Bonnie Hammer Gave Her Boss the Finger. It Changed Her Career.

Bonnie Hammer ran 10 networks and two studios at NBCUniversal — but her career didn't start in a corner office. It started cleaning up dog poop on a kids' TV set. In this episode of The Messy Parts, Bonnie gets radically honest with Maryam about the moments that actually shaped her career: being passed over for the top job at NBC, negotiating her way into her own studio, saying yes to WWE when every instinct said no, and building one of the most collaborative cultures in a notoriously cutthroat industry. Plus: Bonnie’s honest take on ageism in media, AI's impact on the entertainment industry, and what she'd tell her younger self today. If you've ever been told no, hit a wall, or wondered whether kindness is actually a liability in business — this one's for you.

🎙️Subscribe for more conversations with leaders who tell the truth about how they really got there.

Key Moments:

00:00 - The NBC Betrayal 😤 
Bonnie reveals she was promised the top job at NBC by Jeff Zucker — and then watched it go to someone with a fraction of her experience.

00:56 - Meet Bonnie Hammer 🎬 
Maryam introduces the legendary NBCUniversal Vice Chair who ran 10 networks and two studios — and never played the power game.

06:24 - Queens Girl, Russian Roots 🏙️ 
Bonnie traces her resilience and optimism back to her immigrant father, whose philosophy was simple: if you can't do it, you're not trying hard enough.

07:10 - Dog Poop and Destiny 🐾 
How a freelance photography gig on a kids' show — and cleaning up after an untrained sheepdog — set Bonnie on the path to a television empire.

11:00 - The Problem Solver Mindset 🕵️‍♀️ 
Bonnie explains why she never sees walls — only cracks — and how she used photography to break into a circle of moms who wouldn't give her the time of day.

14:50 - Never Take No for an Answer 🚪 
The remarkable story of how Bonnie talked her way into graduate school after missing the deadline — and the lesson about honesty and vulnerability that still drives her today.

17:03 - The Rollercoaster Dare 🎢 
At an NBC Universal executive retreat in Orlando, Bonnie takes a dare and rides a rollercoaster — and realizes she's the only woman who showed up.

24:22 - "I Gave My Boss the Finger" 🤼 
Bonnie's unfiltered reaction when she was asked to take on WWE — and how one of the most unexpected assignments of her career became one of her favorites.

29:56 - Zucker Lied. She Negotiated Anyway. 💰 
The inside story of how Bonnie turned the worst professional betrayal of her career into her own studio, and nearly doubled her salary.

37:07 - Not Retired. Rewired. 🔄 
Bonnie gets honest about leaving NBCUniversal — it wasn't entirely her choice — and why she wishes she'd stepped off the corporate ladder a decade earlier to build something of her own.

Email us: hello@themessypartspodcast.com

To stay up to date with The Messy Parts and get all the behind-the-scenes content, follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a rating and review on Apple or Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I was told I was going to take over NBC. And I was told by Zucker. And then uh it ended up going to a guy who had probably a half, maybe a third of the experience that I did. And I was livid.

unknown 0:18

That had to have hurt.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

It it hurt like hell. I mean, I found out later all the reasons, but again, I turned it. I literally asked them for, I want my own cable studio, and I want you to double my salary. And I said, otherwise, why should I stay? And they basically came very close to doubling my salary, and I got what was called UCP, Universal Cable Studios or Productions.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

What was the lesson you took away from that?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Don't assume you're going to get a no. And I got a double yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Today on the Messi Parts, we're going to have on Bonnie Hammer. She's definitely one of my favorite people and an icon in the media business. She ran 10 networks and two studios while at NBC Universal, ending her career there as a vice chair. But what's interesting about Bonnie is that she's a countertype. She believes in truth telling, honesty, and also she was never worried about starting off picking up dog poop. And so for that, you'll have to listen. So, Bonnie, I couldn't be more excited to have you on the show on the famous Blue Couch, now famous, and famous in my mind anyway. You and I met when I worked at NBC Universal. It was before the Comcast deal. So, you know, GE all the way. GE all the way, 30 Rock all the way. And at the time you ran sci-fi and USA network. You went on to run 10 networks, two studios, vice chair, all kinds of things. But at the time You're making me sound uh fancy.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Uh, just bigger than I really am.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

But anyway, go ahead. And that is so remarkably you because you never played the power game in the same way that many other executives did, including the women. So that's very funny that you're self-effacing about the huge job that you had at NBC Universal. I came to see you soon after I'd taken the job, and um, you were incredibly kind and gracious, which is kind of your brand, which is very un-NBCU, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Well, it depends who you worked with at NBCU. I believed in creating a world that was helpful, useful, work together, collaborative.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

But that wasn't really the way Jeff Zucker, Jay-Z, as we call them, sort of ran things. He loved a good competitive race. And I remember, and I just talked about this actually with my sister. My first day on the job, somebody said to me, You have the worst job outside of the janitor. HR actually said to me in my onboarding meeting, you know, these are the mean kids in school that won't let you sit at the cafeteria table. I said, Maybe somebody should have said that to me before I signed my contract, not after. And it was an amazing job. I loved it. It was my dream to work at NBC. You know, I grew up on Friends and Cheers, but it was very much a politically active work environment. And yet you really didn't operate that way.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

When you talk about it, and when I remember how some other people viewed it, that was their experience, but that wasn't my experience. My teams, those who I brought in, or we worked together, or within the cable group. Cable always was a stepchild to broadcast, that we had a different mentality. And I think because I came from the cable world, I didn't see to such. And I didn't find Zucker when I dealt with him political. I found him challenging, but not political.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

This is such an interesting actual insight into you as a person because when I read your book, I think you have a way of seeing the world, which is a little different than maybe everybody's experience. And in some ways, I think it's your ability to be able to push through things as a result. I'm an optimist. You're an optimist. I'm an optimist. And I mean, I was in the same work environment as you. I also work for somebody who was on the cable side. But I mean, when I left that NBC job, I remember I was at a new job, I was like in that, and the phone would ring. And it took me a couple months to not immediately think before I picked up the phone, what do they really want?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

I mean, I guess there were two camps at the time. We had a sense that the other side was a little snarkier, I'll use that word, and a little bit more political, but it didn't necessarily interfere with my or our world unless that team was trying to go after, which they did at one point, our turf, but obviously that didn't work. Obviously, you won.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

You won. It was an interesting experience for me because it's one of the things I think about a lot as women and leadership in particular. This idea of being kind was not something that was definitely the motto when I experience other women at NBC Universal.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

To this day, I'm a big believer that most women do not help other women. And I think that's because years ago, and maybe even again now, there was only one seat at the table, or very few seats at the table. And I think too many women were so afraid of not making it themselves, not having self-confidence, or not believing there could be more than one seat, they wouldn't help other women, which made me nuts. My attitude was always I want more women in the C-suites. I want more women around me. I work well with other women. Why am I negatively competing with other women? Women have more ocetosin than guys. What does it mean? It means there's the compassion, the ability to juggle, you know, what we need for child rearing is all in our DNA. And that's a positive. And it's it's a warmth, it's a kindness, it's an ability to be a caretaker. And more women than not see that as a negative rather than an amazing positive that they should embrace. I think mine also goes back to my father, who's Well, that's what I was gonna take you back to, to your own DNA, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Because you grew up in Queens. Yes. Start in Brooklyn. Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Brooklyn, where East Flatbush, a row house. My aunt and uncle lived downstairs. We lived upstairs and we had three dogs. My father was Russian immigrant, my mother was first generation, but Russian parents who came over and she was born in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And you end up going to school in Boston. I did.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I did.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

And what I love is this idea where you actually go to graduate school and end up freelancing as a photographer, which was your first passion, at a studio working, literally picking up dog poop, because that was part of the show.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Correct. I was a freelance photographer for a show called Infinity Factory, which was a kids' entertainment slash math show. And except for two people, the entire cast were nine, 10, 11-year-olds, and a dog named Winston, who was an untrained sheepdog that was a uh Nepo hire. It was a producer's dog. I was taking photos. One day they fired some production assistants and they asked me if I wanted a job. By the way, being a freelance photographer actually then meant I was working for free. I was getting credits for college, for graduate school, but no money. So, of course, I took the job because I needed a job. But the minute I stepped foot in a real position, even if it was cleaning dog crap, I realized this is an interesting path. This was fun.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

You said you realized that you were a people person and the photography was more individual.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

I liked capturing people in the moment. I mean, if I would look back and say, was there anybody I admired in the photographic world would be Cartier Brisson. And it was his ability of catching something in the moment. And that's what I wanted to do. It wasn't portraiture. Why do you think you were interested in that? If I go all the way back, summer camp. And I remember taking pictures of all my friends and summer camp and loving it because they became memories. And I just love the ability to capture something that would bring back a memory.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Why do you think memories matter to you?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

I think just living your life so you're living in the present, but you don't negate everything that contributed to who you are now or where you are is very important. And I found it also a way to break into situations. For example, I was one of the few working moms, at least that I knew in Connecticut when we moved to Connecticut. I remember on Saturday mornings when Jesse was my kid, was starting Little League. And I would show up, I'd do an early morning exercise class, I'd show up at the field for a little league game, my leggings and a sweatshirt, and none of the other mothers would talk to me. I was isolated. So I figured, how do I break into this? What do I do? So I started bringing my camera, and every single week I would take pictures of their kids, of course, my own as well. And then I remember on Monday morning, there was a little photoshop right on Madison Avenue before you turned up 48th Street. And I would get off the train, bring in my film, and on Thursdays, come back on the way to train, pick up the photographs, and on Saturday mornings, give them out to all of the mothers of all of the kids that I shot. Lo and behold, they started talking to me. They weren't doing anything deliberate before, but there was no connection. They had no desire andor no reason, because I was an outsider, if you will, I'm I was working, but it kicked a door open. And I find oftentimes art, photography, something that connects people like that just kicks the door open for people.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Well, it's so interesting because I hear something different in your story. I hear that you don't take things personally, right? There you are. You're basically experiencing middle school. Oh, I took it personally, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered shooting. Okay, but but not personally enough to like cower and go away. No. You actually don't take it personally, you see it almost as a problem. You actually use it as an opportunity to problem solve. You're not like emotionally like stunted so that you can't. I wasn't crying, correct. You were crying. Right. And then you actually solve the problem and you come up with a way to connect with them, which is kind of your gift.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

I'm a problem solver. I'm not someone who looks at something and sees a wall. I find the crack.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

We share that in common. And so I know where it comes from for me. Where do you think that comes from for you?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

My dad. Without doubt. What does that mean? Because my father, being a Russian immigrant and had to figure out his life from scratch without a scent to his name himself. My father would always say to me, for example, if I'd be sitting in my room trying to get a math thing done, and I would throw a tantrum saying, I can't do this, I can't stand math. There's just no way I can get this done. And my father would walk into the room and look at me, and he says, If you can't do it, it means you're not trying hard enough. Start again. Get some help. Whatever it is, you can do it. But don't tell me you can't, just figure out how. So I think that philosophy has driven my entire career and my personal life. That I don't take no easily. To me, no means maybe not now, not today, not this way, but it doesn't mean no.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

You know, in listening to you, I think a lot about the younger generation today and how, for all kinds of reasons, that's actually something that's harder for them. I was an executive in residence at Columbia, and I remember somebody coming to see me, and they were in a graduate program, and they said they wanted to take a class at the business school. I'd graduated from the business school, like, I don't know, 30 years ago. And they said, How do I get into this professor's class? And I was so startled by that question. I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, how do I get into that class? I was like, Have you walked over there? Did you sign up for their office hours?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

You know my story about getting into graduate school. Go ahead, you should tell it. All right, but we we definitely have the exact same philosophy about that because I would have had the same reaction. All right, I was doing my freelance photography, realized it was getting me nowhere, and I wanted to go to graduate school. And because I was living in Cambridge at the time, I wanted to stay in the Boston area. It was maybe late April already, maybe May, I think maybe even May. But I wanted to go in September. Everybody had been admitted already, the program was closed, it was done. And so everybody was telling me there's no way you can go in, you know, apply for next year. I called the admissions department. Sorry, missions are closed. So I got the name of the president of the graduate school, actually, the president of the university, and I sat in a meeting with him. And he said, How about today at four? I called his office, and I'm literally smelling from photochemicals. I was in blue jeans, and blue jeans wasn't as cool at that point in terms of having a meeting. But I went over and he asked me why, why not wait a year? And I was very honest. I said, I blew it. I wasn't even thinking about it. I'm not going to give you any excuses. I just completely blew this and I didn't even realize it. But I don't want to waste my life. Therefore, waiting another year makes no sense. And he literally said, if you can have your application in by four o'clock on Thursday, essays, all recommendations, any and everything you need to do, we'll consider it. And I got in. What's the lesson from that? The lesson is never take no, don't make any assumptions if somebody or a bureaucratic space or place like the Office of Admissions tells you you can't. That's just one answer so far. Keep going till you find your yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Well, and I would say you have a second part to that lesson, which is taking accountability. You have to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

You the minute you get caught in a lie, the minute you start BSing about why you didn't apply, your stories are never going to work. They're never going to fit. If you just own what you did wrong or the mistake you made, all of a sudden you're vulnerable. It shows humility. And kind of people want to help you. It wasn't a choice to be vulnerable. I was genuinely vulnerable. And when you are genuine, people can see it.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

As you're telling this story, I remember listening to a podcast where you talked about being optimistic and smiling. And that's what it reminds me of, right? Because you show up, you're optimistic, you're pleasant, right? It's not like you're not barreling in with expectation, right? And that makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I mean, that's why humility is too. It's just being optimistic and wanting something, going for something, doesn't mean you have to be demanding, doesn't mean you have to be entitled.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

This reminds me of this question I get often, which is do I worry about being taken seriously? Because I think as a woman, and I'm similar to you in that way. We definitely are. That's why we've always liked each other. I mean, it was like an instant thing for me. I remember once being on a call with a boss, and we were on actually with a celebrity. She was doing a lot of the talking. And so I was listening. And when we got off the call, she said, Have you never been around celebrities before? You didn't speak up enough. And I thought, well, one, I'd worked at NBC Universal, so I'd been around plenty of celebrities. But two, I was like, Well, I didn't feel the need to take up space in the same way. But to her, that was a weakness. There was this sense of like, if you were vulnerable and kind and honest, that maybe the men in the room or even the women in the room wouldn't take you seriously. Did you ever worry about that?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Never.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Because you mentioned the roller coaster story, being on the roller coaster at one of those executive retreats, which we've been to at Universal, and thinking that you were the only woman on the crazy roller coaster. Yeah. With your hair being musty and not seeming serious.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Oh, yeah. You should see the picture they took in love. That roller coaster. They handed out photos when you were done. It was ridiculous. I think there's a huge problem with women in general. That for some reason there is a belief. I don't know where it came from, why it's been fostered, that you have to be aggressive, assertive, loud to kind of get what you want or to be seen. When I find it kind of the other way around, I believe listening and not just pretending to listen, but hearing what other people say is far more valuable and far more powerful and gets you a lot further than just throwing garbage into a conversation because somebody thinks you have to make a statement or react to somebody's statement, as opposed to listening, really listening. And then later, even if it's on a private call, saying, you know, I was listening to what you were saying there. I didn't want to deal with it in public, but you said something that really got to me, good, bad, great, whatever it was. And do you want to talk about it? Or do you want an opinion? It's a different way you show your strength or your power or your interest in somebody. And it doesn't have to be for an audience. Women are petrified to mix work and play. Now, work and play is different from work and pleasure. They have very different meanings. But being able to really enjoy a colleague, male or female, go out for a drink, you know, have a conversation, take a walk through the park, all that does is create a bond between you that kind of lives on and helps you work with them better later on. The roller coaster story was absolutely one like that. We were literally in Orlando, and the uh just guy named Jimmy Horowitz, who Jimmy was a lawyer, head of all the legal that does all the deals with film under Donna Angley, he's basically said, let's go on the roller coaster. And I said, I don't like roller coasters. He said, I dare you. And I'm not somebody who won't take it. You love a good dare. So I took the dare, petrified. I don't like heights, I don't like speed, but it I wasn't gonna let him get the best of me that way. And I really liked Jimmy and I trust Jimmy, so it wasn't uh trying to compete with the guy. It was like, oh yeah, watch me. If you saw the photo taken of me, I was petrified. My I came off, my cheeks were completely rosy, my hair was upside down. But when I got off the thing, I realized there were no other women on the ride. None of my colleagues were there, and was trying to figure out why. And I realized they were really concerned about mixing work and play, whether they would be taking seriously if they looked like I did when I got off that ride, whether if they got too close with another person, be it male or female, would people think something crazy was going on? And that's what got me started about thinking about what are the other myths, what are the other cliches have we been brought up with that really get in the way with women enjoying their life in a professional situation? I kind of forced a culture that meant that we had to trust one another. We would go out drinking together. You know, if we would get an Emmy or something like that, we would all go out and party together. We created a team, a culture, a spirit, an understanding of one another that we enjoyed being together.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

I've worked in a lot of different places, a lot of different cultures. That's rare. And in fact, it's why you won, because there was a competition. There was a competition when I was at NBC Universal. And you did end up winning the battle, even though you may not have thought you were competing. What do you think makes you so confident?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

People I surround myself with I have a tendency to hire well. I never have to be the smartest one in the room, and I'm really ever the smartest one in the room. But I hire those who are collaborative. I'm to me, attitude is almost more important than skill set. So when I would hire, I would first see what's their attitude. Are they open? Do they want to learn? Can they work with other people? And then, by the way, are they great at marketing? Are they good developers? But most important, are they collaborative? Are they open? Are they listening to what I have to say and asking questions, or are they just rambling on about themselves? When I look back, some of us worked together for several decades. People didn't fly. Away or try to go find different kinds of work because I would help grow them. I made sure the people as best as I could control were paid well and with equality, as opposed to, you know, trying to manipulate money.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

You also worked hard. I mean, I do think that that is a big key to your success, right? Like you didn't say, I'm too big to pick up the dog poop. Oh no. I mean, I think that's something that is really important, right? In this job market where it's so difficult for people to break in, where AI has people petrified, right? This idea of hustle, I would say every person who's been on this couch has had an enormous amount of hustle, which you definitely did. And also, even though there were moments that were scary, like I remember the story that you tell about being in a meeting with Barry Diller, who, you know, is not known for being soft, and you not flinching at the fact that he was, you know, asking you millions of questions on a weekend.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

I would have been out that door in 30 seconds if I told Barry, sorry, speak to me on Monday. Thank you. Yeah. No, that went over.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

And also, you didn't flinch when he kept pushing you and asking you a question to justify yourself. You didn't flinch.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

It's it's not a matter of didn't flinch. Did it scare the hell out of me? Absolutely. But was I gonna let it defeat me? I was going to go toe-to-toe. But the intimidation and the I this goes back to talking about challenging mentors and having people in your life that challenge you to the point of tough love.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

That's how I look at it. So you go to work at Sci-Fi, then you end up also having USA Network, right? Characters Welcome, one of my favorite um taglines ever. So Chris McCumbra, lots of love to him and you for that. You know, and then you sort of ride even further up the chain at NBC Universal, right? And I think one of the stories I like about you is the story around wrestling, which wasn't something you were interested in. And yet you ended up doing it. Well, and actually it's funny because they called me to be on their board and I was like, I don't like wrestling, and so I can't be on the board. And the headhunter was so mad because I'd made a mess the first round. I just was like, I can't do that. But here's an instance where you actually leaned into something that you couldn't even believe you were being asked to do.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I remember exactly how and when it happened. We were in one of the early days of a video conference call. It was Rod Perth, who was the president of programming at that point. It was still K. Kapla Viz's World. Rod, in the middle of this video call of all of his direct reports, said he wanted me to take on WWE. And I literally gave Rod the finger in an early day video conference call. And he looked at me like I was out of my mind, and I was looking at him that he was out of his mind. And I remember going home and I said to Dale, I said, I there's no way I can do this. I should just quit. Is this where my career has come to? I'm gonna do wrestling. And Dale was, I give him the credit because he said, just go and try it out. What do you have to lose? You can quit in two weeks, you can quit in a month. Why quit now? At least go see what it's like. It could be funny. So I said, okay, and I studied, literally studied for two weeks. I watched wrestling matches, I read everything I could at the time, you know, about Vince, about that whole world. And I remember the meeting with all these ginormous, over-steroided guys in a room, and me. Vince walks in and he looks at me, probably shocked that there was, you know, a five foot four, now five foot three chick in the room going to be part of his world. I think he was a little nervous too. And he said, so and that was just literally so. And I said, so Rod Perth has asked me to kind of come and help you guys out. I'm gonna be very honest. Up until two weeks ago, I never watched one of your shows. I had no idea what you did. The only thing I do know is how to make good TV and develop characters. He pulls out his chair, sits down, and says, Thanks for being honest. Let's go. And it turned out to be one of the most fun experiences I've ever had. It was insane. It was such an education and just fun. And I would say contributed a lot to my ability to work with anyone, anywhere, anytime, and develop characters regardless of the arena, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

This actually goes to one of the lessons you have in the book, which is like you don't have to pick your passion.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

First of all, unless you're exposed to something, you really don't know what it is until you try it. And you can always leave. But if you don't try it, if you don't experience, you'll never know. And that goes back to, I mean, it ties into a whole lot of things of what I believe. The things you take away from things that you don't expect to enjoy, like, understand is where you learn. You learn some really good, you may learn some really bad too. But at least you can take away stuff from it that'll help you next time. Even if it means next time you will say no to something like that. But now you have grounding, you have a reason. There's a realization of why you're saying no, rather than just saying no. But what it did for me is kind of expanded me in so many different ways, whether it's working with somebody like Vince, who himself is a, you know, a creature in a way of like I've never dealt with before in terms of his determination, his ego, what he has created, everything about it, to these amazing stars who are also wrestlers. And what Vince taught his people, which you would never know, is the fans are what make them. So you take care of, be nice to, give back to every single one of your fans. So every one of those overgrown people you would see in a ring were kind. They were amazing human beings because Vince wouldn't have them in his world if they didn't appreciate who gave them their life. But for me, it was kind of the beginning of understanding that climbing a ladder, that upward growth, upward mobility, all that stuff is not necessarily what's important. I kind of view growth as more of a spiderweb. You can go left, you can go up, you can go down. It is a complicated growth cycle of learning experiences that take you in so many different directions that you have a lot more to fall back on. You get a lot more experience.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

What ends up making you want to run the film studios? I I don't know if you'll remember this, but when I was leaving NBC Universal, I came to see you. And somehow we got into a conversation of what else you would want to do. And you said to me, before I'm done, I want to make a movie like Blind Side.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

I remember talking about wanting to make a movie or film, and I can't honestly remember why that was something I dangled in front of me, other than it was new, it was fresh, and I hadn't done it. It had a different cachet back then.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

It definitely, I mean, it went cable, broadcast, film.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Correct. And then when cable started out doing broadcast, and I no longer had that desire, though. That was a funny. That was a messy moment. Yeah, that was a very messy moment.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Because you definitely wanted the broadcast network.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Yes. I was told I was going to take over NBC. And I was told by Zucker. And then uh it ended up going to a guy who had probably a half, maybe a third of the experience that I did. And I was livid. I just was like in shock. And I didn't understand it. But again, I thought, well, maybe I should leave. It's time to leave. And then I said, I mean, that had to have hurt. It hurt like hell. I mean, I found out later all the reasons, but again, I turned it. I said, okay, supposedly they need me here. Not going to be pretty to say that I left by choice or whatever, with USA number one and sci-fi doing that well. So I decided to negotiate for other stuff. I remember getting a call from Ron Meyer. He had just been on a plane with Zucker and a couple of other people going from New York to LA. He found out on that plane that I wasn't getting the job that was going to this other guy who was going to be told on Monday. It was Memorial Day weekend. I remember that specifically. And Ron said, I just want you to know, I want you to hear it from me. I just want you to be prepared. So when Jeff calls you on Monday, he was giving you the heads up, which was a friendly thing. He was giving me a heads up. And, you know, I was upset and Ron heard that, but it was okay because Ron was a bit of a mentor in his own way, but he was one of the positive supportive mentors as opposed to the very dealer, the challenging mentors. And I talked to Dale over the week and I was trying to figure out should I quit? What am I going to do? I can't believe I'm not getting the network. He said, Well, what else do you want? And I said, I want my own studio. And he goes, So go ask for it. And I said, I also want more money. And he said, go ask for it. So I remember Zucker called, and I basically said, I know. How do you know? I already heard. I left it at that, didn't throw a run under the bus because there were other people on the plane too. And I said, I'm not happy. You lied. He said, Well, I forget who the name of our HR person was, who's going to be at your door Tuesday morning. Call me Memorial Day Tuesday morning. It's going to be at your door. Mark Kinney. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes, Mark Kinney. Oh my God, a blast from the past. And so Mark came to the door and I was prepared. And I literally asked them for, I want my own cable studio. I want to produce my own content with my own team. And I want you to double my salary. And I said, otherwise, why should I stay? I mean, it wasn't a threat, but it was kind of, you gotta give me something. You gotta give me something. And they basically came very close to doubling my salary, and I got what was called UCP, Universal Cable Studios were productions. The only caveat was I had to create the team to run UCP from my immediate team. But that to me was actually better because I could promote people, and it was still my trusted group of people. And that was that. What was the lesson you took away from that? It allowed me to basically ask for what I wanted that I wouldn't have gotten somewhere else. No one's gonna get it, I never produced, you know, I never was a studio person. Why would somebody give me a studio? Don't assume you're gonna get a no. And I got a double yes. For me, it was a great learning moment. And it gave me something new and something fresh. And then it was probably half a year to maybe nine months later, I found out why I didn't get the job. By the way, the guy who took it was fired two years later. Immolt was so afraid cable would go down and it was making so much more money than broadcast that he was the one that didn't. It wasn't Zucker, it was Jeff Immolt who was too afraid to let me out of the cable group because he also thought my people would leave if I left.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

And your own success stopped you from getting, you know, but I don't even know that having NBC would have been as good as what you got in the end.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Oh, in hindsight, I was blessed. I would have been fired two, three years later because they didn't know what to do with it.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

So you spent your whole career in really like the content creation business, right? And things have changed drastically in the business over this period of time. If somebody wants to get into the world of media today, what advice would you have for them? Because it's a very contracted marketplace now.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

If we had had this conversation a year ago, maybe even six months ago, I would say that AI will consume everything, but what it can't do is EI, emotional intelligence. That's not true anymore. AI will affect our business, virtually every other business out there. So no one and nothing is protected from that world. For me, the only thing that can't be replaced is great content. Where it gets distributed in my mind is and in a lot of ways always was irrelevant, whether it was cable, then the same thing with you know streaming. If you produce great content, they will come. It doesn't matter how people get to see it or view it.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

But do you think that the way people produce content is gonna change? Because Cloud's gonna write the script for you?

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Yes, and no. I I do think there will be a lot of it, but I do think, and maybe this is naive. I'm still a big believer that true creativity, freshness, the way to look at the world is still gonna come from a great mind and a great set of eyes. I think AI will affect everything, but all businesses are gonna be difficult to get in. I would not want to be a kid right now. I would not buy a 25.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Okay, I was gonna ask you that question.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

If you were graduating now, I want to be navigating that world right now.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Okay, we can't say that because your kids who are graduating. So what would you do if you were, if your son was graduating now? What is the advice you want to do?

SPEAKER_01 36:08

I would still, I mean, in my mind, for anybody trying to navigate a world right now, get a job, do whatever you can, but dive into what threatens you. If you're afraid of AI, if you're afraid of Chat GPT, if you're afraid of Claude, every other version that's out there, instead of running from it, learn it, learn how to use it, experiment with it, play with it. So at least even if you go for a conversation or have an interview, you can say, yeah, I'm happy to play with it and work with it. It in my mind, it doesn't replace A, B, or C, but I am knowledgeable. I'm not intimidated by it. I know how to use it.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

It's your dare. You're taking your dare into that. You decided to step off. Like at some point, even though you had this incredibly illustrious career, and it's not game over for you because you don't ever strike me as somebody who's gonna just stay home. What made you decide to leave? And what was that experience like? What was stepping into like this pause?

SPEAKER_01 37:08

If you want me to be wholly honest, what else would I want? No, no, no. Uh I didn't decide to leave. Okay, good. I was the, and I still am probably the oldest chick standing, probably the oldest person, male, female, whatever, standing at NBC Universal at that time. I had a ridiculously long run experiencing so much interesting, good, crazy stuff over many, many decades. And it got to a point where, you know, I was running different divisions, and then I was made a vice chair. And then it became, I'm a vice chair of what? So there really wasn't a job there. But I'm now retired. I hate that word. I'm rewiring, by the way. I'm not retired, I'm rewired. And officially, I guess July 1st was my first day of retirement. And it's very weird, but it wasn't necessarily my choice. And Dana, who's sitting over there, you know, we would go to the office three days a week, maybe two days a week. You know, we'd be busy for maybe four hours of that time. I wasn't really being used anymore. And you like to have impact. I need, yes. So leaving was hard, but I knew it had to happen. And they were ready to they didn't want to pay me anymore, trust me. Do I miss it? Yes. Do I miss 30 rock? Yes. Do I miss my IT people? Yes. But it was also holding me back from doing other stuff, which I realize now. If I'm being brutally honest with myself, if I had left 10 years ago, it may have given me more runway to experiment and play with other stuff. Like what? Well, I mean, I'm I'm doing stuff now. Dana's also involved with, I have a couple of sites that I would call incubators. One is called bonkers to come up with bonker ideas for mostly for women, but for anything. And the other two are um originate it and originate her. And it's basically in different kinds of sites come up with things to experiment with and do. You can't stop but keep thinking of ideas. But that's what keeps the brain cells going. And I think also ageism is different from boys and girls. Why is it that Bob Iger still to this day still hasn't officially left?

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Oh my god, I thought they announced his replacement.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yes, they did, but he's still hanging in there. He's still gonna be on the board. He's gonna be, you know, when how many other women do you know in their 70s are still running anything within a corporate environment? I can't complain because I lasted longer than most, if not all. But guys seem to have a little bit longer runway that I wish people would view women of having that same capability. You know, people like to hire young, get them in, and push the older out. When in fact, if you marry the two, think about what kind of power you could have there.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Okay, I have one more question and then we're gonna do rapid fire.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

And I also want to know if there's something you want to talk about that I maybe didn't ask.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

So I want to hear more about you, forget about me.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

I mean, you had so many amazing shows, right? Shoots did great on the network, and then it's done amazing, like almost better on stream. 2010 globally on Netflix. Were you surprised by that?

SPEAKER_01 40:41

If I said no, I'd be full of it. We were shocked. We knew we had a good show. We knew the chemistry of the team is very strong, and it did as best as it could in the smaller cable environment. Uh, we knew that the back end had been picked up, but nobody, I don't care who they are in that team, if they ever say to you, of course we expected it to be a global success. None of us did. And the fact that it did as well as it did on Netflix shocked all of us.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

There were so many more things I could ask you. We could just keep on going, but I'm gonna go to rapid fire if you're okay. Oh yeah. You're gonna be good at this. This is so funny. I mean, you like a good dare. What do you say would be your messiest moment? And what is it on a scale of one to ten? Still cleaning up my dog's poop.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

When was the last time you cried? To be honest, my eyes were tearing because I went to the eye doctor yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

I don't know if they gave me eye drops. I don't know if that counts. What's a career myth that you think is a waste of time? There's so many, but having it all. Having it all. Do you feel like you had it all? Only in hindsight. Okay, that's funny. What is advice you would have for someone who's in the middle of a pivot?

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Trust your gut, but your gut is basically two things. It's the gut of your stomach, it's how you feel, and also what your brain is telling you. Just let yourself feel it and then go for it. The worst thing that can happen is not allowing yourself to try something for the wrong reasons because of fear. The worst that can happen is you can hate it and then you pivot again.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Is there a messy story that I didn't ask you that you want to share?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

There are a lot of messy stories in my life and in my world. But you know what the difference is? I don't look at them as messy or mess. I look at them as something that motivates me to just clean it up. To keep going. To keep going, to clean it up, to change it, to transform it. I don't view messy as negative in any way. To me, messy is interesting. Oh, yeah. It's the best part.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Yeah. Thank you so much, Bonnie, for coming on. I really next time we have to do it over food and a little wine or tequila. I hope you enjoyed this episode that had a lot of ambient noise from Charlie to the construction that's happening outside. Welcome to New York City. There's so many great parts to Bonnie's story. And I know that you're gonna be telling 10 friends liking this episode and downloading it. And I don't know, finding other ways for us to be able to tell you more messy stories that inspire us and remind us that messy is actually the good stuff.