I'd love to spend a little bit of time

on what you've learned from Madonna.

This is an older variety piece, but the

quote here that's attributed to you is,

"She mentored me and by working so hard

pushed me to work so hard. I didn't know

until she grabbed me by the hand

and said, "Let me show it to you." And

it goes on and it goes on. But what did

you pick up from Madonna? What are the

key sort of learnings?

>> I mean, there's some clear learnings and

there's stuff that with I'm 36 years

next to this woman. Yeah.

>> And there's things that when you look

back, you go, "Okay, you know, I got

that like people who think about things

that I got that from my brother or my

mother or my

>> There are things that I didn't realize I

was getting the whole time." So, there's

both. And the front part is pretty, I

think, obvious. You know, her work ethic

is not to be believed. Her commitment to

her craft not to be believed. her

passion for

just the greatest gifts of whether it's

through the books that she's reading or

through the art that she's finding or

the people that inspire her or the

designers or she's so surrounded herself

with a collection of some of the most

incredible people in the world and she

identified them. By the way, she is the

greatest identifier. She found these

amazing talents early and and was able

to whether either could they be painters

or Freda Ko or they could be designers

or musical people like she's an

incredible finder of talent. I think the

thing that has really affected me the

most is

that she

doesn't see any kind of

there's no walls around her thoughts.

There's no, "Oh, I can't do that."

>> Right. In terms of constraints, right?

>> Yeah. Even going back to my first

experience at Maverick Records.

If you went to any record label,

they probably would have they would have

put me in a compartment. There's the R&B

department, there's a jazz department,

the rock department, reggae department,

pop department, hip-hop department. And

you're oh, what department are you in?

And they and they sort of bucket you

into these things. And I think that when

I look back and I go, how did I not

really bucket myself? I went from this

to this to that to that to that. And I

think it's it's really just being around

her has allowed me to never think in a

limited way.

>> Mhm.

>> And they all work together. A lot of the

stuff I do on technology has allowed me

to bring that into my musical world and

to understand how these things work

together or the relationships. And

they're so handinand. And of course a

few decades later now people understand

that but at the time it was so it was it

was it was very much like what are you

doing this tech thing is crazy and

you're not doing innovation is

innovation and how we can distribute

music or how we market and vice versa

all the stuff from music is you know

when you when you're launching a new

company you have you know these founders

are rock stars in my mind every founder

I invest in I look at them like they are

the rockstar I go that person has music

they want to share of the world. They

have their album and my job is to

identify that artist, that founder

before everyone else maybe identifies

them. And my job is to help you reach

that audience. How do we tell the story?

How do we reach the base of your

audience? How do we grow your audience?

You know, what's your first single?

What's your second single? I still work

in that kind of process, which is very

musical in my mind. We're going to spend

a good amount of real estate on on the

tech. But before we get to it, I want to

take a moment to explore the the terrain

of film and how you ended up executive

producing Twilight

and and all the rest because as as you

mentioned in a different environment

with a different label, you would have

been tightly siloed and you wouldn't

have had that ability, right? How did

you end up with the foray into film?

>> I'd been signing bands for a long time

and running the record label and I

thought, well, why don't we do a film

company as well? And Madonna and I were

really in a good groove together and

thought, let's just let's just start

this film company.

>> Why did that come to mind?

>> I don't really recall that. I just

recall thinking about how people do it

differently. And so again, I didn't have

context. The best thing sometimes is to

have zero context. Sometimes fresh is

okay. Sometimes having a blank canvas.

And with films, I had a blank canvas. I

didn't know how it worked,

>> but I knew I wanted to make some films.

>> And I So I had this idea of

bringing in a bunch of producers under

one roof.

>> And they were all independent producers.

And the idea was is I'll bring them in

and you know house them and and give

them support and pay for a lot of the

legal things that cost money when you're

independent is it's a lot on you,

>> right? All the back office, all of that

stuff.

>> We'll take all that on. We'll help you

and then we'll work on these projects

together. And we had like a lot of

producers that I if I was to to pay for

them, I couldn't have afforded it. But

we did it that way. and and out of that

came a lot of films and a lot of

Twilight and and Percy Jackson, a few

others that I was very lucky to be part

of. The guy who ran it, Mark Morgan, was

really good at it. But there were a lot

of complications

and I was at that same moment that we

were that it started to take off. I

picked up Madonna as manager with my

partner at the time, Angela, and I took

on Confessions, which was the pretty

massive tour that year, and I think the

biggest selling record of that year. So,

as a I don't know how old I was back

then, but that was a major

responsibility for me.

>> Hard to ride both of those horses at the

same time.

>> Just that alone, just Madonna at that

moment in time for someone I had not

been a music manager for, you know, and

anything near that level. And so to take

that on and to, you know, work on all

things the tour and the album and all

that.

>> And for people who have no context on

music at all, what does a music manager

do in that type of situation?

>> It's a tricky question because no one

manager is the same. Everyone's

different.

>> I guess what was your umbrella of

responsibilities? When Madonna started

working on Ray of Light, I found the

producer, William Orbit, but I was not

managing her. I was her partner at the

record label, Maverick Records, and not

her own, not Warner Brothers, which is

where she was. She was on War Brothers,

but I was just we were just friends and

working together, but I fed ideas. I

found the director, Yonas Aarland. And

so I was creatively really working on

this project called Ray of Light. So

we're already building a creative

rapport and on music Stefon Sidaway the

director introduced me to a producer

named her ways gave me a demo I loved it

and I gave it to Madonna and I ended up

becoming music. So I found on those two

albums I really even though I wasn't

managing her I was creatively helping

here and there bring in some ideas.

>> Mhm.

>> So we already had a rhythm on the

creative side. Now, there are some

managers that don't do any creative and

there are some that are very creative,

but I was coming from the creative point

of view on ideas, ideulating. Here's

here's things we could do. Here's things

we could build. So, I think I think for

me as that's the management that I am. I

I'm more creative. When I'm working with

someone, I I'm I'm sort of in it. And

there are other managers I've worked

with who they really just they don't do

the creative but they do an incredible

job managing everything keeping you know

putting together the tour but they're

not in there going what if we did this

of you know what if we there's different

kinds of managers I'm for creative for

example when I showed her Yonas Arland

did a video for Prodigy which is a band

I signed and it was really provocative

and I just showed it to her like this

guy this is crazy and she goes he's

doing my first video or or he's doing

that like you You know, I showed her

there's a a guy named Chris Cunningham.

He made a song called Come to Daddy by

Ax Twin, which is really insane. It's a

$30,000 video. I just showed it to her

just to show her this. Look at this

crazy thing. And she's like, "That guy's

doing that video." So, she had Chris

Cunningham do Frozen, which is an

incredible video. And she had Jonas do

Ray of Light. So, it was just a really

great back and forth. We had really

great energy together that that she she

was open to my craziness and and then

she would take it to the next level.

>> What and and this is this is my even

when I was very very young and everybody

knew Madonna. I was constantly impressed

by her longevity and ability to

seemingly reinvent herself. And I'm just

wondering why you think she has been so

consistently good at that over decades.

I mean, it was the first example that I

remember even as a young pretty young

kid be marveling over and I'm just

wondering if you could add any any color

to that. She doesn't sit

well on her past.

She's not high-fiving herself.

>> [laughter]

>> She's not really a Oh my god, I've done

all these. She's just keeps it moving

forward. Yeah, I think that that's a

that is, you know, part of the

inspiration for continually

trying to move forward myself is I'm

have a front row seat or shotgun to this

incredible journey of this woman who

just continually

defies all the odds and

fights the fight. It is not easy. It

it's not just like it's not that she's

maintained or stayed around. It's

actually that she's had to fight her way

through it a lot. She's breaking ground

for a lot of other people who are coming

behind her who can say, "Well, Madonna's

done it. I can do it." But it is no easy

feat. There is a lot of a lot of

to deal with.

>> And I think it comes from she just

doesn't celebrate her accomplishments.

She just starts like it's a brand new a

brand new day.