YouSaid · the spoken record

Ynon Kreiz

lines on the record: 32
first: 2025-12-12
most recent: 2025-12-12
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

“We're mostly about missing opportunities. Are so many opportunities out there, especially given the strength and appeal of our brands, that priority, prioritization becomes a key part of what we do. And you always think about how do we not miss on so many opportunities in front of us. There is so much to play with and so much to play for. The value creation is enormous for Matteo, given the strength of our brands and given what we do. Toys as an industry is growing, is not going anywhere. And the opportunity for Mattel is to continue to grow within the toy aisle and find so much more upside in all these other verticals in a world where everybody is looking for big IP and big brands to rise above the noise level and reach the consumer.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we are releasing next year in 2026 two big movies, Masses of the Universe, a big world creation superhero franchise that we are launching as a big movie in partnership with Amazon MGM. And right after that, a movie based on Matchbox, the cars together with Skydance. What will be interesting is for people to see the breadth of our offering from the Barbie Pink to the Dark World of Eternia and everything in between. But it's important to say this is not just about Barbie and not just about movies. It's about creating holistic experiences across multiple verticals, multiple entertainment verticals that are all looking for big brands to drive the business.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're being very mindful of creating product that will leverage and benefit from the technology, clearly thinking about safety, privacy, and other important issues. When we think about product that infuses AI, this is not about an AI-speaking Barbie. We think of AI in other ways to elevate the play pattern and create experiences that are more engaging through technology.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're very excited about AI. We just recently announced a partnership with OpenAI that has two parts. It's about how we work and how we do things in terms of infusing technology to accelerate innovation, invention, and do what we do even better and faster. The other part is infusing technology into product and experiences and elevating the play pattern and creating something that will be even more attractive and more engaging to fans.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, there are many proofs that play is a very important part of developing children. And we think about it all the time in terms of what parents, what engagement can we do to develop children through play.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Fisher price is for obviously younger consumers, babies, toddlers and infants, and this is about quality trusted product that has deep educational and developmental value. We spend significant resources in defining and creating products that do exactly that. And we still have labs, the headquarter of Fisher Prizes in East Aurora, upstate New York. And this is what the team does. This part of the industry is product driven where you sell to the parents under the umbrella of the Fisher Price brand, which stands for trust, quality, And developmental values for the child.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We expect a significant amount of profit to come through entertainment. This is all of the activities around brands in IP. Most of this business is royalty driven. So you see most of the lift in profit, some in revenue, but mostly in profit. So much higher margin and better quality profit and growing at a significant rate.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Opportunity in Mattel and what I was doing back then is much broader than that. I was not a paid television executive. A set, but we saw the opportunity of taking brands and building businesses around them and leveraging the fandom and the relationship we have with people. To create commercial enterprises.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a question that I used to ask myself at the time because the raison d'etre for this joint venture was to take the success in the US and export it to the world. I was actually looking for someone to run this business, to build this business from scratch and run it. And we couldn't find the right person. And I was going down the list of candidates with Chaim one day, and no one was quite right for the job. And he said to me, you know what? Why don't you do it? Why would you do it? And I said, You know what? I will. When will you start? I just did. And I ended up, we were on our way to New York at the time. I continued from New York to London, hired, rented an office on my way to the airport in London, went straight from the airport to the office, and launched the business.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You went into that. He had a small production company in Los Angeles. We ended up creating a joint venture with Fox that was called Fox Kids, or Fox Family at the time. I moved to London to build the European business. For this joint venture, for him and Rupert Murdoch at the time, and the opportunity was to create and launch children's channels in local languages across pay television in Europe. This was the beginning of digital television in Europe. And we ended up building a company that broadcasted children's channels in over 50 countries in 17 languages that we took public and eventually sold the whole group to Disney.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But at the time, and he just started to come out to the Power Rangers, he was not the Chaim Saband that you know today. He was actually an American friend who connected us. We spoke English in the beginning when we met. He was not looking for to hire anyone and I was not looking for... But within 15 minutes, there was a physical click between us. And he said to me, why don't you join me? I'll teach you everything about my company. I always say that I got my BA from Tel Aviv University, my MBA at UCLA, and my PhD with Jaim S”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the things I did not want to do is to follow the beaten path of what MBA students choose to do at the time, get a job in consulting or banking. I tried to, I said, I will find my own thing or do something unique and different that is not in line with the business school playbook.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back in the day, it was a lot about making building connections and relationships, of course, today with the advent of the internet and availability of information is a lot harder back in the day. You had to really find your way around. exactly did that. I interned at five different companies when I was a student at UCLA with a calling card of an MBA student You can open a few doors, but from then on it's about gaining the experience and building the relationships.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say we'll support you, we're right behind you. It's what my mother did to her parents when she moved from London to Tel Aviv and ended up doing the same thing to her.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was an active athlete. I used to compete in swimming. I played soccer in the league. I got into water sports, so always did something to do with sports.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was a very happy kid into sports and outdoors and always wanted to get into business. When I grew up, I always had a map of the world in my bedroom. My mother came from England and her side of the family lived in the UK. And we used to have guests and friends from her side coming to Israel. And I was always fascinated, meeting people from other countries, other places. And that probably formed part of my interest to do things that would be more global.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Grew up in Israel, lived there until I was 26, and then I came to America, went to Los Angeles to study business at UCLA. And I stayed in the US and lived in Europe ever since.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being the fourth CEO in four years is a challenging start, but I always believed in the company, I believed in the brands. And I really saw the potential of taking a company that thought it's in the manufacturing business and turning it to become an IP company. And today we are evolving even further from being an IP company to being a brand management company. And in a world where everything revolves around big brands, This is a very exciting opportunity.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the opportunity was to take a company that thought it's a toy manufacturing company and turn it into an IP company. We own one of the strongest portfolios in the world, in children and family entertainment. And the opportunity that I saw that excited me was to come in and help the company capitalize and capture the full value of our intellectual properties outside of the Toy Isle. Not instead of what we do in toys, but in addition to that.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a combination of both, and it's art and science. There's no playbook and there's no predictable pattern that you try to follow. In many ways, you invent and you create product and create the demand. But what we are seeing in a world of unlimited shelf space and ubiquitous distribution, the big brands win. The big brands that have the awareness and built-in fan base always have the advantage.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are so proud of what we do every Christmas we create product that we believe stands out in a very crowded aisle, the toy aisle. And our job is to continue to do things that will excite in the light fans and partner with our retailers to create an offering that will be very compelling. Of course, it's always about Barbie, hot wheels, American girl, Fisher Price, Uno, Monster High, endless collection across multiple price points. You can buy a hot wheels die cast car for $1.25, or you can buy a collector set that we did together with Daniel Arsham, a famous artist, for $700 on Mattel Creation.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We don't manage the company quarter by quarter. We guide it for certain numbers for the full year, and we expect to meet those numbers. As I said at the beginning, part of what is shaping this year is shifting orders by retailers to delay some of their decisions. So we saw a lesser third quarter and we expect a higher fourth quarter.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't think of it in terms of advertising or even marketing. It's about demand creation. Children are the most sophisticated consumer out there. They can smell anything. So, whatever we do has to be authentic and connect to the brand values.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is what we do as a company, we make product that engages and connects with people. And we have experts all over the world. We have people that specialize in different categories of product. And of course, we do a lot of testing, a lot of trials and testing in our own labs, innovation labs, play labs. One such example that just recently came to life is a reinvention of the hot wheels orange tracks that have been around for decades and we discovered through research that it's actually a little hard for young kids to connect parts. And we came up with a whole new system that is very simple and easy to connect with the snap just to one hand. And at the same time is actually hard performing in terms of speed, the speed of the cars can drive on the tracks.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we always said we're looking to build film franchises. We haven't announced anything about second live action movie, but we have announced that we're developing an animated Barbie movie with Chris Miladandre's Illumination, which is one of the most successful animated filmmakers of all time. So it's going to be a very exciting project that will reimagine Barbie in a new way.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was part of our strategy, and yes, three weeks after I started, after I joined the company, we started that journey. The goal was not simply to create a movie, and it wasn't a movie that was designed to sell toys. It was about creating a cultural event. And this movie went on to become one of the most successful movies of all time. And in fact, became Warner Bros. most successful movie at the box office ever in 100 years.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, Hot Wheels right now is a bigger selling product than Barbie. Hot Wheels was created eight years, nine years after Barbie. And Hot Wheels is very much about car culture. Hot wheels as a toy is the number one selling item in the industry. So these cars are performance cars. They race in orange tracks. And around that we make content, video games, location-based entertainment, car shows, races, and it's a whole-encompassing experience around cars.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was invented in 1959. Barbie is so much more than a doll. Barbie is a pop culture icon. And we as a company, what we do really well is we keep our brands fresh, relevant, current, and culturally relevant. A clear part of our playbook is infuse brand purpose and crowdfundance into everything we do. Barbie is the poster child of that strategy.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We work very closely with our retail partners. We are fundamentally a business-to-business company. We sell to the retailers, they sell to the consumers. But together, we are trying to create a holistic experience that drives demand, and we work with them to help them sell products. We spend significant resources on demand creation. We sell product as a company in 500,000 stores globally. This is just a brick and mortar business, not including online retail and e-commerce. So understanding the retail landscape and working in close collaboration with our retail partners is core competence to what we do. And we do that really well.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we have several mitigating actions that we're taking. Much of it is about diversifying our manufacturing footprint and using the fact that we are making product in seven different countries. So you can optimize and modulate and create a flexible model that respond to tariff and shifting market conditions. And this is very much part of our journey to create a flexible supply chain that is responsive.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, at the start of the year, the issue was about cost impact of tariff on product. Then the question became, what about consumer reaction to price increase in response to tariff? Now what we're seeing is that companies have mitigated for the cost impact. Consumer demand for toys is growing, has been growing every quarter in the US and overseas. What we have seen is that retailers have postponed their decision in making orders to the very back end of the year. But seeing that there is demand, there is consumer demand, people are buying product at retailers, we expect to see a good holiday season and a strong growth quarter for Mattel.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct the industry average is about 80 to 85 percent of toys being made in China. For Matteo, we've been reducing and rebalancing our manufacturing footprint so that no one country by the end of 27 will represent more than 25% of our global manufacturing. China represents for us today around 35% of our global manufacturing relative to industry average of 80 to 85%. But this journey was not about China. It was about balancing and diversifying our manufacturing footprint so that we're not dependent on any one country.”
2025-12-12 · The David Rubenstein Show · Ynon Kreiz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source