Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: I am always open to new ideas, open to new people,
Speaker 1: open to new clients, because that's where the future is.
Speaker 1: The future isn't where people are frozen in a position
Speaker 1: or in a place. It's thinking about what is the
Speaker 1: next step. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to this
Speaker 1: episode of Math and Magic. Today, we're going to explore
Speaker 1: the insider's view of deals and strategy and business, especially
Speaker 1: the entertainment and media business. Our guest today has seen
Speaker 1: it all. It's been in the middle of it all,
Speaker 1: and has even been inducted into the Rock and Roll
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. He's a true insider, it's deal maker
Speaker 1: extraordinaire and, as some call him, super lawyer Alan Grugman
Speaker 1: Alan is Brooklyn born Brooklyn Law School, and still wears
Speaker 1: it all as his identity. He represents Bruce Springsteen, Elton,
Speaker 1: John Madonna, YouTube, Lady Gaga, John mellycamping on and on.
Speaker 1: As a child, he's sang show tunes on an NBC
Speaker 1: Children's hour every week, that is, until his voice changed,
Speaker 1: and as an adult, he still has the comfort of
Speaker 1: being a performer and knows how to engage his audience.
Speaker 1: He's on the inside as a friend and trusted advisor
Speaker 1: to legends like David Geffen, as well as executives and artists.
Speaker 1: He represents he is the guy who was in the
Speaker 1: room and really knows what happened. He's been my close
Speaker 1: friend and advisor for over forty years. He was instrumental
Speaker 1: in building him TV in the early days, and he
Speaker 1: continued his relationship there long after I left, and he's
Speaker 1: even been key to us as we've built iHeartMedia. But
Speaker 1: most of all, he's a great human who cares deeply
Speaker 1: about others. Alan welcome. Thank you very very much for
Speaker 1: that introduction. Before we get started. We have a thing
Speaker 1: we do on math and Magic. Called you in sixty seconds.
Speaker 1: You're ready shoot. Do you prefer cats or dogs? Dogs
Speaker 1: early riser or night owl? Very early riser? East Coast
Speaker 1: or West Coast? East Coast for sure? Frank Sinatra or
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen. I think Bruce won't be too pissed off.
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, HMTV or iHeartRadio, iHeartRadio AM or FM FM,
Speaker 1: The Beatles or the Rolling Stones, Beatles call or text
Speaker 1: call without a doubt, it's about to get Harder, favorite
Speaker 1: era of music, the American Songbook. Favorite TV show Curb
Speaker 1: Your Enthusiasm, favorite radio station, Seriously Sinatra, favorite movie The Godfather, movies,
Speaker 1: favorite actor Robert de Niro. Favorite city New York. Then
Speaker 1: right behind New York is Paris and London. You got
Speaker 1: a quote to live by. If you do right by people,
Speaker 1: they'll end up doing right by you. What did you
Speaker 1: want to be when you were growing up? I wanted
Speaker 1: to be in the entertainment business. And when I realized
Speaker 1: that I had no talent, the second best thing was
Speaker 1: to be an entertainment lawyer. That doesn't involve that much talent. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start with the music business. The music business has
Speaker 1: made many transitions. To forty five to the LP cassette
Speaker 1: tapes CDs was a big move, But the biggest and
Speaker 1: most disruptive of my life was to transition to digital downloads,
Speaker 1: which also moved from consumers buying one track instead of
Speaker 1: entire album. Many experts thought the industry would not survive it,
Speaker 1: and indeed Limblevotnik bought Warner Music for what at the
Speaker 1: moment seemed like a high price. Today, in retrospect, seems
Speaker 1: like the deal of the century, streaming subscription services were
Speaker 1: placed downloads and the industry rebounded, And today Universal, Sony
Speaker 1: and Warner are healthier and more valuable than they've ever been,
Speaker 1: and the indies are too. So here's the question, what's
Speaker 1: the next issue lurking out there that the music industry
Speaker 1: will have to contend with? What's hanging over them? Well,
Speaker 1: that's the sixty four dollar question. What they're doing now
Speaker 1: is reaping the benefits of streaming, which delights them beyond belief.
Speaker 1: In other words, they might be thinking of what comes
Speaker 1: after streaming, but right now they are basking in the
Speaker 1: sun of streaming. Warner Music was worth five billion dollars
Speaker 1: four billion dollars three billion dollars what he bought it,
Speaker 1: and now it's worth seventeen UMG. At one point before
Speaker 1: streaming was worth five billion. I think now it's training
Speaker 1: at in the thirties, and the same thing Persny. What
Speaker 1: has dramatically changed is the distribution of music turned these
Speaker 1: companies into gold mines. And not necessarily because the talent
Speaker 1: has increased dramatically, but the way you distribute the talent
Speaker 1: has increased dramatically. So I don't think they're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the next move is. I think they're
Speaker 1: focusing on how to expand as much as possible their
Speaker 1: ability to generate money from streaming. But if you ask
Speaker 1: them what comes after streaming, I think that also applies
Speaker 1: for a Netflix and Disney. Plus I think it's the
Speaker 1: same issue, what comes after streaming. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: has an answer, but they're not concerned about having an
Speaker 1: answer because they have minting money with the streaming approach,
Speaker 1: especially the music companies. In media and television, et cetera
Speaker 1: is a little different, but in the music business, the
Speaker 1: streaming has turned into a proverb your gold mine. In
Speaker 1: our lifetime, Alan, you and I saw the transition from
Speaker 1: albums to CDs. We saw that terrible transition from CDs
Speaker 1: to stream its song by song on Apple, and then
Speaker 1: we've seen the transition to subscription, which has actually made
Speaker 1: the industry healthy again. As you point out any big
Speaker 1: lessons from these past dislocations and transitions, yes, you cannot
Speaker 1: be afraid of transition. Remember Napster, which was the early
Speaker 1: form of what we're talking about. The record companies was
Speaker 1: so frightened that they literally killed Napster. I was representing Napster.
Speaker 1: I was trying to work out arrangements with the three
Speaker 1: companies or four companies, whatever was, and they were so frightened,
Speaker 1: and what they were frightened of actually turned out to
Speaker 1: be the greatest thing that have happened to them. So
Speaker 1: I think that if people don't view progress and new
Speaker 1: opportunities with open arms, that make you a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: And every time companies are afraid of the future, they
Speaker 1: usually die. And when the CD came out, and I
Speaker 1: remember I was at Warner Communications was running MTV at
Speaker 1: the time. Somebody brought out the CD player. He was
Speaker 1: from Japan. They have to have a little transformer so
Speaker 1: we could play it in the US, and they put
Speaker 1: the CD on. The lawyers said, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: a master quality recording. We have to stop the CD.
Speaker 1: And Warner I remember it was Bob Krauss now and
Speaker 1: a few guys said, what are you crazy. This is
Speaker 1: this is the future. We've got to get aboard. And
Speaker 1: they won. And when the downloads came and digital came
Speaker 1: and Napster came, it was the same argument, except this
Speaker 1: time the lawyers said we have to stop it. In
Speaker 1: the lawyers one, people are afraid of the unknown, that's
Speaker 1: always been the case, not only in our industry but
Speaker 1: in life. But the CD when it finally became popular,
Speaker 1: every person who had an LP album had to go
Speaker 1: buy the same album in a CD. And during the
Speaker 1: eighties the record business laurished because of CDs. It's very
Speaker 1: similar to what happened with streaming. It's generating ten times
Speaker 1: more buddy than it did when people were buying individual
Speaker 1: tracks or whatever you want to call it. So what
Speaker 1: I've learned in life is I am always open to
Speaker 1: new ideas, open to new people, open to new clients,
Speaker 1: because that's where the future is. The future isn't where
Speaker 1: people are frozen in a position or in a place.
Speaker 1: It's thinking about what is the next step. Let's go
Speaker 1: back on the CDs a little bit. Do you think
Speaker 1: we would have made the transition to digital finally if
Speaker 1: it had not been for Steve Jobs. It's a very
Speaker 1: good question, I would say that. But Steve Jobs did
Speaker 1: that interim step allowed streaming to come along and be accepted.
Speaker 1: If there was no Steve Jobs and he didn't create
Speaker 1: what he created, I think it would have been much
Speaker 1: more difficult for the record companies to accept streaming. And
Speaker 1: do you think the record business, the music business would
Speaker 1: still be in the dulg rum because if not for
Speaker 1: the subscription services like Spotify, Apple and Amazon, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they'd be slepping along. Oh yeah, it would be entirely different.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't even perceive of where the record
Speaker 1: business would be today without streaming. You had a long
Speaker 1: history and have had a long history of representing artists,
Speaker 1: and many credit you personally for finally getting artists the
Speaker 1: money they deserve, yet not undermining the music companies to
Speaker 1: help them get that revenue. When did that change began
Speaker 1: and was there a particular deal that was the tipping point?
Speaker 1: Over time, as I developed more of a reputation, I
Speaker 1: had credibility. I was representing so many artists that the
Speaker 1: record companies had to listen to what I said and
Speaker 1: had to concede to some of the important points that
Speaker 1: I want, which was creative control more than they had before,
Speaker 1: and financial control in other words, making much better financial deals,
Speaker 1: and also the ownership of masters that came along as
Speaker 1: I developed more credibility and I became more powerful as
Speaker 1: an entity, so that when I was dealing with a
Speaker 1: record company and they knew that they weren't dealing with
Speaker 1: me with one artist, but they were dealing with me
Speaker 1: with twenty artists. I was able to accomplish war. And
Speaker 1: I always remembered one of my first clients, who should
Speaker 1: be nameless, had an artist on his label, and the
Speaker 1: guy had a huge hit, and I said, well, Jesus,
Speaker 1: you must owe this guy a fortune. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you know what I did. I rented him a Cadillac
Speaker 1: or I bought him. In other words, artists just weren't
Speaker 1: getting paid. They were just getting screwed, and it was terrible.
Speaker 1: So as time went by, and I recognized this as
Speaker 1: well as many other people, but thank god, I eventually
Speaker 1: created enough power to be able to change it. Now
Speaker 1: artists are paid beyond properly. The companies that are in
Speaker 1: the music business, all major public companies, and artists are
Speaker 1: now getting their due. They're getting their due in the
Speaker 1: areas I just described financially creatively and certain owned their masters.
Speaker 1: And I'm very proud of that because I think that
Speaker 1: if there's one contribution I've made to the record industry
Speaker 1: was what I was able to accomplish for artists. So
Speaker 1: let me give you a tip of the hat here.
Speaker 1: You weren't always Alan Grugman. When I met you're back
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty you were the guy on the rise,
Speaker 1: but not yet the biggest in the business, But in
Speaker 1: my mind you were the smartest. Probably not many people
Speaker 1: know this story, but MTV was in danger of being
Speaker 1: shut down in the first few years. My boss was
Speaker 1: fired about a year after MTV launched. By the way,
Speaker 1: because of that, I got to move from the creative
Speaker 1: side running the product to really building the company as
Speaker 1: the COO. But it's interesting to me that when I
Speaker 1: sort of hit that and I went from being you
Speaker 1: got to make a successful product, which we did, and
Speaker 1: then my next challenge was we got to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make money. Because the other folks here have
Speaker 1: not been successful that they're gone, it's you're on your back.
Speaker 1: I reached out to you, and you were not just
Speaker 1: a lawyer for us. You were a full partner in
Speaker 1: developing the business strategy and operating plan. You made that
Speaker 1: jump from being the lawyer to being the business strategist
Speaker 1: who as a consultant and trusted advisor to many businesses
Speaker 1: and executives. How did you make the jump? I always
Speaker 1: believed that to be a great lawyer you have to
Speaker 1: be a great businessman. So as soon as I started
Speaker 1: practicing law and obtaining clients, I would always be interested
Speaker 1: did in the reasoning that they had for their business decisions.
Speaker 1: I was never the kind of lawyer that could sit
Speaker 1: down and draft contracts or could come up with the
Speaker 1: legal arguments. What I had was an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: common sense and an understanding of the law and an
Speaker 1: understanding of business. So as time went by and I
Speaker 1: built the law firm and it got bigger and bigger,
Speaker 1: my responsibilities for doing the legal work became less. And
Speaker 1: this great group of lawyers we have here, they took
Speaker 1: care of the law and I focused on advising clients,
Speaker 1: coming up with ideas and negotiating very interesting, lucrative, non
Speaker 1: traditional deals for them. But I always considered myself more
Speaker 1: of a businessman than a traditional lawyer, and it worked
Speaker 1: out fine. I always said, I'm a businessman first and
Speaker 1: a lawyer second. So how did having that bigger pick
Speaker 1: your view and that higher level access in a company
Speaker 1: helped the artist you represented? Oh? In my opinion, life
Speaker 1: is all about relationships. The greater the relationships you have
Speaker 1: with people, the more positive relationships you have with people,
Speaker 1: the more they're going to do for you. So when
Speaker 1: I would sit down and negotiate a contract with a
Speaker 1: superstar and I'm dealing with the CEO of the company,
Speaker 1: who I have a professional relationship with, a personal relationship, etc.
Speaker 1: I will do better for my client, the artist, because
Speaker 1: of my relationship with the person I'm dealing with. Then
Speaker 1: if I didn't have a relationship, take your two hands
Speaker 1: and put one finger six inches or twelve inches away
Speaker 1: from the other finger. In every negotiation, the finger on
Speaker 1: the left is the minimum that you will get, no
Speaker 1: matter what your relationship was. That's the minimum you're going
Speaker 1: to get. And the right finger is the maximum you're
Speaker 1: going to get, no matter if the guy's your brother lawyer,
Speaker 1: he's not going to give you more than that. But
Speaker 1: if you have great relationships, you will get closer to
Speaker 1: the right finger than you will to the left finger
Speaker 1: because there's a good feeling there, and especially if I'm
Speaker 1: representing people who are worthy of it. But I've seen
Speaker 1: artists get terrible deals because their representatives had terrible relationships
Speaker 1: with the companies. So relationships is critically important in being
Speaker 1: successful in any industry, especially the entertainment industry. So talk
Speaker 1: about how you know you've done a good deal. Well,
Speaker 1: you know something, I really believe that the best deals
Speaker 1: ever made are the deals where both parties walk away
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent happy. So, in other words, if
Speaker 1: I'm representing a client and I know I've done a
Speaker 1: really good deal, I know that I didn't take the
Speaker 1: last cent I can get from the person I'm negotiating with.
Speaker 1: Because when you make a deal, when one person thinks
Speaker 1: that they killed it and the other person thinks that
Speaker 1: they get screwed, the person that got screwed is waiting
Speaker 1: for the moment to get even. Well, you know, if
Speaker 1: Steve Ross had that same philosophy, don't destroy people in
Speaker 1: the process because you've got to be in business with them.
Speaker 1: What is that great mafia line. You don't wound your enemies,
Speaker 1: you kill them. The idea here is if you negotiate
Speaker 1: and you end up wounding a person, he's going to
Speaker 1: come back and try to kill you. You know. And
Speaker 1: what I've been told my whole career is that my
Speaker 1: talent is everybody walks away feeling okay, and I've made
Speaker 1: phenomenal deals for my clients. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: other side, at the end of the day, will say,
Speaker 1: you know, Alan got all this from us, but you
Speaker 1: know what, we feel okay about it for whatever reasons,
Speaker 1: and that's been a tremendous asset to me. So again,
Speaker 1: you don't want to make killer deals. You want to
Speaker 1: make phenomenal deals, but you don't want to go over
Speaker 1: the edge. You know, you're famous for keeping negotiations friendly
Speaker 1: and often funny. It's not just your personality or is
Speaker 1: that your strategy. Both you can get more done with
Speaker 1: a great laugh than you can with a great line.
Speaker 1: Mora on math and magic right after this quick break,
Speaker 1: welcome back to math and Magic. Let's hear more from
Speaker 1: my conversation with Alan Grugman. I want to go back
Speaker 1: in time to young Allan. You're a Capricorn, which is
Speaker 1: a strong business sign. You were born in nineteen forty two.
Speaker 1: You grew up in Brooklyn in the nineteen forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: and can you paint us a picture of Brooklyn in
Speaker 1: those days and how you grew up Well, okay, I
Speaker 1: grew up in Brooklyn, middle class Jewish family. My mother
Speaker 1: and father, they were married to the day they died
Speaker 1: at the age of eleven. My mother decided she was
Speaker 1: a stage mother. For some reason she heard me sing.
Speaker 1: She'd say, I would sing myself to sleep. Who the
Speaker 1: heck knows, but she ends up getting me an audition
Speaker 1: in the television show on NBC. It was called One
Speaker 1: or odd a Children's Hour, and it was basically a
Speaker 1: group of very talented kids who every Sunday for an hour.
Speaker 1: We were on NBC and living in Brooklyn. The only
Speaker 1: time you ever were in a limousine was at a funeral.
Speaker 1: In other words, as part of the package deal at
Speaker 1: the funeral home, you got the front car, which we
Speaker 1: know was in there, and then the car right behind
Speaker 1: it was a limousine for the family. When I was
Speaker 1: on the Children's Hour, every Saturday morning, we would rehearse
Speaker 1: at thirty. Rockefeller said that they picked me up in
Speaker 1: a limousine and they would take me to rehearsal, and
Speaker 1: then after rehearsal, they would take us out to like
Speaker 1: great restaurants. Growing up in Brooklyn, the only two restaurants
Speaker 1: I ever went to was a Delhi and Chinese Food
Speaker 1: on Sunday. So I was on that show for two
Speaker 1: years and then my voice changed. That was the end
Speaker 1: of it, but it made an enormous impression on me
Speaker 1: the entertainment. I said, this is really good, this is fun.
Speaker 1: So now I'm still living in Brooklyn. I end up
Speaker 1: going to high school, I end up going to college,
Speaker 1: and then when I went to Brooklyn Law School, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember that everybody in the entertainment business,
Speaker 1: you know, going to good restaurants, having fun. And that's
Speaker 1: when I decided that I wanted to become an entertainment lawyer.
Speaker 1: So growing up in Brooklyn, I grew up in a
Speaker 1: very middle class neighborhood. I had a very good family life,
Speaker 1: and that exposure to the entertainment business is what motivated
Speaker 1: me to after law school, I said, I want to
Speaker 1: be an entertainment lawyer. And by the way, some of
Speaker 1: the most successful people in show business live in Brooklyn. Obviously,
Speaker 1: my dear friend Geffen Lis of Brooklyn, strides in Neil Diamond.
Speaker 1: It goes on and on and on. So for some reason,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn was this breeding ground for people who end up
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry. Tell me about school. Good student,
Speaker 1: not a good student, interested student, have a lot of friends.
Speaker 1: To paint the picture a little bit okay. In school,
Speaker 1: I was an average athlete and at best an average student.
Speaker 1: I was not overly popular. I wasn't like an outcast.
Speaker 1: I was a normal, average kid in high school, and
Speaker 1: same thing in college. I belonged to a fraternity, but
Speaker 1: of course not the best fraternity. And I was always
Speaker 1: a very weak student academically. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: reason is, you know, maybe I wasn't interested or whatever.
Speaker 1: And then I go to Brooklyn Law School. And in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Law School they encouraged you to take a job
Speaker 1: after school working for a lawyer in downtown Brooklyn. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer. So my first
Speaker 1: year in law school, I got a job at the
Speaker 1: William Morris Agency from four to eight at night, like
Speaker 1: after school. This is interesting. The second and third year
Speaker 1: I was a page at CBS. I would walk into
Speaker 1: class every day with a great sports jacket and a
Speaker 1: CBS I and everybody would say, what's wrong with Grupping?
Speaker 1: Is he crazy? What is he doing showing people to
Speaker 1: their seats? What's wrong with them? You know what they
Speaker 1: found out about ten years later that there was nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with me. If you get my drift, so I'll
Speaker 1: put it to you this way. I didn't graduate at
Speaker 1: the top of my class, and I'm being very facetious.
Speaker 1: And that's why when I graduated and I found a
Speaker 1: job working for a lawyer, I couldn't get a job
Speaker 1: in a big law firm because I didn't have the grades.
Speaker 1: So I started working for a man by the name
Speaker 1: of WALTA. Hoefer, who at one time represented the Beatles
Speaker 1: in the early sixties. But that's the progression of my
Speaker 1: life up until the time I started my own practice
Speaker 1: in seventy four. Basically that was it, and I was
Speaker 1: very lucky. You know, I'm a big believer that luck
Speaker 1: is seventy five percent of the game and brains is
Speaker 1: twenty five percent. If you don't get that seventy five
Speaker 1: percent of luck, the twenty five percent of brains is useless.
Speaker 1: One time, Elton John said to me, Alan, there are
Speaker 1: a thousand Elton Johns in this world, but I was
Speaker 1: the one that got that great opportunity, and that his
Speaker 1: luck is being in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: And I've been very, very lucky, beyond lucky. So you
Speaker 1: start your firm in the mid seventies. By the late seventies,
Speaker 1: the legendary Walter yet Nikof was at its peak of
Speaker 1: power and not yet at his peak of craziness head
Speaker 1: of CBS Records, You were one of the few people
Speaker 1: who he would listen to in respect. What did you
Speaker 1: learn from Walter? What made him great in spite of
Speaker 1: his problems. He told me a great expression, it's not
Speaker 1: about the money. It's about the money. Now what do
Speaker 1: I mean by that? Walt yet Nikov was a lawyer.
Speaker 1: He went to Columbia, he practiced law, and then he
Speaker 1: ended up being CEO of CBS Records. He didn't understand music.
Speaker 1: It isn't like he was looking for talent like Clive Davis.
Speaker 1: But you know what, as soon as there was somebody
Speaker 1: that became very successful, he bring him into the and
Speaker 1: he'd say, boys, let's renegotiate your contract. And he would
Speaker 1: renegotiate the contract and give him tons of money, and
Speaker 1: then they would love him. That's what I realized that
Speaker 1: a very important part of everybody's career is not only
Speaker 1: the creative, it's also the monetary. The music business is
Speaker 1: made up of music and business. That's when I realized
Speaker 1: how critically important the business side of the music businesses,
Speaker 1: and the people who know how to handle that side
Speaker 1: of the business are the ones that do very very well.
Speaker 1: That's what I learned from him. I learned that you
Speaker 1: take care of people because if they as I said before,
Speaker 1: if you take care of them, they're going to take
Speaker 1: care of you. And all these artists loved him, whether
Speaker 1: it was Michael Jackson, whether it was Spreaks before he
Speaker 1: went crazy, Billy Joel, they all loved him. You know why.
Speaker 1: He made sure that they made a lot of money.
Speaker 1: So at a certain point you realized you had skills
Speaker 1: and relationships beyond music, and you could provide services beyond
Speaker 1: negotiating just entertainment deals. When did you have that epiphany?
Speaker 1: What started it for you? In two thousand? In late nineties,
Speaker 1: I saw that the music business was going through a
Speaker 1: very strange period. There was all kinds of the stealing
Speaker 1: of music, and I said, I better expand my horizons.
Speaker 1: And I started hiring a couple of lawyers who knew
Speaker 1: movies and television, etc. Etc. And I did that as
Speaker 1: a defense mechanism because I thought maybe the music practice
Speaker 1: would be dramatically hurt if all of a sudden the
Speaker 1: way it used to function will no longer function. And
Speaker 1: then I started bringing him some guys. I hired some
Speaker 1: people that knew these other areas, and today I would
Speaker 1: say music is probably the most fifty percent of the practice.
Speaker 1: So it's one of the few times I had great
Speaker 1: foresight that was a big transition for you. No one,
Speaker 1: by the way, had ever done that in the music
Speaker 1: business on that side of it. What's the business lesson
Speaker 1: here in that transformation of your firm. The business lesson is,
Speaker 1: it's just like if you're a lawyer and you have
Speaker 1: one client and you're dependent upon that client, that puts
Speaker 1: you in a very weak position. You will always be
Speaker 1: much stronger if you have ten clients then if you
Speaker 1: have one or two. The same thing here. I was
Speaker 1: nervous that the music business was going to go through
Speaker 1: a terrible period, and I said, oh my god, if
Speaker 1: that happens, I don't have anything to fall back on.
Speaker 1: So by developing clients in all different areas, whether it's movies, television, sports, journalism, theater,
Speaker 1: if one area is soft, it gets picked up by
Speaker 1: the other areas. So I came to realize how important
Speaker 1: it was to diverse fy legally, and I was right
Speaker 1: because the fact that I wasn't just a music law
Speaker 1: firm anymore. But we did other things just gave us
Speaker 1: more prestige, more credibility, and eventually became much more lucrative.
Speaker 1: And today, you know, we represent all kind of We
Speaker 1: represent CEOs, we represent media companies, represent record companies, represent
Speaker 1: Iought Radio Live. It goes on and on, and that
Speaker 1: is because we diversify. You were one of the early
Speaker 1: founders right in the beginning when I'm in Rnigan and
Speaker 1: Jan Winner put together the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: This year, you were the first music attorney to ever
Speaker 1: be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: for your contributions to the business and obviously to the artist.
Speaker 1: That's heavy stuff for a guy who was singing on
Speaker 1: a children's show on NBC from Brooklyn. Give us just
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes of how that felt. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. One of my dearest friends is a guy
Speaker 1: by the name of David Geffen that some of your
Speaker 1: audience might know, some might not. He's an enormously successful guy,
Speaker 1: grew up in Brooklyn, not far from where I grew up,
Speaker 1: And we've had the following conversation. Could we have ever
Speaker 1: imagined when we were growing up that we would be
Speaker 1: in the position we're in now it was incomprehensible because
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, if you were rich, you
Speaker 1: lived in Great Neck or you lived in Scarsdale. It
Speaker 1: was a whole different level of success and wealth. So
Speaker 1: what I think about my life now, I couldn't have perceived.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've but just been so lucky. I couldn't
Speaker 1: perceive that I would ever be able to live the
Speaker 1: life I lived now. And it's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: Let's get some advice from you. If someone's starting in
Speaker 1: the music business today, what would you tell him in
Speaker 1: what area. Let's say they're going to start on the
Speaker 1: business side of the music business today, you know what
Speaker 1: I would say to them. If let's say we're talking
Speaker 1: about lawyers hypothetically, I would say, if you can work
Speaker 1: for a large firm, you should do that for a
Speaker 1: few years because they will train you to be a
Speaker 1: great lawyer, and then you'll come to me. In terms
Speaker 1: of business, I am a big believer in entrepreneurship. To
Speaker 1: become a successful entrepreneur as extraordinarily unusual. But if you succeed,
Speaker 1: the world is open to you. There are two kinds
Speaker 1: of people. There are people who were destined to be
Speaker 1: employees and executives, and then there were people that were
Speaker 1: destined to be entrepreneurs. You basically have always had the
Speaker 1: mentality of an entrepreneur, even though you ran companies, but
Speaker 1: you always thought like an entrepreneur. So let's go to
Speaker 1: some more advice. How about someone who's renegotiating their employment contract. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, it depends on what they lever and
Speaker 1: if they have leverage, I would tell them to be
Speaker 1: very aggressive, because you know, it's the old story. I
Speaker 1: always say to people, if I ask for the absurd,
Speaker 1: I end up getting the semi absurd, whereas if you
Speaker 1: ask for the reasonable, you end up with less than reasonable.
Speaker 1: So if somebody is renegotiating their contract and they're doing
Speaker 1: a great job, don't be afraid to ask, because my
Speaker 1: grandmother used to say, if you don't ask, you don't get. So,
Speaker 1: if you could go back in time and give some
Speaker 1: advice to your twenty one year old self, what would
Speaker 1: that advice be. I would have said, follow your love
Speaker 1: and your passion, which is what I did, and be
Speaker 1: as pleasantly aggressive as you can be. You shouldn't be
Speaker 1: obnoxiously aggressive, but when people see that you are ambitious
Speaker 1: and you're aggressive, in the right way, you will get
Speaker 1: much farther than if you play it safe. So we
Speaker 1: normally end every episode of Math and Magic with a
Speaker 1: shout out to the greats of math and magic and business.
Speaker 1: But given who you are and in your eighty years,
Speaker 1: the people you've encountered, can you give us the three
Speaker 1: or four people you've encountered who you stick in your
Speaker 1: mind as the legends the greats? Well, I would probably
Speaker 1: have to say Steve Ross was this brilliant, brilliant man
Speaker 1: who created Warner Brothers. I would say him. I had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to meet Bill Paley, who was a phenomenal
Speaker 1: and creative businessman. And let's tell people who Bill Paley
Speaker 1: was started CBS. And although people don't know who's Bill
Speaker 1: Paley is today, which shocks me. Bill Paley in the
Speaker 1: sixties seventies could not have been more powerful, you know
Speaker 1: he found at CBS. In the record business, he was
Speaker 1: very controversial. But Ahmed Ertigan was a true legend. David
Speaker 1: Geffin obviously was a great inspiration to me, and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that story. I met David Geffin in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one when I was making a deal with him
Speaker 1: with Hall and Oates, and we hit it off immediately
Speaker 1: and we became very very good friends over the years,
Speaker 1: and he has been a tremendous booster of mine. But
Speaker 1: you know, David Geffin is an example of a true entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: And he never built CBS or he never built the
Speaker 1: General Motors, but as an entrepreneur he was always phenomenally successful,
Speaker 1: first as a manager, then as a record executive, and
Speaker 1: then an owner of dream Work. He was always very,
Speaker 1: very successful, and he was always been very important in
Speaker 1: my life. Alan, you are a unique human being and
Speaker 1: so much touch so many people, me included. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being with us today and thanks for all you've done
Speaker 1: my pleasure, Bob, and thank you for inviting me. Here
Speaker 1: are a few things I picked up in my conversation
Speaker 1: with Alan. One, embrace the future. When the music industry
Speaker 1: jumped from records to CDs to streaming, Alan was always
Speaker 1: on the side of the future. Work with progress, not
Speaker 1: against it. New developments will keep your business thriving. Two.
Speaker 1: Don't wound your enemies and negotiations. Don't ring your opponent
Speaker 1: drial that will just leave them feeling vengeful. A successful
Speaker 1: deal is one that's fair on both ends and leaves
Speaker 1: each side feeling pretty good about what they got. Three
Speaker 1: Build relationships. Alan's the first to admit that he didn't
Speaker 1: get to where he is by being top of his class.
Speaker 1: It's his personality and ability to form relationships that built
Speaker 1: a strong reputation. Forming and maintaining friendship, so colleagues can
Speaker 1: only help you in the long run. It's easier to
Speaker 1: make a good deal when you know the person sitting
Speaker 1: across the table. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's
Speaker 1: it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 1: Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio. The show is
Speaker 1: hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for
Speaker 1: booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feat.
Speaker 1: Our editor Emily Maronoff, our engineer Jessica Kranchich, Our executive
Speaker 1: producers Nikki Etre and Ali Perry, and of course Gail Raoul,
Speaker 1: Eric Angel Noel and everyone who helped bring this show
Speaker 1: to your ears. Until next time,