♪ emily: he got his start in less philadelphia, working for the fresh prince, and later biggie. his breakthrough came in 2007 when he met 11 woman known as lady gaga. fromought in his job title allen manager to tech investor, betting on spotify and cooper -- uber. on "studio 1.0,"

ceo of atom factory, troy carter. thank you so much for being here. it is great to have you. in west up philadelphia, just like the fresh prince of bel air. troy: born and raised. [laughter] talk awe are going to little bit about where you are from, and your career in music. but i want to start with technology. how did you get into tech investing? troy: you know what, it kind of fell into my lap. nott five years ago, i did even know what the terminology venture capitalist was. working with lady gaga in the very beginning, it was difficult to get music played on the radio. we used a lot of social media tools to market. ,acebook was coming out of .edu twitter was on the rise, youtube was taking off. we were using these social media platforms to reach fans directly.

a lot of the technology companies basically started approaching us. 75 investments later, now i am a venture capitalist. gaga startedd lady using twitter, and facebook, and you do before anyone else in the music industry related. they thought those services where their enemies. used it out off desperation more than anything else. we were at a stage where these distribution systems and wereeepers all of a sudden a little less powerful, because of this technology where you could speak directly to fans. the first time we heard her music, before she got nine, was on myspace. signed, was onot my face. she was the first to break out of these platforms. emily: you are an investor in uber,ies like lyft, spotify. these are deals that traditional

venture capitalists would get into. how did you get in? troy: i think it helps that i am an entrepreneur. i can relate on the ground level. emily: give me an example of what your secret weapon is as a tech investor. drive ae willingness to mack truck through a cul-de-sac, when i believe in something. and also, and that the. .- empathy i know what keeps founders of the night. the anxiety and the competition. i relate. emily: how did you get into uber? and: i met an entrepreneur, he said, i'm thinking about going in as a venture capital. the first still -- deal he ub ate me about was that time, they were only in san francisco. r. uber.

inthat time, they were only san francisco. the competition is hundreds of thousands of black cars, this could never be successful. and then travis said, this is an logistics platform. he explained it. my worry was about, how do you scale the company? emily: travis was convincing you, you were not convincing him to let you in? troy: right, he sold me on the vision. we had a pretty significant network. jay-z and the rock nation team into uber. emily: you are also an investor in lyft, how does that work? troy: we actually invested in another company, where they provide carpooling from dormitories at school to campuses.

six months later, we invested in car, just the black service. they were completely noncompetitive. and then uber x, andd over -- uber they wanted to kill each other. some people have the opinion that it will be winner takes all. as we look at this complicated transportation ecosystem, i feel like there will be enough room for both. it will be winner take most, but i don't think winner take all. emily: what is your philosophy at atom factory westmark what kind of companies --? what kind of companies are you focused on? troy: we are focused on large demographic shifts. and you look at spotify songs we invested in, and are looking at, the shift from downloads to streams. see as the do you

main differences between silicon valley and l.a.? is, uphe difference north, you have a very much or system here. you are on fourth and fifth generation tech companies. aa., the lineages more round media, and storytelling and narrative. the tech industry is very young. but when you look at beats by snapchat, you are starting to see multibillion-dollar companies pop up. snapchat for example, $19 billion. are they worth that? troy: i think so. i think they will be worth more, actually. when you see the amount of videos viewed per day, and the type of engagement around the product. emily: what do you think about the fears that we are in a bubble, that valuations are too high? valuations that

are way too high because the company has not worked with that valuation. when you have a grounds that b rounds, and the late stage looks bigger than what the ipo would be, i think you have to really be smart in your approach to how you deploy capital. as a founder, i just would be very always burn rates right now. and making sure i have a clear path to revenue. just in case the winner comes quickly, you are prepared as a company to survive, and not just surviving off of fundraising. emily: do you think winter is coming? troy: winter always comes. [laughter] it is a matter of when. there are corrections coming. we see many corrections come up i don't think the bottom will fall out, but i think we will see a series of corrections.

nothing catastrophic happens. emily: where are the egos bigger, l.a. or silicon valley? troy: both. [laughter] emily: people here think they can change the world, is it awesome or arrogant? troy: i think it's awesome. in order to change the world, you have to have it -- bid, audacious goals. we need elon musk. we need mark zuckerberg, we need larry page and mark andreessen. we need the george lucases, and the jjspielbergs, and abrams of the world. we need both. ♪ emily: your father spent time in jail for murder. how did you overcome that? ♪

emily: you had a complicated and difficult childhood. how did you overcome some of the things you have to go through,

which no kids have to go through? troy: we grew up in a really tough neighborhood. we went to sleep to gunshots every civil night. it was -- every single night. it was regular. my mom worked 30 years at children's hospital in philadelphia. she got up to go to work every day, 5:30 a.m. jar,uld fill up the penny and count them out to be able to put into the bus, so that we could go to school in the morning. we had to boil hot water because we did not have it sometimes. that gave me a drive to really make my family proud. to work really hard. emily: your father spent time in jail for murder. how did you overcome that? troy: that was definitely tough growing up. andhaving a dad there, looking for that figure, that void was always there.

it took a long time for me to kind of really reconcile that. he was arrested, did his time, and came back out, and told his family back together. now, so who grow up many black men in prison right now, so many kids left fatherless, me being able to -- this script is not written. you are able to write the script. i come from where you come from. on my father's side, him being able to show, you know what, this does not need to be your life. what you did in the past doesn't necessarily define who you are in the future. emily: i want to talk about how you discovered music. i know when you are 17, you've tried to be a rapper. troy: i was the biggest hip-hop

fan. i would read all of the liner notes, down to which recording studio. -- where sneak down the records were recorded in, i used to sneak back down where my grandmother's house, she had this old hi-fi stereo, and i would listen to records when everybody was asleep. in ninth grade, i decided we were going to form a rap group. we used to hop the train down to jazzy jeff's studio. literally, for months we would do it. jazzy jeff would peek outside, never let us in. [laughter] one day we ended up being able to get in the studio. will smith was in the studio. we just walked up to him and said, can we play some music? the studio was so small, we had to go outside and do dance moves in the snow. he drove us home that night. emily: will smith drove you home. troy: he drove us home that

night, and he basically told our parents, i have these kids. there are going to be ok. we weren't a great rap group, so our careers were cut short, but will and his manager were kind enough to take me under their wing. --as jazzy just assistant jazzy jeff's assistant, doing everything from car watch, running errands, doing all of these things. i was my entry into the music business. i started promoting concerts. notorious b.i.g. was one of the concerts i promoted. -- p. ter the cash diddy. i ask, what can i do? and he said, my first job is to get him the girl from behind the bar. [laughter] i got in the girl, and three weeks later i was interning at

bad boy entertainment. emily: in 1999, you met eve jeffords. troy: originally, i met her when she was 16 years old. she was my first management client. we had an incredible run. we went from -- the good thing, working with will, i had seen the blueprint of taking an artist who is a rapper, and they can do television, they can do film. my job was jazzy cued on the blueprint. emily: and your relationship ended kind of abruptly, another stumbling block. what happened? wanted to go to another level. at that time, there was not a lot of faith i could get her there. it was a bit of a heartbreaker. you spent eight years with omeebody and you bec really close. economy off guard, top of the financial crisis. emily: you couldn't pay your bills. clean.o, i got wiped

it was a tough 18 months. --ly: but then huge darkhad a sunglasses, fishnet stockings, no pants. we were kindred spirits. emily: no one knew who she was. you could not even get just dance on the radio. you are playing clubs, multiple gigs and night, pounding the pavement. how did you finally breakthrough? troy: she's probably the hardest working artist that i have ever met. you couldn't find an artist who put in more hours, studied the game, studied the craft. from songwriting skills to pia no. she wasn't a dancer when we met. she was behind the piano.

but she worked so hard on the choreography, then she was a dancer. she wanted to compete on the highest level. emily: you started your own social network, little monsters. i wonder how much that helped take her from here to international popstar. troy: you don't need to many artists who really understand digital and social in that manner. her, itt us educating was just as much her educating us. i remember getting a phone call one day of, she was watching the social network movie. she said, i want to start my own social network. couplecourse, i made a of phone calls, it was a collaboration. this is another relationship that ended abruptly for you. what happened? troy: relationships change. and you begin to know what you are really good at. i kind of started looking at us

i'm really great at being an accelerator. we sign you as a kid, we go through 30 years. i don't even know if that is my personal ambition anymore. i think after working with lady gaga, and going through that heartbreak of just, we worked incredibly hard to build this sort of empire, and then all of a sudden, you get snatched out of it -- it was a little disheartening. emily: you now manage john legend, megan trainor. how do you go from the music manager hat, to the tech investor had, and manage yourself? troy: it's all one thing. we are an accelerator that supports artists and entrepreneurs. i'm equally as passionate about both. how does spotify get over

the taylor swift problem? ♪

emily: you were critical in getting the music industry to embrace spotify. how did you do that? troy: the difficult part is, the music industry has been through a lot. we heard the horror stories about these guys are linkages, they are dinosaurs. a lot of the guys who run music labels get a bad rap. industry,echnology and some of the press is insensitive to, is what napster did not just to the industry, but to families. i'm watching people lose their jobs. their kids are taken out of the schools they go to. we are not like the finance industry or even the tech industry, where you go to college, get a degree, and you

have something to fall back on. you don't go to school to be a record promoter, or a concert promoter. a lot of people like myself, we don't have formal educations. i barely got my ged. but when spotify came along, daniel did a really good job at, you know what, let me show you i'm that i am a friend, and going to add value, and my job is going to show people that it is easier to pay for and stream music, then it is to steal it. from there, i became a really big supporter. one, he is a guitar player and musician, and he wasn't a guy trying to steal from artists. emily: give me an example where you said you an artist, this is something that can benefit you. troy: there have been times when i had to get on the phone with really big managers, who have

really big clients, and tell them what the downside was for them leaving their product off of spotify. all of the music is still available on youtube for free. it is still available on piracy services for free. you are missing out on a big audience, and a revenue stream. by the way, you are ignoring the future. hurricane katrina is coming. , and you are staying in the house right now. emily: have you talked to taylor swift? troy: no, i have not talked to taylor swift. emily: how to spot if i need to get over the taylor swift problem? troy: i don't think they need to get over the taylor swift problem as much as it is, people need to see the future. free already exist. it is a flawed argument when you say i don't want my music on any service that offers free, when it already exists. emily: is taylor swift wrong?

is she on the wrong side of history? troy: i won't say it is wrong, but i will say in general, it is a flawed argument. it is more free than it is paid right now. she is an incredible businesswoman, one of the best marketers i have ever seen, and on top of that, incredibly talented. i think she does a lot of things right. but when it comes to this specific argument about -- it is freemium works. if you give people a free option, it is a study that they become paid users. but you have to offer them an entry point. we will see the world becomes streaming world. downloads would not last. look at the data right now. emily: what do you think of apple music? troy: apple radio, every saturday i am listening to it. hands down, one of

the best music experiences. when you have djs like dr. dre. like pharrell, and you are listening to music that inspires them. emily: how do you see the hierarchy between apple music spotify, and tidal, how does it work out? troy: it is very complicated. the streaming market is going to be very competitive. emily: what about tidal? troy: the verdict is still out. i think the intent is great. i would rather see something artists own, then something that is venture backed. i think this statement was

powerful, and you cannot underestimate jay-z. emily: artists are now making the bulk of their money from live events and tours. do you foresee that changing? troy: there will be multiple revenue streams. we will see revenue streams that don't exist. emily: like? troy: ai and vr. when artists can scale themselves -- instead of having to go out and be your body up by months,0 shows over 45 when you can do 120 shows in one vr, andecause of ai and you can create this sort of real experience, where you don't have to be there in the flesh, that is a brand-new revenue stream that never existed before. emily: what is next for troy carter? troy: we are having fun right now.

just the future of support and entrepreneurs and artists. troy carter, entrepreneur accelerator. i really like that. thank you so much for being here. troy: thank you. ♪

♪ yvonne: top stories trending this hour. aussie dollar surges as they unexpectedlye -- add jobs. 71,000 people found jobs working in the unemployment were best rate is down to 5.8%, combined with the october search, more than 130,000 jobs of been added in two months, leaving analysts skeptical. oil has edged higher after asting six year plus lows,

investors weigh the first decline in u.s. stockpiles in 11 weeks. refiners usually drain tanks around now, to reduce the tax burden, which is calculated on supplies at the years and. nd.e saudi arabia leads opec and maintaining output for market share. the first shipment of iron ore, has left western australia, bound for south korea. targeting an is eventual output rate of 55 million metric tons per year, and a time when iron ore prices are at historic lows because of oversupply and slowing demand. the first shipment has been bought by a steel mill. we'll look at what is moving the markets, a very easy day. japanese traders had to lunch. it is a much-needed break for the nikkei 225.