#874: Guy Oseary — The Legendary Hollywood Power Broker on 5-Minute Decisions, 36 Years of Managing Madonna, 26 IPOs, and Spotting Magic First

**Tim Ferriss** (0:00)
Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferris Show. My guest today is Guy Oseary. And if you hear birds in the background, that's because I was visiting him for the interview at his home in Los Angeles. He has been spotting talent before anyone else could see it for nearly four decades. He has different batteries. I've seen it, very different batteries. Under his leadership at Maverick Records, Maverick sold more than 100 million albums. Guy has managed some of the biggest names in music, including Madonna. I think that's 36 years and counting the Red Hot Chili Peppers and U2, and was named Variety's Music Mogul of the Year in 2022 He's got lots of accolades like that. He also executive produced Twilight, you may have heard of, which became one of the most successful franchises in movie history, generating more than $3.5 billion.
Guy was also an early investor in Vita Coco and co-founded A-Grade Investments and then Sound Ventures, now with nearly 2 billion under management. At A-Grade, his hits included Airbnb, Uber and Spotify. Sound Ventures launched, even though it has more than 2 billion now, with less than 100 million and has since had 86 exits and 26 IPOs. He's got a lot of stories. I mean, he and Ashton invested in Bitcoin when it was at $22.
There are a lot of stories. How does he do it? How does he make five minute decisions? What does he see? What does he feel when he's spotting talent, when he's spotting opportunities? We get into all of it. You can find him online. It's easy enough to find Guy Oseary, O-S-E-A-R-Y.
So without further ado, please enjoy this very wide-ranging, very tactical, very colorful conversation with the one and only Guy Oseary.

**Guy Oseary** (1:37)
At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

**Tim Ferriss** (1:42)
Can I ask you a personal question?
So here we are sitting in this beautiful home, and I wanted you to explain this beautiful calligraphy behind you that I was admiring. Some of the most impeccable handwriting I've ever seen. What is it that's sitting behind you?

**Guy Oseary** (2:15)
That's Purple Rain Lyrics by Prince.

**Tim Ferriss** (2:18)
That's incredible.

**Guy Oseary** (2:20)
I'm a huge fan of Prince. When I was a kid, I had Prince posters up on my wall, and I met him when I was 12
Twelve?

**Tim Ferriss** (2:28)
How did that happen?

**Guy Oseary** (2:30)
The place where I was living with my dad, an apartment building in West Hollywood, was directly across the street from a hotel called a Park Hotel.
That's when I started meeting artists. I started becoming a fan. I love music, but I became a fan, someone that would actually wait to get their album signed. Prince actually signed something for me. He wrote Love God for me. I told him that years, years, years later. We became friends and became close.

**Tim Ferriss** (2:59)
Was it Love God period or Love, God?

**Guy Oseary** (3:03)
It was Love God and it was signed Prince. That was a long time ago because later on he became a Jehovah Witness.
You could see the posters. I had Billy Idol and Prince on my walls, and you could see it from the street if you looked up. So you can come out if you're waiting for your car or whatever, you look and you'd see, okay, there's someone up there likes music a lot. I was on the first floor. There's a little balcony there and then I come out a lot to meet. I met NXS and I met some people I became friends with, like Billy Idol I became friends with years later, and Michael Hutchins I became friends with, and Morrissey I became friends with later. But I met them all when I was a kid.
And a really cool thing is other kids were around then. They were older than me, but they were kids. And so I could hang with them and really get a little camaraderie with some of the fans out there. They were waiting for the bands.

**Tim Ferriss** (3:50)
I want to talk about addresses and Beverly Hills High School. How did you end up at Beverly Hills High School and why?

**Guy Oseary** (3:57)
Before Beverly Hills High School, I went to a school in downtown LA. It was on Peacock and Arlington. So it's almost on the way to, if you're going to go see a Laker game, it's on the way to that.
I went to that school and it was incredible. So many great people. Music was a big piece of my journey there. I took a school bus there and the kids would go between two radio stations on the bus. So the bus driver would play either KDAY., which is the first hip-hop station in LA, or they would go to K-Rock, which is the alternative radio station in LA, and I loved them both. So I met a lot of really cool kids there who were in these groups of people that were like the punk rockers, the hip-hoppers, the break dancers, some gang members, graffiti artists. They're just a great eclectic group of people.