Make it epic, w/will.i.am
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2019
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
What can entrepreneurs learn from a genre-crossing, multi-platinum musician? How to take a big opportunity — and leverage it into something epic. From his earliest days as a founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am learned from mentors how to not only identify big opportunities but compound them. From the Super Bowl to the first iTunes commercial; from the founding of Beats and his tech company i.am+ to a song beamed back from Mars, his ability to bring stakeholders together to leverage partnerships and compound possibilities will inspire founders at any stage of scale. Cameo appearance: Jeremy Siegel (urban designer, Bjarke Ingels Group).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.8 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player |
| 0:28.0 | and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. At our number when we do boom-boom-boom-Pow, I'll be rocking and beats. |
| 0:37.0 | Beep-beep-beep-beep. I had everybody in the light up suits form an arrow and lean forward so they could point to the beat. |
| 0:48.0 | I was like, look, I have an arrow that's pointing to what you need to pay it in to am. That's Will I Am. |
| 0:55.0 | You know Will I Am, |
| 0:58.0 | Frontman of the Black Eyes, among other distinctions. |
| 1:02.0 | He's describing his Super Bowl halftime show from 2011, but to |
| 1:07.1 | understand that triumph in his voice, I think we need to start the story a bit |
| 1:12.3 | earlier. |
| 1:13.8 | We were rehearsing for the Super Bowl. |
| 1:16.4 | One two, three, hit it. |
| 1:19.6 | While we were on tour in Brazil, |
| 1:22.3 | while I was writing a new album. Right when me and Mark |
| 1:29.0 | Benjoff's relationship began. Mark Bennyoff is the co- CEO of Salesforce. |
| 1:37.0 | Will had partnered with him to promote their new app called Chatter, |
| 1:41.0 | and he saw an opportunity. |
| 1:43.8 | And I said, hey Mark, why don't you do a Super Bowl ad? |
| 1:46.7 | He was like, yeah, we've been thinking about that. |
... |
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