Podcast appearances and mentions of suroosh alvi

Luck favors the heroin addict that refuses to give up! Just ask Disney. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Colair Cooling & Heating Ad] Dave Young: Vice Media. So we've all seen Facebook articles and things that are shared from vice.com. Stephen Semple: Right. Yeah. Dave Young: And I'm assuming that this is a bigger thing than just that. Stephen Semple: It is. It is. Today they do over a billion dollars in sales, is what's estimated. They're a private company, so it's hard to know exactly. And they have 3,000 employees and 35 offices around the world. So they're a big deal. And they remain privately-owned. They're owned by Shane Smith, one of the founders. Disney, A&E, George Sorrows, James Murdoch, and TPG Capital. Disney is a surprising one, especially when you look at the type of content. And wait till you hear the story behind this. It's crazy. This one is crazy. So it was founded by Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith and Gavin McInnes in 1994, right? This is when it started. This is sort of right at the beginning days of a lot of the online things going on. And today they're considered the largest independent youth media company in the world, is kind of how they build themselves. But as I said, it's a crazy story, especially when you consider this media company started in 1994, and when we think from 1994 today, how many media companies have died? The big growth in that time has been YouTube. YouTube went from nothing to... YouTube has 2.6 billion active users and there's 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. This is the backdrop. So with this backdrop, it's amazing that they were able to create this media company. And as I said, story's nuts. And there's a Canadian tie-in. So I kind of like it. Suroosh, who's the main driver behind it, was born in Toronto and his parents were from Pakistan, and they're academics. But they moved around a fair bit and he did his high school in the United States. And growing up with Pakistani parents, to be respected in the community, you needed to do medicine or engineering. So he was very much the black sheep, because what he ended up doing when he went to school was a BA. He was the outlier there. And he went to University of Montreal and he got a degree in philosophy, McGill University of Montreal. And when he finished, not only did he finish with a degree, but he also finished as a full-blown heroin addict. He blamed the city. He said this has to do with the influence of Montreal and university and whatnot, so he moved around. And finally what he decided to do is, he went to Eastern Europe and he moved into this little tiny town in the middle of nowhere because he said, "If I go there, I can beat the heroin addiction." And basically what he discovered- Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: ... was even in a little small town in the middle of Eastern Europe, you can still get strung out. You can still find it. Dave Young: You can still find it. Stephen Semple: So he returns to Toronto, he goes into grad school, takes psychology, drops out. Back to Montreal and he decides to do rehab. And at this time, he's living a double life. No one knew his problem. His family was this very conservative Muslim family. And when he finally shared with them about his addiction, it was really bad. It really hurt the family. And his mental state was not good. He went to rehab twice. In early '94, he's on a waiting list to get into another treatment center and life's not great.

THE TOXIC PIGS OF FUKUSHIMA follows a lone hunter into an isolated and changed landscape. Along the way, other citizens who still live near the reactor share their perspectives on the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 triggered a tsunami, nuclear meltdown and mass evacuations in Fukushima Prefecture. Today, as part of a Government push to encourage resettlement, local hunters have been enlisted to dispose of radiated Wild Boars that now roam the abandoned streets and buildings. THE TOXIC PIGS OF FUKUSHIMA focuses on the people who still live near the reactor share their perspectives on the aftermath. Along the way, other citizens who still live near the reactor share their perspectives on the aftermath. THE TOXIC PIGS OF FUKUSHIMA was inspired by the photographs of co-producers Toru Hanai and Yuki Iwanami. The original score was written and performed by renowned ambient artist Midori Takada. Directed by Otto Bell (The Eagle Huntress) THE TOXIC PIGS OF FUKUSHIMA has been acquired by VICE and will be featured in "The Short List with Suroosh Alvi," an upcoming series from VICE World News. The Short List is a collection of the world’s best documentaries curated by VICE founder Suroosh Alvi.   Watch The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima

Suroosh Alvi's parents had high hopes for his future. But during his college, he got addicted to drugs. Yet, he transformed from a worthless drug addict to a multi-millionaire. Let us see how he did it with VICE.

We're hard at work planning our upcoming live show, so we bring you this favorite from the last year: VICE. Suroosh Alvi was a recovering addict when he started a scrappy underground magazine in Montreal. It grew into a multi-billion dollar company that has shaken up the world of journalism. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Kent Sheridan of Voila Coffee, a company aiming to make instant coffee with the quality of a four-dollar pour over.

Suroosh Alvi was a recovering addict when he started a scrappy underground magazine in Montreal. It grew into VICE Media — a multi-billion dollar company that has shaken up the world of journalism.

What is success? Well in the Turned Out A Punk universe it is having the founder of the self-professed “punkzine" that became a multi-billion dollar media juggernaut, Vice Co-Founder Suroosh Alvi! Sit back as Damian talks to his friend about going from Husker Du shows, to Man’s Ruin Records distros to owning and running a major news outlet. Also touched on -Spaceshits -Matty Matheson -Cancer Bats -Husker Du -High School in Minneapolis -Replacements -Rifle Sport -Working at Big Money Records -Working side by side with Har Mar Superstar -A New Day Rising with nothing to do on Christmas Day -An older brother getting you into metal -Prince -The racism of 70’s Toronto -The Montreal hate of Toronto -The Vice romanticism of Montreal -Answer Me! and the other boarder line hate literature of the late 90s -Vice and punk -Going to a Run DMC show in Chicago in 1985 -Guitars and Rappers -The Ultra-Violent Booze Catastrophe -The Pre-Vice Records label: SSG Records -“Fuck All’ Y’all, we are out of here.” -Vice moves to New York. -Man’s Ruin -“We have to make this work!” -Getting the Misfits back together -And much more!