Chicago Theater when she was anintern.
Peter was one of the producersof the Olympics Arts Festival,
so he got to know JeffKatzenberg.
When Katzenberg moved to Disney,he brought Peter with him as the
VP of Animation.
So she's walking across the lotand she runs into him doing
development with Bette Midler,which probably meant exactly
what I was doing for Gary, whichwas reading scripts and running
(07:38):
out for lunch.
And he says to her,"Do you knowdevelopment people?
I need to have a developmentperson inside a feature
animation." And she goes,"Ohyeah.
I know a guy who went to artschool." So I got a job as a
junior executive, this was 1986at Disney Animation.
And my job at Disney Animationwas to help them develop ideas
(07:59):
for animated movies.
And the ideas that we wereworking on that time were"Beauty
and the Beast" and"Aladdin".
And there were some other lesserpictures,"The Rescuers Down
Under" which was a sequel to avery sweet, old fashioned movie.
I worked on other things likethe"Duck Tales" movie and
prosaic titles like that, Mickeystarring in"Prince and the
(08:20):
Pauper" But, obviously workingon those classic animated movies
was you know,"Little Mermaid"wasn't in production when I was
there.
Alan Menken had an office nextto mine where he would endlessly
play that beginning vamp from"Aladdin" Boom, ba boom! So my
first year at Disney was scoredby the opening for"Aladdin"
'cause I think he'd just bang itout while he was thinking.
Nathan C Bowser (08:44):
Oh my gosh, I have to take a minute and just
celebrate, you're in that likelarge white box,
VHS-cassette-era of Disneyclassics.
You're speaking you know, to ageneration, to my generations
very specifically.
This was foundational contentthat we're consuming.
I also have to point out, theAladdin Magic Carpet VR ride is
(09:07):
often signaled as a lot ofpeople's first entry or
inspiration about virtualreality.
I love that you're such an OGyou were there when they were
developing"Aladdin" as an idea!
Charlie Fink (09:21):
I was.
They had a million consultantson that project, including Avi
Bar-Zeev.
Nathan C Bowser (09:27):
Yes! There's
Charlie Fink (09:28):
a guy you should get on your show.
Nathan C Bowser (09:30):
Oh, we've talked with Avi on The AR minute
and, it's been too many minutessince we've chatted with him.
Charlie Fink (09:36):
Like Rony.
He knows a lot about a lot.
Nathan C Bowser (09:39):
I love this idea, Charlie, that as an art
student with really not a lot ofhandholds to pull yourself up
by, with community, with grit,and with being in the right
place, being helpful, in theright moments gave you this
opportunity.
Charlie Fink (09:57):
That's a great insight because you have to help
people without expectinganything in return.
So first of all, while a juniorexecutive, I came up with this
idea for Bambi in Africa.
We were looking for boy moviesand I said, let's do Bambi in
Africa with African music and,you know, world music was really
big then.
Then I was into Ladysmith BlackMambazo, who ended up actually
(10:20):
providing some of the score forthe film because we wanted to
make it feel authentic.
They promoted me to VicePresident of Animation.
I was the youngest studio vicepresident.
I was there two years beforethey promoted me.
So I was the youngest studiovice president for a while, and
I have coasted on that my entirecareer.
I wanted to go work inlive-action.
I felt like that's where theaction was.
(10:41):
This is probably one of my firsthuge strategic mistakes in my
career because I did not trulyunderstand how huge animation
was gonna become.
I should have seen it, but Ididn't see it.
I had this sort of seventies,eighties vision of Hollywood and
I wanted to be a big producer.
I wanted to be a studioexecutive in live-action.
You have to understand, this isback in 1991, animation was
(11:03):
still viewed as a backwater forexecutives.
I was working on"Fantasia 2000"in 1991, so I kind of felt like
there's not a lot of action inanimation for me.
So when I got offered a job tomove over to live-action, I took
it.
Unfortunately I was working fora sociopath, and a well-known
(11:24):
sociopath in Hollywood.
I won't name his name justbecause who knows who listens
and what trouble, but everybodywho knew Disney knows who this
guy was.
They kept him around for a longtime because he was a brilliant
film producer.
And, like the old Woody Allenjoke, they needed the eggs.
But those were the days beforeHR departments where you could
(11:45):
really be like Scott Rudin andthrow telephones at people and
just act out in a childish,vicious way.
Eventually Roy Disney, who was amentor, but also a friend and
was with Peter, overseeing theanimation department.
He was, chairman.
And we were having lunch.
Oh God, Roy was a funny and sobrilliant.
(12:05):
But it was fun to have lunchwith him except he ate with a
burning cigarette in his hand.
That's how addicted to nicotinehe was, he couldn't stand the
feeling of being full with foodand all the blood rushing
through his stomach, withoutdiminishing the amount of
nicotine in his body.
He was in his late seventiesuntil he died of stomach cancer.
(12:26):
But Roy said,"You should team upwith my son Tim.
He wants to buy, a technologycompany or an entertainment
technology company.
You guys would be naturalpartners." So Tim and I started
looking for a company toacquire, and we found this
company in Chicago calledVirtual World.
it was called Virtual WorldEntertainment.
The product was calledBattleTech.
(12:48):
And it was, essentially modifiedflight simulators.
And instead of putting you inthe sky where it's very
difficult to find people and tointeract with them you're mostly
firing missiles going 600 milesan hour at things that are 10
miles away.
But on the planet Solaris, whereyou were piloting a mech and you
(13:08):
know, the other people in thesimulation were piloting the
other mechs you saw outside ofyour quote unquote"window." So
we joined forces with them.
We continuously improved thatproduct until, you know, four
years later.
It was a fantastic cockpitexperience and we built a lot of
outposts for Dave and Busters,but it was a terrible business.
(13:30):
And location-based entertainmentgenerally is a terrible
business.
I see some companies succeedingwith it but it is the kid's
birthday party business, right?
You've gotta fill that place upon Saturday during the day, not
just Saturday night.
Not to go down that rabbit hole,but that was the business that
Tim and I were in.
And as a result of being in thatbusiness, I came to be viewed as
(13:52):
a digital media executive at atime when there were few of
those beasts.
So I got recruited by AOL to betheir senior vice president of
original content.
So that was AOL Studios, AOLGreenhouse.
Eventually I ended up runningAOL's entertainment and
lifestyle channels, includinggames.
(14:12):
I did that for about a year.
Then, you know, AOL was acompany like many tech companies
that did a re-org every year.
So eventually a re-org came forme and I was promoted to being
Vice President of SpecialProjects, which means I sat in
an office by myself and I got topitch things to my bosses until
it was, you know, I had a bigcontract with severance and
(14:34):
everything else.
So they had to choose the righttime to cut me loose and pay me
off, which came with theNetscape acquisition.
But my last act at AOL was topitch a product called AOL
Business Cards.
So you'd put yourself on AOLwith your resume and your work
history and you'd be in acategory like let's say dentists
in Washington DC.
(14:55):
So you could find all the otherdentists and the dentists could
find you, or you're a contractorand you wanna find carpenters in
your area, or you know peoplewho do framing or what's
concrete, whatever.
And so they said,"You can't selladvertising against business
cards.
It's a stupid idea!" In the nextyear Reid Hoffman started
LinkedIn! But AOL had so manyopportunities like that we
(15:17):
really could not see the forestthrough the trees.
AOL was the first social networkand they didn't even realize it.
Nathan C Bowser (15:23):
This idea of being like a leading technology
mega corporation.
In the nineties, AOL was yourinternet service provider.
It was a content provider.
It was, music and entertainment.
It was search.
We thought we'd be in
Charlie Fink (15:41):
the banking business.
We were like, you know Meta istoday just so arrogant and so
full of assumptions.
It's actually made me rathertimid as an investor because,
you know, I know that theinternal workings of these
companies are quite differentthan our experience of them from
the other side of the wall.
Nathan C Bowser (15:59):
That idea that a company so big and enigmatic
might not necessarily understandthe opportunity in front of it
is a really juicy one, right?
To know that even at the highestlevels there could be blinders
to what makes a successfulbusiness or how to bring an
innovative innovation to themarket.
(16:20):
And it also shows like whyupstart innovators can sometimes
turn a whole industry upsidedown because they're paying
attention.
Charlie Fink (16:29):
They turn the industry upside down, but they
weren't the ones who benefitedfrom it.
Nathan C Bowser (16:33):
Yep.
Love it!
Charlie Fink (16:34):
They also could not sustain their advantage.
We knew at the time that we hada temporary advantage, and the
company was so anxious to showrevenue at that point to show
positive revenue that theycouldn't focus on anything else.
Wall Street had, run up theirvalue as trading like crazy.
We think a tech company today is30x and a growth company, maybe
(16:57):
like Nvidia was at some pointlike 100x.
AOL was like that company, itwas like 100x.
So they had to show revenue,they had to show momentum,
acquisitions.
AOL passed on acquiring Google.
Probably would not have wonsearch had they done so.
AOL was protecting the,unprotectable part of the
(17:21):
business, which is ad sales,which just follows consumer
activity, has no loyalty to aplatform.
Remember, we had good reason tothink we were the internet, but
we also knew that the web was ahuge threat.
AOL ended up losing the game toupstarts like Google and
Facebook, who recognized thatAOL was doing those things, but
(17:43):
so poorly that an outsidecompany would have much more
success.
And again, these were web-basedcompanies, which, grown up on
the early internet worryingabout how to reach AOL's
audience.
So I left AOL and I immediatelystarted a company based on an
idea I had an AOL that had beenshot down, called eAgents.
(18:03):
And the idea is that you wouldfill out a form.
You know, it was the Yahoohomepage, a customized Yahoo
homepage delivered to you viaemail because the Yahoo homepage
didn't exist.
And the first place everybodywent online was email.
Nobody had a smartphone.
Nobody had social media.
Social media at that time wasInstant Messenger.
And then ICQ came along and wasthe web-based version of Instant
(18:25):
Messenger.
And of course, AOL acquired themnot quite understanding how
important messaging was gonna beon smartphones.
And they should have beenbecause email, was a huge
innovation in asynchronouscommunication, right?
It combined instant withasynchronicity.
So it wasn't as long as gettinga letter in the mail, but you
(18:48):
didn't have to respond to itimmediately, and that was a
revolutionary change incommunications.
And again, I don't think AOL sawthat.
So I started eAgents I raised$3million.
We made a deal with Yahoo, whichbasically using opt out, gave us
like 8 million users.
So along comes AmericanGreetings.
(19:09):
It says you have 8 million usersof your email thing.
We want that product for our adsales deal with AOL.
So they bought the company.
I became President and ChiefCreative Officer of American
Greetings in Cleveland.
I commuted from NorthernVirginia where we had moved
while I was working for AOL andstarted commuting to Cleveland.
So I'd, you know, be out Sundaynight and be back Thursday
(19:32):
night.
And, you know, we lived that wayfor three or four years.
But we, I wasn't gonna move toCleveland.
And so at a certain point, youknow, I switched to a
non-executive chairman role onthe board.
Eventually, American Greetingsbrought that company.
When they bought our company,they were thinking they were
gonna spin that off as an IPO asa separate company.
(19:54):
But then 2000 happened andeventually in 2004, they went
private with the company afternegotiating with the outside
investors like my VCs.
after American Greetings, I feltyou know what?
I did not want to be anexecutive.
I don't wanna move again.
I don't want to do all thethings you do when you take a
(20:16):
job as a senior VP someplace.
I started doing creative things.
I joined the board of the NewYork Musical Festival.
I ultimately became its producerand chairman.
I did that for 10 years.
And I kind of just watched theother kids play at around 2012
or 2013, I thought this kindasucks.
(20:38):
I need to get back to work.
You know work is what reallygives life meaning.
And just, you know, theater issuch a weird job.
I was like, this is a weird jobI gave myself, and all I do is
spend money on it.
So I wanted to get back intotech and it was too late,
Nathan.
I was a 53-year-old ex-CEO whohadn't been relevant in 10
(20:58):
years.
So people were like, I went tosee Jim Bankoff, who had worked
for me at AOL and started VoxMedia, right?
He's chairman of Vox.
So Jim and I are having lunchand I share with him that I
wanna go back to work.
And he goes, that's great.
What can you do?" And I said youknow what I can do." And he said
I don't really, because thecontext then was that you were
(21:21):
AOL's entertainment guy fromDisney and you were super
relevant and you knew all theHollywood people and AOL needed
you.
But now that's not thesituation, so what can you do?"
You know, I guess that was tooka lot of wind outta my sails in
terms of getting another job.
I started to think about thingsand I had started when I first
(21:43):
went to college I wanted to be awriter, and writing has always
been a big part of my career,right?
We read and write more than weever have because of
smartphones.
We're reading most of the day.
I know people are listening tomusic and playing games, but at
least for myself and I thinkpeople who are professionals,
we're reading all day.
In any event, I started writingand posting on Medium.
(22:05):
This was a result of runninginto Gary Vaynerchuk, who I had
worked with at AOL.
When he was running Wine Libraryfor his parents, he came to
visit AOL.
The account management peopleare like,"Should we bring him
by?
Do you wanna meet him?" I'mlike,"Oh f#ck yes!" And he's 15!
I am like,"How can you sellliquor?" He goes it's my
parents' liquor store.
They just didn't understand theinternet." So that was Gary's
start as becoming the biggestmarketing expert on social
(22:29):
media.
So he wrote this book and I raninto him in New York and the
first thing he says is,"Yeah, Ican drink the wine now." And
Nathan C Bowser (22:39):
That guy's got a memory!
Charlie Fink (22:40):
We started talking.
Yeah.
Incredible! But a lot of guysare like that.
Like, why would Gary you know,he's got so many people to
remember! I said,"You know, I'dlove to write a book." And he
said how's your blog going?" AndI said,"My blog?" He said if you
can't write a blog, how are yougonna write a book?" So I
thought, oh yeah, this is soobvious.
(23:01):
So I started writing on Medium,this is like 2014 maybe, and I
wrote about everything I hadever done.
I wrote about film, I wroteabout social media, I wrote
about theater, I wrote aboutDisney.
I wrote 30 articles oneverything, and they were
roundly ignored.
And then I ran into a guy that Ihad worked with at Disney
Imagineering, and he goes to me,"Oh, you're writing, that's
(23:23):
great! You should write aboutVR! VR.
Weren't you?
Mr.
VR in the nineties?
Why aren't you writing about VR?
Palmer Luckey just sold Oculusto Facebook for 3 million
dollars.
You should be Mr.
VR again!" I'm like,"Oh, come onBrian." That was 25 years ago.
And then my wife says if youdon't like the results writing
(23:43):
about what you think you shouldwrite about, maybe you should
write about what Brian thinksyou should write about." So I
spent about two weeks doingresearch.
I knew nothing about augmentedreality at this moment, or AI.
And I wrote this 2015 what isAR?
What is VR?
Is it valuable?
Is it happening?
What's with the Oculus story?
Now that I'm an experiencedonline journalist and opinion
(24:06):
writer, who's gonna read 2000words in the New York Times
anymore?! For whatever reason,that story got more hits in 24
hours than the previous 30 puttogether.
I don't know why it was maybethe right keywords, but maybe it
was in this young community, myvoice and my perspective was
(24:29):
welcomed.
And I didn't really know that atthe time.
I just knew that I had atremendous dopamine hit, so I
did it again and again.
And three months later, in lessthan three months, the phone
rings and it's Lewis DVorkin,who's the Chief Creative Officer
of Forbes.
And he used to be a colleague atDisney.
So he knew me better than I knewhim, and he calls me up and
(24:51):
says,"Hey, we see you writingabout VR.
We need somebody to cover VR.
I'm like,"Oh, that's great.
I'm not really, you know thatmuch of a technology expert." He
said,"Don't worry.
When you're hired by Forbes,you're an expert." And, you
know, basically I got a master'sdegree in XR from the people in
(25:12):
the community.
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