Lady Gaga & Atom Factory: Troy Carter (2018)

Hey, it's Guy here, you know. A lot of you have started to tell us about your all time favorite quotes and stories from our interviews, and this one definitely has a bunch of them. I'm not gonna spoil anything by telling you what you're about to hear. Let's just say You'll know them when you hear them. Oh, and this episode ran about a year ago. It's with Troy Carter, and I hope you enjoy it. Oh So

What happened to the business? Uh it w it was over. You know, I didn't have the cash flow. And The phone started ringing and it was the landlord of that building saying, You know what, rent hasn't been paid You know, all all of my vendors, you know, started calling me.

Ma house w w was under foreclosure. and um my wife and my mother in law ended up pawning their wedding rings to you know to to s to save the house. Wow. You know, and with me I you know I never k you know considered suicide. But I know why people do.

From MPR, it's how I built this. show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show how Troy Carter went from the rough streets of West Philly. To launching the career of one of the biggest pop stars in the world.

Lady Gaga. So It usually takes a bit of instinct, some failure, and a lot of luck to figure out what customers are gonna wanna buy. Set Goldman, he figured a lot of people would want a barely sweetened iced tea. And with honesty?

He turned out to be right. Kill her? He thought people wanted cheap flights with no frills, and well, we got South West. But for Troy Carter It wasn't just that he thought Lady Gaga would be huge.

It's that he had no choice. Because At the time he met her And this is just ten years ago. He had lost all of his money. He was totally broke.

But somehow over the next few years. Troy essentially built a company you could Call it. Lady Gaga Inc. A sprawling empire of writers, dancers, choreographers, costume artists, roadies, musicians, producers, engineers, marketers, publicists, y you get the idea.

And Troy built that without any family connections or money or formal training. In fact Much to his mother's disappointment. Troy dropped out of his high school in West Philadelphia in 1990 to pursue a dream. And that dream? was to become a rapper.

We had this idea that we were gonna be this rap group, you know, called Two Too Many, and it was me and two of my best friends. Okay. And and we we called ourselves Two Too Many because it was we only had enough money for one of us. So it was uh always Two Too Many of us. And my best friend said if we ever meet Will Smith or Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince, they're gonna give us a record deal. So that we had the sole focus and sole purpose of meeting Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince.'Cause those were the guys from Philadelphia. They were the only guys from Philadelphia. They were they were from our neighborhood. They were successful. They were like gods in Philly. And they were they were the way out. That was plan that was plan A, B, and C. So did you did you meet him?

Yes, we we actually hopped the train And you know, we didn't have money, so we just would, you know, wait for the train to pull up, then jump over the turnstile and take the train down to Delaware Avenue. And we knew Jazzy Jeff had a recording studio there. And we just would wait outside of the recording studio. And I think we did that for almost six months. And Jeff used to see us outside, but would never let us in. I think he thought we were like stalkers or something. And um and then one day we saw some friends in the studio that let us in. Uh Will Smith and ha just happened to be in a studio and we walked in and we played our demo tape. And he listened to it right then and there.

He listened to it and um We actually went outside it was snowing. And we said, Well we want you to see us dance too. So we actually started dancing in the snow. I think we we quickly found out we sucked. But you know Will saw some potential in us.

And uh he said, Look, how you know, how you guys getting home? And we said, We don't know. And he uh drove us home that night and basically told our our parents that, you know, He had us covered. We were gonna be okay. And what what was the what was the track you played for him? Do do you remember how it goes? Oh my god, it was

Pretty terrible. It was a song called Where's the Party. That was like And actually I I I I'm all I'm I I shouldn't even said the name because you'll go on Google now. We're gonna find it. I know you are. Girls to the left and the girls to the right. It's not so bad. We thought it was really good. Will thought it had some potential. We put it out and it went double wood. So you made no money off that. We made zero zero money. Uh uh I'm I probably still owe Will Smith money for that record. But you establish a relationship with Will Smith, which was kind of a big deal, I guess. Yes, and you know what, and Will has a partner still to this very day named uh James Lasseter. You know, he was in the studio that day we played the demo tape and he was Jazzy Jeffs and

And Fresh Prince's manager he actually got the the job as their manager because he he was the only guy in our neighborhood with a car. And James had had become Just sort of Mm.

mogul in the industry And I want it to be James. So and my soul. I want it to be less fresh prints. and more James. So I just kinda put myself under James and James became my teacher.

So you basically move away from from being a performer at that point. And did did James give you a job? Yes, James gave me a job. I had a few jobs within a camp, but I was James' assistant. I was Jazzy Jeff's assistant And um I ended up moving out to LA

And working with working with James and his production company with Will. H how old are you, by the way, at the time? I w I was in my late teens, early twenties during s sort of that transition period. Right. And I was working at Will and James's production company And I was having the time of my life and and I'm very hard headed, thought I knew everything and I didn't have a car. I thought it was gonna be like Philly where you just can take the train everywhere. And in LA everything's so separated. And I was taking this car service from the office to visit this girl probably two or three times a week or whatever, but I would pay

the bill at the every two weeks when I got my check. I would pay like the office manager and say, hey the bill's gonna come in. I got you covered or whatever. And one time uh I think I pissed the office manager off over something And she told James that I had been using this car service to visit this girl, and James came in and fired me and sent me back to Philly. Wow, so on the spot that was it. You were done. Done. James basically, you know, he saw the route that I was going and I was taking a lot of shortcuts. And I was kinda living this LA fast life and sort of the stereotypical

uh fake executive thing. You know, I thought I thought I was much bigger than what I was at that particular time and he kicked me out of LA. Like he said, go b you're going back home. So Like You're in your early twenties.

You lose your job and you uh you go back to Philly? Yeah, I went back I went back to Philly um sort of with my tail in between my legs. And my cousins in Philly had started a small management company, a sort of a production company. That they asked me to come in and run. And one of the clients was a girl that I met when she was sixteen, so she and I had known each other. And we started working together and and and it was uh the rapper Eve. Wow. But

I I had absolutely no clue w what I was doing. Yeah. And you know, it started off, you know, Eve Eve had come to me and she said, Look, you know, I need your help in you know, in in figuring this out And at first I was kinda helping her find a manager. Finally she said, look, I want you to do it. And and of course I said yes and jumped at the opportunity.

And I think initially the job was protecting my friend. So instinctively the decisions that I was making was really about how do I protect her and make sure that, you know, she has the best possible chance to make it. And everything else was, you know, learning as I was going along. And you know, I remember the first tour that we went on was this cash money rough riders tour.

I got on the bus and it was this old bus driver. And you know, scruffy beard and he said, Um, you you got the float. I said I'll be right back. And I you know, I got off the bus and I caught one of my buddies who had done touring for a long time And I said, dude, what's float?

And he said, it's the money that you give the bus driver for gas, tolls, fuel, you know, everything else or whatever. So I got back on a bus and um gave him the money and you know, he I said, here's the float. And uh and I sort of floated my way through the rest of Uh for the next three years I kinda floated my way through kinda figuring it out as I was going along. Yeah, I mean what did you have to do as a manager for for Eve, like bookshows and and like h how did you even know how to how to do that or how to promote her brand and how to get her out into the world? You know the um the way it works is um The manager sort of, you know, is like the hub.

So, you know, I go out and I hired a booking agent who who books the shows. I hired a publicist who who who does interviews and television. I bring in the the record label who distributes the music. So it's sort of like you know, a CEO of Eve Inc. of her of her business. And that That became a pretty big business.

Yeah, she she actually became one of the biggest female hip hop stars of of of all time. And you know, I was lucky enough to have the the fresh prints blueprint so to kinda understand that a rapper could do T V and a rapper could do, you know, things outside of uh of their core business. And with Eve, we ended up building, you know, a clothing line, a television show. She w had gone on to do, you know, barbershop, you know, with with with Ice Cube and and Cedric the Entertainer.

So uh we we ended up building something really special and something unique for a female rapper at that particular time. How did you know what to do? Like I mean, negotiating, really, really hard. work, right? And and and you were so inexperienced at that time, like How did you know what to negotiate and how to negotiate.

You know what, it I think a lot of it is you know, is is West Philly spidey senses. You know, so When you have to um 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 who's just gonna brand the shit and who's gonna who's gonna actually pull the trigger. So I think that's just a natural instinct that comes with

coming from where where I come from. So Being able to take that tool into negotiations on on reading people and reading rooms and reading circumstances, I think is very, very important. And then also knowing What's important for that person on the other side of the table? And what's important for The client. Yeah.

And a lot of times um is not conflicting. So so both sides can kinda get what they want out of it. So I mean, presumably at this point in your life you're still really young guy, like you're thinking, I'm set I am

This is all like This is all Unfolding exactly as I I had hoped. Yeah, you know, I was I was on cloud nine because you know, this is everything that I've ever dreamed.

That's all I ever wanted to do in my in my in my life with was music. And because I was a failed artist, I was actually able to help somebody accomplished their dream was, you know, definitely fulfilling. And then the trappings that came along with it as a young guy I was I was loving it. Yeah. Were you making money at the time?

I was making hood money, so so I was like I was ghetto rich at that at that particular time. So if you had, you know, the the the nicer house out of the forty row homes on that side of the street, you were doing okay. But by no means was I Was I rich? You know, um my goal was to make a thousand dollars a week. If I could make a thousand dollars a week, that was it for me. I was set. That was my that was my goal. Yeah. What was the name of your company, by the way? Uh it was called Irving Wonder. Irvender, okay.

And uh and I did it out of Philly for five years and then I sold that company in in two thousand four. You sold it to another management company? Yeah, it was a c a big company in the UK called the Sanctuary Group. And um so I sold it to the Sanctuary Group and then moved to LA to help them open up their LA offices. Why did you sell the your your management company that you You built. The real reason was At that particular time it was

the largest liquidity event that I would have experienced. It was a lot of money, basically. Yeah, I was hustling. Yeah. You know, I was living check to check. Uh, you know, walking around venues with, you know, a backpack full of cash from venue to venue. So, you know, it was n it was a complete lack of sophistication in in in the way we operated the business. And then the guys from Sanctuary, you know, they were managing Guns and Roses and you know, a bunch of huge rock acts. And they had just done a deal with uh Matthew Knowles, who was uh who's Beyonce's dad and bought his company And he approached me and said, Look, this company can help you scale your business. They can help you grow your business, you know, in a way that you can't grow it internationally.

And you know You don't have to live check to check. You have a young family, and he said, look, this is gonna take you to the next level, and I and I ended up doing it. What did they pay you? I can't tell what they paid me. Can't really? N D A is that NDA has long expired. They paid me more than I ever made. You know, but you know, I'll I'll tell you, it was a it was a That at the it was a two million dollar check. It was two point out actually, the actual number was two

$1,275,000 was the actual number because I remember when the wire when the wire went through and I called and checked the automated bank machine. About ten times to make sure that the money was still there. Because that I never I I never had a million dollars in in my in my bank account before. I never had even close to it and you know in in the bank at at one time And here it was, now it's like, okay, you know what? It's This is this is very real. And I just

Yeah, it was very real. So what was it like working working for Sanctuary? I hated it.

I hated it. You know, it was it was fantastic at first. And because you know, I was so excited to, you know, to get the check, I completely overlooked all of the red flags. But what were they? You know what, it just was certain things and certain behaviors that showed up during that period. that I chose to ignore.

Because I I I said I'm just gonna take the check. And I'll and I'll deal with that. And maybe he isn't such a bad guy. And maybe those those maybe they are ethical underneath some of the things that was happening. During the negotiation. So Coming in. I just didn't do

the diligence on them that they were doing on me. So h how long did you last there? Uh, you know what, probably I remember waking up And talking to my wife a couple of times about buying the company back.

Because I'm talking about, you know, me growing up loving music, worshiping, you know, Barry Gordy's and all of these guys, and like this is my dream, and I didn't have a plan B and this is all I wanted to do. And I was dreading getting up in the morning going to the office. Like I had knots in my stomach. going in and I would go into the office and I would pull my shades down. We had glass offices and I would pull my shades down because I didn't want to work with people there. Mm. And about a two years in, a year and a half in it was over. And you were managing you were still managing Eve at that point.

Yes, I was made in Geneve. Now now when you left Sanctuary Sanctuary, you were still pretty much financially secure at that point, right? Yeah, I thought I was. a lot of money back into the business, into this new business. After I left Sanctuary. So um One of the things I realized was two million dollars isn't actually two million dollars. You know, um Exactly. You buy you buy a house, you pay t you know, you pay taxes, you buy a couple new cars. And it's gone. It's gone. I invested in and I invested in this new business and um Eve was going with me, so I said, You know what? I know exactly what we're doing. This is going to the next level.

You know, b did a build out on these beautiful offices on on Wilshire Boulevard. And um and and started this new this new business. Uh, you know what, Eve walked in one day, um, you know, I think maybe I was probably about a year um maybe a year or two into the into the new business. So sh she came into my office, you know, she sat down on the couch and she said, I think I wanna go.

In another direction. Oh. And I said, Well, what do you mean? She said, Well, um, I think I'm gonna find new management. So wow.

Why? She's well I think uh I wanna go to the next level and uh I wanna go with a manager who I think could get me to the next level. I said, Well are you thinking about anybody specifically? She said, Yeah

Yeah, I'm thinking about sh this guy Sha Kim. I said Shaquem. Shaquem's my Mentor and good friend. So She ended up signing with one of my good friends for management. Wow.

And I mean she was like your She was your ticket to making that new business successful. So And even more, she wasn't even she was my friend. And we were you know, really close. You know, she was there through, you know, girlfriends and through my wedding through the you know, birth of You know, my kids and It was a heartbreak, you know, numb number one. um in terms of how it how it ended up happening.

You know, and then the business w was high hedged. On uh on that success w you know, uh of her. Yeah. You know, it was a sing a single client business pretty much at that time. So what happened to the business? Uh it w it was over. Uh it this was, you know, this kind of bleeds into, you know, going into probably two thousand seven. When

You know, I didn't have the cash flow. And a s phone started ringing and it was the landlord of that building saying, You know what, rent hasn't been paid you know, all all of my vendors, you know, started calling me And then it kinda spilled into home my House w was under foreclosure.

And um my wife and my mother in law ended up pawning their wedding rings to you know to to s to save the house. And um And even down the the you know, the kids were in private school and Yeah, having to to tell, you know. the the head of school

Asking them to, you know, could you please keep the kids in school? You know, and I'm gonna pay tuition, I just need a little bit of time, but you know, scared that when I gave the waiter my credit card for a couple of bowls of oatmeal that it was gonna be decline. Wow. You know, so it was it was t it was tough. And you know, super humbling Not not just as an entrepreneur, but as a dad. And you know, and having to live through That really

Uh that really dark, dark, dark period. And hip hop is a very small community. And it w you know, um We had a couple of buddies who were like b you know real executives in our business, um, who had committed suicide, who were you know had successful careers and everything else or whatever. And um you know, and with me I you know, I never c you know, considered suicide, but I know why people do.

Obviously you had already demonstrated some talent by managing Eve and by all the promotional work you done. But in your mind did you s were you able to say to yourself, Okay, I'm talented, I'm gonna pull out of this, or were there moments where you just thought I'm I'm doomed. Like I am not gonna get out of this. No, you know what? It's it's you c you can't fall off the floor.

And I was on the floor. Now nowhere to go, right? And Mm um You know, she was a single mom. We grew up where a lot of times we had to choose between whether we were gonna have a phone line in the house or electricity.

And I remember us being on the bed with a penny bank and h it was a bronze penny bank shaped like a pig. And she would stick a butter knife into the slot to get the coins to come out. and we would divide the coins up to get you know, so me and my brother We have bus fare to get to school. So we grew up

Tough. Yeah. My mom caught the bus every day to go to work and walk sometimes for thirty years straight. So my mom's work ethic And spirit

Is in my DNA. Yeah. And I was always working to I wanted to to Make my mom and my grandmother proud that was always a big thing for me. And

Uh, I'm getting a little choked up. Sorry. It's okay. And uh you know. I wanna do that for my wife and family.

And I and I think Having somebody who has your back knowing you got somebody who has your back like that. Yeah. It's a big deal. So In the m in the midst of this

Just like really tough period. What happened? How did you How did you turn the corner? Wow. Um A good buddy

Uh Vincent Herbert. Who's like this uh Very jubilant guy. Uh Vince is like a character, but he's super talented, you know, he was a child prodigy. He was like sixteen or seventeen producing records for

Celine Dion and you know, um Whitney Houston and and Tony Braxton. And we were the same age. And every time he was in LA he would pop by and just you know, we would just Talk and and

Catch up. And he had called me and said You know, uh Carter, I got this girl that I saw in my space that I want you to check out. And um and he brought her in and she played her music and which was great.

And was Lady Gaga. Ha. Ha In a moment, the story of how Troy Carter came back from financial ruin. and help to build a superstar.

I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This. from NPR. Welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So Troy Carter is probably at the lowest point in his life.

His house is in foreclosure. His business is fallen apart and He's basically bankrupt. But around this time he gets introduced to a young singer and piano player who calls herself Lady Gaga. D did you know

That she was gonna be huge. Yeah, you know what, you the real answer is you don't know. You think And you hope. But but you don't know.

And um We people s now. is what she was, you know, except for you know she was a brunette. And and she she didn't dance at that particular time, you know, she was behind the piano. Actually, Ellie Reed who who had done your show Um, had just dropped they're from Def Jam.

But you know what, she in all fairness to LA, she she was a piano singer. Yeah. And she had gone to West Virginia Um cried on her grandmother's couch afterwards because Her dad gave her a year off from school and basically said, You got one year to figure this out or you need to go back to NYU.

So she thought her dreams were shattered. I think it was that sort of thing, you can't fall off the floor. And so, you know, she had this spirit. And her that You know, when you feel that sort of pain, you never want to feel it again. So she was a incredibly hard worker. So she just worked hard every day to get better and better.

So what did you guys start to do? I mean, how did you I mean you are almost or bankrupt, basically, financially. You're bankrupt. Yep. And she's like, Oh, please, can you manage me? And you're like Yeah, sure, okay. Yeah. You know, so we may music. That that was the big thing. Like Vince Vince was incredibly talented at

You know, helping her shape the sound. Uh I knew how to work with with female artists. You know, um I knew about the fashion business from working with Eve. you know, Gaga signed to Interscope, which was the same label that Eve was on So I had a you know great rapport with the with the label already. So it was it was very it felt natural kinda navigating it.

And we know. I think we worked on the music for almost Nine or ten months. And then we took it to the record label and the record label said, Oh, those songs are great.

Let's give this to the pussycat dolls. Let's give this to Britney Spears. So she ended up becoming a great songwriter. And A few of the songs we f we actually fought for and we said we're just not giving these records up. And we went out and we took those songs to radio. And it was a disaster.

The radio wouldn't play it. They wouldn't play what what song are you telling me? Uh it was the song Just Dance. Nobody would play that song? Nobody would play it. Nobody would play it. how did you start to build her career? What did you do? We you know what? It's uh We ended up

This is as facebook and twitter. And um MySpace and YouTube, all of those platforms were starting to um just emerge as places where you could reach audiences directly. And we started using the platforms. They were free. Um where we got lucky

Is that a lot of them were global. they were in in markets outside of outside of the US So we started reaching audiences in places where we we didn't travel geographically. What would you do? Would you just like post Text or videos or like like uh messages from Lady Gaga? Yep, both. How would people even discover her? It you know, it's it's these sort of underground music communities that want it that wanna find things before other people find them.

And um and I remember we came up with this concept called uh gaga vision for YouTube. And it was like these three minute video clips of basically these art clips of her and her dancers. Her and you know, but we would have the bed of music underneath it and it was super artistic and you know, she was brilliant and you know, one of the furs music voices who w who really knew how to use and leverage social And and it really worked. So we started building these sort of underground followings uh throughout the world, but it wasn't big. Yeah it was

seventy five to a hundred people in clubs that we would play. But we c we super serve that community. Let me just pause for a second because just a few years or year and a half before that, you're in a high rise office building in LA, a glass office building, living this life as a corporate executive at this management company And you are now like going back to traveling in vans and like sleeping in them and trying to get this artist into small clubs? Yeah.

Start start it over. Start it over. And also, you know, this was new t for me because this was pop music, totally different from from hip hop. It was it was it was a different skill set. Yeah. And so so really start starting over. H how were you able to even fund Like the videos and her tour, like you didn't have any money at the time, so how were you able to do it?

Uh Interscope records. Okay. And and they funded a bit. Uh presumably not a lot,'cause I it sounds like they didn't think she was gonna be as big as you thought she was gonna be. No, you know it's a it was a sh a shoestring budget. Yeah. We didn't need a lot, though. You know, I remember her She you know, she didn't have outfits. So

She w had this idea for this sort of mirror bra Panny set. Or whatever that she couldn't afford. So she took a mirror and she actually broke the mirror up with a hammer and crazy glued each piece onto a w onto a bra and panties. You know, we we we had this, you know, for all of the early Gaga fans, you know, from the from the early days, you know, y uh she ha she had this latex costume. Uh you know, with these big shoulder pads that she wore to every single show. Hm.

Not multiple outfits, one outfit that she wore to every single show. So you know, so we we basically bootstrapped this thing and and and every dime that she did make, she reinvested it back into her career. So I think when you married you marry that with the perfect storm of I don't have a plan B. She doesn't have a plan B. Vincent doesn't have a plan B. This had to work. It had to work. It had to work. I'm getting anxious just listening to this story because I'm thinking, Oh my God

It's crazy. It's such a crazy risk. Okay, so you so you're trying to convince state radio stations to play her music. You're building up a social media network, but What was a moment where She just blew up. The moment that I knew, like you know, because it wasn't just one moment, right? It just was like this grind over a one year period to get it on the radio. And so I remember we were playing a theater It was the Wilton Theater in N LA.

Mm. And you know, this is as things are feeling better. Yeah, it's a b it's a pretty big venue. Yeah, but I remember the we were so nervous about the wheel turn though because it's a thousand seats. Yeah. But we had sold out a couple of nightclubs. So we're like, maybe we can stretch it. We'll keep the tickets at twenty dollars. So, you know, so it's super affordable or whatever, and we can give away whatever we don't sell. We can give to the radio stations or, you know

Um kinda pad the venue, right? This is like two thousand eight, two thousand nine? Yeah, aro around that time. And I remember driving down the street that morning because I had to go downtown for something and I drove down it past the theater And kids were sleep outside. No, they had already bought tickets to the show. And they just wanted to get in first. Wow.

And when I saw those kids sleeping outside I say we did it. We did it. Because when you can get'em to line up. You got something special.

Got something special. What was that ride like? You know what, it was pretty incredible, you know, um We gone to places that I never dreamed about. met people you never thought you would meet.

So Not only did she go to an incredible level in her career. It actually took me to a level in my career that, you know, I thought you know, what I w did with Eve, I thought I was at Yeah, a a a high

But this height was, you know, you're you're in the you're on Mount Everest. Did you guys you and and Lady Galaga, did you ever have moments Where You just had a quiet moment and you would just look at each other and say, How did this happen? This is amazing. Oh yeah. You know, me me me, gaga and Vince were like the a a trifecta. And we would always have those moments like

Oh my God, can you believe? Wow. You know, you look out at a crowd. Or, you know, I I remember seeing her play um Sting's Ring Forest event in New York where you know Stinger bring out, you know, legend after legend, you know, Elton John, Bono

Um Stevie Wonder You know, just all of the great and her being the only young artists there playing with those guys, seeing her hold her own with those guys and th and them just take her under her wing, you know, under their wings. So you know, it's just all of those moments are just, you know, very, very special moments. So during this time I guess. Uh you also start to

Like you thought I'm gonna branch out, right? I mean uh Yeah. Because you started a company around that time. It was called Atom Factory, right? Uh yeah, I started Adam Factory. Actually so I started co Coalition Media Group was the original name of the company. thing started it's just uh it was this sort of energetic shift with it within a company. And you know, and I've gone through you know, terrible time period.

I said, you know, I'm just gonna I wanna change the name of the company. I wanna bring a new energy into it. And I said, I want it I want this company be to be s something small, but yet powerful. Yeah. And just to be honest, what you m the the thing was I just said I wanna wake up every day and do cool shit. That was the mantra for me personally. Yeah. And so whether that included management or, you know, producing T V or whatever, I just wanted to do things that that inspired me. Yeah. So

So you start this company and Lady Gaga's career's doing great and One day she walks in and says I'm leaving. Yep, she walk walked in and say, uh I'm I I wanna go in another direction, basically. Which is a story you had heard. Yeah, so it's I can't say it felt any different than it than it felt the first time.

But you know what, it's It was a different experience for me. The first time I went into panic mode, you know, when that when that happened to me. Um this time, you know, I think I think I was able to cut to sit in the middle of that storm. And and watch the storm pass. Why did she

Wanna part ways with you? Uh, you know what? It's it I think it just it happens. I think it it differs in opinion, you know, on on what happened and and why it happened, but ultimately I re you know, I respected it and took it on the chin. Are you guys still friends? Uh, you know, I I wouldn't say friends, but uh cordial.

Yeah. 'Cause you were she was probably the closest person to you outside of your family for like a lot of years. Yeah, that's you know, that's the thing about management. You know, you I I can't do it without Pouring my soul into it.

I can't do it without investing one hundred percent. and into that relationship. So I didn't go into the relationship with Gaga with my guards up, you know, because the thing happened with Eve. You know, so it just doesn't work that way for me. I'm it's just no gray for me. I'm I'm either all in or all out. Is it

Wa well, you know what is b uh not not even bitter sweet, I think it just sweet. You know, um The the songs that she sang at the Super Bowl, you know, are those are records that, you know, I know the origin. I know the stories behind them, you know. We we were part of, I was part of getting those records to the Super Bowl, so it's a part of my life that you know I'm always gonna be proud of.

Okay, so so I wanna I wanna talk about a a completely different side uh of your career which Which is arguably a a much bigger part of your career, which is investing. I mean, you basically at a certain point decided I wanna invest in startups. Yeah, y that that sort of came about Through

You know, we were doing all of these things in technology with these uh startups with with Gaga, you know, in order to make it a little bit more. So yeah, just to promote the music. Yeah. And the music industry and and just Hollywood in general were in litigation with most of the you know, the technology companies, so it was this sort of this wall between technology and content. And we embraced it and so I started building a lot of relationships in Silicon Valley. That

introduce me to a lot of young entrepreneurs who started asking me, you know, could I advise their companies? Could I put in some introductions? You know, did I want to invest in their companies? And that that ended up turning into, you know, I think it's I I I've invested in close to a hundred early stage technology companies now. Yeah, so Pretty s like Uber, Warby Parker, Spotify, right? You were an early investor in all those. Yeah, yeah, Spotify, Warby, Uber, Lyft.

Dropbox, Slack. Um really great companies that we're proud of. So like looking back at that that two million dollar check that you got, you know, twenty years ago, I mean, you are Let's face it, like you're very rich guy now. You've you've done very, very well. Do you feel secure now? Do you feel like you'll never get back to that point? You know, in two thousand six where the the banks are going after you and try to

Take go take back your house. It's funny tal talking to like people who grew up poor You suffer financial PTSD. Yeah, so so um going through financial PTSD

You always have that fear, that thing we have it. Yeah, you all you all you always have it. So I'm just I'm a simple guy. What I

appreciate in life and the things uh that m that make me happy. tend not to have to do with with the money itself. More importantly It's having the ability to live a life that I can wake up every morning doing what I love to do.

Nothing's more important to than to me than that. Y you know, you you never went to college. You don't have an MBA, you don't have An advanced degree I I think two Harvard Business School case studies about you and Lady Caga, which isn't a great irony, but

Did you ever feel like you didn't belong, or that you weren't I don't know that like you were around people who had credentials and and made you feel intimidated. Y um At times, right? You know, and um I I had a fifth grade teacher named Miss Moore.

And I was always the littlest guy in the class. You know, uh you take the school pictures or you get in line to go to lunch in the hallway. I was always first in line'cause I was the the smallest guy. So um But she used to call me the big guy. And she made me feel like I was six foot five. Yeah. And like she g it was something that she did um psychologically

th that like really, really made me feel Not only did I belong But that I was special. Mm. So

You know, sometimes I'll go into rooms Where It's This person has a lot more experience than me. They're much smarter than I am. But I I know what I know.

And I think I bring a very I I bring a unique point of view to the table, you know, just with with different experiences and I'm I'm confident in that in that point of view. Yeah. Yeah, I was I was thinking about the story you told about your mom earlier and I mean she must be so amazed at

And how it turned out. I mean you I mean you dropped out of school, she was super disappointed. And and I mean You know, she she passed away

Three years ago. And yep, and um She was sixty three years old when she died. And she spent the last three years With me and my family.

But I remember Ah man. Yeah. We were at an award show. They were giving me some award. Um for an achievement in the in the music industry.

And she w she was sick. And Sh uh she was my date to the show. And we saw Barry Gordy. She said that's you.

Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Dude, you're like Oprah, you bring out the tears. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha. Troy Carter. founder of Atom Factory. By the way, Lady Gaga was not the only star they managed. Over the last several years, the roster has included John Legend, Priyanka Chopra, Megan Trainer, and John Mayer. And you know that decision he made to quit rapping when he was a teenager? It was probably a good one because two too many song Where's the Party, the one we played earlier.

It's been on YouTube for ten years. and it only has 13,000 views. Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that. And today we're gonna update a story we ran last year. This one comes from Robin Gerber, who works for a bank in New York. But she wanted to solve a problem that has nothing to do with her day job. I get super frustrated looking for parking. If I'm driving, if I'm a passenger in a car. Yeah, you know probably one of the most annoying things about having a car in a big city. People fight with their spouses, like is trying to find a parking space when you need one. Go take that spot and they didn't drive there fast enough. Uh.

So it's really a source of tension. Anyway, about four years ago, Robin noticed that her dad had come up with kind of a low-tech solution to the city's parking problem. He devised a system where he would put a piece of paper on his car window with a smiley face if he was leaving the next morning. And drivers in his neighborhood began to look out for his car if they saw the smiley face. And of course when Robin saw that. I thought to myself there should be an app for this. And how many of us have thought the very same thing, but Robin actually did something. She got a friend to help her do the coding and then she made an app that allows drivers to share information about parking spaces. We have a find a spot option and a host the spot option. So if you were looking to find a spot, you could click that button and it would search for all the spots within your vicinity and it would show you the 20 closest spots. So you choose the spot you want to snag, you get the make and model of the car that's leaving.

And then you navigate to your space. And they are actually tracking you on GPS, so you know if the person is on time, you could chat with them, and each person has to say if it was successful or not. Of course, for the app to really work, Robin needed hundreds, actually thousands of New York City drivers to download it and start sharing their spaces. So to get the word out, she made a music video. Now I'm not trying to be rude, but let me get that pocket spot from you. Okay, so that is my cousin Brad Meyer and my whole family. Either sang in it or danced in it. The video did not exactly go viral, but Robin kept pushing. She put flyers on thousands of cars all over New York City. People chase after me when I'm handing them flyers, asking for more flyers to give their friends that live in the neighborhood. They they love this and that enthusiasm is what keeps me pushing forward. Robin called her app Parcar that's spelled P-A-R-K-A-R-R, and since she launched in 2016, she signed up more than 16,000 users in New York City, and she's adding more every day.

She's also hoping to launch Parkar on a few college campuses this summer. It's still a side hustle though, she's keeping her day job at the bank. And if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. We love hearing from you about the things you're building. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you wanna find out more or hear previous episodes, you can go to howibuilthis.npr.org. Please also subscribe to the show at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, give us a review. You can also write us, that's h-ibtnpr.org, and if you want to send a tweet, it's at how I built this. Our show was produced this week by Ramteen Arablui, who also composed the music. Thanks also to Noor Kutsi, Neva Grant, Sanazmepur, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is JC Howard.

I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This? From NPR.

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