Re/code interview

In an interview with Re/code, Carter talks about SMASHDLabs.

On the artist side, we made a significant investment in very young artists from the very beginning of their careers and helped them become global superstars. So, on the entrepreneurs’ side, the idea of the labs was to be able to create this ecosystem to help them from the very beginning, to see them through from development and hopefully until they become large companies.

He also says that the accelerator companies had access to entrepreneurial advice from Marc Cuban, who gave the welcoming address, Sophia Amoruso of retail site Nasty Gal, Jason Calacanis, Def Jam Records co-founder Russell Simmons, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, Upfront Ventures’ Mark Suster and MediaREDEF Chief Executive Jason Hirschhorn.

We had a wide array of incredible entrepreneurs and investors that came in to speak to the group. The head of growth for Snapchat, he probably spent five days with our companies. That’s significant.