Mike Kerns and Jesse Jacobs - Content to Commerce

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode of Invest Like the Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. I'd heard of Canalyst over the past few years and became more interested after meeting the founder and CEO last year to pick his brain about SaaS businesses. Founded by a former buy-side analyst who encountered friction in sourcing, building and updating models, Canalyst is now used by over 300 institutions, including the largest money managers in North America and by a number of guests on the show.
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If you're curious to hear more about Canalyst, stay tuned at the end of the episode where I talk to Canalyst CEO, Demir Hatt.
This episode is brought to you by MIT Investment Management Corporation, also known as MITIMCo, the endowment office of MIT. MITIMCo seeks to find people who are focused on achieving exceptional long-term investment returns, partner with these firms early and stick around for the very long-term. MITIMCo doesn't care how small, new or uninstitutional your firm is, if you have the potential to generate amazing results that supports MIT's pursuit of world-class education, cutting edge research and groundbreaking innovation. Despite their willingness to invest early, they do not ask for general partner economics and they commit their initial capital for 10 years. To learn more and check out their recently launched page dedicated to emerging managers, visit www.mitimco.org. That's M-I-T-I-M-C-O dot org.
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:25)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:48)
My guests this week are Jesse Jacobs and Mike Kerns, partners at TCG, also known as The Chernin Group, a multi-stage investment firm dedicated to building consumer businesses.
Many think of TCG as some of the best media and technology investors in the world, and in this discussion, you'll quickly see why. In our conversation, we cover how TCG identifies creators that they can help build businesses with, how established companies should think about influencers and media today, and what innovations they are most excited about in the creator space.
As I become more heavily involved in building new media properties, Jesse and Mike have always been my first call for advice, so I'm excited to share this with you. Please enjoy my conversation with Jesse Jacobs and Mike Kerns.
So, Jesse and Mike, I think an appropriate place to start this conversation is with the very unique history of TCG itself because you're not a VC, you're not a private equity investor, you're just an investor and I think because you came at it very organically, the history of the firm itself is important for everything else that we're going to talk about. Jesse, maybe we'll begin with you since you were there sort of day one back in 2010 Can you tell us how this business got started and what is unique in the DNA of the place?

**Jesse Jacobs** (4:00)
Peter Chernin, who obviously is the Chernin of the Chernin Group, for those that don't know, he spent 15, 20 years at the most senior levels of media industry running Fox and News Corp for a long period of time.
He left in 2009
Myself, I started my career in sports TV production actually at Fox. I like to say the most junior person at Fox when Peter was the most senior person at the advent of Fox Sports. And then the early days of digital media, so around 1999 to 2002, I ran content for a business called iFilm that most of your listeners probably won't remember or haven't heard of. We were the first company to ever sell a video ad online. We were one of the first companies to ever stream video online. We coined the term viral video. We were just way too early. We sold that business to Viacom when the bubble burst.