Read this: Media Masters - Ken Hertz

Media Masters with Paul Blanchard welcome to media Masters a series of one-to-one interviews with people at the top of the media game tell me when Los Angeles and John by Hollywood dealmaker can hurt a senior partner in century City Law Firm of hurts, Liechtenstein and young is firm represents Talent from Will Smith to will.i.am and Gwen Stefani to Celine Dion to Keith Richards to Tom morello and its founder of brand agency membrane can in his partners also work with global brands including McDonalds hasbro Logitech Intel and Miller cause can is also an active angel investor and a frequent speaker and commentator on Entertainment and marketing and the host of tedx Hollywood can thank you for joining me thanks for having me so can you work in the heart of the entertainment industry salvia with creative things like will.i.am and massive brands like McDonald's must be quite exciting sometimes sometimes.

It's not exciting at all.

It's it might as well.

I might as well be doing real estate attacks or litigation or library.

Lot of meat does the some grime.

To it then shop a contract is a contract even with his famous names on it right and the subject matter might seem sexy to someone on the outside, but when your negotiating a deal or your negotiating the terms of a contract it's really just about trying to anticipate a possible conflict and figure out how to make sure that the parties get what they want in the event of a dispute it every contract is really a prenuptial agreement right so nobody have a look said it until they're getting a divorce.

See you in a sense you've learnt from the many divorces of handle to make sure that when you arrange the corporate marriage that are the missing December Stakes having to be repeated writing I mean that's that there is a constant source of tension that exists between what's worth fighting about the what's not worth fighting about what's likely to happen.

What's not likely to happen.

I was fine that the best transactional attorneys are also former litigators and the reason is because they have a better sense of what the fight look like.

And so they have a better sense of what really matters when it comes down to it and then lawyers who are fresh out of last score at will fight over every, and fight over the spelling of every word, where is in real life that rarely is what contract boils down to a mean one can imagine that you didn't anticipate an eventuality is like what is the aliens landed at night a likelihood that worth wasting everyone's time on so when you hear the phrase you know his overall lawyering right that usually work that refers to is your people spending too much time thinking about eventualities that will never come to be and fighting over them and oftentimes missing the forest for the trees the ideas to make a deal that leaves both sides.

Feel I might be a little bit less than they expected and that in the event that things don't work that no one is surprised by the outcome with your job.

Is that as they're lying there advisor is to

A critical friend isn't it in so far as you there to help them make the deal but you are there two can a preempt any problems and some of them might be with the principle of the deal.

When is your job as their lawyer to challenge them in their interests my job is done understand.

What my clients will be surprised by in the event that everything goes wrong and to try and anticipate that and try to prevent it from blowing up and they are facing and that's in my face.

So there must be some glamour to it.

No, I mean like let's just do with the good stuff, then I mean it that you know if someone read your BIOS a Hollywood do you make that sounds pretty glamorous there must be some upside to this well, I mean I think the thing about this is that is that a lot of what we do in these days is media.

Just about everything is becoming media and so obviously there is something exciting and fun and sexy about going back stage and seeing the work that you do turn into creative output write another words.

There's nothing like working on.

The young recording artist to your meat is there for Showcase and having them doing Arena shower having them do a better yet up stadium shell right.

I mean that there is something there is something very gratifying about meeting someone when they are largely unknown and then seeing them become part of the popular culture.

That's very rewarding and that's very exciting and and you know and obviously you can you get a lot of phone calls from people who need help finding good seats right, so that part of it is very sexy, but now I'm some good seats by the way the next console will be cell phone number you mistakenly given me that and all of that aside.

You know at the end of the day if it isn't called the music business for nothing.

It isn't called the film and television business for nothing.

I mean I hear it is a business and so there is a great deal of money at stake and because it's so sexy it attracts a lot of.

And solve sifting through the nonsense and safety getting past all the presents and all of the Glamour and all of the Glitz and all of the promotion and all of the the son of starstruck Wanna Be Your participants can be challenging and and seeing it as a business of people's lives as your people's careers.

They've in oftentimes people who go into the entertainment industry do so because they are so remarkably talented or so dumb you know what are fortunate to be beautiful or popular or whatever is that the current currency and so often times those people started a very early age oftentimes.

They got there by working very hard at aircraft, but not working very hard on all of the other things that people do when they're growing up like taking school seriously or you're going to university or doing the kind.

Things that will allow you to have options professional options in your life and the thing also, is is that we all look at the success stories in other words for every Beyonce for every YouTuber every Chris Martin what have you write every Ariana Grande there are thousands if not tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people who aspire to be that person You Know Ariana Grande for example has just an extraordinary instrument.

She's got a been up 6 or 7 octave Range and she can do anything with her voice and and she also happens to be remarkably beautiful and she also comes from an upbringing that allowed her to pursue this career because her family was well off and so she had the freedom to pursue this career relocate from Florida to Los Angeles do all the things that made it possible for her to succeed and in open the web.

Someone from a letter financials your background or wheel with less freedom unless passion and whatever might not have no shortage of extraordinarily talented people in the world.

Leave it at that and there's no shortage of extraordinarily beautiful people in the world right and all the other things that seem to be associated with success, but we tend to look at the ones that succeed and see them as a roadmap in other words people interview successful stars and say how did you do it tell me your story? What's the and then people think that if they replicate that have that they'll succeed when the truth is the odds of success in the abstract or very little me look at American Idol for example millions of contestants reduced to thousands of auditions reduced to you know hundreds of candidates reduced to dozens of finalists reduced to handball.

Winners result in how many careers must not well, I even intended series of American Idol you want to get three stars on YouTube in the winners night might not necessarily be guaranteed out of battery rear right.

I mean going from Ludacris another which we tend to look at the lottery winners by that's really what they are me if you think about it would start with a pool of millions of people that are willing to wait in line 4 hours to a dish and then the ones that get to edition are largely the most talented that crowd and then the ones that get through the audition process and get front of the judges is even fewer and then the ones that survive the judges in go to Hollywood is even that and the ones that go beyond that and end up with an awareness in the popular culture following in a successfully got thrown off the show and Jennifer Hudson get thrown off the shower and Kelly Clarkson won the first season and still appears to be coming with the biggest career in fact I think.

Is now a judge, but but in any event if you look at them on some level success in the entertainment business is like winning the lottery you have to get everything right and then you have to get lucky.

You know looking at those success stories the way we do and the way the media tends to obsess about them is that it would be tantamount to ask a lottery winner to explain to us.

How they chose their numbers as though there's some formula and yet.

We know there isn't any yet.

We do it again and again.

We don't look at the ones that hundreds of thousands of of failed attempts were they look like they got alright, but they didn't succeed so you know I always say to people when you get to my after you've already won the lottery right because someone I trust his judgement.

I trust has introduced you to me and convinced me that you have enough traction and enough opportunity to succeed if it's worth getting involved because we get involved with people early in their careers.

They often either don't have any money to pay for our services or their talented enough and promising enough that were willing to work with them on a speculative basis and we invest our time in young artist we invest our time and young Talent we invest our time in startup projects and that's how we operate but it's almost like ABC model in that regard.

Isn't it that you back five talented artists and as you said it's lottery one of them might turn out to be Beyonce and you'll make billions on the other for a complete failures and even of a nice people you completely wasted your time from a commercial point because of what we do now involved in getting involved in early-stage median technology Ventures see them precede level because we see entrepreneurs the way we see young artists.

What are they need? They need management.

They need financing they need marketing many distribution and we not have put those teams together and we know how to help you know them navigate the choppy Waters and ideally you'll succeed but I say.

People if you want to succeed in Venture investing Donny destined anything and you'll be right more than 95% of the time on a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Isn't it? Exactly it seems to me that there's a huge amount of systemic heartbreak involved with pursuing her Hollywood career Wetherby as an actor or an hour music artiste and you know when I when I get my others around Los Angeles at you not half of that my drivers are playing their CD saying you know do you know you interested you can buy a car with my CD other aspiring actors there seems to be a lot of people trying to do this though that stick at it for decades in the hope that they're going to get noticed.

I mean maths that is the nature of the entertainment business suits at least it appears to be the nature of the Entertainment Business and certainly in Los Angeles that's the case every waiter isn't is an out-of-work actor every you know or an aspiring actor.

I should say and every every your cab driver has a screenplay and you know everyone has a side hustle because we have been convinced in this is this is

Has historically been a uniquely American reality but I think it's becoming that way globally as though as The Venture world starts to expand and as the media world starts to expand globally I think what you're saying is that everyone seems to be convinced that they can be rich and if this is the right to well is start a company used to be the people would have great ideas and then they would yell at the television set with somebody else monetize their great idea, but nowadays people believe they have a great idea and they should do it right.

That's relatively new it is part of this new connectivity that anyone can be Perez Hilton anyone can be Paris ill write anyone can anyone can start a media podcast that you're a broadcaster and you don't need a podcast studio to do it you choose to but you don't need to there's all sorts of software that would allow you to do on your phone.

And you can you are one click away from everyone who has a smartphone and there is almost 4 billion smartphones in circulation at the moment.

So if you imagine the people are connected in a two-way fashion for the first time in human history, but the global village is real and so you know even though most of these failures are often based on timing right most of the success stories are also based on timing in other words.

There are no shortage attempts to create YouTube either before or after YouTube there were no shortage of attempts to create either before or after over and in fairness.

There was no shortage of attempts to create a smartphone before or after the Eiffel the ones who who who succeeded got it right because they created the right combination of elements.

To engage a critical mass of audience or Ben or customer or consumer or whatever is the Beano whatever's metric but the idea that one of them was better than the other one was more right than the other I mean they'll all tell you what they did wrong in hindsight right, but the fact that matters is that your bill gross who started idealab a few years ago.

He did a TED talk and not a formal TED talk with an audience that I can go to tell about yourself.

He got up and give a 5 minute TED talk about 5 minutes ago where she explained and analysis of your dad compare the 400 so companies that he invested in over the last 20 years to the 400 most successful startups Indestructible the same period of time and you know any said look at you know I started 400 companies like your lap proximately and only a few of them succeeded, so I was curious to see.

What was the thing that made them succeed in a was it the team was it the idea was the dependable nature of the idea right? Was it the size of them addressable market was it the ease with which the idea could be explain to others was it on the initial traction that it garnered or was it the ability to scale? Why was it the financing that they had ordered they needed was it the time to exit right? What was what were the others are 9 and 10 factors that all contributed to the success or at least were correlated to the success of the Ventures and he compared his 400 to the 400 most successful and came up with the following conclusion which is that the number one reason? Why they succeeded want to get as I've got 57%

Of the time timing was the reason they succeeded solar sagging am going to running my own business ultimately there is stated in the Stars well.

It's luck right.

I mean when you've motivating and demotivating at the same time.

Will I mean the truth is there's that old adage? You know the harder I work the luckier I get I mean I think the truth is that you luck is happening all the time.

We are constantly bombarded with opportunities that we could take a bandage but if you're not ready for them.

It won't matter right.

That's the other at its red luck is when preparation meets opportunity right I mean if you're if you're not ready for it.

You won't recognise it writes.

You have to be in a position where hey this would be great for me right so so that the point is that you have to play heads Up of the people that get luck with people are paying attention and are in a position to take advantage of the opportunity.

That's like.

That's the definition of block really and sometimes it hit you over the head and sometimes you have to.

Find every successful entrepreneur will tell you about the 20 things they try that didn't work and sometimes not tell you that the first thing I tried was the piazza home run but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't have taken them 20 mistakes to come up with bicarb Thomas Edison when he invented light bulb, you know he felt that the light bulb 1000ft ways.

It doesn't dead able able won't work it out.

So whenever you have to paraphrase, but whatever he actually said is the point the point is it's on your perspective, but nevertheless you can't win if you don't play but at the same time can't win the lottery if you don't play that doesn't mean that playing the lottery for a living would be a good career choice.

So is it altimet Lee random than that Ariana Grande's a global megastar, but might have been waiting tables at the Hollywood Bowl if it's gone wrong.

I mean what it is there a kind of Formula II it to a stop and when you meet someone at a client or potential climbed it.

Do you is it like the X Factor the wedding live?

Got it on well.

No, I mean I think I think the obvious is that she absolutely has it and she's absolutely remarkable in so many different ways and she has a family that extraordinarily supportive and has helped her kicking doors when they needed to be kicked in and she's worked with people who've helped her kicking doors when they need to be kicked in and she never took no for an answer and she was relentless in her pursuit of success and she has worked with a manager who is extraordinarily resourceful and she has associated with and collaborated with people that are extraordinarily talented and she's been able to get to those people and she's not been willing to compromise along the way and on top of that she has dealt deftly with m.

The obstacle that has come away and she's very adept at social media and she has also worked with very talented people in that Arena as well and so I mean I think the answer is as I was saying earlier.

She got everything right and let's face it every audition that she did as a youngster that paid off was not only because she was super talented but because she went to those additions if she hadn't gone she wouldn't garden and if she hadn't got the right agent if she hadn't gotten the right call back.

If she hadn't been by the phone when it mattered me.

I can't I can't point to any specific thing but the answer to question is there are no shortage in the world of people certainly as talented in somewhere as an Ariana Grande but maybe they live in a town that you know that's got no resources.

Maybe they can't even afford ASDA

Right of my family that doesn't encourage them exactly will work at Walmart for the rest of your life your singing choir at the church for the rest of your life.

I mean the truth is as we all know there are hundreds.

If not thousands of super uber talented singers in the business who haven't had nearly two successive Lady Gaga Aura Ariana Grande or I'll be outside or in a what have you and I've been fortunate enough to work with many of these people and I can tell you that they pinched themselves every day, but at the same time.

You'd the danger is better for the Firm of the fans and the tablet is the think that it was easy you know or they think that they that their success was inevitable.

We tend to do that.

We don't teach children statistics, but we should because there will be one lottery winner every week, but that still means that will be 20 million people that won't win the lottery that we will that exactly other words.

There will always be a lottery winner everyday little on everywhere you this is America I keep forgetting.

I'm in American lottery every weekday, as it's true, but but nevertheless nevertheless the idea.

What did start there and invite there is a lottery winner everyday, but that doesn't make the odds of 1 and 20 million if that's good that's the number write any clothes any less close to zero but even more heartbreaking in a census.

You've got to have that momentum cos you know Lady Gaga artis like that have hit after hit after hit you look at Starlight Robert Redford for example who you know has been around for decades and then you can pay that to someone for example I like hootie and the Blowfish had a couple of great albums that have a successful now.

They're a bit left out there still going but they're nowhere near as successful as they once were the others not only be the challenge and The Heartbreak of having to get into the industry and get no but then there's also the separate charge of maintenance of.

Keeping that platform going because you know it is quite tragic when you see formerly big stars that have been Laidlaw agreed and and I would argue that once again.

We tend to think that because someone has had success after success after success or at least we perceive it to be success after success after success.

We tend to think that they know something we don't know and it could actually be that they do or it could actually be that it's an anomaly in other words when you play roulette just because the number 9 comes up three times in a row doesn't mean the wheels leaning toward the night right it just means the number 9 came up three times around when you flip a coin dozer independent events that you're where the brutality of Got Talent meets maths statistics really good for every Lady Gaga that's dad is going to be another 20 people that have aspired to that and that might have got a one in 20 chance of getting to that success, but did it there?

Broadway Theatre years ago is great article New York Times magazine for a few years ago.

There was a city.

I think it's Sweden and I'm I'm going to miss the story about but I'll give you the essence of it.

There is a town in Sweden that it had an unusual number of murders were abnormal deaths and scientists flocked to this town to study it and understand.

What caused all of these unusual deaths swimming in the water a serial killer on the loose etc correct and what they concluded was that it was just a statistical anomaly and outlier yeah, it was just simply an outlier in other words that I still want to live there though right but if you if you believe it if you ever saw the film the world according to garp right where they're looking at a house on a plane flies into the side of it and God said we've got about it and she says, what are you mad and he says no, it's been 3 disaster.

I'll see what are the odds of getting hit by another plane.

Settle you know what I mean.

I think we are so ignorant of probability theory and so ignorant of statistics as a as a culture you we believe America which just it's just who we are at 50% of Americans believe in Angels exist, but actually visit.

This is kind of quite a deep spiritual spiritual Comfort Inn in this then you don't part of that culture of courses that you don't make it that actually you you are lacking Talent you are worthless goes from from as your explaining it is actually just about statistics.

It's not that the other people who aspired to have the career of Lady Gaga worthless.

It's just it's the lottery or just the opposite.

I don't think they're Russell Hall I mean I take on clients all the time not just because they're talented but because I would love to see them sexy and you sharing their heartbreak then if if things don't work out in whatever way how how can you not you know when your work was really talented and really love.

We people then you have no choice but to find yourself emotionally connected to the working but they said it at the top of the interview that thing I might find most gratifying about my work is the possibility of seeing someone go from a dirty little bar to an arena stage I mean that's that seeing someone fulfill their dream.

I am often worried about helping people for build their dream because I've seen the other side of their dreaming and oftentimes there vision is not the same as there's the outcome and and helping clients and friends and Associates keep their head on straight through the process is a big part of my business and is there an is that you alluded to earlier, but is there a toughness to having to get ahead in Hollywood you know that there is that ok? Sure that if you want a friend in Hollywood get a dog in a deep.

Do you have to be almost?

You know that single-mindedness of purpose almost to the point of psychopathy that you know that you have to be truly committed to success at any cost to get head what I think.

No.

I think that you don't know that you need to be right.

I know that there are people that have been successful with that attitude and I know that the business attracts so many aspiring success stories if you will that there are people that will stop at nothing to succeed and they will show up in your life in an increasing numbers are men so I don't believe that you have to be at the mean.

The answer is no.

I don't believe that you have to be like that to 16.

I do believe that the business has in many ways become more toxic than I recall seems like Every Generation says the same stuff.

So this is cliche and away but you know I think that people are greedy and people.

Are ruthless and people are duplicitous and people are your people are capable of doing horrible things on I'm always I'm never surprised by people's willingness to do the wrong thing nor am I ever surprised by their ability to the right thing and you know I I have found in my career people have shown up years later and said you won't remember me but I called you 1 time for some advice and you were very patient and you gave me the advice and you didn't know me and you know what we are mutual friend and I just asked you a question and you were very generous with your time.

Are you were very generous with the advice for the advice that you gave me turned out to be really valuable to me and it changed my life in this way or that way and what have you and I'm back to repay the favour and I do believe it that I mean I do believe that what goes around comes around and so you know I tried to say yes unless.

Have to say now as often as I possibly can and regret saying that there's in the context of the 0 publish your email address in the other day when I get those emails from Friends who say my daughter's looking for an internship or when I get an email from someone that says you know do you have any ideas for this when I have an idea? I do try to jump on it and do it because you never know those things those of the most of the best days of my week or when someone out of the blue shows up to repay the favour and sometimes.

It's not repaying a favour.

I did it's Penfold a favour that someone else did and I do believe that we're goes around comes around and so you know I can tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me in my career were always the result of something that I said that I should not have or that.

I did that I should not have or they telling that I am that I didn't have to write so I believe that Glossop is bad and I believe.

That are you no cutting corners and being vindictive and being revengeful and being your elders think that they all come back to bite.

You know when you when you don't let things go and you out of spite to behave in one Way Or Another that it always ends up.

What doesn't always end up coming back to you, but those are things that will come back and bite you in the ass, but when they do you can just recked with moths bite and and more vindictiveness, so the system works.

I'm sure that you needed to Hollywood potentially can it be more toxic with this generation, but what is that the case because you if you look at their kind of me too movement and the abundance of like so many new students like Netflix investing hugely new content.

Is is there an argument that in one way things are better than that ever happened on what basis.

Do you think things are worse? I don't know that the Netflix spending lots of money is a sign of less toxicity of the business.

I mean I don't understand the connection there in terms of ions.

The industry, there's more opportunities like we have Matt Bellamy as sitting in that chair recently added to the Hollywood reporter.

He said and he said his firm.

You know if you're an actor now.

You're out of work, then.

There's obviously something wrong giving you know just how many things are in production bumble 29% of the Speed actors Guild membership or out of work.

Maybe more than that and that's been the case since anyone can remember will take the me too movement and for example.

I mean a tuna is the Casting Couch thing of the past.

I would a Weinstein get away with it now.

I really think it has anything to do with the me too movement.

I think that it has to do with transparency write in other words are in a will Smiths spoke not too long ago about is it was talking about it's his son and his son has a girlfriend and he was saying to his son in Outlook don't get locked down.

You know you get a date at the people you get it.

You don't know I mean don't like yourself into Saturn sell father Spotify

And is so great and his son said there's no such thing as cheating anymore right.

You don't you can't cheat everybody you know any of her friends can take a picture of me, how you post on Instagram when you post a picture that everybody knows what everybody else.

It's up to you.

There's no secrets right.

It is no there is no way to have a yellow to be to have something on the side because something on the side of something public and so the world is changed and what me too I think is it's not so much a changing attitudes as it is a recognition of the fact that we live in a world which is unfortunately governed by a tyranny of transparency right and so yeah, there's this reality now which is that it is very hard to expect that anything that you do or say is going to remain.

Confidential or private which is not to say that it means that people are more truthful or more honest or that the narrative is more clear.

It is simply that everything is out there and it can still be manipulated and I Can Still Be Misunderstood and it can still be misrepresented in it can still be yellow have a negative impact and so the point that I was making is that you know when I said earlier what goes around comes around it may in fact be that that's more true than ever write in other words that if you behave in a toxic way, you will be the victim of your own toxicity much more readily and much more likely than ever before so the me too movement is simply an expression may be a symptom of a bigger problem which is that we have no pride.

We have no we have no ability to hide from our public persona and that are private persona is our public was rapidly becoming a public persona and yet.

It is harder to control our Private persona and our public persona.

It's funny because this is sort of the business that your item in your business reputation management in Europe other career and when you think about it.

That is what this kind of Media pervasiveness Hazrat is that we now live in public in a way that we theorized about but we never really imagine I mean about the people don't send auto replies pretty much any more right the one that says I'm out of the office so I won't be looking my email because we even though we are out of the office with still will be looking at emails.

I mean go outside every single person that you see walking on the street sitting in the cafe driving her car is looking at their device how often and how aggravating is it to be waiting to get on an elevator and have somebody Walk off the elevator writing to you looking down at their device.

It's one thing to be in old enough to just walk right into someone but Walk Right into someone unintentionally is somehow even router right because nowadays it's because you don't have the respect for the people around you to look up when you mention micro in reputation management and the biggest thing for me when I'm advising chief executives is the Latvia can't segment audiences anymore so in the old days are chief executive of a business 20 years ago would write something for the shareholder newsletter something for the staff newsletter something differently for the customer newsletter a different submission to the regulator they weren't necessarily.

They were optimising their they take the case and their words for each respective audience.

Where's now if you run a business and your Twitter everyone's following you you're on staff journalist Twitter their customers, etc.

Etc.

So you have to be that some of them take one person to everyone that it's the same way then you don't we work through a couple of actors as you know in Hollywood and some of them completely stay off social media because they said it compromises their ability to pretend to be someone else if you know that the real actor is a you know huge environmental astora feminist activist other than that compromises their ability to to be that chameleon the female version in this in this conversation right which is this is a great conversation.

I really enjoyed great Groucho Marx joke in the so many which one is well.

I mean it is so timely right there? Said that sincerity is everything because if you can fake that the rest is easy.

I mean that's the world that we now live in right which is at you when you when you listen to that been in many of these panels at these various conferences were they also put three your popular influences on and one after another hundreds of thousands of followers if not millions of followers in one after that is also well.

I do know I'm popular because I'm so I think they're not now.

You're saying that im saying you know what is authenticity anymore right.

It's you know.

It's it is what you it is the Persona that you are successful at creating and if it is truly who you are great and if it's not truly who you are ok, but you're to the point of were making her earlier about singers vs.

Actors in out in out there the you are either able to convince people that if they knew you they could be your friend and therefore they want to me know.

I mean it's only been in the last 20 years that we've even had this concept of a virtual friend right you friend someone on Facebook

That's not that was never that would become your friend was all about right friendship is truly selflessness now.

Friendship is just a quick just a click away.

This is almost like over philosophy of Hollywood and the existential angst of being podcast now and I'm enjoying it now.

You know I think that we are in the we'll sort of crossed the Rubicon of Media in that everything is media every individual person thinks of themselves as a brand Now mean, I am following a media company.

I mean everyone is Amelia company always used to be if you want to get a job.

You'd make a resume and you would submit it for the job now you create a CV and you post it on all these different sites.

That is your contact right.

So everything is media.co.uk getting a job is you putting out your content hoping to find a fan who will hire you write and sell the same.

Two of your Instagram page people aspire to have followers right people aspire to get likes people aspire to look better.

You know you have this face to write people can just simply post a self-portrait.

They have to manipulate it like giving them self of face a virtual facelift or a virtual makeover and every time I take a selfie.

I die rise in another 3 hours so that I can get facetune right before I publish it.

I don't blame you get into this industry therefore if I can come and briefly what you feel your career because I'm clearly you've got incredible insight always want to do this.

No, I didn't I didn't even know what I wanted to do.

I mean I'm I'm I'm really the worst possible if you have success story if you will because I never knew what I wanted to do.

I will I always just stumbled forward.

Colours In The Air Force and then after the Air Force winter Loscoe at night while he was working in the patent office as an Examiner in washing DC in a friend of his called and said they were all going to Houston because we're going to the moon and so he went to work at NASA then we moved to Houston and I lived in Houston through the Mercury Gemini and Apollo projects and then we moved to Los Angeles and eventually become a patent attorney and we know when I moved from military salaried father living in a Suburb of Houston that was new populated with astronauts in their families and was really someone idyllic by Peter prudential to Los Angeles you know which was the heart of the media Industries and seems like everyone was rich and if they weren't they were very good at me.

Plumber to the stars they would have you and we weren't and it was a really kind of an interesting way to grow up but you know how very quickly assimilated and learn my way around town and and it was a very beautifully different experience for me and so but I went to Berkeley I thought I want to be an electrical engineer.

There's still time you're actually sent and thank you for anything you want to be there.

Thanks Dad and then I went from Berkeley I went to law school and then I enrolled in the joint degree program at UCLA thinking of that.

I wanted to be an MBA and a lawyer and that there is just no limit to the number of professional degrees.

I could get by The Venture had a good job.

I got married.

I went to work for a small law firm that represented produces so Mel Brooks and Bob Evans and that sort of thing and I worked as a little gay.

Aaron worked in the transactional group.

They are representing film producers and wireless mouse keyboard to capitol records and I've taken a semester or to the writer's Guild and I got a call from someone who said hey I'm going to work at Disney and we're looking for someone to help us know in the film production crew, but someone who has music and background because we can also needle music where would you be interested and I was ultimately became in charge of the music business and legal affairs 2, Disney and it was an interesting job because we had 5 full-time marching bands and where the largest children's publishing music publishing company in the world and we had the largest children's record company in the world and we you know any music touched everything in a few years ago.

I worked as a production Moyet on films for Barry Levinson and Chris Columbus in your Chris Columbus's first movies movie called adventures in babysitting with great soundtracks you starting that is one of my favourite film directly under 18.

And she's an amazing actor and I fell in love with her in that go now became very close with the processes that Phil mcentee the rights for babysitting blues which is the song she sang in the middle.

Yes, I did a great song and I know that some very well.

I did some great music is first directing effort it was the guy that Rugrats end, and then he did a movie called Heartbreak Hotel which was a imaginary film about Elvis and same producers also Stacey share Deborah Hill Linda hopes to educate very close with the time and I would throw on Good Morning Vietnam and had the clear every single song that was that was popular during the Vietnam war because the deal that we had a very loving cinnamon nature of the way Robin Williams played the role.

We didn't know what songs he was going to talk about we didn't know what song is really play with in the what's

the movie and we had to figure out how to clear them in a bit and so yeah, that was a huge anyway, so I went to Disney I got very lucky at Disney I got a very early and saw them go from having one-and-a-half movies in production and no television to having hundreds of hours of television and dozens and dozens of movies in development or production and post-production and I became close to and worked closely for Russell Anderson Jeffrey katzenberg and Rich Frank and Frank was very very good to me before you passed away and Michael eisner and Bill mechanic and and daily and you know I'm in a group of Superstar executives who have all gone on to have extraordinary career some of the colleagues they worked with Ann there in the legal department Lightcliffe Gilbert who is one of the most important entertainment lawyers in town that end in o entity barber, who still at Disney and Bernice.

Disney and they've just know they've become ill.

I think the best examples of your what a studio executive can be so is really really lucky because I really young and when I left there.

I was 29 years old and I join the small firm that represented exclusively Talent and I did that for a number of years and an hour and then and then the Firm became bigger and bigger and bigger and so eventually the group that I worked with spanner out of the Firm wheels.

Are we can do is Trust business plan out the front and stand-alone farm and I've been in some configuration of that ever since and about I'm gonna say 20 years ago.

I started getting phone calls from classmates who either ended up and Silicon Valley or ended up on Madison Avenue or ended up on Wall Street because I had an unusual background.

I went to Berkeley I went to business school to Moscow I will I didn't know what I wanted to do but but many of my classmates did and they had succeeded in ways that one never will.

Battered but for many of them.

I was only person that they knew in the entertainment industry and so I would get a lot of phone calls from people saying hey will you talk to her cmo? Because we made this deal with someone so how to sponsor his tour only had the dealer sell inside of being a commercial of it and the deals of mass at is this the Genesis of membrane.

Yes exactly and so would you help us into the thing is a lot of what has been to do was not legal work and so will it was legal in so far as it wasn't against the law it was a point that out to our listeners.

Thank you, but it wasn't lawyering yeah, and it was advisory, but it put me in an unusual position the other thing that happened at the same time was that you have because I'm curious.

I got much more interested and involved in the well.

I'll call the Convergence space right other words the music industry was really a canary in the coal mine for the New Digital evolution of contact and as

The music industry started to confront file sharing and mp3 and digital downloads and you're all of the things that were they were really existential threat to the traditional music industry.

I started to look at that and people are saying in a week at upon the end of file sharing it's a dangerous and I said looked at it and yet because it's piracy and I sort of looked at it said not enough.

I receive big fat guys.

That's What Makes selling fake CDs that's piracy piracy is not me sending you a file so that you can hear a song that I'm excited about with no expectation that either of us is ripping anyone off but rather I'm trying to share something with you that I want you listen to right now and somi emailing us or or or more pointless.

You're at my house and you hear a recording you say what is that? I see what that a bootleg that I bought in Berkeley you know at Rasputin's record store you know I don't know where you tried it.

Right, thanks for the memories in our what have you whatever whatever was the population of the moment, but it's a recording of Jackson Browne live in a coffee house and there are no copies of his not available commercially somehow it seemed to me there a free society if you wanted a copy of that.

I should be able to make you a copy of that without that being perceived as a violation of anyone's rights the album is not available the recordings are available commercially why in a free Society that's not available commercially should be a legal for me to share it with you because I suppose the argument is that if you give me a copy of Lady Gaga's latest CD at the if that if I would have bought it and then didn't book for the fight you give me then she suffered damage, but is there any damage that if I was never going to buy it me having a copy of it.

Ok? So I don't know what the right ethical or philosophical outcomes.

I know what the legal outcome right.

I mean when I give you a copy of something.

I don't own then that maybe if I

Federal law we might both be balance, but it doesn't feel like that and so there was obviously something wrong with the law vs.

People's behaviour and so that was my point was that we need to figure out who embrace this phenomenon because this is inevitable as an opportunity rather than something to be regulated never happened.

You're always found prophet in artificial scarcity in other words a limited number of companies or individuals who owned the distribution channel and it was impossible to put content out without having access to the distribution channel, so what other words the big Studios also owned the movie theatres and induced Sensibility to that and it makes some sense, but one has to remember is that the copyright act and this is somewhat.

You need to be us so bare with me the copyright act and the

Write the correct as a result of the copyright and patent laws and constitution and it says in essence that can't be shown enact laws that will protect the creative output of inventors and creators for Ltd.

That's the essence of the car park was in the pet clause constitution and the copyright act is based upon their right as it as it's I pack however the First Amendment is a limitation on the copyright clause and on the copyright act another first amendment is an Amendment of the constitution so the idea of the other, showing that no law that limits free expression etc with a limitation on the copyright.

So you have to read those two together together and so the question is in a free society if the copyright act limits free expression that that a no go because the First Amendment is a limitation on the copyright act and people have done this.

Painted in other words the copyright act gives you exclusive right to your creation, but only to the extent that it doesn't limit free expression as a result I'm allowed to write an article about your song by Billy I'm allowed to quote lyrics from your song in order to write my article about your son.

I may even be able to include a link to a portion of your song to make my point and all of that is protected by the fair use clause in the copyright act is it on Wikipedia where there's an article about a specific song I'm ill have a 20-second clip of it and it'll be little writing underneath says that there's that this is something to fair use policy for academic and enciclopedie use whatever it's not clear.

It's unsettled because there's a lot of commercial pressure that has resulted in for example the copyright act being extended to the point where nothing that's traded today will go into the public domain before you and I die.

I'm not saying that that's good or bad when I'm saying is that it was inevitable that.

Technology would move faster than the legislature and that as a result we have to look at the law as a living growing thing because the copyright that was not intended to and this is a common misunderstanding who is not intended to promote creation creativity happens all by itself doesn't mean a whole lot of water what the copyright act.

Does is it creates a property right in those Creations so that people like you and me Middleman if you will will be incentivized to build a business around the art the contact the creativity in order to promote with the founders described as the marketplace of ideas and the marketplace is what makes those ideas become available the lowest possible prices to the largest number of people because in the old world the church with a crown.

Owned everything if you created art that art was owned by whoever patronised you which was often the crown of the church that was that was something that the founders that was very important to reject that idea in order to promote this marketplace of ideas because that's what freedom at the Foundation of freedom and so the tension that exists is that you know the mughals who started the movie business found it was a hell of a lot easier to own the movie theatres and put in one movie a week.

It was a kid there be a new movie every Friday night.

It was much easier to on the pipe.

That was to build the pipe with the best things in fact as the pipe has gotten bigger and fatter as we've read in old is Bruce Springsteen said 500 channels and nothing to watch right as the pipe is getting bigger and fatter.

It's just filled up with crap and so now you know the opportune.

Is to help people find the best stuff for me, how often do you find yourself going on a Google search and looking for the best things to watch with the best things to binge or the best shows on Netflix best shows up whenever until to your much earlier point about how there are way more buyers now, then there ever will be for that's true, but I don't know that that means that there is more work for actors or for producers.

I think what there is is a lot of because there's so much there so many more buyers.

It's not that there is better content per capita.

There's a lot more contact and there's a lot of and as a result there is a lot of better contact but it doesn't create upward pressure on prices for actors in the witches not creating more jobs for actors.

It's creating more jobs for a lot of the same actors and it's creating a lot more competition for the best writers.

It's creating a lot higher prices for sir.

Rebecca taxi driving prices down for other things because it's commoditizing a lot of a Kind it is also as you have all these startups are also getting a lot more of you as I said a lot more crap a lot more stuff because her a little to make and fills up the available pipe because these companies are not spending hundreds of millions of Dollars Netflix in spending hundreds annoying Disney will spend hundreds of millions of Dollars because they are trying to monopolize the most profitable end of the market and they making no money not from the content itself.

They're making their money from the subscriber base, so they are trying to be there trying to create content that you can only get there so that in order to get it you have to have a subscription to the service right because that's there any games that are driving subscribers in for the moment that seems to be how you created this new kind of artificial scarcity.

You spoken eloquently on I'm quite a number of matters only reflecting on this on the plane home, but what is it? They actually excite you at the Mum what is it that gives you the reason to get out of bedding and drive to work on I'm only what we're going to what is that? You know I've I've talked a lot about how long is is is is often mistaken for skill but I do believe that we are at a unique moment in time.

Where anyone can truly be anything and that the barriers to entry have broken down in the and the distribution has been democratised in the access to consumers has been changed to the fundamental way.

What's exciting to me? Is that you can come up with an idea and commercialize that idea that the that the barrier to entry you're breaking down and that there are pads to bomb successful entrepreneurs are in Disney World and so it's got me most excited is the city of treating an entrepreneur like a baby being tried and so we've started.

Incubate some ideas and yellow in the same way as Jessica Alba is a diaper entrepreneur right arm and did he is a vodka entrepreneur and drapey is a headphones entrepreneur and Ashton Kutcher is an angel investor extraordinaire and a guy who brings real traction to the things that he supports and is turn that into a business we like to find ways to Leverage celebrity to help bring ideas to life and that's really are missing our mission.

Is it at membrane our mission at the law firm is to help great ideas find find a life and so we're working on a folding bicycle helmet project obscenely.

Yeah, well.

I've seen the prototype and put on my head is amazing.

Thank you.

So Mum you know we were met with a young industrial designer who we are we are trying to figure out how to create a folding bike helmet and we are working with a couple of companies that had fallen by cabins morning.

Tickly that was remarkable but the problem is is it falling by come with even the most compact folding bike helmet is really expensive it's over $100 and I don't think anyone's going to buy $100 helmet for a $2 bike ride, and so these bike share program is 95% of people that ride bikes on public bike shares.

Don't worry helmet in 95% of people that died in bicycle accidents or not wearing helmets and more than half of them would have lived ever been wearing helmet like at the statistics right.

I'm such a huge need especially with these new scooters.

I'm sure everyone is thinking about right now and so we're helping to create a folding bike helmet that is compact and safe and $10 and we're working on a really clever luggage startup that was a huge success story on Kickstarter and then I need to go go are that sold adding 5 million dollars worth of suitcases red carry-on suitcases in has a really innovative designing a strong visual ID which is called duo duo.

Arrow edit, it is just a two wheel bag, but it's just got a big wheel and it put the centre of gravity closer to the rotational axis the wheels actually works better than most traditional 2-wheel luggage.

The difference between pushing a person in a wheelchair for supporting a person is shopping cart and they've yet to enter what is 80% of the market which is upright bags bags with more than 2 Wheels 4 wheels typically and they have a really innovative design and they're going to watch that later this year and were very optimistic and we've helped put the management team together and we've helped raise the money and we've helped with the marketing strategy and we've helped with the distribution arm in the supply chain and that's been very rewarding so we're doing lots of fun things in each.

Other's cases where identifying opportunities to bring celebrity or content or some other form of marketing strategy and that's what memory does membrane is a marketing strategy company that tries to bring ideas to life and I've tried to Leverage my access.

My network and my experience in working with artists and Talent and companies that exploit artists and Talent and I mean that the positive or negative in order to do other things because the thing I always used to say about music to people was music is not what you sell music is how you sell in other words tried buying a car that doesn't come with a radio right, but no one will pay extra to generate the other car anymore or try getting a cable subscription that doesn't also come with 50 channels of commercial free music portray selling up selling the commercial free music.

It's only been in the last couple of years that people are willing to pay for streaming services and streaming services are yet to be profitable because of all the rights payments and other your competition but now look what's happening Spotify just bought gym leaders is now going on podcasting was that's because they recognise that they need to create original content and overall net contents somewhere.

I need to find ways to give themselves a distinction which will cause people to want to subscribe to them because they don't want to make money on the content.

They need to make money selling subscriptions.

You don't make money selling music you make money selling little plastic discs until the utility other little plastic discos away and then you need as a record company if you will to go into the Business of tickets and t-shirts and began.

It's been a hugely enjoyable conversation.

Thank Peter thank you for having right angles podcast in association with big things Media