Power Rangers: Haim Saban

As a refugee growing up in Tel Aviv, Haim Saban remembers not having enough money to eat. As an adult, he hustled his way into the entertainment business, writing theme songs for classic cartoons like Inspector Gadget and Heathcliff. But producing the mega-hit Mighty Morphin Power Rangers put him on track to becoming a billionaire media titan. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  I have to tell you that the biggest hits that I had in my life, and in music, and in television, and in business, have been always as a result of significant rejections and repeated rejections. So every time I have an idea that people tell me, "No, don't do that," I say, "Oops, I'm on to something."

• 0:35Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 0:47Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how a group of spandex-wearing teenage superheroes called the Power Rangers helped turn Haim Saban into one of the richest men on Earth.

• 1:04Guy Raz?

  If you asked Haim Saban what he does...

• 1:07Speaker 00

  I used to describe myself as a cartoon schlepper.

• 1:10Guy Raz?

  Cartoon schlepper?

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. What I did for years is I went and knocked on doors and tried to sell cartoons all over the world. That's what a schlepper does.

• 1:21Guy Raz?

  And he schlepped some of the biggest cartoons of the '80s and '90s: Inspector Gadget, X-Men, and of course, his biggest hit, The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which has just been revived as a blockbuster Hollywood feature.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Me and four kids found a spaceship buried underground. I'm pretty sure I'm a superhero.

• 1:42Guy Raz?

  Cool. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here because long before The Power Rangers, long before Haim Saban was flying around the world on his private jet or hanging at his Beverly Hills mansion with Bill Clinton... He was just a poor Jewish kid living on a dusty street in Alexandria, Egypt.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  We lived in a very narrow street. We were a kind of lower class family. My father was a salesman in a toy store and my mother was a seamstress. We had family friends who were Egyptian Muslims, Egyptian Christians, Greeks, Italians. It was a pretty cosmopolitan city, Alexandria.

• 2:28Guy Raz?

  But in 1956, shortly after the Suez War, many Egyptian Jews were accused of being traitors. So Haim's family had to flee to Israel. Haim was 12 at the time, and no one in his family spoke any Hebrew. In fact, they didn't know anyone in Israel. And when they got there, they were housed in a tiny apartment in a rough part of Tel Aviv.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  It was one room in an apartment that had three rooms, and the other two rooms were occupied by another couple and by a hooker and her pimp. And it was the five of us. And my father basically had a job selling pencils and erasers door to door. And some days he would sell three pencils and some days he would sell no pencils. So it was, to say the least, a very hard life, yes.

• 3:24Guy Raz?

  And do you remember going to school right away?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Well, I didn't want to go to school, but my father thought I should be a lawyer. I mean, I wanted to make money, because living under these conditions was not a very exciting prospect. So we compromised that I would work during the day and study at night. So I'd wake up at 6:00. I'd go to be a runner in a travel agency. At 4:30 in the afternoon, I'd go to school until 9:30. 9:30, I'd come home. I'd do my homework in the staircase, because obviously I couldn't do it in the room where the family was, and go to sleep. And then every day was the same routine.

• 4:14Guy Raz?

  Were you a good student as a kid?

• 4:17Speaker 00

  I was a pretty bad student and the principal called my father and said, uh, your son most probably is gonna make a lot of money one day, but a student in academics, he ain't gonna be, and he ain't gonna be no lawyer, so take him out of school. So my father sat me down and said, I need you to finish high school and finish with high grades. And then you can do whatever you want, but you must finish high school.

• 4:46Guy Raz?

  And did you finish with high grades?

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:49Guy Raz?

  Hmm. Did you feel in any way, um, being a Jew from an Arab country in Israel at the time, that, I don't know, you were, you were sort of seen as sort of a, a, a lower, like a second-class citizen by, by Jews from, from European countries?

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Yes. I had a girlfriend whose parents were from Poland. And her mother said to her, if you bring that schwarze hae, that black animal, to the house, I'm gonna jump off the balcony and kill myself.

• 5:23Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we would make out in the garden.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  Then I joined the army. I was in the infantry.

• 5:35Guy Raz?

  And were you actually in combat, or did you have a, a different kind of job?

• 5:39Speaker 00

  It was at the beginning in combat, uh, unit. And then they realized that I would be much more efficient at organizing entertainment for the soldiers. So that's what they put me to do.

• 5:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  So my job was to put together bands and go from one post to the other. For example, I remember right after the Six-Day War, we went down to the Sinai and drove from one position to the other with entertainers and entertain the soldiers in each position. That's what we did.

• 6:17Guy Raz?

  I mean, obviously, that foretold what you would do with your life. You would become a person in the entertainment industry. But, but was that your first exposure to, to being in an entertainment environment? To, to actually organizing those things?

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, that's the job they gave me.

• 6:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  You know, I don't know why they gave me that job. I had no background in it. Other than the fact that I played guitar a little bit, but that's the job they assigned me to, so I did the job I was assigned to.

• 6:47Guy Raz?

  And was that what led you to kind of think, well, maybe I should pursue this after the Army?

• 6:53Speaker 00

  No, what led me to join a band after I left the Army was simply the necessity to make some money and get out of that room and support my family, you know, so that my father didn't have to go door to door selling pencils.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  At the time, there was no television in Israel. There was radio, and they used to play, you know, Beatles songs. And in our band, the lead singer sounded exactly like McCartney. So we were pretty successful, even though I was a pretty lousy bass player.

• 7:35Guy Raz?

  I've read that you actually were so bad that you would turn down the amp so people wouldn't hear your bass.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  Well, just at the beginning.

• 7:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So did you eventually get good at it?

• 7:45Speaker 00

  No.

• 7:45Guy Raz?

  No, OK.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  I was never good enough,

• 7:49Speaker 00

  which is why one day the two brothers that were kind of the bassists of the band, the lead singer and his brother who was a solo guitarist, came up to me and said, why don't you be our manager? And because you're holding us back musically. And I couldn't be happier. So one of the happiest days of my life was the day I put down my guitar at my last gig. And I became a manager. And then you manage one band, then you manage two bands, and then you build a business around that.

• 8:21Guy Raz?

  So at some point, you left Israel. You moved out, right?

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Well, first, I became a tour promoter in Israel, and I brought many artists to Israel, from Rachel to Jose Feliciano, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and many others.

• 8:37Guy Raz?

  But how were you doing this as a 20-something-year-old kid? You were just hustling? You were just convincing people that you were the guy to make this happen?

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Mark Zuckerberg at 24 has built Facebook. So at 24, I was able to bring Jose Feliciano to Israel. What the heck?

• 8:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah, fair enough.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  You're supposed to be doing stuff, you know? You're not supposed to be sitting and counting on your parents.

• 9:03Guy Raz?

  OK, so at some point, you moved to, I guess, to Paris. When did you decide to do that and why?

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Well, I moved to Paris simply because Israel was really, from a business standpoint, too small on me. And despite my success, quote unquote, I was in debt of $600,000.

• 9:29Guy Raz?

  Wait, you had $600,000 in debt in Israel? How old were you?

• 9:34Speaker 00

  By the time that happened, I was 29.

• 9:37Guy Raz?

  How did you accrue all that debt, by the way?

• 9:39Speaker 00

  Well, I had a big group of harpists from Japan in October of 1973, ready to tour the country. And the Yom Kippur War took us all by surprise. So obviously, there were no concerts. There was no shows. There was no way for them to even leave because the airport was closed. I had to return the money. I had paid them in advance. And I had a couple of other bumps in the road, again, that had nothing to do with me, which is the devaluation of the Israeli pound, which meant that we had big shows lined up

• 10:23Speaker 00

  where all of the expenses were in dollars and the revenues were in Israeli pounds. With the devaluation of the pounds, we played to full houses and were losing money every night. So these two things compounded got me to $600,000 in debt.

• 10:43Guy Raz?

  Were you freaking out? I mean, thinking, how am I going to ever pay this back?

• 10:47Speaker 00

  No, I don't think I was freaking out. I was in a total state of panic, though. You know, freaking out assumes you still have some control. But when you have a massive panic attack, you have no control.

• 10:59Guy Raz?

  So what did you do?

• 11:00Speaker 00

  So I moved to France and I signed this nine-year-old who sounded like an adult, and he was a fantastic singer, a nine-year-old singer in Israel.

• 11:13Guy Raz?

  You thought he was going to help you pay off this debt?

• 11:15Speaker 00

  Well, I got very lucky. I got very lucky.

• 11:19Guy Raz?

  To you, how did you get lucky? What happened?

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Oh, you know what being lucky means? It means having the skill to grab the luck when it's presented to you.

• 11:28Guy Raz?

  What was the luck that was presented?

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Well, this first record that I produced went platinum.

• 11:34Guy Raz?

  With this nine-year-old Israeli singer?

• 11:36Speaker 00

  With this nine-year-old.

• 11:37Guy Raz?

  What was his, what was his name?

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Noam, N-O-A-M.

• 11:41Guy Raz?

  How did the song go? Do you remember?

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Difficile de choisir.

• 11:55Guy Raz?

  So you, you basically strike gold with this, or platinum, I guess, with this record. And you've, you've got a career, I guess, in France. Like, at this point, do you, what did you do? Did you start a production company in, in, in France, in Paris?

• 12:08Speaker 00

  I started a production company, then I set up my own label. And I sold, over a period of eight years that I lived there, on my own label, more than 18 million records.

• 12:20Guy Raz?

  Wow. How did you even know how to cut deals in Paris? Like, I mean, you get there as an Israeli. Obviously, you spoke some French from your childhood, or you spoke pretty good French. But how did you even know how to, how to wheel and deal and, and, you know, get a studio together and, and find distributors?

• 12:39Speaker 00

  I have no idea.

• 12:41Guy Raz?

  You just started knocking on doors?

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Knocking on doors is what we do, right? I mean, you know, all business people knock on doors. All salesmen knock on doors. But I learned it on the job, I guess. You know, I don't know. I never produced a record in my life when I produced that first record.

• 13:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So why did you decide to move to the US, I guess, in the early 80s?

• 13:08Speaker 00

  Well, I bought a house here in 1978 and I moved here in 1983.

• 13:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah, and what did you intend to do in LA?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  I was planning to basically continue doing the same thing, which is creating, producing and distributing music. And therefore, I built a studio in Studio City. And we started creating music for cartoons.

• 13:38Guy Raz?

  Why cartoons? How did you even get into that world at all?

• 13:42Speaker 00

  Well, I studied how music is paid for in America by ASCAP and BMI.

• 13:51Guy Raz?

  These are the publishing agencies, right?

• 13:54Speaker 00

  These are the publishing agencies, that's right. They are as representatives, collection agencies is what they are.

• 14:03Guy Raz?

  They pay royalties and things like that?

• 14:05Speaker 00

  And they pay royalties, right. So when I realized how much money there is in this, I thought, ah, that would be a good idea.

• 14:14Guy Raz?

  And was it because it was music in cartoons or just any music?

• 14:19Speaker 00

  It's any music, but cartoons music can be very profitable. And here's the reason why.

• 14:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  If you look at a sitcom, there are musical stings. So they have cumulatively maybe two minutes of music, maybe three. But on a cartoon, you have wall-to-wall music. And because these collection agencies pay based on the number of minutes that air, you would make a lot more money. From a music on, you know, a little-known cartoon than you would make on the Mary Tyler Moore Show or the Cosby Show, a lot more money on a cartoon.

• 15:01Guy Raz?

  How did you figure that out?

• 15:03Speaker 00

  I called ASCAP and I said, "Can you explain to me, please?" And I called BMI, "Can you please explain to me?" And then I sat down and I calculated and I concluded that being a member of BMI is the right way to go, and I went for it.

• 15:21Guy Raz?

  And how did you create cartoon music? What did you do?

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Well, I went and I knocked on door of different cartoon producers and I made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

• 15:32Guy Raz?

  What was the offer?

• 15:33Speaker 00

  And I said to them, "I'll give you the music for free if you let me keep both the publisher's share as well as the composer's share." And people said, "Wow, that's not a bad deal. We normally pay all these composers for that, and you'll do it for free. I'll do it for free. I'll just keep the royalties."

• 15:53Guy Raz?

  So what cartoons did you make music for?

• 15:57Speaker 00

  "Dabba dabba dab, Inspector Gadget."

• 16:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  There you go, amongst many others. We worked for Hanna-Barbera and Ruby Spears and Deke, Filmation, He-Man, just, you know, tons and tons of cartoons. At one point, my music partner and I were the top writers at BMI.

• 16:21Guy Raz?

  Do you remember the Heathcliff one?

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Heathcliff, Heathcliff, you're the one.

• 16:25Guy Raz?

  No, no, no, no. Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should terrorize the neighborhood.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Are you a fan of my music?

• 16:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah, huge fan.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Okay, this is good.

• 16:46Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, how are you getting all of this music composed?

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Well, at a given point, we had so much work, there was no way that one or two composers can satisfy, you know, the hundreds of episodes that we were scoring.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  So we, at one point, had 12 studios.

• 17:07Guy Raz?

  12 studios, just making music for cartoons?

• 17:11Speaker 00

  12 studios making music for cartoons. When people ask me, "What do you do?" I say, "I make music for cartoons." I could see the compassion in their eyes.

• 17:19Guy Raz?

  Because they thought...

• 17:20Speaker 00

  I gotta tell you, there was no room for compassion. I was making money head over fist.

• 17:29Guy Raz?

  All right, so a huge, of course, turning point in your life, I guess, happens when you discover this Japanese live-action show, which, of course, became The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. But tell me, how did you come across this whole concept? What happened?

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Well, in 1984, I was in Japan and, you know, stretching on my bed and the TV on. There were only three channels, two of them showing game shows or some other reality base that I didn't understand a word. And the third channel had these kids in spandex kicking monsters' butts. And I thought, "Hey, this looks like fun."

• 18:15Speaker 00

  It all of a sudden dawned on me that once they turn into superheroes, meaning into Power Rangers, and they have their masks on and they're kicking monster butts, it could be anywhere.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  So all of the action scenes, which is what costs the most money, were basically accounted for. So I thought, "Well, if I shoot an American segment with American kids in an American environment and I tie this up into the action sequence, I can create a show for very little money because all the action scenes I would purchase." And that sounded to me like a great idea. Never mind the fact that I truly enjoyed the show.

• 19:05Guy Raz?

  I remember, it's funny, I remember, because I was, when I was a child, we lived in Japan from 1979 to 1982. And I remember when I saw Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on television in America, I recognized it immediately as a show that I watched as a kid in Japan. But what was the show called in Japanese, by the way?

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Ju Ranger, meaning 10 Rangers in Japanese.

• 19:25Guy Raz?

  So you bought this in, I guess, 1986, around then?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  No, I bought it in 84. And I schlepped it, remember cartoon schlepper, schlepper? And I schlepped it for eight years.

• 19:39Guy Raz?

  What do you mean? You tried to, you went around trying to pitch people on this show for eight years?

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:44Guy Raz?

  And why did you think it would work?

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Well, I just loved it. And I thought that it's got so many elements that we, at the time, didn't see on American TV. And then I said to myself, my goodness, it's been on for like 20 years or something in Japan with such success. Why in the world wouldn't it work here? I know that some people look at it as a campy, cheesy, I don't know, I heard all kinds of definitions. To me, it's a lot of fun show. And every time I'd look at the pilot over and over again, that I was using to pitch the show, I just couldn't figure out why people don't see it.

• 20:32Guy Raz?

  And what did they say when you showed it to them?

• 20:35Speaker 00

  They said, why do you embarrass yourself?

• 20:43Guy Raz?

  I'm Saban, creator of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. In a moment, we're going to find out how he not only found a home for his show, but figured out how to buy his very own kids TV channel on someone else's dime. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 21:28Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1992, and Haime Saban has been trying to sell his idea for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to anyone who would listen. And pretty much no one is interested. That is, until he gets a meeting with an executive at Fox named Margaret Lesh. And unlike everyone before her, Margaret actually likes it.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  She's the only person who said, "There's something there. There's something there." So she orders the show to air in 1993.

• 22:02Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  And we go and produce 40 episodes to be stripped on the Fox Kids Network, which at the time is the number one outlet for kids.

• 22:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  I'm producing it, meaning I'm just there with every script, every outline, every frame, every daily, every sound effects, every piece of music, every casting. I'm not, you know, letting this thing go to anybody.

• 22:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  And basically, once we produce it, there's a mutiny at Fox from Rupert Murdoch on down and the group of affiliates who basically say, "This is horrible. We're not going to air it."

• 22:45Guy Raz?

  And so this executive, Margaret Lesh, she, I mean, what, she goes to bat for you?

• 22:51Speaker 00

  So what she said, she said, "Look, I can't fight all my bosses, et cetera. I understand all of that. So I'm going to air it early in the morning in the summer. And I'm going to air it for eight weeks, right?"

• 23:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah. This is summer of 93.

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 23:10Guy Raz?

  OK.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  And then I'm going to take it off, and we'll call it a day. I said, you know what, I'll take it. I'll take whatever you give me.

• 23:17Guy Raz?

  Right. And did you, by the way, you owned the rights to the show. It was still.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 23:21Guy Raz?

  Okay. So you take this deal because you had no other choice. You had to take it, I guess.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 23:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  And she believed in it. Well, her boss even told her that she's playing her career by putting this show on. Just scrap it.

• 23:35Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  But she believed in it and she just put it on. And within less than a week, it beat every other show.

• 23:45Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Across it. It generated the highest rating of any show on Fox Kids. It beat, at the time, you had Looney Tunes or Tiny Toons. You had Batman. You had all these shows that were the hit of Fox Kids. And it delivered double, triple the ratings of all these shows.

• 24:05Guy Raz?

  So, of course, that eight weeks was renewed, right, right away?

• 24:10Speaker 00

  Well, she moved it to the afternoon right away because it was such a monster hit for her.

• 24:16Guy Raz?

  And, you know, I know I asked you this, but I'm still trying to figure it out. Like, how did you know this was gonna be a hit?

• 24:22Speaker 00

  It's called in Yiddish, kishke, meaning in my gut. Gut is many times more important than brain. I have to tell you that the biggest hits that I had in my life, and in music, and in television, and in business, have been always as a result of significant rejections and repeated rejections. So every time I have an idea that people tell me, no, don't do that, I say, oops, I'm on to something.

• 24:54Guy Raz?

  And, and you, I mean, when that happened, when that show was a hit, did you go to other people and say, I told you this was gonna work? Or were you just sort of?

• 25:02Speaker 00

  I didn't have time to go tell people, whatever. I got my own problems. What do you want from me?

• 25:07Guy Raz?

  So, okay, okay, so Power Rangers is doing great. And I guess at this point, you've got the production company is called Saban Entertainment.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:15Guy Raz?

  And then about a year later, I think it was, that Fox approaches you to buy your production company?

• 25:23Speaker 00

  Well, I'm approached by Rupert Murdoch himself at the time.

• 25:28Guy Raz?

  This is when, around 94, 95?

• 25:30Speaker 00

  94.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  And he has all kinds of concepts that he's putting on the table. And I was holding firm for no money would exchange hands. We would put our content into a joint venture and he would put the network into that joint venture.

• 25:50Guy Raz?

  You were basically saying, yes, I'm not looking to sell my company to you. I'm looking to create a joint venture with you.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Correct. I realized that it's really great to have a great piece of content that is a game changer for a network. But to own that network was the goal I have set for myself.

• 26:11Guy Raz?

  All right. So let me get this clear. Fox Kids is coming to you and saying, we want to buy your production company and all your cartoons. And you're saying, I'm only going to let you have that if you give me half of Fox Kids. Is that right?

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:25Guy Raz?

  Okay, so I'm just trying to figure out why Rupert Murdoch would take that deal. I mean, couldn't he just do all of this without you?

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Well, he asked Margaret Lesh, who was running Fox. He said, to duplicate what Haime has done, including his international distribution and presence worldwide. How long will it take you? And she said, I can do it, but it might take me five years plus.

• 26:52Guy Raz?

  And he wanted that network right away?

• 26:54Speaker 00

  He wanted a presence in that category.

• 26:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  And by doing this joint venture with me, he was instantly in the worldwide kids business.

• 27:06Guy Raz?

  So he basically agreed to give you half of Fox Kids network in exchange for your distribution network and the cartoons that you had. But then, at that point, you owned half of the kids' network.

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:19Guy Raz?

  I mean, a pretty incredible gamble you took because you rejected his original offer.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I wasn't going to do anything else. I wasn't going to bring in a partner in the company I owned 100% of.

• 27:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So what do you guys do at that point? What's your next move?

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Well, the next move is I called Chase Carey and Margaret Lesh one day.

• 27:41Guy Raz?

  Chase Carey was also at Fox? He was a...

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Chase Carey was the chief operating officer at Fox. And I said, look, I got this idea. We should be in the 24/7 kids' business.

• 27:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  And there is only one channel. That is not part of a big conglomerate and that has full distribution that we can buy. And that's the family channel.

• 28:06Guy Raz?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  Owned by Pat Robertson.

• 28:08Guy Raz?

  The televangelist.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 28:10Guy Raz?

  And basically, you wanted Fox to help you convince Pat Robertson to sell it?

• 28:15Speaker 00

  Right. And they said to me, well, he would never sell. I said, well, how about we ask about that as a concept? So they meet with Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson, they called me afterwards and they say Pat Robertson is not a seller. But Chase is gonna meet with his son, Tim.

• 28:37Guy Raz?

  This is Tim Robertson, Pat Robertson's son?

• 28:40Speaker 00

  Correct. And maybe they'll try to find some kind of cooperation. He meets with Tim a few days later. And I said, can I come? And he said, no, no, no, I'll handle it. I said, OK, fine.

• 28:53Guy Raz?

  They didn't want you there because they thought you were gonna be a pain in the neck?

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Because maybe they were concerned that I would be too pushy or I don't know. I don't know. The answer is, I don't know. I just didn't care. All I cared about was the result. I didn't care. So he goes to the meeting with Tim. He comes back and he says, ah, nothing to do. I said, OK, you're done. He said, we're done. I said, OK, I want you to come to a dinner with Tim and myself.

• 29:21Guy Raz?

  Wait, wait, stop. You said that you should be, you should have a dinner with Tim. And you said, let me have a shot at this. Let me see if I can convince him.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Right. And we sat, the three of us at dinner. And I said what I said to Tim. We left the dinner with a dealing principle.

• 29:39Guy Raz?

  What did you say to him that made him?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  I don't wanna get into what I told him. I wanna get into, I can tell you that Chase told me at the end of the dinner, you're a crazy man.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  What are you doing? I said, don't worry about it. We'll figure it out.

• 29:54Guy Raz?

  You hustled. You basically were hustling this deal.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Uh, hustling has a bit of a negative.

• 30:01Guy Raz?

  No, it's not at all. Not anymore. Not true.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  Not true?

• 30:05Guy Raz?

  Not true.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  You speak English better than I do. So hustling is not negative?

• 30:08Guy Raz?

  Not negative anymore, no.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  OK, so I was hustling.

• 30:11Guy Raz?

  You were hustling.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  OK, good. I was hustling.

• 30:12Guy Raz?

  You were hustling. Andy Robertson then says, OK, we have a deal?

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, we had some sort of a joint venture concept that we agreed upon that through the negotiations evolved into basically us buying the whole channel.

• 30:33Guy Raz?

  And Fox paid for the whole thing?

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:36Guy Raz?

  And what'd they pay?

• 30:37Speaker 00

  1.9 billion.

• 30:39Guy Raz?

  Which, that sounds like a lot of money. Was it a good deal?

• 30:43Speaker 00

  No, it was not a good deal. It was a fantastic deal.

• 30:50Guy Raz?

  OK, so you have the deal and you bought this, what was a Christian cable channel, and then you transition it into a kids' channel. Was it hard to do that?

• 31:01Speaker 00

  No, look, I mean, we converted the channel from a channel that targeted people 80-plus, 80 years old plus. I mean, it was a disaster zone with, you know, from a demographic standpoint. So we struggled for a couple of years. And then as we were turning the corner, I realized that we had built a company that was worth between $5 and $5.5 billion competing with companies that were worth 10 to 20 times that. The Disney of this world and the Warner Brothers and so on. So I came to the conclusion that it's time to sell.

• 31:43Guy Raz?

  So wait, this is about like five years in?

• 31:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:47Guy Raz?

  And so you have this channel, Fox Family, and then you decide you want to sell it. But I mean, you owned half of it, but then Fox owned half of it. So how were you able to sell?

• 31:58Speaker 00

  So I had the right, based on my contract with Fox, to put my share to them, which I did.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  And we set to negotiate. They told me that they thought my share was worth half a billion. I told them that my share is worth two billion. Let's sit down and talk.

• 32:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah, but half a billion dollars, that's a lot of money. I mean, wow.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  No, two billion is more.

• 32:23Guy Raz?

  But you could have walked away at that point with half a billion dollars and you would have been a very-

• 32:28Speaker 00

  I wasn't gonna walk away with half a billion dollars. There was not a shot in hell I was gonna do that.

• 32:33Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  My stake in the company is worth two billion. That's what I thought.

• 32:37Guy Raz?

  So what did you end up doing?

• 32:38Speaker 00

  So I didn't wanna get into a pissing match with my partners. I said, okay, well, you know, give me a proxy to sell it. If I can sell it for four and a half billion dollars, would you sell it with me? Sell your share? They said yes. Then I ended up selling it for 5.3 billion.

• 32:54Guy Raz?

  Wait, how did you do that?

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Well, there were two potential buyers. One was CBS and the other one was Disney. And Disney was really very interested in the assets. And they ended up putting up the right amount of money for the asset.

• 33:13Guy Raz?

  I mean, that meant that you probably walked away with, easily with more than a billion dollars.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  One and a half billion.

• 33:20Guy Raz?

  So you become a billionaire overnight?

• 33:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:24Guy Raz?

  Why was it so important for you to get a billion and a half dollars rather than half a billion, right? I mean, was it the money that was important or was it the principle or was it something else?

• 33:36Speaker 00

  It's not about what was important to me. It was more about what is fair. I mean, that was the fair price for the asset.

• 33:44Guy Raz?

  I mean, was money, was getting, becoming really rich, did that motivate you?

• 33:49Speaker 00

  You know, it wasn't only money, but it was also money. Money is a marker to success.

• 33:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we could, we could continue this conversation and talk about, you bought Univision in 2006 and then, you know, you created an investment fund. Like, that's, is it, is it work? Is it getting to a higher number? Is it, is it recognition? What is it that motivates you? Is it just the joy of working? Like, what is it that keeps you going every day?

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Look, I don't collect stamps and I don't play golf.

• 34:24Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  You know, I don't have hobbies other than playing my guitar.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  This is my hobby, you know, getting deals done and making investments and so on. And look, it allows me to do things that I truly enjoy, which is give a lot of money back to this incredible country that has given me so much opportunity, the United States, and Israel, which took me in when I was a refugee. So there's a lot of gratification in that.

• 35:05Guy Raz?

  When you look in the mirror in the morning, do you see Haim Saban, the billionaire mogul? Or do you see that kid who was, you know, doing his homework in the stairwell of a, you know, modest apartment building in Tel Aviv with nothing?

• 35:22Speaker 00

  I see neither. I don't see myself as a mogul, nor do I see myself as an impoverished child. I just see a guy hurrying up to his next phone call or next meeting.

• 35:39Guy Raz?

  Haim Saban. Today, he runs an investment firm. It's called the Saban Capital Group, but he hasn't stopped schlepping cartoons. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie is out in the theaters, and his name is right there in the title. I'm glad that you remember the theme song to Inspector Gadget.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Da ba da ba da, Inspector Gadget.

• 36:02Guy Raz?

  Right? What a song.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  It is one of the best theme songs, I think, ever. It really is.

• 36:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  It's almost as good as "Go, Go Power Rangers."

• 36:12Guy Raz?

  That's a power pop song, though.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  You know, that's a classic. That's like, you know, Moon River or something.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, I thought I'd cause you a woo.

• 36:38Guy Raz?

  And please don't turn us off just yet. In a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you guys are building.

• 36:48Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for "How You Built That." And today's story comes from Paul Tecker of Yorba Linda, California. Paul's been a consultant in the beverage industry for the past 20 years. And over that time, he's also been brewing his own beverage.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  Well, I've been a home brewer for 20 years and pretty quickly realized that the magic ingredient in craft beer is the hops and started brewing with hops. And one day I had some leftover and it just hit me that hops should be enjoyed on more occasions and how come it's only in craft beer?

• 37:24Guy Raz?

  Now, that's not necessarily a question everyone would ask. Bacon, maybe, but hops, who knew?

• 37:31Speaker 03

  It's a very subtle flavor. It's something that is really pleasing and really pairs well with food. And the more I looked at it, the more I said, wow, this could be a whole new category.

• 37:43Guy Raz?

  But instead of coming up with another artisanal chocolate bar or a hops-infused cheese, Paul thought, what about a new drink? Maybe even a drink with no alcohol.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  As much as I love craft beer, you can't drink it on all occasions. So I started experimenting and probably about a year of research and many failures and trying different varieties, came up with something that I thought was just phenomenal.

• 38:09Guy Raz?

  What Paul came up with has no barley, no yeast, no fermentation, no alcohol, and best of all, no calories. Paul basically made up hops-flavored sparkling water.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  I think when people think of hops, they think of bitter. But there are over 100 varieties of hops. And the hops that we use, these Aroma hops, add citrus and pine flavors, grapefruit. It's really complex and what I consider the spice or the magic ingredient.

• 38:40Guy Raz?

  So Paul took his creation to a beer festival in San Francisco. And at first, he was a little nervous. About what beer drinkers would think.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  But when people came up and tasted it, people were like, wow, you know, this is legit. The flavor is really interesting and refreshing. And that's when I knew that it's not just me.

• 39:01Guy Raz?

  Now, think about this for a moment. Sparkling water is super hot right now. Just ask the company that makes La Croix. And it's no secret that craft beer is huge. Paul just figured, put them together. And he's managed to get his drink into a few small retailers and restaurants. Now, he's not making a profit yet, but this year, he's expecting sales to double.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  And if I can get it to the point where a big company would like to pick this up and distribute it worldwide, then, you know, I would feel fantastic about that.

• 39:33Guy Raz?

  That's Paul Tecker. His company, H2OPS, is based in Anaheim, California. If you want to find out more about it, visit our Facebook page. And please, please also tell us your stories. You can do that by going to build.npr.org. That's build with a D. We love hearing from you. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more about it, go to howibuiltthis.npr.org. You can also write to us at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter. It's at howibuiltthis. Please also help us out by subscribing to our show on iTunes or however you get your podcasts and leave us a review while you're there. Our show was produced this week by Ramtin Arablouei, who also composed the music.

• 40:18Guy Raz?

  Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Claire Breen. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 40:43Guy Raz?

  Hey, if you're still listening, you know, a lot of people ask me what podcasts I listen to. And I listen to a lot. And one of my favorites is NPR's Planet Money. It's full of super fun, insightful stories that explain all kinds of things about the world. You don't even have to care about finance or economics to love it. It's a great show, and you can find it right now at npr.org/podcasts or on the NPR ONE app.