Podcasts about Moviefone

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Best podcasts about Moviefone

Latest podcast episodes about Moviefone

The Daily Crunch – Spoken Edition
Remember Moviefone? Well, it's back.

The Daily Crunch – Spoken Edition

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2025 3:28


For millions of movie enthusiasts in the '90s, Moviefone's 777-FILM number was the go-to source for obtaining showtimes. Now, under new ownership, Moviefone is trying to make a comeback. On Friday, as part of its 35th anniversary celebration, Moviefone announced the relaunch of its mobile app and a new nationally syndicated broadcast TV series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GenXGrownUp Podcast
GenX Phone Fun

GenXGrownUp Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 13, 2025 70:46


These days, a phone is a super-computer in your pocket, but growing up GenX, it was an appliance plugged into the wall. But like today, we still found a way to use the phone for our entertainment. From 900 numbers to party lines; Moviefone to prank calling – we made our own fun. In this Backtrack, we remember all the ways we used to make our own fun with the home telephone. (May contain some explicit language.) Patreon » patreon.com/genxgrownup Discord » GenXGrownUp.com/discord Facebook » fb.me/GenXGrownUp Twitter » GenXGrownUp.com/twitter Website » GenXGrownUp.com Podcast » GenXGrownUp.com/pod Merchandise » GenXGrownUp.com/merch Theme: “Grown Up” by Beefy » beefyness.com Apple » itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/genxgrownup-podcast/id1268365641 CastBox » castbox.fm/channel/GenXGrownUp-Podcast-id2943471?country=us Pocket Casts » pca.st/8iuL Audible » amz.run/6yhR TuneIn » tunein.com/radio/GenXGrownUp-Podcast-p1020342/ Spotify » spoti.fi/2TB4LR7 iHeart » www.iheart.com/podcast… Amazon Music » amzn.to/33IKfEK Show Notes Breakup of AT&T » bit.ly/4bIh8DQ Back in the '80s, people called 1-900 numbers to meet celebs, eavesdrop on NASA and cry » bit.ly/3FnIVxk Dial-a-Santa Commercials from the 80s » youtu.be/CGlRlQaVPzo?si=L8t6xaCYzgp3QTJ- Sports Phone, the 1980s Way to Get Real-Time Scores » bit.ly/41W9EtA Remember calling the phone company speaking clock for the time? » bit.ly/3R1gBDr Horror Hotlines: When 80s Kids Dared To Dial » bit.ly/43Cxjk4 Freddy Krueger Hotline Commercial » youtu.be/QtPVxisMLas Still working adventure phone » 630-847-5241 The History of Phone Phreaking » bit.ly/4iIoKZi Email the show » podcast@genxgrownup.com Visit us on YouTube » GenXGrownUp.com/yt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's A Girl's Life
50: Redefining The Nice Girl with Fran Hauser

It's A Girl's Life

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2024 55:52


In this inspiring episode, I sit down with Fran Hauser, an author, keynote speaker, and investor who has dedicated her career to empowering other women. With a background in finance and media, Fran played a pivotal role in the $525 million sale of Moviefone to AOL and later rose to become President of Digital at Time Inc.  In the episode, Fran shares insights from her two acclaimed books, The Myth of the Nice Girl and Embrace the Work, Love Your Career, offering invaluable advice on how to navigate the professional world while staying true to yourself. As many of us are starting to work in the real world, Fran shares crucial insights that all girls deserve to hear right now. We even delve into Fran's journey from a finance professional to a media executive and successful startup investor. This episode is a must-listen for collegiate women looking to redefine their career stories, take control of their financial futures, and prioritize self-care. Tune in to be inspired and motivated to press play on your own success story! Also: happy 50th episode! I cannot believe over four years, we have finally reached a HUGE milestone. Thank you SO much to all of you who continue to listen and fulfill my dream of changing the way girls view their life and the world around them.

Denise Griffitts - Your Partner In Success!
Matt Atchity: Entertainment Industry Powerhouse

Denise Griffitts - Your Partner In Success!

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2024 70:00


Matt Atchity, a multimedia powerhouse with over 20 years of experience shaping the entertainment industry, is celebrated for his transformative role as Editor-in-Chief of Rotten Tomatoes. During his tenure, he established the Tomatometer rating system as the definitive metric for movie criticism. Beyond Rotten Tomatoes, Atchity has produced acclaimed content across platforms such as Moviefone and TYT Network. His deep understanding of audience dynamics and innovative drive has cemented his status as a leading authority in engaging viewers in the digital age, making his insights invaluable for creators, studios, and fans alike. At Rotten Tomatoes, Matt led a decade-long charge that elevated the site to household name status, pioneering TV reviews and expanding its industry influence. Additionally, he co-founded and co-hosted "What the Flick!?" with Ben Mankiewicz and Cenk Uygur, marking it as the inaugural spinoff show on the TYT network. Now, Matt Atchity has transitioned to a new chapter in his career, joining forces with his uncle Ken Atchity at Story Merchant - a company that represents and assists storytellers (writers, authors) in getting their stories published or adapted for film and television. Drawing on his extensive background and industry expertise, Matt brings a wealth of knowledge to the company's ventures in Hollywood. His strategic insights, honed from years at Rotten Tomatoes and other prominent platforms, promise to enrich Story Merchant's creative endeavors and expand its footprint in the entertainment landscape. Matt's shift to collaborate with Ken Atchity reflects his ongoing commitment to innovation and storytelling, ensuring his contributions continue to resonate across the industry. Website | LinkedIn

Lisa Berigan On Demand
Oscars Preview & Predictions with Film Critic Grae Drake

Lisa Berigan On Demand

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 7, 2024 9:40 Transcription Available


Film critic Grae Drake is here to help you with your Oscars office pool! She and Lisa preview the major categories, predict the winners, and discuss what else to expect during Sunday night's Oscars broadcast.

HOT ROD Pod: Where It All Began
Hollywood Hot Rods Owner Troy Ladd on the One-Day Hot Rod, his creative process, & HOT ROD Power Tour West!

HOT ROD Pod: Where It All Began

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2024 60:45 Transcription Available


NHRA's Brian Lohnes & HOT ROD Magazine's John McGann take the podcast to Pomona, California for Day 3 of HOT ROD Power Tour West 2023! The guys chat with Hollywood Hot Rods Owner, Troy Ladd, about where it all began, the "One-Day Hot Rod", how he built Hollywood Hot Rods, Road Thrash in 2008, his creative process, behind-the-scenes stories from the Gauntt Coupe & Mulholland Speedster builds, firing customers, working with other shops, working with clients, and HOT ROD Power Tour West! 0:07 - About today's guest - Troy Ladd. 0:53 - Welcome to Moviefone! 2:44 - Where it all began - the business plan. 7:39 - The One-Day Hot Rod! 11:50 - Rivets!? 16:04 - Genesis of Hollywood Hot Rods. 20:28 - Road Thrash, 2008. 22:49 - Scope of HHR's style. 27:09 - Troy's creative process. 29:14 - The Gauntt Coupe, '32 Roadster. 30:15 - The Mulholland Speedster. 35:22 - Behind the business. 36:41 - Firing customers. 38:15 - Friends & Frenemies. 42:18 - Timelessness of Model A's & Coupes. 45:44 - 3D Printing? 48:33 - Working with Clients. 55:23 - HOT ROD Power Tour West!

AIPT Movies
Shredruary: Josie and the Pussycats

AIPT Movies

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2024 64:36


It's February, so that means it's time for the AIPT Movies podcast's “Shredruary” series! Where we cover movies that revolve around music or musicians! In this week's episode, Alex, Tim, and Matt discuss 2001's satirical musical comedy, Josie and the Pussycats!Endless product placement! A classic and catchy soundtrack that features Letters to Cleo's Kay Hanley and (we think) Matthew Sweet! A consistently funny movie that effortlessly bounces between witty, subversive moments and silly, slapstick comedy! Fun, creative direction from Can't Hardly Wait's Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont! A perfect cast that includes Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid, Parker Posey, Alan Cumming, Missi Pyle, possibly the greatest boy band of all time, Dujour, and the vocal talents of Mr. Moviefone! A misunderstood, ahead of its time gem - with a sweet message about being true to yourself and not getting caught in the cogs of consumerism - that has found the cult following it deserves despite its disappointing box office!In addition, Tim shares his spoiler-free thoughts on 1988's Alien Nation and the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Cool as Ice, while Alex talks about Shin Ultraman, Knight and Day, The Beekeeper, and Sniper G.R.I.T.!You can find AIPT Movies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. As always, if you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave us a positive rating, subscribe to the show, and tell your friends!The AIPT Movies podcast brings you the latest in movie news, reviews, and more! Hosted by supposed “industry vets,” Alex Harris, Tim Gardiner, and Matt Paul, the show gives you a peek behind the scenes from three filmmakers with oddly nonexistent filmographies. You can find Alex on Instagram and Twitter @ActionHarris. Matt is a terrific artist that you can find on Instagram @no_wheres_ville. Tim can't be found on social media because he doesn't exist. If you have any questions or suggestions for the AIPT Movies crew, they can be reached at aiptmoviespod@gmail.com, or you can find them on Twitter @AIPTmoviesPod.Theme song is “We Got it Goin On” by Cobra Man.

WOW Report
Rolodexes! Phone Booths! Soap Operas! Moviefone! Things That are Obsolete on The WOW Report for Radio Andy!

WOW Report

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2024 49:22


Tune in every Friday for more WOW Report. 10) Phone Sex Ads in Free Weeklies @01:19 9) Reference Books @06:20 8) Rolodexes @10:49 7) Daytime Soap Operas @17:52 6) Phone Booths @21:27 5) Fax Machines @26:19 4) Cursive Writing @31:19 3) Thomas Guides @35:51 2) Moviefone @40:39 1) Number One Things @44:05

The Front Row Network
CLASSICS-C'mon Get Happy-With David Fantle and Tom Johnson

The Front Row Network

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2023 54:41


Front Row Classics is thrilled to welcome authors & film historians, David Fantle and Tom Johnson this week. Our two guests have penned a delightful and well-researched study of an underrated Hollywood musical gem.  "C'mon Get Happy: The Making of Summer Stock" is a must-read for any classic film fan. The book chronicles the production history of this joyful film's troubled production history, charismatic stars and classic musical moments. The film marked the last time Judy Garland would set foot in front of the cameras at MGM. It would also display Gene Kelly's talents in fresh and fun ways. Fantle and Johnson have provided us with an invaluable resource that will inspire to re-discover this feel-good musical classic. "C'mon Get Happy: The Making of Summer Stock" is available from University Press of Mississippi wherever books are sold.  David Fantle, in collaboration with Tom Johnson, has been interviewing, writing, and speaking about Hollywood's Golden Age stars for forty-five years. Fantle is adjunct professor of film at Marquette University. Tom Johnson is former senior editor at Netflix and has written movie reviews and features for E! Online, Moviefone, and People magazine, among other publications. His entertainment writing has been recognized with a Minnesota Newspaper Association achievement award and a National Hearst Foundation award for news writing.

Cashing Out
The Importance of Building Personal Relationships In M&A | Matt Blumberg

Cashing Out

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2023 54:18


E53: THIS WEEK'S GUEST - MATT BLUMBERGIn this episode, Matt talks about how: Creating better personal relationships with acquirers can de-risk M&A transactions To bounce back from a failed M&A transaction Building a company with a work/life balance in mind can lead to a great outcome GUEST BIO:Matt Blumberg, a former management consultant, a venture capitalist and early employee who helped MovieFone move into the Internet age and get acquired by AOL.With his well-rounded training, Matt's biggest professional success came by co-founding Return Path, a company that provides email intelligence solutions for marketers. Matt and his team grew the company to 500 employees and a hundred million in revenue. Along his 20 year journey, Matt was approached four times to sell the business, and after four failed attempts for various reasons he finally completed a sale to Validity, a consumer data company, in 2019.Today, Matt is the co-founder and CEO of Bolster, a talent marketplace to match highly experienced executives with fractional and project based roles to help startups scale.WHERE TO FIND MATT BLUMBERG:LinkedInX (Twitter)EPISODE REFERENCES AND READING MATERIAL:Validity Acquires Return Path, the leader in email deliverabilityThe Daily Bolster Podcast, with Matt BlumbergStartup CEO (by Matt Blumberg)Startup CXO (by Matt Blumberg)Startup Boards (by Matt Blumberg)Someone Just Offered To Buy Your Company: Now What? (blog)

Community Calls
Episode 74 – Dingtember’s padded toilet moviefone cockroaches dial the wrong number

Community Calls

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2023 115:17


In this episode, we spent half the show calling unsuspecting people about dinging their cars, then we had hilarious conversations with lots of irate people. This show has some longer-form calls that are full of hilarity and well worth the listen all the way till the end. Features calls by: BrianN, Wingless, DTB, Luxapol, gruntZ, […]

Kallaway on the Rise
GRAE DRAKE Oscars Interview 030823

Kallaway on the Rise

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2023 8:33


Grae Drake is has turned into the voice of the Oscars for us! She's the former editor for Rotten Tomatoes..one of the key sites to watch for movie reviews and most recently has been the voice of "Ms. MovieFone"..what a job, right?? And now we check out the behind the scenes of the Oscars and who will win this weekend at the Academy Awards!! Listen to our interview here....See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Threedom
O Bother, Where Art Thou?

Threedom

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2023 52:56


Lauren, Paul & Scott talk about the Moviefone voice, resolution updates and play That's Not How Grandpa Tells It.

CEO-ish Podcast
107. The Wild Life Story of Nancy Jarecki

CEO-ish Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2023 36:34


In episode #107 your favorite CEOs Taylor Graham and Chloe Willemsen are sitting down with an entrepreneurial force to be wreckened with... Nancy Jarecki Nancy has always played by her own rules. She's the innovator behind the multiple award- winning company bettybeauty, inc., was born in Kansas, studied art in Texas, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an artist. Recognized as one of the up and coming Southern California artists by LA Weekly, Nancy showcased her art at numerous shows and in corporate art collections. As Nancy continued on her entrepreneurial path in Los Angeles, she was tapped in early 1986 by the creators of a startup cable network to help develop and launch a cable network called Movietime. The following year she was an instrumental part of the launch team for the network now known as E! Entertainment Television. During this time, Nancy met her husband, Andrew Jarecki, who was visiting Los Angeles to launch his company, MovieFone. She soon moved to New York to join him, helping him develop the business, and starting their new family. In 1999, the Jareckis sold MovieFone to AOL Time Warner started a movie production company as well as moved their family to Rome, Italy, where they were completing work on the Oscar-nominated film Capturing the Friedmans documentary. While in Rome, where they lived for two years, Nancy had an experience that gave her the idea to start her own innovative beauty products company, bettybeauty, inc. Visiting a hair salon, she noticed women leaving with small “take home” bags. When she inquired as to what they were, the receptionist told her they were a bit of extra hair color for “the hair down there – to make it match!” Realizing that women across America would love a commercially-available product to color this important area, Nancy began developing the first safe color for the hair down there to fulfill this unmet need in the beauty market. Now know as the popular and award winning specialty hair color kits. Nancy's creation of these innovative products won her multiple awards in 2007 and 2008; ‘Innovator of the Year' by Independent Cosmetics Manufactures and Distributors. As well as winning the 2008 prestigious Cosmetic Executive Women's, ‘indie' award*. (*considered the Oscars of the beauty industry). Nancy also suffered a massive brain aneurysm and made a miraculous recovery from her near fatal death. She is now working on a book dealing with the subjects of adversity, spirituality and business. To check out Betty Beauty's products and website click HERE To get 30% off your Zencastr Professional account click HERE Feel free to stalk your hosts a little further: Chloe: @chloeelizabethcreative Taylor: @taygrahambiz and @sociallytaylored To check out the official CEOish website click HERE To ask us a question or request a guest, connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @ceoishpodcast or email us at ceoishpodcast@gmail.com

Tim Conway Jr. on Demand
Hour 3 | Major vs. Minor Stoke @ConwayShow @MarkTLive

Tim Conway Jr. on Demand

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2022 34:08


Jimmy Fallon is Not Dead / Jay Leno Accident / Downplaying Illnesses // Tim Talks to Medical Professionals for Six Weeks / DTLA Stabbing Suspect // Mark and Tim: Gambling Time / Pilots All Speak English / Mark's Big Poker Game // Movies – used to have to call Movie Phone for times

Jumping The Shuttle
115: "That's What Friends Are For"

Jumping The Shuttle

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2022 74:48


What summer festival has our names written all over it? What happens when our A and B plots converge? And who's doing what to the nut meat? We grind out answers to these questions and more as we watch Season 5, Episode 19 of Family Matters.Alex Diamond, David Kenny, and John McDaniel heard that the long-running network sitcom Family Matters ends with side character Steve Urkel going to space. And the best way to figure out how that happened - obviously - is to watch the last episode first and make our way backwards through nearly ten years of television.Join our countdown to number one (and our slow descent into madness) in all the places you expect internet people to be:Website: jumpingtheshuttle.spaceEmail: jumpingtheshuttle@gmail.comInstagram: @JumpingTheShuttle / @ThatAlexD / @dak577Twitter: @JumpingShuttle / @ThatAlexD / @dak577TikTok: @JumpingTheShuttle / @dak577Brought to you by Smooth My Balls

Fueling Deals
Episode 196: Two Can Be Better Than One: A&M and Building Boards with Brad Feld & Matt Blumberg

Fueling Deals

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 26, 2022 56:43


When discussing entrepreneurialism and venture capital, sometimes the conversation can be greatly beneficial when it's opened to beyond just two people. On episode 196 of the DealQuest Podcast, Corey does just that – he's opened the conversation to include two successful and talented entrepreneurs- Brad Feld and Matt Blumberg. They discuss the many intricate details of entrepreneurialism, venture capital, starting and running a company, and so much more. BRAD FELD Brad Feld got his entrepreneurial start in college when he founded his first company, Feld Technologies. This has allotted Brad over 35 years of entrepreneurial experience, which has been greatly beneficial to his co-founding of the company Techstars. Not only that, but working in tandem with his wife, Amy Batchelor, they run the Anchor Point Foundation. Not only is Brad actively engaged with entrepreneurialism, but he's also written several books on entrepreneurship and venture capital, as well as began blogging in 2004 on these topics. At present, you can find him on Twitter, sharing his knowledge in the niche corner of “VC Twitter”. “VC Twitter” – aka Venture Capital Twitter – is a community of people who utilize the social media platform's tools and broad communication to discuss venture capital, and come together to exchange education, knowledge, and resources. MATT BLUMBERG Like Brad, Matt Blumberg is a long-time, successful entrepreneur, author, and business owner. Unlike Brad, Matt's expertise is being a technology entrepreneur. Brad is also the CEO of Bolster, an on-demand executive talent marketplace, designed to help accelerate companies' growth. They focus on this growth by connecting companies with highly vetted executives for the interim, fractional, advisory, project-based, or board roles. Matt's experience spans back over 30 years in marketing, consulting, and venture capital. Having built, founded or chaired several successful businesses to date, including PathForward.org, Oblong Inc., and Return Path Inc. Matt's success in entrepreneurialism doesn't just stop at his personal achievements in business, but also his knowledge and skill in business has been recognized by Business Insider as one of New York's 100 most influential technology leaders, by Crain's as one of New York's Top Entrepreneurs, and by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. THE PROGRESSION OF BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS Brad has been in the business of entrepreneurialism since the mid-80s, a lot has changed. When selling his first business, Brad was taken under the wing of two successful dealmakers of their time, who taught him some of the base tenements of deal-making. Their style of deal-making fell out of favor with the advent of the digital age – wherein things can become quite impersonal – but Brad prefers to keep it a bit “old school”. Simply meaning, he believes in keeping deal-making as a relationship – personal, and beneficial to both parties. Focus on building the relationship and an understanding – AKA: a “handshake agreement” – before putting things down on paper. Focus on the things that matter in the context of making a deal, versus all the minutiae that can convolute and distract from making a successful deal. Be simple and straight-forward about what you want to achieve in the deal, and what matters most to you. During the infancy of the internet, Matt was on the executive team for a then-small cap public company, Moviefone. Matt was alongside the CEO and CFO during the dealmaking process of selling Moviefone to AOL. He, too, attests to the importance of focusing on the relationship between professionals throughout the entire deal-making process. Ironically, the sale of Moviefone began over a handshake in a movie theater during the premiere of You've Got Mail. Matt spent 20 years building the company, Return Path Inc., with Brad spending 19 years on the board. Return Path Inc. was sold in 2019, however a potential deal two years prior almost came to fruition. Matt asserts that the former deal failed, and the 2019 deal was successful, ultimately because he knew the CEO of the eventual buyer, and he did not have a relationship with the earlier bidder. Thus, corroborating the importance of having a growing relationship between dealmakers throughout the deal-making process. INVESTING FOR ORGANIC GROWTH Brad began to develop his serial entrepreneurial skills by getting in on the ground floor of new-age seed investments by quickening his pace, and investing in a new company each month, something almost entirely unheard of in the mid-90s at the beginning of the commercial internet, wherein most seed-investors played a slow and steady game with their investments. With the birth of the internet-age in the mid- to late-90s, new businesses in tech began to spring up like weeds, and Brad took this newly flourishing market to begin making angel investments. He used virtually 100% of the profits he made from selling his first company to make a series of angel investments in the infancy of tech businesses. He also positioned himself to be on the company boards, and in some instances, even co-founding the company. For Brad, his ability to become an angel investor, combined with his strategic positioning within the companies, opened a lot of doors, leading into some of the more well-known VC businesses of today. ACQUISITION FOR INORGANIC GROWTH While investing capital into a company to build equity is a good path to build organic growth, another valuable way to build growth, for some, is inorganically. By taking a smaller company, acquiring other smaller companies, to the point that the growth becomes a chain link of acquisitions that build a larger company. IE: Company A acquires Company B to make Company C, Company C acquires Company D to become Company E, and so on and so forth. The goal of growing a business is to always be additive to what you already have. In the business of inorganic growth, it's important to only seek companies that can add to what you've already built – it won't always work out successfully, but the goal is always to remain in forward momentum. Especially as a buyer, you can't be afraid of making a mistake, making a bad deal, or acquiring a business that ends up not being additive to your core company. Brad's anecdotal evaluation on acquisitions is a half-joke passed to him from his mentor: “Would you buy it for a dollar?” If the answer is yes: then there's something to talk about; investigate the potentiality. If the answer is no: then, perhaps it's best to move on. As Brad says, “When you ask that question, [you find] there's a lot of stuff you wouldn't buy for a dollar.” This rule applies to the acquisitions of companies. Frankly, if you wouldn't spend money on it, why are you entertaining the idea of spending money on it? When Matt was looking for investors for Return Path Inc. around the time of the dot-com bubble and collapse, another small company – that just so happened to have Brad on the executive board – was also at the doorstep of the same investment company. The investment company compared the two businesses, and noted that they were fundamentally the same. The deal then became merging the two like-companies into one larger company, with Return Path Inc. becoming the acquisitioner. While Matt recollects that deal in one way, Brad recalls his view somewhat differently, which revolves back to, and is another testimony of, the importance of building relationships in dealmaking with authenticity. Depending on your position approaching the deal, and your position within the respective companies, your field of vision on the deal may vary, and good practice is to keep in mind all the potentially differing viewpoints. RISK ASSESSMENT FOR GROWTH Within business there is always a risk curve. You want to post yourself in a comfortable area of this risk curve, especially at the start of any new deal potential. Your deal should be primarily about generating upside, not mitigating risk: Keep your dealmaking to principal players only: when you begin to open the deal up to non-principal players, your risk will increase. Be unafraid to take risks. Be aware of risks, and take inventory of risks, but do not focus entirely on evaluating risk factors. Do not lose sight of the vision of the deal. If you're a principal in a deal process, do not defer to others, nor hide behind your lawyers Try to keep the deal as engaged and collaborative as possible (IE: as the deal initiator, do your best to continue to nurture the relationship throughout the entire process, and if your counterpart is seeming to defer out, check in with them; make sure they're remaining engaged, as well). Do your pre-due diligence. * for more on pre-due diligence, check out Lesson 2: How to Prepare for Deals in the Deal-Driven Growth Accelerator course Understand there are no successful deals without some risk involved THE PATHWAY TO BUILDING A BOARD While Matt has authored, with contributions from Brad, two other books on this subject, Matt and Brad jointly constructed Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, released in June 2022. Matt asserts that the startup market is oversaturated with new entrepreneurs, most of whom have never started a business, let alone have built an entire board. That's the intent of Startup Boards: Focusing on the unassailable fact that competition to get noticed in the startup market is tight, and it takes making the right choices to get noticed by potential investors. Board-building is no easy feat. Many of the things addressed in Startup Boards are designed to make entrepreneurs think about their board and evaluate: Build a board deliberately and with intention. Configure a board that is healthy, and functions as a team. Bring in professionals that don't merely invest in the company, but are proficient in the company's space, and how to direct a company within that space. Be cautious of how many founders are on the board (in most scenarios, the fewer the better, in Matt's opinion). Startup Boards is intended to serve as a field guide for all these entrepreneurs wading the harsh waters of startup and board building, and offer them guidance and a hand up to building their successful company board. They want and expect the reader to dog-ear and reference back to Startup Boards like a map, as the reader journeys through the world of startup and board-building, with hopes of becoming one of the success stories everyone hears about. • • Reach out to Brad Feld for more:https://feld.com/https://onboards.libsyn.com/ Reach out to Matt Blumberg for more:startupceo.comlinkedin.com/in/blumbergmatt • • Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal-Ready Assessment today!

ROI’s Into the Corner Office Podcast: Powerhouse Middle Market CEOs Telling it Real—Unexpected Career Conversations

Matt Blumberg is the founder and CEO of Bolster, a marketplace for on-demand executive and board talent launched in 2020. Matt was Chairman & CEO of Return Path, Inc., the company he founded in 1999, until its sale to Validity in 2019. Return Path was the market leader in email optimization, helping thousands of businesses use the email channel more effectively to promote and protect their brands and winning numerous employer of choice awards including #2 on Fortune Magazine's “Best Companies to Work for” list. Prior to founding Return Path, Matt was founder and General Manager of the Internet division of MovieFone, Inc. (777-FILM) until the company's acquisition by AOL, and had previously worked in venture capital and management consulting.   In addition to his corporate entrepreneurial work, Matt is co-founder and Chairman of Path Forward, a nonprofit that was spun out of Return Path in 2016, whose mission is to empower women to restart their careers after time spent focused on caregiving, working with more than 75 companies including Apple, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Intuit, Campbell's Soup, PayPal, Verizon, and Oracle. He is also the author of 3 books: Startup CEO: A field guide to scaling up your business (based on his popular blog on entrepreneurship, StartupCEO.com), Startup CXO: A field guide to scaling up your company's critical functions and teams, and the forthcoming Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, all published by Wiley & Sons.   Matt has been recognized as one of New York's 100 most influential technology leaders by Business Insider, by Crain's as one of New York's Top Entrepreneurs, and by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. He has served as a Board Member of numerous corporate, nonprofit, and community organizations, as well as Chairman of the Board of the Direct Marketing Association, and he completed a brief assignment as founder and leader of the State of Colorado's COVID-19 Innovation Response Team in 2020. Matt attended Princeton University where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with an A.B. in Urban Planning in 1992. He lives with his wife Mariquita and his three children, Casey, Wilson, and Elyse in Scarsdale, NY.

Profit From the Inside with Joel Block
175: CEO Spotlight: The Inside Track on Building a Recruiting Platform

Profit From the Inside with Joel Block

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2022 32:37


Contact info: Matt Blumberg Email: Matt@Bolster.com Website: https://www.Bolster.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/BlumbergMatt Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlosterTalent Twitter: https://www.twitter.com@MattBlumberg Bio: Matt Blumberg is a technology entrepreneur, business builder, and CEO of Bolster, an on-demand executive talent marketplace that helps accelerate companies' growth by connecting them with experienced, highly vetted executives for interim, fractional, advisory, project-based, full-time, or board roles. Before Bolster, Matt was founder & CEO of Return Path, the market leader in email optimization, until its sale in 2019. Under Matt's leadership, Return Path won numerous employer of choice awards including #2 on Fortune Magazine's “Best Companies to Work for” list. Prior to Return Path, Matt founded the Internet division of MovieFone (now a division of AOL), worked in venture capital at General Atlantic Partners, and prior to that, was a consultant at Mercer Management Consulting. Matt has served on numerous boards and chaired many of them, including public company, private company, nonprofit, local community, educational, and trade association boards. Through Bolster, Matt has helped place dozens of directors with private and public companies, as well as advised many CEOs on building and running their boards. Matt is a co-author of the second edition of Startup Boards, set to be released in June 2022.

Awesome Vegans with Elysabeth Alfano
Moviefone Co-Founder, Adam Slutsky on Investing

Awesome Vegans with Elysabeth Alfano

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2022 65:36


Moviefone Co-Founder Adam Slutsky is the plant-based market's newest big investor. Current Managing Partner of Gather Ventures, hear Adam's 1) investing strategy, 2) his take-aways from being a 3x tech entrepreneur, 3) his mentorship plan and 4) his predictions for the next 3-5 years of plant-based opportunities on The Plantbased Business Hour with Elysabeth Alfano. The Plantbased Business Hour airs live every Tuesday and Thursday at 1p PT on my Linkedin page.  For more information, visit http://ElysabethAlfano.com and http://GatherVentureFoods.com

The Plantbased Business Hour
Moviefone Co-Founder, Adam Slutsky on Investing

The Plantbased Business Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2022 65:36


Moviefone Co-Founder Adam Slutsky is the plant-based market's newest big investor. Current Managing Partner of Gather Ventures, hear Adam's 1) investing strategy, 2) his take-aways from being a 3x tech entrepreneur, 3) his mentorship plan and 4) his predictions for the next 3-5 years of plant-based opportunities on The Plantbased Business Hour with Elysabeth Alfano. The Plantbased Business Hour airs live every Tuesday and Thursday at 1p PT on my Linkedin page.  For more information, visit http://ElysabethAlfano.com and http://GatherVentureFoods.com

Deconstructing Disney
The Lion King

Deconstructing Disney

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 7, 2022 97:51


Episode SummaryAnother critical and commercial success of the Disney Renaissance, The Lion King (1994) was a beast at the box office and on home video. It was also the first animated Disney animated film set in Africa. Despite (relatively) diverse casting and the incorporation of authentic African music, there's still plenty of racism to discuss, with some homophobia and questionable political commentary thrown in! Episode BibliographyBBC NEWS | Entertainment | Disney settles Lion song dispute. (2006, February 16). BBC News. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4721564.stmBradley, B. (2015, January 27). Was 'The Lion King' Copied From A Japanese Cartoon? Here's The Real Story. HuffPost. Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lion-king-kimba_n_6272316Carter Jackson, K. (2019, July 17). The true story behind ‘The Lion King.' The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/07/17/true-story-behind-lion-king/Červinka, P. (2015, April 24). The Making of The Lion King. YouTube. Retrieved May 21, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFL5xbxc0AYDaly, S. (1994, July 8). Mane Attraction. Entertainment Weekly, (230). https://web.archive.org/web/20140904092026/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,302837,00.htmlDeneroff, H., & Ladd, F. (2009). Footnote to History: Kimba versus Simba - The Uproar. In Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas: An Insider's View of the Birth of a Pop Culture Phenomenon (pp. 62-64). McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers.Denham, H. (2019, July 26). Lion King: There's a 25-year-old intellectual property dispute surrounding the Disney film. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/26/lion-king-has-been-clouded-by-intellectual-property-controversy-years-heres-story-behind-it/Ebert, R. (1994, June 24). The Lion King movie review & film summary (1994). Roger Ebert. Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lion-king-1994Elahi, B. (2001). Pride Lands: The Lion King, Proposition 187, and White Resentment. Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, 57(3), 121-152. doi: 0.1353/arq.2001.0001Fallon, K. (2014, June 24). 'The Lion King' Turns 20: Every Crazy, Weird Fact About the Disney Classic. The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-lion-king-turns-20-every-crazy-weird-fact-about-the-disney-classicGavin, R.  (1996). "The Lion King" and "Hamlet": A homecoming for the exiled child. The Universe of Literature, 85(3), 55-57. Giddings, S. (1999). The circle of life: Nature and representation in Disney's The Lion King. Third Text, 49, 83-92. doi: 10.1080/09528829908576825Giles Coren, G. (1994, July 20). Disney's Heart of Darkness. The Times, 12.Gooding-Williams, R.  (1995). Disney in Africa and the inner city: On race and space in The Lion King. Social Identities, 1(2).Hahn, D. (Director). (2011). The Lion King A Memoir Don Hahn [Film]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoaPT4ijS-UHinson, H. (1994, June 24). WashingtonPost.com: 'The Lion King'. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/review96/lionkinghin.htmJapanese animator protests 'Lion King'. (1994, August 18). UPI.com. Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/08/18/Japanese-animator-protests-Lion-King/4250777182400/Klass, P. (1994, June 19). A ‘Bambi' for the 90's, via Shakespeare. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/19/movies/film-view-a-bambi-for-the-90-s-via-shakespeare.htmlKelts, R. (2007). Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. St. Martin's Publishing Group.King, S. (2011, September 15). A 'Lion's' Tale. Los Angeles Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20111024102445/http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/15/entertainment/la-et-lion-king-20110915Knolle, S. (2014, June 14). 'The Lion King': 20 Things You Didn't Know About the Disney Classic. Moviefone. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20140617142313/http://news.moviefone.com/2014/06/14/lion-king-facts/Kring, J. (2019, July 19). How the Original 'Lion King' Came to Life. The Ringer. Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/7/19/20699678/the-lion-king-original-animation-1994The Lion King. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_KingThe Lion King. (2000, December 8). Rolling Stone. https://web.archive.org/web/20080429201931/http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/5947315/review/5947316/the_lion_kingThe Lion King (1994). (n.d.). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 14, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0110357/The Lion King (1994). (n.d.). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0110357/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Maslin, J. (1994, June 15). Review/Film; The Hero Within The Child Within. The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/15/movies/review-film-the-hero-within-the-child-within.htmlMasters, K. (2014, April 9). The Epic Disney Blow-Up of 1994: Eisner, Katzenberg and Ovitz 20 Years Later. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/epic-disney-blow-up-1994-694476/Mikkelson, D. (1996, December 31). Is the Word 'Sex' Hidden in 'The Lion King'? Snopes.com. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-lion-king/Minkoff, R., & Allers, R. (Directors). (1994). The Lion King [Film]. Walt Disney Pictures.Morton, J. (1996). Simba's revolution: Revisiting history and class in The Lion King. Social Identities, 2(2).Movieclips. (2016, August 16). In the Heat of the Night (4/10) Movie CLIP - They Call Me Mr. Tibbs (1967) HD. YouTube. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6n8VyqaCQ4Orenstein, N. (2014, September 15). Berkeley's colony of spotted hyenas closes after 30 years. Berkeleyside. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.berkeleyside.org/2014/09/15/berkeleys-captive-colony-of-spotted-hyenas-closes-after-30-years?doing_wp_cron=1652051660.0969309806823730468750Rachele. (n.d.). "The Lion King," - an adult film? ENG 1131 Shakespeare Through Media. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from http://plaza.ufl.edu/r.harvey/finalpaper.htmlRicker, A.  (1996). The Lion King animated storybook: A case study of aesthetic and economic power. Critical Arts, 10(1).Rob Minkoff. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_MinkoffRoth, M. (1996, March). The Lion King A short history of Disney-fascism. Jump Cut, (40), 15-20. http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC40folder/LionKing.htmlRoth, M. (2005). Man is in the Forest: Humans and Nature in Bambi and The Lion King. Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture, (9). Retrieved May 22, 2022, from https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_9/roth.htmlSiskel, G., & Ebert, R. (2019, February 22). Speed, The Lion King, The Endless Summer II, City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold, 1994 – Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews. Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://siskelebert.org/?p=5412Stenberg, D. (1996). The circle of life and the chain of being: Shakespearean motifs in “The Lion King.” Shakespeare Bulletin, 14(2), 36-37.Strzelczyk, F.  (2008). Fascism and family entertainment. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 25(3), 196-211. doi: 10.1080/10509200601091433Takeuchi, H. (n.d.). Kimba the White Lion. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimba_the_White_LionTLKCoL. (2017, March 24). Pride of The Lion King | Behind the Scenes Documentary (Making of). YouTube. Retrieved May 21, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bLD2gZhmoUVisram, T. (2019, July 19). Disney replaced the first Lion King's racist hyenas. Fast Company. Retrieved May 22, 2022, from https://www.fastcompany.com/90379067/critics-said-the-first-lion-kings-hyenas-were-problematic-disney-revamped-themWard, A. R.  (1996). The Lion King's mythic narrative. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 23(4).Willman, C. (1994, May 15). SUMMER SNEAKS '94 : You Can't Hide His Lion Eyes : It's no coincidence that Disney's latest jungle villain bears a wicked resemblance to Jeremy Irons; just ask the animator. Los Angeles Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20141109000340/http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-15/entertainment/ca-57883_1_jeremy-ironsWong, V.  (1999). Deconstructing Walt Disney's “The Lion King.” Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media, 1-7. doi: 10.15353/kinema.vi.895Thanks to Katie Seelen for her research assistance. 

Voice Is
NICE with Fran Hauser: Building better relationships at work and niceness as a superpower

Voice Is

Play Episode Listen Later May 18, 2022 60:00


Julie and Casey chat with author, speaker, and angel investor Fran Hauser (author of Embrace the Work, Love Your Career and Audible's Best Business Book of 2018, The Myth of the Nice Girl) about building relationships, rejecting the idea that being nice makes you weak, how to stand up for yourself, the difference between "nice" and "people pleaser", and why founders need to take care of themselves.   Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!   TOP TAKEAWAYS: Being successful in business is all about relationships You don't have to choose between being nice and being strong. If you're a founder/entrepreneur, are you jumping ahead to business model, marketing, partnerships, etc. before making sure you have an awesome product that consumers are delighted by?  You're skipping the most important step. Taking a breath, taking the time and energy to care for yourself and others makes the WORK better.  Compassion for ourselves and for other people makes us more productive, not less, and we need to bring more of it into our professional lives. You don't need to be the smartest kid in fifth grade (i.e. have all the answers all by yourself).  Build out your community and your network. Nice is a superpower - its "evil twin" is people-pleasing. Know the difference, and know when to stand up for yourself. Mini-Lesson: How to embrace your "toos". Articles referenced: On the culture of over-work, and how it holds both women and men back - https://hbr.org/2020/03/whats-really-holding-women-back Gender bias in performance reviews - https://hbr.org/2017/04/how-gender-bias-corrupts-performance-reviews-and-what-to-do-about-it Vague vs specific feedback - https://hbr.org/2016/04/research-vague-feedback-is-holding-women-back   Fran Hauser is an author, keynote speaker and startup investor at the intersection of women's empowerment, career fulfillment, and collective wellbeing. As a long-time media executive, Fran has always championed the power of content in shaping culture, educating the public, and driving awareness of important issues.  She is the best-selling author of The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate which has been translated into six languages and was named “Best Business Book of the Year, 2018” by Audible. Fran's new book, Embrace the Work, Love Your Career, is quickly becoming the go-to for women seeking more joy and fulfillment in their career. Fran regularly speaks at conferences and organizations to help women build careers they love while staying true to themselves Fran has invested in over 30 female-founded companies across CPG, media & publishing, and wellness. She also serves as an LP in the Female Founders Fund. Her writing, speaking and investing is informed by 15 years spent in media, from startups where she played an integral role in the $525mm sale of Moviefone to AOL, to ultimately rising the ranks at Time Inc. to President of Digital where she led innovation, acquisitions and digital expansion for powerhouse media brands People, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, and People en Espanol. Fran has been the recipient of the Fairy Godmother Award from Girl Be Heard, the W Award from the YWCA of the City of New York and has been included in lists from Business Insider's "30 Women In VC to Watch" to Refinery29's “Six Most Powerful Women in New York City's Tech Scene”. She has been featured on TODAY, CNBC, Fortune, TIME, Fast Company, Forbes, Vogue.com, Ad Age, Oprah.com and more.  In 2020 Fran channeled her lifelong love of books into an Instagram platform @FransBookshelf focused on the joy of reading -- both the escapism and the celebration of diverse ideas that can change the world.  Fran serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Bedford Central Schools and is an advisor to Helpusadopt.org and LiveGirl. Fran is a summa cum laude graduate of Pace University. She resides just outside of NYC with her husband and two sons.

Jimmy Eat Pod
134 – Get Right feat. Jacob Godbey of Mrs. Ghost

Jimmy Eat Pod

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2022 141:56


David and Justin are finally able to turn left with this Integrity Blues track. They also talk about defunct video game consoles, pure intonation, and who actually is Mr. Moviefone. Jacob Godbey of Mrs. Ghost shows up around 01:53:20. Find more from Jacob Godbey through @MrsGhost10 Check out Get Right here! Get the YouTube playlist forRead More

Canceled Too Soon
We've Got Mail #114 | What Does It Mean When a Movie is "Horny?"

Canceled Too Soon

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2022 91:49


Bibbs and Witney read emails from listeners who want to talk about how to discuss films critically without hurting the conversation, nostalgia for MovieFone and the days before online movie ticketing, droid sentience in the STAR WARS movies and what the heck it means when people call a movie "horny!" Email us at letters@criticallyacclaimed.net, so we can read your correspondence and answer YOUR questions in future episodes! And if you want soap, be sure to check out M. Lopes da Silva's Etsy store: SaltCatSoap! Subscribe on Patreon at www.patreon.com/criticallyacclaimednetwork for exclusive content and exciting rewards, like bonus episodes, commentary tracks and much, much more! And visit our TeePublic page to buy shirts, mugs and other exciting merchandise!  Follow us on Twitter at @CriticAcclaim, join the official Fan Club on Facebook, follow Bibbs at @WilliamBibbiani and follow Witney at @WitneySeibold, and head on over to www.criticallyacclaimed.net for all their podcasts, reviews and more!  Support the show: https://www.patreon.com//criticallyacclaimednetwork See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lady Empire
Fran Hauser - Top Corporate Chick Becomes Startup Investor

Lady Empire

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2022 45:48


Fran Hauser is passionate about leveling the playing field for women. She does this through her investing, writing, and speaking. Fran has invested in over 30 female-founded companies across consumer tech, CPG, media & publishing, and wellness. She is the best-selling author of The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate which has been translated into six languages and was named “Best Business Book of the Year, 2018” by Audible. Fran's second title, Embrace the Work, Love Your Career will be released in March 2022.https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Work-Love-Your-Career/dp/1951412494Embrace the Work, Love Your Career combines accessible advice, time-tested strategies, creative prompts, and thoughtful exercises into one holistic resource.Stemming from years of experience in senior leadership at Time Inc.'s People, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly as well as AOL and Coca-Cola Enterprises, Hauser centers her career guidance around six main actions:Fall in love with your careerDesign your career action planCreate time and spaceKnow your valueBuild your dream teamReflect and resetEach chapter starts with practical advice and includes prompts and exercises to help readers create their own personal career action plans. Palate-cleansing meditations and coloring breaks conclude each chapter, offering chances for calming reflection. Through simple, inspiring, and actionable tools, Embrace the Work, Love Your Career teaches women to be empowered to focus on the things that truly matter, set boundaries and, ultimately, realize their full potential.Fran Bio:Fran Hauser is an author, keynote speaker and startup investor at the intersection of women's empowerment, career fulfillment, and collective wellbeing. As a long-time media executive, Fran has always championed the power of content in shaping culture, educating the public, and driving awareness of important issues. She is the best-selling author of The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate which has been translated into six languages and was named “Best Business Book of the Year, 2018” by Audible. Fran's second title, Embrace the Work, Love Your Career will be released in March 2022. Fran regularly speaks at conferences and organizations to pioneer the notion that one does not have to choose between kindness and strength, and that the most effective leaders lead with both.Fran has invested in over 30 female-founded companies across CPG, media & publishing, and wellness. She also serves as an LP in the Female Founders Fund. Her writing, speaking and investing is informed by 15 years spent in media, from startups where she played an integral role in the $525mm sale of Moviefone to AOL, to ultimately rising the ranks at Time Inc. to President of Digital where she led innovation, acquisitions and digital expansion for powerhouse media brands People, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, and People en Espanol.Fran has been the recipient of the Fairy Godmother Award from Girl Be Heard, the W Award from the YWCA of the City of New York and has been included in lists from Business Insider's "30 Women In VC to Watch" to Refinery29's “Six Most Powerful Women in New York City's Tech Scene”. She has been featured on TODAY, CNBC, Fortune, TIME, Fast Company, Forbes, Vogue.com, Ad Age, Oprah.com and more. In 2020 Fran channeled her lifelong love of books into an Instagram platform @FransBookshelf focused on the joy of reading -- both the escapism and the celebration of diverse ideas that can change the world.  

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein
Matt Blumberg: Startup Boards.

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2022 48:40


Intro.(1:40) - Start of interview.(2:00) - Matt's "origin story". He grew up in San Diego, CA. He's lived in and around New York City for the last 30 years. After college he worked as a consultant (Mercer Consulting) and VC (General Atlantic). In 1995 he joined the executive team of MovieFone, a small cap public company. He helped the company "figure out what the internet was all about." They sold the company to AOL in 1999 (for $388M in stock). Then he started a company called Return Path in 1999. It was a 20-year run where they scaled the company to about $100m in revenue and 500 employees worldwide. They sold the business in 2019 to Validity. In 2020, he founded a new company called Bolster, a marketplace for on-demand executive and board talent. Along the way he wrote a couple of books (Startup CEO in 2013, and Startup CXO in 2021), and he's sat on several boards (such as those of Oblong, Authentic Response, Moz and Feedburner), one major trade association (DMA), some community/academic (local Little League, and a couple of different Princeton fundraising boards). He has been "increasingly spending time on board matters as his career has gone on."(5:50) - On the first edition of the book Startup Boards (2013), by Brad Feld and Mahendra Ramsinghani. Brad and Matt will publish the second edition of the book this June. It takes a fresh look at the topic, with more diverse voices. They added a section for aspiring board members (interested in becoming independent directors).(8:51) - On why he started his new company Bolster, a marketplace for executive and board talent. "About a quarter of our business is focused on running board searches for private venture-backed and public companies (in their first year they did about 30-40 board searches)." They want to "help startup CEOs rethink the way they use and find senior talent."(11:41) - On his focus on increasing the number and diversity of independent directors in venture-backed companies. Bolster's benchmarking study on independent directors in startup boards (based on a study of 250 private company boards):Only 32% of private company boards have independent directors. Half of boards have open independent director seats they expect to fill in the next 12 months.Compared with investor or management directors, independent director seats are 3 times as likely to be held by women. 86% of director seats overall are held by men, and 56% of early stage private company boards have no gender diversity at all.Four out of five seats on private company boards are held by individuals who are White, and 43% of boards are completely homogenous with regard to the race/ethnicity of their directors.CEOs are broadening their searches to diversify their boards. Two-thirds of CEOs are open to bringing on first-time directors, and 41% of independent directors have either some college or an under-graduate degree only (vs. a post-grad degree).Board composition tends to over-index on investors and management directors. 59% of boards have more than one management or founder director and 59% of boards have 2 or more investor directors.Men seem to have a slightly higher average earning potential (measured in basis points per year and grant value) compared to women directors at like companies.(12:40) - "Our Mantra is the 'Rule of Ones' : you should be putting independent directors from day one, private company boards should only have one founder on the board, and for every one investor you should have one independent."(13:59) - On Fred Wilson's Board Diversity Proposal. "Fred walks the walk on that one, as does Brad Feld and Greg Sands." (all 3 VCs are board observers on Bolster's board). "At the end of the day, they all have very meaningful voices in and outside the boardroom, but they have made room for us to bring very good and diverse candidates." [Bolster's board has 4 first-time independent directors.](18:50) - On the impact of record-breaking VC financings, SPACs, IPOs and M&A on startups. "It's put a lot more money and valuation into startups."(19:52) - On his advice to CEOs on how to manage their boards: "The CEO should think of it as having two teams: one team is the executive team, the other is the board." "Start by making sure board composition is right". Scott Weiss: "boards eat whatever you put in front of them." Matt's rule: "No slides in board meetings, it's not a dog and pony show."(23:41) - On virtual board meetings via Zoom or otherwise post-pandemic. "It used to be that boards would have four in-person meetings per year." "In the private company world, VCs are constrained by the number of boards they sit on, but with virtual board meetings their ability to sit on boards has gone up 40-50% [since they don't have to get on planes so much anymore]." Matt's best practice approach: "Once or twice a year the board should meet in-person, and the rest is OK to meet virtually."(26:23) - On ESG in private companies. "This is an area where private companies are ahead." On growth of public benefit corporations (PBCs).(30:03) - On diversity in startup boards. "There is a lot more awareness on the need and benefits for more diversity on boards." "It has to start with the commitment to add one or two independents."(35:43) - On the difference between CEO coaches and mentors: "A coach is someone who helps you be the best version of you. A mentor is someone who has done your job before, knows how to do it cold, has probably done it at your stage and the stage beyond. He/she can help you teach the craft of the job." "Executives need both a coach and mentor, sometimes it's the same person."(37:07) - What makes Bolster different for board searches? "It's faster and cheaper [because we have a curated and qualified marketplace.]"(39:08) - On how the pandemic has changed the geographic distribution of talent.  "People can live anywhere now." "NY has become a crypto talent pool." "I think there is a role for DAOs, but I don't think there will be a mass movement away from traditional corporate structures." "I think leadership matters, and companies would be hard pressed to make hard calls by vote [if you don't think that's true, look at Washington DC]."(41:30) - Matt's favorite books:The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand (1943)The Goal, by Eli Goldratt (1984) [in business books]The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni (2012) ["my CEO bible"](42:32) - Who were your mentors, and what did you learn from them?His grandmother "I really learned resilience and grace from her."His dad "I learned perseverance and the importance of having a strong moral compass."(43:33) - Quotes that she thinks of often, or lives her life by: Theodore's Roosevelt "Man in the Arena" speech (1910): “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ("for me that's the entrepreneurs' quote").(45:05) - An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves: Mexican food! "I also love reading American and Presidential history."(46:21) - The living person he most admires? Oprah Winfrey is super interesting and inspiring. Jeff Bezos (innovation gene and perseverance). Jeremy Bloom, CEO of Integrate (the only athlete in history to ski in the Olympics and also be drafted into the NFL).Matt Blumberg is the founder and CEO of Bolster, a marketplace for on-demand executive and board talent. You can follow Matt at the following links:matt@bolster.comwww.linkedin.com/in/blumbergmattwww.startupceo.com (blog)www.twitter.com/mattblumbergwww.bolster.com__ You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Break Things On Purpose
Mandi Walls

Break Things On Purpose

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2021 36:53


In this episode, we cover: 00:00:00 - Introduction  00:04:30 - Early Dark Days in Chaos Engineering and Reliability 00:08:27 - Anecdotes from the “Long Dark Time” 00:16:00 - The Big Changes Over the Years 00:20:50 - Mandi's Work at PagerDuty 00:27:40 - Mandi's Tips for Better DevOps 00:34:15 - Outro Links:PagerDuty: https://www.pagerduty.com TranscriptJason: — hilarious or stupid?Mandi: [laugh]. I heard that; I listened to the J. Paul Reed episode and I was like, “Oh, there's, like, a little, like, cold intro.” And I'm like, “Oh, okay.”Jason: Welcome to Break Things on Purpose, a podcast about reliability and learning from failure. In this episode, we take a trip down memory lane with Mandi Walls to discuss how much technology, reliability practices, and chaos engineering has evolved over her extensive career in technology.Jason: Everybody, welcome to the show, Julie Gunderson, who recently joined Gremlin on the developer advocacy team. How's it going, Julie?Julie: Great, Jason. Really excited to be here.Jason: So, Mandi is actually a guest of yours. I mean, we both have been friends with Mandi for quite a while but you had the wonderful opportunity of working with Mandi.Julie: I did, and I was really excited to have her on our podcast now as we ran a podcast together at PagerDuty when we worked there. Mandi has such a wealth of knowledge that I thought we should have her share it with the world.Mandi: Oh, no. Okay.Julie: [laugh].Jason: “Oh, no?” Well, in that case, Mandi, why don't you—Mandi: [crosstalk 00:01:28]. I don't know.Jason: Well, in that case with that, “Oh no,” let's have Mandi introduce herself. [laugh].Mandi: Yeah hi. So, thanks for having me. I am Mandi Walls. I am currently a DevOps advocate at PagerDuty, Julie's last place of employment before she left us to join Jason at Gremlin.Julie: And Mandi, we worked on quite a few things over a PagerDuty. We actually worked on things together, joint projects between Gremlin, when it was just Jason and us where we would run joint workshops to talk about chaos engineering and actually how you can practice your incident response. And I'm sure we'll get to that a little bit later in the episode, but will you kick us off with your background so everybody knows why we're so excited to talk to you today?Mandi: Oh, goodness. Well, so I feel like I've been around forever. [laugh]. Prior to joining PagerDuty. I spent eight-and-a-half years at Chef Software, doing all kinds of things there, so if I ever trained you on Chef, I hope it was good.Prior to joining Chef, I was assistant administrator for AOL.com and a bunch of other platform and sites at AOL for a long time. So, things like Moviefone, and the AOL Sports Channel, and dotcom, and all kinds of things. Most of them ran on one big platform because the monolith was a thing. So yeah, my background is largely in operations, and just systems administration on that side.Jason: I'm laughing in the background because you mentioned Moviefone, and whenever I think of Moviefone, I think of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer decides to make a Moviefone competitor, and it's literally just his own phone number, and people call up and he pretends to be that, like, robotic voice and has people, like, hit numbers for which movie they want to see and hear the times that it's playing. Gives a new meaning to the term on-call.Mandi: Indeed. Yes, absolutely.Julie: And I'm laughing just because I recently watched Hackers and, you know, they needed that AOL.com disc.Mandi: That's one of my favorite movies. Like, it's so ridiculous, but also has so many gems of just complete nonsense in it. Absolutely love Hackers. “Hack the planet.”Julie: “Hack the planet.” So, with hacking the planet, Mandi, and your time working at AOL with the monolith, let's talk a little bit because you're in the incident business right now over at PagerDuty, but let's talk about the before times, the before we practiced Chaos Engineering and before we really started thinking about reliability. What was it like?Mandi: Yeah, so I'll call this the Dark Ages, right? So before the Enlightenment. And, like, for folks listening at home, [laugh] the timeline here is probably—so between two-thousand-and-fi—four, five, and 2011. So, right before the beginning of cloud, right before the beginning of, like, Infrastructure as Code, and DevOps and all those things that's kind of started at, like, the end of my tenure at AOL. So, before that, right—so in that time period, right, like, the web was, it wasn't like it was just getting started, but, like, the Web 2.0 moniker was just kind of getting a grip, where you were going from the sort of generic sites like Yahoo and Yellow Pages and those kinds of things and AOL.com, which was kind of a collection of different community bits and news and things like that, into more personalized experiences, right?So, we had a lot of hook up with the accounts on the AOL side, and you could personalize all of your stuff, and read your email and do all those things, but the sophistication of the systems that we were running was such that like, I mean, good luck, right? It was migration from commercial Unixes into Linux during that era, right? So, looking at when I first joined AOL, there were a bunch of Solaris boxes, and some SGIs, and some other weird stuff in the data center. You're like, good luck on all that. And we migrated most of those platforms onto Linux at that time; 64 bit. Hurray.At least I caught that. And there was an increase in the use of open-source software for big commercial ventures, right, and so less of a reliance on commercial software and caught solutions for things, although we did have some very interesting commercial web servers that—God help them, they were there, but were not a joy, exactly, to work on because the goals were different, right? That time period was a huge acceleration. It was like a Cambrian explosion of software pieces, and tools, and improvements, and metrics, and monitoring, and all that stuff, as well as improvements on the platform side. Because you're talking about that time period is also being the migration from bare metal and, like, ordering machines by the rack, which really only a handful of players need to do that now, and that was what everybody was doing then.And in through the earliest bits of virtualization and really thinking about only deploying the structures that you needed to meet the needs of your application, rather than saying, “Oh, well, I can only order gear, I can only do my capacity planning once a year when we do the budget, so like, I got to order as much as they'll let me order and then it's going to sit in the data center spinning until I need it because I have no ability to have any kind of elastic capacity.” So, it was a completely, [laugh] completely different paradigm from what things are now. We have so much more flexibility, and the ability to, you know, expand and contract when we need to, and to shape our infrastructures to meet the needs of the application in such a more sophisticated and almost graceful way that we really didn't have then. So, it was like, “Okay, so I'm running these big websites; I've got thousands of machines.” Like, not containers, not services.Like, there's tens of thousands of services, but there's a thousand machines in one location, and we've got other things spread out. There's like, six different pods of things in different places and all this other crazy business going on. At the same time, we were also running our own CDN, and like, I totally recommend you never, ever do that for any reason. Like, just—yeah. It was a whole experience and I still sometimes have, like, anxiety dreams about, like, the configuration for some of our software that we ran at that point. And all of that stuff is—it was a long… dark time.Julie: So, now speaking of anxiety dreams, during that long, dark time that you mentioned, there had to have been some major incidents, something that stands out that that you just never want to relive. And, Mandi, I would like to ask you to relive that for us today.Mandi: [laugh]. Okay, well, okay, so there's two that I always tell people about because they were so horrific in the moment, and they're still just, like, horrible to think about. But, like, the first one was Thanksgiving morning, sometime early in the morning, like, maybe 2 a.m. something like that, I was on call.I was at my mom's, so at the time, my mom had terrible internet access. And again, this time period don't have a lot of—there was no LTE or any kind of mobile data, right? So, I'm, like, on my mom's, like, terrible modem. And something happened to the database behind news.aol.com—which was kind of a big deal at the time—and unfortunately, we were in the process of, like, migrating off of one kind of database onto another kind of database.News was on the target side but, like, the actual platform that we were planning to move to for everything else, but the [laugh] database on-call, the poor guy was only trained up in the old platform, so he had no idea what was going on. And yeah, we were on that call—myself, my backup, the database guy, the NOC analyst, and a handful of other people that we could get hold of—because we could not get into touch with the team lead for the new database platform to actually fix things. And that was hours. Like, I missed Thanksgiving dinner. So, my family eats Thanksgiving at midday rather than in the evening. So, that was a good ten hour call. So, that was horrifying.The other one wasn't quite as bad as that, but like, the interesting thing about the platform we were running at the time was it was AOL server, don't even look it up. Like, it was just crazytown. And it was—some of the interesting things about it was you could actually get into the server platform and dig around in what the threads were doing. Each of the servers had, like, a control port on it and I could log into the control port and see what all the requests were doing on each thread that was live. And we had done a big push of a new release of dotcom onto that platform, and everything fell over.And of course, we've got, like, sites in half a dozen different places. We've got, you know, distributed DNS that's, like, trying to throw traffic between different locations as they fall over. So, I'm watching, like, all of these graphs oscillate as, like, traffic pours out of the [Secaucus 00:11:10] or whatever we were doing, and into Mountain View or something and, like, then all the machines in the Secaucus recover. So, then they start pinging and traffic goes back, and, like, they just fall over, over and over again. So, what happened there was we didn't have enough threads configured in the server for the new time duration for the requests, so we had to, like, just boosted up all of the threads we could handle and then restart all of the applications. But that meant pushing out new config to all the thousands of servers that were in the pool at the time and then restarting all of them. So, that was exciting. That was the outage that I learned that the CTO knew how to call my desk. So, highly don't recommend that. But yeah, it was an experience. So.Julie: So, that's really interesting because there's been so many investments now in reliability. And when we talk about the Before Times when we had to cap our text messages because they cost us ten cents a piece, or when we were using those AOL discs, the thought was there; we wanted to make that user experience better. And you brought up a couple of things, you know, you were moving to those more personalized experiences, you were migrating those platforms, and you actually talked about your metrics and monitoring. And I'd like to dig in a little on that and see, how did that help you during those incidents? And after those incidents, what did you do to ensure that these types of incidents didn't occur again in the future?Mandi: Yeah, so one of the interesting things about, you know, especially that time period was that the commercially available solutions, even some of the open-source solutions were pretty immature at that time. So, AOL had an internally built solution that was fascinating. And it's unfortunate that they were never able to open-source it because it would have been something interesting to sort of look at. Scale of it was just absolutely immense. But the things that we could look at the time to sort of give us, you know, an indication of something, like, an AOL.com, it's kind of a general purpose website; a lot of different people are going to go there for different reasons.It's the easiest place for them to find their email, it's the easiest place for them to go to the news, and they just kind of use it as their homepage, so as soon as traffic starts dropping off, you can start to see that, you know, maybe there's something going on and you can pull up sort of secondary indicators for things like CPU utilization, or memory exhaustion, or things like that. Some of the other interesting things that would come up there is, like, for folks who are sort of intimately tied to these platforms for long periods of time, to get to know them as, like, their own living environment, something like—so all of AOL's channels at the time were on a single platform.—like, hail to the monolith; they all live there—because it was all linked into one publishing site, so it made sense at the time, but like, oh, my goodness, like, scaling for the combination of entertainment plus news plus sports plus all the stuff that's there, there's 75 channels at one time, so, like, the scaling of that is… ridiculous.But you could get a view for, like, what people were actually doing, and other things that were going on in the world. So like, one summer, there were a bunch of floods in the Midwest and you could just see the traffic bottom out because, like, people couldn't get to the internet. So, like, looking at that region, there's, like, a 40% drop in the traffic or whatever for a few days as people were not able to be online. Things like big snowstorms where all the kids had to stay home and, like, you get a big jump in the traffic and you get to see all these things and, like, you get to get a feel for more of a holistic attachment or holistic relationship with a platform that you're running. It was like it—they are very much a living creature of their own sort of thing.Like, I always think of them as, like, a Kraken or whatever. Like, something that's a little bit menacing, you don't really think see all of it, and there's a lot of things going on in the background, but you can get a feel for the personality and the shape of the behaviors, and knowing that, okay, well, now we have a lot of really good metrics to say, “All right, that one 500 error, it's kind of sporadic, we know that it's there, it's not a huge deal.” Like, we did not have the sophistication of tooling to really be able to say that quantitatively, like, and actually know that but, like, you get a feel for it. It's kind of weird. Like, it's almost like you're just kind of plugged into it yourself.It's like the scene in The Matrix where the operator guy is like, “I don't even see the text anymore.” Right? Like, he's looking directly into the matrix. And you can, kind of like—you spend a lot of time with [laugh] those applications, you get to know how they operate, and what they feel like, and what they're doing. And I don't recommend it to anyone, but it was absolutely fascinating at the time.Julie: Well, it sounds like it. I mean, anytime you can relate anything to The Matrix, it is going to be quite an experience. With that said, though, and the fact that we don't operate in these monolithic environments anymore, how have you seen that change?Mandi: Oh, it's so much easier to deal with. Like I said, like, your monolithic application, especially if there are lots of different and diverse functionalities in it, like, it's impossible to deal with scaling them. And figuring out, like, okay, well, this part of the application is memory-bound, and here's how we have to scale for that; and this part of the application is CPU-bound; and this part of the application is I/O bound. And, like, peeling all of those pieces apart so that you can optimize for all of the things that the application is doing in different ways when you need to make everything so much smoother and so much more efficient, across, like, your entire ecosystem over time, right?Plus, looking at trying to navigate the—like an update, right? Like, oh, you want to do an update to your next version of your operating system on a monolith? Good luck. You want to update the next version of your runtime? Plug and pray, right? Like, you just got to hope that everybody is on board.So, once you start to deconstruct that monolith into pieces that you can manage independently, then you've got a lot more responsibility on the application teams, that they can see more directly what their impacts are, get a better handle on things like updates, and software components, and all the things that they need independent of every other component that might have lived with them in the monolith. Noisy neighbors, right? Like, if you have a noisy neighbor in your apartment building, it makes everybody miserable. Let's say if you have, like, one lagging team in your monolith, like, nobody gets the update until they get beaten into submission.Julie: That is something that you and I used to talk about a lot, too, and I'm sure that you still do—I know I do—was just the service ownership piece. Now, you know who owns this. Now, you know who's responsible for the reliability.Mandi: Absolutely.Julie: You know, I'm thinking back again to these before times, when you're talking about all of the bare metal. Back then, I'm sure you probably didn't pull a Jesse Robbins where you went in and just started unplugging cords to see what happened, but was there a way that AOL practiced Chaos Engineering with maybe not calling it that?Mandi: It's kind of interesting. Like, watching the evolution of Chaos Engineering from the early days when Netflix started talking about it and, like, the way that it has emerged as being a more deliberate practice, like, I cannot say that we ever did any of that. And some of the early internet culture, right, is really built off of telecom, right? It was modem-based; people dialed into your POP, and like, that was the reliability they were expecting was very similar to what they expect out of a telephone, right? Like, the reason we have, like, five nines as a thing is because you want to pick up dial tone, and—pick up your phone and get dial tone on your  line 99.999% of the time.Like, it has nothing to do with the internet. It's like 1970s circuits with networking. For part of that reason, like, a lot of the way things were built at that time—and I can't speak for Yahoo, although I suspect they had a very similar setup—that we had a huge integration environment. It's completely insane to think now that you would build an integration environment that was very similar in scope and scale to your production environment; simply does not happen. But for a lot of the services that we had at that time, we absolutely had an integration environment that was extraordinarily similar.You simply don't do that anymore. Like, it's just not part of—it's not cost effective. And it was only cost effective at that time because there wasn't anything else going on. Like, you had, like, the top ten sites on the internet, and AOL was, like, number three at the time. So like, that was just kind of the way things are done.So, that was kind of interesting and, like, figuring out that you needed to do some kind of proactive planning for what would happen just wasn't really part of the culture at the time. Like, we did have a NOC and we had some amazing engineers on the NOC that would help us out and do some of the things that we automate now: putting a call together, or when paging other folks into an incident, or helping us with that kind of response. I don't ever remember drilling on it, right, like we do. Like, practicing that, pulling a game day, having, like, an actual plan for your reliability along those lines.Julie: Well, and now I think that yeah, the different times are that the competitive landscape is real now—Mandi: Yeah, absolutely.Julie: And it was hard to switch from AOL to something else. It was hard to switch from Facebook to MySpace—or MySpace to Facebook, I should say.Mandi: Yeah.Julie: I know that really ages me quite a bit.Mandi: [laugh].Julie: But when we look at that and when we look at why reliability is so important now, I think it's because we've drilled it into our users; the users have this expectation and they aren't aware of what's happening on the back end. They just kn—Mandi: Have no idea. Yeah.Julie: —just know that they can't deposit money in their bank, for example, or play that title at Netflix. And you and I have talked about this when you're on Netflix, and you see that, “We can't play this title right now. Retry.” And you retry and it pops back up, we know what's going on in the background.Mandi: I always assume it's me, or, like, something on my internet because, like, Netflix, they [don't ever 00:21:48] go down. But, you know, yeah, sometimes it's [crosstalk 00:21:50]—Julie: I just always assume it's J. Paul doing some chaos engineering experiments over there. But let's flash forward a little bit. I know we could spend a lot of time talking about your time at Chef, however, you've been over at PagerDuty for a while now, and you are in the incident response game. You're in that lowering that Mean Time to Identification and Resolution. And that brings that reliability piece back together. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?Mandi: One of the things that is interesting to me is, like, watching some of these slower-moving industries as they start to really get on board with cloud, the stairstep of sophistication of the things that they can do in cloud that they didn't have the resources to do when they were using their on-premises data center. And from an operation standpoint, like, being able to say, “All right, well, I'm going from, you know, maybe not bare metal, but I've got, like, some kind of virtualization, maybe some kind of containerization, but like, I also own the spinning disks, or whatever is going on there—and the network and all those things—and I'm putting that into a much more flexible environment that has modern networking, and you know, all these other elastic capabilities, and my scaling and all these things are already built in and already there for me.” And your ability to then widen the scope of your reliability planning across, “Here's what my failure domains used to look like. Here's what I used to have to plan for with thinking about my switching networks, or my firewalls, or whatever else was going on and, like, moving that into the cloud and thinking about all right, well, here's now, this entire buffet of services that I have available that I can now think about when I'm architecting my applications for the cloud.” And that, just, expanded reliability available to you is, I think, absolutely amazing.Julie: A hundred percent. And then I think just being able to understand how to respond to incidents; making sure that your alerting is working, for example, that's something that we did in that joint workshop, right? We would teach people how to validate their alerting and monitoring, both with PagerDuty and Gremlin through the practice of incident response and of chaos engineering. And I know that one of the practices at PagerDuty is Failure Fridays, and having those regular game days that are scheduled are so important to ensuring the reliability of the product. I mean, PagerDuty has no maintenance windows, correct?Mandi: No that—I don't think so, right?Julie: Yeah. I don't think there's any planned maintenance windows, and how do we make sure for organizations that rely on PagerDuty—Mandi: Mm-hm.Julie: —that they are one hundred percent reliable?Mandi: Right. So, you know, we've got different kinds of backup plans and different kinds of rerouting for things when there's some hiccup in the platform. And for things like that, we have out of band communications with our teams and things like that. And planning for that, having that game day to just be able to say—well, it gives you context. Being able to say, “All right, well, here's this back-end that's kind of wobbly. Like, this is the thing we're going to target with our experiments today.”And maybe it's part of the account application, or maybe it's part of authorization, or whatever it is; the team that worked on that, you know, they have that sort of niche view, it's a little microcosm, here's a little thing that they've got and it's their little widget. And what that looks like then to the customer, and that viewpoint, it's going to come in from somewhere else. So, you're running a Failure Friday; you're running a game day, or whatever it is, but including your customer service folks, and your front-end engineers, and everyone else so that, you know, “Well, hey, you know, here's what this looks like; here's the customers' report for it.” And giving you that telemetry that is based on customer experience and your actual—what the business looks like when something goes wrong deep in the back end, right, those deep sea, like, angler fish in the back, and figuring out what all that looks like is an incredible opportunity. Like, just being able to know that what's going to happen there, what the interface is going to look like, what things don't load, when things take a long time, what your timeouts look like, did you really even think about that, but they're cascading because it's actually two layers back, or whatever you're working on, like that kind of insight, like, is so valuable for your application engineers as they're improving all the pieces of architecture, whether it's the most front-end user-facing things, or in the deep back-end that everybody relies on.Julie: Well, absolutely. And I love that idea of bringing in the different folks like the customer service teams, the product managers. I think that's important on a couple of levels because not only are you bringing them into this experience so they're understanding the organization and how folks operate as a whole, but you're building that culture, that failure is acceptable and that we learn from our failures and we make our systems more resilient, which is the entire goal.Mandi: The goal.Julie: And you're sharing the learning. When we operate in silos—which even now as much as we talk about how terrible it is to be in siloed teams and how we want to remove silos, it happens. Silos just happen. And when we can break down those barriers, any way that we can to bring the whole organization in, I think it just makes for a stronger organization, a stronger culture, and then ultimately a stronger product where our customers are living.Mandi: Yeah.Julie: Now, I really do want to ask you a couple of things for some fun here. But if you were to give one tip, what is your number one tip for better DevOps?Mandi: Your DevOps is always going to be—like, I'm totally on board with John Wallace's [CAMS 00:27:57] to, like, move to CALMS sort of model, right? So, you've got your culture, your automation, your learning, your metrics, and your sharing. For better DevOps, I think one of the things that's super important—and, you know, you and I have hashed this out in different things that we've done—we hear about it in other places, is definitely having empathy for the other folks in your organization, for the work that they're doing, and the time constraints that they're under, and the pressures that they're feeling. Part of that then sort of rolls back up to the S part of that particular model, the sharing. Like, knowing what's going on, not—when we first started out years ago doing sort of DevOps consulting through Chef, like, one of the things we would occasionally run into is, like, you'd ask people where their dashboards were, like, how are they finding out, you know, what's going on, and, like, the dashboards were all hidden and, like, nobody had access to them; they were password protected, or they were divided up by teams, like, all this bonkers nonsense.And I'm like, “You need to give everybody a full view, so that they've all got a 360 view when they're making decisions.” Like you mentioned your product managers as part of, like, being part of your practice; that's absolutely what you want. They have to see as much data as your applications engineers need to see. Having that level of sharing for the data, for the work processes, for the backlog, you know, the user inputs, what the support team is seeing, like, you're getting all of this input, all this information, from everywhere in your ecosystem and you cannot be selfish with it; you cannot hide it from other people.Maybe it doesn't look as nice as you want it to, maybe you're getting some negative feedback from your users, but pass that around, and you ask for advice; you ask for other inputs. How are we going to solve this problem? And not hide it and feel ashamed or embarrassed. We're learning. All this stuff is brand new, right?Like, yeah, I feel old talking about AOL stuff, but, like, at the same time, like, it wasn't that long ago, and we've learned an amazing amount of things in that time period, and just being able to share and have empathy for the folks on your team, and for your users, and the other folks in your ecosystem is super important.Julie: I agree with that. And I love that you hammer down on the empathy piece because again, when we're working in ones and zeros all day long, sometimes we forget about that. And you even mentioned at the beginning how at AOL, you had such intimate knowledge of these applications, they were so deep to you, sometimes with that I wonder if we forget a little bit about the customer experience because it's something that's so close to us; it's a feature maybe that we just believe in wholeheartedly, but then we don't see our customers using it, or the experience for them is a little bit rockier. And having empathy for what the customer may go through as well because sometimes we just like to think, “Well, we know how it works. You should be able to”—Mandi: Yes.Julie: Yes. And, “They're definitely not going to find very unique and interesting ways to break my thing.” [laugh].Mandi: [laugh]. No, never.Julie: Never.Mandi: Never.Julie: And then you touched on sharing and I think that's one thing we haven't touched on yet, but I do want to touch on a little bit. Because with incident—with incident response, with chaos engineering, with the learning and the sharing, you know, an important piece of that is the postmortem.Mandi: Absolutely.Julie: And do you want to talk a little bit about the PagerDuty view, your view on the postmortems?Mandi: As an application piece, like, as a feature, our postmortem stuff is under review. But as a practice, as a thing that you do, like, a postmortem is an—it should be an active word; like, it's a verb, right? You hol—and if you want to call it a post-incident review, or whatever, or post-incident retrospective, if you're more comfortable with those words, like that's great, and that's—as long as you don't put a hyphen in postmortem, I don't care. So, like—Julie: I agree with you. No hyphen—Mandi: [laugh].Julie: —please. [laugh].Mandi: Please, no hyphen. Whatever you want to call that, like, it's an active thing. And you and I have talked a number of times about blamelessness and, like, making sure that what you do with that opportunity, this is—it's a gift, it's a learning opportunity after something happened. And honestly, you probably need to be running them, good or bad, for large things, but if you have a failure that impacted your users and you have this opportunity to sit down and say, all right, here's where things didn't go as we wanted them to, here's what happened, here's where the weaknesses are in our socio-technical systems, whether it was a breakdown in communication, or breakdown in documentation, or, like, we we found a bug or, you know, [unintelligible 00:32:53] defect of some kind, like, whatever it is, taking that opportunity to get that view from as many people as possible is super important.And they're hard, right? And, like, we—John Allspaw, on our podcast, right, last year talked a bit about this. And, like, there's a tendency to sort of write the postmortem and put it on a shelf like it's, like, in a museum or whatever. They are hopefully, like, they're learning documents that are things that maybe you have your new engineers sort of review to say, “Here's a thing that happened to us. What do you think about this?” Like, maybe having, like, a postmortem book club or something internally so that the teams that weren't maybe directly involved have a chance to really think about what they can learn from another application's learning, right, what opportunities are there for whatever has transpired? So, one of the things that I will say about that is like they aren't meant to be write-only, right? [laugh]. They're—Julie: Yeah.Mandi: They're meant to be an actual living experience and a practice that you learn from.Julie: Absolutely. And then once you've implemented those fixes, if you've determined the ROI is great enough, validate it.Mandi: Yes.Julie: Validate and validate and validate. And folks, you heard it here first on Break Things on Purpose, but the postmortem book club by Mandi Walls.Mandi: Yes. I think we should totally do it.Julie: I think that's a great idea. Well, Mandi, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Real quick before we go, did you want to talk a little bit about PagerDuty and what they do?Mandi: Yes, so Page—everyone knows PagerDuty; you have seen PagerDuty. If you haven't seen PagerDuty recently, it's worth another look. It's not just paging anymore. And we're working on a lot of things to help people deal with unplanned work, sort of all the time, right, or thinking about automation. We have some new features that integrate more with our friends at Rundeck—PagerDuty acquired Rundeck last year—we're bringing out some new integrations there for Rundeck actions and some things that are going to be super interesting for people.I think by the time this comes out, they'll have been in the wild for a few weeks, so you can check those out. As well as, like, getting better insight into your production platforms, like, with a service graph and other insights there. So, if you haven't looked at PagerDuty in a while or you think about it as being just a place to be annoyed with alerts and pages, definitely worth revisiting to see if some of the other features are useful to you.Julie: Well, thank you. And thanks, Mandi, and looking forward to talking to you again in the future. And I hope you have a wonderful day.Mandi: Thank you, Julie. Thank you very much for having me.Jason: For links to all the information mentioned, visit our website at gremlin.com/podcast. If you liked this episode, subscribe to the Break Things on Purpose podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. Our theme song is called “Battle of Pogs” by Komiku, and it's available on loyaltyfreakmusic.com.

Lead With Your Brand!™
S2E47 : The Fun of Building A Movie Brand : Matt Atchity, General Manager, Moviefone

Lead With Your Brand!™

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2021 38:06


Description: Jayzen is excited to welcome his old friend and colleague, Matt Atchity to the show. As the self-proclaimed “ultimate film nerd,” Matt has been a pioneer in the world of websites for the entertainment industry. He led the team that brought Rotten Tomatoes and the Tomatometer into the lexicon, making it a household name. He shares a ton of insights into his personal brand and leadership style, all rooted in having fun and having a passion for what you do. Matt has been seen in local and national media as a movie expert and is currently the General Manager of Moviefone. Guest Bio Matt Atchity General Manager Moviefone Matt Atchity has over twenty years of experience managing and building websites that cover a variety of entertainment categories, such as movies, TV, music, celebrities and video games. Matt has been the General Manager of Moviefone since 2018, and prior to that he was Head of Programming at TYT Network. For ten years, Matt led the team at Rotten Tomatoes that made the brand a household name. As Editor in Chief, he was responsible for the overall direction of editorial content and the brand. As part of that role, Matt's movie previews were seen and heard by nationwide audiences. He made weekly appearances on Good Day LA, FoxNews.com and Adam Carolla's podcast. He is an acknowledged expert on movies and TV, and has appeared multiple times on national outlets such as Nightline, ABC News, CBC News, and CNN. Previously, Matt's been a Senior Content Producer at Yahoo!, and a producer for Chiat/Day, Warner Bros. Online and America Online. Links To learn more about Lead With Your Brand and the Career Breakthrough Mentoring program, please visit: LeadWithyYourBrand.com To book Jayzen for a speaking engagement or workshop at your company, visit: JayzenPatria.com

The Future of Data Podcast | conversation with leaders, influencers, and change makers in the World of Data & Analytics

In this podcast, Matt Blumberg discussed his book Startup CXO, the insights it carries and shared how to build a thriving leadership that builds for tomorrow today. He sheds light on the importance of a good leader and how to achieve it effectively. Matt's Recommended Read: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers Ben Horowitz https://amzn.to/3edvsHV The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter by Patrick McKeown https://amzn.to/3k994TR Matt's Book: Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company's Critical Functions and Teams by Matt Blumberg , Peter M. Birkeland https://amzn.to/3AWuyJL Podcast Link: iTunes: http://math.im/jofitunes Youtube: http://math.im/jofyoutube Matt is the founder and CEO of Bolster, a new talent marketplace for on-demand executives and board members launched in 2020. Matt was previously Chairman & CEO of Return Path, the market leader in email optimization, from 1999, until its sale to Validity. Under Matt's leadership, Return Path won numerous employer of choice awards including #2 on Fortune Magazine's “Best Companies to Work for” list. Prior to founding Return Path, Matt founded the Internet division of MovieFone (777-FILM) and had previously worked in venture capital and management consulting. Matt is Founder and Chairman of Path Forward, a non-profit that was spun out of Return Path in 2016 whose mission is to empower people to restart their careers after time spent focused on caregiving. He is also the author of Startup CEO: A field guide to scaling up your business, second edition published by Wiley & Sons in 2020, Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Your Company's Critical Teams, published by Wiley & Sons in 2021, and the forthcoming second edition of Startup Boards, to be published by Wiley & Sons in 2021 or 2022. Timelines: 1:10 Matt's journey. 3:22 The need for Bolster. 6:11 Tenets of a successful startup. 8:08 The kind of leadership required for a successful startup. 11:08 Best practices building a successful culture for a startup. 13:27 Pitfalls in leading a startup. 16:40 Qualities of a successful leader. 18:48 Tenets of a good leader in a startup environment. 22:00 Differentiating team expectations in small, mid, and large organizations. 24:06 Tips on grooming leaders in an organization. 25:47 The idea behind the book "Future of Thriving Startup CXO". 30:27 Research behind the book "Future of Thriving Startup CXO". 32:48 Picking the right authors for the book "Future of Thriving Startup CXO". 35:42 How does the on-demand leadership model fit into the life of a startup? 40:39 The role of technology in getting further access to leadership talent. 41:43 The future of leadership. 43:40 Rapidfire with Matt. 45:32 Matt's success mantra. 48:50 Matt's favorite reads. 50:20 Closing remarks. About TAO.ai[Sponsor]: TAO is building the World's largest and AI-powered Skills Universe and Community powering career development platform empowering some of the World's largest communities/organizations. Learn more at https://TAO.ai

The Worst of All Possible Worlds

THIS IS A PREVIEW. Check out the full thing at patreon.com/worstofall There's something rotten in the CORPORATION of Denmark??? Josh (@boshj), Brian (@spocks_brian), and A.J. (@TheFuzzyMask) whip out their bodkins and throw themselves headlong into the morose, brooding world of literal corporate backstabbing that is Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000). They dissect the cultural significance of Mr. Moviefone, the perils and pitfalls of adapting Shakespeare for the screen, and the surreal perfection of contemplating one's mortality in a Blockbuster. TWOAPW on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/WorstOfAll Theme by Brendan Dalton www.brendan-dalton.com https://brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Work 2.0 | Discussing Future of Work, Next at Job and Success in Future

In this podcast, Matt Blumberg discussed his book Startup CXO, the insights it carries and shared how to build a thriving leadership that builds for tomorrow today. He sheds light on the importance of a good leader and how to achieve it effectively. Matt's Recommended Read: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers Ben Horowitz https://amzn.to/3edvsHV The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter by Patrick McKeown https://amzn.to/3k994TR Matt's Book: Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company's Critical Functions and Teams by Matt Blumberg , Peter M. Birkeland https://amzn.to/3AWuyJL Podcast Link: iTunes: http://math.im/jofitunes Youtube: http://math.im/jofyoutube Matt is the founder and CEO of Bolster, a new talent marketplace for on-demand executives and board members launched in 2020. Matt was previously Chairman & CEO of Return Path, the market leader in email optimization, from 1999, until its sale to Validity. Under Matt's leadership, Return Path won numerous employer of choice awards including #2 on Fortune Magazine's “Best Companies to Work for” list. Prior to founding Return Path, Matt founded the Internet division of MovieFone (777-FILM) and had previously worked in venture capital and management consulting. Matt is Founder and Chairman of Path Forward, a non-profit that was spun out of Return Path in 2016 whose mission is to empower people to restart their careers after time spent focused on caregiving. He is also the author of Startup CEO: A field guide to scaling up your business, second edition published by Wiley & Sons in 2020, Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Your Company's Critical Teams, published by Wiley & Sons in 2021, and the forthcoming second edition of Startup Boards, to be published by Wiley & Sons in 2021 or 2022. Timelines: 1:10 Matt's journey. 3:22 The need for Bolster. 6:11 Tenets of a successful startup. 8:08 The kind of leadership required for a successful startup. 11:08 Best practices building a successful culture for a startup. 13:27 Pitfalls in leading a startup. 16:40 Qualities of a successful leader. 18:48 Tenets of a good leader in a startup environment. 22:00 Differentiating team expectations in small, mid, and large organizations. 24:06 Tips on grooming leaders in an organization. 25:47 The idea behind the book "Future of Thriving Startup CXO". 30:27 Research behind the book "Future of Thriving Startup CXO". 32:48 Picking the right authors for the book "Future of Thriving Startup CXO". 35:42 How does the on-demand leadership model fit into the life of a startup? 40:39 The role of technology in getting further access to leadership talent. 41:43 The future of leadership. 43:40 Rapidfire with Matt. 45:32 Matt's success mantra. 48:50 Matt's favorite reads. 50:20 Closing remarks. About TAO.ai[Sponsor]: TAO is building the World's largest and AI-powered Skills Universe and Community powering career development platform empowering some of the World's largest communities/organizations. Learn more at https://TAO.ai

The MEAT Improv with Jake Jabbour and Josh Simpson
275 - John-Michael Sedor and Hanna-Lee in "Cargo (relation)Ships and MovieFone!"

The MEAT Improv with Jake Jabbour and Josh Simpson

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 20, 2021 71:56


For episode 275, we welcome teammates from Wimbledon, and all around exceptional humans John-Michael Sedor (Bet the Spread) and Hanna-Lee to talk fitting in, parents falling in love, and a long-running, over the phone acting job! These lead to scenes about God coming down to lose money and love, oversharing during an audition, and organized crime during a movie and a movie during organized crime! Thanks for listening! If you'd like to support The MEAT, you can subscribe to our Patreon at Patreon.com/themeatimprovSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-meat-improv-with-jake-jabbour-and-josh-simpson/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Quaran-Talks
Baby, You're a Firework!

Quaran-Talks

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2021 33:51


On today's pre-Independence Day pod we talk about our excitement for the upcoming holiday, some of our favorite memories around the day, & a dial-in segment to MovieFone at the historic Washoe Theatre! Bye, bye...........

Imported Horror
The Other Lord of the Rings: Ringu (Japan, 1998) & The Ring (USA, 2002)

Imported Horror

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2021 80:34


Even if you haven't seen the cursed tape, you know its inescapable story. If you have seen it, then you've got a fun week ahead. Get nostalgic with us this week as we explore the thrills, chills and legacy of an iconic J-horror and its fun American remake. Ringu: Motion Picture Terror Scale: 3 (Marcus & Melissa) / 2 (Grady). Quality: 5 / 5 / 4 Enjoyment: 5 / 5 / 5 The Ring: MPTS: 3 / 3 / 2. Quality: 4 / 4 / 4 Enjoyment: 5 / 5 / 4 Articles mentioned in this episode: "Bringing Out the Horror of What He Knows Best," by Randy Kennedy in The New York Times "The Ring: Why The American Remake Cut 50 Percent Of The Original Story," by Maisy Flowers in Screen Rant "13 Things You Never Knew About 'The Ring'," by Gary Susman in MovieFone

Serial Killers & Seltzer
Episode 6: Black Eyed Kids

Serial Killers & Seltzer

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2021 75:13


Are they demons, spirits of murdered child, vampires or even alien human hybrids?! I'll leave it up to you to decide. But whatever they are, they are creepy AF and give me the heebie-jeebies FOR SURE! Don't ever let them in or you will surely regret it, that is, if you live to tell the tale. You're welcome for the nightmare and the nostalgia of Moviefone and Diphtheria. P.S.: DO NOT CALL THE NUMBERS LISTED FOR MOVIEFONE ON GOOGLE.... YOU WILL BE THOROUGHLY DISAPPOINTED. Sources: Listen to The Chilling, True Terror of the Black-Eyed Kids: A Monster Compilation by G. Michael Vasey on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B07H7RM8J6&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006 https://www.google.com/amp/s/texashillcountry.com/black-eyed-kids-legend-abilene/amp/ Commercials: Pure romance https://pureromance.com/KaleeWells https://takecareof.com/invites/kwweym Here's a code so you can get your first order 50% off! kwweym https://www.freskincare.com/KALEEW KALEEW for 25% off your entire order https://www.buckedup.com/ WELLS20 for 20% off your entire order --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Many Screens, Big Picture with Paul Dergarabedian
Film’s Endless Summer with Erik Davis

Many Screens, Big Picture with Paul Dergarabedian

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 2, 2021 30:08


This week host Paul Dergarabedian is joined by Erik Davis, the Managing Editor for Fandango and one of the nation's leading movie commentators. Listen as Erik shares how social media has changed online movie commentary and how those changes affect writers and commentators like himself. Then stick around as Erik and Paul discuss the film industry’s “endless summer” including the top 5 most anticipated movies of the summer!   This episode covers: How social media has changed and shaped the movie commentary space What makes this Memorial Day Weekend the most pivotal in a long time Why people are saying the film industry is entering an “endless summer” The most underappreciated aspect of seeing movies in theaters The top 5 most anticipated movies of the summer   ABOUT THIS EPISODE'S GUESTS: Erik Davis, Managing Editor for Fandango, is one of the nation's leading movie commentators, with over a decade of experience writing about movies for Fandango, Movies.com, Moviefone, Cinematical and others, as well as talking about movies on TV, YouTube and radio. Erik has appeared on The TODAY Show, CBS This Morning, CNN, MSNBC, New York Live, Good Day NY, Bloomberg TV, Fox Business, CNBC, PBS and more, and he has sat on the "Masters of the Web" panel at San Diego Comic-Con three times, as well as hosted panels at SXSW and inside Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con. Erik is also a proud voting member of the Critics Choice Association.   Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Movies (with Gravy)
SILO with MARYA E. GATES

Movies (with Gravy)

Play Episode Listen Later May 7, 2021 96:00


Episode 25. Being from the South, getting trapped in a silo is one of our worst nightmares! We're joined by MARYA E. GATES from MovieFone and RogertEbert.com to discuss the new indie thriller from Magnolia Pictures, SILO, and the films we believe inspired it; closed out with an interview with the film's producer, SAMUEL GOLDBERG. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/movieswithgravy/support

Watch With Jen
Watch With Jen - S2: E11 - Rebel Girls with Marya E. Gates

Watch With Jen

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2021 67:38


I'm so delighted to welcome one of my oldest Twitter friends - Marya E. Gates - to the podcast for what I hope will be the first of several episodes.A writer, film lover, and former editorial manager for Netflix, Marya was also the social media manager for Rotten Tomatoes and Film Struck. Additionally, she created such viral film movements as A Year with Women, where she spent a year watching and logging films made by female directors, and Noirvember, where movie buffs spend the month of November watching and learning about the noir genre.Now a freelance writer for such outlets as MovieFone and RogerEbert.com, Marya is also a podcaster currently working on getting her new show Prog Save America (about progressive rock) out to listeners soon. As a fellow Dylan and Springsteen fan, I can't wait to tune in because - with her passion behind it - I know it'll be awesome.In this breezy, spirited chat, we dissect Daisies, Foxfire (1996), and Skate Kitchen - three films about rebellious girls made in three different eras by three different female filmmakers. Sharing our own funny stories about getting in fights, teen medical drama, coming-of-age in the '90s and '00s, and finding our tribe, we follow the conversation wherever it leads, including a cool digression about Surfer Zen and the wisdom of Ethan Hawke. If any of that appeals (and how could it not?), you're bound to dig this one.Originally Posted on Patreon (3/22/21) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/49067826Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive

A Podcast About Something
A Podcast About Kramer's Schemes (Seinfeld) with Nick Emel from the 10ish Podcast

A Podcast About Something

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2021 87:12


Cosmo Kramer was never one to shy away from a good caper. Whether he was trying to make money or save time or just felt the need to do something, Kramer was constantly coming up with new and exciting (and often dangerous) schemes. This week Kalvin is joined by fellow Seinfeld super fan, Nick Emel, from the 10ish Podcast to discuss the insane (but sometimes sane and quite clever) machinations of our quintessential hipster doofus. Kalvin and (new) Nick hold a draft as we go back and forth to try determine Kramer's 10(ish) best schemes throughout Seinfeld's run. We choose from over 60 schemes, plots, bamboozles, flim-flams, and great ideas while hilarity and Seinfeld quotes ensue! Let us know what your favorite Kramer scheme is on twitter @APASomething, @alone_podcast, and @10ishpodcast. ---------Cast your VOTE for the winner of this draft!--------- ---------Check out more about SOMETHING--------- Youtube Twitter Merch APodcastAboutSomething.com (full episode transcript available) -------------------------FULL LIST OF KRAMER'S SCHEMES----------------------- Roll up tie dispenser, A pizza place where you make your own pie, Hennigan's spokesman, The beach perfume, Calvin Klein model, The Kramer portrait, Coffee table book about coffee tables, Periscope for your car, Woody Allen movie: “These pretzels are making me thirsty”, Murphy Brown's assistant - Steven Snell, Auditions for Kramer in “Jerry” as Martin Van Nostrand, Movie treatment for The Keys, Selling used records (Bleeker Bob's Records), Soap Opera Stand In, Coleman's Santa Claus, Police Lineup stand in, Miss America Coach , Ball Man at the US Open, The Executive beltless trenchcoat resale middle-man (Rudy's), Moviefone 2.0, Handsome Cab Driver, Organized a Jewish singles mixer, Co-inventor of The Bro, Alex Theater Revival, Michigan Bottle deposit scheme, Restaurant that only serves peanut butter and jelly (pb&j's), Cock fighting, Fireman, Tobacco Billboard Model, Sells his life stories to J Peterman ($750), Peterman reality tour, Imports Cubans (people) to roll cigars, Da Vinci sleep, The Merv Griffin Show, Pretending to have diseases so that medical students could diagnose, Seat filler at the Tony's, H&H Bagels employee, Tested a banks "Hello" policy, Staying in shower all the time, Brandt-Leland (TCB), Introduced rickshaws to NYC, Kramerica Industries, Oil bladder system, Ketchup and Mustard in the same bottle, Jon Voight bite marks comparison, Dog-napping, Puppet Regime at Del Boca Vista, Airport gambling with Texas tycoon, Blood at-home bank, Highway Adoption, Karate class, Police Tape for Frogger machine, Unlimited Cafe Lattes after suing coffee company for coffee being too hot, Hot Tub & Fake Wood Wallpaper, The pigman escape, The Assman license plate, Butter shave, Meat slicer/Dr. Van Nostrand cancer screening, Apartment Switcheroo with Jerry, High-flow Showerheads, Clothes drying in the oven, The Junk mail, Strongbox, Reverse peephole, Sniffing accountant stakeout --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/apasomething/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/apasomething/support

One Heat Minute
ZODIAC: CHRONICLE - AQUARIUS PT. 1 (5/24)

One Heat Minute

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2021 48:35


Welcome to *Zodiac: Chronicle,* a 24 part investigation into David Fincher's 2007 genre-altering masterpiece *Zodiac*. Adapted from Robert Graysmith's novel by screenwriter James Vanderbilt - *who provided the introduction for this episode -* and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo. Joining me today to discuss the introduction of the man who inspired *Bullitt* and *Dirty Harry* - Dave Toschi - played with heart and care from the incredible Mark Ruffalo are Senior Contributor at *Film School Rejects* , *Meg Shields*. The host of the Prog Save America Podcast, Writer at Moviefone, Former Editorial and Brand Manager for Netflix Film, the force behind Old Films Flicker, the creator of #AYEARWITHWOMEN (in which she spent one year only watching films written and/or directed by women) and #NOIRVEMBER (the yearly celebration of all things noir) - *Marya E. Gates.* And returning film critic at *The Ringer* and *Cinema Scope* , author of essential movie books T *he Coen Brothers This Book Really Ties the Films Together* and the recently released P *aul Thomas Anderson Masterworks* - *Adam Nayman.* Film critic and editor at large of *Empire Magazine U.K* , co-host of *the Empire podcast* and author of the soon to be released Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film, *Helen O’Hara.* Filmmaker and screenwriter of *Rounders* , *The Girlfriend Experience, Ocean’s Thirteen* and co-creator and showrunner of *Billions* - *Brian Koppelman.* Theatre Director, Playwright, film critic and host of the *Ink and Paint Podcast* , *Daniel Lammin.* And award-winning screenwriter, and auteurist podcasting mastermind *Lee Zachariah.* *One Heat Minute Productions* *WEBSITE:* oneheatminute.com ( https://oneheatminute.com/ ) *PATREON:* One Heat Minute Productions Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/OneHeatMinute ) *TWITTER:* @OneBlakeMinute ( https://twitter.com/OneBlakeMinute ) & @OHMPods ( https://twitter.com/OHMPods ) *MERCH:* http://tee.pub/lic/41I7L55PXV4 *Meg Shields* *TWITTER:* @TheWorstNun ( https://twitter.com/TheWorstNun ) *OUTLET:* *Film School Rejects* ( https://filmschoolrejects.com/ ) *Marya Gates* *TWITTER:* @oldfilmsflicker ( https://twitter.com/oldfilmsflicker ) *OUTLET:* *Movie Fone* ( https://t.co/HhzHbLn0eL?amp=1 ) *,* *Prog Save America* ( https://t.co/yS6PQdIkru?amp=1 ) *Helen O'Hara* *TWITTER:* @HELENLOHARA ( https://twitter.com/HelenLOHara ) *OUTLET:* *Empire* ( http://empireonline.com ) *BOOK:* *Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film* ( https://t.co/O9S0GunaNr?amp=1 ) *PODCAST:* *Empire Podcast* ( https://www.empireonline.com/tags/empire-podcast/ ) *Daniel Lammin* *TWITTER:* *@DANIELLAMMIN* ( https://twitter.com/DanielLammin ) *PODCAST:* *INK AND PAINT* ( https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/inkandpaint ) *OUTLET:* *SWITCH* ( https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/ ) *Adam Nayman* *TWITTER:* @BROFROMANOTHER ( https://twitter.com/brofromanother ) *OUTLETS:* *THE RINGER* ( https://www.theringer.com/authors/adam-nayman ) *,* *CINEMA SCOPE* ( https://cinema-scope.com/author/adam-nayman/ ) *BOOKS: PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: MASTERWORKS; THE COEN BROTHERS: THIS BOOK REALLY TIES THE FILMS TOGETHER* *Brian Koppelman* *TWITTER:* @BRIANKOPPELMAN ( https://twitter.com/briankoppelman ) *PODCAST:* *THE MOMENT* ( https://t.co/Bw75i1dymY?amp=1 ) *Lee Zachariah* *TWITTER:* @LEEZACHARIAH ( https://twitter.com/leezachariah ) *PODCAST:* HELL IS FOR HYPHENATES ( http://www.hellisforhyphenates.com/ ) *WEBSITE:* HTTP://WWW.LEEZACHARIAH.COM/ ( http://www.leezachariah.com/ ) Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/one-heat-minute-productions/exclusive-content Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Spotlight Conversations
The Steve Gelder & Grae Drake interview

Spotlight Conversations

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2021 32:34


Today it's all about Hollywood as I visit the vivacious team of Drake & Gelder - actually entertainment journalist Grae Drake and actor Steve Gelder - talking about all things showbiz and working together in the entertainment industry. Both discuss what brought them to Los Angeles: Steve and his stand up comedy, acting (Mixed Nuts; The Interview); and filmmaking; and Grae working as a movie reviewer for CNN, Rotten Tomatoes and MovieFone. Find out about their take on the "art of being creative", the changing landscape of Hollywood during the pandemic; their unique movie review skills (watch out best worst films!) and Grae's very cool youtube channel, The Grae Area. Enjoy!

The Jonathon Brandmeier Showcast
Episode 36 - 2021 & Still Havin' Fun

The Jonathon Brandmeier Showcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2021 80:00


We talk about the presidential pardon spree, Bernie Sanders in a cocoon at the inauguration, Hot Pockets' recall, and more. We remember Larry King, Hank Aaron, and Tommy Lasorda. Plus: our friend Russ Leatherman, aka the iconic Mr. Moviefone, finally picks up HIS phone and goes off on “full-blown A-hole” Ellen “Degenerate”, why he can't return to civilization after the pandemic, and the future of movies.

The Soul of Life
Cinema with Sandie from Common Sense Media

The Soul of Life

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 13, 2020 43:52


Today I talk to Sandie Angulo Chen a film critic, entertainment reporter, and book reviewer that writes for Common Sense Media, a non-profit website that gives parents in-depth reviews of movies, shows and apps so they can make informed decisions about their family's media diet. We also dive into our favorite film picks including Watchmen, My Octopus Teacher, The Social Dilemma, and others.    Some have called Common Sense Media “nutritional labeling for media,” and Sandie gives us a behind-the-scenes tour of how they the publish detailed cliff's notes with specifics about language, violence, sex, and consumerism as well as positive messaging and role models. Sandie Angulo Chen is a film critic, entertainment reporter, and book reviewer. She's written professionally about movies, books, and pop culture for more than 20 years, contributing to outlets such as Common Sense Media, where she's the senior reviewer, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, EW.com, Moviefone, and Variety. Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoulOfLifeShow​ or Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoulofLifeShow​ Want to book Keith as a guest on your podcast? Contact him at keith@souloflifeshow.com. ***7-Week Stress Reduction & Relationship Growth Course*** If you and your significant other are looking for ways to improve communication and strengthen your partnership, there is still time to enroll in my upcoming live 7-Week Mindfulness and IFS course, called Mindful Marriage. Partners of any kind are welcome. It's a one-of-a-kind offering that can truly transform how you show up in intimacy. For more information visit: https://community.souloflifeshow.com/

The OST
Oddball Sex Tunes - Prince's Batman

The OST

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2019 129:04


join us for our grand opening, sorta-practice sorta-pilot, in which we dive deep into prince's batman soundtrack! it's the best! come for conversations about the film, why people care about the joker, and the ancient moviefone hotline. a solid start? maybe? also we know it's a long episode. but don't let that discourage you! break it up into parts! listen to it over a period of time! either way it's a real goof and spoof. please enjoy.

Breakfast All Day
Episode 017: Shazam!, Dumbo, Five Feet Apart, Diane, The Dirt, Agnes Varda, Grae Drake

Breakfast All Day

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 29, 2019 59:49


"Shazam!" is such a blast that we wanted to review it a week early. It's one of the many films that Alonso, Matt and Christy discuss on the latest episode of Breakfast All Day. We also review Tim Burton's disappointing live-action "Dumbo," catch up with the teen weepy "Five Feet Apart," rave about the beautifully acted indie drama "Diane" and wallow in the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll of the Motley Crue biopic "The Dirt." But first, we start out with some sad news and some happy news: the death of French New Wave legend Agnes Varda at age 90 and an exciting new gig for our great friend Grae Drake as Ms. Moviefone. If you know the name of the podcast you'd like to hear, press one. And enjoy.

Two Sorry ExCuses
Two Sorry ExCuses #171: Welcome to Moviefone

Two Sorry ExCuses

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 29, 2018 77:36


The boys are back to discuss the premature demise of Movie Pass. Plus, Liv loses his patience with Sanders.

The Organist
The Voice is a Thief

The Organist

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 8, 2017 29:30


Will Marlon Brando's anguished shout from A Streetcar Named Desire survive as a cultural meme long after Brando himself is forgotten? Will the Stella scream become an enduring cultural reference in the vein of Shakespeare's quotations? In 2011, essayist Elena Passarello won New Orleans' annual Stella scream competition by channelling Brando's abject bawling. This week we speak with her about screams, cries, and the full range of the human voice. How does the body play into the sound of our voice? Is it possible to hear a broken foot bone when a performer speaks or sings? As interviewer Niela Orr puts it, “Passarello's essays are what would happen if Joan Didion wrote captions for VH1's Pop-Up Video.” Passarello's work explores the physical and cultural aspects of the human voice and how they might be connected. Our discussion encompasses vocality from opera, Flavor Flav, and James Brown, as well as automated voices, such as the classic Bell telephone operator, the voice of the Moviefone hotline, and contemporary AI, including Alexa and Siri—and how these automated voices mimic accents and human confusion. You'll also hear Passarello's rendition of how Koko, the gorilla with a lexicon of 1000 signs, tells the legendarily dirty vaudeville joke “The Aristocrats.” You'll also hear fiction from Chelsea Martin on attempts to woo an estranged ex—written in the form of a review of The Organist podcast itself. Special thanks to Mickey Capper and Sidewalks podcast for the use of “Someone like Baby.” Produced by Jenny Ament and Niela Orr.

The Story Behind
Voice Recognition | Basic Computers, Creepy '80s Dolls, Moviefone and More (TSB048)

The Story Behind

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2017 9:30


Welcome to Tech Week! This is one of the last weeks of The Story Behind before I officially go on Baby Break, but this week was planned way back in January when Jim Collison from Home Gadget Geeks reached out and wanted to do a collaboration of his show and mine. Here's the link to the episode of Home Gadget Geeks from Thursday, February 9th. In this episode, I'll be talking about … well, actually, let me have Siri tell you what I'll be talking about. Siri: Emily will be talking about my history. Starting with my ancestors, computers that would take up whole rooms with the function of being able to recognize a handful of spoken words, through the technology we know today. Here is your host, Emily Prokop, and this is The Story Behind Voice Recognition Follow The Story Behind: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website Check out #PodernFamily on Twitter to find other great indie podcasts like this one. If you enjoy podcasts about history, literature, archeology, and the arts, check out the hashtag #HumanitiesPodcasts on Twitter to find more podcasts like this one. Click here to support this podcast on Patreon. Media: Music for Makers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyXegCueV88 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/moviefone-company-launches-search-replace-iconic-voice-23586976 Sources: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/speech-recognition1.htm http://www.pcworld.com/article/243060/speech_recognition_through_the_decades_how_we_ended_up_with_siri.html?page=2 https://astaspeaks.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/audrey-the-first-speech-recognition-system/ http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/history-of-voice-recognition-from-audrey-to-siri/15008 http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/Rabiner/ece259/Reprints/354_LALI-ASRHistory-final-10-8.pdf https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/the-history-of-voice-recognition https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/specialprod1/specialprod1_7.html https://www.thefreelibrary.com/BELLSOUTH+TESTS+NEW+VOICE+RECOGNITION+SERVICE+IN+TWO+FLORIDA+MARKETS-a018444708 https://www.automatedliving.com/ http://beebom.com/amazon-echo-alternatives/ http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-voices/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/04/tech/mobile/bennett-siri-iphone-voice/index.html

The Armstrong and Getty Show (Bingo)
1 - Fox News' Steve Taylor reports on the military's planned cuts. 2 - Moviefone is shutting down its phone service; Oreilly's Jesse Waters interviewed that San Diego surfer dude on food stamps

The Armstrong and Getty Show (Bingo)

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2014


Report on the military's planned cuts; Moviefone is shutting down; San Diego surfer dude on food stamps again; 30 Second Movie Review: Ride Along; Biden spoke highly about the CA bullet train; How Obama stands amongst the world's leaders