How I Built a $10 Billion TV Network From Nothing - Larry Namer

He, you know, he's now in 142 countries, and the valuation is up over $10 billion, arguably the biggest influence of pop culture ever. But he started with 11 employees and 31 interns. And they go, people don't start TV networks. It's just not possible. And we were just not smart enough to realize it wasn't possible. It was after three and a half years and over 100 rejections. You know, at that point, the range for starting a TV network was somewhere between $60 and $100 million.

And he said, well, I'm only allowed to sign for two and a half. Let's take two and a half, and we'll see if we can figure it out. You know, along the way, I ended up meeting the vice mayor of St. Petersburg at the time. Just so happens, the guy's name was Vladimir Putin. Well, the number that OJ left, I go, what is this? You're going to break my partner's legs with a baseball bat? He goes, yeah, and I'm going to break yours, too.

And I'm going, I don't think so. You know, Kardashians, obviously, they've done pretty well. And I know the kids since they're literally babies. Some of them before they were babies. We just realized we don't have to play by anybody's rules. When you're meeting Kim and the family for the first time, can you talk about how you discover that people are stars and how you spot trends like reality TV? A lot of them.

Today's guest is the legendary and iconic Larry Nehmer. International media mogul, the founder of one of the most recognizable and influential entertainment networks in the world, e-entertainment. His career is a masterclass in turning constraints into advantages, from getting rejected over a hundred times while fundraising, to jumping the fences at the Oscars, to spotting stars and cultural trends before the rest of the world understood them.

He catapulted some very incredible household names like Howard Stern, Joan Rivers, the Kardashians into stardom, and later built media bridges into Russia, China, and the future of AI-driven entertainment. In his book, Offscript and Two-Minute Television, Larry pulls back the curtain on the wild, unlikely, and often hilarious stories behind the journey and very important lessons that we can all gain. And Larry's story is really about one question.

What happens when you are naive enough, bold enough, or stubborn enough to ignore the people telling you no? Thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's great. Thank you for having me. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you, and reading your book has been one of the great pleasures. One of the most fascinating stories that we uncovered in the book was, again, this is a cookbook as well as it is a memoir, and I really resonated with a lot of the stories you shared

about your passion for cooking. In the book, you write that around age 12, you were this latchkey kid who was tired of peanut butter and jelly, so you taught yourself to cook out of necessity. What did learning how to feed yourself that young teach you about providing for yourself before anyone hands you anything? Sure. Well, I mean, it gave me this incredible sense of independence, and, you know, like I can survive literally everything, and I did.

But the other thing that it really did for me in learning it, I really liked cooking, so I just kept reading cookbooks and experimenting and stuff like that. And then, you know, in later life, cooking really turned into, like, my form of therapy. Like, I don't meditate and I don't do yoga, but I can go in the kitchen and just get lost, and it doesn't make a difference how bad the day was. It just kind of, by the time I come out of the kitchen, it's all good.

And I think it teaches you something about being really scrappy and problem-solving. You were talking about how a lot of times you don't even need a recipe. You try something, and then you can learn how to make it. And I think that's also a testament to how you're such a problem-solver in all the aspects of your life, and that's a superpower that you have. Yeah, I mean, pretty much, I mean, over time, I've been doing this for a long time,

so you kind of learn a lot of technique. I could go to a restaurant, I could eat something and go, this is good, I want to do it at home. And, like, the first time I'll try it, it'll come close, but not quite. But then I go, okay, I know what to do to make it right. And so the second time, it'll be exactly like the restaurant. And the third time, it'll be like something where I tailor it to my taste. So I'll make little tweaks to, like, the restaurant recipe.

And improve it, I'm sure. I had the chance of trying Larry's coleslaw, and it was the best coleslaw I'd ever had. Oh, thank you. Sweet and savory and perfectly crispy. What are some of your favorite recipes?

Well, you know, growing up, I grew up in this very mixed neighborhood and stuff, but we had this one very famous Italian restaurant there. So, you know, and you don't find this stuff many places. It's baked clams and then chicken parmesan. I mean, those are, like, my favorites. And then, of course, I ended up learning how to cook Chinese when I was in university. And I probably cook Asian food, like, three or four times a week.

Mm-hmm. I think Chinese food is, in my opinion, the most versatile and easy to make. Yeah, it is. But it's a lot of chopping and shapes and colors and stuff like that. And, yeah, so my favorite would be, like, Southern Chinese, like, old-school Cantonese. Mm-hmm. And then Sichuan, you know, I like spicy food. So Sichuan's my second favorite. And when I was going through your cookbook, I felt, again, it was a cookbook as much as

it was a memoir. Going through all the different dishes, it's almost going through the different chapters of your life. The sort of international exploration from the borscht to the Chinese food to Los Gales' chopped salad. Yeah, no, it was, you know, for years I resisted writing the book. People always say, you've got such great stories, you've got to write a book. And I'm like, no, no, no. And then finally, you know, when I decided to do it, I, you know, I came up with the format.

We really started thinking, going, you could divide my life's work up into kind of, like, eight different areas. Like, growing up in Brooklyn and my Manhattan years, my L.A. years, my E years, blah, blah, blah. And so I said I could do the stories or the anecdotes from each different chapter match with the recipes that inspired me. So the book is somewhere between a memoir and a cookbook. It really reminded me of Julia Child's cookbooks.

Going back and learning about her time in Paris and her time in France and movies like Julia and Julia. That was one of the first cookbooks I ever really dug into was Julia. Yeah, it was incredible. And so, and it was such a palatable read with great lessons from every chapter of your life. So we'd love to dive a little bit deeper into some of them. One of the most important lessons, I think, was learning to problem solve early.

Again, I think a lesson that could have been applied from when you decided to learn how to cook for yourself when you were a child. But, I mean, really remarkable, like early career. By the time you were 25, you were running operations for a team of 300. The biggest cable company in the world at that point. It was unbelievable. And you said that in the beginning, one of your superpowers and advantages was you did your

diligence. You read the manual. Yeah. So, can you talk a little bit about why during maybe the obvious boring thing created such a rare edge and made you stand out? Sure. Well, you know, when I graduated, I first came to family to graduate college, go to college. college. And I thought I would get my parents' aspiration for me was get a civil service job and be able to retire at 65 and stuff. But the city of New York put a ban on hiring.

You wanted to be a teacher. Yeah. I was thinking maybe I wanted to be a teacher. That would have been a bad idea. So, I ended up taking what I thought was going to be a summer job. Somebody I knew was in the electrical workers union. And they said, oh, we organized this thing. It's called cable TV. I'm not sure anybody will ever pay for television. Show you how much foresight they had. And here's the name of the union representative.

Go there and tell them the union sent you. So, I did. And they gave me a job. Again, I thought it was a summer job. I was an assistant underground splicer. I wasn't even the splicer. I was an assistant underground splicer, which meant every day I would go underneath the streets of New York, otherwise known as the sewers. With the rats. With the rats and the roaches and all of that. And I would help put the wires together.

And, you know, you go down at 830 and come up at 5 o'clock and you go home and stuff like that. And, you know, it's the first time you see daylight. And, but what happened was I was using all the equipment. And like the head guy was like, hey, kid, you know, how do you know how to use all the equipment? And people don't learn it, you know, for months, if not years. And you're using it after two weeks. And I'm like, okay, I read the instruction booklet.

But, but that was a really interesting part. And I think it, it is symbolic of what kind of came after, which is always learn how to read the instruction booklet. I mean, not necessarily figuratively, you know, more figuratively than anything else. And so, yeah, so I went very quickly from the, I was the assistant slicer. They paid me $90 a week. And then I became the slicer. And then I moved to becoming a construction guy, an installer, a service guy.

And then they, they kept trying to get me to go into management. And I was like, no, I'm secure in the union. I'm not doing it. But then timing bought the company. And so you had all the Harvard and the Ailes there. And there was the first union contract that came up. So you had all these very sophisticated Ivy Leaguers there. And then the union guy said to me, hey, kid, you know how to read. Well, we want to put, we want to put you on the negotiating committee.

And I'm like, yeah, all right. I guess that should be fun. So I was on the negotiating committee negotiating against the time anchors. And, and we ended up with a pretty successful contract. And after the union guys were like, well, we really loved how you did that. And we need you, you know, in a higher position. So they ended up making me, I was 23. They made me the vice chairman of the cable TV workers, which was crazy.

You know, being a union official at 23 years old. And, you know, so I did that. And then timing put in a, they put in a guy kind of where they're golden boys and then Nick Nicholas, who eventually went on to become the chairman of Time Warner. And they put him in as chairman so he could learn because timing, they made this decision that they were a publishing company, but they wanted to migrate and become a media company.

And so they were, that was kind of their plan over 10 years, they were going to become a media company. So they put him in there so he could kind of learn the cable side. And he and I just got along good because I knew how to read a balance, my degrees in economics. I knew how to read a balance sheet. I spoke English. And, you know, finally he was like, you know, Larry, you got to come into management. And I'm like, I don't know.

I, you know, I'm nice and secure. And finally he convinced me. So at 25, they made me the, the director of operations for Manhattan cable, which was at the time, the largest cable company in the U S. So all the places that I used to work, all the little divisions now all reported to me. So I had like over 300 people reporting to me at 25. So I was a good, you know, get thrown into the fire kind of moment. It's pretty unprecedented, I think, even now for someone that young to be managing that.

Yeah, especially in a big corporate environment. I think you could do in there, you know, entrepreneurship and, you know, founding your own companies and stuff. I think it's changed the dynamic of that. No, but back then to be 25 and, you know, I think the closest people to me and the time Inc. level is before Time Warner were in their mid 40s and stuff. So, you know, it was, it was hard, but, you know, it worked. Can you talk a little bit about like the almost reverse ageism that you may have experienced where maybe people discounted you when you, because you were young or didn't get the level of respect, but you stuck it through?

This is particularly a topic I really care about because where I grew up in Japan, it's a, it's has a sort of ageism where you respect the older generation and you have to pay your dues to climb the ranks. It's very, very rare for someone who's young to be in positions of power. And yet the few young people that do make it through are truly exceptional. But how did you overcome some of the perhaps reverse ageism that you experienced?

Outworking them, out thinking them and stuff. But then I had the advantage, you know, so you had, you know, all these, you know, B school types looking at this industry that no, it was brand new. So nobody really knew it. And I kind of liken it to the AI world today, you know, where anybody who tells you they really know where it's going, it's full of it. Yeah, you kind of had the same thing, but yet, so they trusted me because, you know, even though I was thrown in a room with people much, much older than me, I understood what it was that the guys do that they're now in charge of.

So when they decided to go out on a buying tour, you know, they wanted to stop buying other cable systems and stuff. I became this great resource for them because they go, Larry, go to Cincinnati and look at the stuff and tell us if it's really what they say it is. And so I got to do like lots of stuff really, really young. That's incredible. And then would love if you could walk me through a little bit of your journey of moving from New York to California, what that transition was like.

Sure. So, so I did, you know, I was director of operations and then I moved to become director of corporate development, which I guess is where I kind of got the mentality of, you know, looking to the future as opposed to the past. So my job then was to find new uses of cable television in literally 20 years ahead. So I was used to always looking and analyzing and going, where's the world going? So I was doing that.

And then it was right then that the all the big cities around the country began to realize that cable TV was more than just good reception that, you know, because now you had ESPN and CNN. So you had all this niche programming come in and you had all these services, a lot of which I developed because in corporate development, I was doing data com, you know, back before the internet and, you know, that kind of stuff.

And so all the cities wanted cable. But the one caveat that most big cities had was they didn't want the cable to be on telephone poles because in rural systems, everything was on a telephone pole. So a Canadian company won the franchise for the city of Los Angeles, and it was going to be now bigger than any other cable system. And it was going to be two way interactive. It was going to be the first 65 channel two way interactive cable system, but it had to be built underground.

So the company sort of recruiter called me and said, hey, they really want to talk to you. And I'm like, I'm a Brooklyn kid. There's no way I'm going to La La Land, you know, not going to happen. And then he called back a few times. And then finally, the chairman of the company called me, a Canadian company out of Toronto. And, you know, he said, we really want to talk to you. I said, I have no interest in this job.

I'm not doing it. He goes, well, I'll fly you out to California. I'll put you in the Bel Air Hotel, you know, for the weekend. Or you just have to give me an hour of your time. I said, as long as you understand that there's no way that I'm taking this job or I have any interest in it, then sure. So I went out to California and I was a total ass when, you know, the guy was interviewing me. I'm going, OK, you know, you got an hour starting now, you know, then I'm like, you know, 40 minutes left, 30 minutes left.

And we go through this whole interview process and he says to me, well, what would it take for you to move out here? And I'm like, well, you know, so I named four times what I'm making in New York. I said, and plus, I understand Liberace, who was a famous celebrity then. I understand he's moving to Las Vegas and his house in L.A. is, you know, for sale. I said, I want Liberace's house. I want a car with a mobile phone.

That was before cell phones. I want a car with a mobile phone. And the guy just looked at me, he goes, you're out of your mind. I went, exactly. I said, I told you I wasn't interested in this job. And you asked me what it would take and I told you. So I go back to New York and the guy calls about a week later and he says, well, we'd offer you this. And he's offered me like twice what I'm making. And just like an idiot, I said, I said, you didn't understand.

You asked me what it would take. I said, I wasn't negotiating with you. I told you what it would take. And I hang up on him. A week later, the guy calls back and goes, now, oh, but actually what happened was it was in the winter in New York. When it snows in New York City, first day is really beautiful. But the second day is like black slush. So I'm going to work and I got my suit on and I think I'm looking good. And the cab comes by and just splashes me with like black gook.

And I'm going like, oh, God, that weather in L.A. was so nice. And so I get to the office and, you know, the assistant says, oh, that guy called for you again. I'm like, all right, I get him on the phone. So I get him on the phone. I go, yeah, what do you want? And I'm just being really nasty. He goes, what you asked for is totally nuts, but OK. I go, what do you mean OK? He goes, you got the salary, you got the house, you got the call with the mobile phone.

What else? I went, well, that'll do it. So literally I resigned that day. And two weeks later, I was in L.A. And it was kind of a weird experience because it's going to be the biggest cable system in the country at that point. And and the most advanced is going to be 65 channels, two way interactive and all kinds of stuff. And they literally handed me like the franchise papers from the city going, here's what you got to build.

Here's a bank line from Toronto Dominion Bank for a few hundred million dollars. Here's what you got. Here's the money to build it. Call us if you need us. And they went back to Canada. And I'm like, yeah, I'm 30 years old, you know, and sitting with a piece of paper saying I have access to 400 million dollars from Toronto Dominion Bank. I'm like, this is crazy. But, yeah. It's a lot to it's a lot to digest there. What a fantastic story.

What do you think it is that perhaps young founders can take from the story of being audacious and asking for, in a sense, in your situation when you were moving to L.A. for bold, for something bold? Well, I think, you know, you got to I'm kind of the very much don't follow your passion person, which I think a lot of people confuse passion with hobby and stuff. So, you know, I always say find something that you're good at, that you like, learn how to work your butt off, study it inside and out and become great at it.

And then really what happens is that becomes your passion or at least gives you the financial wherewithal to be able to pursue that passion on the weekends. And, you know, so when I got out there, I mean, I had no background in television or anything like that. I mean, I was a cable operations guy. But now for the first time, programming and marketing and finance and everything reported to me, which is really scary at 30 years old.

And... But we just had, you know, all this really advanced, I had some great programming people. And, you know, all of a sudden we started winning Emmy Awards and Ace Awards and stuff like that. And actually we got Forbes magazine named us the national model for cable programming. Of course, there were no rules. So, you know, and sometimes, you know, if you have to follow the rules, we probably wouldn't have done all the things that we did.

But, you know, we just dream of something and go, we could do that. Why not? You know? And so sometimes it's better to be a little bit dumb. So we broke all the rules. And, you know, for me, it was kind of an odd time because you're a Brooklyn kid and you're out in California. And all your neighbors are going to parties and premieres and everybody's part of the entertainment business. And I had 65 channels. And there weren't 65 channels in existence.

So I had the school library channel, the school lunch channel, which just character generators. And so I talked to the studios and said, hey, could you put me on the list for those parties and the premieres? And they were like, oh, you're cable TV. You're like the gas company. You're a utility. No. And then, you know, finally, I met someone. I'm pretty sure it was at Universal. And I said, you know, I don't understand.

The most effective vehicle you have for marketing a movie is a movie trailer, that two-minute trailer. I said, but the only time I ever see it is when I'm already in the movies. I said, it seems kind of backwards to me. I said, wouldn't you want me to see it when I'm in my house to make me want to go to the movies? And he said, yeah, but two minutes of TV time is too expensive. We really can't make sense of that. So I said, okay, great.

Give me those movie trailers. I'll put them on TV. You put me on a list. And he went, yeah, sure, if you'll do that. So we literally just took them and, you know, I hired somebody, I think, for $3 an hour to edit them together. And we didn't even give it a name. It was just that trailer channel. And then what happened was we started doing market surveys. What's your favorite channel? People go, oh, I love CNN. I love ESPN.

I love that trailer channel. And I'm going, wait a second. People like the best, you know, there's two minutes from, like, content I get for free. And they like it as much as CNN or ESPN. So, you know, I kind of filed that in the back of my head. And then what happened was the company, the Canadian company sold out. And they went back to Canada. And they were like, Larry, could you be here in two weeks? And I'm like, wait a second.

I said, I didn't go from, like, New York to LA to go to Toronto. I said, I'm done with the cold. I'm not going. So I stayed there. And me and my friend Alan, we were going, let's think of ideas. Alan was from New Jersey. And we go, let's think of some ideas to stay in California. And we just started planning. One of the ideas, you know, we said, you know, entertainment tonight, 24 hours a day. Because then you had, you know, usually you had three networks.

And then you had news at 1130. And then Turner did CNN. And then ESPN did sports. So you started breaking down the primary parts of television into these little niches. And we said, you know, one of the most loved parts of anything is, you know, that entered those little interviews, the stars and the premieres and the glitz and the glamour of Hollywood. So we said, we could do entertainment tonight, 24 hours a day or MTV of the movies.

And, you know, then MTV was doing music videos. It was like when MTV was young. And we said, you know, they stand to host in front of a green screen. And they point to the screen and go, Madonna has a new video. And I said, we could stand to host in front of a green screen and go and Schwarzenegger has a new movie. I mean, essentially, it's the same arm movement. And so we wrote a plan. We thought we were really smart.

And, you know, this is before word processing and everything. So the plans were like 200 and something pages long. And, you know, we wrote it and we started to show it to people. And they go, well, you know, it's not a bad idea, but you're not Time Inc. Or you're not Disney and stuff. People don't start TV networks. It's just not possible. And we were just not smart enough to realize it wasn't possible. So we literally just kept going until finally, I think it was after three and a half years,

and over 100 rejections, including one where the guy threw the business plan at my head, which was really bizarre because he ended up investing. He threw the business plan at me, said, this is the worst piece of garbage I've ever seen. How dare you? And threw it at me and then walked out of the room and then just looked at the banker and said, I like it. I'm in. And I'm sitting there going, what just happened? And so after three and a half years, we ended up meeting somebody on a plane who, you know,

Alan and I were talking about the plan. And he said, oh, this is really good. What are you doing? So we said, well, we've been trying to raise some money. We haven't been able to raise money. He goes, oh, I know somebody will give you the money. And we were like, okay, yeah, sure. But at that point, you know, you just take every meeting that you possibly could get. And we end up going in. It's a bond house on Wall Street that just started an investment banking division.

And a young guy in charge of it. And we went into his office and he had movie posters on the wall. And we're going, that's kind of odd. And, you know, he goes, oh, yeah, I used to be the entertainment reporter for my college newspaper. He goes, I really like this. I want to do it. And we're like, okay. You know, at that point, the range for starting a TV network was somewhere between 60 and $100 million. And, you know, I said, could you give us more like the $100 million so we could do everything we want?

And he said, well, I'm only allowed to sign for two and a half. I'm going, well, I can't even buy the cameras for two and a half. And he said, well, that's all I'm allowed to sign for. And, you know, Al and I just looked at each other and said, you know what? After three and a half years, nobody's given us $100. Nobody's given us $60. Let's take two and a half and we'll see if we can figure it out. And we did. And I had a friend who was teaching radio, television, and film at University of Texas in Austin.

And I called him up and said, hey, Brian, do you have kids that need some intern jobs? And he said, yeah, we had a lot of trouble placing. I said, how many you got? He goes, I don't know, 30-something. I went, send them all. So he literally sent us 31 kids out of Texas. And what people don't realize that he, you know, he's now in 142 countries and the valuation is up over $10 billion and arguably the biggest influence of pop culture ever.

But he started with 11 employees and 31 interns. My friend wanted to kill me after because the kids who came at the beginning of the summer, they were interns. By the end of the summer, they were vice presidents. Of course, once it went on the air, everybody looked at us and said, oh, my God, why don't you tell us that's what you want to do? We would have given you that money three years ago. You know, sure. Lots of great stories there.

One of the, I think, the best lessons for founders from that story is turning that $2.5 million into the empire that it is now. How did you go about building the network with limited funds? And what is the lesson here about how to be scrappy? And I think especially if considering now these big AI giants are raising billions of dollars to do the things they want to do. And some founders may only be raising several million.

But how can those founders win the way that you won? Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of it just had to be, you had to be very inventive and just realize the old rules no longer apply. You know, you just got to get rid of it and realize what was. So, you know, we said, okay, with a limited amount of money, we couldn't buy broadcast equipment. So, I found a company that had equipment they were using for making old sales tapes.

I mean, it wasn't even like, then the measure was one inch tape. This is in the days of tape. And they had like this old three quarter inch industrial equipment. So, we bought all of that. And we just got very inventive with the program because we're getting these two minute trailers for free. And we figured out how to slice and dice it. So, we would have like, you know, one show would be coming this weekend. The next one would be foreign films.

Next would be comedy films and stuff. So, we just kind of mixed and matched a lot of stuff. There's, you had to be really inventive there and realize given limited resources, you got to figure out a way to make it work. And so, you know, we did that. And which turned out to be fortuitous. Sometimes it's better than, it's good to be a little bit lucky. Because people would watch it. And because it wasn't professional broadcast, it looked very pirate.

And people would say, you know, and nobody was used to seeing more than 20 seconds about a movie on Entertainment Tonight. And, you know, here we are covering like movies while they're still being produced. And people would say, oh my God, it looks so pirate. We feel like we're a fly on the wall watching something that, you know. I feel like an insider. And stuff, which turned out to be really good to being not so polished.

So, that really helped us catapult. And then, you know, once we're on the air, I mean, when the Academy Awards, which was interesting, we applied for credentials. And we got the nastiest letter back. Going, you're some little dumb cable network. No, we're not letting you on, you know, in the Academy Awards. And we climbed over the fence. And we snuck on. And we were on the red carpet. And we eventually got caught. But we had a good half an hour.

But, you know, we weren't asking the traditional questions. You know, then it was like, so, Mr. Cruz, tell us about your next movie. You know, boring and everybody's doing that. You know, we were like, whoa, Tom, great shoes. Where'd you get those? You know, we started like with clothing, you know, on the red carpet with the dresses and stuff like that. Which is really what people wanted to see. But traditional broadcast was just not in tune with where the audience was.

But because we weren't part of the old legacy media and stuff, we were just asking the questions we wanted to ask. So that turned out really well. And a lot of people, you know, they watched it and said, oh, you know, this is so pirate. How do you get to do that? And, you know, we don't want to tell them we snuck on the, you know, on the red carpet and stuff. But that kind of catapulted us. And then the first show, you know, again, not having rules and not understanding the rules.

You know, I went and said, I want to do a TV show that makes fun of TV shows. And everybody just looked at me and were like, what are you talking about? I go, I want to do a TV show that makes fun of TV shows. Most of the stuff that I see on TV is pretty funny. And they were like, no, you can't do that. You'll insult everybody and whatever. I went, as long as we boost their ratings and they're selling more ads, they'll be okay with it.

So we did this show called Talk Soup, which then catapulted so many people into future stardom and stuff. And that, the show that everybody said you couldn't do ended up running 26 years. You know, and it was really the precursor to a lot of stuff you see on the, you know, social media today. Then the second one is, you know, I said, I want to put cameras in this guy's radio studio. And everybody went, you know, radio's dead 40 years.

Why would you do that? And, you know, and that guy ended up being Howard Stern. And Howard obviously went on to do pretty good. And it's actually, you know, the Howard show was the precursor to podcasting. That's true. And, yeah, so many great, great stories there. Jumping the fence at the Oscars is one of my favorites. They didn't let you in. You found a way in any way. And then really revolutionized the way that people think about entertainment, award shows, fashion, asking the questions people really want to hear.

And then the other thing that was important, asking questions that the celebrities were so happy to finally be asked. You know, when they only had 20 seconds on entertainment tonight, it was tell us about your next project. You know, we're actually digging. Who are you? You know, I mean, we were more interested in who they are and what they think, what they do with the family on the weekends and stuff like that. And it was revolutionary.

Now when you think of red carpet, the way that you think about it is not what's your next project, but it's what are you wearing? What's going on? Tell me the gossip. And that's something you really pioneered. What are some of the other crazy things that you guys did? Oh, God. Well, you know, we went on to do Wild on E and E! Hollywood True Story. And those are big breakthrough shows, you know, all the way up to modern day, you know, Kardashians.

Obviously, they've done pretty well and stuff. And I know the kids since they're literally babies. Some of them before they were babies. And, you know, it was wild days because we just realized we don't have to play by anybody's rules. We could set our own rules and stuff. And we just started doing stuff that, you know, one of the most famous stories is there was a very big actor named Jack Lemmon. And, you know, Jack was in, you know, The Odd Couple and all these movies and very, very famous.

But he was known for not liking to do publicity tours and stuff. And, you know, and he would just refuse to do them. And I met the manager one day at some event. And I'm saying, well, how do I get Jack to come on and do an interview? And he goes, you don't. I go, what do you mean? He goes, Jack won't do it. I go, what does Jack do? He goes, hey, he likes it. He goes home. He likes his quiet. He sits down. He plays the piano.

He's happy. I said, okay, what if I put a piano on the set and I guarantee that nobody will talk to Jack when he's there? He could just play the piano for an hour. And the guy just looked at me. He goes, what? I go, I'll put a piano on the set. Jack could come in and play the piano. Nobody will talk to him. He goes, could you guarantee that? I went, yeah, I guarantee it. I said, if somebody talks to Jack, Jack could get up and leave.

He went, okay, let me ask Jack. Anyways, Jack said, yes, we got a piano. We put it on the set. And, you know, he came in and he started playing. And, you know, you could tell he was very wary, like looking around, waiting for somebody to talk to him because he couldn't believe we were going to go an hour with nobody saying a word to him. And then he just got so comfortable that after like about half an hour, he just turned to the camera and started talking.

And he was saying all the stuff that people wanted to ask him for years. And he just talked for like 45 minutes. His guard was down. And, you know, and no questions. He just talked about whatever he wanted to talk. And then, you know, when it went on the air, like every manager in town started calling us. So we went from this little dumb cable network, you know, to people going, how in the world did you get that and stuff?

Would you do the, you know, we put the Wayans brothers on before they were, you know, powerful. And I mean, literally everybody. So, you know, people calling us going, Larry, I'm in town. Could I host? And I'm going, no, Paula Abdul, you can't host. And I go, wow, okay, maybe you can. You know, so we were just doing that kind of stuff. And, you know, when you had 24 hours a day and you had your own studio, I mean, somebody would just come in and say, Larry, I'm in town.

Do you want me on? You go, yeah, turn the lights on. And, you know, we would do it. Because, again, we didn't have rules that we knew we had to play by. So, again, sometimes it's better to be a little bit dumb. So you can take a lot of these risks and try many different things. Yeah. We just try to, you know, I mean, because it was better that way because it let us break through. And we realized that's what we were about.

We said the reason people are loving us is because we were pirates and because we were doing stuff that they've never seen before. And we were the audience. I mean, we were essentially the same as the audience. We didn't come from the TV side. We came from the audience side. What do you want to watch? What do you want to consume? What do you want to know? And especially when there are no rules, what is possible? Yeah.

And, you know, when we learned, you know, early on that people love all the fashion stuff. And, you know, so then we met with Joan Rivers. She's an icon. Joan, you know, why don't we do this fashion police thing and stuff. And, you know, that show obviously did pretty well. Absolutely. When you were talking about meeting the Kardashians, could you tell us some of the early stories? Sure. You know, we, you know, we met Bruce and when Bruce was still Bruce and Chris.

And actually, Alan and I wanted to do a, we wanted to do another TV network. Now, this is in the days, this is before digital. So it was linear TV. So everything was time anchored. You know, when NBC put a show on Thursday night at eight o'clock, you had to be there Thursday night at eight o'clock to watch it. And so we were going to start this thing called FX TV, Fitness and Exercise Television. And it was me and Alan and Bruce and Chris Jenner and Tareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Lakers.

Unfortunately, it was this other guy named OJ Simpson. And so we were off going to do this TV network until OJ decided to off Nicole and stuff like that. And Alan and I just looked at each other and said, you know, we draw the line of murder. So that kind of fell apart.

Luckily for, you know, I mean, unlucky for Nicole, obviously. But, you know, the linear TV days were coming to an end. We were moving into that digital era. And we realized that with fitness, people, you know, if you were an expert at yoga, you didn't want to watch the beginning yoga show. So time anchored programming was saying, you know what, it's not long before this goes away and something new came. And then, you know, we kind of went into the digital era where it becomes possible.

So going into the OJ story a little bit more because you actually met him and had a relationship with him and have a really great story in the book about the sort of eureka moment. Yeah, well, it was, you know, my partner, Alan, you know, was my partner, Alan Marufka. And Alan was a single guy in L.A. And he was going out with all the starlets and stuff. And he went out with this famous actress who, unfortunately, has passed now, named Tawny Katane.

And so he takes Tawny out and he goes to drop off at home. And the car pulls up behind him. And she goes, oh, my God, it's this guy I go out with. He's like a little bit off. Drive away quick. So Alan drives around the block. The car follows him. He drives around the block. The car follows him. And finally, she says, OK, I'm going to get out and stand in front of his car. He won't run me over. You just drive away as quick as you can.

And so he does that. But, you know, ends up the boyfriend is O.J. And this is before we all became, you know, friends and partners. And he goes around. He gets out of her who it was she was with. He goes around to all the restaurants and the clubs going, I'm looking for this Alan Marufka guy. When I get him, I'm going to break his legs with a baseball bat. And Alan moves out of his house, moves to the Century Plaza Hotel, hires security guys and stuff.

And then he calls me. So I call the number that O.J. left. I go, what is this? You're going to break my partner's legs with a baseball bat? And he goes, yeah, and I'm going to break yours, too. And I'm going, I don't think so. I don't think that's going to happen. And we're going back and forth, back and forth. It ends up that Alan grew up with a guy, a kid named Blake Olson. And Blake's father was Frank Olson, who was the chairman of Hertz.

And that was in O.J.'s post-football life. He was the brand ambassador for Hertz. So I said, you know, listen, I think that, you know, Frank is a deeply religious guy. He goes, you know Frank? I'm going, yeah, we're friends with Blake. And all of a sudden, you kind of get the quiet. And I go, you know what? Frank is going to have a hard time with his brand ambassador, wanting to break the legs of his son's friends for going out with his mistress.

I said, Frank really likes Nicole. Silence. He was like, oh, my God, this is a big mistake. And, you know, let me take you guys to lunch. So we actually go to lunch, and we sit down with them. And it was at this restaurant in Beverly Hills called The Scholar. And so it was funny because in the book, not only did I know the story, but I remembered what I ate at that lunch stuff. So the recipe for that salad is actually in the book with the story, the OJ story.

And that's such a wonderful salad. I love that. It's a great salad, yeah. And then when you're meeting Kim and the family for the first time, and I really think that you are the pioneer of reality TV in a way as well. Can you talk about how you discover that people are stars and how you spot trends like reality TV? A lot of it is gut. I am absolutely against overly researching things at the beginning. I think a lot of times, you know, train your gut, learn how to, you know, go with it,

and stuff like that. But don't let your ego get in the way. Realize that, you know what, maybe I had it 80%. I got to tweak it and, you know, and stuff like that. But we were just very in tune with the audience and what the audience wants. So, you know, when I met, you know, Chris and Bruce and the girls and stuff like that, originally, you know, I said they're too young because there were very strict restrictions on,

you know, child actors then. I said when they get older and stuff and, you know, when they did it. And sometimes you just know intuitively. The one thing I found, particularly in Hollywood, you know, in the legacy media world, is when you have a new idea that's fresh and you pitch it, the first thing out of people's mouth is, well, what's it like? And I'm like, it's not like anything. It's a new idea. So I just learned at the beginning, don't let other people get in the way of your idea.

But be realistic and be honest with yourself. I mean, because nine out of ten times, my ideas are pretty dopey. I've learned to go, I evaluate them every night. And then I go, you know what, I can't believe I had that idea. It's really dumb. Get rid of it next. I mean, the most valuable thing we have as human beings is our time. And a lot of people just get stuck on it going, well, it's my passion. And I started down the road.

And they just stick with stuff too long. As opposed to going, you know what? Seemed like a good idea yesterday. Not so good today. What's next? You were saying, following your passion leads to homelessness, which is one of my favorite lines. Look, you know, the landlord wants to get paid in cash. I mean, he doesn't care that you like to knit sweaters. So, you know. But what was it about the Joan Rivers and Howard Sterns

and the Kardashians that made you feel like they had that star power? Well, I mean, the personalities were unique. But as much as anything else was the work ethic. I mean, when you look at those people, I mean, the work ethic of the Kardashians, all of them. I mean, people now, they like to criticize them and stuff. But those girls worked their butt off to get where they were. I mean, Chris was a real worker. Howard, real worker.

Ryan Seagy, the other one we haven't mentioned is Ryan. I mean, I don't know how Ryan gets the time to do all of it. He's on the radio for eight hours a day. Then he's on television for eight hours a day. And then he's doing interviews for another. I'm going, when does the guy sleep? I mean, it's just that amazing work ethic. And I'm finding that particularly now, you know, in let's call it the podcast era, you know, everybody goes,

oh, I'm going to be a podcaster. I'm going to be a star and stuff like that. They don't realize how much work really goes into being good at it. You know, yeah, you can buy a $40 camera and you can put it on your laptop in your bedroom and, you know, you could go live. But so what? Exactly. And then another real talent and gift you have is spotting trends, whether it is building the first entertainment network, identifying trends with film and movies

and what people actually want to watch to then breaking ground in China and in Russia and then now to the AI age. You've always been not only trends that are spotting trends. And what is it about the way that your mind is wired, that you're able to spot these trends before they go mainstream? Most of, not just legacy media, but legacy businesses, you know, the people that are in charge tend to be very, very stuck on what is and what was and stuff.

And they're not really looking to make drastic changes. They're willing to make monitor, they're willing to tweak a little and stuff, but not make drastic changes. And, you know, with me, I look at, I learn from what was, but I'm always looking and going, okay, what's next and stuff. So I concentrate on that. And I realize that particularly with technology, you can't hold it back. I mean, if there's a way that it benefits an industry,

even though there are a lot of bad things here, the bad things need to be put under the control of rules and regulations and laws and, you know, morality and stuff like that. But inherently, the technology is going to be a tool for creative people, both in business and, you know, in creative entertainment product, to be able to come up with the what's next stuff. For me, it wasn't hard because, again, being a newcomer in Hollywood,

everybody tried to hold on to Hollywood, you know, the term Hollywood. And when you really look back 100, 120 years ago, if you wanted to make any kind of visual content, you had to come to Hollywood physically because you needed big sound stages and the cameras were, you know, very expensive and the equipment. So you had to be in Hollywood. As technology, you know, kept bringing down the cost of making visual content,

you know, I was looking at it and going, you know what? While the Germans might have to buy Baywatch now, it's not going to be long before the economics works that they can make their own Baywatches and stuff like that. So, you know, you just looked at it and you said that Hollywood will stop being the geographic place where you had to go and more or less will become kind of a measure of creativity, of quality and stuff.

So I really began to look at foreign markets way before anybody else did. I mean, and that's one of the things that next to CNN, he is in more countries than any other cable network in the world. I mean, 142 countries now. And because, you know, now it's gotten so inexpensive. I could take my iPhone. I could go to Africa tomorrow and make a movie on my iPhone and it'll look great. You know, I could do little TikToks and do all of that stuff.

The world is going to change. Technology is going to march on whether you like it or not. You know, and I try and give people, you know, examples that they could relate to. I go, okay, a hundred and something years ago, we were country. We had a lot of horse branches and stuff. I said, those guys weren't real happy when Henry Ford started with cars. I said, they wanted everybody to have a horse and buggy. But you know what?

Let's look out the window. I go, how many cars do you see? How many horse and buggies? And then people kind of go, okay, I'm beginning to get where you, how you're thinking. Your transition and journey into the markets of Russia and China have been so disruptive and revolutionary. Can you talk a little bit about your early days there? Sure. Well, I had, I was still at E and I had a lawyer friend in LA who had some clients that were in the merchant banking world.

And somebody in Russia proposed a deal to them. It was media. And a lawyer called me up and said, Larry, would you go to Russia with these guys and tell me whether you think there's a real deal? And I was like, wow, Russia. Yeah, okay. I could do that. I mean, this time the thought of ever going to Russia was unthinkable. And so I went there and the deal that they were looking at made no sense whatsoever. So we killed that off.

But I ended up meeting the mayor of St. Petersburg. And a good guy. And you could tell that everything was changing and it was about to change. And they were moving away from communism and they were moving in another direction. And one of the downsides there when the communism fell apart was there was no central government anymore. So the mayor said, you know, we're not getting funding out of Moscow anymore for the children's

hospital and the orphanage. Would you help us start a music festival so that we could raise money for them? And I'm like, well, I don't really know music. And he went, well, you probably know more than I do. And I went, yeah, all right. That's probably true. So we started this festival called the White Knights Festival every June 16th to June 21st. June 21st being the longest day of the year. And because St. Petersburg is so far north, the sun never goes down on that day.

Wow. So we were able to shoot at two o'clock in the morning with no lights. So we would organize these concerts and then put them on television. And we literally raised 100 percent of the budget for the orphanage and children's hospital. But, you know, along the way, I ended up meeting the vice mayor of St. Petersburg at the time who really had to do all the work. Just so happens, that guy's name was Vladimir Putin.

You may have heard of him. He's been in the news a little bit lately. So, you know, we just had this really good relationship. I mean, here I am, you know, an American helping raise money for the children in the city that he grew up in. So I wasn't a carpetbagger looking to make a quick buck in Russia and then leaving. And, you know, so I helped with that festival. And then somebody said, well, let's do some programming here.

So we decided that their life was difficult enough. And you had to give them something like just go home and have a beer and relax. So we started soap operas there and stuff. And we ended up having a very popular soap opera. It was actually number one show for 10 years, five days a week, which is just crazy. And, you know, watch our dopey soap opera instead of read Dostoyevsky. And so we had a good run there. And, you know, then when Putin ended up going up and up the ladder, which none of us understood,

we're going like, oh, my God. We remember him as the vice mayor of St. Petersburg. He realized that to build a consumer economy, you had to have media look a little bit familiar to Western marketers that, you know, when everything opened up, people wanted to buy the luxury goods stuff, the Gucci's and the Prada's and stuff. So media had to look familiar to them. So I worked with he asked me to work with the minister of communications on writing regulatory

policy to kind of revamp go from the communist system into this capitalist maybe kind of system. And so I did that for them. And then the Chinese kind of came up with that same conclusion that they had to redo the, you know, the media rules and regulations. They liked the Russian model because the Russian model was very clear where the line was that you don't step over. And so they went to the Russians. The Russians said, no, no, no, no.

There's a guy in L.A. that worked with Vladimir's, you know, people to do it for us. So they ended up, I ended up getting called in by the Chinese government. So I helped them with that. And then they said, can you work with our young TV executives? And there's quotes, unquote. Teach them the process of creativity for profit. I said, that's so bizarre that, yeah, I'll do that one. And so I did that. And then I just started.

They said, we'll start a little media company here so we can learn from you. And I went, you don't let Western media companies in here. And they went, well, we don't let the ones we don't like. I went, okay, great. Why are you going to be so nice to me? And they said, it's really simple. We have a fight with Rupert Murdoch in front page of the Wall Street Journal. We have a fight with you. We scream and yell. We go out for drinks.

The next day we're okay. They go, for now, we'd rather do it that way. I went, okay, that's pretty honest. And I said, but legally I can't exist here. And I went, go see this lawyer. And they set us up to be an experimental company. And we've been in China as an experimental company for 17 years now. When they want you there, they make it easy. When they don't want you there, they make it impossible. You really are the China and Russia whisperer.

Oh, God. One of the really interesting stories that I read in the book was when everyone assumed Dallas would be a hit in Russia. And something told you that Santa Barbara, a story that would be about two brothers fighting over money, would resonate a lot more. Again, a moment that you trusted your gut. And that ran for a decade. Yeah, 11 years. How do you know when you trust your gut over expert knowledge? I mean, it's something that we've talked about throughout the podcast.

I always start with my gut. And then I'll research it. I'll figure it. My gut always gets me 80% of where it needs to be. And then I do research the reports. I get 81, 82. And a lot of it, you know, my success is just not being smart enough to bail out. And just go, you know what, I get 81, 82 and stuff. And I'm patient. I know I'll eventually get there. But with Dallas, part of the problem I find with Americans, and particularly American journalists,

is they go places and rather than be out with the people and learn how the people in those countries are thinking and living, they end up in the same hotel. And they, you know, I call them American ghettos. And they talk to just other reporters from America. So they never really get a sense of what that country is about or what the people are feeling and stuff. But I kind of threw myself. I would get an apartment. And then, I mean, in China, I have an apartment.

I'm the only white face in the apartment block and stuff. But you get to learn about people, you know, the real people there. And, you know, in Russia, one of the things I realized, you know, Dallas, the story is, you know, brothers who are fighting over money. And I go, Russian people can't relate to that. They go, why would brothers' family fight about money? And I just said, you know what, they want more human stories.

They want the love and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So we just went with Santa Barbara instead of Dallas. And we turned that right. And, again, I think you were saying something like 80% of watching your show. Yeah, it was a phenomenon. Because, I mean, then, you know, all you had on television in Russia was bad news. And we said, you know, they need some mindless stuff to take, you know, go home and have a dinner, have a beer, and take your mind off the problems.

And so Santa Barbara, when we started, we were getting 80% audience share. Eight out of every 10 places watching television were watching that show. And it became a cult thing. It was, like, really crazy. I mean, if you wanted to go shopping to the grocery store or their equivalent of the grocery store, seven o'clock at night, the women who work in the store would lock the door so they could watch the show. And they'd just let people line up in the street.

And then at eight o'clock, they would open the door and let people in the shop. But it was, I mean, there was one point where it was, Yeltsin was the president, and he wanted to do political speech, and he was going to preempt the show. The people of Russia got together and they said, if you preempt the show, we will burn down the White House. I mean, so literally, and it was reported in the New York Times. So he had to move his political speech to 11 o'clock at night so as not to interfere with the people who wanted to watch the show.

I mean, it's hard to fathom something like that, having that level of cultural influence in today's generation. It's unbelievable. And I think one of your other superpowers is evangelizing when you are the outsider. For example, you brought this very disruptive Western media or Western philosophy into deeply sensitive places, whether it was Soviet Union and China, and you were not run out, in fact, embraced. How do you evangelize something in a new market that's especially wired to reject the outsider?

Well, first of all, you need to spend time building respect and understanding. And again, with Russia or China, it didn't happen day one. I mean, they were wary of the Westerner and stuff like that. But, you know, like I say, in Russia, they realized we weren't there to be carpetbaggers, weren't there to make a quick buck and whatever. We literally made no money on the festival. 100% of the money that came in went to the children's hospital in the orphanage.

So they began to build trust and faith in you and stuff. But, you know, the other thing, and this may seem a little bit colloquial, was I learned early on from my mom that when you're a guest in someone's house, you have to act like a guest. You have to be respectful. I mean, like when my mom moved to Florida, you know, I would go and visit her. This is after my dad passed. And I go, oh, tonight I want to go to the Italian restaurant at 8 o'clock.

And my mother would go, no, we're going to the deli at 530. And I'm like, well, I don't eat at 530 and I don't want deli. And my mother would be, well, if you don't like the rules of my house, go stay in a hotel. And that kind of stuck with me. I'm there to entertain the people. I'm not there to change the government. I'm not there to, you know, be politicized, things like that. So by being very respectful over a period of time, again, it doesn't happen.

You build that faith and stuff. Like in China, we know the folks in, you know, who make the decisions on a day-to-day basis. And they've come to trust us. I mean, we've been there 17 years and we haven't tried to, you know, overthrow the government or do any crazy stuff like that. So they trust us. I mean, when we do shows now, rather than look at every minute of them the way they used to, they go, don't screw up. You know, they go, we know you got a new show.

We don't have time to watch it. Don't screw up. Yeah. Even your show having a gay character, super disruptive. But how do you push that sort of change? Gradually. And again, you know, on a consulting bay, you talk to people and you let them know. And, you know, and they realize how most of these countries, particularly China, the people who run the day-to-day, they're not the hard-ass guys. They're not the old guard.

Most of the people who run the day-to-day, they went to Stanford and Harvard and Yale. They're modern day. They're realistic. They believe in the cause. You know, that's very clear. They're not pushing the old guard values there. And, you know, with certain things like that, you know, with gay rights and stuff, I mean, again, we are journalists stay in the same hotel and they talk to each other. And they don't realize that Chinese life is changing.

And it's changed dramatically from, you know, where it was and stuff like that. You know, we go, oh, it's so repressive you can't get Facebook. Well, you know, they've got Facebook on steroids there. You know, they're looking at it from an economics point of view, like, why would we support something there when we could have our own that's actually better? And something about, I think, the West doesn't get right is learning lessons from the East.

Oh, yeah. And I think that there have been few China whispers that come to mind. Yourself, Connie Chan from Andreessen Horowitz, who brought a lot of the Chinese trends to the U.S. and tech. What do you think it is that the, let's say, people in traditional media should learn about the way the Chinese are moving forward? Well, I think, you know, it's not just the Chinese. I think you've got to look at all of Asia because, you know, you look at what's going on in Vietnam now.

It's kind of China on steroids. I mean, it's really crazy. The huge sense of entrepreneurism there. I mean, everybody in China is an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial minded. So even when they work for a company, they have that entrepreneurial mindset and stuff. They have the work ethic. Absolutely. And stuff which just doesn't exist here anymore. You know, everybody wants to work virtual or not work at all. And because there are no legacy issues there, you know, people going, well, aren't you going to build cable systems there?

I go, why would I build cable systems there? They go, well, isn't that the way it works? I go, yeah, it worked. That's the way it worked 20 years ago or 30 years ago. But, you know, now with digital technology and Internet, why would you build a wired system anywhere? I mean, it just made no sense. So, you know, you have to have the ability to lessons from history, but don't think you have to repeat it exactly. Just how do you apply it to what's new?

That's something I think really unique about China and some of the other Asian countries as opposed to Japan where I grew up where it's let's follow the legacy. Oh, God, yeah. And even if it doesn't work, the ways of the past or the ways of the future and why I left Tokyo, frankly, was because it was the opposite of being able to disrupt. Yeah, well, you know, I always and people look at me when I say this. And but it's it's really a statement about Japan and the way Japan works or doesn't work.

Sushi is better than in L.A. than it is in Japan. And it's because in Japan, you have to follow the rules exactly. And so there's no inventiveness there. And you go to L.A. and there's a sushi restaurant in every corner. And those chefs compete with each other and stuff. So there's unbelievable innovation and stuff going on in the food world and the cultural world. Absolutely. I love the story of when you were talking about the currency of cigarettes and pantyhose when you were in Russia.

Could you tell us a little bit about the story with the KGB agents? Oh, yeah. Well, when I first started going there, you know, they were very wary of me. So they put me in this house. It was a compound. And what the place that was the stables was now like the KGB watch office and stuff. And they'd be there. Literally every room in the house was wired and bugged and stuff like that. And there'd be little guys sitting down in the stables listening to every word there.

And, you know, I would just be an ass. And, you know, I would know that they like Marlboro cigarettes. So I would like when they would be sitting there listening, I'd go knock on the door and go, you want cigarettes? Stuff like that. So we had a good time there. And we were the crazy Americans. But they liked us. But again, a relationship versus transaction. Yeah. And again, you know, we had this good relationship with the mayor.

And we actually had a very good relationship with the mafia because most of the mafia guys were all, their girlfriends were big fans of the show. Santa Barbara. So whenever they would see me out, they would come over and go, Larry, tell us what happens to this and this character next week so we could be a hero with our girlfriends. You know, and I were going like, no, we can't do that. And this is when they had food shortages.

And they would go, well, you want tomatoes? And I'm like, you got tomatoes? And they go, yeah, but you got to tell us what happens to Mason next week. I go, okay. Mason now delivered the tomatoes to my house. And literally we did. I mean, it was just crazy times. Let's speak of Mason. I know that there's also a story of there was a moment that you potentially thought your life was at risk when you were up with the St. Petersburg boss.

Oh, yeah. It's a great story if you want to share. Sure. Well, I, you know, when, when everything fell apart there, you really had no rule of law. So the people that kind of had the most power there were the old sportsmen or whatever, the toughest guys were, you know, one. And, and, and so you had the rise of the Russian mafia there. And there was the guy who's the boss of St. Petersburg and beyond. He was much more than St. Petersburg.

He, big guy spent 10 years in jail. He had to cut across his face from a beer can. And, you know, just, the guy was just known to be, you don't get on his bad side because killing you. He liked to do it with his bare hands. And so one time I'm flying in another, the show is, like I say, eight out of 10, you know, people are watching the show. Every mafia guy's girlfriend loved the show. And so I fly into St. Petersburg.

And then it was before the planes never came up to the terminal. They always parked out on the runway. And then you took a bus to the terminal and you go through customs and, you know, passport control. So we land and I look out the window and I see cars driving along the side of the plane. And I go, that's really weird. There must be some politician on the plane or something. Anyway, so the plane stops and everybody's getting down, you know, to the buses.

And I see these guys standing down at the, the, the, below the stairs. And, you know, Armani suits and you could tell that they had little bulges in the suits. And, you know, I said, noses like this and ears like this. And, you know, I come down and they're, they're holding like my picture. They go, you're Larry Namor. I went, yeah. They go, Sasha Big needs to see you tonight. And I'm like, why? And, you know, I'm going, why?

They go, no questions. Just, I go, what does he want? They go, get in the car. I'm going, oh my God. If somebody worked for me, did something bad, they're going to kill me, whatever. Or they know that I'm having dinner with the mayor tomorrow night. They had a fight with the mayor. They're going to tell me, here's a gun. You got to kill the mayor or we kill you. And I can't imagine what this guy wants. The scenario is running through your head.

And I'm like, whatever. And I go, okay, I'm going to get in the car. And it's going to be like in The Godfather. They're going to strangle me from behind. And so we get in the car and they drive up to the terminal. And we get to like where they're doing passport control. And there's a line. There's a two-hour line to get through. They literally just walk up to the guy and go, he's with us. And we walk straight through.

And I'm going, that's bizarre. Anyway, we go. I go to the hotel. They go, Sasha needs to see you. Eight o'clock. Be in front of the hotel. So eight o'clock comes. I go downstairs. And I'm like shaking. And the cars pull up. And the guys with the twisted noses and the guns and the whole thing. And he speaks a little bit of English. I speak a little bit of Russian. And then we have a translator. And he literally, this big guy takes my head like.

And he goes, we need to talk. And I'm like, what? And we go and we start talking. He goes, I need a favor. I go, Sasha, I'm your guy. Whatever you need. I'm there. Well, just tell me. He goes, I know that you've got your music festival. And tomorrow night, you've got Mason from the show is coming. And he's going to sing because he sings light opera. And he was going to do things from Don Quixote or whatever. And he goes, I know this sounds silly.

He goes, my mother is his biggest fan. Is there any way you could introduce my mother? And I'm like, he goes, I know, I know, I know. You know, he goes, this would be a very big favor for me. I said, no problem. Tomorrow night, bring mom backstage at Oktober Ski Hall. Eight o'clock, I'll come down and get you. I'll bring you up to the room and your mom can meet Mason. So now I see Mason, whose real name is Lane Davies.

And I go, Lane, tomorrow night I'm going to introduce you to the prettiest woman you've ever met in your life. And he goes, what are you talking about? I go, Lane, you really don't want to know. Just when you see this woman, you kiss her, you hug her, you smile, you get the photographer, you take pictures, you just do this. And he's going, what's wrong with you? I go, Lane, just do what I say. Anyway, eight o'clock comes the next day.

And I go downstairs and I bring him in. Now I have my security for these concerts are like the equivalent of Navy SEALs. They're called Spesnats. They're the Russian Special Forces. They're off-duty ones. And I come up and they see him. And they leave. I go, where are you guys going? They go, not staying in the room with him. And so they disappear. So now I have Mason, me and Mason. And him and his mom. His mom is this little Russian woman.

And ends up she's the vice principal of a school. And she comes and I bring her over to Mason and, you know, and the mafia guy is in the back like this, just looking stone-faced. And I'm looking at him and, you know, and mom is there on behalf of the children of St. Petersburg. You brought us such joy. And she's giving them proclamations and pictures the kids drew with crayons and stuff. The photographer's taking pictures and mom is happy as hell.

And he's just standing in the back with his arms crossed, just looking. Ends up finished. I take mom. I walk her back over to him. And he just looks at me. He goes, you made my mother very happy. I never forget. I said from that, he sends people all around St. Petersburg with my picture. Going every restaurant, every nightclub going, this is Sasha's close friend. We don't care if it's three o'clock in the morning and he's drunk and he wants to take your wife home.

You give him your wife. You put him in a cab. If he hits a bump in the taxi cab, you're going to have to answer to Sasha. I could walk around with like a hundred dollar bill taped to my head and stuff. And so literally that was, you know. That's such a great story. Power of media. Power of media. Now transitioning to a much more fun topic, which is AI. I think you've been way ahead of the curve for AI for everything from vertical content,

vertical dramas years ago in China now to generative media, generative AI. Love for you to talk a little bit about your view on AI and how it's, I think, again, so different than traditional media and traditional folks who have really dominated the space in Hollywood. You're very much forward thinker. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, again, it's technology changes, you know, all your old underlying assumptions there. And you look at it and especially when I talk to people, I try and break it down into like real life situations because it's easier for people to understand when you kind of humanize it.

So you look at when I got involved in the media business and stuff. If I had to write a script, I had this thing called a typewriter and I had a little bottle of whiteout. And if you type and you made a mistake, you write it out and then you type over it. It would take me three months to write a script and it would look like garbage. But the real important part was when I got to the end of that script, I would be like, oh, man, thank God I'm finished.

You go, but you know what? I would love to have changed that character from a 52-year-old guy to a 27-year-old or whatever things. But you know what? I don't want to have to retype this thing. And so everything I did was always compromised by the fact that technology didn't make it easier for me to create. Now you get into, you know, the age of laptops and word processing. So what used to take me three months was now take me five days to do.

So really, these are tools to help creative people be creative. Because now I want to change the character, boom, I can do it. Now you get to the age of AI and stuff. And, you know, if you were to ask me, could you create a TV series about microphones, you know, anything, I would have to do the research and then do a budget and then do a PowerPoint and then do a little video and all these things. And then, you know, it would take me five, six days to do it.

But then, you know, using, you know, going back to GBT, it would take me 30 seconds to get the research done. It was never at the point where you could present it. It needed my human touch. It needed to be humanized and it needed storytelling injected into it. So it would take me two hours. And I said, you know what, this is great. I said, if I can get paid for my work output, if I could get paid for two hours worth of work for what I used to get paid for five hours, five days worth of work.

I said, how do you not love that? I said, so the problem is not AI is bad. The problem is the system needs to be in place to make sure that I'm fairly compensated for my creativity and my work output. So that kind of got me thinking about lots of stuff. You know, now, I mean, I do stuff. I read a lot of sociology and stuff. And, like, sometimes I read and say, boy, you know, if I only had time, I'd write a book. But, you know, I said, to do a sociology book, I go, oh, two, three years of research and stuff.

I don't have that. But now using, I use a lot of perplexity and clawed and stuff. So what used to take me would have taken me two years. Takes me two days. I said, so now I'm doing a lot of stuff when I'm really pushing the edges on stuff because I don't have to commit two years to research and stuff. So I could do a lot more and I could be a lot more creative by realizing that this is a tool and you put it in the hands of storytellers.

I mean, it's level the playing field for creators around the world. I mean, you could be anywhere and you could create great stories and you could turn them into media properties by using these tools that are now available to you. You definitely are, I believe, like an AI evangelist and a tech evangelist. One of the stories you shared with me was working and consulting for Bill Gates. Can you tell me a little bit about what Bill Gates learned from you and what you learned from him?

I think I learned a lot more from him or Microsoft for that matter. Yeah. What happened was it was everybody was rushing out and there was this thing. There's this great expansion in tech and you were able to go. People were talking about, you know, there'll be a thousand channels. And, you know, when you think of the Internet now, they're more than that. A lot more than that. And you had all the big media companies pulling the tech companies or trying to pull the tech companies in their direction.

So, you had Time Warner, you know, going to Bill, going, hey, you should follow us. We'll show you the future. You had, you know, Rupert Murdoch going, no, don't listen to them. Follow me. I'll show you the future. You know, on and on and on. And so Bill just wanted somebody in-house that understood how you play the game at that level, but who wasn't tied to the agenda of these big media companies who really don't want a job.

I mean, the last thing in the world I ever wanted was to go work for someone. So somebody who could just advise Microsoft on what he thought was best for Microsoft and stuff. So I ended up becoming their primary consultant for interactive strategy for two and a half years. And it was really fun because I got to do, to really learn the way tech companies work or don't work. You know, it would be fun. And you realize the difference between the creative world and the tech world.

And it really struck me saying, you know what, they're not going to win, although they think they're going to win this time. Or this time is not going to win. It's they got to figure out how they can come together. And I think that's where we are with the AI world and stuff. Like I would talk to the, I worked a lot with the Windows folks, the really deep science guys. And, you know, for me, it was a revelation, you know, because I could, you know, they would talk about something and they go, all right, we could build it for you.

I go, no, it would take, they go, we could have it tomorrow. You know, I'm like, really? And you just learned that there was nothing that you could dream of that they could not do. I mean, if you could think it, they could build it. And they did. I mean, we did a lot of crazy stuff. And, but, you know, I would be in a meeting with like all the Windows people and I would do my, you know, just imagine if we mix friends with the, you know, whatever.

And I just see blank faces. And I go, you guys know friends, right? And you see one guy in the back go, I watched it once. I watched it once. And then you realize that disconnect there between this world and that world and stuff. And you still see it. And, you know, and now I talk to all the Silicon Valley people a lot and they're like, we're going to win and we're going to, and I'm going, no. I said, you know, now particularly with, let's call it the creator economy or content creators, they've got a much better feel for the audience now than traditional Hollywood people who I think are disconnected from it.

You really then get to the part where, you know, distribution, marketing, sponsorship, revenue generation, it's still the old guys know how to do that better than anybody else. So I think the next generation of media companies are going to be where these two forces realize that they better come together because they each bring something very separate and unique. Absolutely. We think of like the Decacorns that combine technology and traditional media together or the ones with beyond Decacorns like a Netflix, for example.

Well, who do you think will be the, or what kind of company do you think will be the winner in this space that combines the AI world and the creative world? Well, I think everybody has now begun to realize that. I think the AI world is realizing that they need, they don't have that creative vision, that storytelling capability. I think Netflix is making the right moves. I think Amazon's making the right moves. I think the whole Skydance, the Ellison group, they're doing, they're all realizing they have to move into the new age and stuff.

They're at the beginning, they're going to make a lot of mistakes. I mean, particularly now you look at micro drama or verticals. You know, which for me, I crack up because I've been in China and we've been doing, we've been doing verticals for my company. We've been doing verticals for eight years there. And China's been doing them for over a decade. Yet when you go to the U.S. they think they, you know, everybody thinks they invented it.

Hollywood, and again, Hollywood with quotes around it, doesn't realize what has made these micro dramas so successful. And they're going to go through this period of ruining it because they're going to overproduce them. They're going to stick stars in and stuff. And that's not what the audience wants. The audience wants this authenticity. They want these stories. They want ultimate fantasy. I mean, I call the, you know, if you look at what's successful in the vertical world, it's, I call them soap operas on steroids.

It's, you know, I married the secret billionaires with the illegitimate baby, you know. That kind of stuff. But that's what the audience wants. Give the audience what they want. Realize what is it the audience is doing now that they probably do want to do but doesn't exist yet. I mean, so when I look at micro drama, it's all now, like I say, soap operas on steroids. So throw back to the old romance novels. I'm going to believe everything old is new again.

So you used to have, you know, the little book with a pretty boy with washboard abs and flowing curly hair and stuff like that. That's what you're seeing on the romance. You're seeing now on the vertical dramas. I mean, they're typically model boys that are models that have never acted, but they got good abs. And girls that are starting actresses and stuff. Very, very low cost. But it's the stories that are driving them and stuff.

But everything now is like in the soap opera world. My feeling is you'll see that verticals, I think vertical becomes the dominant format of video consumption. My prediction is by 2030, it becomes the number one. I think you'll see other genres start to flow in there. I mean, if I had to guess now, sci-fi horror will be the next two genres that you'll see explode within there. And then verticals, then micro drama has just become part of the landscape.

They don't replace everything that came before it. Sometimes I want to be sitting in the back of the car on my phone consuming stuff in little 90-second chunks. But then sometimes I want to go home, have a beer, and watch a movie on my 65-inch and not have to think much. It's not this is replacing that. They all come together. And again, I think with AI, it's a new genre of entertainment that comes out from it, not necessarily competing or threat to, let's say, traditional film.

It leads into market share. I mean, again, we all have only a certain number of hours in the day to consume media. So it will bring a lot of new people in. There'll be a lot of new companies formed. And again, I think it's the merging of the old and the new that become what's next. So I think we'll see companies probably we can't even imagine today. Like, you know, you go back 10 years ago. What was up until COVID? People never thought of Netflix as being really good.

And, you know, now you've had it spawned Disney Plus and Hulu and Amazon and all that.

You'll see you'll see a lot of innovation. You'll see a lot of globalization or localization, I should say. Because now, you know, Kid in Africa could make a movie for literally nothing.

Yeah, absolutely. I think when you think about all these companies, there's a common joke that there are more AI film companies than there are filmmakers or directors in traditional Hollywood. What do you think it is that these companies, and we touched a little bit about this, will need to have in order to win in this space? What do you think their moat needs to be or their differentiating factor? Well, I think, you know, again, I think it's not this or that.

I think it's a combination of both. Storytelling, I mean, if you look at what AI is, I mean, it basically is built on all the things that were, that came from human beings. But it doesn't, human beings know how to create stuff that never was. And that AI can't do that. Not yet, anyway. So I think it's just a tool for great storytellers to get involved there. You'll see a lot of jobs lost at the lower end. But then I think you'll see a lot more opportunity for creative people around the world to be able to have that voice.

You'll see niches begin to exist. If you look at why cable was successful, you know, you just had three networks. And, you know, if you wanted the news, you had to watch it 6 o'clock at night or 1130 at night. And then Turner decided to do CNN. Okay. And then ESPN took sports. And it wasn't just on Saturday afternoon. It was now sports anytime you want. Or even E, you know, it wasn't, you didn't have to wait for entertainment tonight.

They give you 20 seconds about a movie. We gave you two days about the movie. You'll just see as stuff comes down. And this is why I love podcasting. Because it provides voice for people who didn't have voice before in a very economic way. So in the network TV world, you needed 30, 40 million people to make it economically feasible. And then cable came around and you needed, you know, 500,000 or 600,000 people to do it.

You know, and then you had the internet. And then now you have podcasting. You get 30,000 people watching your podcast. But they're really interested and they're devoted to what that podcast is about. It becomes very valuable to sponsors and advertisers and gives you a way of monetizing and stuff. Or if not monetizing or at least providing voice to people who never had voice before. Or who couldn't afford to make cable level shows.

But you know what? A podcast is not real expensive to do. Even good quality ones. Absolutely. So it almost sounds like some areas that you're very bullish about. Vertical content, vertical drama. Not just in the romance space, but sci-fi, horror, for example, emerging. And then within more traditional media, it could be podcasts. Yeah. Really taking over for the future. Yeah. I love, I decided to kind of help groups that I'm friends with.

You know, who kept going, Larry, you got to help us. We need a voice in media. So last year, I put one on. It's up and running. It's called Stall Talk. It's a great one. And it was a good friend of mine named Jenny Lee Harrison. Jenny Lee was in Three's Company and she was Dallas. She was a big star. You know, at one point she's up there now. But, you know, she kept telling me that. And I thought about it. I said, you know, it's always amazed me.

You go to dinner with a few couples and one woman says, I got to go to the restroom. And you guys all get up and go. And those guys are sitting there like idiots going, where are they? What are they doing? What are they talking about? But it really is, it's almost this metaphor from camaraderie or this respect that I think women share with other women. And the bathroom was the safe space. I mean, I would go there and someone would come back and go, oh, I met this girl in the

bathroom and look, she did my eyes with the latest Mac Cosmetics. And I'm going, you let somebody you don't know touch your eyes? I said, I don't get it. But, you know, guys, we'll, I mean, we'll talk to each other about sports. We'll talk about business, but we don't talk about our feelings and stuff. So we created this thing called Stull Talk, which is for women of different generations. So boomer down to Gen Z. And they talk about whatever it is that women are comfortable talking about only with other

women. So we provided the safe space, upgraded the experience to make it.

Because whenever you have new technology, people are very forgiving of bad quality. But over time, the eye and the brain expects more. So we kind of know where it's going. We can argue about how long it takes to get there. But it's not the $40 camera with the lamp over your head in your bedroom. So we shoot it so that it looks like a daytime talk show. So when Stull Talk looks like a younger, hip-er version of The View.

And now the next one coming up, and I decide I'm going to do one a year, is it's called The Immigrant, which I'm working with this woman. She's from Cameroon, an award-winning journalist. And over the last decade or maybe a little longer, Americans have lost sight of the fact that this country built on legal immigration. And people are confusing legal immigration and the periods we've had with illegal immigration and border control issues and stuff, which I 100% agree need to be dealt with.

We need to have sane policy. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that many of the things that we enjoy in our day-to-day life are the results of the things that immigrants have brought to us here. I mean, unless you're a Native American, I mean, we're all immigrants of some sort. Now it's 20% of the U.S. workforces are first-generation immigrants and stuff. So, you know, these 12 people get rid of the immigrants from Greenville, who's going to do the work?

You know, there was a great movie about a dozen years ago, but there was a movement in California that, oh, we have too many Mexicans, we should send them all back. And then somebody did a movie called The Day Without a Mexican. And when you watch that movie, you went, wait, wait a second. Nobody would do my lawn. Nobody would do my pool. Nobody would take care of my kids. Nobody would work in the restaurants. Nobody would work in the fields picking the fruit.

There'd be nothing in the store shelves. Maybe that's not such a good idea because you began to realize that typically these waves of legal immigrants, that first-generation does the jobs that the next generation of Americans don't want to do. Like I said, my kids are not going to work in the fields and, you know, pick potatoes or do whatever and stuff. And stuff. So this is one that's coming up in September. Nonpolitical.

Just telling the stories of the positive things that we enjoy because of, you know, legal immigrants. And a really important and crucial message for people to hear. Yeah. And again, you could do it in a podcast format. Ten years ago, you could never do it as a cable show or a broadcast show. Absolutely. And then if you were going back in time or starting, let's say, a business today, what do you think you would start or focus in?

Would it be in AI? Would it be in podcasting? What would you want to begin? Well, I think AI becomes life-transforming stuff. So I would look at things that, you know, what could you do with AI that we couldn't do before? And how we could set up where things were not economically feasible before. Now all of a sudden they are. I mean, that's where I would be looking. And would you be looking more like the consumer side of things or more like growing traditional to business in media?

I would be looking at the media side. I mean, just look at the vertical drama world now. I mean, in China, 40% of the vertical dramas that they're generating now, 100% AI generated. You know, people, you know, don't like to admit it, but every new technology is always let in by the porn industry. I mean, and stuff. If you just look at Pornhub, the number one thing that people are going through now is AI generated porn.

It's super interesting. Which is, I don't get it, but it is. And, you know, and it tells you where things are going. Hmm, really, really fascinating. So you would do something probably in the media space around, would you say, would it be, I mean, you have so many businesses that you're starting and have been operating for many years. But would it be in vertical drama? Would it be making expensive films cheaper? Would it be making a new domain?

All of those. I think there's a real opportunity to do good across the world and put some of this technology to work. I'm now the chairman of the World Film Institute. And we're basically doing award shows. What I really want to do is make it a masterclass, a platform for masterclasses, so that you take every single form of media or visual media and break it down and then have experts, the best people in the world. So Steven Spielberg teaches directing.

And you can create those and you can put them out to the world very economically. I mean, we kind of figured I was just playing with numbers, like if I got Spielberg to do it. So he could do like an eight episode thing on directing and you could be anywhere in the world and you could get that for $300 for the whole course as opposed to spend $70,000 to go to USC. But it levels that playing field of there. And then using AI.

So you could produce it a lot cheaper. But then, you know, when you're watching it in Russia, Steven speaks Russian and Chinese speaks Mandarin. Automatic translation. Automatic translation with it not looking goofy. I mean, if you just look at some of the technologies out there. I just looked at all the C-Dance stuff lately. I mean, the facial muscles and the lips are moving exactly. And you know what? Whatever it is today, it's only going to be better tomorrow.

And that's the way you got to think. You can't think of the way it is today. You got to go, okay, if this is the way it is today, just imagine what it's going to be in a month from now or two months. At an exponential speed. Yeah. I mean, just look at GBT. I mean, when GBT came out and then you had GBT four, eight months later, and somebody told me the number was 800 times more powerful. I mean, who would have thought it?

This is something that we touched base on earlier, but wanted to circle back, which was advice for founders who are building in the AI space right now. How they can really stand out, whether they're building something in the media space or more for traditional software for, let's say, B2B SaaS. How they can really apply some of the lessons of your boldness and all the life journey and challenges that you've had of resilience.

I think, you know, particularly I see the people in the tech space in general, AI being part of the tech space. We know it all and we're going to conquer the world. BS. You know, you're not going to exist in a vacuum, you know, except the fact that there are things to be learned from the legacy side of the world and stuff. And really put your ego aside and figure out how do we partner and build something better together.

With the legacy businesses. Yeah. I mean, like I say, everybody I see in the tech space, when you talk about distribution and marketing and audience, they don't have a clue. But the legacy guys do. But the legacy, you guys don't understand what the technology guys can do. But if you bring them together, you've got something incredibly powerful. Super powerful. So, you know, my thing is look at people who are more like your customers or your audience or whatever it is and who relates to those.

Because, again, my Microsoft thing, like when I would talk about television, none of them watch television. So without me being able to explain television, they never would have. Win 98, we built TV functionality into Win. Win 98, we built TV on Twitter. And without me explaining to them what that means. I mean, they would be like, well, you know, we'll boot it up. I'm going, no, you don't boot your TV up. You know, I want to hit the button.

So you need people from both sides to put their egos aside and realize they need each other. And I don't care what business you're in. It's not just media. It's literally everything. Super valuable piece of advice. We know that The Immigrant Stories, Stull Talks, is coming out soon. And then there'll be the book, The Two Minute Television. Anything else that we can look forward to that you have coming up? Sure. One of the more fun projects I'm doing is called Natasha After Dark.

And in a few ways that it's really interesting. Number one, in case you haven't noticed, there are no women in late night TV in this country. You have the same boring guys at 1130 at night, you know, do an anti-Trump monologue. And then there's Tom Cruise what his next project is.

Those shows are all promotional. So I met this gal named Natasha Graziano. Nine years ago, single mom, homeless on the streets of London. Cut to now, she's living in Bel Air and life coaching Will.i.am and Steve Aoki. is the number one female motivational speaker in the country. So I developed a show for her called Natasha After Dark, which is motivational, inspirational. So working on that, very modern, very hip, very much plays to audiences under 40.

Of course, again, it amazes me when I talk to people. They go, well, Larry, you know, women under 40 don't watch television. And I'm like, maybe it's because you don't put anything on that they want to watch. They just kind of look at me going like, what? I go, if you don't put anything on that they might want to watch, they're not going to watch. You know, I haven't won that battle yet. But, you know, the thing with Natasha, which is interesting, she life coaches all these big music people

and gets like thousands of dollars a month as retainers and stuff. And, you know, I don't necessarily get it. You know, going people pay you to call them in the morning and go, today is going to be your day. Go get them, Tiger. You know, they do. But you can't scale that business. So what we did with Natasha, because she's done over 200 podcasts, she's done TED Talks, she's written two books. So we ingested it all into, I work with a company called Twin AI.

And so we built a digital twin of her. And I work with it so that I actually train the digital twin to be a TV host. So it's the way it moves and reacts to stuff. And because we put so much stuff in and really took a lot of care on tweaking it and stuff, comes out of beta the middle of this month. It's real, it's her. I mean, so now instead of $3,000 a month or whatever, you know, for $30 a month, you could have Natasha as your life coach.

And I try and fool it. And I'll ask her questions. I know we didn't put the answers in and it'll answer like, we've had about, even though we're in beta, we've had about 300 people sign up. And I'm like, we haven't marketed it. We haven't publicized it. We haven't done anything. So let's call some of these people and find out why they're doing it. It's the people that are jumping on it, excuse a little, more women than men.

And people have been using it to deal with anxiety issues. People going, you know, the war in the Ukraine, the war in the Middle East and, you know, the Trump and this and that. It looks like the world is coming to an end. But before I go to sleep, I have a conversation with Natasha. And it just calms me down and brings me. And, you know, I said, that's really interesting that you could really see how doing this correctly could help deal with the whole mental health issue.

I mean, people are already using ChatGPT, for example, to talk to them as their therapist. What a great and novel way to use someone who is already doing this as a professional. Visually, it's her. I mean, we actually sent the crew to her house and we shot her in 4K. And when you watch it, you're watching her. That's unbelievable. We'd love to put like some clips or things like that for people. Oh, yeah. What are you most excited about these days?

Cooking.

AI. And, I mean, it's just opened up a whole new world. And now combining it. So even in our podcasting, I mean, we use AI. I mean, literally we shoot. And within 15 minutes after we shoot, AI program has already picked out our six IG posts. And, I mean, we're on the air. And I'm going like, this is amazing that we could get out there and, you know, have promos literally 15 minutes later. And stuff. And it's all AI generated and stuff.

So I think we've just, we're at the tip of the iceberg. And final question is, what do you want your legacy to be? God, he's a good cook.

Just a good person. You know, I mean, so far I haven't managed to anger everybody in Hollywood and stuff. Although a lot of times they don't like what I have to say. But, you know, I've kind of, it's interesting for me because, you know, if you go back a little bit with all my crazy ideas, people are going, oh, that guy's nuts and he must be on drugs. You know, now when I read about me, they go, oh, he's a visionary and stuff.

I mean, the one thing about me is I don't take any of it serious. I don't say good, say bad. I know who I am. I don't pay attention to what anybody says, good or bad.

Yeah, no, I think you have left such an incredible legacy already and are such an icon in so many different industries. And I can't thank you enough. You've been so generous as a mentor and as a teacher to me and so many others. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here on the Icons podcast. Thank you, everybody.

I'm so excited to be here with you, Albert. Thank you for having us in your gorgeous studio. Tell us a little bit more about this incredible space known as the vault. Well, first off, I have to say the Icons podcast is it's so amazing. Melanie, you are fantastic. And then also Daniel, who is also doing all the various recordings. He's amazing. Both of you guys are amazing. So to have you guys here, it is an honor of a lifetime.

Thank you so much for having us. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the reason why it's called the vault is because we are in an actual so we're in an actual bank vault. Why are we in an actual bank vault? Well, that's a secret for a later time, but it'll be happening soon that I'll tell. But the vault is a multi-purpose studio space where you could film podcasts. And then also if you're an artist or if you're in a band, you could also film your live session.

And then also, too, yeah, for honestly anything. So that's so lovely. It's such a gorgeous space. And we're here in Orange County. Can you tell us a little bit about how people can reserve this space, how they can get in touch with you? If you want to know more about how to reserve a space here, you could follow me on my Instagram account, Albert Bushala. And last name is spelled B-U-S-H-A-L-A. And I also have an account for a podcast that I host called Vault Talks.

Music has been a large part of my life. And so I have this podcast series where I bring on any artist or any band that I really love. And so you could also follow that, too. And then I also host another series here is called Vault Sessions, where I highlight the actual artist doing sort of like a tiny desk style concert series. So you could reach out to any of those accounts. I will post all the links so everyone can watch and take a look and listen.

Amazing. And can you tell us a little bit more about the vision for the vault? Yeah. Well, it comes from a love of a lot of things. Music has been a very big part of my whole life. Honestly, growing up, having a stutter, music was a way for me to where I can express myself. And I owe so much to it. So to have a space where I could host various artists and bands and also, too, to have an interview to be able to get to talk to them, that means the entire world to me.

And then also, too, despite my stutter, I have a love for just conversation. This is what it's all about. We're here. We're learning about each other. And so I think podcasting, even though it's big now, I still think that there's so much room for it to grow. I think it is honestly the future. So however I can help build that and to be able to host, like, you know, people in all different things. So I think the vision that you have for this space is so remarkable.

You are such a kind individual. You're such a kind person. And I can't wait for people to fall in love with this space, record their own stories and conversations here, host the events upstairs. As you grow this community and your vision, I'm sure that it will be a true gathering for people to form their own connections and realize their dreams. So I know it'll be remarkable. Thank you so much for having us. Is there anything else that you like to talk about or promote?

I'm going to say this one more time. The Icons podcast. Oh, my God. What you're doing is amazing. Y'all. You're too sweet. We're supposed to be talking about it. No, no, no. I still, still, no, no. I got to highlight you. Just like the work that y'all are doing. It's just amazing. You're able to, you were saying it's about stories. And I mean, you're, you're capturing some amazing stories and to have you all here is just, it's a great, it's a great privilege.

And so thank you. Like, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy. It'll be a lot of fun. This episode's a lot of fun. Yeah. I mean, this is the first episode that has been filmed at the vaults studios. So it's such an honor to be able to sit here, sit here with you, sit here with Larry, who we both love so much. Absolutely. So kind and generous with us. Any other projects, anything else that you have coming up that you're excited about?

I'm very excited. Well, a project I'm very excited about is what is actually connected to this vault here. I can't say anything yet about it, but we're going to be starting a lot of progress about that soon. And then I want to give a special highlight to, I'm going to this event in Chicago. It's, and the people who will be hosting, it's a group, it's a nonprofit group called Friends. And, and, and they actually, and yeah, it's a nonprofit group for people who stutter.

And so, and so I'll be going over there and, and not only speaking, but also doing like a few workshops there. And I'm just, and, and I'm just so excited to be, and I'm, I'm so excited to get back in whatever way I can to that. And what day are the events? Um, it's July 23rd through the 25th. Um, yeah, it'll be in Chicago and I'm just very excited about it. The people there are great. Well, check out the organization.

It's called Friends. Yes, it's called Friends. What important work they do. Absolutely. That's awesome. Thank you so much for having us, Albert. It's such a pleasure and honor. Thank you so much. Everyone check out the vault.