Heroes in Business - David Traub Interview

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

David Traub the executive producer of the JOBS movie is interviewed by David Cogan of the Eliances Heroes show on Money Radio amfm.They discuss the film industry, how he came to work on the project chronicling Apple founder Steve Jobs' life, and what it takes to have a successful career in Hollywood. Traub also produced feature films THE BRONX BULL and ON THE ROAD WITH BB KING. His first film was LAWNMOWER MAN starring Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey. He currently is working on a project involving holographic character capture and volumentric video.

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. Now, back to our super host, David Kogan, founder of Alliances. Thank you again, Money Radio. That's right, this show is about heroes, those that are making a difference, those that are hiring, those that are building the community, those that are bringing entertainment. And we just had the star from the reality TV show, Hardcore Pawn, Seth Gold. Later on, we're going to be having the comedian who has performed on all late night shows

and even for President Obama and we'll be ending the show with the famous TV doctor on VH1's family therapy show. But before that we've got an incredible hero now involved in so many projects. In fact in fact he was the executive producer on the Jobs movie about Apple founder Steve Jobs. David C. Traub, that you could reach by doing a search on LinkedIn. Again, that's David C. Traub on LinkedIn. Now, you're an award-winning executive producer. You've been involved with feature films, digital media, and games. We were the co-producer for the movie Jobs, the story about Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple that everybody in the entire world knows.

This is a huge, huge undertaking and gigantic responsibility having to share the story of one of the great CEOs, founders of our time. great CEOs, founders of our time. Share with us, please, our listeners, what emotions you had and what you thought when the movie was finally completed. Well, I will begin by working my way back and say that it's actually been gratifying to see how well we did relative to the more recent Steve Jobs movie, which, of course, was also very impressive, but took a very different path. In all fairness, I have to say that I did not

originate the Steve Jobs project at all. I was brought on as an executive producer by the creators of the movie out of Dallas. And it's been an amazing experience. We all in our lives hope to have two or three opportunities that bring us to the next level in our lives and pursuing our dreams. And this movie was certainly one of those opportunities. And I'm very grateful to the folks that invited me in to bring my value to the movie as well. And what did you find perhaps maybe most interesting about creating the movie? find perhaps maybe most interesting about creating the movie? Well, it was a very unique challenge for us because we did not have a license.

We did not acquire the life rights, and thus we were relegated to only using data that we have in first person. And Dan Kaki, who was Steve's roommate on their tour of India. And this college buddy that's an intricate part of the story was a big part of the team as well and had tremendous impact on the script. But we also weren't able to take a lot of license creatively, and we had to depend a lot on secondary sources. and we had to depend a lot on secondary sources. And because of that, there was only so much we could do to tell the story other than to reflect the truth itself as it could be generalized across all of these different sources. But the comments that we continue to get are that we did an incredible job capturing him,

showed both the positive and the negatives, and really showed the three-act play that was his life. He founded Apple Computer. He was kicked out of his own company. He came back to build the most powerful company in the world. And it's a movie that I particularly was interested in because I saw it as an opportunity to teach people to take risks, believe in themselves, and know that nothing's impossible. I mean, that's what the movie's primary means were. That's really what Steve Jobs has contributed to the world, at least from a leadership and entrepreneurship perspective. Now, you've also been involved with additional movies such as Bronx Bull, Crazy for the Boys, Neon Buffalo, Time to Honor, The Lawnmower Man. I mean, the list goes on. And you really have to have a special imagination for this.

So when you close your eyes, I got to ask you, what do you dream of? What do you think of when, what do you dream of? I mean, you come out with these great things. Share with our audience. What do you dream up? I mean, you come out with these great things. Share with our audience. Well, when people ask me who I am and what I do, I tell them that I'm an economic development and mental health educator. And my goal in life is to use mass media entertainment technologies to reach as many people as possible to change not only attitudes, but behaviors, ideally. I have an eight-year-old child, and I hope to be around long enough to enjoy grandchildren as well. And I think the world

30 years from now, 50 years from now, is going to be very different than the world we're in right now. So when I close my eyes and dream around projects that I have the honor of being invited into or creating myself, my goal is to figure out how to have as much impact and relevance as possible while at the same time honoring the requirements of story. When people understand that they're being taught, you lose them as an audience. You lose the suspension disbelief. So I dream of projects that inspire people, help us move towards the adaptations that we're going to have to make as the oceans rise and as humanity continues to use more and more of our resources.

And I get excited about the opportunity to do that in an inspiring way that also is fun and entertains people. And you could reach David C. Traub on LinkedIn. That's David C. Traub on LinkedIn. That's David C. Traub. He's a co-executive producer about the Steve Jobs movie. Now, not only that, you've got so much going on. You've also been investor, board member, advisor to over 35 startups, early stage, multinational, and government entities. What do you look for in a company to decide really to take on an advisor role? Well, first of all, my particular filter is

social impact, as I said earlier. So when I look for companies, I look for something that I think is going to make the world a better place. And then I put on the same glasses that any investor has, which is, you know, what's the pain they're addressing? Who are the potential competitions? And do they have any defensible IP? Obviously, the team is arguably the most important thing. And is there an opportunity to really scale a company up sufficiently so that it could move in the direction of having a significant footprint on the planet? So I look for things that I think can be successful, that are positive, that will inspire the workers to give more than just what they would normally get from a paycheck. And I look for relationships that I know and trust. I tend to work with people I

already know and work with them over a long period of time because I've just found that that makes for more efficiency when it comes to looking forward instead of having to worry about who you can trust and depend on. And not only have you done so much within your career, but you've all been successful with your projects. You've been co-producer of The Jobs and more. You're also highly educated. You got a master's in education from Harvard, undergraduate with honors from UC Berkeley.

Now, we have many listeners that are in college or those that have children in college. So I've got to ask you the secret of this, since you did so well in education, what do you think's the best way to absorb all the material and be a success in school? First of all, I want to make a correction. I was one of the executive producers on the Steve Jobs movie. I just want to say I was not the co-producer. I was co-producer on the Bronx Bowl. I financed that movie. Every movie has a

different relationship. Now, going back to your question, which is a very exciting question, what is the secret to doing well in school? And really, what's the secret to doing well anywhere? And the secret is to figure out what really turns you on and to make school like work. When I realized what I wanted to do as an undergrad at Berkeley, I realized what I wanted to do as an undergrad at Berkeley, which was to figure out how to make movies and videos for school much more interesting and compelling than they were. I grew up in the 70s, 60s and 70s, and videos were pretty lame back then. And I saw how they wove together 150 tribes and 17 countries into the Soviet Union in big part by creating a new kind of cinema that was very compelling to people. It was a new way to engage stories. And I was able to take every single one of my classes, once I realized that was my goal, make it meaningful, important, relevant to my thesis.

Same thing in graduate school. If you choose classes and work relative to a bigger dream that really drives you, then it's going to be easy and fun. Whereas having to come up with tons of papers about things you don't really care about, that's really difficult. It's really important to channel your passion in whatever you're doing. Excellent. Well, absolutely incredible. And anyone that has done so much for the community in so many different areas is certainly a hero. And today's hero, David C. Traub, which you could reach at David C. Traub on LinkedIn, certainly is. And thank you also, too, to the Alliance's producer, Loopy Doc loopy docs that's loopy docs.com be sure to contact her for all your editing and writing needs thank you so much david cogan when

we return we're going to have the comedian who performed on all late night shows and even for president obama david cogan alliances