YouSaid · the spoken record

Strauss Zelnick

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85
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2023-10-10
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2023-10-10
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1
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  1. “Non economically, because if I'm not wrong, I'm not settling. And once you make it clear that if you're not wrong, you're not settling, people don't bother you. Spurious lawsuits go away. At that time, they had zillions of lawsuits because it's not how they operated. So the team had actually called me at 10 o'clock in Friday and saying, this is going on in Hollywood, someone's going to steal this intellectual property. So we're going to file a lawsuit. I was like, oh, no, we're not doing that. That makes sense. Let me see if I can get them to stand down. So I called my friend who was at the studio and said, this is a bad idea you really shouldn't do this. And they were like, we can do it and we're going to do it. And I said, I'm really asking you not to do it. And they said, well, that's very nice, but sorry, we're going to do it. And I said, I said, why don't you go think about it? Because it's a mistake. I went to law school to actually know something about copyright and trademark laws. It turns out oddly. And I'm not going to bore you with all the intricacies of law. But the bottom line is you can use any title you want. But if you use the underlying intellectual property, that's a violation. And it's hard to take a title of something.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Hollywood were populated by old friends of mine, and I called up and said, you got to stand down. It's a fun story. I'm not going to tell you the name of the intellectual property, but they were going to infringe and make a movie and steal it and let us go fight them. We can't protect titles in Hollywood. Titles are not protectable. So they basically took the position you can't protect the title, so we're going to make a movie based on this IP, which was Legacy video game IP, because Takeo owned a lot of legacy video game IP. Historically, with Take To Did in those situations, they immediately filed lawsuits. They had lawsuits galore. I don't do that. Take two is now a $27, $28 billion enterprise. We literally have two lawsuits pending, and they're with patent trolls. I don't have a choice. So that's not how I operate. If I'm wrong, I settle if I'm not wrong. I never settle. Generally, that keeps you from having to pursue much litigation, especially because we're not wrong most of the time. People know that if I'm not wrong and you want to sue us, you'll be in court endlessly. I will use every resource I have included.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Have to ask Greg. He didn't even remember the conversation last time I mentioned it to him. I promise it did happen. We went in and we started doing rational things. So we settled with whatever authorities we could settle with. In other instances, the settlements took longer. And we just started making sound decisions. And the prior management had made so many poor decisions that the difference was really night and day. And we were tested by the people who were at Take 2. We took over on a Friday morning and Friday night at 10 o'clock there was a huge crisis at one of the labels and I had to step in and solve that problem over the weekend. I think that crisis was largely manufactured to test whether I could. And I did. Would it happen was one of our labels had an interesting intellectual property that the Hollywood studio was about to infringe upon basically try to steal. And the company that was trying to steal it in Holland.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Remember, I've been an operator my whole career, so I wasn't a professional investor who became an operator. I was a professional operator who became an investor. And when we started ZMC, the idea was that we would invest and operate. It had been CO, the first company we bought it at ZMC, which was Columbian Music of Japan. And I was executive chairman of other businesses inside ZMC. So it was not much of a stretch. then partner and co-founder of ZMC, Ben Fedder, was the CEO of Take 2I was the executive chairman, but I was not the CEO, and I was not planning to become the CEO. And I only became the CEO four years later in 2011 when Ben decided to take a leave of absence for personal reasons for a year. And I at that point had to step in as CEO.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “But we didn't actually own a share of stock. We couldn't because we owned stock, we would have been running the risk of creating a group when we spoke to other shareholders. We didn't want to do that. So we didn't create a group until about three weeks before the annual meeting. And the group was only held together for about a month. As I said, we won with 88% of the vote.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “We didn't really have to because the reason the deal was compelling to us was it had a plain vanilla Delaware unamended charter which enabled one to show up at the annual shareholders meeting and take a floor vote and in the event the floor vote went in your direction you could fire the entire board and the management team and take over the company and that obviously usually isn't an option but the company had been so poorly managed that the stock had fallen to the hands of professional investors and hedge funds who were desperate for new leadership and under SEC rules we were allowed to go solicit up to 10 holders and we did and we spoke to 10 holders and asked them to vote for us at the annual meeting and we got 88% of the vote that's never happened before since so we didn't have to price a deal because we didn't write a check we had a pay our legal fees and have we not gotten the company we would have eaten those legal fees”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I didn't like that part of it. It was still a seasonal business, it was primarily a holiday business. It had a lot in common with the toy business, which wasn't great. And there were still economic order quantity issues around some of the business, less so than previously. In the old days, when it was a cartridge business, that was a real problem. So it wasn't like everything was great. The other thing I found compelling is I like doing turnarounds. When a company is that troubled, it's not like you think you can make it worse. In other words, I was pretty sure that whatever I did, it couldn't be worse. Anything was going to be up from there. That's what led us to take 207.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “That company had been successful, and I'd started BMG Interactive in that company, had ultimately been sold to Take 2. So I knew that business at least. And I understood the dynamics of the business. And I had a pretty good sense at interactive entertainment was well positioned for growth. Moreover, I had a sense that not only did this company own the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which was huge, and I felt could be more huge, and I knew they had niteration in the works that would generate a lot of revenue and cash. But I also dispensate some other things that were going on that probably could be improved, for example, basketball, their sports business. And the business itself, the industry was dynamic enough that I was pretty sure we could create other intellectual property that would be successful. There were things I didn't like too. At that time, the interactive entertainment business was still highly cyclical, driven by hardware replacement.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Let's see. The chairman had been indicted. The CFO was under criminal investigation. The company was under criminal investigation. The company was also under investigation by the IRS, the SEC, and the New York DA's office. The company had fired its auditors, failed to file financial statements, canceled its annual meeting. It had one product, then Bame Bunny, the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Everything else lost money. It had revenues the year that we took over around $700 million in its core business. It was an ancillary business we sold. It was losing, I want to say, around $100 million a year on that. It had $50 million in cash. It didn't have any debt, which was a good thing. And it was probably six months away from bankruptcy. Apart from that, it was in great shape. What was appealing was it was in the interactive entertainment business, a business I knew well because I'd gone to Crystal Dynamics as the pre-revenue CEO.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “But the content of the book really is how to sell and how to lead. And those principles are principles I try to follow to this day. And I did spend a lot of time in sales, and I still do. We raise funds, for example, at DMC. I have to sell. And how do you engage people in a selling environment? You try to meet their needs. How do you know what their needs are? You ask them. You listen. You don't try to sell against them. You don't try to convince them to have other needs. You try to meet their needs. And it's true in leadership as well. And that took me to complete the diatribe for which I apologize took me to working with creative talent because ultimately you're leading a particular kind of person to try to create hits. And to do that, you have to be of service to that person. And you have to be of service to that person in the way that they need to be served so that they can bring their genius to the table.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Save you the trouble of reading it, although you should read it if you haven't, and anyone should who's in business or in sales. But the principle really is take a sincere interest in other people with emphasis on the word sincere. Stop thinking about yourself, think about others, put yourself in others' shoes first and foremost if you want to get along in the world. Draw other people out, care about other people, serve other people. So the title of the book really is against it, because the title sounds like how to be the most popular boy in the class, right? It's not very compelling.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And that was okay. I also read a book at the time, anytime I'm asked about this, I talk about it. And I've always been a big reader. Remember in those days there was no internet, never mind Wi-Fi on airplanes. And I flew all the time back and forth wherever I was going. So on those days, you read on planes, and I liked reading. I was heading actually back to New York, I remember. And this was right about the time that I had this crisis where it was clear I was either going to figure it out or I was going to fail at Fox. And so I was in the bookstore at the airport. Remember when airports had bookstores looking for a bookstore and I couldn't see anything to read. So I like scanning the shelves and I see how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. And I thought, I've heard of that. That sounds so goofy and lame, but I don't know. Maybe I'll just pick it up. I read the book. It is in fact the best book on salesmanship and leadership ever written. And I just swallowed the book, Hook, Line, and Sinker.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Good news is for me, is that I'm very self critical and I don't mind criticism. And I really did want to succeed. And I needed to succeed. And the other news is I don't default to being defensive. And I tend to err on the side of taking responsibility. Basically, when I realized what I had done wrong, took a beat. I actually sat in Barry Diller's office. I sent him, I made a horrible mistake about how I approached this. I didn't bother talking about all the things that he or others could have done to support me or help me. Because what's the point? I took responsibility for the mistakes I made and got a chance to do a reset. And I did do a reset that led to great success. These stories don't have all happy endings. I was burdened the whole time I was at Fox with how I chose to enter. And I had to work long and hard to change the reputation that I built and I had to learn a different way of approaching things. The good news is I wanted to do that.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And you know, the thing is, I was right about a lot of it. I was right about almost all of it. But it was irrelevant because my tone and approach was completely wrong. Years later, I had a business coach named Gloria Henn who's retired now. She's phenomenal business coach. And she said to me, you're really good with the words. You're not always so good with the music. So I showed up with the song sheet, but I forgot about the music. I just had the words. And I was really ineffectual because the entire organization just seized up against me, even though I was the president. And I nearly failed. I nearly got to a point where I was so incapable of getting anything done that the fact that I was right and I had all the right ideas didn't matter.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “It was in last place at the box office. It had a bloated operation and it's international operations were no good. And Rupert Murak and Barry Diller were dead set on turning it around, which is why they brought me in. They did not bring me in as a caretaker. I had a big brief of stuff I needed to get done. I just went in assuming I know what to do, which I did, and other people will rely on me to do it, which was not true. Barry and Rupert were relying on me to do them. No one else was. And I didn't think that not having relationships or not being known or getting to know people was even relevant. I just thought, hey, guys, this is business. We're here to do business. So I showed up despite the fact that this is Century City in August wearing my Brooks brothers suit. I'm not kidding and polished shoes. This is long ago. So I was wearing suspenders and necktie. And to say that I didn't read the room implies that I bothered to look around the room. I thought, no, that's irrelevant. I went in all guns blazing. I was going to change everything all at once.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So I had this pretty quick progression. I was a Columbia Pictures for two years and I got promoted to become the youngest VP of Columbia Pictures. I got recruited to Vastra and within nine months became the president of Astron, which was already the largest independent. And then it was only three years after that when I was recruited to become president and chief operating officer of 20th Century Fox. And I was 32 years old. And I thought I had pretty well figured this business out. But I completely missed that being president of a large independent in those days was utterly meaningless to the major motion picture business. It was lost on me that I had no real relationships in Hollywood because I had worked on the East Coast because that's where Vesta was headquartered. I didn't realize because I wasn't self-aware enough at the time. I came in with no credibility. And I thought that the business card, the title in the office was the credibility I needed to succeed. And Fox was a turnaround.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “One basketball title, and he has numerous other titles like WWE 2K, PGA Tour 2K, and many other titles would have been hugely successful and continue to be successful in sports. There was something about the nature of that engagement at that time that caused Greg to stop and give me another chance. I do think had I come in and said, I strongly great at this stuff and I know everything. I have some wonderful ideas for your basketball game. And here's a magazine that I was on the cover of and here's where I went to school. Had I handled it that way, which is some people's style, but not mine, he would have left. Or had I said incidentally, I want to let you know that I think your strategy or your execution or whatever is lousy and I'm going to give you some ideas to fix it. I have learned and I learned the hard way to break no glass initially and to listen first and err on the side of treating people with great respect.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And self confident and real smart came into the office and he said, I've heard you're a decent guy and I imagine you have some interesting plans for trying to make this a better company, but I've had it. I want you to know I'm leaving. And there's nothing you can say. Please don't even try. It would embarrass both of us. I've just got to move on. I cannot do it here anymore. And I said, I hear you. I understand. I know exactly what you're saying. I'm going to ask you to do something for me. And he said, what's that? I said, I'd like you to give me three months. Just give me three months. And if at the end of three months you feel like it's a lost cause, you can go with my blessing. But in three months, I'd like to be able to show you that this is a kind of organization that you could be happy working in. And he thought about it. He really didn't want to say yes. And Greg could work anywhere and could have at the time. And he said, because he's a good guy, he said, okay, I'll give you three months. And Greg is still running visual concepts today, 17 years later, MBA 2K is the number.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Crazy, anyhow. The people I work with who are fully established people with strong backgrounds who had paid their dues elsewhere in most instances. But what I did do is give them a reason to work within the enterprise that I was part of when they might not otherwise have done that. For example, I'll tell this story even though it's a bit out of school. So Greg Thomas runs visual concepts, which is the company inside 2K, which is a division of Take 2, that makes our sports games. self-serving, but I believe it's true visual concepts makes the very best sports games on the planet. And Greg elite's at team. And TechToo is a very troubled company. When my team took over in 07, and I went out to visit with Greg, who worked in Northern California because he was one of the most important people to come in, even though our sports business was tiny in those days. And I remember sitting in my temporary office out there, and Greg, who is an adult.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I wish I could say his talent spotting because that would be better for my career if I could say, wow, I was just walking down the street. There was Sam Hauser. And I was like, Sam, you should be in the video game business. It doesn't work that way. I think I've been fortunate.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I'm not even in the back seat. I'm in the caboose. And that also is consistent with my personality. I don't want to get credit for something I didn't do. That's not who I am. I guess I wouldn't mind credit for something I did do. But I really don't want credit for something I didn't do.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “And if you have issues whether they're business or personal, I actually am here to help and I genuinely care about you as a person.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Comfortable saying those words first because they're true, but secondly is because, and I didn't have anything to do with hit creation, nothing whatsoever. I did have something to do with creating an environment that made that possible. And I mentioned the selection of talent and the engagement with talent. And I think the other piece is, and I don't think this is like any terrific or rare skill, but I am going to run a rational organization that's appropriate, highly compliant, efficient, organized, sound at making decisions and come and well financed. So I'm able to say to a creator, look, this is a safe place to work. No one's going to raise their voice. No one's going to let their ego interfere with what you do, myself included. No one's going to take credit for what you do, myself included. We're not going to do anything crazy on your watch. We're not going to go bankrupt. You're not going to be fighting off silly announcements. I'm not going to be on page six. None of that's going to happen here. Oh, and by the way, we'll be kind to you.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “And then I'm good at getting out of the way. I don't have any fantasy about my own talents, and I'm okay with that. And there are a couple areas where I think I have some expertise, and I'm fine sharing those. But I found that identifying the top talent and persuading them to work within your organization and then encouraging them to seek perfection and pursue their passions is actually an unusual set of skills in the entertainment business and a willingness to put one's own ego to the side. Not too many people are willing to say as I will, I didn't have anything to do with that hit. And I say that because it's true. I'm really lucky. I've run every kind of entertainment organization that there is. And during my tenure, 100% of the time, our team has had the highest hit ratio in the business. And this is reasonably well known. And the reason I'm”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “And I knew enough about myself to know that I couldn't add any value. It's not like Jim Cameron needed my help. Thank you very much. So, what he really needed was support and empathy and kindness and enthusiasm and encouragement. And he occasionally needed help navigating the waters when there were budgetary concerns or timing concerns. I think probably the thing that I'm best at, I'm not sure it's a skill, but it served me well, is that I seem to have an ability to identify genuine talent in other people, whether that's creative talent or executive talent. I seem to be able to tell the difference between the real deal and not the real deal. And I also seem to have some ability to engage people in a common mission to encourage the highest degree of quality and performance and to create enthusiasm for a shared vision.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “So, first one size does not fit all. My approach and style is different than Peter's, for example. Different than many other people who've had great success. So people like Jeffrey Katzenberg, for example, I think the way he's succeeded in doing that is that he's intimately engaged with the creative process. He's intimately engaged with the creative ideas. He's intimately engaged with story. And I am not because I don't have those skills. And so the way I engage with talent is different because it's a reflection of who I really am and what value I can legitimately bring to bear and the talent that I choose to work with. Jim Cameron's a great example for me because he was not interested in my creative point of view. Just to be clear.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “All depends on the job that you're in for many people, for many operators, you have to actually be good at creating things, even if you're not the actual creator, you're the producer. So you pull together all the creators and all the elements and perhaps the marketing and you make things happen with regard to the product itself. That's not really what I do because I became a chief executive really early in my career, serendipitously and oddly. without regard for the fact that I know experience and didn't deserve the job. I just got lucky. I sort of skipped over a lot of that and went right to running businesses. Running a business is different, obviously. There are numerous jobs in entertainment that are important for the mission of the entertainment company that have nothing to do with creating the entertainment itself. The most important jobs, of course, are the ones that create the entertainment. Those are the only people who really matter in the entertainment business, so they're people who create the hits.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Not really. Everything's different in the expression, but the underlying concept is the same. So even in the beginning of my career, there were advertisers supported businesses that brought people audiovisual content free over-the-air television.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “If the content is valuable enough to consumers, they will generally pay for it. But even in video games, half of our business is mobile, mobile is free to play. People are not paying for that. Initially, they want to install the game for free, be able to play the game for free, and then some portion of the audience, less than 20%, may be willing to pay to upgrade the experience. And it's generally not 20%. So there are numerous examples in the history of entertainment where the content was not valuable enough to the consumer to be paid for, but valuable enough to be consumed. That's why we have advertising businesses.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Columbia Pictures, which was at the time the leading independent distributor of home entertainment, and became the leading independent motion picture company for a short period of time. And that also brought me more responsibilities of Fox, where all the new media stuff also reported to me. So when an opportunity came along years later to join a pre-revenue video game company, I was already steeped in all things new media related and I had religion on video games certainly not for everyone, but before many people who were working in Hollywood.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “And it wasn't the dawn of pay television, but it was early for pay television. So those days, the biggest part of the entertainment business, the sexiest part was motion picture production. Everything else was ancillary and anything that was new media was really ancillary. So all the big traditional studios would look around and they would choose their least important executive to oversee new media. And that was me at Columbia Pictures. They gave me a great gift. I was responsible for pay television and home entertainment at Columbia Pictures, which were these tiny little businesses. And I realized intuitively that the future was new media. And it was known as new media then. And I became expert in those, even though they were very small businesses, by becoming expert in those, first of all, as those businesses actually grew rapidly, I had the opportunity to manage them first at Vestron, which was the company I went to after.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “And then that company started a movie studio, and I was responsible for that. So that took me to motion pictures. And lo and behold, I was running my first motion picture studio. Then I was recruited to run 20th Century Fox, which included motion picture production and distribution and some television and home entertainment, worldwide home entertainment distribution. So at that point, I was broadening my remit, both in terms of production and distribution. So it sort of happened partially because what I wanted partially because of serendipity, partially because of opportunity. And the story about technology, so I met Columbia Pictures, and this is a really long time ago, and new media was just coming along. New media in those days, because we're talking about 1983, to be exact, was, believe it or not, pay television and video set distribution. The dawn of the age of home entertainment”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “I intentionally created most of those inflection points for myself. I initially wanted to run a movie studio, but people weren't exactly lining up to hire me to run a movie studio, so I got the only and best job I could get in entertainment when I graduated from school, which was to work in sales at Columbia Pictures Television. And I went there as opposed to a consultancy or an investment bank, which were the other offers came from, because even though it wasn't overseeing the production of motion pictures, it was certainly closer than working on Wall Street. And the first inflection point was I did well in selling television programming. I learned how to sell, and I was recruited to go to another company in the entertainment business that was growing rapidly and was interested in my becoming a senior executive there. So that was the first inflection point that took me from television into home entertainment.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “More recently, but still quite a long time ago, technology. And that was more sort of a weird twist on my career, which is a story I can tell you. But initially, like many people I wanted to be an entertainer and a creator and then realize that I didn't have any talent to speak of.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I don't know. I might have an attachment to consistency that's greater than many people. I was always interested in everything creative and I wanted, like many people who work in media and communications and entertainment, I wanted to be a creator and entertainer first and foremost. I didn't really want to be an actor, although I actually did dabble in that when I was a kid. Then I wanted to be a singer, songwriter. Then I wanted to be a writer. And then I realized I probably shouldn't be any of those things, but I was still really interested in the creative arts and in creative businesses. And that led me into entertainment initially. And it spoke to me. I do enjoy business just as business. I think I'm better, like many people when I'm passionate about the thing that I'm working on and I'm really passionate about entertainment.”

    2023-10-10 · Invest Like the Best · Strauss Zelnick - Playing to Your Strengths - [Invest Like the Best, EP.347] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source