Richard Rosenblatt is most famous for building and selling Intermix Media, the parent of MySpace.com, to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., when he was 37, for $650 million in just 20 minutes. Walking across the UCLA campus together where he and Peter Guber co-taught a masters class, Guber asked him how he’d done it.
Success required that Richard completely transform Murdoch who avoided new media, and change his mind about opportunities on the web. Instinctively, he told a story, casting Murdoch himself as Scrooge, the wayward hero who needed to redeem his honor – before it was too late.
“I said, ‘Mr. Murdoch, with all due respect, you are the biggest guy in media on the entire planet. It doesn’t make any sense that you’ve been completely forward-thinking in everything, whether it was direct TV or newspapers, and you’re nowhere and negative when it comes to the Internet.'”
Peter Guber, Chad Hurley & Richard Rosenblatt
Guber shook his head. “And you say you can’t tell a story.”
“You’re right.” Richard replied, “It was all a story! And I have a signed autograph from him on the cover of Wired magazine exactly one year later.”
MORE ABOUT TELL TO WIN
To validate the power of telling purposeful stories, Guber includes in this book a remarkably diverse number of ‘voices’ – master tellers with whom he’s shared experiences. They include YouTube founder Chad Hurley, NBA champion Pat Riley, clothing designer Norma Kamali, “Mission to Mars” scientist Gentry Lee, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, former South African president Nelson Mandela, magician David Copperfield, film director Steven Spielberg, novelist Nora Roberts, rock legend Gene Simmons, and physician and author Deepak Chopra.
After listening to this extraordinary mix of voices, you’ll know how to craft, deliver – and own – a story that is truly compelling, one capable of turning others into viral advocates for your goal.
