YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Snyder

lines on the record: 57
first: 2018-02-26
most recent: 2018-02-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, it's different because it's in the philanthropic part of my life, and we've gone in with the expectations different. But look, I really believe that we can drive more revenues. As I said, if that turns out that we're making money, we're just going to hire more people. And I'm really passionate about this. And I think this is a platform that we can do a lot of good with.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, my best advice is just you just have to follow your internal compass and follow your true north. I've just seen so many times where people take a shortcut because they think that it's going to get them where they want to go and it ends up being the thing that kills them. And, you know, in the end, you oftentimes have to do, I just think if you take a long-term view, I've always thought it's a long life in a small world. So treat people well and that's the best advice you can take. And I just think. Just follow your internal compass. Always try to follow your true north. And it'll serve you well. Even in the moment, if it sometimes feels like it's not the most expedient thing to do, just know that in long term it'll pay off.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, he doesn't. But it's... It's an interesting anecdote about what it means to live in Washington. You know that you just have a greater spotlight. And whenever I travel, people are amazed at how, you know, senators and congressmen and presidents. But it's a small community here. I mean, it's a little, and it's actually one of the reasons I love living here. I really love this place because people are interested and they're doing interesting things they care about the world. It's tricky at times. But it's a place where people are making a difference. But at the same time, it's kind of a small town.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it is a little harder to get away. I mean, it's interesting. It is a company town, but I'm not really in, I don't work for the company. So you're a little bit removed from it day in and day out, but you're close to it. So by proximity, you can't ignore it. And yeah, I think it's disorient. I mean, it's disorienting for all of us no matter where you live. But it is interesting when you are in Washington, as you know, because you lived here because you get a disproportionate amount of attention. I'll tell you this when I bought the city paper, the Washington Post wrote an article.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Put your press release. But you know, the thing I'm a huge believer too in earned media, I mean, obviously you can look at the presidential election, the power of earn media is proven, but it's hard to measure. And so people don't know how much to invest, how much to invest. So if we can take this gigantic platform, we're the biggest company in the world by a factor of three and actually make it measurable, we think we can prove the efficacy of it and people invest more. I'm curious what you think.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think, you know, the detox idea is a good one. It's interesting. It is. But we love that. And I think finding other things like that that are centered around experiences is a really interesting trend that we're into.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm glad when you're there I don't think there's an experience anyone can have anymore that they don't chronicle. My goal is at some point to become a hermit where I just don't speak to any. I just go off of everything and I'll be gone kind of thing.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I'm a huge believer in this. And I also think as we get more urbanized and more heads down in our phones, just the need and the opportunity to take people away into nature and see the world and get away and unplug for a little bit of time is something that's just going to be a really, really important profound trend for a long time. So Limblad's one of the great leaders in that. So the anti-tech.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In DC, it was the size of your office and some building here. And today, well, that's what it was. But, you know, and today, your brand is who you are on Instagram, right? And Facebook. And so, you know, we take people to the Arctic to take pictures with the polar bears in Antarctic, with the penguins and the blue-footed boobies and Galapagos. And there's like an insatiable desire for people to do that.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Capital constrained, huge returns on capital, great brand entrepreneur built the business, never had a partner. We met him. We gave him capital to grow. But it was basically the theory that people in the world want experiences, not stuff. That is true. And we take people to, you know, and it's interesting. I thought about the arc of my own career, you know, when I started on Wall Street, it was what tie you or suit you wore and moved to LA. It's what car you drove.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of advantages to going public this way, I believe. We've proven it. It has to be the right situation. It's not right for every company, but it's right for a lot of companies. And every one of the ones that we've done, the companies were effusive about the experience and our investors made money. And it's been great. So we're looking for number four. The company that we did out of the second one, I love a company called Lindblad Expedition. So if the company takes people in partnership with National Geographic, like Arctic, Antarctic,”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Burning a hole in your pocket. Well, looking for the right company to invest in. And our thing is that we're really long-term investors. This is what I was doing with my own capital, and this is a way to do it at bigger scale. So I think we're really good partners to management teams.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, attitude towards nuclear. Yeah. So, you know, what I decided to do is to not do a ton of things, but every year to find a company that I could buy, which not the city paper. That is not the investment part of my life. Yeah, those are like the philanthropic parts of my life, the real business part of my life is every year to finding a great company we can buy and help be a catalyst to grow. So I've used these public vehicles called SPACs. So that's what capital investment for. So we go out and we raise, last one we raised $400 million. It's a public company. Shamatha. Shamath did do that. Yeah, we've been doing it for 10 years. We've done three successful, really successful deals with it. And we just raised our fourth one in August.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind I think they're at the beginning of their journey. We'll see where it goes. I was surprised to hear as you were to hear that. I think ultimately it's not a sustainable ecosystem where people produce content and someone else monetizes it. Right. That's not going to work in the long term. So something's got to give. And I think hopefully there's models that they are good for them and also good for local publishers who can invest in the content. One thing Carol, we've posed, I mentioned one area, sports that we're looking at job. We just put someone new in locally and the editor Alexa tells me, she says, Mark, every time we post a job, she goes, I'm embarrassed by the amount of high quality people we get who want to work here. There are so many journalists looking for a platform, high, really high quality journalists. So there's way more content that should be written that is being funded right now. And I've said with this, if we ever make money, it's all going back.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But when you think about it, when you look at the Facebooks of the world as a media owner, they're in a lot of trouble lately of how they behaved. And Campbell was there quite, it was just on our stages and caused a lot of conjuration. You said, I'm not here to help publishers make money, which I'm like, you kind of are. That's really kind of your job. But okay, but the point she was making is it doesn't work. It doesn't work. We're not the be-all end all, and yet everything's moved to Facebook or people's news distribution has happened there.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, this is something I'm passionate about, but it isn't my day job. My job is to help and be a catalyst, bring the talent and capital and relationships. But this isn't what I'm doing day in and day out.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think that the local journalism, it's interesting, literally in the three months I've been looking at this, I feel like we just found ourselves in the path of progress. So Facebook just hired Campbell Brown to focus on local news. Google is focused on it. The World Economic Forum, like everyone feels like this is something they've got to crack the code on. I think obviously with the election, people are realizing the issue of not having real news. And people are realizing there's some amount of effort on the national level, but local is really important. And so I feel like we're in the path of progress. How it all comes together and manifests itself into something sustainable, we'll see.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How do you create those? Because here you are trying to create sort of reinvigoration of a media that was popular and then saw some really hard times. How do you do that as an entrepreneur, like thinking about it? Because I'm thinking local, like local is a really good idea. I mean, you have in LA Times just got bought by a billionaire there who's a local billionaire, so I think it's better than the Tronk billionaires, that guy from Chicago. When you're looking at all this, a really interesting thing of how you, Steve Case talks about this, how do you create... Elsewhere. Because that's what's going on right now around jobs and Elsewhere in this country.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Irritated or annoyed and stuff like that. Everyone knows that that's part of what comes with the territory. And I know that I'm going to have uncomfortable moments. I already had. I had someone call me last week. I haven't seen in a while. Could I come see you? I hear the paper is doing something, writing something. And I just said, I'm not getting involved in those things. And I just think mostly everything you do in life that's positive has some negative. And on this one, I'll take.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I believe that it's important to support high quality journalism. I didn't want it to go away and I didn't want it to be minimized. I wanted it to be everything it can be. That was it, period, full stop. That was the reason I did it. And I think we're living in a time where it's more important than ever. And so we can do that. I don't need to go there. And you just say I'm not getting involved in editorial one way or the other. And you walk the walk and you prove that. And you have that separation. That's what we've done, and that's what we're going to do And that goes by the way for everyone else who was involved around that, all the advisors and everyone else, they all play by the same rules. Right.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're not a meddling owner. You don't go there. I mean, I've literally been to the office twice. Once when I was thinking about buying it and once with a bottle of champagne when we did it, I haven't been back.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sort of, I wouldn't say meddling because it never really got to that, but it was definitely a constant worry. How do you look at the new, when you look at that, what do you think about as being the owner? Because you've got to be super, I mean, Piero Midiar got in trouble at the intercept, you know, and all good intentions, by the way, Pierre has a lot of like astonishingly good intentions. But when you think of, and Bezos has managed rather well to stay out of the news on being a meddling owner, but how do you look at that?”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're good because of what When you are with your editor, she was part of finding an owner. I know that. And you do want to find a good owner when I was looking for money. I was definitely very wary of venture capitalists, for example. I just didn't want to talk to them. I didn't want them to have any control over me. And so I picked people, I picked NBC and Terry Semmel, who are both media people. You know what I mean? That really did understand those things. And even then, it's hard. Even then there's often every now and then, even when I was working at the journal, there was always...”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but if you read the cover story about Treon White, the new council member, it's an amazing story. It's a 32-year-old up-and-coming guy just got elected. And it's really a positive story about a guy who's a positive guy. And you know what? I actually believe readers want to read those. I think there's a role. I think people want to hear good because of what you've said. Everything else gear is so negative. And they can't be Pollyannish, but I think if there's good stuff happening and you can write about those things, I think there's a lot of desire for people to read that.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Loose lips, right? So when I was thinking of buying it, a very prominent person in town came over to me and said, I heard you think of buying the city paper. And I said, what are you talking about? I said, come on. And I said, well, I'm thinking about it. And they said, well, then are you going to kill loose lips? And I said, well, now that you've said that, I'm definitely not killing. First of all, I'm not making editorial decisions, but we're not. So it is known for that. But I'm not a believer in snark. And Alexa.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I actually think it's become a little less, I think, when you have, I think it was that was they had to stake out their role in the community. And when the post was doing what it was doing, that was the right role. I think now that the post has become somewhat more nationally focused that We can be a little less known for just doing that. I think we are the ones to hold people's feet to the fire. We do hold people accountable, especially local politicians It's funny what I was thinking of buying this.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All of these things, any one of these could. One of the issues around city paper is, I remember, is always bite the hand that feeds you, essentially. Which now it seems tame in comparison, City Paper was always really holding me to the fire of power, including People like the 930 Club, like all your advertisers, was always an issue when I was there was that. And it was quite tense now. I would assume even more”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But look, I'll give you another just interesting thing that we thought about is the arts organizations in town are the ones who really provide 80% of our advertising. They sell about two and a half million tickets a year in Washington. If you add up the sports teams in town, they sell six million tickets. We get not a dollar from them. But what are the best way to reach the millennial audience? So we're actually going to start a sports section. And we're not going to cover since we're weekly. We're not going to cover games and standings, but we're going to tell the behind the scenes story of the athletes and the teams. Fantastic stories, the same story as we tell about everyone else in town. And we believe in that the sports organizations will then want to be supportives of ours. All of these things, any one of these could tilt us over to...”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think just like I've done with the other companies that we've bought where you find a really good company you can make better, I think we can execute a lot better. So the company has lost money for five years, but it hasn't lost so much money. So incremental things make a huge difference for us. I think we can execute on the sales side in a big way. And if we just tap into the people who believe in what we're doing That will make a gigantic difference. That's one. I think we can have a much better digital footprint. So we're going to transfer the platform to something that's a lot more user-friendly and better for serving ads. I think we can do better there. Events is a gigantic opportunity for us. You ask you, the ad, the ads are the local entertainment. It's arts is what it is for us.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, let's talk about the business models of these things, because most of these, as I recall, when I was there, was selling ads to like 930 club. I know Seth Hurwitz is involved. It was club things. It was beer. There was a lot of liquor. And that was the city paper. And the Washington Post, of course, had Heckinger's and Woody's and things like that, which soon died. And classifieds was a very important part of the city paper. Now Craigslist decimated everybody, essentially, and more other technologies like that. I think probably Craigslist did more to decimate local newspapers because that was, but the fact of the matter is classifieds weren't good. They were expensive. They didn't work. They were static. People on the other end were rude. All kinds of problems with their businesses that they never fixed or addressed. But how do you, when you're thinking about that business plan, advertising is the number one, correct?”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're gonna see what happens. There is, I believe, an audience for print that gets given to people on street corners. There is, if you look in our paper and you look at the Kenney Center, the 930 Club, the Anthem, there is no single better way to see every show that's coming in town in those venues than picking up the back page of the city paper is the best. There's no digital equivalent.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can make a huge impact in the world, but people make movies and documentaries. I think this is going to be a category that people really focus on. I've seen it myself. The amount of people are interested. So I think there is, and then there's actual real foundations who you can raise money from to get grants to do journalism, of which we're going to tap into. But ultimately, what we've said is we're going to stand this up and give it a long runway and a lot of resources. Ultimately, it does need to stand on its own. I mean, at some point it needs to. And we do think we can through a combination of their grants, events, which is a big thing, the way people use these platforms.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Journalism, essentially, a ruin. Indirectly. It wasn't the goal, but yeah, through the things that they founded. So I think that's a really interesting point. It's something that I've given a lot of thought to recently is that, you know, as people are successful and they try to make a difference in the world, you can be involved philanthropically, you can be involved civically. Some people buy art, some people buy sports teams. I actually think this is going to be a new category of things that people say”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, and there's So, can you talk a little bit through that? Because, you know, I think about this a lot because journalism isn't a charity, but it is. It's sort of become that way. Bezos is, I think they're making a tiny bit of money. It's not an enormous money. I always bug internet billionaires to invest in the New York Times and things like that. I'm always trying to get one of them to put a billion dollars into something like the New York Times. I'm like, what would they do with a billion dollars? And so, you know, it's interesting that as now internet people that they're getting the money from or tech people, but that's where the money is. And they're interested in it. And some of them are guilty for having ruined local journalism, essentially, or ruined the business model.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we had Ted Leone Cis got involved, Jose Andres got involved, Chef Jose Andres, Jeremy Zimmer, who's not local, but from the West Coast, heard about it and said, I want to help you think through this. Mark Walsh, who you know. And there's a whole bunch of more people coming just because since it got announced, that was the small group of people who I talked to before we announced it. And there's a whole bunch more. And then on the journalism side, the alumni network of Jake and Tanahasi and Kate, hopefully you. So everyone's wanted to help. And so hopefully in that goodwill and offers of support, we come up with a model that works.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so let's start with what the problem is, which you outlined is that. New generations aren't used to looking in print. They never, it's never becomes a habit. And so print dies, you have to survive on digital is the common wisdom. And it's hard to sell digital if you're niche and small, which is why people try to aggregate big audiences. That's where all the dollars are. And so that is the problem. As it relates to the city paper, I've never Done anything in my life that I've had such an outpouring of support. There's gratitude, but there's also heartfelt and meaningful offers of how can I help? What can I do? And so people around town, people who own businesses, prominent people, everyone has said, what can I do to help?”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I really did see the impact of digital technologies on these areas, and local news seemed to suffer absolutely the most. And getting no coverage, city halls, corruption, were things that really needed attention. And City Vapor has been at the forefront of that for years. Talk about your sort of business idea of how you save this, because that's really what you're charged with doing.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, we're here talking with Mark Ein, he's an investor and entrepreneur. He's founded lots of companies, he's been a venture capitalist, but most recently he's gotten in the news for buying an alternative newspaper here in Washington, D.C. called The Washington City Paper where I began my career. I was fired from the city paper, by the way”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So then we need to make sure that doesn't happen. And it's really been something I've been thinking a lot about. I didn't know exactly how to act on it, subscribing to a lot of things. And here was a way to do it in a meaningful way, especially at a local level. And so it's something I've really thought a lot about. And I've been, you know, I've been disturbed by the attacks on the press, the norms, the institutions of our country. And I think one of the best ways to combat that is to have a strong, high quality journalism.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think any local community needs strong local journalism. And I think local ownership is helpful having someone who really cares about the community makes a real difference. I'd say my conviction for it only grew dramatically in the last five years, and especially in the two years. And that's why when it came back in the fall, I jumped at it. I jumped at it, first of all, I met the woman whose young woman who's the editor who's fantastic Alexa Mill. She came to my office. With my venture hat on, I thought this is the kind of person I'd want to back. And so that was it. But then secondly, I've just... I think journalists are saving the world to some extent right now. I think if you closed your eyes and you imagined a world without. Free press, that would be a really scary world.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, it has an incredible alumni network. You mentioned Jake and Tanahasse and Kate Boo, and of course, Kara Swisher at the top of the list, but also an amazing number of people who today write for the post have been have passed through the city paper. And so five years ago, I looked at buying it, but I got sold as a portfolio. I couldn't spin it out separately.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, tennis was, I played a lot of tennis when I was a kid So, you then bought the city paper. Explain that. Explain how it happened. And then in the next second, we'll talk about local news and where that's.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love the sport and I love the people in it. And I said we've won a lot of championships. We've set all kinds of records. But to me, the most meaningful part of that 10-year experience is you look around the stands and I see families having great times in the summer and helping local charitable partners who get Venus and Serena to teach them tennis. And those are things that really matter.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Yeah. So we even done a bunch of, I mean, WTT has been the innovator in tennis. We were the first ones to do instant replay online calling and shot clock and all kinds of stuff. Last year we were the first tennis event ever where we miced the players during the match was amazing. You could hear them talking to each other and hear their strategies during the match. We have a bunch more coming this year. So we do think if you want to appeal to millennial audience, you need to have a product both in person and on the screen that's millennial friendly. And so we're doing all kinds of things to track.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, the great athletes in tennis are iconic athletes back to Stan Smith and Arthur Ash in today's Serena and Roger Federer are iconic and they're highly sought after by companies. Serena's played for our team. She's been a good friend and she's always had an eye to business. I always knew she would get more involved in it. But tennis is not as big in the States as, say, basketball is. But the quality of the athletes and human beings in tennis, I think, is unparalleled in the sports world. The athletes really understand their role in society and they embrace it and try to be forces for good”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, the tennis has not been a business. That's been a labor of love and a passion. You brought up from Billy Jean kid. I bought the franchise in Washington 10 years ago from Billy. Well, Billy owns the league, so I was a franchisee. And then I bought the league from Billy last year. And yeah, I just tennis been a big part of my life. I think that sport in particular is a wonderful sport for kids. It teaches you so much. You're on the court by yourself. It teaches you disciplined self-reliance. A whole bunch of great things that's been helpful in my life. And so I wanted to bring that team to DC. And our mission really was to use it as a community platform to bring people together to help local charitable partners. And we've done that along the way. We ended up winning a lot of championships and having a lot of success in getting the city behind us, but it's been a very rewarding experience.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Washington actually, but it's all kinds of smart buildings. Mark Cuban has talked about it moving by. I mean, buildings, to me, there's certain areas that are going to get bigger buildings. Property is really home and commercial is done in such an antiquated way. It reminds me of Oracle database. It's like, why do they have, why do they do it the way they do it when it can be so much different given all the cameras everywhere, you know, given all the, not just cameras, but ability to sensors? I just think it's a really interesting area. So you did that. And then you got into tennis. Why?”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's local, and the nature of the people in it's just not. There's a whole bunch of reasons. I've thought a lot about this because even sometimes we'll introduce amazing new technologies, and it's hard sometimes to sell new stuff. Now, that's great if you're the embedded provider because you're less likely to get disrupted. It's a little harder sometimes to get new things introduced. But we've done amazing things. We created a system in Washington where building owners can get their video monitored by the police department. So that was one of the things that hit me actually watching 24. I was watching 24 and they're chasing the bad guy and they're chasing him on the camera and they go, he's coming out of camera view. And Chloe O'Brien says, tunnel in, tunnel into that camera.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It just was everything you would ever want in the profile of what I was saying, an amazing platform company. It had a great business model, a great brand, a great embedded, and so much room to grow. We could go to more geographies. We could go to more verticals. We could introduce more products into our. So like there were just so many things we could do when we got it. And the founder of the company, who is an absolutely wonderful guy, built a great business, but he was sort of at the point where he was ready to move on and was looking for a caretaker for that company. I haven't met probably 25, 30 people who said they tried to buy it, but they never hit it off with him. He and I met the first time and he an hour later walked out and he told his number two person to sell the company to that person. And it's just been a great ride. It's a great company. And, you know, it's a great business, but we also do something important. We protect people and property. And the world we live in is not getting safer.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That people call it that, even if it's not your company. And so I got to introduce the company and I came back to the office and I told my assistant, come here and bring my calendar. And I said, cancel everything for the next month. And she said, what are you talking about? You've never done this. I said, just cancel everything. I'm dropping everything in my life until I see if we can do this. And three weeks later, we had a deal to buy it.”
2018-02-26 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Can an alt-weekly newspaper survive in 2018? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT