The POZCAST: Career & Life Journeys with Adam Posner

Michael Loeb: A Masterclass: Redefining Venture Capital- Helping Startups Become Billion Dollar Businesses (part 1)

Episode Summary

In this special two part episode of The POZCast, Michael Loeb, Founder & CEO of Loeb.NYC and I cover a ton of ground, focused on what it means to leave a legacy. Michael started his career following his father Marshall Loeb’s footsteps, who was a renowned journalist and editor at Time magazine. Michael favored the business side of the publication, and was known as the “launch boy” within the company. Michael had some early successes, helping conceive fun and intriguing products like the football phone, as well as spearheading the growth and reputation of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. After a failed launch attempt with a new periodical section, and after trying to start a different venture within TIME Inc. Michael was shown the door. This began the era of what Michael calls “the most expensive rehire in history.” Michael would end up continuing to build the idea he had at TIME outside of the company, and ended up building a credit card subscription business called Synapse. He would eventually sell this company back to TIME Inc. for over $800 million, and remained on the team with TIME to help lead the transition. Now, Michael invests both his time and money into entrepreneurs working to establish themselves and their companies. Through Loeb.NYC, alongside business partner Rich Vogel from the days of Synapse, Michael runs a venture studio where he splits his time between a portfolio of disruptive new companies and founders. Michael is an involved operator and financier, something I’ve grown to witness first-hand as I have managed talent for Loeb.NYC over the past year. He’s squarely focused on his personal, familial, and even regional legacy, as we dive into what each of those factors mean to him during this episode.  There’s plenty more to digest in this episode, including Michael’s time building Priceline.com with Jay Walker, so you definitely want to give both parts of this interview and conversation a listen! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review/rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/thepozcast  The POZCast is brought to you by our friends at Interseller - the prospecting + outreach platform of recruiters and sellers. Whether you’re doubling down on business development or recruiting talent, Interseller does all the heavy lifting of finding contact data, automating the email and follow-up process, and syncs all that rich data into 20+ CRMs and ATSs. Reach out and get going in a 2-week *free* trial today and let them know you heard about them from Adam on the POZCast. Check out a free demo today! https://bit.ly/2Fbm/BZ

Episode Notes

2:50 - Venture Capitalist/Bring in your Ideas
4:20 - Michaels' Early Journey to Success
8:19 - Combination of Old School with new Entrepreneur Spirit
10:47 - Michael Loeb at age 36
16:03 - Fear of Letting go!
22:53 -  Helping People for Good
25:05 - Finding Efficiency
26:15 - Invest in Jockey over the horse
36:56 - Entrepreneurship Qualities
39:00 - What keeps Michael up all night