Ahmet Ertegun passed away last Friday. Click here for the news from cnn.com
Back in 2003 when at Polyphonic HMI we had recently developed a technology based hit prediction service called Hit Song Science, I was mining deep into my rolodex for people I knew at the major record labels, hoping someone would take us seriously. It was hard to get meetings, even with the people I knew because let’s face it, it’s hard to swallow the concept of a technology that helps predict hit songs and my contacts weren’t willing to put their reputations on the line with their colleagues. Finally, after a number of fruitless meetings with A&R and marketing executives at independent labels and no love from the majors I finally started cold calling at the very top, figuring I had nothing to lose.
After a number of tries I was finally able to get on Ahmet Ertegun’s calendar. Maybe he felt he’d be entertained by a meeting that was sure to be ridiculous or maybe he was simply curious. I’ll probably never know.
Tracie Reed and I showed up on time and at Atlantic Records his office was in a lavish wing of the building. The look and feel of the wing was completely different from the other offices I’d been to at Atlantic. We were attended to by a service staffer in the waiting room who asked what we’d like to drink. I got the feeling we could have asked for anything and it would have been served. We asked for water.
When we were finally led into his office by his executive assistant he was seated behind a stately desk in a spacious corner office with breath-taking views over Manhattan. Tracie and I walked across his thick carpeted floor to the two chairs in front of his desk. He looked a bit frail. He had recently been released from the hospital after a bout with pneumonia and he had a cane resting beside his chair.
After a bit of small talk we got to the point, “We have a technology-driven solution that can help your executives be up to 5 times more accurate predicting hit songs” we said.
He said, “Show it to me.”
I pulled my laptop out of my backpack and started to boot it up and Ahmet got up from his chair, got his cane and walked around to our side of the desk to get a better look at my screen. My laptop was getting old and I had too many programs that started with Windows so it was going to take a good 5 to 8 minutes for me to actually get my PowerPoint presentation up and running. Immediately I suggested he sit back down and I would place my laptop on his desk in a way he could view it from his chair but he declined and said he preferred to stand by my chair.
My heart started pounding. Here we were in Ahmet Ertegun’s office. We had one chance to impress him. He was 80 years old and in my mind he wasn’t likely to fully understand our technology anyway. I didn’t know anyone that age who even cared about it, let alone wanted to understand it. As the clock ticked and my hard drive churned and buzzed and my screen was frozen my heart was sinking. I could just imagine him thinking our technology must be really shaky if we can’t even get it started. Additionally, there he was, this 80 year old man needing his cane to stand next to my chair where I was seated just waiting for my computer to turn itself on. Awkwardly, I offered him my chair. He again declined. I couldn’t imagine him standing there for yet another ten minutes while I gave him an abbreviated presentation of Hit Song Science; but he did.
After the meeting Tracie and I were going down the elevators shaking our heads. “There’s no way he got what we were talking about.” we said to each other. The couple of questions he’d asked were very intelligent ones, but he’d only asked a couple. Not enough to really turn it into a business deal. We’d blown it. We’d had an opportunity at the very top of a major label and we hadn’t made our case effectively. Even so, we were giddy at having had the opportunity to meet and shake the hand of one of the music industry’s legends. It was a meeting I’d never forget.
The next day the phone rang. It was Craig Kallman, President of Atlantic records. He said, “Yesterday you were apparently in to see Ahmet. He’s not sure what he saw but he said it was very interesting and that we need to get you back in here to present to me and some of the others here. What time can you come in?”
… and that ended up being our first big break in the US market.
Thank-you Ahmet. Rest in peace.
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