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How I Built This with Guy Raz

Lady Gaga & Atom Factory: Troy Carter (2018)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.831.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2018

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As a kid, Troy Carter dreamed of being a rapper, but soon discovered he was a better manager than a musician. He took Lady Gaga from obscurity to stardom – helping shape both her music and her brand. Then he turned his gift for spotting talent to spotting investment opportunities with his company Atom Factory. PLUS, for our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Robyn Gerber for an update on Parkarr, a mobile app that helps drivers find street-parking. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

0:07.0

Download the app today.

0:09.0

New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

0:13.0

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

0:17.0

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

0:24.0

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

0:28.0

Hey, it's Guy here. You know, a lot of you have started to tell us about your all-time favorite quotes and stories from our interviews, and this one definitely has a bunch of them.

0:38.0

I'm not going to spoil anything by telling you what you're about to hear.

0:41.0

Let's just say you'll know them when you hear them.

0:44.0

Oh, in this episode ran about a year ago. It's with Troy Carter, and I hope you enjoy it.

0:53.0

So what happened to the business?

0:56.0

It was over. I didn't have the cash flow, and the phone started ringing, and it was the landlord of that building saying, you know, rent hasn't been paid.

1:07.0

All of my vendors started calling me. My house was under foreclosure, and my wife and my mother-in-law ended up pawning their wedding rings to save the house.

1:22.0

And, you know, and with me, I never considered suicide, but I know why people do.

1:34.0

From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

1:43.0

I'm Guy Raaz, and on today's show, how Troy Carter went from the rough streets of West Philly to launching the career of one of the biggest pop stars in the world. Lady Gaga.

1:57.0

So it usually takes a bit of instinct, some failure, and a lot of luck to figure out what customers are going to want to buy.

2:12.0

Seth Goldman, he figured a lot of people would want a barely-sweetened iced tea, and with honesty, he turned out to be right.

2:21.0

Herb Keller, he thought people wanted cheap flights with no frills, and, well, we got Southwest.

2:28.0

But for Troy Carter, it wasn't just that he thought Lady Gaga would be huge. It's that he had no choice, because at the time he met her, and this is just 10 years ago.

2:40.0

He had lost all of his money, he was totally broke. But somehow, over the next few years, Troy essentially built a company, you could call it Lady Gaga Inc.

2:51.0

A sprawling empire of writers, dancers, choreographers, costum artists, rhodies, musicians, producers, engineers, marketers, publicists, you get the idea.

...

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