issue 117
Hello! This one might as well be a chapter out of my auto-biography. The year, and decade, that was. A reflection. The trials and tribulations. Fast times. Oh how I’ve grown. I’ll always reflect on 2019 with a grin. It was monumental. It began in Africa and ended back in NYC. But first, let’s start the story as a new graduate - bright eyed and bushy tailed. Start game. I was in for a rude awakening. Reality hits hard. I thought I was special. I learned the world owed me nothing. The first discovery I made is that a nice, personal, cold email from a fresh-faced nobody asking for a job or some advice always gets lost in the trash. Insanity is hitting refresh, hoping for good news.
I’ll never forget when I believed that getting a gig in the mailroom was unattainable. Those stupid, impossible, mailrooms. The first real step (internships don’t count) in this industry where dreams are made or extinguished. I glamorized those hellholes. And sadly, I was never welcomed for a visit. A blessing in disguise. I was actually barred by HR at one agency for, and I quote, “agenting myself too hard.” Seriously. Their words. I thought it was a compliment, but it was a nice way of saying I reeked of desperation. I had zero connections, went to a non-target with a bad rap, and had growing student loans. Life was a math problem, and hey, it still is. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. I exist in the same headspace. All this gave me quite the chip on my shoulder, and I like to think I moved passed it, that I’m no longer bitter. My words read otherwise.
Then, the winds of denial changed. I was near ready to throw in the towel. Prematurely weeded out. A sad sack. Forever an outsider. I was part-time slanging health insurance (I’d be a millionaire if I kept at it) and part-time commuting to LA to be an unpaid reader at a very well-regarded production company backed by the Emirates. After nearly a year of cold calls and handwritten letters to agents, I got a job as an assistant (I say analyst now, shh). I moved to LA full-time. Finally. I wore these wretched, oversized suits that I got on clearance at Nordstrom Rack. I lived in a 400 sq ft shoebox of a studio with my best friend (hi Addison). I slept on a futon, and he, a raised bed above me. Microwaved dinners the norm. I spent my working days studying the digital media landscape, calendaring, and mostly pedaling women’s shoes. That last one’s for a different day, but I made pretend that I was Jordan Belfort (the Wolf, from Wolf of Wall Street) hawking Madden stock. Belfort’s son was actually my intern there - he’s a rapper now. I never got my signed book. Oh well. The firm I worked at has since changed hands, so I won’t name it, but this is where I was met with my first yes. To Zsofi, Johnny, Trent, Greg, and my assistant comrades in arms (of which, only a few still stand in the business - now execs). Thank you. You took a chance on me.
Going in, I knew I’d put in a year then try to lateral into film finance and sales. That’s exactly what I wanted to do. I knew it. I knew it when I was 19. At that time, I had read every book I could about the business, a lot of paperbacks penned by Schuyler Moore. A white-shoed entertainment attorney who’d crank motorcycle burnouts at his office. What a legend. I jotted down a list of my desired companies. It was thin. Slim luck with the agencies turned to no luck. Cinetic emerged at the top. A year into rolling calls and scheduling lunches, I saw a job listing at Cinetic: associate - film finance & corporate advisory. They wanted a former banker or consultant who just completed their two-year analyst stint. Woefully under-qualified, I applied. I prayed. I got a response. After a month or two of interviews and case studies, I got an offer. I somehow convinced the good people there that I was capable of doing the job. Holy sh!t. It was happening. I uprooted my life in less than two weeks. I moved to NYC.
The fight pit. The dream.
Movie posters that influenced my adolescence adorned the walls. Indie fare. To name a few: Little Miss Sunshine, School of Rock, Napoleon Dynamite, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Boyhood. I went full sponge mode. I devoured contracts and income statements to no end. I made great friends across all walks of life - some people call it networking. Gross. I didn’t suffer from lifestyle creep. I managed to pay off my loans, on indie film wages. Cockroach status. A Cinderellan feat. Debt free, cash poor, life rich. A worthy struggle. I was encouraged to punch way above my weight class. I did. To a fault. So I got promoted. I read scripts and watched movies for work. After-hours of course. I was lucky enough to attend film festivals and do some work on what would become Oscar winners (Green Book, Free Solo). Those were the best years of my roaring twenties. By a long shot. I had a grand time at Cinetic. The city at large. To Ross (especially Ross), John, the pigs in the pit (inside joke), and all the rest. Thank you. You are family.
Fast forward. I did something silly. I put in my notice. Hit eject. On paper, I was doing everything that I wanted to be doing. But it was time for me to move along. Deep down, I always knew I was going to start my own thing. But first I wanted to see the world, and truthfully, fall back in love with the industry. Too many dinner table dramas will do that to you. So I went traveling with my partner in crime, Anmari. It was the best decision of my life. We went to South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Indonesia. Five months abroad. I got back home at the beginning of summer. It was time to build out my slate. I did. And now, I’m off to the races. It combines my two favorites from all the years - STEM stories and new media startups.
Life, uh, finds a way.
So when the young bucks ask me how I got into this racket, I’ll point them here. In a business where you grow accustomed to fielding no’s, you end up living for a few yes’s. To those people who said yes to me, I’m forever in your debt. It means the world to me.
To the people I’m working with now: Eli, Zach, Elle, Steven, Ryan, and everyone else. Thank you. It’s a privilege. An opportunity. To Anmari and my family. I love you. I’m really excited for what the future has in store for all of us - you readers included. Here’s to 2020 and beyond. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Enjoy the holidays <3
Well, that was therapeutic.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you in the new year.
Tech
Hugging Face, NLP library, raised $15m. TC
Ryff, 3d product insertions in content, raised $5m. TC
Google to roll out automated translation (!). Verge
Didimo, high fidelity digital humans, raised $4.9m. Cision
Spotify testing “Tastebuds” for social music discovery. TC
Play On, high school sports media co, raised $25m. BizJ
Haptx, sensor packed glove for VR, raised $12m. TC
Neurable, brain computer interface, raised $6m. Forbes
Apple has a secret team working on satellites. Bberg
VoxImplant, automates call campaigns w/ AI, raised $10m. VB
Solve, true crime and mystery content studio, raised $20m (wut). Var
Axios, digital news pub, seeks $20m (did $25m in rev last yr). Recode
FB sponsors Reuters course to spot manipulate media. Reuters
Gigxr buys Pearson’s Immersive Learning xr assets for $1m. TC
Tencent launches its cloud gaming beta in China. GDB
Flickr owner Smugmug emails users to find more paying customers (I should do the same). TC
Providence buys majority of Smartly, social adtech solutions, for $223m. WSJ
Pronto, connects students and employees w/ experts, raised $7.5m. Yahoo
FB acq Papers with Code, machine learning white papers. Med
Mach1 to provide spatial audio for Bose AR platform. VB
PlayerMaker, athlete performance analytics (soccer), raised $10m. Fins
Terradepth, fleet of deep ocean data robots, raised $8m. TC
N3twork acqs mobile game rights to Funko Pop from Uni. PGB
Cisco acqs Exablaze, low latency network solution. TC
Intel buys ai chipmaker Habana Labs for $2b. Reut
Media
Valence Media acquired Nielsen Music. THR
Facebook acq Packagd for live video shopping. Bberg
Bertelsmann buys 25% in Penguin Random House for $675m. Reuters
Facebook acq PlayGiga, cloud gaming co, for $78m. CNBC
Google acq Typhoon Studios, game studio. TC
Attention Capital acquired Girlboss. TC
FB is pursuing music video rights to challenge Youtube. Bberg
Sony invests in podcast producer Neon Hum. THR
Nvidia set for approval of it $6.8b acq of Mellanox. Reut
Corsair buys Scuf gaming, high end esports controllers. Verge
Tivo and Xperi to merge in $3b deal. THR
SEC Football might be heading to ESPN thru 2023 for $55m/yr. SBD
ViacomCBS to take 49% stake in Miramax library for $375m. THR
Live Nation and DoJ settle over ticketing practices. CNBC
Discovery acqs Golf Channel LatAm that has 10m subs. Dead
OL Groupe, owner of Lyonnaise, buys Rapinoe’s team Reign FC for $3.5m. Reut
Vox Media to cut 100s of jobs over CA freelance act. CNBC
Apple, Google, Amazon working on IoT home alliance. CNBC
Cox hit with $1b verdict on music copyright lawsuit. Var
Scholastic acqs Mrs Nelson’s book fair co. Cision
Netflix reveals some APAC and EMEA data. THR
Reddit and Xbox Live are linking up (uhm, ok). Xbox
IAC spun off Match Group. Cision
FB to air its first Super Bowl ad. CNBC
Marc Cuban sells Synergy, sports analytics, to coalition of Dodgers owners for $90m. Fox
South Park was watched 30b minutes last year (that’s a metric). THR
Luminary sells pod subscriptions using Alexa. Var
Game Awards had 45m livestreams. THR
PRX announces a pod network for tweens w/ $1.6m in grant funding. Med
Entertainment
Oscar shortlist. THR
Village Roadshow receives $530m takeover offer. Var
Universal in talks with Lego group for film partnership. Var
MRC and Rideback are doing another tv incubator. Var
Apple flirting with MGM over James Bond, and Pac12. WSJ
Awkwafina and Topic partner on Chinese restaurant punk scene series. Dead
MGM TV strikes first look with 42. Dead
Universal picks up superhero film Stealth from Skybound w/ Lee Daniels. Dead
Some tv star salaries on a per episode basis. Var
Apple strikes first look with Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, Divorce). Dead
Netflix released 370 original tv shows and movies in 2019. Var
Focus picks up PTA’s next film. Var
Comcast and Starz reach new carriage deal. Dead
Chris Albrecht (Starz) to run new tv prod co backed by Legendary. Dead
Amazon takes WW rights on Boyz in the Wood. Dead
Frank Ocean signs w/ Warner Chappell (finessed Def Jam). Var
Collaborative
Knight Foundation analysis on political tweets by pubs. KF
NASA’s supersonic aircraft (woah). CNET
How influencers are being used in-video for sports. SP
First Round’s state of startups 2019. FR
Nolan’s Tenet trailer (!). YT
Google’s search trends for the past year (puff piece vid). Goog
Automatic speech recognition corpus white paper. PDF
Alex Heath on FB’s hardware efforts and new OS (!). Info
Interactive article on how cell phones are tracked. NYT
David Kosse on Nflx int’l plans. Dead
The ten people who mattered in science in 2019. Nature
Mike Palank on MAC’s investment in Ryff. Med
Personalized product placement. NYT
An illustrated guide to self-attention. Med
How Amazon intends to make bank off Alexa. Info
Best visual and data essays of last year. Pudding
Connie Chan on the influencer economy. a16z
The new consumer reality of AR. Nielsen
Tim Lee creates his own deepfake. ArsT
Shawn Frayne on volumetric and light field displays. Med
MIT Media Lab and research at scale in China factory. Med
YouTube stars getting burned out for having to create fresh content. WSJ
Gen Z is going to have it pretty rough. MIT
How tech is augmenting the theatre. Forbes
Cliff Stoll’s book, Cuckoo’s Egg, on how to hunt hackers. Wired
Snowden allegedly won’t make money off his book. Bberg
Lee Smolin on the casual theory of views. Edge
Catfished in prison on a phone. Wired
Mimicking bots for future of ecomm. NFB
Notation Capital’s 2019 yearend deck. LI
The decade in pictures. NYT
How bullets work in video games. Gama
History’s largest mining operation to begin, underwater. Atlantic
How Taylor Swift embraced multi-channel marketing. BF
How Amazon squeezes sellers on its platform. NYT
Brianne Kimmel speaks with Rahul Vohra on Superhuman’s game design. SS
Nearly 20% of Fortune 500 list paid no federal income tax. CNBC
Annapurna releases game Wattam. NPR
Scott Havens on why publishing first party data is important. NL
Outer Wilds game on designing the solar system. NCtwtr
FB is still prioritizing scale over safety. BF
How Finland protects itself from Russian cyber attacks. CNN
How Ninja set off the talent war btwn Twitch and Mixer. Bberg
Joe Rogan interviews Ocean Cleanup’s Boyan Slat. Mixcloud
Profile on Don Cornelli, one of the NFL’s best videographers. Ringer
USMCA to establish new rules to modernize IP in age of online (ebooks and such). US
Saint Maud trailer. YT