FAM EP. 44 Ryan Leslie

Grammy-nominated producer. Multi-platinum artist. Harvard grad at 19. Tech founder. Financial educator. Ryan Leslie has lived several careers in one lifetime — and this conversation covers all of them.

Ryan traces his journey from a Caribbean-rooted Salvation Army household to Harvard at 15, from sleeping on his dad's couch to producing Beyoncé's track on the Bad Boys 2 soundtrack on his first night in New York City. He breaks down how he used early Google AdWords and MySpace to send Cassie's "Me & U" viral before anyone else saw it coming — and why he eventually walked away from the entire major label system.

The pivot point: discovering that even after selling records on iTunes, he couldn't get his fans' email addresses. So he put his phone number on the internet instead. 35,000 texts later, he had a $2M album cycle, a database of his most loyal fans, and the seed of what would become SuperPhone.

Ryan and host Johnny also get into Wealthplan — Ryan's investing and financial literacy platform for artists — and close with a masterclass on relationship equity: why the most valuable investment you can make at any age isn't in stocks or streams, but in the people in the room with you right now.

Topics covered: growing up Salvation Army · Harvard at 15 · going all-in on music with no Plan B · the Beyoncé break · MySpace SEO · pulling from iTunes · SuperPhone · Ben Horowitz · Nipsey Hussle · Bad Bunny · Wealthplan · relationship equity · advice for young creatives1