YouSaid · the spoken record

Danny Cohen

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67
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2023-11-08
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2023-11-08
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  1. “Just too many different ways, and I think that's going to be proved by not all of these platforms are going to survive. There's just too many, you know, you've got to have too many subscriptions. It's too much for people. It's too expensive. It's too confusing. I think you're going to see consolidation there, which is in the interest of business, but also in the interests of the consumer. We're going to be ever more curators of our own experience. I don't believe that people will want to stop having live experiences. Look at Taylor Swift's concerts. I mean, look at that. So I think people are going to want to live in the real world. I don't believe that people are going to only want to live in the other world. My big, big hope at the same time is people put their phones down more and spend more time with each other and spend more time experiencing things and thinking. I thought to myself quite a while ago, do I want to get to the age of 70 and think I've spent a huge chunk of my life staring at my phone? I think that would have been a depressing way to spend too much of your life. And so how we dislocate ourselves, how we wean ourselves off the addictive quality of our smartphones is, I think.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “There's some things I feel very traditional on. On that one, I don't think anyone should be changing role dial or Charles Dickens. I think you may want in your footnotes note something about that use of language, but it sort of undermines the intelligence of people not to be able to see and understand that. And if you want to read a footnote, do. But I think that cultural history stuff is stupid. Listen, it asks really, really interesting questions of how you feel about different artists over time. I love Virginia Woolf. I didn't feel great when I read that some of her diaries and diaries lit and there's some pretty unpleasant anti-Semitic things. So how you separate the art from the artist is also really interesting, important question and how you make sure you introduce nuance into these topics is really, really important.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I find there's two extremes to this now, and they both annoy me, right? People just use woke too easily now as a generalization. It's much more subtle, it's much more complex than that. So on one side, you've got woke, and on the other side you've got people who are woke criticizing people who are more traditional. And both sides have got to a point of, they've lost the ability to be subtle, to understand complexity, to understand nuance. And that means they're too easy to dismiss each other. It's too easy to dismiss people who are of more traditional values. Oh, they're just traditional, they're old school values. In the same way, it's too easy to go, oh, that's work, there's nothing to it. And I think it goes to polarization of debate. And I think it goes to social media has a role in that. I find both ends of the spectrum really, really off-putting because they don't allow for really actually thinking about it. They allow for too easy dismissal of people's opinions that are different to your own. And I'm willingness to understand why they have that opinion. And we need to reintroduce nuance and specificity to it. Every subject, every question in.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I think there's been mismanagement. Yeah, I think you could probably look at some of the tech companies, and they don't seem responsive to concerns. LEGO is another great story of that, is NERM, and it's an incredible thing. What Mattel are doing with Barbie's pretty exceptional at the moment as well. I mean, that's a remarkable story of taking a decades old brand and making it feel incredibly of the moment, incredibly contemporary. So I think it's always possible, but you have to have a strategy, a very clear strategy for doing so.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “You know, there's an initial clarity of proposition there and a consistency of proposition that I think you're awarded for. Often people overcomplicate things, I think, when it comes to a brand. A brand is hallmark of something you like and maybe quality, but it's also feeling a brand gives you. And a feeling is quite a simple thing in one level. It has to be clear and immediately accessible because feelings are things you don't think about them, just what you feel as a reaction to something. Some of the best brands, they keep the brand clear and consistent once they've achieved it, you know, success in it and that gives you a great advantage.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I think IKEA is very good at storytelling. I just think you know what they are, you know what their tone is, you know what they do, and they keep delivering. I think that's a really, really interesting brand. And also, some people can be good at storytelling and then lose their way. Know you can have a great brand and a clear story”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Undoubtedly. There, as I say, there are certain elements of it which you can learn, you can study, you can learn from people who are better at it than you. And some of them, as I say, they're fundamentals. It's about beginning, middle, and end. When you're thinking about storytelling, fundamental storytelling is a beginning, middle, and an end. So whether that's a novel or a film or a play or an investor pitching their business, what's the beginning and middle and end of your story? How do you want to tell it? How do you want to grow people's understanding? Where do you want to land some key points? Where are your reveals? All of those things are true of very different kinds of stories.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I think you're right. And it's a really interesting point of connectivity between the worlds I've been in. The entertained world is all about storytelling. And storytelling by companies and founders is not always as good as it needs to be. Sometimes it's about assuming too much knowledge I find sometimes with founders that they expect the person they're pitching to to understand a whole set of things about what they do or about the area they're in that investor may just not have. So I think a lot of it is breaking things down to their simple initial components and building a story. And storytelling needs thought it needs structure. it needs a shape it needs highlights it needs all of those things that are true if you're making a film or you're telling the investment story when you're pitching your business to me it has immense value and it's something i i love dearly”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I think it's the most perfect novel in the English language. When you start thinking about storytelling, and this is why I did an English literature degree, and I think that's given me great training for the rest of my work in terms of storytelling, you think about character, you think about structure, you think about plot, you think about dialogue, you think about the emotional impact of what you've read. For me, great expectations unifies those in the most perfect way I've seen in any book I've ever written. Actually reread it again last year. And I adore Charles Dickens.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “He also says do big things, do less and do big things. I think you've only got so much amount of bandwidth. Whenever I'm with him, I learn things every time from his business experience, a story he might tell. He'll say, you know, generally speaking, I found this and I've seen this pattern. So there are some like big things. But actually, when you're lucky enough to work with someone like that is one of the world's most successful businessmen, you learn from them all the time. You learn from every conversation.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “No. I mean, the musics has a lot of value, and the Hamilton soundtrack was released on the record company, Len Owns Born of Music, so there's been a lot of value in that. But if you're selling out theatre every night, you're going to start making money. And then the other thing you'll get is that if you invest in the original production, you have a right to invest in all the other productions around the world. So access and investor in Hamilton, in New York, but also in London and in Australia and in other countries. You earn that right by taking that risk, want to invest in a successful production as it moves around the world.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Concern about, and it's making us, certainly at this point at Access, Access Entertainment, much more cautious about what we invest in on Broadway because we just see these capitalizations rising so high.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Think a lot of it's cost based, part of that cost base is union costs. The union costs are many things in New York are higher. But what we're noticing, and we're finding it more and more extreme, is that the cost of financing a play or a musical in the West London and West End can be four times less than financing on Broadway. Now, I think this is really problematic for Broadway because Broadway partly benefits from and exists because of the generosity of some very wealthy people to keep backing a very, very high risk type of investment. And if those investors begin to feel the risk has just gone too high because the capitalization for this musical is now 25 million, where three or four years ago it might have been 15 million, and they think it's going to take three years to get my money back if that, even with the amazing goodwill of those people, those benefactors abroad, where they're going to begin to think differently about it. And they're going to ask themselves more and more questions about whether they want to be supporting that. Good for the West End in one way, but something I am growing.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Sort of depends how long it goes on for. But yeah, there will be a point, a pinch point in the next year to 18 months where there's probably a bit less content around them before if any industry pauses for four months, five months, six months, supply dwindles”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Disastrous for cinema, utterly disastrous. I mean, Barbie and Oppenheim were a wonderful moment. It actually became quite a frustrating moment because it was the biggest moment since the pandemic where you felt the electricity of cinema. You felt people returning in their droves. And then we were in a writers' anxiet. And the knowledge that there would be some kind of dislocation in content supply for cinema in the future. And so I found it both a joyous moment, but also because of the labor disputes and of course good news is one of them has already been solved, the writers one looks like there's an agreement. It was also quite a frustrating moment because you know I went to LA a couple of weeks later. There was a lot of frustration and disenchantment in LA.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I think I believe in storytelling as an incredible source of revenue in terms of film, television, theatre. In a way, you hinted at it. They won't necessarily be the high growth gaming or creator economy that it could do. But I believe fundamentally, if you find the right things, you can make a lot of money in that area. We look at Barbie, 1.6 billion and growing. I really believe that, you know, it's about hits and stars and it's hard. But I think the idea that you can't still make a lot of money from high quality, well-judged long-form storytelling is not correct. It's not all going to be about TikTok.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Maybe. I mean, there was an amazing woman in Wales that Nereina writes in the book who started these chatty benches in parks where it's a bench to chat on and people who needed someone to talk to could come and chat there and make a friend. So there's so many different ways both in the physical world and in the digital world where this needs addressing.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “So, Narina describes this in the chat book as the loneliness economy. It's wide. She found classes where people go and have hugs with each other. There's different ways of doing it where there's YouTube stars who eat loads and people find company in watching the meat and eat their food, particularly in Asia actually on this one. People get company from eating their meal with this person eating on screen. The range and diversity of the loneliness economy is huge. I think it's going to keep growing”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So, my much smaster me wife wrote a book about this three or so years ago before everyone started talking about it called The Lonely Century. So, yes, it's a huge, huge issue for young people as much as old people, the data around young people are actually lonelier than old people. There's some terrible stories and things around old people. But I think it's a massive, massive thing. Digital culture and social media and our phones have played a massive role in that.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You just have to cherish the person and make them feel special, and you do it at special moments like birthdays, but really it's about the way you treat each other every day, I think. It's about the way you treat each other every day.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, I don't know a fifth date was a holiday together. I mean together about 17 years. Just actually gets better and better. We didn't want to change anything because it feels pretty perfect. It's right for lots of people, but it just didn't feel right for the way we live and the way we want to live our lives. And we feel so fortunate to have what we have. We don't really want to mess with the dynamic.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “No, you don't need to say sorry because we're not apologetic about it. We just decided not to. We were so completely happy. We didn't want to mess around with it.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Marrying up I think Narina tells me that I'm confident enough in myself not to feel that, even though I know she's very, very smart. I think it's the best thing you can possibly do because it makes life very, very interesting. You can be proud of each other's achievements. Try and hold back that insecurity because the benefits of it are so great. And also, if you're both ambitious people, if you want to achieve a lot, you know, it couldn't be better to have a wife or husband who is the same.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “So I married up. I married someone much smarter than me. My advice would be marry someone smarter than you. My wife's lady called Nerena Hertz. She sits on a number of company boards. She's on the board of Warner Music, Mattel. She's also written a number of best-selling books. So she's clearly, clearly much smarter than me. Support your partner, enable them, liberate them, cherish them. Those are things I try and do and I know she does for me. So I'm fortunate to be very, very happily married”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, I think you've just got to keep bringing people around to focus on execution. That's what it's all about in the end. If you can just ask very granular specific questions around execution, that's what brings people back down to earth from the clouds.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Don't get carried away, it's hard. Lots of things can happen still in the future. Take a long-term view. Don't grow your ego. Remain humble. Keep listening. People often go wrong and I've seen it, you know, with people on television. People often go wrong when they get too carried away by a moment of success or a period of success.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “One of the things I've learned in these years since I've been an investor is if you believe in a thesis about certain areas, invest in more than one thing in that area. Something I did two or three years ago, we had a great company in an area, really believed in it. It grown very, very fast. And I was brought another opportunity in the same territory. And rather than thinking to myself, I really believe in this thesis. I really believe in this area, I can be in more than one. I thought I should just focus on this one, give that the attention in this area and invest more in that. And I didn't take the investment and it would have been an ax in about 15 months. So that was a really interesting, maybe painful learning. We all have those learnings and investing. But what I took from it was if you believe in something, it's okay to double down. It's okay to take more than one risk in an area. So that was one I really learned to a lot from.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “I always think to myself, Am I got the right people around me to help me? And I really believe I have, but that's the thing that you always want to keep testing. Can the people around me on the things I'm less good at? Can they answer the questions for me that I can't answer myself? I think that's the biggest thing. I think the other thing is, you know, you always have insecurity around certain investments you've made. You know, I think it gets particular rather than, you know, big fundamentals around anxiety. I think, you know, have we got this one right? What do we learn from it if we haven't got right? How might this change our investment thesis in this area? I think you can have insecurities around certain things. I'm not sure I have a kind of large macro insecurity.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Lack of bureaucracy, the agility of a place like access compared to managed about 3,000 people at the BBC, it's an organisation of 20,000 people. It's a huge tanker that takes a long time to move things around. So I think agility, flexibility, access to capital that you can spend on a range of different things. I think all of those things have been great.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “To some extent, you have to move with the trends. So, obviously, we've seen that movement from you know, it's all about revenue to Shemi, you can make some money, show me can make some profit. So it's partly about understanding how things are changing and how things are going to be changing the way they're valued. I think it actually just takes me back to fundamentals. Do you believe in these people? Do you believe in this idea? Do you believe in their execution?”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “The hardest thing to learn in a way is how strange the way the markets behave is because I don't find it always entirely rational. I found that quite surprising.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “I knew I had a lot to learn. I felt really nervous, which is what I wanted to feel. I didn't want to feel like I was going to keep doing the same thing for another two or three decades. And so the feeling of nervousness was an active decision. And it was about, as I was saying, that pathway to having an interesting career for another 25, 30 years. But yeah, I had a lot to learn. I had a lot to learn on the finance side. I had a lot to learn about investing.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “So it really varies depending on the size of the investment. So, if it's quite a small investment, it's something we might talk to Len just about directly, you know, in relative terms. If it's a very large sum of money, what we do is we get together. The way Len has built access, we have a real estate team and heavy industries team. We have biotech. We have real estate. We have some major investments in things like Warner Music and Desone. So we have a very wide range of small team, but a great range of experience across industries and in investing in general. We may not always have the specific industry knowledge. So we try and pressure test ideas together when we meet every week.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “I think when you're younger, you're related to hustle more, you're already put up with stuff. It doesn't mean that as you're old, you shouldn't put yourself into some uncomfortable positions and situations because you learn from those uncomfortable situations. I think you think, you know, I want to use my time in the most valuable way possible. And therefore, I want to enjoy what I'm doing. By the way, that's a privilege. I reckon a small percentage of the population, if you are able to do a job where you love it, you should realize how privileged you are.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Not really. I mean, it made me very cautious about working with those people again. But I think it certainly, if your trust is badly broken, it's very hard to go back.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “There's an immediate signal you're giving of confidence by investing or empowering a new CEO, then they've got to prove back a bit of confidence after that. So you've created the runway of confidence for them. But that doesn't mean they've got your confidence forever. It means that they've then got to validate, trust and verify. I think it's an example of that, really, isn't it? That you give that initial vote of confidence, but then you've got to help me show me I was right, give me the signs, the data, the results which prove I was right and that we're on the right path”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “It smells like well, if you know in your heart it's not working, do it sooner. We've all had that experience where you leave someone in place too long and you think we'll give them another chance and another chance, we'll do it. And then a year later or nine months or 18 months later, you make the decision you should have made 18 months ago and you think to yourself, I should have done that earlier, I knew it. I think when you know you know and you have to act because it's very, very rare that you go further down the line and you were wrong on that.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “I think the thing is if you are generally good to people, when you say something directly, they really notice. One is the product of the other. If your temperament is always be shouty or overaggressive, people begin to tune you out a bit. If you're supportive and helpful, it actually makes it easy when you have to say the tough thing because it's sort of, oh my God, they're saying that now, they must mean it. And I still think you can present that well. You can easily say, listen, I'm going to be very direct with you now, or I'm saying this because I think it's going to help you. And then you say something very directly. But I do think the two come together, that if you are thoughtful generally, then when you have to be very direct and sometimes tough, which I can be, you'll notice more because that's not your typical MO.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “And so sometimes the flags are around things which are not necessarily about, okay, here's our business plan, but the behavioral things around the way they talk to you and what it might tell about how they might run their business.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Good question. I think the holes come pretty clear pretty quickly, and hopefully you see those before the investment. You know, hopefully that initial meeting, initial Zoom, if you ask the right questions, the holes become pretty clear and you have a quick sense of either this isn't ready or this isn't for me full stop. Sometimes it could be something like you wouldn't expect, like they don't seem very discreet. You know, they're talking about other investors or they're critical of other people. Sometimes you get a flag like that. You think, this isn't going to be for me.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “People are feeling about their work, how you can encourage them the most, what kind of incentives they need, being very honest with yourself about what your strengths are and where you're much better to lean on other people. You mentioned it actually earlier when we were just chatting for you started about your network and the people you rely on who can do stuff better than you. Whatever business you're in, whether you're an investor or you run a business, being honest about what your strengths are and being honest about where you need to lean on other people, that is the secret of success to me. Secret success is surrounding yourself with brilliant people who can fill in the bits that you're not as good at.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “On stage tenant often come with a range of insecurities. It's a different thing that they take a risk and put themselves out in the public that the rest of us don't. And that involves risk and vulnerability. Most of us don't ever experience. That's something interesting in how you manage them and get the best out of them. I think that's actually one really, really important difference, that they take a different kind of risk. A founder is taking risk with people's money, an actor or an artist is taking a risk in a very public way about how people will respond to their art and what they're doing on stage or on film or in a gallery. I think that's actually one of the interesting things you have to do. And again, it comes around to how you manage people, how you understand what concerns them, what are the strengths you have other people might not have or you've got more of. I'll give you another example. I am not going to be the fastest in the room on the Excel. I understand how the Excel works. I can do the maths, but I won't be the fastest, but I may be one of the better people at understanding how”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Yeah, I sometimes go a bit back a bit further actually. I kind of like to know where people, what they were interested when they were teenagers and did they study university and all that matters, but there's two answers to that. One, the degree is interesting. But if they hadn't, maybe that tells you something else about them, their hunger for business and their desire for business. And I think you learn quite a lot about people when they almost tell their foundation story a step back from where you go. But I think that question of where you first made money is a really, really good one. I am also interested in have they always been in one area or have they moved around There's not one definite right or wrong answer to what that means, but you learn a lot from that also. You learn a lot about people's focus, their attention, their drive, the quality of their execution in the past. I like all of those details too.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “All of those things are some of those things. And they're as true of someone acting on the stager to 300 year old theatre as they are of a gaming company. And flexibility of mind, because as conditions change, what do you do about that? If conditions change, how flexible are you in changing your approach?”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Yeah, it's a great question. And it's a really interesting question also about how you decide someone is really smart and good. Let's take Leo as an example. I felt I knew pretty quickly that Leor and Akin were special. I didn't need to spend 48 hours in their company to understand that. Now, it was backed up by some metrics. It was backed up by what they'd previously done in the industry. It was backed up by the fact that already at an early stage of their company, they were already profitable. But you could just feel it and see it. And it really asks an interesting question about what is it about founders that gives you the confidence to invest in them? And I think it's this mixture. It's metrics, but it's also a question of emotional intelligence and an ability to read people, ability to understand what they're like, what you notice of some commonalities are extreme drive, focus on quality, an ability to separate what really matters from all the other stuff going on, a passion and an understanding for what they do, and attention to detail.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Keeping the bar high, the way access is run, it's a lean operation. We try and invest in other companies rather than build a lot of our own infrastructure. When I arrived, I couldn't quite understand that because the asset size that the access industries has and Lembla Vanick has is it's a lot of money, but it's a small issue. And it took me a while to understand that actually what it makes you do is focus on really exciting opportunities rather than just doing lots of things. So it keeps the bar high, focus on big things, not doing lots of things is a kind of important mantra access, an important mantra for Len. That's how we think about it. So keeping the bar high, bandwidth, making sure you're focusing on the right things. I think that's the biggest challenge.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “It depends what you're comparing it to. If you're comparing it to a fast growing tech stock, probably not. You can make money, but you're never going to make a huge amount of money. The real money comes in the creativity, the stars of musicals like Andrew Lloyd Weber and so on. You know, they're billionaires, and rightly so because they've created a piece of art which has lasted decades and people continue to want to see in that kind of area with theatre, IP is the key.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “That's true. I mean, it's centrally true in a theatre because you own the real estate. So as a minimum, it's a grade one. We own the Len owns the theatre or hay market. It's a grade one listed building. It's been on that site for 300 years. It's prime real estate in London. It has to have a specific use, but it's prime real estate in London. So there's no way of going to zero. The way of maximising its profitability is to bring in big stars and big shows. So, for example, in January, we have Sarah Snook, you know, Shiv from Succession. She's starring in a play at the hay market. She's actually playing all 26 characters in the new version of Dorian Gray. And that's a real sweet spot for me. Big talent and innovation. That's the way you maximize it, but you're right. You've got something there which has value. Similarly, if you have the privilege of working with someone like David Hockney, an immersive show with David Hockney has IP value that we share with him in terms of royalties and license fees. And you can take that show around the world. So you're right. The downsides in Narrow case is different.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “You're 100% right. It's one of the advantages and actually joys of working for someone, it's one person's capital because different things will have different types of value. Triple dot amazing gaming company, amazing founders. I think the sky's the limit and I think they'll continue to be great at executing. A theater, you get a certain rent a week. There's only the same amount of seats every week. Productions cost a certain amount. You can invest a certain amount in them. But I work in a very fortunate place where I work for someone who both likes making money and likes building big businesses, but also has a great love of the arts and a great love of storytelling and a great appreciation of talent. And so there are things we do in the mix at access which aren't about profit maximization, but are about smaller profits and also a love of the arts. And I feel extremely fortunate, actually, to be in that position because I love the arts and it's great to work with someone who is the same.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “So, this actually goes to the heart of the investment strategy I lead on access at my part of Access Access Entertainment. We don't think about one investment vertical film or television. We think about attention and eyeballs. And that attention and eyeballs, that can be across a wide range of entertainment experiences. You don't think about formats, but you think about talent and people across and companies, across the entertainment spectrum, then I think you give yourself the best chance.”

    2023-11-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source