TPM Episode 302: Davey Smidt, GoPro, Monster
The Powell Movement
Mike Powell
4.9 • 860 Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2022
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Davey Smidt is a chameleon; he's a nice Jewish boy who's god given gift is being an amazing communicator. Davey is just as comfortable talking to Travis Rice as he is a CEO, a professor, an intern, and a kid at the skatepark. He's one of those people that gets along with everyone, and while nice guys finish last, that's not the case with Davey. On the podcast, we talk about his South African roots, his Bar-Mitzvah, his college years, and the dream jobs he's had at Monster and GoPro. This is a fun business episode, and Jaimeson Keegan asks the Inappropriate Questions.
Davey Smidt Show Notes:
3:30: Sochi, South Africa, Judaism, sports, and limited skiing and snowboarding growing up
15:00: Big Bear at 16, action sports culture, college, and Mammoth
21:00: Stanley: Get 30% off sitewide with the code drinkfast
Peter Glenn Ski and Sports: Over 60 years of getting you out there
Outdoor Research: The best outerwear ever built just got better
23:00: His superpower, X Games with Monster, buying podiums and Hansens Energy
34:00: Guerilla marketing Red Bull Events, working with an agency, taking the marketing in-house, the athletes he inherited, and the travel
42:30: 10 Barrel Brewery: Buy their beers; they support action sports more than anyone
Elan Skis: Over 75 years of innovation that makes you better
44:30: Selling the logo, money can't buy experiences, why would he leave, and being given a job with GoPro
54:00: Athletes become content creators, what's behind a viral video, advocates vs. athletes, one product launch a year, and who had he befriended over the GoPro years
64:00: Inappropriate Questions with Jaimeson Keegan
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have a seat on your porcelain throne. |
| 0:02.3 | It's time to talk some shit on the Powell movement. |
| 0:13.5 | Welcome to the Powell movement. |
| 0:17.1 | I'm your host Mike Powell, and this week I want to start things out with a very sincere thank you for my wife, |
| 0:22.8 | and Janai. And really, we can't thank you enough for all the thoughts and prayers and good vibes |
| 0:27.3 | and offers of help and offers of food and offers of everything. It's really so amazing the outpouring |
| 0:32.5 | of support that we're receiving. And while we want to get back to each and every one of you, please know that we |
| 0:38.6 | love you and we thank you and we don't mean not to get back to you. There's just so much going on in |
| 0:43.3 | our lives right now and some things are slipping through the cracks, although it's not our intention. |
| 0:48.2 | And for those of you that are still in the dark about what's going on in my situation. I know I've been very cryptic on my intros the past few weeks. |
| 0:54.7 | I will share as much as I'm willing to talk about right now. See, my wife Angela, she goes by |
| 0:59.7 | Ange, she was unlucky enough to have to spend two nights in excruciating pain with no painkillers |
| 1:05.5 | or even water in a Seattle emergency room for eight total hours before seeing a doctor. And when she was admitted, |
| 1:12.0 | she underwent emergency surgery and woke up with a mask removed. After the surgery, we were in |
| 1:17.4 | the hospital for the first week of this long recovery, and we were hoping that the mask was a |
| 1:21.6 | random blockage that they would be able to remove. But after a painful week of waiting for test |
| 1:27.2 | results, we received the news we |
| 1:29.2 | feared the most. My wife, Ange, has been diagnosed with cancer, and we're scared, angry, sad. |
| 1:35.0 | There are so many emotions going through our heads right now. And while we need to get into |
| 1:39.2 | fighting mode, that all starts on Halloween when we meet our oncologists for the first time. So we've spent the past week waiting to see what the future is going to look like, |
| 1:47.9 | and that's so nerve-wracking. |
| 1:49.6 | And everything we've been dealing with during this time has seemingly turned into a comedy of errors, |
... |
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