My third hire when I came to Spotify was Tiffany Kumar, who came on as our global head of songwriter relations. The whole idea was to put our heads together and figure out how to build and contribute within the songwriting community.
My mom was not able to buy us the expensive Air Jordans, so if I wanted something that was a little bit nicer, my brother and I, we had to go earn money for it.
When your back is against the wall, your brain has to function at a high level.
Being schooled is the same thing as learning, and you can never be too old to have your coattail pulled when you're wrong about something.
I still have a day job, so I don't think I'll be a full-time Shark, but if they ever invited me back, I'd be more than happy to do it.
You go into the venues, and there's a huge drop-off rate in the merch lines. People don't want to miss parts of the concert.
Once we started making investments, we realized the same service we provided to artists was applicable to entrepreneurs as well.
I found a scrap book that my mom had given to me, and inside was a letter that I wrote to myself at age 19. The letter included my goals and dreams for my life, and even then, I was writing about the management company that I built today.
If you look at a company like Uber, a company that so anti-establishment that cab companies are trying to find ways to shut it down, one could compare that to how Public Enemy and NWA went after then-modern society in hip hop.
I stay away from the arts... writing songs, being creative - those are downloads from God. You can't do data analytics on art.
Before I even agreed to work with Hennessy and the Privilege Awards, I wanted to do some research on it, look up past winners, and find out more about it.
The most successful people in the world are the ones who thought of that idea that was 'too crazy to work.'
The way consumers interact with music is different now. It's not an albums business anymore; it's a singles business again, and the industry has gone through that before.
When you have to negotiate for survival, and you have to know how to read rooms, and you have to know who the bad guys in the rooms are - who has the gun in their pocket, who's just going to brandish it, and who's going to actually pull the trigger. So I think that's just a natural instinct that comes with coming from where I come from.
People are experimenting with streaming, with subscription services, whether it's a Spotify or a Pandora or a Rdio.
I came up with Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Those guys, they took me under their wing at an early age.
As we look at Hollywood and the controversy around the Oscars, it goes back to the voting block and the lack of people who come from that culture. For example, the NWA movie is a fantastic, fantastic movie. You need people who can look at a piece of art like that and understand the artistry in it.
To me, mentorships and internships are two big pillars in business development. I believe in having multiple mentors.
When you think about brands and movie studios and everybody who is trying to reach millennials, having a captive audience in the back of Lyft or an Uber is a pretty great place.
The more people are listening to music and experiencing it, the more value for both the music companies and the artist, especially when their financial model is built around that . With the music industry, everybody is starting to understand that doesn't begin with a piece of music.
