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First Press: A Scoreboard for Culture
2025–2026
What if culture had a score, and a scoreboard? Would trusted scores help us make better choices about what we consume? Would tradeable scores let true fans and the biggest nerds profit from their knowledge? What if creators shared in the rake? These are the questions we set out to answer with First Press: part game show, part fantasy bracket, fully rooted in the belief that the passive, distracted way we engage with streaming media is almost as depressing as the business models that support it.
Pandora: Keeping Music Human
2020–2023
Hired to answer the question of what Pandora should be when it grows up, in its second half of life post-acquisition. Assembled the first team to reverse a years-long decline in engagement through improvements to the core algorithm. Rebuilt the Music Genome's human tagging methodology and modernized the machine learning models that run on it. Still the best, and most human, music recommender in existence.
WNYC Studios: The Art of Listening
2018–2019
Before podcasts about music were a thing, produced two podcasts about music that became a thing. Partnered with Rhiannon Giddens and the Metropolitan Opera to decode and explore arias. Partnered with Clemency Burton-Hill on a daily devotional, inviting one interesting person (Esther Perel, Alec Baldwin) to tell the story of a piece of music that moved them, and inviting listeners to notice how the practice of listening changed their lives.
WQXR: Rebranding Classical Music
2017–2018
Hired to write a strategy and raise philanthropic support to rebrand classical music. Why should something so amazing and universal be misunderstood as white, Western, and only for old people? Built a plan and a kickass team, and raised $12M against a $10M goal. In parallel, ran the oldest and largest all-classical station in the US, with two seemingly paradoxical challenges: grow the FM audience, and find a new one online.
The Yams: Curation-as-a-Service
2014–2017
Solved my own problem, which was disappointment in the anonymity and mediocrity of algorithmic music recommendations. Built a hotline for lonely music lovers that connected real fans to human experts for hand-crafted recommendations, and a recommender you could, and wanted to, talk to. Instead of SaaS, it was CaaS (curation-as-a-service), something the world needs more now than it did then.
SXSW: Thinking Small
2011–2013
At a time when SXSW was getting bigger and more corporate, created a series of intimate performances and informal gatherings on the outskirts of Austin with our friends Yours Truly. Fans came by van to the MTV Hive House, had a beverage, a taco, and watched artists like Cults, Kurt Vile, Kendrick Lamar, Charli XCX, and Alabama Shakes perform in cinematic, low-key settings.
Artists.MTV: Direct to Fan
2012
Why shouldn't musicians have direct access to their fans, and their data? What if artists could find their 1,000 True Fans and sell them music, tickets, and merch directly? We built it long before musicians were demanding these rights for themselves. Celebrated the launch with Indie-Pendence Day, a 24-hour July 4th TV marathon that invited viewers to tip the artists they loved, proving TV to digital conversion is rough!
O Music Awards: Another Awards Show?
2011–2012
With the declining relevance of the VMAs looming in the background, we invented (yes) another awards show, one that happened whenever we wanted and celebrated the artists and fans defining culture online. Gave awards to the most zealous fan armies, broke Guinness World Records (the Flaming Lips on a school bus beat Jay-Z's private-plane record for most concerts in 24 hours), and staged pop-up performances in unexpected places, like Robyn emerging on Hollywood Boulevard during the Pride Parade.
MTV Classics: Old Shows, New Screens
2009–2011
What could beloved shows like 120 Minutes, Yo! MTV Raps, Headbangers Ball, and even Unplugged mean to a new audience, in a new format? Built teams that breathed new life into these iconic brands, balancing each one's original ethos with shorter attention spans and the unconstrained time and space of the internet. Won Webbys and Emmys along the way.
Jackassworld: Bringing Jackass Online
2008
Built an online community with the creators and cast of Jackass. Convinced Paramount Pictures to release a feature-length Jackass movie on the internet. Produced a 24-hour takeover of MTV's TRL studio and Times Square headquarters that broke streaming and sponsor records. We all survived (barely).