Aryeh Bourkoff — Media’s Hottest Dealmaker on How to Negotiate, Rejecting Constraints, Mastering the Calendar to Create More Time, and How to Play the Long Game
“What is your edge?”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
Aryeh B. Bourkoff (@aryehbourkoff) is the chairman and CEO of LionTree, an independent investment and merchant bank advising and investing in transformational CEOs and the companies they lead. Aryeh founded LionTree in 2012 during a time of unprecedented disruption, and since then, LionTree has supported an expanding number of industries as they capture opportunity in an evolving digital economy.
Aryeh is also the founder of Kindred Media, a digital media and podcasting company powered by LionTree, and serves on the boards of Yahoo and Carnegie Hall. Before founding LionTree, Aryeh spent 13 years at UBS, closing his tenure as vice chairman and Head of Americas Investment Banking. Before UBS, Aryeh was a high-yield research analyst and ranked as the #1 cable and satellite analyst by Institutional Investor for seven consecutive years.
Aryeh is a graduate of the University of California at San Diego and resides in New York City with his family.
Please enjoy!
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
#629: Aryeh Bourkoff — Media’s Hottest Dealmaker on How to Negotiate, Rejecting Constraints, Mastering the Calendar to Create More Time, and How to Play the Long Game
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Want to hear another podcast episode featuring a titan of the media industry? Listen to my interview with Daniel Ek, in which we discuss the meaning of eldsjäl, European versus American parenting, books that stand out among the 60–70 Daniel reads annually, dealing with tough-to-hear feedback, Spotify’s internal two-year missions, speed vs. quality of iteration, and much more.
#484: Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify — Habits, Systems and Mental Models for Top Performance
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Connect with Aryeh Bourkoff:
- LionTree
- LionTree | Instagram
- Kindred Media
- Kindred Media | Instagram
- KindredCast
- KindredCast | Instagram
- KindredCast (ART19.com)
- KindredCast (YouTube)
- The Best Analysts of the Year 2006 | Institutional Investor
- Research Analyst | Investopedia
- How Aryeh Bourkoff Became Media’s Hottest Dealmaker | The Hollywood Reporter
- Visual Basic 6 For Dummies by Wallace Wang | Amazon
- Aryeh Bourkoff Talks with NYSE Podcast about Markets, Space Travel, and Scale Players | Medium
- The Face Melting Scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark | MovieClips
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Amazon
- How to Say “No” Gracefully and Uncommit | The Tim Ferriss Show #328
- Hawkmoon 269 by U2 | YouTube
- Reimagining the Power of Investing | UBS
- Sundance Channel Is Sold to Cablevision for $496 Million | The Los Angeles Times
- CBS Building (aka Black Rock) | Wikipedia
- Proxy Statement | Investopedia
- What the Amazon-MGM Deal Means for the Streaming Business | NPR
- Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute | Amazon
- Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies by Geoffrey West | Amazon
- Boris Johnson: What Is a Vote of No Confidence? | BBC News
- 70 Governments in 77 Years: Why Italy Changes Governments So Often | CNBC
- Israel’s Government Collapses, Setting Up 5th Election in 3 Years | The New York Times
- Sweden’s Parliament Elects PM Backed for First Time by Far Right | Al Jazeera
- France Announces New Government in Reshuffle | Le Monde
- A City Stirs | The New York Times
- Detroit’s Big Comeback: Out of Bankruptcy, a Rebirth | NPR
- The Remarkable Rebirth of Medellín | NPR
- Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir | Amazon
- Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis | Amazon
- A Banker’s Journey: How Edmond J. Safra Built a Global Financial Empire by Daniel Gross | Amazon
- The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond by Chris Blackwell and Paul Morley | Amazon
- Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir by Jann Wenner | Amazon
- The House of Rothschild: Money’s Prophets: 1798-1848 by Niall Ferguson | Amazon
- The House of Rothschild: The World’s Banker: 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson | Amazon
- The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co. by William D. Cohan | Amazon
- The Pearl by John Steinbeck | Amazon
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway | Amazon
- The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks | Amazon
- Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck | Amazon
- Podcast & Audiobook Production Company | Pushkin Industries
- 2021 Year End Letter | LionTree
- Spotify’s Joe Rogan Deal Is Said to Be Worth Over $200 Million | The New York Times
- Formula 1: Drive to Survive | Netflix
- Ah, a Cocktail at the Ritz’s Bar Hemingway in Paris | The New York Times
SHOW NOTES
- [05:35] What makes a good research analyst?
- [12:39] Lessons learned from Alan Ginsberg.
- [16:02] Why did Aryeh choose to move across the country for a career in finance?
- [19:49] Professional job-seeking, doorknob negotiation, and toe-stepping.
- [24:30] Tying together the disparate and thinking outside convention.
- [35:38] Coping with overflow when time is short.
- [51:56] “What is your edge?”
- [58:27] A deck of cards and Joe Ianniello.
- [1:05:08] Resources for sharpening negotiation skills.
- [1:13:56] Recommended reading.
- [1:22:04] Thoughts on the future of audio/streaming/podcasting.
- [1:29:41] Building and maintaining community trust.
- [1:32:39] Goalkeeping.
- [1:35:59] Mach2.
- [1:38:01] The write time.
- [1:39:12] Parting thoughts.
MORE ARYEH BOURKOFF QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“If you’re going to go into an industry, go to the heart of it. Don’t plan around the edges.”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“Conventional thinking is typically right, but seldom profitable.”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“What is your edge?”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“If we eliminate all the extremism, then everyone can redefine their view of what their centers look like, and that’s where the richness lies. And whether you find it in the magic hours in the wee hours of the night or the middle of the day, I think we can form these circles and then really bond together, and I think the best is yet to come.”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“People have hopes and dreams that sometimes take the shape and form of businesses. And those businesses need money, capital, to see the light of day, to realize their dreams. And that’s finance. And if I can play a role in helping those individuals get capital and have their dreams realized, that is a worthwhile life to live.”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“You have to ask yourself, are you comfortable going into a controversial scenario, or do you want to just live in the non-controversial?”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“Whenever anyone says, ‘Life is too short,’ I’m like, ‘Well, life is the longest thing you know. You don’t know anything longer than life.’ So I’m like, ‘Let’s just live it to the fullest as much as you can.’”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
“It goes back to adaptability. If something has a rigid purpose and you break the purpose, it will die.”
— Aryeh Bourkoff
PEOPLE MENTIONED
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