Power Rangers: Haim Saban (2017)

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. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Chris Waters who created Constructed Adventures, elaborate scavenger hunts for all occasions. (Original broadcast date: March 27, 2017.) 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.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, it's Guy here. So you know how I usually get to ask our guests the question, "How'd you get to where you got? Was it luck, or skill, or hard work, or what?" Well, with Hyam Saban, I actually never got around to asking that. But in this episode, you will still hear a lot about luck, a lot about hard work, and a ton about Hyam's special skill, which is knowing a really good idea when he sees one. This episode first ran in March of last year, and I hope you enjoy it.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  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."

• 1:03Guy Raz?

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

• 1:15Guy Raz?

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

• 1:32Guy Raz?

  If you asked Hyam Saban what he does...

• 1:35Speaker 01

  I used to describe myself as a cartoon schlepper.

• 1:38Guy Raz?

  Cartoon schlepper?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:49Guy 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.

• 2:04Speaker 02

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

• 2:11Guy Raz?

  But we're getting ahead of ourselves here because long before the Power Rangers, long before Hyam 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.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:56Guy Raz?

  But in 1956, shortly after the Suez War, many Egyptian Jews were accused of being traitors. So Hyam's family had to flee to Israel. Hyam 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.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  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.

• 3:52Guy Raz?

  And do you remember going to school right away?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  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, you know, 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 six, I'd go to be a runner in a travel agency. Four thirty in the afternoon, I'd go to school until nine thirty. Nine thirty, 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.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  And go to sleep and then every day was the same routine.

• 4:42Guy Raz?

  Were you a good student as a kid?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  I was a pretty bad student and the principal called my father and said, "Your son most probably is gonna make a lot of money one day, but a student, an academic, 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."

• 5:13Guy Raz?

  And did you finish with high grades?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:18Guy Raz?

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

• 5:33Speaker 01

  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."

• 5:51Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we would make out in the garden.

• 5:59Speaker 01

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

• 6:03Guy Raz?

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

• 6:07Speaker 01

  It was at the beginning in combat 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. 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 entertained the soldiers in each position. That's what we did.

• 6:45Guy Raz?

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

• 6:59Speaker 01

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

• 7:15Guy Raz?

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

• 7:21Speaker 01

  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. 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.

• 8:03Guy Raz?

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

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Well, just at the beginning.

• 8:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So did you eventually get good at it?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:13Guy Raz?

  No, okay.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I was never good enough, which is why one day the two brothers that were kind of the basis of the band, the lead singer, and his brother was a solo guitarist, came up to me and said, "Why don't you be our manager? 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.

• 8:49Guy Raz?

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

• 8:53Speaker 01

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

• 9:05Guy 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?

• 9:13Speaker 01

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

• 9:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah, fair enough.

• 9:23Speaker 01

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

• 9:30Guy Raz?

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

• 9:38Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:57Guy Raz?

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

• 10:02Speaker 01

  By the time that happened, I was 29.

• 10:05Guy Raz?

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

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Well, I had a big group of harpists from Japan.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  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 where all of the expenses were in dollars and the revenues were in Israeli pounds.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:11Guy Raz?

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

• 11:15Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:27Guy Raz?

  So what did you do?

• 11:28Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:41Guy Raz?

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

• 11:43Speaker 01

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

• 11:47Guy Raz?

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

• 11:49Speaker 01

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

• 11:56Guy Raz?

  And what was the luck that was presented?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Well, this first record that I produced went platinum.

• 12:02Guy Raz?

  With this nine-year-old Israeli singer?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  With this nine-year-old.

• 12:05Guy Raz?

  What was his, what was his name?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Noam, N-O-A-M.

• 12:09Guy Raz?

  How did the song go? Do you remember?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Difficile de choisir.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Entre goûter sa goûte.

• 12:23Guy Raz?

  So you've basically struck gold with this, or platinum, I guess, with this record, and 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 France, in Paris?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:48Guy 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, you know, get a studio together and find distributors?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 13:09Guy Raz?

  Well, you just, you just started knocking on doors?

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Knocking on doors is what we do, right? I mean, you know, all business people knock on doors. Or 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.

• 13:30Guy Raz?

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

• 13:36Speaker 01

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

• 13:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And what did you intend to do in LA?

• 13:46Speaker 01

  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.

• 14:06Guy Raz?

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

• 14:10Speaker 01

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

• 14:19Guy Raz?

  These are the publishing agencies, right?

• 14:22Speaker 01

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

• 14:31Guy Raz?

  They pay royalties and things like that?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 14:42Guy Raz?

  And was it because there were, it was music in cartoons, or just any music?

• 14:47Speaker 01

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

• 14:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:29Guy Raz?

  How did you figure that out?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:49Guy Raz?

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

• 15:53Speaker 01

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

• 15:59Guy Raz?

  What was the offer?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:21Guy Raz?

  So what cartoons did you, did you make music for?

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Da ba da ba da, Inspector Gadget.

• 16:28Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:49Guy Raz?

  Do you remember the Heathcliff one?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Heathcliff, Heathcliff, you're the one.

• 16:53Guy Raz?

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

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Are you, are you a fan of my music?

• 17:02Guy Raz?

  Yeah, huge fan.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Okay, this is good.

• 17:14Guy Raz?

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

• 17:17Speaker 01

  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.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  So, we, at one point, had 12 studios.

• 17:35Guy Raz?

  12 studios, just making music for cartoons?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 17:47Guy Raz?

  Because they thought...

• 17:48Speaker 01

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

• 17:57Guy 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?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  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."

• 18:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  So, all of the action scenes, which is what cost 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 of 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.

• 19:33Guy Raz?

  It's funny. I remember, because 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?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Ju-Ranger, meaning 10 Rangers in Japanese.

• 19:53Guy Raz?

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

• 19:57Speaker 01

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

• 20:07Guy Raz?

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

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:12Guy Raz?

  And why did you think it would work?

• 20:15Speaker 01

  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.

• 21:00Guy Raz?

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

• 21:03Speaker 01

  They said, "Why do you embarrass yourself?"

• 21:11Guy 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.

• 21:40Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1992, and Haim 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.

• 22:03Speaker 01

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

• 22:14Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  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.

• 22:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 22:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  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."

• 22:57Guy Raz?

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

• 23:03Speaker 01

  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?"

• 23:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah. This is summer of 93.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 23:23Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:29Guy Raz?

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

• 23:33Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 23:34Guy Raz?

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

• 23:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:47Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:48Speaker 01

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

• 23:58Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:18Guy Raz?

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

• 24:22Speaker 01

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

• 24:28Guy 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 going to be a hit?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:07Guy 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 going to work? Or were you just sort of?

• 25:15Speaker 01

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

• 25:20Guy 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.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:28Guy Raz?

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

• 25:35Speaker 01

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

• 25:40Guy Raz?

  This is when, around 94, 95?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  94. 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.

• 26:03Guy 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.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  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.

• 26:23Guy 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?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:38Guy 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?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Well, he asked Margaret Lash, 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.

• 27:05Guy Raz?

  And he wanted that network right away?

• 27:07Speaker 01

  He wanted a presence in that.

• 27:10Guy Raz?

  Category, yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 01

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

• 27:19Guy 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.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:32Guy Raz?

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

• 27:37Speaker 01

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

• 27:44Guy Raz?

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

• 27:49Speaker 01

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

• 27:54Guy Raz?

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

• 27:56Speaker 01

  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."

• 28:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  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 owned by Pat Robertson.

• 28:21Guy Raz?

  The televangelist.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 28:23Guy Raz?

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

• 28:28Speaker 01

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

• 28:50Guy Raz?

  This is Tim Robertson, Pat Robertson's son?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  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. Well, I'll handle it." I said, "Okay, fine."

• 29:05Guy Raz?

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

• 29:09Speaker 01

  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, "Nothing to do." I said, "Okay, you're done." They said, "We're done." I said, "Okay, I want you to come to a dinner with Tim and myself."

• 29:33Guy 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."

• 29:42Speaker 01

  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.

• 29:51Guy Raz?

  What did you say to him that made him?

• 29:53Speaker 01

  I don't want to get into what I told him. I want to get into, I can't tell you that Chase told me at the end of the dinner, "You're a crazy man. What are you doing?" I said, "Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out."

• 30:06Guy Raz?

  You hustled, you basically were hustling this deal?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Hustling has a bit of a negative.

• 30:13Guy Raz?

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

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Not true?

• 30:17Guy Raz?

  Not true.

• 30:18Speaker 01

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

• 30:21Guy Raz?

  Not negative anymore, no.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Okay, so I was hustling.

• 30:24Guy Raz?

  You were hustling.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Okay, good, I was hustling.

• 30:25Guy Raz?

  Okay, you were hustling. Andy Robertson then says, "Okay, we have a deal."

• 30:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 30:45Guy Raz?

  And Fox paid for the whole thing?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Guy Raz?

  And what'd they pay?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  1.9 billion.

• 30:52Guy Raz?

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

• 30:56Speaker 01

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

• 31:03Guy Raz?

  Okay, 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 that, was it hard to do that?

• 31:13Speaker 01

  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's of this world and the Warner Brothers and so on. So I came to the conclusion that it's time to sell.

• 31:56Guy Raz?

  So, wait, this is about like five years in?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:00Guy 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 did, like, how were you able to sell?

• 32:11Speaker 01

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

• 32:31Guy Raz?

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

• 32:35Speaker 01

  No, two billion is more.

• 32:36Guy Raz?

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

• 32:41Speaker 01

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

• 32:45Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 32:46Speaker 01

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

• 32:49Guy Raz?

  So what did you end up doing?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:07Guy Raz?

  How did you do that?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:26Guy Raz?

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

• 33:31Speaker 01

  One and a half billion.

• 33:33Guy Raz?

  So you become a billionaire overnight?

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:37Guy 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?

• 33:49Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:57Guy Raz?

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

• 34:02Speaker 01

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

• 34:09Guy 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?

• 34:33Speaker 01

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

• 34:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:38Speaker 01

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

• 34:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 35:17Guy Raz?

  When you look in the mirror in the morning, do you see Hayyim 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?

• 35:35Speaker 01

  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.

• 35:52Guy Raz?

  That's Hayyim Saban. Today, he runs an investment firm called the Saban Capital Group. And last year, just weeks after this episode first ran, Hayyim sold the rights to the Power Rangers franchise to Hasbro, the toy company. The deal was reportedly worth $522 million. I'm glad that you remember the theme song to Inspector Gadget.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  (singing) Da ba da ba da.

• 36:17Guy Raz?

  Inspector Gadget. Right? What a song.

• 36:21Speaker 01

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

• 36:24Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 01

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

• 36:29Guy Raz?

  That's a, that's a power pop song, though.

• 36:31Speaker 01

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

• 36:36Guy Raz?

  (laughing).

• 36:37Speaker 01

  You know? Woo! Yes, yes. I thought I'd call you a woo.

• 36:55Guy Raz?

  And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you're building.

• 37:04Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that. And today, we're going to update a story we ran about a year ago. And back then, Chris Waters would wake up every morning and head to his job as an account manager at a software company.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Yep, yeah, it's a cubicle job. It's just desk, phone, usually talking to relatively unhappy people.

• 37:25Guy Raz?

  Now, as you can imagine, Chris prefers to talk to relatively happy people, which explains how he started his side business a few years back. He was on the website Reddit, and Reddit has this thing around Christmas time where they'll connect you with a total stranger, and then you can send them a gift.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  And I got matched with this guy who lived 20 minutes away. And I was thinking about what to give him and what I could do with this great opportunity where he lived so close.

• 37:52Guy Raz?

  And Chris was thinking way beyond the scope of this whole Secret Santa thing. You know, he didn't want to just send a boring gift card or a snack box. And fortunately...

• 38:02Speaker 03

  I was hosting a weekly poker game with my friends, and I had just happened to have won five weeks in a row. And so I had a lot of extra money.

• 38:08Guy Raz?

  Like almost $2,000 in extra money. And Chris thought, why not just pay it forward and put together this really elaborate and expensive Secret Santa gift?

• 38:18Speaker 03

  I like doing things for other people. I like creating something special and magical. And if you have the opportunity to do something truly spectacular for someone, including an internet stranger, you should take that opportunity.

• 38:33Guy Raz?

  OK, so it's important to mention here that Chris is really into scavenger hunts and buried treasure and planting clues, you know, stuff like that. So for his Secret Santa guy, Chris wound up planning this incredible day-long adventure.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  At 8:00 AM, a century-old suitcase, filled with envelopes and a box with a chain wrapped around it, was hand-delivered to his door.

• 38:55Guy Raz?

  This was all happening around Scottsdale, Arizona, by the way.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  They got to a place where there was an envelope with two tickets to the zoo. And at the animal pens, there was kind of a cipher that you use to decode the message. And then it sent them to a restaurant where the server said, "We've been expecting you."

• 39:11Guy Raz?

  Anyway, Chris wound up spending something like $600 of his poker money on tickets, and tchotchkes, and clues, meals, all for this total stranger. And at the end of this incredible day, Chris actually met up with the guy at a local bar. His name is Blaine, and as you might guess, Blaine was pretty blown away.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  And a couple of days later, Blaine posted to Reddit, and it just blew up.

• 39:36Guy Raz?

  Blaine's post about his secret Santa experience went to number one on Reddit's front page. And so Chris started to get inundated with messages.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Just people commenting and privately messaging, saying, "You need to do this in Vegas. You need to do one here. I live in England. Can you come over here and do this?" And then businesses saying, "We would like to be a part of this."

• 39:54Guy Raz?

  And that is how Chris started his business, Constructed Adventures. He puts together these personalized scavenger hunts and day-long excursions for people's birthdays, and marriage proposals, and stuff like that. And it's pretty good money.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Minimum, it's probably going to cost them about $2,000 for the whole shebang.

• 40:14Guy Raz?

  Anyway, just days before we ran Chris's story last year, he'd actually submitted his letter of resignation at that boring office job. And he started to do Constructed Adventures full-time.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Honestly, I should be more nervous, and I should be scared. But if I can quit my job and spend my life doing that for other people, I'd say that's a pretty good life.

• 40:36Guy Raz?

  Since we last spoke to Chris, he's planned 24 more adventures, and he's made around $100,000 in revenue. And he's also been approached by a production company that wants to do a TV show about him and his business.

• 40:51Guy Raz?

  If you want to learn more about Constructed Adventures or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. As always, we'd love to hear what you're up to. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please do give us a review. You can also write us directly at [email protected]. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at howibuiltthis. Our show was produced this week by Ramtin Arablouei, who also composed the music. Thanks also to J.C. Howard, Nora Kudsi, Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Mia Venkat. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening

• 41:36Guy Raz?

  to How I Built This from NPR.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  The news moves fast. Listen to the NPR News Now podcast to keep up. We update stories as they evolve every hour. So no matter when you listen, you get the news as close to live as possible on your schedule. Subscribe to or follow the NPR News Now podcast.