Troy Carter Quotes

Music is one of those businesses in which, if you're talented and hustle hard enough, you can make it - specifically as an entrepreneur. If you look as far back as Berry Gordy, Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, L.A. Reid, and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, there's a whole lineage of successful black entrepreneurs who have built their own companies from scratch.

- Troy Carter

So many black kids aspire to be entertainers or professional athletes because those are the only role models they see that look like them. There are only 300 jobs in the NBA but an endless amount of opportunities as an entrepreneur. With enough hustle, entrepreneurship opens doors to a world of opportunities.

- Troy Carter

The venture capital world is completely stacked against minority entrepreneurs.

- Troy Carter

When you have to negotiate for survival, and you have to know how to read rooms, and you have to know who the bad guys in the rooms are - who has the gun in their pocket, who's just going to brandish it, and who's going to actually pull the trigger. So I think that's just a natural instinct that comes with coming from where I come from.

- Troy Carter

Actors play different characters, so you have to build a new base around each new movie - with few exceptions, most actors don't have a fan base that just follows them around. With musicians, the fan base just goes everywhere they go.

- Troy Carter

Lady Gaga is phenomenal. From the first day I met her, she was lightning in a bottle.

- Troy Carter

You can't make an artist like Lady Gaga. You can help support, you can help develop the vision - I think you can add to the vision - but you just can't make an artist like that. That's like saying Lebron James' high school coach made Lebron James.

- Troy Carter

When I first got pitched on Uber, I thought it was the dumbest idea ever.

- Troy Carter

What I like about Bre.ad is the simplicity of it. When you can explain it to people, like 'five-second billboards in front of a link shortener,' it makes a lot of sense.

- Troy Carter

People are experimenting with streaming, with subscription services, whether it's a Spotify or a Pandora or a Rdio.

- Troy Carter

I think, as an industry, we should be supportive of a broad subscription model and not do anything to jeopardize the potential health of the music business - because we're not out of the woods yet.

- Troy Carter

If you wake up in the morning and your favorite artist isn't on the service that you're paying ten dollars a month for, sooner or later you lose faith in the subscription model.

- Troy Carter

When you look at how technology companies are funded, it's not a zero-sum game. It could be 20 investors in one company, and everybody has to work together for the benefit of that company.

- Troy Carter

The way it works is the manager's sort of, you know, is like the hub of an artist's career.

- Troy Carter

I thought I was going to be a rapper as a kid and used to hop the train down to Jazzy Jeff's studio for, like, six months straight waiting outside of the studio for the big break, and one day we got in the studio and played our demo for Will and Jeff and quickly learned that we weren't that good.

- Troy Carter

I was Jazzy Jeff's assistant.

- Troy Carter

I came up with Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Those guys, they took me under their wing at an early age.

- Troy Carter

I had this little rap group, and we were called '2 Too Many'... We used to hang out in front of Jazzy Jeff's record studio every day.

- Troy Carter

She was a performance artist calling herself Lady Gaga, who had a European dance-club sound and pop-star aspirations - elements that historically haven't mixed.

- Troy Carter

We called ourselves '2 Too Many' because we only had enough money for one of us.

- Troy Carter

Being born in the adolescent years of hip hop helped us learn about flux. And when you're in an industry that is constantly growing, changing, maturing... you get a chance to try different things out and a chance to fail.

- Troy Carter

You're basically competing with the same exact product. Coke and Pepsi are at least in different cans. Lyft and Uber drivers are just swapping out the mustache for the U on the dashboard, depending on which one they're getting the call on.

- Troy Carter

I invest in black-led startups not because of a sense of charity. I make those investments because of the basic principle of supply and demand and the reality that black entrepreneurs typically lack the network to have their deals become bid up and overvalued.

- Troy Carter

As we look at Hollywood and the controversy around the Oscars, it goes back to the voting block and the lack of people who come from that culture. For example, the NWA movie is a fantastic, fantastic movie. You need people who can look at a piece of art like that and understand the artistry in it.

- Troy Carter

Technology has long been the driver of growth in the music business from the invention of lacquers, eight-track players, vinyl, cassettes and CDs.

- Troy Carter

The problem with when you look at eBay is that you can put a pair of Jordans next to a frying pan. It's an altogether different experience compared to having some editorial around it and well-curated experience.

- Troy Carter

GaGa is a digital baby - that's how they communicate. There cant be any layers between the artists and their fans.

- Troy Carter

I'm a very commonsense guy - I just look at the viability of the idea, if I feel the team has the ability to execute the idea. I also look at the investment syndicate, the size of the market, and then a lot of gut married on top of it.

- Troy Carter

I found a scrap book that my mom had given to me, and inside was a letter that I wrote to myself at age 19. The letter included my goals and dreams for my life, and even then, I was writing about the management company that I built today.

- Troy Carter

There's less clutter in the beverage category than in the music category. A lot less clutter.

- Troy Carter

The primary plan is to let the music speak for itself.

- Troy Carter

There was a time when radio stations wouldn't play Gaga's music because it was considered dance. Outside of live performances, the Internet became our primary tool to help people discover her music.

- Troy Carter

My third hire when I came to Spotify was Tiffany Kumar, who came on as our global head of songwriter relations. The whole idea was to put our heads together and figure out how to build and contribute within the songwriting community.

- Troy Carter

Spotify was one of the first services that actually focuses on the consumer because they don't have to spend hundreds of dollars a year on music.

- Troy Carter

With the 'Born This Way' album, generally we said, how do we find strategic partners that can help us with our vision? Part of that is about putting the music in places people wouldn't normally put music, like with Google and with Gilt.

- Troy Carter

A lot of corporations now have venture arms that are investing in young entrepreneurs or building programs within so you can disrupt yourself internally instead of looking to those external factors.

- Troy Carter

I'm from the streets, so I look at investing through a very unique lens.

- Troy Carter

The only two things that ever came naturally to me are music and investing.

- Troy Carter

Mattel stepped up and changed the face of Barbie. Barbie looks a lot different than she did decades ago. Or even three weeks ago.

- Troy Carter

People don't buy horses to ride around any more for transportation. I just think the world changes. As a business, we have to make the proper adjustments.

- Troy Carter

When we look at transportation in America, there's going to be companies like Magic Bus, where you have these private bus fleets. You're going to have carpooling; you're going to have these different types of transportation. It's going to be a full ecosystem, but it's not going to be a winner-takes-all.

- Troy Carter

It's more important to have the one million diehard fans than to have 54 million people who aren't necessarily fans, or they might have liked one thing you said or one video.

- Troy Carter

Coming from the music business and seeing the transition from artists to fans, fans to consumers, it's really about understanding the psychology of why people want to associate with your brand.

- Troy Carter

What's important for that person on the other side of the table, and what's important for the client?

- Troy Carter

In the future, an artist will be able to perform for the entire world in one date. For the fan, it will be a fully immersive experience - through a pair of glasses or whatever the device.

- Troy Carter

I'd like to open doors for underserved communities and minorities in entrepreneurship.

- Troy Carter

Backplane will provide a platform and tools for communities to socialize and communicate on a more focused level.

- Troy Carter

In order to continue the growth, we have to go back to embracing technology and the way that people choose to consume music.

- Troy Carter

To me, as A&R people and as managers, we're in the business of finding talent. It's no different than working with these engineers who just want to make good products.

- Troy Carter

When we're looking at strategic partners, it may be that they're larger partners or big corporations or start-ups. But, when you look at Gilt and places like Amazon and Starbucks, they're all places where it's a lot of foot traffic or digital traffic.

- Troy Carter

I like to compare the attitude and energy of an emerging start-up to that of the early hip-hop era. From working at labels like Bad Boy and Ruff Ryders, walking into the Def Jam offices, A Touch of Jazz and things like that, the vibe is that off making something out of nothing and making things work, and that's what I love about start-ups.

- Troy Carter

We look to find partners whose values align with that of our artists. We also look for unique platforms that the potential branding partner can provide. Sometimes that's distribution, and sometimes it's an advertising platform. Each situation is unique.

- Troy Carter

Money doesn't make me tick. This definition of success doesn't make me tick. Managing some of the biggest stars in the world doesn't make me tick. Making my family proud makes me tick.

- Troy Carter

I don't think we're out there aggressively looking for deals. Our strategy is that business follows the creative. We're not out there scouring the marketplace for opportunities.

- Troy Carter

To me, mentorships and internships are two big pillars in business development. I believe in having multiple mentors.

- Troy Carter

I didn't go to business school. I actually didn't even graduate high school. I ended up with a GED. So everything that I've learned in business, I've learned through experience.

- Troy Carter

I was brought onboard to strengthen the bridge between Spotify and the music community.

- Troy Carter

I think overall, and this isn't specific to Spotify or any streaming service or any label... when you consider the overall value chain of the music industry and how important the songwriter is to the business - I think there needs to be another look at the value chain.

- Troy Carter

When you think about brands and movie studios and everybody who is trying to reach millennials, having a captive audience in the back of Lyft or an Uber is a pretty great place.

- Troy Carter

I invested in Uber in 2011 when it was only in San Francisco.

- Troy Carter

You go into the venues, and there's a huge drop-off rate in the merch lines. People don't want to miss parts of the concert.

- Troy Carter

The more people are listening to music and experiencing it, the more value for both the music companies and the artist, especially when their financial model is built around that . With the music industry, everybody is starting to understand that doesn't begin with a piece of music.

- Troy Carter

I grew up carrying crates of records for Will Smith and those guys.

- Troy Carter

When you sit down with Zynga and Google, and they talk about billions of impressions, you think, music has way more of an emotional connection than technology, but we haven't cracked the code.

- Troy Carter

Spotify favors hits. It's very much a meritocracy: It's not like radio, where whatever is being played is what you hear. We offer songs up, and from there, it's up to consumers to stream the music or not.

- Troy Carter

Hustle is simple - it's doing the work. A lot of people like to talk about it, a lot of people have ideas, but it's difficult to actually do the work.

- Troy Carter

As important as hustle is, grit and resilience are equally as important because there's a lot of rejection in our business.

- Troy Carter

With Gaga - she's not afraid to take chances. You get these dynamic projects because of it. She's completely unafraid.

- Troy Carter

My biggest frustration is the lack of scale in the music industry. The fact that no one has sold 100 million copies of an album is frustrating.

- Troy Carter

The most successful people in the world are the ones who thought of that idea that was 'too crazy to work.'

- Troy Carter

I said, 'Who said African American founders can't build a billion dollar company?'

- Troy Carter

Hip hop is a multi-billion dollar business, and it was built off an opportunity that nobody else saw because they didn't understand the culture.

- Troy Carter

You have a huge demographic shift that's happening in America. Globally.

- Troy Carter

I believe in outgrowing a mentor and getting a new one, and I think that you can never be too old to be schooled by your mentor.

- Troy Carter

Music as a whole industry is growing exponentially, but in terms of the actual music file, when you look at the actual value there, to me, 'The Beatles' catalog should be worth more than Spotify.

- Troy Carter

The music industry really has to learn a lesson from the tech industry about what scale means at the end of the day and learning how to monetize.

- Troy Carter

The music industry really is a meritocracy on a creative level.

- Troy Carter

I don't think holograms are the future in the music industry.

- Troy Carter

If a kid goes and buys a CD at Best Buy, we have no idea who the person is, how many times they listen to it, or anything like that.

- Troy Carter

Fifty-one million likes doesn't mean we're going to sell 51m albums or concert tickets.

- Troy Carter

On the artist side, we made a significant investment in very young artists from the very beginning of their careers and helped them become global superstars.

- Troy Carter

Before I even agreed to work with Hennessy and the Privilege Awards, I wanted to do some research on it, look up past winners, and find out more about it.

- Troy Carter

Exclusives are bad for artists, bad for consumers, and bad for the whole industry.

- Troy Carter

The way consumers interact with music is different now. It's not an albums business anymore; it's a singles business again, and the industry has gone through that before.

- Troy Carter

Being schooled is the same thing as learning, and you can never be too old to have your coattail pulled when you're wrong about something.

- Troy Carter

That's all I ever wanted to do in my life was music. And because I was a failed artist, I was actually able to help somebody accomplish their dream was, you know, definitely fulfilling.

- Troy Carter

Technology is going to play a huge part in tomorrow's music business. And the companies that will win are going to be the most equipped to understand how to use data to further an artist's career.

- Troy Carter

I bring in the record label who distributes the music.

- Troy Carter

I still have a day job, so I don't think I'll be a full-time Shark, but if they ever invited me back, I'd be more than happy to do it.

- Troy Carter

When your back is against the wall, your brain has to function at a high level.

- Troy Carter

My mom was not able to buy us the expensive Air Jordans, so if I wanted something that was a little bit nicer, my brother and I, we had to go earn money for it.

- Troy Carter

I am inspired by the diversity of the entrepreneurs that come into 'Shark Tank' and the ability of the show to reach all Americans.

- Troy Carter

Once we started making investments, we realized the same service we provided to artists was applicable to entrepreneurs as well.

- Troy Carter

Now we know that if we make a ten min video for YouTube, people will watch it.

- Troy Carter

It's pre-roll or post-roll on Vevo. The record company makes money off of that, and then it trickles down.

- Troy Carter

There are not a lot of black men in the pop business.

- Troy Carter

When I started Atom Factory, the idea was to do something small yet powerful. That name resonated with the mission.

- Troy Carter

I think piracy itself is going to end up going away.

- Troy Carter

Our bet is on the future of micronetworks.

- Troy Carter

No one has bridged that gap between music and technology yet.

- Troy Carter

I was just a kid in love with hip hop music. I love music. I love the culture. I wanted to be a part of it in any way.

- Troy Carter

If you look at a company like Uber, a company that so anti-establishment that cab companies are trying to find ways to shut it down, one could compare that to how Public Enemy and NWA went after then-modern society in hip hop.

- Troy Carter

With what Enrou was doing with helping women and taking products from local marketplaces, we thought it was really great.

- Troy Carter

It's always boiled down to the quality of your music and the quality of your deal with whoever's distributing your music: There are artists who sold a lot of records and didn't make money because of their deal, and artists who didn't sell nearly as much who made a great living because they own their masters.

- Troy Carter

I stay away from the arts... writing songs, being creative - those are downloads from God. You can't do data analytics on art.

- Troy Carter

There were a lot of stereotypes that I had to break of how people in the entertainment industry do business.

- Troy Carter

Priyanka and Red One made a great record that we think will stand on its own. People won't buy the music just because she is who she is. We want them to buy it because it's good.

- Troy Carter

I come from a place where when you shake someone's hand, it is a deal.

- Troy Carter

It isn't that every company is going to be successful. The law of averages shows that 80% of companies are going to fail.

- Troy Carter