Curated playlist
American chief executives in the mass media industry
- Jay-ZJay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th of December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. His father, Adnis Reeves, left the family when…
- Rupert MurdochRupert Murdoch kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms at Oxford. The young man from Melbourne who would one day own hundreds of newspapers, television channels, and publishing houses across more than fifty countries arrived at Worcester College…
- George LucasGeorge Lucas was nearly killed before he ever made a film. On the 12th of June 1962, a few days before his high school graduation in Modesto, California, another driver broadsided his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina, flipping the car…
- Birdman (rapper)Birdman was born Bryan Christopher Brooks on the 15th of February 1969 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, without a given first name. For nearly a month, hospital staff and family simply called him "Baby". That name stuck, and…
- Kevin FeigeKevin Feige was born on the 2nd of June, 1973, in Boston, Massachusetts, into a family with a quiet thread connecting him to Hollywood before he ever set foot there. His maternal grandfather, Robert E. Short, produced television in the…
- Sean CombsSean Combs was born on the 4th of November 1969, in Harlem, New York City, and by the time he reached his mid-twenties he had reshaped American popular music from the inside. His label, Bad Boy Records, launched the career of the Notorious…
- Bob IgerBob Iger started his career earning $150 a week doing menial labor on television sets. Decades later, he would oversee a company whose market capitalization grew from $56 billion to $231 billion. That arc, from entry-level grunt work to…
- John LasseterJohn Lasseter was fired from the Walt Disney Company for believing too hard in the future. The year was 1984, the project was a test film blending traditional hand-drawn animation with computer-generated backgrounds, and the men who fired…
- Suge KnightSuge Knight was born Marion Hugh Knight Jr. on the 19th of April 1965 in Compton, California, and he grew up to become one of the most feared and consequential figures in American music. At his peak, he ran Death Row Records, a label that…
- Steve BannonSteve Bannon sat aboard a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut on the 20th of August 2020, when federal agents arrived to arrest him. The yacht belonged to Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese billionaire. The charge: conspiracy to defraud…