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

Download the app today.

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

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

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

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

It would probably would have been better if I just kept my own company and not gone to work for anyone, because all of a sudden I had a lot of money and not a lot of friends.

And I was immediately attacked by the media and the industry, and I felt the cold shoulder from everyone.

And I said, oh my God, I've made a massive mistake here.

Prime NPR is how I built this.

A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

On today's show, how LA Read followed his instinct for spotting talent and went on to create some of the biggest hitmakers in pop music.

So, you know the song, right?

LA told me you'll be a pop star, all you have to change is everything you are.

So this is, of course, Pink.

And the guy she's singing about, when she says LA told me you'll be a pop star, she's not singing about Los Angeles.

She's actually singing about a guy named LA Read, who's one of the most powerful executives in music.

He built his own record label, and then he went on to manage several others. But what he's really known for is finding amazing talent.

He discovered Pink, in fact, and Tony Braxton and Rihanna and Justin Bieber, TLC, Usher, Outcast, and many others.

And the thing about him is he just seems to have this sense of what pop music fans want to hear.

In that sense, it really began when LA was just a kid growing up in Cincinnati in the 1960s and listening to a lot of music.

Just hearing music on the radio, buying 45s, buying James Brown's records, old Motown records, buying old soul records, and bringing them home, and just drumming on the table along with the songs.

...