Former GE and NBC executive Beth Comstock

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Tv & Film, Business News, News

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2018

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Beth Comstock, the former vice chair of GE and former president of integrated media at NBCUniversal, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change." In this episode: (01:34) Comstock's background and taking over digital at NBC; (05:56) iVillage and making digital content in-house; (09:59) Why NBC and Fox needed to make Hulu; (12:19) The difficulties of starting it; (16:14) Bringing in ABC and the "existential threat" of tech; (18:18) Mistakes made; (21:56) Why she wrote her book; (23:32) "I was more able to be more creative at GE than NBC"; (31:26) How to get a big company to be innovative; (34:14) What does "Imagine It Forward" mean?; (36:03) Imagination vs. agitation; (41:25) Tips for being more imaginative; (43:42) How do you decide what to invest in?; (48:21) Three things that have to change in business; (49:52) Women at work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's show is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, the presenting sponsor of Recode Media.
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0:14.8	And now our listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Peter.
0:22.2	Today's show is brought to you by Erickson.
0:24.4	Have you ever wished you could stream high-quality HD videos on a crowded train?
0:28.1	Or maybe you wish you could sit courtside and watch a big game live from your couch.
0:32.6	Well, Erickson is about to change the game in cellular networking with high-speed, low-latency 5G.
0:38.3	Find out what the future looks like at E-R-I-C-S-S-S-O-N.com slash 5G.
0:44.9	That's E-R-C-S-S-S-O-N.
0:47.9	This is Recode Media from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:56.1	I'm Kara Swisher in for Peter Kafka.
0:58.6	And today I'm talking to Beth Comstock, the former vice chair of GE.
1:02.6	She's also the former president of Integrated Media at NBC Universal, where she oversaw the early days of Hulu.
1:08.3	And she's also the author of a book called Imagine It Forward,
1:11.9	Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change.
1:14.6	Beth, welcome to Recode Media. Thanks, Kara. Fun to be here. How long? I don't know. We don't want to say how long. We don't know how long. We don't know how long. But nonetheless, you've had quite a career. And one of the reasons I want to have you on here, because I think it's really important, not just for women, but just in general, talk about how people's careers go.
1:29.5	Because yours have shifted really drastically. Yeah, I never would have imagined having this career. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about what you've done. Before NBC, you were, I'm blanking about where you were. Well, I actually started my career. I wanted to be a journalist, and I wasn't very good at it.
1:44.7	What was wrong?
2:00.4	I wasn't confident. Pretty quickly, I got behind the scenes. I actually worked, I grew up near Washington, D.C., and I worked in a version of Wayne's World back in the day for public access television. Oh, wow. And then from there, I ended up going to NBC. I joined NBC as a publicity coordinator.
2:01.1	Right, okay.
2:02.3	And then I worked my way. Press releases.
	...

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