Scooter Braun: My Divorce Saved My Life, But I Didn’t See It Coming! I Still Carry Guilt For The Young Artists I Managed!

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 113 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when you build a billion-dollar music empire, but lose yourself along the way? Music mogul Scooter Braun reveals the raw truth behind his mask. Scooter Braun is a renowned music executive, entrepreneur, and manager behind the careers of global stars like Justin Bieber, amongst many others. He is CEO of HYBE America and founder of SB Projects, a dynamic entertainment and media company. He discusses: The mask he wore as “Scooter” and the journey back to being Scott Why he carries guilt for every young artist he managed How 20 years of running finally led him to confront his deepest fears Why he felt like a complete fraud even at the top and how he overcame it The reason why his divorce saved his life 00:00 Intro 02:46 What Drives You? 08:01 Your Dad 09:55 Your First Business 12:22 You're Very Good at Forming Relationships 14:31 What Did Everyone See in You at an Early Age? 16:06 People Trying to Stop Your Dreams 18:45 Signing Your First Acts 21:36 Discovering Justin Bieber 24:52 What's Your Relationship With Justin Bieber Now? 26:34 What Do Highly Successful Artists Have in Common? 28:09 Why Are There So Many Tragedies Around Famous People? 34:05 Did It Hurt Parting Ways With Justin Bieber? 34:30 The Artists You've Worked With 37:20 The Praise and Hate I Received Were Both Misunderstood 40:13 An Artist You Were Wrong About 44:47 Quitting Music Management 51:40 Ads 52:50 Selling Your Company for $1.1 Billion 54:53 How Pivotal Was the Incident With Taylor Swift? 57:56 Contending With an Unfair World 1:00:34 If I Had Seen You Then, What Would I Have Seen? 1:02:12 Your Divorce 1:07:27 Friends Being There for Me 1:11:32 Why My Marriage Fell Apart 1:22:23 The Work You Do on Yourself 1:26:12 The Power of Building Connections 1:27:48 Spotify Saving the Music Industry 1:31:38 What's Next for Scott? 1:33:56 What Is Steve Trying to Achieve? 1:39:30 What Should We Do if We're Always Chasing Something? 1:49:51 If You Could Do Anything Without Fear of Failure, What Would You Do? Follow Scooter: Instagram - https://bit.ly/45Ihx8k Twitter - https://bit.ly/3SZHKYJ Facebook - https://bit.ly/43JalX2 The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Get email updates: https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt Follow Steven: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Linkedin Ads - https://www.linkedin.com/DIARY Stan Store - Visit https://link.stan.store/joinstanchallenge to join the challenge! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	As parts of your life where there's these big question marks that I'm hoping you can answer for me.
0:04.5	Okay.
0:05.1	But I want the full truth.
0:07.5	Now I'm nervous.
0:08.6	Scoot up Braun is the man behind some of the biggest stars in the music industry.
0:12.3	And he built one of the most disruptive entertainment empires on the planet.
0:16.8	I've never really said this out loud until right now.
0:19.7	At this age, I feel a lot of guilt because I worked with so many young artists, and we were all kids living so fast.
0:26.6	And we all wanted to succeed so bad, and it wasn't until I was 40 years old doing some intense therapy that I realized.
0:32.6	I was so driven by the fear that I wouldn't be enough.
0:35.6	So let's go back. As a kid growing up, I wanted to prove that I could be more than the privilege I was so driven by the fear that I wouldn't be enough. So let's go back. As a kid growing up, I wanted to prove that I could be more than the privilege I was born with.
0:42.3	And I created this character scooter because I didn't think Scott could achieve these things.
0:46.3	That mask made me absolutely relentless faking it till I make it.
0:50.3	Like, I have no right convincing Justin and his mom to be on the first plane they'd ever been on
0:54.2	and meet me. So what were they betting on? My ignorance. But it was also realizing that so much of
1:00.0	insecurity drives us and makes us great. Like, now that I'm here, I can't fail because then
1:04.3	everyone will see that I shouldn't be here. So let's go for it. And then we had such extreme
1:08.4	success. The whole world thought I was crushing it. But I had built this mask so big,
1:12.6	I didn't realize how far away I'd gotten from Scott.
1:15.6	So here I am.
1:16.6	At the top of my game, I wanted to kill myself.
1:19.6	It went to a very dark place,
	...

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