So I write about music for the FT.

And in the past few years, I've just like obviously been writing about and seeing all of these deals made by this guy named Merck.

And I kind of, out of curiosity, wanted to talk to this person named Barry Mzarski who was hired by Merck to do all the valuations for these deals. And I was kind of expecting

to speak to someone that was like, you know, like those like accountant type people that are

just never going to say anything and completely unbiased and boring. And then what I, what I

encountered was something very different.

So he's this guy, he's been, one of these kind of like very specialty specific type finance people.

And for like 30 years, he's worked for the music industry calculating the song royalties earned when like a song is played pretty much anywhere.

So he's like been a known like fixture of the industry for a very long time, but was not like particularly high profile or anything like that. But fast forward to, you know, the past

two years, this guy, Merck hires him. He starts taking on a lot more responsibility because all of these

deals are suddenly happening. And according to them, they're controlling like more than two thirds,

not controlling, but they're valuing more than two thirds of all of these deals that are happening

in the market. So it's kind of his whole stature has really increased quite a lot.

And it's probably worth saying like the kind of the way that people describe this guy is

the Jerry McGuire thing, right, Anna? Yeah. I mean, I've asked, so I did this call with him and I was

like, huh, that was kind of weird. So then I just started asking everyone I know in the music industry

about this guy and they're like,

oh, yeah, Barry and like kind of laugh a bit. He's just, yeah, he's very, he's like kind of like a

salesman type person, like super energetic, so optimistic. So kind of like everything's amazing.

Everything's going to be great. Which is not what you expect, I guess, for like a valuation agent.

But maybe I should, maybe, maybe that's my own naivety.

Does this guy work in Los Angeles by any chance?

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