When your back is against the wall, your brain has to function at a high level.
— Troy Carter
I stay away from the arts... writing songs, being creative - those are downloads from God. You can't do data analytics on art.
The most successful people in the world are the ones who thought of that idea that was 'too crazy to work.'
When we look at transportation in America, there's going to be companies like Magic Bus, where you have these private bus fleets. You're going to have carpooling; you're going to have these different types of transportation. It's going to be a full ecosystem, but it's not going to be a winner-takes-all.
I grew up carrying crates of records for Will Smith and those guys.
Spotify favors hits. It's very much a meritocracy: It's not like radio, where whatever is being played is what you hear. We offer songs up, and from there, it's up to consumers to stream the music or not.
When I started Atom Factory, the idea was to do something small yet powerful. That name resonated with the mission.
The only two things that ever came naturally to me are music and investing.
I am inspired by the diversity of the entrepreneurs that come into 'Shark Tank' and the ability of the show to reach all Americans.
When you have to negotiate for survival, and you have to know how to read rooms, and you have to know who the bad guys in the rooms are - who has the gun in their pocket, who's just going to brandish it, and who's going to actually pull the trigger. So I think that's just a natural instinct that comes with coming from where I come from.
Our bet is on the future of micronetworks.
I didn't go to business school. I actually didn't even graduate high school. I ended up with a GED. So everything that I've learned in business, I've learned through experience.
Technology has long been the driver of growth in the music business from the invention of lacquers, eight-track players, vinyl, cassettes and CDs.
We look to find partners whose values align with that of our artists. We also look for unique platforms that the potential branding partner can provide. Sometimes that's distribution, and sometimes it's an advertising platform. Each situation is unique.
You have a huge demographic shift that's happening in America. Globally.
Hip hop is a multi-billion dollar business, and it was built off an opportunity that nobody else saw because they didn't understand the culture.
If you look at a company like Uber, a company that so anti-establishment that cab companies are trying to find ways to shut it down, one could compare that to how Public Enemy and NWA went after then-modern society in hip hop.
The venture capital world is completely stacked against minority entrepreneurs.
Being schooled is the same thing as learning, and you can never be too old to have your coattail pulled when you're wrong about something.
I believe in outgrowing a mentor and getting a new one, and I think that you can never be too old to be schooled by your mentor.
You're basically competing with the same exact product. Coke and Pepsi are at least in different cans. Lyft and Uber drivers are just swapping out the mustache for the U on the dashboard, depending on which one they're getting the call on.
It's more important to have the one million diehard fans than to have 54 million people who aren't necessarily fans, or they might have liked one thing you said or one video.
In the future, an artist will be able to perform for the entire world in one date. For the fan, it will be a fully immersive experience - through a pair of glasses or whatever the device.
As important as hustle is, grit and resilience are equally as important because there's a lot of rejection in our business.
So many black kids aspire to be entertainers or professional athletes because those are the only role models they see that look like them. There are only 300 jobs in the NBA but an endless amount of opportunities as an entrepreneur. With enough hustle, entrepreneurship opens doors to a world of opportunities.
She was a performance artist calling herself Lady Gaga, who had a European dance-club sound and pop-star aspirations - elements that historically haven't mixed.
We called ourselves '2 Too Many' because we only had enough money for one of us.
I'm from the streets, so I look at investing through a very unique lens.
I invested in Uber in 2011 when it was only in San Francisco.
There was a time when radio stations wouldn't play Gaga's music because it was considered dance. Outside of live performances, the Internet became our primary tool to help people discover her music.
Priyanka and Red One made a great record that we think will stand on its own. People won't buy the music just because she is who she is. We want them to buy it because it's good.
Mattel stepped up and changed the face of Barbie. Barbie looks a lot different than she did decades ago. Or even three weeks ago.
Before I even agreed to work with Hennessy and the Privilege Awards, I wanted to do some research on it, look up past winners, and find out more about it.
I like to compare the attitude and energy of an emerging start-up to that of the early hip-hop era. From working at labels like Bad Boy and Ruff Ryders, walking into the Def Jam offices, A Touch of Jazz and things like that, the vibe is that off making something out of nothing and making things work, and that's what I love about start-ups.
Being born in the adolescent years of hip hop helped us learn about flux. And when you're in an industry that is constantly growing, changing, maturing... you get a chance to try different things out and a chance to fail.
To me, mentorships and internships are two big pillars in business development. I believe in having multiple mentors.
Actors play different characters, so you have to build a new base around each new movie - with few exceptions, most actors don't have a fan base that just follows them around. With musicians, the fan base just goes everywhere they go.
I come from a place where when you shake someone's hand, it is a deal.
It's always boiled down to the quality of your music and the quality of your deal with whoever's distributing your music: There are artists who sold a lot of records and didn't make money because of their deal, and artists who didn't sell nearly as much who made a great living because they own their masters.
I don't think holograms are the future in the music industry.
Spotify was one of the first services that actually focuses on the consumer because they don't have to spend hundreds of dollars a year on music.
I invest in black-led startups not because of a sense of charity. I make those investments because of the basic principle of supply and demand and the reality that black entrepreneurs typically lack the network to have their deals become bid up and overvalued.
What's important for that person on the other side of the table, and what's important for the client?
Fifty-one million likes doesn't mean we're going to sell 51m albums or concert tickets.
I still have a day job, so I don't think I'll be a full-time Shark, but if they ever invited me back, I'd be more than happy to do it.
In order to continue the growth, we have to go back to embracing technology and the way that people choose to consume music.
Backplane will provide a platform and tools for communities to socialize and communicate on a more focused level.
The primary plan is to let the music speak for itself.
If you can't see it, you can't be it.
It isn't that every company is going to be successful. The law of averages shows that 80% of companies are going to fail.
