It's just one of those things when you look at it and kind of unpack what happened. You know, you just have to try to stare at the facts as they are and and see what you could do better,

Low and welcome. I'm Shane Parish and this is the Knowledge Project, a podcast exploring the ideas, methods and mental models that help you learn from the best of what other people have already figured out. You can learn more and stay up to date with the podcast at fs dot blawg slash podcast. We have a newsletter that comes out every Sunday called Brain Food. It's free impact with all the best content that we've come across this week, it's worth reading and thinking about it. Contains quotes, book recommendations, articles and so much more you can learn more. Fs dot blog's slash newsletter on the show today is the normally reclusive businessman Thomas Tall. Thomas was the chairman and CEO of Legendary Entertainment. He produced more than 30 films that together have grossed more than $13 billion worldwide, with box office movies like Straight Outta Compton, Godzilla, The Dark Knight Trilogy,

Inception and So Much More Today he's living his dream. As part owner of his favorite childhood sports team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, he's running telco and buying companies and investing. He was early money and magically Pinterest Oculus, which sold the Facebook. But we're not gonna talk too much investing. We're gonna talk about intellectual honesty, learning from mistakes, how the entertainment industry is changing professional football and so much more. It's time to listen and learn before we get started. Here's a quick word from our sponsor. Bourbon Street is sponsored by Metal Lab. For a decade, mental lab has helped some of the world's top companies and entrepreneurs build products that millions of people use every day. You probably didn't realize it at the time,

but odds are you've used an app that they've helped design or build absolutely slack. Coin based Facebook Messenger, Oculus, Lonely Planet and so many more Metal AB wants to bring the unique design philosophy to your project. Let them take your brainstorm and turn it into the next $1,000,000,000 up from ideas sketched on the back of a napkin to a final ship product. Check the Murder Metal ab dot Co. That's metal ab dot Co and when you get in touch, tell them, Shane saying you I'm so glad to finally sit down to talk to you. Have talked on the phone many times. Yeah. Never talked in person. Yes. You grew up a ZA single child. What was it like being having a single parent?

Um, you know, it's interesting, because if you don't know anything else than its ah, you know, then maybe it doesn't seem is different, but, um, you know, it was challenging circumstances. My mom had me at a young age and my father had left and had a number of issues. And, um, you know, I had two younger sisters and we were definitely challenged economically and so forth, and, you know,

looking back on it, it certainly had a material impact on the rest of my life. And, you know, hopefully it's something that you know who knows if that's what develops drive or doesn't. But it's what happened. So, you know, that's the way I grew

up. Was there a point where you realize that your family was different from other families?

Uh, yeah, I think also, when I went away to college, it became a little more pronounced, um, just in terms of OK, this is the outside world. And, um and I think that, you know, there was certainly a period that I got very frustrated and felt, you know how unfair and all those other things that I guess when you're processing things is a teenager Your neurons aren't firing the way they should or, um, but, you know, But my mom worked two jobs.

She was a dental hygienist, and I did a lot of, ah, shoveling snow, had that business and a lawn mowing business, running around at 13 doing that kind of stuff and, you know, to try to help out. And you just kind of realize, uh, a fairly young age that there are things you don't want to dio. You'd rather be doing other things. But, you know, the task at hand is the task at hand.

What was college like?

Um, I think I went to Hamilton, which is a fantastic school in, uh, in what they call the Nest CAC with Williams and Amherst. And, uh, Middlebury and I received a first rate education on, and I think for the first time because of the alumni of the school. And, you know, most many of my classmates had went to fancy prep schools and things like that. I wasn't aware of what a trust fund was prior to going there and so forth. But I think, more importantly, had a profound impact on how to think, how to communicate and that you could have efficacy in the world.

And I think that if I had to really distill the education down, it's sort of looking at other people in the fact that you could have impact in the world, that it wasn't just, Hey, I'm gonna get up and do whatever my job is, and I'm sort of slotted in in my life and and so forth.

Is that because you were surrounded by ambitious people or

yeah, I think people that were ambitious people whose families had had impact in the world, you know, again notable alumni and that you get to rub elbows with and be around and suddenly you know, your your worldview opens up and you decided that Hey, maybe, you know, maybe there is something that you can dio with lock and, you know, sort of applied work and so forth

after that like opportunities. Did you go into college thinking there would be one set of opportunities in life and come out thinking another?

Yeah, the plan was always I was definitely going to go to law school and then I had a family friend talk to me and say, Look, it's not like it is in L. A law and you know, you're gonna come out in debt. There's no more sports scholarships and things like that for law school. And so, um, you know, But I'm always fascinated by people that whether they're practicing attorneys or they have a law degree is part of their educational background. I actually think it's a pretty great set of skills tohave in some of the most interesting people, people whose thought process and how they process things. You know, our attorneys. And so but yeah, definitely in a different

direction. So what happened after college?

Well, I had a, uh, stint. I gotta look from the Atlanta Braves. Uh, you know, playing to play baseball,

as you were really support scholarship

in college. Yeah. And so and the Braves were smart enough to figure out that I was gonna be able to help him. So, um, got sent home, and then, um uh I had a, you know, a couple of small businesses in my early twenties, a laundromat chain, an auto repair center because I lived in an area that was economically challenged and those were

thought is talking with the laundry man. I want to come back

to that. Everybody wants to talk about the water match is kind of funny, but yeah. And then, um you know, from from there I had moved down Teoh Raleigh Durham and was, ah, you know, partner at a venture funded tech venture fund. And, you know, kind of and then all kinds of things started to happen.

I want to come back to this point, but I want to, like, rewind a little bit The laundry minutes, Talk to me about that. You started. You were an entrepreneur.

If you want to call it that in my twenties, just trying to figure things out. Um, you know, if there's

any But you innovated in this industry

as well did. Yeah. So if there if there's any sort of thematic to to my business career, um, I'm not I'm not good at coming up with a new thing like there was no such thing as social media and I invented social media. And now that's a thing I'm not. That's not my skill set what I've done, OK, I is looking at an industry or a business model and saying, Okay, where the points that you could either improve this or make it more efficient or come at it from a different angle. And that's been sort of a running theme throughout my business career. So with Laundromat, there were a couple of different things. Um, that Ah, you know where I guess innovative At the time I found a company who was selling,

Ah, the washers and dryers that had, you know, a built in computer and that you could set dynamic pricing. And the reason that that was important at the time is the laundromats would be jammed on the weekends and, you know, more business and you could handle. And then during the week, there's nobody in there, and there are people with their retirees or whatever their their schedule allows them to go in. And so we put in sort of a dynamic pricing model so that you would try toe even those things out. And it it It certainly helped

the numbers. How many laundry months did you end up with?

I think we I think I had four of them and then sold.

It Was this based on frustration, like you were doing laundry and it was or you just like, Oh, I have this idea. And I think I can do this

better than other people. Yeah, it was Ah, you know, it seemed like there were there in the laundromats that were in this area that I grew up in were a little sketchy. Um, and I thought, you know, if you could just make it clean and safe and and then have this slightly different economic model And also, um, you know, when you have the attendant, if the laundromat means certainly when you're dealing with mostly cash, you want to be able to track these things. So the computer system allows you to track, you know, every nickel that came in, so to speak. And so that was very helpful for, you know,

being a you know what the register should have. That's exactly what's in their

industry and made sure everybody knew that

So you had this taste of entrepreneurial freedom. Almost. It's really it strikes me as a little bit of rare. Almost that you would go work for somebody else, even as a partner after

that, Well, um, it was a pretty independent shop. In other words, you would look for your your own deals. That is one thing I was fairly certain of at a young age that I'm unemployable on. And I think for whatever reason, you know, just being able to see something, maybe a little bit differently and say This is what I want to dio And at least if it doesn't work, I certainly have myself toe to blame. But I you know, one of the things that I enjoy doing, I use, um, you know,

some university and college lectures, which is great for me. I'm not sure what they get out of it, but it's, you know, I find it invigorating, and one of the things that I'm asked for advice is to be a Z intellectually honest as you can be about not only your skill sets, but what you enjoy, what motivates you, because if you're constantly saying like OK, this is the ideal profile of myself for my project itself, you know? Vs. No, this is actually the way I'm wired. This is what I enjoy this.

What's motivates me? Um, this is thing something that I'm really good at. You have to put yourself in a position to be successful. Otherwise, I think you're gonna end up frustrated and not as productive as you can be. So it's It's not easy to dio, I think. But if you can really be introspective about it and it'll brutally, intellectually honest about your own makeup, I think that's very helpful. How

do you do that for yourself? Well, like it's so easy to say that I'm wondering what is your

process? It's much, much harder in practice. I think the first thing is for me. I always look at mistakes that I've made and try Teoh do true postmortems. And if you're constantly giving yourself in out, like while Yes, I probably didn't make a great decision here, but thes three circumstances or these the these things happened and therefore and when I try to look for is okay. There are certain times the ball just doesn't bounce your way, and you know, and you can't dwell too much on that. But where The things that I find a common thread in Hey, you know, you're you're ending up in the same place here. And is it Are you philosophically wrong? Are you not taking in the right information or you're being emotional about this?

Are you surrounding yourself with the right people forever that you know the job is so to speak? And if I find jeez, I keep finding myself back in this spot or you know that if it's I've put myself in a position to succeed or or or fail, you know, do I look at it and say It's It's almost, you know, sports is a big part of my life. So, you know, if you're in the World Series and it's the bottom of the ninth inning in your relief pitcher and you throw 98 miles an hour, don't get beat on your curve ball, right? Right. And so I think, if you if you're constantly putting yourself in a position where you're on your back foot, um,

you know that's hard. But I think at the end of the day you have to be willing to look at what has unfolded. What has happened? Is there any pattern recognition there? Um and then being able to have the sound judgment to say these are things that happen just because. So I'm not gonna beat myself up or read too much into that. And at the same time, if there are things that are either recurring Reese or you just say, Look, I we ended up in a tough spot and here here, here's how we got there. Um and I also find that, um ah, lot of times when I unpack those things, it's it could be mo mentum that you've let mo mentum take you to a place and and that you didn't at certain points where you could have jumped off, said,

Wait a minute, you know, sort of the train is moving, so you know you're letting that inertia takeover instead of saying, Hey, this is not the destination that we want to train going to and let's stop

it. What example comes to move when you think of that?

Well, I'll tell you when when I had legendary, uh, you know, and you're making movies 100%. I look back. It's some of my biggest mistakes were movies that you put together, for example, that you got the director you wanted. You gotta release Day got cast, but the script isn't coming together. For whatever reason, you just kind of feel it that it's it's just not there, but because you've worked so hard. And now there are a bunch of people that are counting on it. And and there's a Momenta into it in, you know, all the agencies everybody involved in the ecosystem now is a stakeholder. And you just kind of ITT's tough toe put the brakes on. So I think about that often. That whole business is one of the more nuanced businesses I've ever been around

or involved in. C left the VC firm as a partner. You started legendary. Yeah, there wouldn't want to get into legendary.

Yeah, so So, yeah, basically, what happened there is around 2003 I became fascinated with the media business, but but in particular with movies. Uh, I think at the time it was a $30 billion industry. It was, I believe, the country's second biggest export. I'm not sure what it is today and you know, there were a couple of trends that I thought were really interesting. At that time. There was global expansion. You had this unbelievable business called DVDs that Ah, a lot of the big box retailers were using as a loss leader.

Great margins. And I believed very deeply in the ownership of intellectual property and especially, you know, sort of premium great, a global intellectual property. And you know, the thing that struck me is usually with an industry of that size, you will see sort of a institutional capital in and around and among it, right large private equity or whatever it might be. And in the movie industry, certainly if you had if you own Disney Stock or News Corp stock, that's available. But for an industry that size, there was no adjacent capital system, and I thought that that would be an opportunity. So I looked very deeply at the data.

You know, the previous 10 years of studio ultimate switches, the accounting from the movies, and I asked myself the following question if you hit your plan and your successful is from any money to be made, um, and I had a bunch of friends that almost had sort of an intervention with me and said, Look, you've never been in the media industry. You don't know anything about this. You're gonna go out to Los Angeles and and just get destroyed on this thing. And you know, I really had conviction because I had looked at the economics and felt like if you could build it in a different way, you know, and decided very early, I didn't wanna have distribution. I was fortunate enough to partner with Warner Brothers,

have them distribute Andi. If you could sort of have the right structure and draft off of that global infrastructure that you could, you could build a nice business on Ben, like with anything else you know, there's certainly luck involved. I mean, met a young guy the time named Chris Nolan. And when our first movie was Batman begins. Obviously he's, uh, an incredible generational talent and, you know, but there were a lot of things along the way. Both, uh, you know, things that worked out remarkably well, and then things that just have so much of a human element in a motion around a business that it's it's in retrospect really fascinating.

What did you learn about producing movies that you hadn't like? I don't even know anything about producing movies like we'll walk me through what that means.

Well, I think there's There's a couple of things that I I found, or at least that I believed for. First of all, stand as close as you can to absolute talent. Right? Um, if you confined people that are incredibly talented versus people that were kind in the right place at the right time. And there is a difference. Certainly, Chris, No one is an example of that, Um, and then it's You gotta make sure that you're spending an appropriate amount of money. So if you're trying to make a global tent pole, that's going to capture the world's attention when you can't spend $30 million on that. And on the other hand,

if you're gonna make something that is more contained, you have to spend the right amount of money on that. And then you have to think about how you're going to get people's attention. How are you going to market the film? And it's just each. Each film is like a startup company and has its own fingerprints and so forth. Um, and then a number of years ago, there were some trends that that I started toe that concerned me. You know, being an independent company

over this friends,

there were a couple of things used to be. If you made a good movie and you tested the movie and had pretty good test scores and you got a good trailer out there, you'd be fine. And, you know, that started to not be the case, right? Started to see some corollaries, and then I think part of it is, you know, when I was growing up and even when I started in the movie business, what else is it hard to do on a Friday and Saturday night? Right you go. And it's I always since I was a kid. I love movies, just is a filmgoer because, you know,

you go in to the theater, the lights go down and you go on this adventure and and your it's communal on all these other things, and I think there have been some massive fundamental changes in our society on on entertainment experiences. I certainly don't think the movies air going away, but one of the things that I would say is that we are clearly in the golden age of television or whatever. You know, the expansion of television that this is, you know, you're seeing some incredibly compelling things being made across, you know, not just the traditional, um, folks in TV, but certainly Amazon, Netflix And you know who lieu. They've really changed the game,

and part of what that becomes is now you're not in the appointment business anymore, because if you go out to a movie in the theater, well, you have to look it up and say, If I wanna experience this, I have to go to this place and it's 7 40 be in my seat and that's what it iss Will you have an entire generation of of people that that's a very foreign concept, to I have a supercomputer in my pocket and I can listen to any song I want. See any clip I want and you know, and I think certainly you're seeing the attention span come down. Entertainment is coming and sort of faster and faster increments, and so that makes it much more challenging to get people's attention. And then you know the other thing that again when I was growing up, if you had your favorite movies, you might watch that movie 56 10 times. And I think what happens today is because there is such a a glut of high quality entertainment and things to do. And it's not just stuff on Netflix Xbox live watching professional gaming leagues,

everything on demand all the time. And, you know, one of the things that I got fascinated with when we had legendary analytics, which we can talk about a little bit. But is I? I ask our team to sort of build a measurement instead of just what is tracking say we're gonna open to for the weekend or, you know, what were the the the ratings of our television division, our shows and so forth? I also wanted to understand sort of a meter against your addressable waking hours for media. How are you making those choices? And you know, there's only so many hours in a day, right? So the problem is that if you're trying to keep up with your Netflix queue and you're watching,

you know, college or professional sports and you're doing you look up and it's like Zayas people. That's all the time. Who will say You saw the trailer for the movie and you thought, That's a really good trail And that's, you know, I would like to see that. Well, how many times do you actually go to the movie versus just saying I'll see it. It's some other date. So everybody is doing their job. Movies Good. The trailers good. The marketing department did a good job, but it just boils down to time and attention. Ah,

and again, I certainly, you know, the death of the movie business has been described for decades, and I don't think that, but I do think it has changed fundamentally and that the business has to shift and change

with it. What do you think those shifts will be in, like who wins in the next 10

15 years? Well, I mean, you know, I have to. The job that Disney has done, um, is unbelievable. I mean, they, I think, under Bob Iger's leadership, and then Alan Horn, who is my partner at Warner Brothers before he went over to Disney. I mean, they went out and cornered the market between Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars with Lucas films and have Now you know,

you look at their calendar of releases and it's basically everybody has to move around Disney. So I think you're still going to see the big offense films worldwide. Um, you know, move the needle on BIA's Bigas they've ever been. It's just how Maney movies for for theatrical release air gonna come out. What's the appropriate number? And, you know, how can you market them in a way that you know, is more efficient, Which is something that we I got fascinated with on why we had an analytics division

stalked me, that that analytics division, what sort of insights you were trying to acquire that you would put into practice with ease. Not only the movies you were producing, perhaps, but the movies that you were trying to market.

So one of the things that became both frustrating to me as well as just okay, we're going to stare at this business model and see if there's another way to do it is our studio partner who would deploy the capital for marketing right? So we would jointly kind of look at the poster in the trailer and all those things, but they would actually go out and decide they would have buying programs so they would go out and buy X number of gross rating points. They would with a gross rating points so they would go in and basically by a block of television. That should deliver you X eyeballs and folks. But then I would start to see some are movies that didn't make any sense like you see a dark night at on the Golden Girls That may not be the best use of capital. Um, and I think we got a $7 million bill on one of the hangover movies for newspaper display ads, and I thought, that's probably not a great or efficient use of capital. Um, so his fortune I'm friendly with with Eric Schmidt, who is the chairman of Google and is ah, was a shareholder legendary. I went to see Eric and kind of went through with him what I wanted to build, and we we bought a boutique analytics company in Boston.

Uh, this really sharp guide and Matt Merola. And basically what I said is I want to deliver a much more customized message to people, and I want to be able to insert ourselves into the decision point Elektronik Lee, both mobile and online. And if it's clear to me, sort of psychographic Lee that you're not interested this movie, I don't want to bother you, right? And conversely, if you're someone who is persuadable and we could make interested in and so it had a pretty material impact, uh, on our on our business were able to cut out a pretty large chunk of advertising dollars, and I think me much more efficient. We use it across movies and television that we licensed it to other media companies and then, you know,

and then other industries came in and it was on. It taught me a lot about, um, being able to apply technology and new techniques, two spaces that maybe had not had a lot of innovation or had been a little sleepier and, you know, being able to get nonlinear results on that.

That's fascinating. What else was in legendary holdings?

So there there are a couple of pivot points that were that were helpful. Ultimately, in getting the result that we got one was going into China early and, you know, before it became fashionable, I guess, and establishing a presence there trying to build a real brand in China. Uh, we're very lucky That legendary translates, um, this word 20 in Mandarin that means exactly legendary. Um, and I'm Scottish, or symbol is a Celtic knot, and it kind of looked so those things are just, you know, pure pure lock.

But we spent a lot of time in the market learning about it, hiring a local team, Um, and, you know, were very successful in putting movies out in the in that market. And, you know, clearly you have a massive movie going audience. Um, movies were a new thing there, and they were building screens and theaters out at a, you know, incredible pace. And, you know,

needing content to kind of drive people to the theaters we thought was compelling, Obviously that, you know, we're required by a Chinese company. So all those things mattered. The analytics company I just mentioned was important to us way we had a television division that had quite a few shows on the air. Um, read a company called Nerdist. That was online content, sort of aimed at that that space And, um, you know, it was it was an incredible experience.

Did you guys ever have a big box office flop? Oh, yeah. Which would,

Um I mean,

we usually

comes to mind. Look, we had ah, lady in the water early early days with night Sean Lan, who had done six cents and all these big movies and ah, you know, that one. That one didn't work. You know, we had, ah, movie that did very well in China called Great Wall with Matt Damon that, you know, was was trying to sort of fuse east and West and be kind of, ah, story that was universal and could be told and, you know,

just didn't didn't connect with audiences, so yeah, no, no question about it. We I think we had a pretty great track record, but absolutely

had mrs. So when you had Mrs how did you go back and extract this signal from that? Because there's so many variables going on between, Like how you marketed the time that it comes out. Other movies that are coming at the way that it's produced the script the like, how do you go back and pull out the like. This is the moose probable cause of this failure.

Yeah, I think so. There's a couple of things. Um, first is was there a fundamental rejection of the concept? Um, you know, we did. Another movie that did not connect was movie called Black Hat that Michael Mann, whose one all time great directors Chris Hemsworth start in. I mean, all these elements and people just didn't want to see a movie about hacking and that being the action step, right is that watching Chris Hemsworth? You know, hack, Um And so I think in some cases you look at it and say, you know,

the fundamental concept of the movie was rejected and those, I think on some continuum hurt the most cause you're like, Wow, that's just your way on act. I think. Other times, you know, you're taking a stack of papers with words on it called a script. You're creating sort of a mini city when you do a movie and you're sending human beings in to see if they have chemistry. Whatever is going on in their own lives can sometimes have impact. How the cast interacts with each other. You know how the whole thing comes together. And there's been times were like, Look, what a great idea for a movie. Um,

it just didn't come together and execution, and then they're sort of that. And then I also think there's some things in the zeitgeist that just the mood of the country, so to speak in the world wants to see that that you know, that film at that time, um, we with Universal had a big hit, was straight outta Compton. And just for whatever reason, Um,

it was a great movie.

Yeah, No, they did an amazing job, and, you know, you know, and then ah, I look at something like Jurassic World, which again was a huge hit. The Jurassic franchise had kind of waned. And, you know, you captured the magic of Steven Spielberg. You know, Chris Pratt is suddenly this enormous star, and, you know,

everybody went to the movies, so I think you just have to look at it and understand what were the things within your control where you made good or bad decisions? One of the things that look what are you going to dio you know, or even even things because movies used to, um have an opportunity to build an audience and be out for months and word of mouth and so forth. And because there's so many movies coming out and because there's so much pressure on that opening weekend,

If you're not a success on that opening weekend,

you're you're gone. So what happens if there's an ice storm in the Eastern United States your opening weekend, right? I mean, it's it's just one of those things that, um when you look at it and kind of unpack what happened, you know, you just have to try to start the facts as they are and and see what you could do

better. How hands on were you, like assembling a great team, this one thing? But were you in their active and like Oh, no, we should do this or this would be more exciting or you more Hands

off it depended on the circumstance. There were times very, very hands on, you know, throughout an entire project. Moving certainly. And then, you know you're making a movie with Stevens with Steven Spielberg or you're making a movie with Chris. No, And just make sure you get their catering. Right. Um, so, you know, you have to know to win, to just stay out, right and and let amazing people do their job.

I think one of the things I used to spend a lot of time on a legendary was on culture. Um, and I've always kind of felt like great culture will trump a great business plan every day of the week because you could have an amazing business plan, and I guarantee that it'll morph and change, and you're gonna have to, you know, you're gonna have to make sometimes big changes. But if you have a culture that people are excited about working there and you know you have the right mindset than making those changes in that journey is going to be, ah, lot easier and you know, So I spent a lot of time, you know, making sure that people were passionate about working there, doing everything we could, um, you know,

to be inclusive and to try toe be transparent. About what? What? We're up, Teoh. I would certainly get up in front of the whole company and explain. Look, these are the three things that we're really focused on. right now, and this is what we're trying to do and build. And, um, you know, it was it was, um It was an amazing experience. And one of the things that is just crazy about my life and how incredibly lucky I am is all the things that I loved as a kid.

Godzilla, Batman. You know, Jackie, the Jackie Robinson story, you know, And then I bled black and gold. Pittsburgh Steelers. Since I was a little boy, it's It is remarkable that I got toe partake and be around some of the things that I loved since I was a kid. Um, said it was It was Ah, it was a pretty remarkable journey.

I want to talk to you about the NFL. At what point did you buy a part of this dealers? Um, were you still with legendary? Was that you

know it Waas. So my first year in the ownership group was 2008 in which we we won the Super Bowl that year, which is amazing. Um, and, you know, growing up right on the Pennsylvania border in upstate New York, I just the first football game I ever saw was the Steelers in the Super Bowl, and I just I mean, Steel Curtain. The whole thing is amazing. And what had happened is, um um, these Steelers had asked to see a print of We are Marshall, a movie that we did with Matthew McConaughey. And so when they asked to see it, I was like,

I'll go, I'll take it on. And so I came to Pittsburgh and, um, I had the opportunity to spend real time with Mr Dan Rooney, and we just hit it off right away. I think he was probably amused by how passion I was and how much I knew about the Steelers. And, you know, and ah, you know, we we we lost Mr Rooney. It's two years ago now, Um, but of all the people that I've gotten to meet and spend real time with, I mean he is.

It was just a remarkable man. And so, you know, Teoh, be part of the ownership group, and you're you know, you're sort of team that you've loved and followed since your your kid is surreal, to say the least.

She had these ideas coming in 2008. What an NFL team looks like from the inside. Where were they different? How did that lineup and not line up?

Well, the interesting parallel between being ah, legendary and then in professional football is you are squarely in the human being business. Right? So you're around incredibly talented people. You're around people that are well compensated and come from all different walks of life and maybe motivated in different ways. And I think, um, I think the human element sort of behind the curtain is fascinating because you you see people athletes that come into the NFL that are incredibly talented, right? There is no question they have the physical makeup. Um, and you look at success or failure in in some people that come in and artist talented. But for some reason, the light comes off their professionalism, their ability to improve themselves, understand the game,

whatever it is and have impact. And then there are other people that you just sit there and you're like, My goodness, you know, you have You're fast, you're strong. You have all the ability in the world. But you're not connecting the dots. And when the lights come on in the game, you're not your highest and best.

What does it mean to be in the human business? Like, what does that tangibly mean from, like how you organize things from how you run things, Teoh. How you think about problems? How you

Well, I think the first The first thing that I think about especially in something that's is physically demanding is the NFL is how do you check the box on everything you can in terms of comfort and performance and saying, Look, I want to provide an atmosphere in which you, um, have all the tools at your disposal to to be successful and then also one of the things I can't speak about other teams because obviously I have only been inside the Steelers organization, but I've been told by a lot of players who left and came back or left. And then you see them in retirement, that that the Steelers really are different. Um, it truly is a family like atmosphere, and that certainly starts with Rooneys, you know, and we try very hard to take care of our guys and you know, I've seen a lot of examples of that that certainly are never gonna nor nor should they make the press and so forth. And I just think that, um,

when when you have athletes that are under such tremendous pressure and under the spotlight like never before. I mean, when you talk to the guys that played back in the seventies, there was no social media. There weren't camera phones, there weren't so the, You know, the scrutiny and the opportunity to make mistakes and whatever is, uh, you know, is Mawr certainly than it's ever been. And, you know, and I think that when I talk about being in the human being business, it's that you know, everybody in that arena is incredibly talented.

And how do you separate yourself? And how do you make sure that, uh, that your team is not not just motivated professionally, but they feel appreciated? And and all those things I think I think are those intangibles

are important. What makes the difference between somebody comes out and say like the first round? He's got all of the physical traits that you would look for and raw talent like what makes the difference between success or failure in the NFL, where everybody is talented in that delta between talent, probably matters a little bit. Is that the most important thing? Like what separates people?

You know, it's interesting, Um, I think part of it And this is across business, cross any in any walk of life. But I think particularly in the NFL that grittiness, right. You're, you know, your your ability to overcome things and to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Um, you know, I look at somebody like Antonio Brown, who was 1/4 round pick coming out of Central Michigan, and, you know, I remember having a conversation with him at the end of his rookie year,

and he just kept asking me like, How do I get? What else can I dio and I I just hooked him up with a nutritionist. This guy named Chris Tally, uh, who's, you know, one of the best nutritionist in the country. And not only did he go and follow through, but has become, you know, like religious about what? What he puts into his body in terms of food and then trains harder than everybody else and just, you know, never takes a rep off. I watch him in practice and I'm like Mom. That's why he's the best in the world because

every rap is yeah, game rep.

You know, you look at other guys that again came in with first round talent or just look like they ought to be able to dominate and whether they they're not willing to put the work in whether they're not willing to do all the little things, you know, in terms of taking care of your body. I'm a huge believer in sleep hygiene, right? Certainly nutrition, training, all those different things that go into maximizing your talent on, especially in a lot of cases. You have guys that, you know from the time they walked onto a field, were clearly better than anybody else. And whether they worked harder, they didn't. The results were gonna be the same. And so that's the other thing that, you know, I think either kicks in or doesn't kick in that Hey, what got you here may not be enough.

Walk me through what surprised you the most about when you got to peer inside NFL organization.

I would say it again, I think. And I certainly have a prejudiced point of view on this because, you know, it's not like I grew up a fan of another team and rank, you know, got involved the Steelers and begrudgingly, that I So So I know that my point of view is gonna be skewed on this, but, um, one of the things that was that was great to see is I was a little bit worried because after I had gotten to know Mr Rooney for a few years, that when you gotta look behind the curtain, that okay, you know, sort of the folksy right and the the image that I have of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the family of it, how they conduct themselves and again, um,

the most pleasant surprise was Doesn't matter if there's no microphones, there's nobody else around Theo. The conduct is the same. And and that's ah, you know, that's something that I think the organization takes real pride in. Um, you know, I was a little surprised, and certainly this has come a long way in football and certainly in her own organization with using data and analytics, which, you know, it's a physical emotional game. So I don't believe you can make all your decisions by slide ruler Abacus, but, um,

you know, being aware of your own tendencies. You know, self scouting, thinking about little ways that you can improve your chances. I think you're very, very important. And now that the NFL has a massive pool of data that it's sharing with all the teams, I think if you're not prepared to take advantage of that, you're you know?

So what is the analytics look like inside of an NFL team? Now, do you know, like what your offensive coordinator is prone to call in certain situations of a game? And is that information available in real time on the sidelines? Because it seems like there's like an anti technology bent on the sidelines.

Well, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say there's anti technology, just the problem in game um, things are happening so fast meaning and certainly make halftime adjustments and other things. But, um, I think it's mawr in how you prepared. And you know, one of the things to me is that if we're able to self scout and pick up your tendencies, well, then probably means that the other teams can't as well. And it's just, um you know, I think because there's much more information available now, even down to you know how fast, exactly the guys running on field. So when you say,

huh, I wonder if they're they're corner. Everybody's saying, has lost a step or has a hamstring? Well,

you can actually

tell Intel, right? What's the reaction time? How's everything going in? And the teams in the athletes are so remarkable now that I think just any little any little advantage you could gain is

you know it's helpful. So if I'll do all teams have the same information. Do they all use it in the same way? Like, where's the edge in terms of analytics? And who does analytics really well versus Like, who's still learning?

You know, again, I I would never opine about somebody else's organization. I think we're very fortunate in Pittsburgh, you know, we're sitting next to Carnegie Mellon University, which is one of the top in the world for analytics machine learning ai. And so the person who runs our analytics division is from Carnegie Mellon, and you know we have tremendous resource is there

and is that the future of sports? And are those algorithms are sort of insights proprietary Now, more than these to be

Yeah, I think so. And I think that, um it really is a blend of art and science, though, because, you know, you still have to be able to think about how again human beings are gonna function and leverage situations, and you're gonna have toe. You know, I think the highest and best outcomes are where you use the information and the technology, but you're able to interpret and apply it instead of just saying

to inform you to sit.

That's exactly right. And I think, I mean, certainly you look at baseball. It has become an arms race and for the teams a number of years ago that rejected it and say, We're not doing that Well, you know, it's tough to be playing in October when when you don't have the right amount of information. And certainly baseball is easier to apply analytics because you have a lot of one on one matchups. Exactly. So it's so it's easier to apply, but football's come a long way. Do

you think we'll ever see like on a I version of an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator?

Yeah, I mean,

just from calling plays, not from coaching perspective, but It's like this. Play this. We know what's going on on the field. We have real time data where

that would not surprise. May I mean or or at least you know, like Jarvis and Iron Man, Right? Like, here's what you should dio I'm right that that, to me is not far fetched at all.

How far away do you think we would be from the,

Uh, that's an interesting question, because I always find that technology you lease usually happens slower than you think. And then suddenly, because if so, if if somebody used it and it worked, it would be like nobody's wearing headsets and able to communicate upstairs. And then all of a sudden, one person dies and that's an unfair advantage, So I would be completely gassing. But I think over the next 5 to 10 years you're going to see remarkable advancements. Um, you know, across the board and artificial intelligence. So are

we had a plea. Were using analytics to adjust players practice routines in the sense of like this player worked really hard. We need to give them more of arrests. This player can work harder. They can go like more raps like, how are we using that to inform, Like the individual players outside of games.

I'm not sure we're quite there yet. There are tests where you know the guys. You spit in a cup essentially, and it says, Look, you're low on X Y and Z should hydrate or you should. So I know there are clubs using some things like that. I'm not aware yet of using that level of granularity at practice,

but do you think that's where we're going? The or will always just be this element of,

I think in the foreseeable future it will be a tool in the toolbox, but not, you know, the tool. Yeah, I don't look like anything else, but sports sports is a great imitator. So if somebody you know employed those types of things and won the Super Bowl or won the World Series, you can. You can bet that people are gonna emulate it. What's the

difference between without getting into specifics? But the teams that are perennially good in a salary cap era, which is hard, and teams that sort of like buildup, they have one or two years of success and then they fall off the clip. Is that all salary cap management? Or is it?

My own personal opinion is it's a number of things again, back to that word of culture, you know? Do you have athletes that want to play for you and want to play in that city so that when you're talking about second contracts and people you want to keep, you know, can you make a compelling case? Certainly, salary cap management is important. I think continuity is huge

in coaching staff and assist

Absolutely. I mean, look, there are times changes need to be made, but I'm often I find it fascinating and remarkable how quickly you know coaches and coaching staffs get get changed out. Um, you know, Steelers have had three coaches since I've been alive, and you know that that's that's an extreme, obviously. But I think,

um, powered Holmlund. And who is the Chuck Noll? Obviously

Only and Hall of Fame Chuck Noll. Uh, but, you know, I think that, um, you look at the teams over the past 10 20 25 years that air constantly competing and in the conversation in the playoffs every year and and relevant, there's, you know, you can't say that that's that. That's blind luck, not not over that amount of time. So you kind of look at what those organizations do differently to keep themselves in that equation on. Then there's other teams that just seem to struggle, uh, really go out. And you know, those teams maybe have to ask themselves a different set of questions.

So let's go back to legendary for a second human. Well, why did you end up selling? In what year was that? 20

B three years ago. This march. So you have to be 2016. Well, I think I think a couple things, you know, I had been in the business for long enough that it was, you know, I think it was time for me personally. Toe t think about something else. And look at the end of the day, you know, my principal job was to make sure that I delivered for our shareholders. And, you know, fortunately, that happened in this case,

and we had, ah, you know, the opportunity to not only be bought by a company. This is Wanda, a big company in China, but with some of the expansion and some of the opportunity in China as a growth business. You know, it was maybe the right the right partner in direction to take, um so, you know, and and some of the lessons learned or, um, you know, the things that got me interested. Like I mentioned legendary analytics. That sort of experience led me Toe Telco, which is my holding company that I have now and what we're up to.

Talk to me about that because you clearly see an opportunity. That's not

Yeah, the idea. The idea from Telco kind of sprang from that experience with legendary analytics and again taking something that was kind of a staid business model, but with large numbers and applying technology and getting, ah, pretty good result. So the thesis is basically it's a holding company. It's not a fund or, ah, you know, two and 20 model. It's an operating company, and in the middle of it is Toko Labs, in which we have a bunch of incredibly talented folks in machine learning and AI and data science, and we'll look to buy companies that are in sort of large but maybe sleepy spaces and reimagine the way they do business employing technology and hopefully getting, ah, you know, a pretty big result.

Give me Give me an example of what you're doing.

Uh, so there's Ah, there's a company. One of the companies that we own is called Figs, and it was started by these two brilliant women. Um, and they basically reinvented the medical wear, the scrub and other sort of clothing adjacent to that and, you know, anti microbial anti stain. Did all these innovative things made it fashionable and readable? And And so when I first started to get to know the company, when I would talk to doctors and nurses and people in the medical space, they were passionate about it and had huge cult following, uh, And then what we talked about is, you know,

building an online and mobile platform in which you're selling directly to health care professionals. And they have, you know, we're just named by Inc magazine is one of the fastest growing companies and most innovative, and they're just doing, you know, a remarkable job. And, you know, part of our job is to, you know, partner with people like this who had deep domain expertise to provide the capital and the technical wherewithal to help them, you know, really propel themselves for forward. And you know, So it's it's going,

it's going really well and it's a different set of challenges. And I, you know, I really enjoy it because every day you're kind of looking at new businesses and new markets and saying, You know, how can we kind of employee what we've learned or technology that we have? And it's kind of cool to did to just tohave Teoh have the, you know, not the folks in the lab always say to me like we're not writing white papers, right? Like we've come up with a solution and in two weeks we get to see, see if it works and see the results. So that's that's kind of exciting. How

do you make these decisions on look companies to buy? Imagine you're you're saying no to yourself a lot more than you're saying yes, What are the differences between? Like how Walk me through that process?

Well, for us, I think it's first of all, is there enough there there in terms of scale in size, right, because we're not again. It's not a venture fund, so we're not placing small bats were doing concentrated number of companies and trying Teoh, trying to make sure that we have the right size and scale that's appropriate to kind of put your shoulder behind. And the second thing is, you know, you've got to find the sweet spot with the management teams that again have our experts in their space. But embrace change because if you find experts in the space But they say, Well, you know, I would certainly love a check from you, But I don't know about this new thing that you want to dio That's probably not gonna turn out very well.

And then I think it's a big enough category in being able to see. I always try to ask myself, If you execute, does it matter? Is there enough sort of there, There it is there enough? Um, you know, upside and all those other things and so you know, and and then the last thing that we aspire to and we talk about is causing outcome. So rather than just saying, look, we're going to make some choices and hopefully it works out, we really try to make sure that if we can't have a clear path to how we think we can help cause the outcome than you know. It's not for us. Either way, try to be pretty focused. Like How do

you determine, I guess, is a better widow. Phrases like you're giving somebody a check. It's enough money for them to retire. How do you align the incentives after that point?

Well, in a lot of cases, um, it was a couple things We like it when the management team still has enough skin in the game that it's not. Hey, we just bought your company. You don't own any shares anymore and you're just getting a pay check and running out the clock. That's not a great situation. So we like to do situations that we can partner with companies by them or large majority. Oh, are you know, a large stake, you know, buying out previous investors or shareholders if they're already certainly allowing them to take some money off the table, where appropriate, but then providing growth capital for the company. Um, so that's why you know, I don't think we're gonna end up with 40 companies because it's each. Each case is pretty unique and you want to make sure that you can you can check those boxes.

Do you? Having fun?

I am. I mean, look, it's ah, it's a zai. Get older. One of the things I constantly ask myself is is each day when you go to bed every night and you're like, Well, that days over did you spend the day the way you wanted to? You know, are you Are you still intellectually curious? Are you still, you know, excited about what you're doing every day, and unless somebody's invented something, I'm not aware of the one thing that we can't make any more of his time. So I try toe bia's thoughtful as I can about you know,

how I spend my time and, uh, you know, and trying to do everything I can dio at this point, I find myself thinking a lot about like, the most elemental things, right? You start thinking about your health and well being and okay, what am I doing? You know, if your workouts or part of your lifestyle versus oh, I better jump on the tread because I've had a bad week of eating or something, you know, again, sleep hygiene, nutrition and then certainly spending time with your family and friends.

And, you know, and I think I am certainly an optimist at heart and one of the luckiest human beings walking the planets. And so, you know, I always believe in the future. I do think we've come through and are in the middle right now. The time that seems like there's a lot of chaos and uncertainty, and one of the things that I try to think a lot about is if there's someone that is important to you, whether it's a family member, whether it's someone that's about a mentor or just somebody that you like, take the time to express that and tell them how important they are to you. And and then I just I think, to myself a lot about all you can ever do. Is it that the end of the day you say to yourself, Look,

today at least I did the best that I could and the things that I believe in like that I really believe in, not just, you know, I wrote down on some list that people are going to see. Am I living towards that? Are applying that and, you know, trying to make your way through it.

You have access to some of the best resource in the world when it comes to nutrition and sleep in hell. What? What have you learned that you wish more people would know or what really makes a difference for you?

Well, there's a couple of you know there's a book. Um, by Matthew Walker called Why we sleep That had a pretty profound impact on me. And I've been fortunate enough to get to know Matthew a little bit. Brilliant guy. What I'm trying to do is again find the difference between the easy fad thing Or if somebody tells you like, Oh, if you lay down on this electrical field, yeah, you know, versus things that are tried and true and, um, communities and so forth where, you know, the stakes are pretty high, and they've had some results with things.

Um, but, you know, I just think there are so many random things that can happen to you. Uh, and you know, I have Certainly we all do. You have friends and family or people that we know that something that's happened to them. That event is so impactful that their whole life is marked before that incident and after that incident, Um, you know last year on the Steelers are linebacker Ryan Shazier. I'm very close. He's a remarkable young man, 11 tackle in one play, and you know, he Ah,

he went down and you could tell right away that it was that it was bad. And for three weeks of watching him every day at the hospital, there didn't look like there was a lot of hope that he would never walk again. And through his hard work and commitment, thankfully, he's, you know, he's done. That. I read I'm not, is good at is I wish I was. But I read a lot of stoicism because it rings true to me. I read the words and I'm like, You know, I actually think that's that's right. And true.

All you have are your own reason, choices and those types of things. Try to take a much of emotion out of this can, which I am clearly not far from perfect at. But, um, I just I think in life I've had the opportunity, experience and do things that are beyond my wildest dreams. And I just think at the end of the day, a lot of it boils down to, you know, your relationships and how you What kind of a friend are you were kind of Ah, you know, parent, are you were kind of Ah. And you know, you want to be able to answer to yourself that Naved you've done as good as you can do on those fronts.

It's amazing. One of the ways that we connected a couple years ago was your intellectual sort of like curiosity and lending on Farnham Street. We've gotten to know each other a bit since then. Was it always that way, or is that something that developed in you after school?

No, I have to say that, um one of the things that I know made a big difference for May and I constantly talked to my to my little guys about This is reading, um, you know, and ever since I was a kid because, you know, we didn't have a lot, but you could always lose yourself in a book and, you know, be transported to wherever. Whether it was reading Lord of the Rings for the first time or, you know, reading about science or history. And so I've I've always been a pretty voracious reader across a lot of topics. Um, and I just am so fascinated by the way the world works that Ah,

you know, I I it's just involuntary. It's not even something that I, you know, set out to do. It's just kind of the way I'm wired.

How do you as a parent, when what do you actively do to try to instill that in your kids? You have to twins, right?

Ideo? Yeah, twin boys, I would say, Ah, couple of things that, um the first is to encourage them to be intellectually curious and toe wonder how things work and ask questions and to read. And so and then, you know, you also kind of balance that also, we talk a ton about character and the things inhabits that will carry through like we all do little things each day, and those little things add up to who we are. So I talked to them a lot about that, and, um, it's one I've said to a couple of friends that air recently. New parents that it's the one experience I've had that was undersold. And, um, you know, is just been the greatest experience of my life

out of the Earth. And that's probably a great place. Toe end this conversation. It was a fascinating chatting with you.

Thank you very much for having me.

I think this is Shane again. Just a few more things. Before we wrap up, you confined show notes at Farnham Street. Blawg dot com slash podcast. That's f A R N A M S T r e t blog dot com slash podcast. You can also find information there on how to get a transcript. And if you'd like to receive a weekly email from me filled with all sorts of brain food, go to Farnham Street. Blawg dot com slash newsletter. This is all the good stuff I found on the Web that week that I've read and shared with close friends books I'm reading and so much more.