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Troy Carter

Troy Carter91 posts

Troy Carter is an American businessman, born in Philadelphia in 1972. Originally a member of the short-lived rap group 2 Too Many, he worked for Puff Daddy before setting up his own artist management company. In 2007 he became Lady Gaga’s manager, helping her sell over 24 million albums and 90 million singles. He split with Gaga in 2013. He is an active investor in over 50 technology startups. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and five children.

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22 Feb, 2010

Describes ’95-5′ partnership

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Carter is interviewed in Ad Age magazine about Gaga’s marketing partnerships. At this time Gaga has 2.8 million Twitter followers, more than 5.2 million Facebook fans. Digital-single sales are over 20 million, album sales are eight million. Carter says their partnership is “95-5”:

The only thing I do is manage the vision. Ninety-five percent of the time I won’t comment on creative, and 95% of the time she lets me run the business. The other 5% is where we debate about things like, ‘Do you really want to bleed to death on stage at the [MTV] VMAs?’ She wins even when we do have those debates 5% of the time.

Carter says he doesn’t want Gaga to ever look like she’s endorsing a brand — hence why she’s created products for Universal’s Beats By Dre headphones line, Viva Glam and now Polaroid as its new creative director.

You won’t see her face plastered on any packaging or anything. We’re comparing it to when Tom Ford went to Gucci or Steve Jobs went into Apple and brought a different thought process and taste level in. We’re looking for her to do the same exact thing at Polaroid. It’s not about her putting her name on something — it’s reinvigorating a brand.

5 Jun, 2011

New York Times profile

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Carter is profiled in NYT’s Dealbook. He talks about the upcoming launch of Backplane and the convergence of music and technology.

Technology has long been the driver of growth in the music business from the invention of lacquers, eight-track players, vinyl, cassettes and CDs. In order to continue the growth we have to go back to embracing technology and the way that people choose to consume music.

9 Aug, 2011

Slate interview

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Carter is interviewed by Slate magazine, as part of its Top Right project, which lists 25 Americans who “combine inventiveness and practicality: our best real-world problem-solvers”. He talks about Gaga’s entrepreneurial deals:

Our strategy is that business follows the creative. We’re not out there scouring the marketplace for opportunities. It just happens. If [Gaga] has an idea that works with a song or a project that she is working on, we go look for best-of-class partners to help us execute it. And a lot of businesses bring ideas to us.

About the upcoming release of Backplane:

The problem is: How meaningful is that social media imprint [on Facebook, Twitter, and her own site]? Just because you have 43 million likes on Facebook doesn’t necessarily translate into 42 million albums sold, 42 million concert tickets sold, 42 million pieces of merchandise sold. So this really builds on a concentrated audience, as opposed to making it bigger.

On his other entrepreneurial projects:

I love entrepreneurs. In the tech space, what I found is this incredible energy that reminded me of the early days of hip-hop. Back then, guys were all starting their own companies. It wasn’t about the money. It was about passion for a specific product or project. I’ve just been meeting a ton of smart kids who have a deep passion. I’ve become an advisor to some, an investor in some of these companies, and they’ve been helping me with some of my projects.

22 Sep, 2011

Facebook f8 conference

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Carter participates in a panel session on digital music Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Clear Channel’s Bob Pittman, moderated by Facebook’s Justin Osofsky. Carter says there is a trend of artists making their music widely available to listen to, rather than putting all the effort into making people buy it.

What we’re looking to do is not just about selling the CD or the digital file. It’s how many people can we get the music to. How many people can experience it? If it was up to me, I’d give away the next album and put it on every handset that I can put it on, to get that scale,. You can’t be scared to fail. Sometimes we’re going to get big results, and sometimes you learn a lesson, make an adjustment and move on.

On how an artist like Gaga would use data-crunching features on Facebook.

For us it’s how do we laser-focus on that, how do we make it less passive, how do we focus on the super-fan as opposed to somebody who just liked one single? The more layers on top of the community, the more sticky it is. For us it’s not about Lady Gaga talking to the community, but it’s about the community sharing with each other.

On mobile extending the concert experience:

People watch concerts like this now [holds up imaginary mobile phone]. For us, it’s how do we extend that experience? Right now it’s very simple: people are tweeting from the concert, they’re uploading their YouTube video…In the next year or so, something we’re working on internally is going to make it a much more interactive experience… not just how you share the experience on the outside of the concerts, when you go home, but how you share it on the inside of the concerts too.

20 Jan, 2012

DLD dialogues

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Carter talks with The Economist’s Bishop at the DLD12 conference (video was not released until May 2012). Carter:

We’re learning that there aren’t any rules. Just when you think you know something a new piece of technology will pop up, or a new company will pop up. And right now with content you just really have to follow the consumer. I recently watched the movie The Artist, which shows the transition of silent films into talking pictures and at that time how disruptive that was, and it just reminds me of exactly what’s happening in the content industry today. We’ve been through several cycles of disruption and this one is nothing new. You just have to follow the consumer…When you have the luxury of having been able to live through cycles you fear them a lot less, and you embrace it,

Dialogues - Troy Carter (Founder and CEO at Atom Factory) & Matthew Bishop | DLD12

23 Jan, 2012

DLD 12 interview: Connect with your Fans

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Carter and Michelsen are interviewed at DLD 12 about connecting with fans. Michelsen:

I’m known as being Troy’s arms dealer in The Valley. So when we use social media we look at these things as reaching the most amount of people, and the power behind it. If you look at Silicon Valley there are big [technology] weapons. Troy and Lady Gaga are the detonators. They have these platforms and the individuals become the network.

Carter on Gaga’s rise:

Our timing was great. Facebook had just opened up. Twitter was on the rise. MySpace built this platform that was specifically for artists. So we were alternative ways. It just so happened that Gag’s voice is so authentic that she used it as way to say really connected with the fans, she never used it as a place to sell, sell, sell.

Connect with your Fans (Troy Carter, Atom Factory & Matt Michelsen, Place) | DLD12

20 Jun, 2012

Music Matters keynote

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Carter gives the keynote interview at Music Matters 2012. He talks about how he has diversified into technology investing:

It’s been a little over a year that we started a fund at Atom Factory. It happened from us taking a risk in terms of marketing and working with young startups, and a even with some of the larger companies that we were working with. A lot of people started approach us about advising us about their companies, and us investing in their companies. We’ve invested in Drop box, Spotify, Socialcam, Voxxer, Uber. It’s maybe a little over 30 companies in our portfolio. We have somebody full time that works with founders and that analysis deals. It’s becoming a significant part of our business. Not just from a financial standpoint, but from an access standpoint — being able to get a real glimpse at the technology that’s on the horizon. Y’know a lot of these guys are going to be the next world leaders…It was done on purpose — prior to stating our fund we spent a year in Silicon Valley.

Keynote Interview: Troy Carter

2 Aug, 2012

Billboard’s 40 under 40

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Carter is profiled as one of Billboard’s 40 under 40.

The last four or five years have really been about watching the industry make drastic changes — a lot of it due to what was happening to technology and consumer behavior. We’re looking at companies that are gonna disrupt industries.

27 Sep, 2012

The Economist: Lady Gaga and social media

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The Economist talks with Carter about how new technology and social media was used to garner legions of fans for Lady Gaga.

It came out of basic necessity… We saw new technology as alternative to reach audiences, opposed to radio… Now, we would much rather build the fan base online and let it grow organically, and let people feel they discovered it before it goes wide to the mainstream…What’s important to me is that there are no intermediaries in that relationship… People think of Twitter as being able to have a direct relationship with their fans… but, it’s really not… because if Twitter goes out of business, or switches off the machine, that’s not your data, not your relationship. So, for us, it’s about really allowing Gaga, or any other artist, to really own that relationship with them and the fans.

Troy Carter discusses Lady Gaga and social media

26 Oct, 2012

Wired 2012 talk

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At Wired 2012, Carter says that despite Little Monsters allowing Gaga to connect with her fans in an unprecedented way, the music industry doen’t care:

They’re not using the data. I can sit down with the guy from Spotify, and he shows me this spike on Fridays as people listen to Gaga before going to the clubs. When I go to South Africa I know to include this song in this set, because I know that’s a fan favourite, and also to take this song out. We’ve never had a direct relationship with an audience. When someone buys a CD we used to count them as a fan, but we never knew if they hated the CD and threw it out the window.

He says that Gaga used social media early because her music would not get played on the radio:

She didn’t look like a typical pop star, and the music was more four to the floor dance music, so radio wouldn’t play it. She’s at 30-something-million Twitter followers now because she had a headstart over everybody. The types of messages she sends are very authentic, so when she sends messages her fans engage. We started buying fan artworks, and including that in our actual merch line in the tour, because we found fans like art from other fans. They know what they want more than we know what they want.

However the media doesn’t define the message:

It’s like a download from God. We were in a meeting with Google, with Gaga and Larry Page, and Larry said to Gaga, ‘Do you ever a/b test your music?’ She replied, ‘Did Picasso ever a/b test painting?

Troy Carter: The Future of Social is Micro-Networks | WIRED 2012 | WIRED

30 Nov, 2012

Financial Times interview

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Carter is interviewed by The Financial Times. He talks about the launch of LittleMonsters.com and how data from the many South American fans led to the expansion of a tour there.

Our bet is on the future of micronetworks. Facebook wasn’t wired to build a relationship between fans and artists. It’s more about communicating with family and friends and old girlfriends or your classmates; 51m likes doesn’t mean we’re going to sell 51m albums or concert tickets. [It’s a] misconception when people talk about a direct relationship between artists and their fans or brands and consumers through social media. The reality is that these platforms own the relationship. So as much as you can talk directly to a customer or a fan, you still have this intermediary . . . that controls the data. And at any given time, if they turn it off or they change an algorithm, like Facebook did with its newsfeed algorithm last year, it changes the way you’re able to communicate with that fan or customer

About his abilities as an artist:

I stay away from the arts . . . writing songs, being creative – those are downloads from god. You can’t do data analytics on art.

The importance of hiring outsiders:

My COO didn’t come from the music industry, my vice-president of creative was actually a schoolteacher. It was important we had people who came from an outside perspective, who didn’t come from selling CDs.

Mar 2013

V magazine cover

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LadyGagaTroyVCoverCarter is interviewed by V magazine. On how he sees pop music evolving:

This is the best time to be in the music industry. As sub-Saharan Africa and China go completely mobile, you have people who’ve never had access to the music we offer all of a sudden able to access it. I think we can reach a lot more people now. You’re going to see a lot more friction points for independent artists disappear, but there will be more artists than ever. You’ll have to look at making money through a different lens. Artists are going to be giving away music in exchange for different things, like data or purchasing a ticket or a piece of merchandise. There will be new ways to monetize music, but it may not be the music itself.

His most memorable experience working with Gaga:

I think—and I can say this because it just happened recently—it was seeing her have a casual conversation with the President about gay rights issues. When you think back to six years ago, this girl from New York walking in with ripped-up stockings, and now she’s having conversations with the President about serious issues—it’s a bit surreal.

30 Apr, 2013

TC Disrupt interview

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In an on-stage interview at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference, Carter says terrestrial radio is due for disruption:

I think the opening right now is really figuring out terrestrial radio, specifically in America..People still get in the car, for the most part, and they turn on the radio [to] the local station. I think it’s going to be interesting when you can get in your car, turn on the radio turn on the station and you’re listening to a 17 year-old kid in Russia or you’re listening to a 22 year-old kid in his dorm room in Germany. But I think radio’s going to be a real disruption.

He also says the music industry must adapt to change:

I don’t think tech has screwed the music industry, the music industry has to adjust to change. When people in remote villages throughout the world can access music, it’s a good thing.

Atom Factory's Troy Carter on Music Technology | Disrupt NY 2013

13 Jan, 2014

The Guardian interview

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Carter is interviewed in The Guardian. On the split with Gaga:

I’ve been in the music industry for 24 years and with God’s grace I’ll be in it until I take my last breath. And I don’t think a speed bump in the road will stop me from doing what I love.It’s not cancer. When you look at the big scheme of things, it’s not cancer.

On technology changes in the music industry he sees: albums released solely as apps; unprecedented data harvesting; more African Americans in Silicon Valley; concert holograms; massively bigger audiences; and the perpetually online, engaged digital star.

Everybody should be nervous. With the music industry we’ve always had technological change, whether it was disruption from eight-track to cassette, or cassette to CD, CD to download, download to streaming. The difference now is how fast it’s happening. We’re seeing new technology pop up every few months like this [snaps fingers]. I sit on the edge of my seat. I try to live around the corner just to get a sneak peak, to have some sense of what’s happening. The industry [needs] to be very aware, concerned and curious about everything on the way.

Gaga has done a phenomenal job building this huge digital fanbase – fans who became activists for her and will fight battles on her behalf. At the height of rock’n’roll it was about mailing lists. One of the early jobs I did was opening Will [Smith]’s fan mail. Now all that’s been replaced by tweets and social media. So you’ve always had that connection. But now you can reach people in real time…I’m very bullish about this new generation of artists. They’re digital natives. They’re starting their careers online.

Carter says he has a tiny digital footprint. For work he uses Path, which limits contacts to 150, and uses Facebook just for family. He doesn’t tweet.

Twitter is much more public and I don’t have that many clever things to say.

Feb 2014

Fast Company interview

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Carter is interviewed by Fast Company. He talk about his split with Gaga:

I’m human. I went through every emotion. You go from fear to sadness…It’s like you wake up and you work with somebody every day, and then all of a sudden they’re not there anymore. I don’t think you’re ever prepared to sever that deep of a relationship.

Family:

Money doesn’t make me tick. This definition of success doesn’t make me tick. Managing some of the biggest stars in the world doesn’t make me tick. Making my family proud makes me tick…Will [Smith] was talking about how he still worries about being broke. And I laughed because I’m like, ‘Me too.’ It’s a thing from where we come from. A lot had to do with going broke as an adult too. So when you come from nothing and you work your way up and you make something of yourself, there’s always that sense that all of this could go away tomorrow

On investing with other artist managesr:

When you look at how technology companies are funded, it’s not a zero-sum game. It could be 20 investors in one company, and everybody has to work together for the benefit of that company. As we invested, we realized we need each other on these deals because my network is better when you’re in it.

22 Apr, 2014

Credit Suisse Entrepreneur’s Summit interview

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Carter shares his insights on the effects technology has on business and what he looks for when investing in startup companies.

Technology has always affected business. Always some kind of disruption… (need to) have that ability to live around the corner. And pay attention to emerging technologies…We do more investing in entrepreneurs than we invest in startups. It always starts with “who are we investing in?”… and whether this entrepreneur has the wherewithal to go the distance.

Troy Carter, Atom Factory - Building a Brand: From Music to Technology

13 Jun, 2014

Tips to Succeed as a Manager

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Carter gives some tips to Rennie about how to succeed in the music business as a manager:

One I would say is you gotta have a real passion for it. It’s not an easy business, so that when times get hard you really stick with it. The other thing is that I have a real personal relationship with all of the clients i work with. It’s more than just a transaction and it’s more than just business  I’m actually in their fight, and they are people I love and people I really respect. And when you have those things you don’t mind taking the late night phone calls or sacrificing time away from the family, because it’s bigger than just a commission check.

Tips to Succeed as a Manager with Troy Carter

11 Sep, 2014

NBC News interview

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Carter is interviewed by Shriver for NBC News.

I know how to pick really good people. From great artists to great partners. I call it my ‘West Philly Spidey Senses’.

On women:

I attract really strong women! My wife is CFO of the company and the CFO of the house…and mother of five. My COO is a woman. The president of my company is a woman. I surround myself with really, really strong women.

22 Sep, 2014

Platform Summit 2013 interview

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Carter is interviewed by at the Platform Summit 2103’s session on Failure: The Surprising Critical Ingredient of Success. (Meet the Risk Takers.)

For a startup , in order to win big you have to swing big.

Troy Carter interviewed by David Sutphen at Platform Summit 2013

3 Dec, 2014

The Influencer Economy interview

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Carter is interviewed by Williams on The Influencer Economy. He talks about about hip-hop, entrepreneurship, life, failure, success and finding passion around your work.

In life in general, there are no guarantees. Failures are a part of life. As cliché as it may sound, the way I look at it is that there are no rewards without taking risks. We take a risk every time we step out the door, you know, every single day. Life is full of risks and failures, but at the same time life is full of triumphs and happiness.

I relate to entrepreneurs on a soulful level. I know what keeps them up at night. I know how those victories feel. .. And when you can’t make payroll, and you’ve got knots in your stomach, I know what that feels like too.