Office Hour

Bahram Akradi is the founder and CEO of Life Time, the Minnesota-based chain of upscale “athletic country clubs” – these are gyms you want to hang out all day in, basically.

Nick Law and Brendan Vaughan delve deep into a big new study Accenture Song's team just published on why so many companies struggle to actually turn their creativity into revenue. In other words, how to apply these ideas in a systemic way, not just have them in a bolt of creative lighting, only to see them fizzle and go nowhere in practice. The number that stopped me in my tracks: 81% of executives say their companies can come up with creative ideas, but only 16% say they consistently turn those ideas into actual growth.

Astro Teller has a legitimate claim to the title of  the “coolest job in tech.”

He’s the “captain of moonshots” at X, the Moonshot Factory, which is Alphabet’s in-house incubator for radical technologies aimed at huge global problems. He’s kind of the Willy Wonka of Google. Since 2010, Teller—whose grandfather was the famed physicist Edward Teller—has been turning sci‑fi ideas into projects like self‑driving cars (Waymo), delivery drones (Wing), and many more. 

In this episode of Office Hour, we get into how Teller actually runs the Moonshot Factory day-to-day—how his team decides which wild ideas to back, how quickly they kill the ones that don’t work, and how they actually go about trying to turn the survivors into the next Waymo.

If you’ve followed the rise of soccer in the United States – America’s sport of the future since 1971 – you know his voice, you know his humor, you know his unrivaled passion. He is Roger Bennett, the co-founder of the Men in Blazers Media Network. By the way I stole the line about the sport of the future from Rog, who likes to say some version of that at the beginning of his podcasts.

We are speaking to Rog at a truly monumental moment for his beloved sport. The World Cup is finally here, running in 16 cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico – but mostly the United States 

Rog insists here, now, finally, with the world’s eyes on America’s stewardship of the  most glorious sporting event on earth – this will be the moment it officially becomes the sport of the now. Not just during the World Cup, but after it.

In this episode, we trace the incredible journey of Men in Blazers—from a “janky” (his words) podcast that paid him $250 an episode to a sprawling independent media empire with TV shows, live tours, and a recent Series A venture round of $15 million to expand ahead of this World Cup – the first time Men in Blazers has taken outside funding. 

Rog opens up about the business of modern sports media, how major blue-chip brands like Budweiser and Bank of America became characters in his ecosystem, and the fascinating, controversial "Americanization" of the global game.

Four months ago, John Furner took the helm as CEO of Walmart Inc. after a lifetime at the company.

Hollywood talent agencies have evolved far beyond the Michael Ovitz era, Ari from Entourage, and the whole mailroom-to-boardroom archetype. Today they're billion-dollar cultural powerhouses navigating AI transformation, creator economies, and the convergence of entertainment, sports, and corporate strategy. David Kramer embodies this evolution—he started in UTA's mailroom in 1992 when it was a 50-person  literary agency and has spent 34 years at the company. He’s about to celebrate his one-year anniversary as CEO.

Under Kramer's leadership, UTA has radically diversified beyond traditional film and television representation, which he says now comprises just 40% of the business, compared to 95% fifteen years ago. The agency's portfolio spans pop-music giants like Bad Bunny and John Legend, LeBron James and other athletes via its Klutch Sports, digital-native creators like Alex Cooper and Mr. Beast, and corporate advisory for Coca-Cola, Google and other brands. 

This transformation reflects a broader industry shift where creators want traditional entertainment opportunities and legacy talent seeks digital platforms. Basically, everybody wants a piece of what everyone else is doing. It’s a complex convergence, and Kramer is right at the middle of it.

On today’s episode, we’re doing something a little different. We’re just home from Austin, Texas, where we popped up the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. We spoke with a nonstop parade of great speakers at the Grill, and for today’s episode we’re featuring highlights from the leaders who took the stage in Austin.

That includes Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe, Kim Vaccarella, founder and CEO, Bogg, the lifestyle brand known for its durable, washable beach totes; Jen Zeszut, Cofounder and CEO of Goodles, which makes a healthier mac and cheese, and Stack Overlow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar.

On today’s episode Brendan Vaughan interviews Anjali Sud, the CEO of fox-owned streaming service Tubi.

What’s unique about Tubi is that they don’t have a subscription model like just about every other major streamer. Instead they employ an ad-supported model, which gives every viewer free access to its library of 3000,000 movies and TV episodes, from syndicated ’70s sitcoms to art-house mainstays. That’s helped the service rocket from 51 million monthly active users in 2022 to over 100 million active users today.

Brendan talks to Anjali about the company’s revenue model, staying competitive in a crowded market, and how it listens to its audience to create fan-driven content.

On today’s episode Brendan Vaughan talks to Kevin Ryan. Kevin is the founder and CEO of AlleyCorp, the VC firm behind companies like Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, Zola and Mongo DB. But, you might remember Kevin as the CEO of Double Click, one of the first internet ad tech companies during the original dot com boom back in the late 90s and early 2000s. The company was eventually acquired by Google for $3.1 billion.  

Double click was notable for being part of Silicon Alley, which was the term coined for the tech startup scene in New York. Despite being the epicenter of finance and media, New York was not considered a destination for tech companies in the 90s…certainly not on par with Palo Alto or Boston. That was until Kevin and his contemporaries worked to change that perception. 

On today’s episode, Brendan Vaughan talks to ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro. For the summer issue of Fast Company Magazine, Jimmy talked to Fast Company about what was then the upcoming launch of ESPN’s first-ever direct-to-consumer offering. 

That service launched in August. We wanted to catch up with him about how that rollout has been going, but also to discuss ESPN’s sports betting partnerships in light of recent scandals in the NBA and MLB. PLUS we had to ask him about his chances of succeeding Bob Iger as CEO of Disney, ESPN’s parent company.