Don’t be boring

Note: Transcripts are automatically generated from episode audio, and are not fully corrected for spelling, grammar, and formatting.

JENNIFER FERRO: We don’t assume, oh, we’re public radio, so we should be a little bit boring.

There’s the broccoli and the chocolate cake. We try to lean toward the chocolate cake.

JEFF BERMAN: Well, sometimes your broccoli is just with a really nice cheese on top or something like that, right?

FERRO: That’s true. Exactly.

The founder of KCRW, she was a person who really didn’t care what other people thought of her. It’s a superpower in making decisions. We fought all the time. I realized later that was her love language. I would leave every day and go, “Oh, I’m going to get fired.”

Literally every other aspect of media is controlled by the new kind of almost oligarchs of the world. We’re not here to make money, to sell your data, or to get you to buy something. We’re just giving you information and trying to make your life better.

Copy LinkInterview with Creative Planning’s Chief Investment Officer

BERMAN: Hey, folks. Jeff Berman here. Before we start the show, I’m thrilled to welcome my friend Jamie Battmer, chief investment officer of Creative Planning, one of the sponsors of our show. Creative Planning is one of the country’s largest independent wealth management firms, where a single team of advisors, tax specialists, and estate planners all work from one coordinated plan. Jamie, welcome to the show.

JAMIE BATTMER: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

BERMAN: Jamie, when you meet a new client, founder, or business owner, what does their advisor setup usually look like?

BATTMER: Maybe a few investment people. They have it spread out with a few firms. Then they have a tax person they’ve been working with, or a tax team, and then an estate planning team they’ve been working with. What we’ve done is bring those all under one roof with dedicated subject-matter experts within each space.

BERMAN: I have to imagine that there’s also a set of hidden costs when you have advisors who don’t really talk to each other. What do those costs look like that people may not even recognize?

BATTMER: It’s just friction costs. You’re not moving along as efficiently as you can be. If there’s not clear communication between those entities, you’re missing stuff. You’re missing the closest thing to free money the markets will give you.

BERMAN: Can I ask you to share a real-world example of a client who came to you after fragmented advice and counsel led to a costly mistake?

BATTMER: We had a family that was domiciled at one point in Delaware. That made total sense when it was set up over a decade ago. Now, as things have changed, they should be farther out west in Nevada. For this particular entity, it was a nearly $70 million mistake.

BERMAN: Oof.

BATTMER: But the thing is, the person who did this for them didn’t make the wrong decision in real time. They took care of it, and then they left. The idea is constantly looking at it. That’s where we can add value. This team is looking to analyze every element of their financial life and make an empirically optimized decision, and that gives people extraordinary peace of mind. They know they’re going to have individuals who focus on this stuff all day long and not focus on trying to sell people bad stocks.

BERMAN: What is your mission? Why are you guys doing this work?

BATTMER: Focusing on what we can control, looking at everything, doing it right, not having a conflict of interest, and helping people and entities fulfill the dreams they want to give to their family and give to charities. That’s the most fantastic reward you can have, and that’s the why behind it.

BERMAN: I deeply appreciate how mission-driven you are in that. Thank you so much for being with us, Jamie. It’s such a pleasure to talk with you. Now on to the show.

This is Masters of Scale. I’m Jeff Berman, your host, and I am so excited to be in Los Angeles today with my new friend, Jennifer Ferro. Jennifer, I’m thrilled to have you with us, as you’ve been leading KCRW, a legendary public media institution, through unprecedented, complex times with grace and grit and heart. We have so much to discuss. Welcome to Masters of Scale.

FERRO: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Copy LinkStarting a career by following curiosity

BERMAN: How did you start your career coming out of college?

FERRO: Well, I think career is a really big word for what it was. I needed a job, so I worked for a criminal defense attorney during the kind of war on drugs and worked as a legal secretary and a paralegal.

BERMAN: What was it like being a paralegal back in the early ’90s, in that war on drugs era?

FERRO: It was a very big education on the way the world really works, especially for people who don’t have money and who are doing what they felt they needed to do to survive, and how they were swept up in a lot of politics.

BERMAN: As you know, and as our regular listeners know, I started my career as a public defender, and one of the most valuable lessons for me from my five years doing that work is how to fight when you are radically underresourced. You’re going up against one of the most powerful forces in the world, and you are so radically underresourced that you just have to be scrappy. It’s almost the best possible training for startup life.

FERRO: That’s true. And also, you have to get over the fact that things aren’t fair.

BERMAN: Yeah.

FERRO: Which I think is really important. When you’re raised a certain way or you look at the world a certain way, you’re just like, “But wait, that’s not fair.”

Copy LinkHow volunteering opened the door at KCRW

BERMAN: So how did you make the jump from a paralegal to a local criminal defense lawyer to KCRW? It’s not the obvious step.

FERRO: Yeah. I would listen to KCRW. I loved KCRW. I was like, “Wow, this is where smart people hang out,” and I wanted to be where smart people were. So I started volunteering at KCRW, and KCRW at that time had a very robust volunteer program.

So a lot of jobs were done by volunteers, really devoted people. Just being around people who were so welcoming and kind and really committed to good things, I was like, “This is where I want to be.” I quit, and I started volunteering full time at KCRW, and I was like, “Something will happen.”

BERMAN: How did you transition from being a volunteer at KCRW to actually being on staff there?

FERRO: Okay, well, another kind of ridiculous story. As part of doing odd jobs to make rent, I got hired by the general manager and the founder of KCRW to transcribe this radio show.

BERMAN: And for our younger audience, there was no AI back then. We’re not dealing with AI being able to transcribe in real time. Literally, you are doing the transcription.

FERRO: Yes.

FERRO: It was manual. But I had used my credit card and bought a laptop on a cash advance. This was when Apple laptops were new. When I went into Ruth Seymour’s office, the founder, and I shared this report I did, she saw my laptop and was like, “What is that?” And I’m like, “Oh, this is a laptop.” She was so impressed with it. So anyway, we talked. I left her office, and her assistant walked in and sat down and said, “I’m moving to the Peace Corps. I’m going to Cameroon, and I’m quitting.” So she said, “Oh my God, I need an assistant. Go get that girl with the laptop.” She sent someone to run down after me, and she offered me a job right on the spot to be her assistant.

BERMAN: And what’d you say?

FERRO: Well, at first I said, “I don’t want to be an assistant. I don’t want to be a secretary. I went to college.” But then I thought, “Who am I kidding? I have no other prospects, and I love this place.”

So I took the job.

Copy LinkLeadership lessons from Ruth Seymour

BERMAN: How long were you Ruth’s assistant?

FERRO: Just two years, because I had that same conversation with her where I said, “Look, I didn’t go to college to be an assistant. I have to go start a career, so I’m gonna leave.” Then she said, “Well, what if you stayed here? What would you do?”

And I said, “Oh, you need a number two,” because people were really afraid of her. I was not. So people would come and talk to me, and I would kind of whisper to her, figure her out. And she’s like, “Okay, yeah, you can do that.”

BERMAN: That’s a new job in the legacy organization.

FERRO: Yeah.

BERMAN: How did it work?

FERRO: All credit to her, RIP, but she not only built this really unusual entity, KCRW, she also was so welcoming to me. We fought all the time. I realized later that was her love language. I would leave every day and go, “Oh, I’m gonna get fired,” you know? But she liked that, because she liked people to tell the truth to her. She’s so smart, with a big personality, and people would cower from her. But I was too young to understand that I should be doing that to keep my job. So she would keep me in on every decision. She would sit me in her office and tell me these stories, and sometimes I’d think, “This is my job, listening to her tell these tales.” However, what I realize now is I may not have had that phrase, “a seat at the table,” but I was in the room for everything, and I started to learn how she made decisions and why. It was invaluable.

BERMAN: How long did you do that?

FERRO: I think 16 years.

BERMAN: That’s a long time.

FERRO: I know. Yeah.

BERMAN: You strike me as someone who doesn’t lack for ambition, in a good way. I don’t say that critically at all. Why was it comfortable doing that job for 16 years?

FERRO: It’s such a unique space. It is the largest door opener to culture in Los Angeles: music, food, politics, policy, anything. If you’re interested in anything, KCRW is a door opener for you to learn more about it, and I’m addicted to that. I’m a really curious person. I love to learn things myself personally, and it was also a place where I could have a big effect. I felt like I was able to make things happen. I think KCRW is just so singular.

Copy LinkHow KCRW blends culture with public service

BERMAN: How big is KCRW now? How many employees do you have?

FERRO: We have about 140.

BERMAN: What makes KCRW different from other public radio stations? Because you’re right. Whether it’s going back to Jonathan Gold, the iconic Los Angeles food critic, or it’s Left, Right, and Center, KCRW has made such a mark not just in LA but nationally with the programs that it has created, produced and distributed.

FERRO: I think it comes from this notion that we don’t put ourselves in any kind of box. We don’t assume, “Oh, we’re public radio, so we should be a little bit boring.” I think a lot of public radio shifted, and I’m glad they did, and I’m really supportive of it, but there’s this really big focus on journalism with a capital J and being the local news source and kind of replacing the newspaper in a lot of towns, which, again, is absolutely valuable and critical. But I think what happened in that transition is we forgot about all the other parts of the newspaper that people used to read.

Some of them were playing games or reading comics so they could laugh, or finding out which movies to see and where to eat and things like that. That’s the part that KCRW really embraces because we know that people want that. So there’s the broccoli and the chocolate cake. We try to lean toward the chocolate cake.

BERMAN: Well, and sometimes your broccoli just has a really nice cheese on top or something like that, right?

FERRO: That’s true. Exactly.

BERMAN: So much of this is touch and taste. What has made KCRW so good at being successful over and over again, particularly across categories, which is extremely rare for a media organization to do?

FERRO: The thing that Ruth Seymour taught me was that she was a person who really didn’t care what other people thought of her, which is a superpower.

BERMAN: Yeah.

FERRO: It’s also not so great sometimes, but it’s a superpower in making decisions. When it comes to talent and work product or artistic expression, it can be really hard to tell someone, “This isn’t meeting the mark,” you know? But I think having that feeling and that culture of knowing this is important, and you have to make hard decisions sometimes, and you have to move on from things that didn’t work out and try new things. So I think it’s that dedication to being really honest. We can all tell ourselves that, “Well, this show’s interesting because it’s about the environment,” or whatever, but it’s really kind of a bore. It’s powerful to be able to say, “This is boring.”

Copy LinkAdapting from radio audience to community

BERMAN: Yeah. When you started at KCRW, radio was radio. As the medium of radio has evolved to be radio plus podcasting plus video plus Lord knows what else, how have you adapted, and how has KCRW adapted, to meet the changing moment?

FERRO: Yeah, well, that’s a big one. It’s probably our biggest challenge ever. I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit about federal funding and stuff like that as a challenge, but I think the biggest challenge is this audience shift. Like you said, when radio was radio, there was a finite number of stations and possibilities, and if you wanted to consume media, you had two choices: maybe five television stations and, in LA, maybe 80 radio stations. And when you were in the car, that was your only live media that was available to you and easy to use. So now it’s really about changing from the focus being on making the media to really building the community. And I think for us, because we are supported by members, we do care about who’s in our audience. We want people who will actually love us enough to support us. The focus now is really on what we’re doing that can build a community that will stay together and care about you enough to support you when there are so many choices.

BERMAN: OK, so let’s go back. Sixteen years as assistant GM to Ruth. What happens that you take the GM title?

FERRO: Well, Ruth Seymour retired, so that was the main thing. I had to apply and win the job. But she did something really powerful. She said, “I’m not going to sit on the board. I’m going to disappear because I want the next person to take over this place and have the same freedom that I had.” That was what she gifted to me, so that was fantastic. I think a lot of times founders will stay on a board. She was like, “No, I’m not going to do that.” And she didn’t call me. She just said, “If you need me, call me, but I’m not going to call you.” It was a huge gift to me.

BERMAN: What was the biggest thing that you changed from Ruth’s era when you came into the leadership job?

FERRO: I was going to say I was a lot nicer, so that was…

BERMAN: I think that may be the answer. Hey, folks, if you’re enjoying this episode of Masters of Scale, then I would highly recommend you join us for the Masters of Scale Summit this October 20 to 22 in San Francisco. Each year’s summit features some of the most iconic names in business, technology and culture sharing with us what it takes to lead in unprecedented times, and this year may be our strongest stage yet. Kara Swisher, Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince, Netflix’s Reed Hastings, Tubi’s Anjali Sud, Replit’s Amjad Masad, futurist Amy Webb, author Adam Grant, alongside our very own Reid Hoffman. Be in the room this year to hear what it means to lead with agency and build the future we want to see. Join us. Visit mastersofscale.com/summit.

Copy LinkWhy public media matters in a fractured world

We live in an era of unprecedented — at least because of the means by which it can be communicated — misinformation and disinformation. We’re dealing with propaganda spreading at a rate that the world has never seen before. How do you think about KCRW’s role in countering that?

FERRO: Yeah, I think it’s really important. We’ve talked before about the change in audience behavior and the fact that people have many other choices, and radio is not a growth medium. It’s a very valuable and powerful medium, but it’s not where you’re going to find or attract your new audience. But I think that’s where KCRW’s transition has been the most powerful: really understanding ourselves as this community resource, and not just for LA but for all of the country. The brand of public radio is one where you know these are people committed to serving the community. That’s it. We’re not here to make money, to sell your data or to get you to buy something. We’re just giving you information and trying to make your life better. In a world where literally every other aspect of media is controlled by the new kind of almost oligarchs of the world, it’s powerful to have that and to know it exists. And I think what we watch is listening behavior changing, or habits changing. So maybe people aren’t with us every single day, but those who know us know they can completely and implicitly trust us. Having those things in the world is more critical than ever right now because you just don’t know where to turn. Whatever channel you’re consuming media on, it can be manipulated or has been manipulated. Having public media in the country is critical as a backstop, as a place that you can turn to find out what’s real.

BERMAN: Yeah. And you’ve got this weird paradox where, on the one hand, you’re labeled by some parties as quote-unquote “state media,” and on the other hand you’re dealing with a massive federal funding battle, which I have to imagine has impacted you to some extent. How do you deal with that tension?

FERRO: Well, I think the great thing is that we were never state media. And I think when you look at the original Public Broadcasting Act that Johnson passed, this was for the good of the country. The language that’s in there is so powerful when you think about it in today’s world, which is to elevate voices that aren’t heard, to be this resource for the country. I have a colleague who’s no longer in public media, but he used to say, “We need a public internet. There’s public television, public radio — we need a public internet.” And when he first said it, I was like, “What are you talking about? The internet is public.” But it’s not public, right? It’s controlled and owned and manipulated by others. And I do think that we need these spaces like public parks and public libraries, where they are here for the good of the people. We still have that mentality 100 percent, and we’re probably more devoted to that than ever, without federal funding. And what federal funding did was, it was 5 percent of our budget. It was like 30 percent of a place like Marfa Public Radio in Marfa, Texas, which is a tiny community, but the radio signals cover 30,000 square miles, and they reach people with literally no media and no cell service. So why not have something that actually serves everyone? It’s incredible.

We’re more devoted, like I said, than ever. And frankly, there’s something freeing about not having the federal funding because you don’t have to be in that conversation anymore, because the charges about public media being liberal are really old. It used to be focused on Big Bird, and then it got focused on NPR. But it really couldn’t be more true. I think the notion of what liberal is, is ultimately being open and interested and curious about lots of different ideas. That is kind of the opposite of the word conservative. So I think that’s where public media has always been. But when you think about the contributions that it’s made to America and society, I mean, I was a kid who grew up on Sesame Street. I learned all kinds of things before I got to kindergarten. How amazing to take a media that could turn children into little monsters, but also can turn children into these completely educated, interested little beings. It’s powerful.

So yeah, I think the federal funding thing — it’s a relief to be out of the political football and spending time on the Hill and talking to Republicans and saying, “You know that we represent your community, and your voice gets on this channel, and you’re talking to your voters.” And privately, they would say, “Oh, I know. It’s really important to me.” But publicly, they’d toe this line that said we were biased and things like that.

BERMAN: Yeah, I mean, this idea that concepts such as inclusivity and kindness and fairness are radical leftist ideas that are being promulgated by this dangerous entity of public media is sort of insane.

FERRO: Yeah.

BERMAN: These are neither liberal nor conservative concepts. These are deeply rooted concepts across our society. Jen, a few years ago, you took on an additional challenge of chairing the NPR board of directors. You seem like you have a pretty full plate. Why did you decide to do that?

FERRO: Well, I was on the board for a number of years, and when you criticize something, you should just run it and do it yourself. So anyway, it was an opportunity to, I think, build cohesion in our public radio system at a time when we were under huge challenges. You know, it’s funny: inside our system, we think we’re really different. Of course, we’re not, right? People think NPR and public radio are interchangeable terms, KCRW interchangeable, but yet individually, it can be like herding cats. I saw that what we were approaching was a big leadership change at NPR and increasing Republican attacks against our brand, our industry, everything. So I was very interested in trying to build something that could hopefully lead NPR and public radio to a better place.

BERMAN: Jen, the federal funding cut is one thing. To your point, if it’s 5 percent of your budget and you have a large base, you can probably find a way to make up for that with some pain but not too much difficulty. If you are Marfa, Texas, and you cover 30,000 square miles, and it’s 30 percent of your budget, boy, that sounds like a much tougher putt. What has happened across the member station universe since the federal funding cut?

FERRO: I mean, what we’re seeing happen, first of all, there was a big fundraising effort outside, kind of adjacent to our industry that ended up creating this bridge fund that allowed a lot of stations two years of runway. So that was really huge, and a lot of big foundations nationally came in to support that. So we haven’t seen the kind of market forces that we would have seen normally by the September of that one year when we lost the funding. But what we’re starting to see is the large stations. So there’s probably like 12 to 15 stations that have budgets larger than $15 million.

There’s a lot of very tiny stations. But the larger ones are looking at regional leadership, stepping into work with all the other stations in their state to figure out how they could provide either back-end services or acquisitions, or something like that, that allows us to have that same kind of public service coverage across the country but takes away some of the expenses they maybe don’t have to spend. So we’re starting to see that now. I don’t know what that will look like. The thing that I think will happen soon is the notion that you can work really hard to protect what you used to have, or you can look at the other big forces happening around you and say, “OK, how can we adapt to those?”

BERMAN: Jen, let’s fast-forward a couple of years. We’ve had a paradigm shift in federal government, and Republicans and Democrats come together and say, “You know what? This was a mistake. We really should be funding public media in the U.S. much more robustly.” Would you say yes?

FERRO: I mean, yes, I would, even though I have issues with it. But yeah, I think America deserves to have a source of information and a community resource that is funded and supported for everyone. The amount of money that public radio and public television got from the federal government was like budget dust. It was insignificant. And I think, as a matter of principle, just like we have public libraries and public parks, we should have public media, a source that you know is not manipulated by AI, is not controlled by some oligarch. Yeah, we deserve that. So I’m adamant about it. Yes, let’s do it. As much as it was a pain in the butt, I don’t think we should give up on that.

And I think one thing that’s really interesting is when that rescission effort happened. So remember, this rescission effort for USAID and public radio happened at the same time, and it was supposed to be the canary in the coal mine and the beginning of many, many rescissions to come. We have not seen any yet. But what was interesting was public television and public radio lobbied so hard with all of our representatives, which include many Republicans. We were almost going to defeat that in the House. That was going to be defeated in the House, but four Democrats did not show up to vote. And when Republicans saw that they weren’t going to pass it, they switched sides. It was unprecedented in this environment right now because so many Republicans understood their constituents, and they know people are like, “I want my kids to see Big Bird. I want to learn things about the world, and I want to hear the voices of my community.” So I think there’s an opportunity to make something really powerful with this spirit. Do I think it’s going to happen? I do not. I mean, Roe v. Wade has been overturned for how long now? And that hasn’t come back, even though a majority of the country actually supports that.

BERMAN: Yeah.

FERRO: So I don’t think Congress can actually do anything like this.

BERMAN: Not yet. Not yet.

FERRO: Not yet, but I’ll try. I’m going to keep trying, go down the Hill, and keep doing it.

BERMAN: Keep hope alive.

FERRO: Keep doing it.

Copy LinkWhat a healthier public internet could look like

BERMAN: Jen, I have a 16-year-old who is extremely online, and thank goodness he is quite media literate because he’ll assert something, and I’ll ask him his source, and he now knows that TikTok is not a source. The account on TikTok might be. If it’s KCRW on TikTok, that’s one thing. But we live in this world where the now trillion-dollar companies that control these algorithms are incentivized to drive engagement, and engagement happens more when we are outraged and inflamed and cortisol is spiking. And yet fact-based media, a lot of the places where, this should be redundant, but objective truth lives, and I do believe that’s such a thing, it’s harder to engage people that way. So when you talk about, for example, public internet or new paradigms, we’re sort of giving you a magic wand and huge power. What would you design so that we, as Americans, are engaging more with fact-based media and less with the outrage machine?

FERRO: I mean, first of all, I think that fact-based media needs to spend a lot of money on marketing.

BERMAN: Call it something other than fact-based media.

FERRO: Yes, yes.

BERMAN: Maybe you’ll start there.

FERRO: That does not sound good. It doesn’t sound like chocolate cake in any way. And I think that, again, on the side that we can control, we have to make a product that’s just as interesting and exciting. But on the other side, I do believe that the companies and the organizations that control these pipelines, that can manipulate in positive or negative ways, owe it to society to create a space that is free from that. If they are going to own the pipes and they’re going to hold on to that ownership, then there does need to be a space that we can have for people that is designed not to harm.

I think the whole thing should be like that, but that’s out the window. It doesn’t necessarily generate the same amount of revenue. And then I think this notion of a public pipeline, a public internet, is a really interesting concept. Again, it’s hard to get people to move off platforms, et cetera. But I think just having that shows that you care about the people that you lead. And I do think it’s interesting watching media change. On the radio side, we’re controlled by the FCC. It is an agency of the government, and it has rules and standards, and we can violate them and lose our privilege. I don’t see that anywhere in today’s modern pipelines, and I don’t think it’s been for the good.

I think we can all point to something that shows, wow, no one’s minding this store. We’re just OK with letting children see these things or letting people, in a sense, get poisoned by some stuff. I mean, there are lots of great things. I love looking at squirrel houses on Instagram. I’m so down for that. But there’s also a lot of really negative stuff. Once society throws their children to the wolves, it’s like, is this really where we want to be? And I think a government’s role is to protect.

BERMAN: Yeah, I mean, it’s complicated in so many ways, right? But when you and I were growing up, we had three or potentially four television networks, and you had the nightly news. In our house, we had NBC and Tom Brokaw on. When I was much younger, it was Walter Cronkite and CBS. And you got what felt like the news. This was what mattered in the world, and the reality is it is what a bunch of men who look a lot like me decided was relevant to the world and was presented through their lens.

And so part of the promise of the internet and of this massive fragmentation of media is this diversity of viewpoints and news and information, opinions that never would have made their way onto Tom Brokaw’s broadcast making it to your device. The downside is everything else that we’re dealing with, which is pretty extreme. And so what I hear you advocating for is almost a third way, which is: sure, let a thousand flowers bloom. Let 100 million flowers bloom. And let’s also have a corridor where there is a more trusted set of data coming through, and maybe a more modulated, if not moderated, set of data coming through. Is that how you would say it?

FERRO: Yeah, definitely. And I also think that there are lots of things in the world that have public parts and private parts. There’s bookstores and there are libraries, and both coexist really nicely, and people make decisions based on what they need. I don’t know. I don’t want to be a big advocate of government regulation necessarily, but I do feel that our society is better when we have spaces that are designed just to make people’s lives better. That’s it.

And if that means healthcare for some, if it means preschool for others, or opportunities for free education, those are good things for society in general, and that’s what I would love to have. And then, in order to scale that, I think the people who are making the media that’s on those platforms have to make it good. And I think just because it’s public doesn’t mean it needs to be boring.

BERMAN: Well, that sounds like a perfect place to wrap. Thank you for being on Masters of Scale.

FERRO: Oh yeah, absolutely. This was so fun.