← Ridiculous History
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- [00:00]
Alex Williams
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning in. We want to give a big end of the year shout out to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
- [00:38]
Ben Bullen
That was a crowd.
- [00:43]
Alex Williams
We've got Ben Bullen, we've got Noel Brown. We also have a special guest today, Noel. We can't believe this is happening. This is a true story. We are speaking with the authority, the world traveler, the man who started mtv, none other than Tom Freston, creator of the newest hit book, Unplugged.
- [01:13]
Ben Bullen
Thanks for being here, Tom. How are you?
- [01:15]
Tom Freston
I'm good. I'm very good.
- [01:17]
Ben Bullen
He's a busy man, getting some calls.
- [01:24]
Tom Freston
I'm fine. I just trying to disconnect my phone here.
- [01:29]
Ben Bullen
You're trying to unplug, huh?
- [01:31]
Tom Freston
I need to be unplugged.
- [01:32]
Ben Bullen
Yeah, it's tough. It's a very difficult thing to do in this day and age.
- [01:38]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
- [01:43]
Okta Announcer
These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn, every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, OKTA helps you get identity right by securing your AI agents identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta, you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent, secure any agent. Okta secures AI.
- [02:14]
Evan Ratliff
Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.
- [02:20]
Alex Williams
Hey, just finished drawing up that quick.
- [02:22]
Tom Freston
One page business plan for you.
- [02:24]
Alex Williams
Here's the link.
- [02:25]
Evan Ratliff
But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast Shell Game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:45]
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.
- [02:56]
Alex Williams
And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him.
- [03:02]
Malcolm Gladwell
From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to revisionist history, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [03:14]
Tom Freston
Whether it is getting swatted or just hateful messages online, there is a lot.
- [03:19]
Ben Bullen
Of harm and even just reading the comments.
- [03:22]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
That's cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart Gloucester on the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. Every season is a chance to grow and the Therapy for Black Girls podcast is here to walk with you. I'm Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford and each week we dive into real conversations that help you move with more clarity and confidence. This episode we're breaking down what really happens to your information online and how to protect yourself with intention. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [03:54]
Radhi Devlukia
Hi, I'm Radhi devlukya and I am the host of a really Good Cry podcast. This week I am joined by Anna Runkle, also known as the Crappy Childhood Fairy, a creator, teacher and guide helping people heal from the lasting emotional wounds of unsafe or chaotic childhoods.
- [04:09]
Anna Runkle
That talking about trauma isn't always great for people. It's not always the best thing. About a third of people who were traumatized as kids feel worse when they talk about it. Get very dysregulated.
- [04:20]
Radhi Devlukia
Listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [04:29]
Ben Bullen
Ben, I think you did a fine job of, given the short version of an incredibly storied career and cv. Tom, you are the co founder of mtv, the former CEO of Viacom. You've had your hands in just about every aspect of the entertainment and media landscape that, you know, you could possibly imagine. But even more than that, and I'd love to start a little bit with some of your background, I saw an article this morning from Forbes, I think it just came out today, describing you as a beat poet exec who made MTV Cool for 20 years. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means? You talk a little bit about, like getting into the game, as it were, in some of these more kind of wild west days of the 60s and not wanting to work for the man and having that attitude kind of carry you into this sort of free wheel, you know, life of adventure and entrepreneurship.
- [05:26]
Tom Freston
Well, that headline kind of threw me too.
- [05:28]
Ben Bullen
Okay.
- [05:30]
Tom Freston
I told the reporter, he said, you know, what were some of your seminal influences? And I said, well, in my life I was influenced by two groups of people, primarily the Beats, you know, Ferlinghetti, Kerouac, Corso, the rest of them, and the Libertarians, which was sort of an odd mix but they both believed in individual freedom. They both believed in a way that a life should be full of experience. And the Beats in particular, thought that you could go through life sort of improvising your life, not having a really set career path, but leaving yourself open to possibility, traveling, hungering for experience, being with people that you like. And that's sort of been a guiding maxim for me. Along with the fact that I never really wanted to do any work in the mainstream. I thought life would be a little more interesting over on the side of the road. And by and large, that's what I've been able to accomplish in the places I've worked and the things I've done. None of them were really mainstream activities.
- [06:35]
Alex Williams
And this is strange because, to be quite honest with you, Tom, MTV is a formative experience for us on the show. And I'm sure you hear that all the time. If we could. Could you share a little bit of the provenance or the origin story of how you and your pals came up with this idea of music television?
- [07:00]
Tom Freston
Yeah. And let me just qualify one thing at the outset, which is the MTV you've seen for the last, say, 15 years or so. Is not the MTV that I'm really talking about, for sure. We started out as a music service for young adults. The idea was, if you dial back to 1980, cable was just beginning. Most cities did not have cable tv. It existed in some rural areas because people just wanted distant signals and better reception. And in 1979 and 80, various companies were cooking up things like CNN or ESPN or USA Network. And we were going to bounce our signals off a satellite. And we were going to make cable TV kind of sweep through the hinterlands and the cities and become a universal utility, essentially. MTV and Nickelodeon was the other company under my sort of umbrella. We were really the tip of the sphere. Prior to that, you had three broadcast networks. Abc, NBC, cbs. That's pretty much all that was there. Cable was going to do to television what FM radio sort of did to AM radio. They were going to have more slender services. They called it narrow casting at the time. Doing one thing all the time, appealing to a certain audience. So you really didn't care that everyone wasn't watching you. ABC was just a bunch of disconnected shows. Whereas everything we did on MTV would be cohesive. It would all be directed at younger music lovers. And the form that we were going to build this around was the music video, which was unknown to most Americans, but had existed in Europe, where I had seen it years ago. Because In Europe, it was very difficult for record companies to get their acts on the radio because there wasn't a lot of radio stations. They didn't play music. So they would make these music videos and put them on shows like Top of the Pops in the uk, on television. We thought that this would be a great vehicle. Music's a big category. We could have a music channel on television. We thought we'd take the two things that the baby boomers, who we were targeting at that time, the two things they really love, music and television, and put it together in a new way. And we called it mtv. And I was on the team that developed that concept and we launched in 1981. And the bulk of the programming, we tried to give it an underground sort of cool sensibility. Like this was something like, you don't know where it came from. And it really became a thing. I mean, really became a force in the culture. Easy to forget how revolutionary it seemed at the time, given all that's happened since. But back then, it really looked like something brand new, a sign of the future that was coming and so forth.
- [09:54]
Ben Bullen
It had a certain quality of pirate radio, had a certain quality of punk rock kind of aesthetic. Even with all those. I mean, I think of the bumpers so often. Some of those early MTV animated bumpers with the claymation using weirdo artists. Some of the animation that came later, stuff like Beavis and Butthead. But in the earliest days, I think the video that a lot of people associate with the very, very first days of MTV is Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles, which a lot of people don't know this, but there is a tiny little cameo in that video from Hans Zimmer. I think he was in the band at the time.
- [10:27]
Tom Freston
Is that right?
- [10:27]
Ben Bullen
And he's got this rack of crazy modular synths behind him, and you can see a young Hans bopping with the Buggles. But it's like you almost think of it as such a connected piece. This idea of this mission statement or this thesis video killed the radio star. But that wasn't exactly on purpose. It just happened to be the one that took off and sort of led this new, you know, style of broadcast and the way of experiencing music. Can you kind of talk about those early days and how quickly it picked up? Or, like, did it take a minute or was it kind of instant that people just saw the potential and got.
- [11:01]
Alex Williams
On board with mtv and what was the climate like? Was this a very startup environment? Were you guys.
- [11:07]
Tom Freston
Yeah, it was like a bunch of us in A hotel room with coal waiting. We didn't even have a lot of phones. Eating pizza and working day and night. There was a handful of us and we were all. No one was making more than 30,000 doll a year. And we probably would have worked for less because we were all on a mission. We were like crusaders. Everyone was. No one was from the world of television. I came from eight years in Afghanistan and India. A lot of people came out of record companies or radio stations. But we were all passionate. And you were right about the bumpers and all that. We really tried to create an image that would be cohesive. We wanted MTV to be a place. I wasn't going to go watch a show on mtv. I was going to go watch mtv. We thought that's the only way we really could survive would be just because we didn't have a lot of shows, for starters. But we wanted people just to come there anytime. In the early days we went on the air, we only had 168 videos. That's like one video for every hour of the week. If you didn't repeat them. And it didn't take off immediately, it took a while. Everyone we dealt with thought it was a bad idea. The cable operators didn't want to pay us any money because they don't like paying money to anybody. And they were all monopolists in a particular geography. The advertisers said, no one's going to watch music on television. You'll never get an audience. And the record company said, we're not going to give you these videos. We want you to pay for them. And we really couldn't afford to do that. We said, well, they're going to sell records for you. They're like three minute commercials. So for a long time it was like for two years it was just trying to overcome a series of no, no, no, no, no, no. But what we did know was that people who got it once we went on the air In August of 81, they loved it. Like the consumer had been left out of the equation. I would go out because I was the marketing guy at the time with this other fellow, John Sykes, who was a promotion guy. We would go to cities like Tulsa, then the biggest cable system in America. And just even when I arrived at the airport to rent a car, they saw MTV button on my jacket. It was like, where did you get that?
- [13:23]
Ben Bullen
I want one.
- [13:24]
Alex Williams
Cool.
- [13:25]
Tom Freston
I said, you've heard of mtv? They go, are you kidding me? Everybody here knows about mtv. It's wild. It had just come on unannounced in the middle of the night, like six weeks earlier. And the town was going nuts for it. They went to a radio station. They were like, wow, all these people are requesting songs from the Buggles and Duran Duran groups. We never play on the radio. People are getting haircuts based on various artists that they see. I went to a bar and everybody was standing around like they were watching an NFL game, but they were watching mtv. So we had the first sign of life. No one who worked at MTV got it at home. It was all an abstraction to us. We were making it, putting up on a satellite. We only. We only had 2 million subscribers, which was not enough to do anything. So we decided, as we were running out of money, to do sort of a Hail Mary pass. And we came up with the I want my MTV campaign, which would go right over the cable operator's head and get these young fan. It was like rock and roll fans to torment their cable operator to make sure they carry it and it worked like a charm. We would enlist major rock stars. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Pete Townsend, hall and Oates. Have them hold our logo and validate it. Call your cable company and say, I want my mtv.
- [14:47]
Ben Bullen
And you approached them in kind of a punk rock, sort of culture jammy way. Like, didn't you, like, find Bowie on the slopes or something and, like, walk up to him and try to get him to record, like, his little version of that?
- [14:58]
Tom Freston
Well, I had. I had drawn the David Bowie card. I had to find him. And, you know, the. The first time I met him, I saw him. I was just trying to ask him to get permission to use some photos of him. Like, we couldn't even get those from the record companies. They thought we were like a fan club or something. And David Bowie just said, you want my picture? The best way to get to an artist is to go directly to them. Don't go through the record company, don't go through the manager. And he just said, is it good for music? And I said, yeah, we're going to play music 24 hours a day. He said, sure. So that was over. So then I called his manager. When we wanted to do this campaign, I said, you know, we have this campaign. It's blah, blah, blah. We'd love to have David in it. Well, David's skiing in Switzerland. He's in Staad, but he'll do it. So I got the crew. We got on a plane to Zurich right away. We're like. It's like Mission Impossible. Then we got on a train to Staad. And we went out to like this little hill that was off in the mainstream. And Bowie looked great. He was in his let's dance phase, you know, blonde hair, looking healthy, he's a good skier. Comes down and he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to come down a hill and then stop with a swoosh. And he was going to go hold his hands like this and say, I want my mtv. And so we did that a few times. And then he's a really nice guy. He wanted to know if any of us wanted to ski with him. And at the end of the day he said, you know, Tom, what are you doing later? You want to take a sauna at the Grand Hotel, which was like the main hotel in n'. Staad. So I can't believe this is happening. I go, yeah, I got nothing to do. So I go back to our place, which is like sort of a youth hostel almost where the crew was. I said, I'll see you losers later. I'm going to go take a sauna with David Bowie. So when I went there, into the spa, you know, got put a towel on to go into the sauna room. We went in there, he said, you know, he's a very pleasant guy. He'd talk to you about what books you're reading and all that kind of thing. There's one other person in the sauna. I look up and it's Squint and it's Paul McCartney. Can you believe? So that maybe, you know, I, I was there 26 years. That was maybe one of my peak moments, you know, early on in my career.
- [17:32]
Alex Williams
That's a weird place to meet Paul McCartney too, because you're walking in, you've got the towel on. It's definitely a sauna. It's not a PR thing, right? What, what was, did you have like an icebreaker or did you just.
- [17:48]
Tom Freston
He said, you know, know what was up? They said, what is mtv? That's where we started. What is mtv? That's how little they knew about it. So I described it to them and I'd be throwing water on the rocks. They were both really, really nice. And I was very self effacing and saying, you know, we're trying to get this thing going. It's going to be really good for music and it'll be good for the categories. A new way for artists to express themselves. And we would one day end up being in Europe, which we did some years later. So that was a highlight for me. But this campaign allowed us to ramp up Our subscribers to like 70, 80, 90 million homes as cable built out and as more cable because we'd go into a market and run this advertising on the broadcast networks at really high levels. So you know you'd have to be dead if you didn't know about it. So people would call their company cable company and use that language and put us on.
- [18:50]
Okta Announcer
These days it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere. You turn every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agents identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent, secure any agent. Okta secures AI.
- [19:21]
Evan Ratliff
Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan, just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.
- [19:27]
Alex Williams
Hey, just finished drawing up that quick.
- [19:29]
Tom Freston
One page business plan for you.
- [19:31]
Alex Williams
Here's the link.
- [19:32]
Evan Ratliff
But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
- [19:47]
Ben Bullen
There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one person billion.
- [19:51]
Evan Ratliff
Dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.
- [19:54]
Ben Bullen
And now will happen.
- [19:55]
Evan Ratliff
I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.
- [20:07]
Tom Freston
Oh, hey Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.
- [20:16]
Evan Ratliff
Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:22]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question. What do I want my life to look like now? I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford and on therapy for black girls. We create space for honest conversations about identity, relationships, mental health and the choices that help us grow. As cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart Gloucester reminds.
- [20:44]
Tom Freston
Us, we are in a divisive time where our comments are weaponized against us.
- [20:49]
Ben Bullen
And so what we find is a.
- [20:51]
Tom Freston
Lot of black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain.
- [20:58]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
Each week we explore the Tools and insights that help you move with purpose, whether you're navigating something new or returning to yourself. If you're ready for thoughtful guidance and grounded support, this is the place for you. Listen to therapy for black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:17]
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.
- [21:31]
Alex Williams
That's how long Elizabeth Simpson family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years.
- [21:41]
Malcolm Gladwell
I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.
- [21:54]
Anna Runkle
He would say to himself, turn to.
- [21:56]
Tom Freston
The right, to the victim's family, and apologize.
- [21:58]
Anna Runkle
Turn to the left.
- [21:59]
Tom Freston
Tell my family I love him.
- [22:00]
Anna Runkle
So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.
- [22:05]
Malcolm Gladwell
From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [22:17]
Radhi Devlukia
Hi, I'm Radhi Devlukia and I am the host of a really good Cry podcast. This week I am joined by Anna Runkle, also known as the crappy Childhood Fairy, a creator, teacher and guide, helping people heal from the lasting emotional wounds, wounds of unsafe or chaotic childhoods. We talk about how the things we went through when we were younger can still show up in our adult lives, in our relationships, our reactions, even in the way we feel in our own bodies. And Anna opens up about her own story, what helped her notice the patterns she was stuck in and how she slowly started teaching her body that it is safe now.
- [22:49]
Anna Runkle
So when I got attacked, it was very random. Four guys jumped out of a car and just started beating me and my friend, and they broke my jaw and my teeth. I was unconscious. Then I woke up and I screamed and I screamed because even though I didn't know who I was or where I was, something in me was just like, hold on, wait, they could kill me. And I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to get through this.
- [23:11]
Radhi Devlukia
And I did listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [23:22]
Alex Williams
And one thing that's, that's amazing here I'm sure you get questions about MTV all the time, obviously. One thing that's amazing about your book, Unplugged, I didn't give the full title. It's Adventures From MTV to Timbuktu. And Tom, we can't let you go here because you mentioned something that I wish more interviews and examined from your book before we have this moment with David Bowie and with Paul McCartney, before we have MTV and Nickelodeon and so on. You have traveled the world, you said eight years. Eight years abroad in places that honestly, a lot of Americans had not visited. And at the time. Could you tell us a little bit, kind of speaking to that mention of improvisation and just hopping on the road. Could you tell us what inspired your travels, what you were doing? We have so many questions, but maybe paint the stage. Okay, I'm a kid in the U.S.
- [24:37]
Tom Freston
I'M a kid in the U.S. let's remember it's the 60s and there was alienation in the air. There was freedom in the air. The counterculture was in full force. There was the war in Vietnam. I had gone to graduate school to avoid getting drafted. Somehow I pulled that off. And then I took a year off and I sort of improvise, even with. I had an MBA that kept me out of the Army. And then I bartended my way in Aspen, Virgin Islands, Martha's Vineyard. I did a lot of that. That was sort of improvising. Then I went to. Got a job at an ad agency.
- [25:16]
Alex Williams
Benton and Bowles. Right.
- [25:17]
Tom Freston
Benton and Bowles was one of the big agencies at the time. Sort of try that out. I got on what they call the fast track for Procter and Gamble products. So I did a GI Joe thing, which I hated. Scope Mouthwash. The whole thing was a learning experience. But it was enough for me to know this wasn't for me. Then they wanted to assign me to Charmin Toilet Paper, one of their big accounts. And that was hard to digest. And I had a woman, a girlfriend, she was living in Paris. She called me up and she well, how you doing? I said, man, they want me to sell toilet paper. And she says, oh, you can't do that. Come with me across. I'm going to go across the Sahara desert. I'm going to hitchhike down through Spain and Morocco, go across the Sahara Desert. I was on a plane 10 weeks later, 10 days later, excuse me, I got a passport and I was off. And I didn't come back for a year. We left. We split up after two months, but I kept going. And I had met another woman in Greece, who told me, you know, you got to go to India. That's like the holy grail. That's the greatest show on earth. And I set out overland through Turkey and Iran and Afghanistan and India. And I just fell in love with that area. I was fascinated. I had done a lot of homework. I decided I wanted to live there, but I had to create a job. And you couldn't really get a job there in those days. And in those days, this was the 70s. Now in India, the place was like a shock to the system. 60% of the population was under the poverty line. And it was a mass of humanity. And it took a lot of energy just to get through one day. But I said, this is so. I feel so alive here. So I set up a business to design it and make and then import into the United States. Clothing, higher end clothing, more designer like, than the cheap sort of ethnic stuff. And I said that would allow me to make enough money to live here. It would be sort of a creative endeavor. Lord knows what's going to happen once I start. Other things will happen to me. So I did that for eight years, made a lot of money. I was a millionaire in my twenties. Back then I had a partner and we were in. You know, I knew people in New York, so we would be in Vogue and Mademoiselle and Glamour magazines. We got a lot of coverage, we sold. We became an unexpected hit. But at the end, a lot of bad. I had a house, I had servants. I was living like a pasha. Couldn't believe it. It was fantastic and a very exciting place to be. But then the Russians invaded Afghanistan, which kind of took that market away, that operation. And then Jimmy Carter, of all people, after all we had endured in India, you know, blackouts, strikes, cobras, dysentery, you name it. He.
- [28:15]
Ben Bullen
We're talking actual cobras, by the way.
- [28:17]
Tom Freston
Those are real cobras.
- [28:17]
Ben Bullen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.
- [28:19]
Tom Freston
In our backyard. Oh, yeah, they were in our backyard eating the rats.
- [28:22]
Ben Bullen
That's right. But it was the cobra problem because they released cobras to kill the rats. And then I believe you would get some sort of bounty if you showed that your cobra had killed rats. So people just released more and more cobras and became this like, self, like this uroboros kind of snake eating its own tail thing with created went from a rat problem to a cobra problem.
- [28:41]
Tom Freston
Right. I go on YouTube, they have all these snake videos. There's a Rabbit hole on YouTube where you can see all these cobras eating things. But then they declared an embargo on clothing from India because the president put in place tariffs, kind of like today, because it was hurting domestic manufacturing. So they outlawed it for a while, and I basically went bankrupt. I did smuggle some of the clothing I shipped to Canada and kind of smuggled it into the US over the St Lawrence Seaway, which was crazy.
- [29:21]
Alex Williams
Just so you know, folks, we are an audio podcast. And, Tom, you had the most poetic look out the window, and I could see you traveling back to the St. Lawrence river there.
- [29:33]
Ben Bullen
Bit of a thinker situation, for sure.
- [29:36]
Tom Freston
That was not going to be a good way to make a living. So I was out of work, I was out of luck. I was broke. I spent eight years doing that. I'm 33 years old. And I then saw this article about the guy wanted to start a music channel. My brother who worked at Columbia Records, recommended me for an interview. And I realized that after traveling, my other main passion was music, and I was a music nut. I knew I could tell you when I was growing up who sang what song, what was on the other side of the record, all that. And I said, well, this looks like fun. This looks like something I could do. So I went in for an interview, and they said, we're looking for people with no experience in television because we don't have any money and we can't afford to hire people who have bad habits they've acquired working for the broadcasters. So they hired me on the spot.
- [30:25]
Alex Williams
Wow. I have to ask, did your escape from Kabul come up in the interview at all when they said, what's your previous work?
- [30:35]
Tom Freston
Well, yeah, both two people thought I was a hash he smoked about. And they said it in a way, like it was a positive.
- [30:45]
Ben Bullen
That's one of these fellows is our CEO here at iHeart.
- [30:48]
Tom Freston
Were you smuggling the guy, Bob Pittman, who Now is the CEO of iHeart?
- [30:54]
Alex Williams
Bob.
- [30:54]
Tom Freston
Bob, I hope you're listening. He said to me, when he was. He was 26, he was younger than me. He was the head guy. He said, what were you doing in Afghanistan smuggling drugs? And I said, not really. He goes, not really? That means you were.
- [31:11]
Ben Bullen
But that was a feature, not a bug, right?
- [31:12]
Tom Freston
You're hired. You're hired. So I got hired by Bob.
- [31:17]
Alex Williams
And this journey continues because, as you said, we're doing something revolutionary. At this point, I was also in full disclosure. I was one of those kids that got hacked by. I want my mtv. And I was bugging my parents. I remember vividly there was one Christmas where my parents asked me what I wanted. And instead of picking a Toy or a trip or something. I said it'd be cool if we had mtv because the kids up the street have it.
- [31:56]
Ben Bullen
Oh, it was something you'd go to the kids up the street's house to watch. A million percent.
- [32:01]
Tom Freston
I like those sort of origin of my MTV viewing stories. I hear them a lot. People were young and going over to friends houses because my mother wouldn't let us get cable. My mother wouldn't let me watch mtv, whatever. But there was always someone in the neighborhood who had it with lenient parents.
- [32:18]
Ben Bullen
That's right, yep. And then that would be the rallying spot. You know, I don't want to maybe. No, let's just go ahead and do it. You mentioned the idea of cable, and I think there might be some folks growing up now that don't even really remember what cable was all about. And you mentioned the idea of subscribers. And I think we can certainly correlate that to the model that we all now participate in against our will most of the time, which is this sort of, I don't know, the fatigue of infinite subscriptions, all of these different things, which is more or less the way things are now. It's kind of become what cable packages used to be, where it was like, you know, it was this illusion of, you know, you could get all the different, whatever channels you get the package you want, not have the ones that you don't want. But now it's like there's so much crossover and so much weird kind of, I don't know, overkill of everyone's got their own thing. You can no longer get everything in one place, so you have to have all of them. Can you speak a little bit about how the landscape's changed from what cable was to where we are now with this streaming thing that to my mind, kind of resembles almost a more monstrous version of cable?
- [33:23]
Tom Freston
Yeah, that's a good question. Well, you know, we used to call it. There was a TV revolution, which meant you're going to get more choices. So we started out, cable systems were 12 channels, then 24, then 35, then 54. And then it just kept going. But they were all like you say, they were all. You were getting them all for one price, so you didn't have to keep track. And even though you maybe only watch eight or nine of them, but you pay the same price. That was the cable package. And then they kept raising the prices of the cable package. Then satellite came on and, you know, there was a little bit of a battle. Prices went down a bit, but the TV Revolution kind of came to an end. It was replaced by the digital revolution. And in this revolution, we have the Internet, we've got social media, we've got all these streaming services, we've got substacks, we've got podcasts, and we're just. We used to say you're going to be able to watch or listen to whatever you want whenever you want. And now they get out on whatever device. So there's an infinite amount of choice voice. It's not 35 channels. And it's a hard thing. Do I have Hulu? I don't know. I don't remember. Am I on his sub stack? I can't remember. Someone's got to come up with a new kind of aggregated package or at least show me on a screen all the things I subscribe to so I can unsubscribe to some of them.
- [34:42]
Alex Williams
Agreed. Do you, given your experience. Right. And your deep knowledge base with, as dul said, the changing landscape, we have to ask you a little bit about the future. I mean, do you see a course correction coming for streaming services? Do we see a world where someone says, hey, I'll just watch these three things? Are we returning back to abc, cbc, the TV with three channels?
- [35:12]
Ben Bullen
And to piggyback, especially now with what we're seeing is more of this corporate consolidation, these efforts to kind of be the one company that has all the things. Of course, there's a lot of talk about this merger with Paramount and Warner Brothers after Warner Brothers already was acquired by a company that we actually used to be a part of Discovery, in our early days of podcasting. It just seems like it's getting diluted more and more and more. And I'm just curious if that's a good thing. Is this for the consumer? Is this anti consumer? Like, what is the future of consumer.
- [35:41]
Tom Freston
This is anti consumer.
- [35:43]
Ben Bullen
Okay.
- [35:43]
Alex Williams
Yeah.
- [35:44]
Tom Freston
Make no mistake about it. Whatever happens with Warner Brothers, who's like.
- [35:49]
Ben Bullen
The crown jewel studio of Hollywood, all the legacy stuff.
- [35:54]
Tom Freston
Yes, whatever happens. If it goes with Netflix or if it goes with Paramount and the Ellisons, there's nothing in it for the consumer. It means prices are going to go up because if Netflix gets it, you know, it's going to fold into Netflix and they're going to have. They'll be able to raise their prices because there'll be one less competitive, which was a big competitor. They'll have more content that they can talk about so they can raise their prices. As a consumer, you're not getting anything really extra. You know, you could have Got them from the two of them. And then, you know, if you're. Let's say you're a producer, you guys produce a show. Say you got a new. Like Sopranos in your mind, you used to be able to go to Warners and used to be able to go to Netflix. Two potential buyers. Now there's only one buyer of those. So you've lost a buyer, and you've given this company more leverage to raise prices. So it's really a question of consolidation, and it's trying. It seems like it's this inexorable force. Why can't Warner Brothers just stay where they were? And the last time we had a studio in Hollywood eaten up by somebody, it was when Disney bought Fox. And if you look at the amount of movies that the combined Disney Fox puts out now, it's less than what they used to put out individually and.
- [37:19]
Ben Bullen
Arguably less good ones.
- [37:20]
Alex Williams
Well, they can't compete against themselves. Right. They've essentially consolidated a schedule to attempt to maximize their return.
- [37:29]
Tom Freston
They suck out a lot of costs. They unemploy a lot of people. And, you know, it's a. I don't know. I don't know what happens at the end of this. I don't know what happens. Yeah, this is more and more consolidation, and maybe some of these smaller streaming services go out of business. Unless you're like, you got a niche, like you're the Criterion channel or something, and you can even live over on the sidelines and no one's really going to mess with you.
- [37:55]
Alex Williams
Yeah. You point out that the indie spirit, the art first, still remains in some ways, with outfits like a 24. I think we're big fans of their work. But it does seem like what you're saying here, Tom, is there may be a big crunch of consolidation that takes us back to the days of essentially three channels, even if they pretend to be thousands. And it doesn't sound like it's the best thing.
- [38:28]
Tom Freston
No, you're gonna have to. Now, in the old days, you got three channels for free. Now you're gonna have three packages, each of which costs money and costs more money going forward.
- [38:42]
Okta Announcer
These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere. You turn every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity rights by securing your AI agents identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent. Secure any agent. Okta secures AI.
- [39:13]
Evan Ratliff
Hi Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.
- [39:19]
Alex Williams
Hey, just finished drawing up that quick.
- [39:21]
Tom Freston
One page business plan for you.
- [39:23]
Alex Williams
Here's the link.
- [39:24]
Evan Ratliff
But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
- [39:40]
Ben Bullen
There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one person billion.
- [39:43]
Evan Ratliff
Dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.
- [39:46]
Ben Bullen
And now will happen.
- [39:47]
Evan Ratliff
I got to thinking.
- [39:48]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
Could.
- [39:49]
Evan Ratliff
Could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.
- [40:00]
Tom Freston
Oh, hey Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents in small to medium businesses.
- [40:09]
Evan Ratliff
Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your pod.
- [40:14]
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.
- [40:28]
Alex Williams
That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years.
- [40:38]
Malcolm Gladwell
I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way. And why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.
- [40:51]
Anna Runkle
He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left.
- [40:56]
Tom Freston
Tell my family I love him.
- [40:57]
Anna Runkle
So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.
- [41:02]
Malcolm Gladwell
From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:14]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question. What do I want my life to look like now? I'm Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford, and on therapy for black girls, we create space for honest conversations about identity, relationships, mental health and the choices that help us grow. As cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart Gloucester reminds.
- [41:36]
Tom Freston
Us, we are in a divisive time where our Comments are weaponized against us.
- [41:42]
Ben Bullen
And so what we find is a.
- [41:43]
Tom Freston
Lot of black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain.
- [41:50]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
Each week, we explore the tools and insights that help you move with purpose, whether you're navigating something new or returning to yourself. If you're ready for thoughtful guidance and grounded support, this is the place for you. Listen to therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [42:09]
Radhi Devlukia
Hi, I'm Radhi Devlukia, and I am the host of a really Good Cry podcast. This week I am joined by Anna Runkle, also known as the Crappy Childhood Fairy, a creator, teacher and guide helping people heal from the lasting emotional wounds of unsafe or chaotic childhoods. We talk about how the things we went through when we were younger can still show up in our adult lives, in our relationships, our reactions, even in the way we feel in our own bodies. And Anna opens up about her own story. What helped her notice the patterns she was stuck in and how she slowly started teaching her body that it is safe now.
- [42:42]
Anna Runkle
So when I got attacked, it was very random. Four guys jumped out of a car and just started beating me and my friend. And they broke my jaw and my teeth. I was unconscious. Then I woke up and I screamed. And I screamed because even though I didn't know who I was or where I was, something in me was just like, hold on, wait, they could kill me. And I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to get through this.
- [43:04]
Radhi Devlukia
And I did listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [43:14]
Alex Williams
It's very strange because I. I keep thinking back through. Through Unplugged when we were reading was a journey I was not expecting, to be quite honest. And it's a hell of a story. And there are a lot of deep philosophical gems in this. And I love that you mention Joseph Campbell. It seems almost as if mass media is on a hero's journey of its own. Would you agree with that? And what do you like about Joseph Campbell? And please tell me if that analogy is bs.
- [43:55]
Tom Freston
No, I mean, he was about the hero's journey. I mean, his. His sort of philosophy underwrites, you know, so much of life. I always found him as a source of good advice. What would he be thinking of today's media world? That's a good question. He'd probably be as confused as we are. He's gotta watch a lot of shows, but he hasn't signed up for that network yet or that streaming service.
- [44:19]
Alex Williams
And we'd have to get on his substack.
- [44:21]
Ben Bullen
Yeah, I'd love to add one more. Go back to music briefly with this discussion of kind of the future, because as you mentioned, MTV isn't the MTV it used to be. It's much more of a reality driven network, or at least it has been for a long time with reality shows. And obviously they've made a lot of waves in that medium, for better or worse, whatever your opinion is on that kind of content. But there's certainly not breaking artists anymore. There used to be MTV2, which I thought was great, that was more like the old mtv, but that's not really around anymore. And now it seems to me that music has been removed entirely from what MTV is or has been. I'm wondering if, with things like AI music generation and, you know, AI video generation and this question around the philosophical nature of art and the artist and giving the people what they want, how does that all fit into your journey and how does that all fit into kind of the trajectory of media and culture? Because I mean, we literally have songs charting now that were entirely generated by artificial intelligence or machine learning, whatever the term might be.
- [45:27]
Tom Freston
Yeah, as I said before, we had the cable revolution and you had sort of the digital revolution. You could argue that the digital revolution is about the end and be supplanted by the AI revolution. And it's maybe too early to know where the AI thing is going. I mean, it's going to be the end of civilization or it's going to make our lives a lot better. It's probably somewhere in between. Well, so I'm glad in my career I don't have to deal with a lot of the issues, the macro issues. Is it going to put 20% of our people out on the street? Is it going to eliminate so many things, so many jobs? The fact that you can make songs or TV shows with AI not using real people, you know, I don't know. I'm alone. I shake my head. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I like authenticity. And I can't see myself getting emotionally entangled in a song that I don't think any human being had a role in making, that it's some kind of consolidated, you know, something out of ChatGPT. It just. I don't know. Maybe, but maybe for other, for younger people, they might not find this so bad. If the beat's good, they don't really care about that.
- [46:49]
Ben Bullen
Haven't we lost something at that point, though? Kind of. I mean, I don't know. Not to be like the old man screaming at clouds myself, but it does feel like if it becomes so good that you quote, unquote, can't tell the difference, or you just don't really care that much, haven't we lost something in that connection to what it means to be human and to make art and to make something that is the product of experience? Because isn't at the end of the day, this AI stuff just kind of regurgitating the wealth of human art, creativity, knowledge, and sort of remixing it in a way that's as hopefully as trans or as hard to tell that it was done that way as possible. Is it kind of like a way of, like, tricking us? I don't know.
- [47:24]
Tom Freston
It is like a remix, but like the remixes we know at least were mixed together by humans, right? Yeah. And these are gonna be much more deeper remixes.
- [47:36]
Alex Williams
It's also a new normal. We have to consider that. Right? Because if you are privileged enough to have been in an environment where.
- [47:48]
Malcolm Gladwell
You.
- [47:48]
Alex Williams
See live musicians, right, you have that destination moment. Oh, the new music video. It's coming out tonight at 9pm Everybody get to Timmy's house because his mom lets us watch mtv. You have those moments of connection, of authenticity. But then let's say you're growing up now. It's the end of 2025 as we record this. You are six years old, right? You grow up in a place where live music exists, but now it's normalized to have that AI experience. I'm just wondering here tomorrow, does the pendulum swing back? Do we see a return to authenticity after a certain point with AI rolling out?
- [48:34]
Tom Freston
I think so.
- [48:35]
Alex Williams
Okay.
- [48:36]
Tom Freston
I think so. I mean, I think people have be more hungry for that real experience. I mean, if you're six years old, let's say you grow up and you could be by the time you're 20, maybe you haven't been to a live concert. And a live concert's something where music's a lot deeper of an entertainment form than film or tv. I mean, it's bigger than language. You're in a crowd and there's not a collective vibe, and everybody's in it together, and it's really magical. And, you know, to not have it. I don't see how you duplicate that with things all being artificial. You know, maybe I'm just another old man screaming at the future.
- [49:22]
Alex Williams
Well, we're with you here, fellow amateur meteorologist. Right we're also getting a lot of folks in the audience and friends of ours. Candidly, when we said we're gonna have a moment to explore life and history and the future with this guy, one thing a lot of people are asking us about is the life lessons or advice you would give. Not now for a 6 year old, but let's fast forward for a 20 year old right now, growing up in the world, maybe hopscotching around, doing some bartending at the Vineyard and so on. What would you want a young, like, let's say early 20s, Tom Freston, to know about the future? What advice would you give yourself if you could travel in time?
- [50:19]
Tom Freston
Well, let's say you just got out of school and you're really young. And if you're really young, you're at a point in your life where you can make some mistakes, you can take some shots. There's no risk, really. It isn't like if you disappear for a while, people are really going to know you're gone and disqualify you all off some kind of list. So get off the conveyor belt. The world is the best classroom. I'm now speaking from my own experience, but others would say this too, and go places. Now, maybe you can't go everywhere like I did, but you can go places. You can have menial jobs, you can work around, you can be a king of the road for a while and see the world. See the world outside this country, see the world from other people's shoes, see what they think about our country. Get some of the nuance that's involved in the global sort of setup that we have today. Make some friends in other places that you can continue to have through the rest of your life. And don't feel guilty, don't feel like you have to go to work for Goldman Sachs like a week after you get out of college. That just baffles me. But you see these kids today, they really have high anxiety, they're more prone to depression and they have panic attacks. And I'm thinking, God, you're in your young 20s, you should feel great. You did the school thing. Of course you don't know exactly what you're going to be. If you do know, you're really naive. So doors will open to you that you would not even have imagined if you take a break, take a few beats and get out there and get some experience. And because when you come back, you're going to be a lot more desirable of a job candidate and a lot more interesting with a more Interesting story as a job candidate than if you'd just been going along drone like and thinking that you don't have a lot of agency in what you're going to do with your life. A little improvisation could be good for sure.
- [52:23]
Ben Bullen
I think, especially as the traditional models, even of college and career paths and stuff are starting to, I don't know, fall apart a little bit. It makes a whole lot of sense to just try to collect experiences, collect various pieces of wisdom and knowledge, various skill sets, and then be able to kind of improvise your way into finding the right path as it presents itself. But you can't really see that path if you don't go places in order to look for those doors. Right. Because if you're looking for like the set out path, that's going to be what it is. But if you go abroad or go elsewhere or just try different things, then you're gonna come up with your good place.
- [53:01]
Tom Freston
I'm an optimist. I know whenever I go looking for an apartment, you see an apartment you think you like and then you don't get it, and then you see something else you think you like and then you don't get it. Someone else rented it. But at the end of the day you find something and you go, thank God I didn't get those other two because this is a better one. And you know, I think you could apply some of that optimism to like, you know, career choice. Career is almost a different word these days because you're in the world, we're in the gig economy time, which I know presents a whole bunch of other issues and problems. And you know, I do, I do.
- [53:40]
Alex Williams
Like and love the point about, about traveling, about taking a beat away from the conveyor belts or the so called rat race, because often we forget there's a whole other world out there. And Tom, this reminds me of that Beautiful verse from T.S. eliot from Little Giddings. We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. I feel like that's kind of nailing.
- [54:13]
Tom Freston
Yeah, that's beautiful. That's really true. You do kind of know it for the first time. You could say I know myself and I know America. I really know America for the first time. Because Americans are famous for not traveling, right?
- [54:30]
Alex Williams
Yeah.
- [54:30]
Tom Freston
I think it used to be 25% of Americans had passports. You go to The Netherlands, like 99% of people have passports. Of course it's a smaller country and all that, but.
- [54:43]
Alex Williams
The Story that's going to stick with my pal Noel and I is definitely going to be the fact that Man Bob never asked us if we smuggled hashish out of Kabul.
- [54:56]
Tom Freston
You know what you should do? You should send him an email saying, just speaking to Tom. And we're wondering if the fact that we've been smuggling hashish out of somewhere, does that mean we could get out some kind of promotion or a raise, or maybe it could direct us into another side.
- [55:14]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
How?
- [55:15]
Ben Bullen
Hell, I'd never even seen hashish until I went to Copenhagen where it's.
- [55:19]
Tom Freston
Yeah, I think they smoke it all before it gets across the ocean. There it is. There it is, Tom.
- [55:26]
Ben Bullen
This is the best. I don't know. Do you have any closing thoughts to leave us with? We could go so deep with this. But I do, first of all recommend everybody pick up this book, Unplugged. It is not entirely about the history of MTV Unplugged, which could be a topic of discussion all its own. I think we're gonna leave that one for another time. But, yeah, I don't know. Is there anything.
- [55:45]
Tom Freston
I'm just. Please, please, you guys have me on. I just say the book is not a business book.
- [55:50]
Ben Bullen
No, no, no.
- [55:52]
Tom Freston
It's an adventure story and it's wrapped around some business things and my life. Yeah, it's about history going from the 60s onward. The path that I took, which started out in a relatively more free, optimistic environment than what we find ourselves in today. Things were ascendant and anything you thought you could do, anything. But I say that a lot of the rules then still apply now. And my book ends up with reinventing yourself. I reinvented myself a third time doing a lot of pro social work. Going back to Afghanistan and helping a TV network there, or working in Africa for the extreme poor. I know there's a lot of lessons in there. It's funny, when you write a book like that, you don't think of what you're writing or a lesson. But people would say to me, oh, that's. I really learned a lot reading that. But people like the book. It's kind of fun. It's a good ride.
- [56:52]
Alex Williams
Well.
- [56:52]
Ben Bullen
But it doesn't come off as teaching lessons. You're not preaching to people, you're just experiencing. You're expressing these lessons that you yourself have learned that are very universally applicable, I would argue.
- [57:01]
Tom Freston
I never thought I'd write a memoir. You know, it never occurred to me till the pandemic came along and I kind of started. And I'm thinking, how do I connect all of the disparate parts of my life. Is there some over overarching narrative? And you do a book like that? Of course, I'm older and sort of like you could see it come into focus. So it was a satisfying experience, satisfying read.
- [57:24]
Alex Williams
And you have genuinely made the world a better place with your work, which I know sounds hyperbolic, right? But I love that you're mentioning the fact, the existence of things like one. I love that you're mentioning the volunteering that you've done and returning to Afghanistan. And if you want to learn more about this folks, please do check out adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. We're not blowing rainbows here. This is a page turner. Again, Tom, it was not what I was expecting and I was riveted. And we can't thank you enough for your time, man.
- [58:07]
Tom Freston
Thanks, Ben. Thanks all. Really nice to speak to both of you guys. Good luck, happy holidays and thanks so much for giving me the time.
- [58:15]
Alex Williams
And there you have it, folks. Tom Freston, the one and only. I can't believe that we got to hang out with a living legend like that. And super big thanks to everybody for tuning in. Big thanks to Our super producer, Mr. Max Williams and Alex Williams, who composed our track and did some yoga with Noel.
- [58:35]
Ben Bullen
That's right, we did a hot yoga session. It was a delight. Huge thanks to Chris Frostiota and Eve's Jeffcoat here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the quizzter AJ, Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler.
- [58:44]
Alex Williams
And big, big thanks to Dr. Rachel Big Spinach Lance. Big thanks to our rude dudes at Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them. And Noel, thanks to you and thanks to Max. This is the last episode we're going to record in 2025.
- [59:01]
Ben Bullen
Oh my gosh. Have a great holiday, you guys. See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [59:19]
Okta Announcer
These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn, every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity rights by securing your AI agents identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta you'll turn risk into opportunity. Secure every agent, Secure any agent. Okta secures AI.
- [59:50]
Ben Bullen
This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. Sunday mornings I've got my game day rituals, coffee, Lucky socks and now new Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches.
- [60:04]
Tom Freston
It's all about that 12 gram protein boost with the new Uncrustables Bright Eyed Berry or Up and apple flavors.
- [60:13]
Ben Bullen
Bright Eye Berries got a feisty receiver.
- [60:17]
Tom Freston
Energy up an apple. Your classic do it all tight end.
- [60:22]
Ben Bullen
Soft, pillowy, packed with protein and easy enough for Gronk to grab from the freezer.
- [60:28]
Tom Freston
Whether you're on the couch, driving to the tailgate or heading to the locker room, new Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches are the MVP of snacks.
- [60:41]
Ben Bullen
Your new Sunday kickoff ritual starts here with new Morning Uncrustable sandwiches packed with 12 grams of protein.
- [60:52]
Alex Williams
Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built.
- [61:02]
Ben Bullen
In benefits they leave out.
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Alex Williams
Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T Mobile is in US cellular stores.
- [61:10]
Ben Bullen
Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the.
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Tom Freston
Cost of optional benefits plan features in.
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Ben Bullen
Texas and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines.
- [61:19]
Tom Freston
Qualifying credit required.
- [61:23]
Evan Ratliff
Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Business, Small Business Success produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.
- [61:33]
Tom Freston
We're back for season four to talk.
- [61:34]
Ben Bullen
To some incredible small business owners.
- [61:37]
Tom Freston
The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing.
- [61:40]
Ben Bullen
Everyone's a rookie. That's how fast the industry is changing.
- [61:42]
Tom Freston
So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change.
- [61:45]
Evan Ratliff
So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [61:52]
Ben Bullen
My favorite thing about Shipt since I signed up for target circle360 no price markups when I order same day delivery from tons of local stores, only a handful of alcohol retailers and items don't count. I won't lie, I've had too much fun being like Markups on groceries, not in my fridge. Markups on pet food, not for my dog. Markups on tools, electronics, home goods, meds, not in my house. Anyway, it's awesome. Order now@shipt.com 360 terms apply.
- [62:22]
Tom Freston
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [62:24]
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
Guaranteed Human.