Powerful Lessons in Leadership, Communication, & Strategy, with Media Pioneer Jeff Smulyan

from the crossroads of America in the Hoosier State of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Matt Hunker CEO at Powder Keg and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host Nate spangle head of community at Powder Keg and on the show today is Jeff smullian founder CEO and chairman of the board of Ms Communications a friend of mine once said 30 years ago you can't be a bad guy in Indianapolis because everybody will know it in three hours yeah so maybe that's true maybe that but it's just people tell you something here and you can take it Jeff simulian is the founder CEO and chairman of Ms Communications a publicly traded company based in Indianapolis Jeff's entrepreneurial Journey has been a legit roller coaster ride he has owned a major league baseball team he started America's first sports radio station created the world's two largest hip-hop radio stations and managed some of the world's greatest talents including David Letterman Ken Griffey Jr and Don Imus he has a one-of-a-kind story and is one of the all-time business greats he shares a collection of Amazing Stories and lessons in his new book never ride a roller coaster upside down in today's show we are going to cover some of those highlights and so much more Jeff welcome to get in Matt is my pleasure we are so excited about this conversation we'll have fun we've been talking about it over the last couple weeks just sharing some of our favorite stories from the book great one of the things that I love about that is you are entrepreneur through and through and I know you come from a long line of entrepreneurs yeah my dad was an entrepreneur my grandfathers were both entrepreneurs and I've said I'm an to remember because I'm not hirable in a pre-society no Corporation that's respecting itself hire me so I had to do it on my own what are some of your earliest memories of being exposed to business when you're a kid my grandfather started what was the first probably one of the first automobile finance companies in the world and I remember when I was a little kid I go down and file with my dad on the weekends or after school sometimes my first job was as a copy boy for the Indianapolis times I did that when I was 16 years old and then I worked Summers the Indianapolis Star as a sports writer can you explain what a copy boy is a copy boy is someone who is basically a gopher it is someone who runs around and gets stuff for the the editors and takes photos up to the Photoshop and you're basically a gopher yeah and it was a fun I love that job what do you think you got out of that that job that very early exposure to business I think learning to work with people I think the most important thing is working with people I had a boss it was a man named Irving Leibowitz who was a very famous managing editor of the Indianapolis times in the 50s and 60s a remarkable man I always thought that the show Lou Grant was patterned after Irving Leibowitz and I was in awe of him he was a legend he wrote a book called my Indiana which talked about the clan in the 20s and all the things of Indiana and probably the worst mistake I ever made I lost a front page picture and I'll never forget it I had the 5 30 in the morning shift and I'm probably out too late sure and came in and I'll never forget that moment when the first edition of the newspaper came out about 10 30 right before it came out it said we don't have a picture on page one and in those days you had to take the pictures and iron on the back and then ship it up to the type setting room and one of the pictures ironically the one on the front page fell behind a file cabinet and they were screaming where's the front page picture I went back and retraced my steps look behind the cabinet and there it was and they filled in something else but I'm never forget he called me to his desk he said I thought you were such an impressive young man how could you screw this up and he yelled at me and I think I was quaking and and I adored him admired him years later he was visiting Indianapolis and he was on one of our talk shows and at the first radio station I ran and it's great reconnecting with it what do you think you learned from that experience humility I think you I think humility has learned at a very early age and when you screwed up the front page of the newspaper and you're 16 years old that is a humbling experience so humility isn't very important one of our Commandments at Ms is never gets mug yeah never and I it is a fun mental tendon to mine I've seen people have been successful who forget that the rules of the world apply to them anymore it's hey I'm above all that now so I think I learned that at an early age one of the points you talk about in your book is like a self-deprecating humor yeah no matter how successful you got you always tie it back to that and where did you pick that up along the road I don't know when we first started out I've just always been able to make fun of myself and tease and I found that it really is a it's actually a pretty good management tool my dearest one of my dearest friends Steve crane who started with me said to yourself deprecation puts everybody at ease and I think it's really true and I think if the boss can make fun of himself it it allows everyone else to make fun of themselves an organization where nobody can admit their mistakes and points fingers I think it's doomed to fail yeah and if the boss can say hey I screwed up I was wrong it empowers everybody else to say the same yeah I think it's a it's been a helpful trait well by all accounts Ms has just an amazing company culture and what you just shared as leading by example understanding that people are going to mimic what the person at the top is doing it says a lot about how that culture came to be yeah but why when you look at it from a standpoint of a business operator why is company culture something that you've always prioritized I've always felt that again you the old autocratic days where it's my way of the highway it may have worked at a different time I don't think it works now and I think you absolutely have to empower people to do their jobs and treat them with respect and I think somebody said what are you proudest of and I said I think I'm proudest of the culture I'm proudest of the bond between the people I'm proudest of the trust I think that is probably the thing I will take away through all the ups and downs and there have been a lot of ups and a lot of downs what's one of your favorite core values at Ms I think that I wrote the Ten Commandments and then we added the 11th after baseball or we should admit your mistakes we thought that was a nice added one it's a good good addition and I really wrote them somebody One Night in an early manage meeting said what are our values and I just scribbled them on a napkin and they became the Ten Commandments it became very Central to our being I've had hundreds of people over the years when I'd give speeches say I want your Commandments I want to use them and I said look if they fit you if you can live up to them if they matter to you that's fine yeah clearly the number one one of them is have fun and believe in yourself and my the most important is never jeopardize your integrity I'll tell you a quick story of my daughter I think it may be in the book my daughter I would drive her to school she was the Genesis of the book my youngest daughter because I drive her to school every day from kindergarten and until she fired me when she got a driver but we just talk about life and early on I'd say Sammy you've got to have grit persistence is everything never quit never quit so she had a paper in about seventh grade about the most important characteristic and she said Dad I know it's grit I said nope it's not great it's at the very top but the very top is your integrity if your word means something Nothing Else Matters and if your word doesn't mean anything nothing else matters Integrity even though I think it's sixth or seventh on our list just because I was scribbling him down that's the most important thing if there's Trust and with your with others you can accomplish anything and if there's no trust it's hard to do anything you certainly have the talent to trust at Ms and you mentioned the greatest asset of any business being the people yeah you've worked with some of the greats including David Letterman and Howard Stern and Don Imus one how did you attract those people and spot their talent in the first place I think we inherited some I didn't spot Ken Griffey's talented yeah that's fair and we with David David was a weatherman we were starting the first station I ever ran before I started Amos and my brother said you got to watch Letterman and I had seen Letterman we were exactly the same major five days apart and I remembered his weekend weather cast which are just hilarious so we said hey we're doing a talk station you want to do it and he wanted to do it he said look I'm going to do this for a year then I'm going to try to make it as a writer and stand up in Hollywood yeah and he was just it was incredible David was it was funny he had an audience of a lot of 25 year olds on a radio station there was talk that basically reached 65 and 70 year olds so it led to some strange occurrences my favorite one which I think I've told is I came back from lunch one day and a guy called and said you got a problem Letterman's a communist you know I'm just what did he do so I called him and I told him I know there are communists in Carmel and do you know what he told me and I said oh he said you got to give him caramel the football team's lousy the streets are always torn up and you can never find a good car parking place so give him caramel and hold a line of fishers and that was Dave Dave did stuff like that all the time he had sound effects we had one old guy and when you're running a small talk station you've got that many callers and we had one old guy who was just it was painful he would just Babble on and on and so Letterman would do finally after a few of these calls he would do sound effects you hear mooing cows and fireworks and it was just hilarious when you look at that Talent like that just Raw Talent yeah but then you look at how it develops over a year with you and of course seen others like Howard Stern now with the Advent of podcasting it seems like every person is hosting some sort of show what makes a good host related to audience if your audience can get into what you do yeah that's it we used to talk about Howard Stern and Howard Stern probably had 85 percent of the country that hated him but 15 of the country loved him uh and by the way that's true of many of the polarizing figures was Rush Limbaugh Howard Stern Imus if the audience that they've reached loves them you can be a gigantic success and you probably can't do that without some people hating you yeah it's probably right yeah that's fair when you think about managing those kinds of talented individuals and managing your kind of next level of leadership yeah what is some of the lessons that you learned early on in building again I think the most important thing for managers it's very hard to let go yeah it's very hard for people to say I've been promoted to management to one level up and now I can do my old job better than the person that replaced me yeah so micromanaging is always a challenge the ability to delegate the ability to trust your people the ability to let them do their job and if they're not the right person you got to make a change yeah I have a favorite saying I have never met a human being who walked into the office the morning and said how do I screw up my job it doesn't happen now so everybody wants to do their job well so your job is to give them the tools to be successful I love that oh yeah is there a time where you ever had to from a business perspective step in and say hey I know that you're the creative and you're the talent but yeah but we can't talk about this I'll tell you one one of my favorites with Don Imus and Don was legendarily challenging and Randy bongard who at one point ran managed Don and Howard Stern together I said what's the difference he said Howard Stern can be right on the edge of doing something you'd sit there you lose your license and then at five minutes after 10 in the morning he'll clinically explain what he did and why he did or whatever he said Don it's just Don does what Don does so we had one situation where we it was the last days of the Mariners you have to know the context the Tisch family had just bought the New York football Giants the Tisch family also had owned CBS I was on the TV committee so I was negotiating with them Emma's was having all sorts of problems the Mariners are having all sorts of problems and Don did a bit on a football player named Zeke Moet and nobody probably remembers but Zeke Moet was a tight end for the New York Giants before that had been a tight end for the New England Patriots and he had been fired basically for exposing himself to a female sports writer so the Giants picked him up and Imus was just incensed and he did a bit about the Tisch family that had just bought half of the Giants they still don't have the Giants about the women of the Tisch family Mrs Tish and one of the daughters walking into the locker room after a game and Zeke Moet is exposing himself to him and it was just a comedy bit about how crazy it was and how shocked they were and the tissues were not amused so they called my friend Marty Franks who was head of all corporate relations for CBS and said we want to go after the license of the people on WFAN we're going to go after their license take it away now that's scary yeah now as a practical matter you're not going to lose your license for that but the tissues were new they were very thin-skinned and my friend Marty called me and said can you talk to Don and I said I could talk to Don but Don does what Don does and and I said you can flip a coin he'll either say Jeff I oh slow down or Jeff this is legitimate satire and I'm going to keep going ahead with it so I said Marty let me know what you want to do and he said go ahead and call him I called Don I'd never ask him to cut back anything because Don really never jeopardized your license Howard sometimes did but called him and he he backed off but with great talent it's always a dance and when you have great ratings and you have talent you see the latest with Tucker Carlson whether you like him or not he had tremendous power because he had three and a half million people a week watching him and finally he stepped over a line with the news Corps people they knew they couldn't manage him they just fired him how do you have a conversation like that like how did that conversation go with Don and how do you approach that knowing that it is a big personality you just you talk to people one to one and I think our success was treating people like human beings I don't care whether it's Don Imus or Howard Stern or Ken Griffey yeah or a kid who's cleaning out the clubhouse for the baseball team it's all about treating people like human beings and in those instances are you very direct or do you try to understand the person first yeah I think you you're probably semi-direct I guess would be the best way to say it good way to say it so you talk about having to have a little bit of thick skin when you're in the spotlight right your owner of a team can you talk about what you learned about having thick skin as you were the owner of the Mariners one of my my I have a couple favorite saves in the book one is the line between being a genius and an idiot is very fine I've been on both sides chapter three idiot to genius the WFAN story where my guys didn't want to do it they voted it down they came back and said we feel sorry for you we still think it's a stupid idea it launched for the first year and it was a disaster uh it lost record amounts of money Jim Lampley called it the Vietnam War of Ms and then we merged with NBC Imus came on we put Mike in the Mad Dog on and the whole thing just clicked and it became one of the biggest success stories people have said to me did you ever dream that there'd be 700 all sports radio stations in the United States I said I didn't really think there'd be one I didn't think we were going to make it and then the next side was owning their Mariners and we had owned all the FM stations we could buy in the major markets and we were looking for a challenge we knew the Major League Baseball people in those days people said you guys are marketing Wizards the Mariners need somebody to change the perception of that team and I love Seattle and we thought this is great and I went out and the chapter is idiot or genius to idiot because I was the Boy Wonder and I was speaking at every Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce all in five states and signing autographs one of my best friends is a lawyer here was the game with me one night and after we're going to get a bit out of the game and I had to sign autographs for 20 minutes and he watched me sign autographs and he said any society that values your autograph is a society which really cannot long endure but so you're not going to sign her books but but it was funny because I was the hero and then we said we can't afford these kind of losses so we put the team for sale and I became a pariah and I always said everybody should be a in your life I love that what did you learn from being the Pariah I just learned that's life I learned that is you're going to have ups and downs when I was a college kid and a law student I just thought life was just a straight line up every you go from success to success and that's not true of anybody I've ever met it is a roller coaster and mine was so crazy that it was upside down but I think it it teaches you you don't learn the great lessons of life and success you learn them in Failure I told my dearest friend Gary case of was president of the Mariners and the day we sold the team he said what could we have done differently I said really nothing once we bought this team we were doomed because of the history of the town and you needed yeah I joked I said to own the Mariners in those days you need to be a billionaire which I clearly wasn't and and yet to own the Yankees or the Dodgers in those days you could have had a paper route and you'd make the math work so it just depended yeah but I said but I think we I but I said you'll look back on this and this will be the best management you've ever did and it was I had a the dear friend Maria Cantwell who actually we hosted for lunch just last week and she talked about people still say it was the best marketing they've ever seen and it really introduced the team to the town and made the team hip what were some of the things you were doing right in the experiential marketing realm of baseball and what time period was this this is at 89.

92 I have to laugh we said when you own the Boston Red Sox your marketing campaign is season starts April 6th get your tickets now and when you Market the Mariners is like look we know you think we suck but and we did a whole campaign around that and we did all sorts of fun stuff I was very proud of it the team that did it won all sorts of Sports Marketing Awards my favorite spot I think there were a couple of them I think was the second year there were two guys in the grocery line and they're standing in line and on the next line is clearly Elvis wow the one guy says that's him and the other guy says yeah it's really him yeah I'm telling you that's him yeah it's him and as you pan back they said that's Bill Grant and behind him there's a guy Bill just a regular guy with a Mariners cap and he said that's Bill Grant with a Mariners cap I can't believe that's him last year two years ago he sold his car because he couldn't get the Mariner's bumper sticker off of it and now he's going out in public he was a Mariners fan and then it just talked about the new Mariners and the last line is paper plastic and Elvis says plastic baby or something like that but we just had so much fun it was off the wall it was making fun and we did all sorts of stuff we had singles nights and we had we built the first kids area in the Outfield where kids could just go play in the in the bleachers quick break from our normal programming I have Erica schweyer CEO from Elevate Ventures here in the studio today Erica thanks for being here yeah thanks for having me and you're going to tell us a little bit about this rally Innovation conference that's coming up yep so it's the largest cross sector Innovation conference in the world we're going to feature six Innovation Studios so think hard tech software Sports Tech egg and food Healthcare and Entrepreneurship is going to kind of be our catch-all I love that so tell me what is who's it for yeah it's for innovators entrepreneurs investors honestly anybody probably listening to this podcast it's going to be a multi-day thing that's multi-day in downtown Indianapolis yep people coming in from all over the country and maybe even all over the world to be here that's our hope yep and the dates are actually August 29th through the 31st perfect and if people want to find out more information about speakers tickets things like that where can they go yeah so they just rallyinnovation.

com and sign up for communications they can also get their tickets I'll love it you heard it here at rallyinnovation. com we'll see you there sales and marketing is definitely one of the strengths of Ms just researching the company and paying attention the last decade or so what are some of the strategies that have worked really well for marketing a media company and what are some of the ones that you're interested to explore more now I think the challenge with media was we were I'd look back at our early marketing we did the marketing with WFAN which is still to me the most fun the first spot we ever did in the company introducing wns was probably my favorite of all time because it just it basically said we have no money we have no resources we have one thing we just play music non-stop so we satirized all of the strengths of the other people and in those days in Indianapolis Gary Todd was a legendary morning man on WIBC but by the time we were kicking off wns Gary had become a character himself because he knew every rich and powerful person so the ad start out by saying tomorrow I'm playing golf with the governor and then we see wnap and we satirize wfms and and we satirize the contest because they had money to have contests they had money to have Billboards we had no money but what we did do was and so our tagline was we do let our music do the talking and it repositioned our competitors and we took their strengths and made of weaknesses I was very proud of that yeah that's an amazing chess move it was it was very and it worked yeah when they're amazing and they work it makes you feel a lot better it seems like music has been such a through line through all of your your childhood even going back to listening to the radio before you go to bed I always loved it and it was my hobby and like I said I've got three kids two grown kids and a college now sophomore and she always says what am I gonna do she said you knew what you want to do early I said yeah but I was an aberration I love radio loved music and sports so I was fortunate do you have some favorite music that has followed you through the years still some of your favorite classes funny because on those drives to school I got my daughter interested in like the Beatles of The Rolling Stones of Jackson Browne and Kenny Loggins and one of my favorite moments of my life when she graduated high school we took her to Europe and we went to see the stones in Milan oh that's amazing one of the yeah so one of the great experiences of all time oh that's so great did you have a favorite song during any of their sets oh I don't know Sympathy for the Devil and Jumping Jack Flash there's so many that's incredible yep that's really cool I'm thinking more about the sales and marketing side of things it seems probably naturally for you coming from your father and your grandfather you probably had a natural knack for selling yeah why do you think it's important for an entrepreneur to be able to sell it's funny I was a lawsuit I will never forget one of my favorite moments we were probably in our second year law student lost school and we're sitting in a bar somewhere and a couple girls came up to us that are you guys in sales and we all just reflexively said sales we're not in sales we're law students like we are above salary and about three or four years after we got out the same guys are sitting in the bar said can you imagine that do you realize how stupid we were every human experience is a sales experience and if you have children or you have a wife or you have friends your whole life is selling whatever your idea is so we're all selling every moment of every day do you have any favorite tips for selling yeah understand what's important to your customer the most important thing if you listen you need to understand what makes his or her life better what is it about his or her life that you can make better that's the essence of sales understand that yeah you want to sell your product the question is why is your product going to help their lives it's not going to help their lives you're wasting everybody's time I would imagine a lot of people have approached you with selling their business yeah you did a lot of Acquisitions I've done a lot of deals over the years what are the ones that stood out to you when you were like you know what this makes a lot of sense a lot of I always say the deal makes sense three years after it's done because you I haven't it's like my fantasy football team the night I draft I got the best team in the world right and 17 weeks later I'm terrible um and it's the same thing with a business deal you never know the deal that I laugh about the most was done with one of my best friends with it was my dear friend trod Keller who ran ESPN audio for years and he wanted to buy my FM New York he couldn't get approval from the Disney company to buy it so he leased it for 12 years so he leased it and we laughed about it and said this is a ridiculous deal I'm paying you as much to lease it as I would pay to buy it you get it back in 12 years and furthermore we sold the intellectual property of the former format to a competitor so the joke was we sold something he wouldn't make any money for 100 million dollars and 12 years later we got it back so that's clear that's a good deal yeah he said that deal will keep you keep me in your will forever but like I said we've had so many video some work some don't yeah and you've always you really remember the successes of the failures as well how do you recover from a deal that doesn't go as well as you thought you just roll up your sleeves I have developed I guess if I'm proudest of anything the resilience to say tomorrow's another day you win some you lose some Rick Cummings who's been with me for almost 50 years put a radio station on the air in Los Angeles and it didn't work and he just beat himself up like crazy and you normally we just needled it but this one hit him so hard you couldn't need him about it and I just said look the research you had all of the data indicated that this was the right course of action sometimes you're going to be wrong if we can make rational decisions I can live with being wrong yeah because you're going to be wrong sometimes the market changes sometimes tastes change but if you run a business where you're rational you'll succeed more and you fail when it comes to assessing that of using data and all this information to make a decision versus gut and Instinct what do you rely more on I think it's a combination I was talking to a friend who's in in pro football and he said we're now getting to the data era and I was I lived through the very beginning of that in baseball where the scouts would say guy was a five tool guy and I'll never forget one of my favorite stories we had a guy who had hit 350 everywhere he went and our Scout said no defense not any speed doesn't hit the ball with pop he's not a 5-2 guy and somebody else started and I always said this is a guy who's hit 300 every went two weeks into our first season they put him at third base when he came out of the lineup it was Edgar Martinez he went in the Hall of Fame so that's one of those examples where data probably told you a different story than Scouts on the other hand Scouts can see intangibles there's always a marriage of Art and Science there just always is there always will be that's amazing it strikes me that there's so many parallels between baseball and business are there other parallels that you noticed being involved in both worlds I think any business depends on I love one of my closest friends came up from Los Angeles and he watched this work one day he said my God you guys are killing yourselves and then you go to the ballpark for three hours and I said yeah and the worst part is it's not a good business and then you go to the ballpark and you expose your flaws in front of thirty thousand people every night but a business is business we've done all sorts of things and what we found is I've always said we're smart enough to know we don't know so whenever we whether it's baseball whether it's a research company now it's Dynamic pricing or sound masking or TV or international radio or magazines we were always able to attract people who filled in gaps we were pretty good strategic thinkers we were pretty good at sales and marketing we're pretty good at overall Finance but we were always knew that when there was a need we could spot the need and we didn't have the hubris to say yeah we got this and I've seen a lot of people get into one business after they've been successful another and I got this I know this I once had an automobile dealer who said I want to buy a radio station okay he said I said much about oh I listen all the time I know yeah I want to buy it I said let me ask you a question I want to buy an automobile dealership how would I do so you don't know what you don't understand it you got to understand you gotta understand the back end you got a service you got a body shop you gotta and I said I think that might be sure my business as well that there's stuff that you know so it just depends are you ready to transform your brand with award-winning video content that captures your vision and connects with your audience check out Alchemy the experts at building your brand using video from story driven social media Snippets that leave a lasting impression to compelling full-length documentaries they have got the expertise to take your brand to the next level Alchemy is actually our video partner here on get in and they do amazing work all the videos across social across YouTube all that is done by Alchemy and they're an amazing partner to work with reach out to me Nate at Powder Keg or check out alchemyfilmco.

com to get connected with Alden and his team they will take care of all of your video needs so you handed to it can you talk a little bit more about what Ms is up to today yeah so you guys ended up I'll let you tell the story but we got we and I love the business but we finally realized about six or seven years ago that radio was a business it was just never going to go away but just a slow steady decline and I always said when you're pushing water uphill every day it wears everybody out so we made the transition we were fortunate we've sold everything in magazines and radio we got out of TV earlier so we were fortunate we paid almost off almost two billion dollars of debt we have no debt we have three now four businesses that we're involved in a sound masking business that controls sound in offices and Studios of course I always say only I could buy a business and control sound in offices and hospitals right before a pandemic that closed all offices in hospitals but we love that business we have a dynamic pricing business it's really been fun and they control they price attractions performances they're getting in all sorts of is everything from the Royal Albert Hall to the LA Philharmonic to the iso here and just all sorts locally do you guys totally price the zoo yeah here yeah they priced everything the zoo is one of the first clients that price the Children's Museum they price the symphony I think we're doing something for the IMA but we do all sorts of when you say they price it can you talk through that a little bit and like the science or the technology behind that we have PhD economists we are now getting ready to scale it by automating a lot of the procedures but they will find the optimal price for every unit of inventory and we have such a niche and you can dynamically price anything you place traffic flow in cities you can play price Target you could place obviously Airlines started it but finding the optimal price for a unit of inventory at any given time what's this company called digenex based here in India right here in Indianapolis I love that yeah they've done one of my great guys Greg lowen has done it and really built it from scratch We inherited it but it was a failing Enterprise and they've done a great job how long have you all been working on that we've done it about seven years oh yeah so now we should get Greg on the show yeah yeah he's a wizard yeah yeah it sounds amazing so I do want to backtrack a little bit so you started your first radio station in 1980 19 18.

the first one actually went on the air July 4th 1981. that was yeah that was started Emma started July 4th 1981. so almost 35 40-ish years in this business was it hard to sell all that off yeah very hard it was very hard but I knew it was time we sold Power 106 which was really the station that skyrocketed us even before fan Power 106 what became the first rhythmic top 40 station in America and just exploded and we sold it my daughter my oldest daughter said how are you doing or she said Dad I know you're at peace with this how's Rick doing and I said we're both at peace with it it was time to move on and nobody loved the business more than we did but again when you push water uphill every day it really demoralizes you and we said look we want to win at businesses again we want to grow again and that's my mission looking back do you wish you would have parted ways with radio earlier I'm a man who has no regrets but of course there's one chapter in the book where Sam Zell came to me and Sam said I want to merge J core with Ms you run it he was good friends with my friend Jerry run surf remember exam just passed away two weeks ago but Sam said you run it and it will create a mega company and I said Sam if I want to make the most money I would do this in a heartbeat because I know that two years from now you're going to say this thing's peaked and we and you'll be right we'll know it's Pete but I love it and it'll always provide a livelihood for my family so I didn't do it and sure enough two years later he sold it for billions whatever time I see him he said done this yeah hindsight's always 20 20.

I loved what it did I have no regrets none whatsoever when you look at some of the newer forms of media like podcasting and streaming and you talk about it a little bit in the book that the economics are a little bit challenged yeah do you think what do you think is the path forward for that model to really work the podcast the streaming model is very tough because of Licensing I used to give the example that I could stream I could take a radio station my radio station Los Angeles power 106. and my cost of distribution was 65 000 a year that was the electricity to power the transmitter wow so I could reach one person into Southern California or all 15 million with no income amount of cost but if I took my transmitter down and I streamed the same exact content to reach the same exact people when I did that example I think we had three million listeners a week the cost to reach them with data my cost to reach them and their cost to get the data from me and my music licensing was several million dollars a year that is an uneconomic Enterprise and no one's really made money yet I used to speak in the industry we've been streaming audio for 35 years sure and I used to ask people who's making streaming nobody ever does when you look at Spotify which has been the biggest success and a great consumer benefit yeah they have they're paying 65 cents of every dollar for licensing so once you add up all those costs and you take 65 cents every dollar you're never going to make money that's why they got into podcasting and they spent several billion dollars in podcasting and what they're finding is they can't make any money there either why do you think that is because again anything that finds a big audience in podcasting will transfer the value to them so Joe Rogan Yeah Ashley flowers here yep when you have that much demand and you have that much audience you the Creator takes the value for themselves you don't need a distributor you've got three million podcasts and probably a thousand no less than probably 200 of them make actual real money and those 200 are saying I can distribute this on my own yeah so that's the short answer it strikes me that a lot of the early success of emmis was being in those major metros New York and La yeah do you think it's possible that the money for podcasting and streaming I know less about streaming but could be in the long tail of lots of different shows I think it can I think the question is my favorite thing is this a business or a hobby sure and if it's got enough audience to be economically viable either through ads or subscriptions it's a business if not it could be something you love doing and it's rewarding but it's a hobby and I think that's I always when I speak to business classes I've said guys getting to something that's a business not a hobby if you have a reasonably strong desire to feed yourself and your family you guys are doing some work with podcasting right with underneath Ms we are doing we have a business called sound the brands headed by Rick and basically what we do is we take in laundry we create content for major brands that want for Trader Joe's and triple and Pepsi and Nat Geo and all the companies who say you guys we want to extend our brand and you guys are good creators so what do you look for when you're purchasing a business outside the ordinary of like p l makes sense I think it's just where do we think we can help this business grow is there something about us that can make this business grow yeah that's X Factor of yeah we have this strength they have this opportunity absolutely that's what we do yeah that makes a ton of sense you have an example of how that's worked out it's never worked out it's always yeah we got in the magazine business many years ago we said Gee actually a cousin Debbie Paul was the editor of Indianapolis monthly and they did it and she called me one day and said I hate to do this I got to do a story on you so we did a story and I got interested in the economics of the magazine and end up buying it and what we added was sales and marketing to really great editorial and we played that to Texas monthly in Los Angeles magazine in Orange County magazine in Atlanta and Cincinnati so we built a little magazine Empire that's so cool I marked by really marrying our strikes with the strengths of editorium I love that over the course of your career I'm sorry I'm seeing this this thread of Power 106 in Los Angeles big presence in New York yeah but you guys were headquartered in Indiana absolutely what time what kept you here it's home my family's been here 130 years I get asked that question people you're in New York you're in L.

A or San Francisco you're watched in Chicago what are you doing there and it's home I love it I've been a I've had a chance to be a part of helping transform it my political views are well known and they may be a little bit out of favor in Indiana these days but I've always tried to fight the good fight and make this a better place to live and I'm very proud of it and it's been very rewarding staying here and I this is where I'm from and this is where I'll but are there key characteristics that are like differentiate doing business in Indiana versus doing business in LA or New York when somebody tells you something in Indiana you usually take it to the bank and I'm very proud of that I'm upset frustrated about some of the things I think we make hiring and attracting and keeping talent in the state that bother me but the genuine nature of people here I love a friend of mine once said 30 years ago you can't be a bad guy in Indianapolis because everybody will know it in three hours so maybe that's true maybe that but it's just people tell you something here and you can take it to the bank that was a quote that resonated me from your book was you saying it's like you can't be a bad guy in Indiana yeah bad girl bad whoever because it is a very well connected ecosystem it is and it's and I admire the people I have made more friends here and love this community a lot I love that you love this community and this community definitely loves you back we are so grateful for you sharing some of your story here on get in today we have one last segment of the show which is our favorite segment it's a very Hoosier Centric okay it's called the lightning round okay so Nate do you want to explain the lightning round yes absolutely so I'm going to read three questions for you okay and the name of the game is speed first thing that comes to your mind all based around Indiana Hoosier State so outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for horn there we go all right good good what is one Hidden Gem in Indiana rebounding with the Pacers I've tried to be funny because we have no rebound I love it no it is a Hidden Gem yeah offensive line play with the cold today no I think just the nature of the people seriously people here are real people here are and I think that makes all the difference in the world that's amazing and then final question of the lightning round who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things I always think of Scott Dorsey I love Scott Scott's a very talented guy and I realize you guys would say there's he's already at the top anyway but to me he's like a young up and coming guy that's always looking at Scotty he had the ability exact target next to me and hey young there's a lot of people another one of my dearest friends is David Barrett a Glick a really talented guy I'm sure I could rattle off 50 but those are the two that popped in my head I love that thank you so much for your insights and your answers here thank you for writing this book again never ride a roller coaster upside down for those of you listening watching at home just an amazing book and for those in the Indianapolis area or if you want to go on a road trip we do have a copy from the central Indianapolis library that we are going to ask Jeff to sign and we're going to put back in the library so that it is a hidden Easter egg and we challenge you on Tick Tock and Linkedin and Instagram wherever you're at see if you can find the signed copy at the central Indianapolis Library Jeff thank you so much this was amazing my pleasure loved it this is so great every minute thank you guys this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or a segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powderkeg.

com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powder cake executive Community Check out powdercake. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listened to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast and video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at Powder Keg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82 percent off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted casted. us slash powderkeg