Reboot Podcast #15 - Becoming a Leader: The Crucible of Co-Founder Conflict with JW Player team

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Welcome to the Reboot podcast. "To be adult in relationship is not to be conflict-free, it's to
resolve conflicts mindfully." That quote is from David Richo in his book, "How to Be an Adult:
A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration." JW Player has come a long way
starting first as two separate entities, one in New York and one in an attic in the Netherlands. The
JW Player and platform is now used by over 2.5 million publishers and 20% of the Fortune-1000
companies. Each month, about a billion people watch video on their platform. Those numbers
represent tremendous growth for the company but they only tell part of the story. Behind those
numbers are real people including three co-founders who, over the last eight years, have
experienced their own profound personal growth in leadership transformations.
In a special first video episode, only fitting for the founder of one of the world's largest video
platforms, we have the three co-founders of JW Player joining Jerry in person. In a very open
conversation, they explore the key challenging moments in their company in partnership history
and how they emerge from those moments, stronger and more committed than ever. They
emerged as leaders. It's an inspiring story of leaders born through adversity. So, quickly before
we start this episode, just wanted to remind you to check out our website at Reboot.io/podcast.
As always, we have tons of extra information on this discussion including video for the very first
time of Jerry's conversation with the JW team. That's Reboot.io/podcast. Now on with the
discussion.
Jerry Colonna: Hi guys, thanks for agreeing to do this, it's really an honor to spend some time
with you. As you guys know, I've known Dave now for seven years or so?
Dave Otten: 2009.
Jerry: So it just feels a lot longer.
Dave: It says a lot about me, or us, or one of the two.
Jerry: But you know, it's been a really – it's been quite a journey and I'm looking forward to
talking through that but before we sort of get started Dave, I thought it might be good
and then you know, you guys can jump in, just sort of introduce yourself, tell us a little
bit about the company and what you do and then we'll sort of plunge in and talk about
the story.
Dave: Okay cool; so my name is Dave Otten, I am CEO, co-founder of JW Player. What we
do is that we provide software to publishers to enable them to do all things video. So
publish a video, stream a video, monetize a video etcetera. Our software is used now by
over 2.5 million publishers; about 20% of the Fortune-1000 use us, each month about a
billion people watch a video on a JW Player. So outside of Facebook, outside of
YouTube, there's no one bigger than video, we are kind of the Intel Inside if you will,
and we've done a great job in skill and technology and the business itself.
Jerry: I love the pride in that.

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Dave: Yeah, so I said something that – it's – shit, seven years man, we take a lot of pride in
this stuff.
Jerry: Yeah, and I love the fact that as he was saying that, the two of you looked at him with
also pride. Did I name that feeling right?
Brian Rifkin: Mm-hmm. I think you nailed it.
Jerry: Yeah, tell us who you are and –
Brian: Sure, my name is Brian Rifkin. I'm one of the co-founders and I currently run a
business development in a group called JW Demand and for some reason I'm still at this
with Dave around seven or eight years later.
Jerry: And Jeroen –
Jeroen Wijering: Yeah, Jeroen Wijering. I am the original creator of the JW Player so –
Jerry: Hence JW.
Jeroen: Hence JW, yeah, I built it in my basement – in my attic actually, student dorm and
yeah, now in product. So, I'm still doing a product for JW Player, actually moved to
New York –
Jerry: Right.
Jeroen: When was it? Two years ago?
Dave: 2013.
Jeroen: We're about two years in New York now.
Jerry: That's great. So, which really sort of leads me to my first question because each of you
just described yourself as a co-founder but that's actually not 100% accurate; right? So,
take us back to the origin story.
Dave: Yeah, I'll pick it up and Brian can fill in the holes up –
Jerry: Or correct you.
Dave: Yeah, [Inaudible 0: 04: 53] so I was coming out – I graduated business school and
coming out of business school, I didn’t really want to go work for a company. I always
had the itch to start something up. At the time YouTube was doing its thing, it was
really beginning to grow, clearly video was going to be something very big and it was
very, very early on in those days. So, Brian and I, we began talking and Brian had been
a very successful entrepreneur before this and at the time he was running his own

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business and we started brainstorming ideas and a lot of it came back to video and how
we can help publishers better monetize their video assets. So, it was ad-focused
originally. So, we started chatting, I graduated from school, we kicked it around at
nights, we hired a third person to come in and actually develop an ad solution to
actually deliver advertisements and at that time it was display ads into the video space
because there was no video ads back in that timeframe. We got an ad solution out there
and a few publishers began working on it or using the solution and it kind of took off
from there.
Brian: Yeah, I at the time – I remember really clearly when Dave came in and we had
breakfast I think or something like that at a Diner right near my house and I had just
gone through some things going on personally and I was ready to make a change in my
work life. This opportunity came around and I remember Dave saying, let's try
something. We can go back and raise some money from the guys that we work with at
About.com and we started bouncing around ideas and there was no scientific approach
to this. So, it was just we – I think we should be in video and he – we both agreed that
video was a spot. Get another partner who one of our first at that time he was a tech
side – he just so happened in the middle of all this to say, I'm moving from Sausalito to
the Netherlands.
Dave: Right.
Brian: And my dad's side of the family is from there and I want to be based over there for a
better life. I have a couple of kids so we said, all right, we'll do it. So, we made the
move, we kept developing our idea and then at some point we started coming across the
JW Player. It started popping up on sites that we wanted to work with. This when
Windows Media was sort of dying and Flash was taking off –
Dave: That dates us.
Brian: Yeah. So we said, we got to go find this guy. We need some help, we actually need
someone to help us build our product into the JW Player. At that time, it was really just
ad solution and as it turned out, that person that owned the JW Player was based over in
the Netherlands, Jeroen, and remember, we reached out to him at first to help us consult
to build what we wanted to into your player. One thing led to another and at some point
along the way, we are still trying to build a business, we had to raise money, we are all
sort of doing this at night or in our spare time. We just said, we got to buy this thing. It
makes more sense. We got to bring it into our company.
Jerry: So Jeroen, let's just jump to you. So, you are sitting in your attic, you've built this
player, it's taken off probably more than you anticipated, you're making money how?
Jeroen: So I started giving it away as an open source product and then I started asking money
for licenses.
Jerry: For donations?

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Jeroen: Not donations, licenses for commercial use.
Jerry: I see.
Jeroen: So if you were a company –
Jerry: So if I was an individual and I want to put a video on my website, I could get it for free
but if I am CNN and I want to use it, I got to pay you.
Jeroen: Yeah.
Jerry: Gotcha.
Jeroen: And it was taking off really nicely.
Jerry: Gotcha. And so there you are, you are building a little company?
Jeroen: Yeah, it was like personal company, yeah.
Jerry: And then you get a phone call?
Jeroen: Yeah, and I was already – at that point when the player was taking off, I was still in
school I was at Design Academy and at a certain point in late '06, I graduated and that's
when I really wanted to do something more with the JW Player.
Jerry: Let's start getting into this relationship because – and even before we started filming,
we were talking a little bit about this and I said to you, you are co-founders but you are
kinda not, but you kinda are and Jeroen, I think it was you who said, no you are co –
'No, I am a co-founder' and Dave, you said, 'No he's a co-founder.'
Dave: Yeah, absolutely.
Jerry: Even though the story of coming together was like in bits and pieces.
Dave: Yeah, I mean like –
Jerry: But you see each other as co-founders; don’t you?
Dave: Absolutely.
Brian: But the way we are officially, and if you look at the paper, when we started the
company which was after all of this where we sort of met and [Crosstalk] –
Jerry: Right, when you merged –

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Brian: – in the late summer of '07 and I think the company officially launched and we raised
our money was December, we were all cofounders. That's when the company started.
We actually started the business with the JW Player.
Jerry: I see.
Brian: We acquired the JW Player and at the same time we said Jeroen, you got to be a
partner. This isn’t about acquisitions, it's about partnership if we are to create this U.S.
company called, at the time [Inaudible 0: 09: 51]
Jerry: So Jeroen, two crazy Americans show up at your door.
Dave: Like a week after we had first called, we had no money.
Jerry: No money.
Brian: No money.
Jerry: Nothing to offer –
Brian: All we knew was, we were going to Amsterdam on a trip and that's all that mattered.
Jerry: Right and we won't have to know what you did in Amsterdam, red-light district,
whatever. What did you think?
Jeroen: It was not nothing. You had all your background, you had all your relations, money was
more or less, lined up –
Dave: It was, yeah.
Jeroen: – plan was there, the product was there, [Crosstalk] publishers were there.
Dave: Yeah, so Jeroen's point is a fair one like, I appreciate you giving [Laughs] but like, it's
funny, we look at it – so what I had done is, I had lined up an angel group and as we
talked about just a second ago, Brian and I were early About.com guys so we reached
out to a lot of those early, senior folks on that team and then we had a West Coast
group of angels who I had known a couple of guys over there that we really just kind of
continuously pitched the deal to. So we effectively – the way the timing worked out is,
as we were doing the JW acquisition deal, in parallel we are doing the financing deal.
So literally, as Brian talked about, we actually sort of started the company issued the
stock to the founders at the same time creating the co-founder relationship and then
literally two weeks later, we closed the financing back to back.
Jerry: All right.
Dave: So that is true –

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Jerry: So, it's not a re-writing of history in a sense to say Jeroen is a co-founder.
Dave: Not at all.
Jerry: It's just that the trajectory in which all of you have come together isn’t out of the
playbook.
Dave: No.
Brian: Oh no.
Jerry: That is, you are sitting in a coffee-shop saying to yourself, I got to find a technical co-
founder –
Dave: No.
Jerry: – you know, according to you know, angel investors in the West Coast, I got to have
the – and then you find the technical, and then you come together. It was actually kind
of more organic –
Dave: Yes.
Jerry: – ad-hoc, there's a long-term relationship here, this is a new relationship, why did you
trust these guys? I mean, these guys were –
Jeroen: That's a great question.
Jerry: I wouldn’t trust them [Laughs].
Jeroen: I did and it worked out. I did some betting so I think I saw a list of investors that were
people from back then, [Inaudible 0: 12: 22] on that list so About.com was
still – had pages up and so it looked pretty good and at this point you have to, I think,
go for it than not. So you can do so much betting and it looked good, the plan was nice,
the conversations went pretty well so we had a couple of really nice conversations.
Jerry: Brian, you knew Dave; Dave, you knew Brian.
Dave: Yeah.
Jerry: You kinda knew what you were getting, warts and all.
Brian: Yeah.

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Dave: I'd say we learnt a lot, we knew each other and we had a certain – at least from my tons
of respect and I needed like he was really talented and I think he's a good, honest
person too.
Brian: But we never worked in the same groups.
Jerry: Right, you knew each other but you weren't –
Brian: We were friends.
Jerry: Yeah, friends more like colleagues in that sense.
Brian: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah.
Brian: Because we weren’t interacting really that much at About but we knew we
complemented each other.
Jerry: How did you know that?
Brian: I knew that because Dave possessed skills that I didn’t have.
Jerry: So you complemented each other on the skills based –
Dave: And vice versa.
Brian: And I knew that we had that – we both had the friendship that we knew that could be a
working friendship relationship as well. I think we both understood that.
Dave: Yeah.
Jerry: Would it be safe to say – and I'm not [Inaudible 0:13: 49] here and I am not naïve, I
know that there have been bumps on the road but would it be safe to say that there was
enough trust at the beginning to go for it?
Brian: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah, for me it was. Yeah.
Jerry: How did you – I'm so curious about a third person stepping into an existing relationship
and being able to feel trust.
Brian: Yeah, we also had a – we had that partner –
Dave: The Holland guy.

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Brian: In the Netherlands, we had another partner that we worked with at About that was one
of our original ones, but I think we are talking about it today for the first time to hear
how Jeroen perceived us; right?
Jerry: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah, and I always talked about it, I have always talked about it and it's funny how you
think back and Brian remembers things that I don’t and Jeroen remembers things that I
don’t and so it's funny to hear us go through the story again but I remember a couple of
things. I remember when we got off the phone with Jeroen for the first time, I want to
talk about the consulting gig, we hung up the phone and the first thing I said was, 'We
need to buy this guy' and then we said, 'we don’t have anything.' So that was –
Jerry: Wanted currency, we couldn’t use beer coin.
Dave: That was the first sentence – or two sentences out of our mouths the first time and the
other thing was, we got lucky too. We had the right idea, Brian and I, we couldn’t do
what Jeroen was able to do and he had created this market, being the visionary that he
is in the video side and we were the first guys to show up on your doorstep and we were
literally the first – I think you said that to me before?
Jeroen: Yeah, I know.
Dave: And then there was a personal relation too –
Jerry: That they showed up.
Jeroen: Yeah, they showed up and then again, very complementary. Also, it was immediately
clear when you talk to the both of you that it's very complementary.
Jerry: That they are complementary to each other?
Jeroen: Yeah.
Jerry: And that seemed appealing to you?
Jeroen: Yeah. So it's very much like business – Dave is very clear in like, we need to do this,
we need to do that to –
Dave: I have gotten better. I haven’t always been like that.
Jerry: You had a good coach.

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Jeroen: And Brian is on the personal side, he's also really good in terms of okay how does that
work with – you know, how often should you fly over; I think that's one of the
conversations we had to make sure that it also works between us as persons.
Jerry: So we mentioned it and there's now an elephant in the room which is, there were others.
Dave: Yup.
Jerry: There were others.
Dave: There were.
Jerry: And so, what happened?
Dave: Well, once we got the financing, and then we began to really understand – for me, I
don’t know Brian, if you felt the same way, once – we knew what we were getting with
the player but we didn’t really know how much – like how valuable the asset was until
we actually acquired it and started getting into it and understanding customers and
understanding just sort of the power of the community that supported it. So, we really
began to grow fast and that's one of the things that Brian is brilliant at which is, he
could drive traffic, he can – just turning the dials literally started blowing this thing up
and we were working pretty closely on that. So once we saw all that starting to happen,
we knew we had something here. The original gentleman from Holland who we
brought onboard, what was clear to us also is that to scale the business, we know we
had some concerns given where he was based, given what we had to do and hire a team
and all those things and having separate offices. We didn’t think it really would make
sense to continue to working together on a full-time basis. So that was one of the
hardest things early on. I remember Brian and I – I remember the actual day very
clearly where we had to have a conversation with him that you know, it didn’t make
sense for us to work together and that was probably – that was in late '08, I want to say?
Is that what it was? It was like fall of '08?
Brian: I think so, yeah.
Dave: And so, it was very early on and really difficult. It was just a difficult thing to do
although we hadn’t worked that long together. But it was still like the first, really big,
kind of personnel decision and yeah, that was a tough one. So, he left the organization
at that point in time.
Jerry: So, you know, I want to simultaneously respect his privacy and respect the fact that it
was meaningful for you guys but as you know, you know, I am a big believer in just
sort of saying what is really true and so in this story, what we are really talking about,
because so far, we have been like, 'Hey, this is great.'
Jeroen: Yeah.

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Dave: Yeah
Jerry: But what we are really talking about now is the other side of the equation which was,
this was one of the hardest things to do which was to fire someone who had been there
at the beginning. And I use the word 'fire' –
Dave: Yeah, that's what happened.
Jerry: It's a weird word. It is what happened, that's what you said?
Dave: Yeah. I mean, Brian and I, we went to a bar here in New York City –
Jeroen: Yeah.
Dave: – and I remember, I was the person who had to talk to him and I was nervous. I was
scared, yeah, there was a lot of like fear –
Jerry: Did you feel guilt?
Dave: A little bit at the time I'd say. It was not because it was the wrong thing to do but it's
just because he had taken a risk with us, he too had a family and so, and yeah,
absolutely.
Jeroen: Yeah.
Dave: But it was the right thing to do though.
Brian: I felt [Inaudible 0: 19: 24]
Jerry: Say it again, Brian.
Brian: I felt tremendous guilt and I brought him into the equation. He had worked with me in
the past and it's tough. It's tough to prioritize a business over people.
Jerry: Is that what you felt you did?
Brian: Yeah and I think we still do that. I think that's the way we operate the business, that's
tough and at the same time, maintain a great culture.
Jerry: How do you reconcile those two things? Maintain a great culture, optimize for the
business over people.
Brian: I don’t think that there is a formula to it. I think you just deal with that as it comes and
you do your best.
Jerry: See, I would argue –

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Dave: I would like to answer differently, I would say, you never know, the only thing you can
do is try to be transparent to people and sometimes we were successful in that and a lot
of times, we have been successful but sometimes we aren’t. But that's the only thing we
can try to be –
Jerry: Is to be real.
Dave: Is to try to be real. I think people, I think that's one of the things that – I think an
important link between all three of us is that we were able to easily integrate as a co-
founding team at the outset just because we are not – we are pretty easy-going folks;
like no big egos, and I think that plays still to this day and I hope people in our
organization like that but it's always hard to maintain. I mean it's how we really feel but
it's hard to maintain.
Jeroen: Yeah, also if you are not making one of these decisions, then, you always have a drag
on the organization, on the culture because nobody really knows us.
Jerry: Yes.
Brian: This person is not contributing –
Dave: Yeah, or is at the wrong place.
Jeroen: Is at the wrong place so they [Crosstalk]
Jerry: See, that's why, I actually thought Brian where you were going to end up was – the way
you reconcile it is, you understand that they are actually not in opposition. See, the way
you constructed it, was optimizing for the business over people and I think that that
construct produces the guilt. When you take a step back and you say, and Jeroen hit
upon this, are you optimizing for the other people?
Brian: Right.
Jerry: Right? There's a hundred or so other people who are busting their butts and this
individual is in the wrong spot. As one of my former clients said about an employee she
had to terminate, 'I like chocolate and I like olive oil; I don’t like chocolate in olive oil
together.' This person is not a bad person, they are in the wrong spot.
Brian: That's right.
Jerry: This is hard though; it's hard enough to terminate an employee under this but when you
ask a co-founder to step away, and it's not because the whole thing is falling apart
because clearly it's not. But it's because this one person or, in this case, perhaps two, not
fitting right. It's a very emotionally challenging situation. Again, you know, we are
going to strip out the audio on some of this and so some people will be only hearing the

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audio and so I'll say, if you look at your faces right now, all three of you are like 'Ugh,
yeah.'
Brian: Yeah, brings you back.
Jerry: Brings you back to that emotional state, right? What does it bring you back to Brian?
Brian: To that time that we sat in the bar; we had that conversation with him; that was tough.
Dave: It was tough for me, yeah, no doubt.
Brian: Right?
Dave: Oh yeah.
Brian: It was clearly something that you buried, now I realize, you reflected on it at times but
now that we brought it back up, we feel like that.
Jerry: Yeah, well, this is what Jerry does.
Brian: Yeah. [Crosstalk] I asked Dave before I came here, are we gonna all cry. [Laughs]
Dave: The guy who asks the question is the guy who does; I'm kidding.
Jerry: But the reason that I think that is so important is that how do you grow from this unless
you actually reflect on it and I want to give you something Brian because you spoke
about the guilt. A while back, one of my teachers, Sharon Salzberg, who is a brilliant
writer, written a beautiful book called Loving Kindness. She and I were talking and I
was sharing with her some of my own personal challenges and she said, 'Please read
Loving Kindness,' this book; and as I was reading it, I came across this section in which
she spoke about the differences between guilt and remorse. Guilt, she points out, is a
function of ego or grandoisment. It actually takes the pain of the situation and makes it
about us under the guise of caring about the other person. Whereas remorse, is really
focused on the other person's suffering. You see the distinction?
Brian: Yes, I do.
Jerry: It's hugely helpful for me.
Brian: We can go back and edit it and say remorse instead of guilt?
Dave: Remorse – I was going to say you're being selfish. [Laughs]
Brian: But it's a great point.

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Jerry: But let's go back and do this; what would you have done differently because that's
where we can extract the growth from.
Brian: I don’t think it's just with him, I think it's through our experience in the last seven years
where we had this with other people in the companies is address that – address it head-
on.
Jerry: Yes.
Brian: Immediately.
Jerry: What's my phrase Dave?
Dave: I don’t know, sooner is better than later – I don’t know.
Jerry: Bull shit.
Dave: I forget.
Jerry: Being fierce.
Dave: Being fierce, yes, sorry.
Jerry: I hate blanking on it. Address it head-on. Verbally.
Dave: We've gotten better at that area. I think you know, Brian talks about –
Jerry: But before we jump on it, I'm sorry, what Brian is saying is one important lesson to
extract out of this and really in some ways, we are speaking to a lot of co-founders right
now.
Brian: Yeah.
Jerry: Address it early. The seed of that resentment – because when did you know that this
guy wasn’t working?
Dave: Before we took the money.
Jerry: There you go.
Dave: I knew.
Jerry: How many months?
Dave: Seven or eight.

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Jerry: Yeah and for six-seven months, you sat with this.
Dave: Yes.
Jerry: That's right. I would argue, it's the number one problem that leaders go through. They
sit with it and they sit and they think that things are going to change.
Dave: We hope.
Jerry: You hope. Well, that's a whole another business concept which is to be very, very
suspicious of hope because hope is not a strategy.
Dave: Yeah.
Jerry: Direct, clear, I'm going to deal with this right now and it's painful. I'm sorry I
interrupted you, Dave.
Dave: No, I was gonna say but it was that experience and others that 'be fierce' line, I think we
become – for me at least, just fiercer, because you learn to deal with these things and I
think that's – when we talk, when we think back to that situation, that night, you know,
terrified and for all the reasons that people feel – I felt guilty too, not just Brian, yeah,
but that's – we weren’t as fierce then. I know I wasn’t.
Jerry: Yeah. So, I enter the picture in 2009?
Dave: Correct, at a really weird time for our company.
Jerry: You ready to go there?
Dave: Yeah, that's fine.
Jerry: Tell us about that time.
Dave: Yeah, so in 2009, for the first time, a company made a serious offer to acquire our
business and if you remember what was happening in 2009, this is probably June of
2009 –
Jerry: So, September of 2008 Lehman Brothers goes down –
Dave: Right financial crisis was about to happen like the world was ending –
Jerry: United States has to save both the auto industry and the banking industry.
Dave: Yeah, the world was crazy and not a stupid little video software company.

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Jerry: Right.
Dave: And so, yeah, Sequoia had their rest in peace good times, and you know, someone
comes and makes an offer to us and it was a private company. A combination of cash,
stock and it wasn’t a great number and this was the debate. In that time, I think that was
the first time where us three, plus there was one other guy who came really on there,
Brian talked about we were at odds, I mean about what we should do, should we take it,
should we not take it. How should we approach this and I think fundamentally you
know, it came down to us not being prepared for something like this. We hadn’t like –
we had thought about it, like, hey let's start a company, but what had finally happened,
it was very great of what we should do and it was like –
Jerry: Well, I want to point out there, two things going on; there's the worldwide economic
collapse, it seemed like we were all going to end up like living on canned foods, and
here's somebody offering you probably on a personal basis, couple of million bucks
each?
Dave: Yeah, something like that probably.
Jerry: Right, so not enough to retire, but certainly enough to stock up on cat food so if you
had to you'd [Crosstalk]
Brian: Premium cat food.
Jerry: Premium cat food, exactly.
Dave: Bunk around in Brooklyn somewhere and nothing happened.
Jerry: So, some of you want to take it, some of you don’t and I remember you walking to my
office – not this one but the other office –
Dave: Yeah.
Jerry: – for the first time and I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you would walk in and be
– you were completely confused.
Dave: I didn’t know what to do, yeah.
Jerry: Didn’t know what to do.
Dave: Yeah, absolutely.
Jerry: A total – I'll say it loud, a kind of a mess.

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Dave: Yeah because I mean, at that time – and Brian and I had a disagreement on this on like
what we should do and the other person, who is no longer with us, had a disagreement
with me. So Brian and him kind of felt one way – I don’t know if that's fair to say –
Brian: No, that is fair to say.
Dave: They felt one way and I felt the other way and Jeroen kind of came over to my side
actually.
Jerry: So Jeroen and you [Crosstalk] wanted to hold out for a higher number –
Dave: Yes.
Jerry: And you wanted to take the money. That's an old odd couple [Crosstalk]
Dave: I get it.
Brian: It was – that was my justification; burden ahead.
Jerry: Well, and remember –
Brian: And a [Crosstalk]
Jerry: You've got a four-year-old.
Brian: Yeah, she was four at that time.
Jerry: Right, and any more kids?
Brian: No.
Jerry: Right, so enough to retire some debt, right? Enough to maybe pay off the mortgage on
the house or something like that.
Brian: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: A sense of security perhaps.
Jerry: So yes, you still have to work but you can take a breath when the whole world felt like
it was falling apart.
Brian: Right and at that time, we were - I don’t think it's any differently today but we were
really grinding.

Page 17 of 34
Dave: Yeah.
We were – one thing that we left out is, we were going over to the Netherlands and our office
there was a one-bedroom apartment in Netherlands.
Dave: Yeah.
Brian: Where we got the smallest air-mattress in the world and we would sleep in the back in
an air mattress and then in the morning at 9: 30, four guys would show up in the
front living room and that's where we would work. So it wasn’t great.
Dave: To add to that, we didn’t pay ourselves for I guess, eight months and when we finally
started paying ourselves we were making like 50-60 grand or something like that. So all
those things add up, which I know for Brian was a big – for all of us, quite honestly was
–
Brian: And the other partner was in the same boat that I was.
Dave: Yeah, he had a kid.
Jerry: And what was your spouse saying to you? What was your – it was a wife, I presume?
Brian: It was a wife, yeah. She – it still is a wife and she – you know, she was supporting me
at that point.
Jerry: Whatever you want –
Brian: She saw what I was just going through and it was the same stuff that he was going
through, he was going through and our other partner was going through but it was like –
Jerry: So you walked in with co-founder conflict.
Dave: Oh when I met you?
Jerry: Yeah.
Dave: Absolutely.
Jerry: Which was –
Dave: That was the genesis of it all actually because we disagreed.
Jerry: Right.
Dave: I remember going – there's a week I remember where we go, we had this little
conference room in our initial office and we go in there and I remember one person

Page 18 of 34
wrote down pros and cons and there was that – who was the fourth person and that
person was clearly against – I mean for selling. So, the pros and cons was, I never
forget, this was all cons of why we are gonna die. This person is a brilliant person and
there was [Inaudible 0: 32: 41] argument but I remember we sat in that room
for hours and hours and hours and just argued. It was like that.
Jerry: The four of you?
Dave: Yeah because you were in Holland that day.
Brian: Mm-hmm.
Dave: Hit me?
Brian: Yeah – I didn’t want to hit Dave.
Dave: Maybe. [Laughs]
Brian: I don’t remember if I wanted to hit him it was just – it's frustrating and it was more
frustrating for me because previously I had my own company.
Jerry: Oh and you could have made this decision on your own.
Brian: Called the shots.
Dave: Yeah.
Brian: Now, I have partners.
Jerry: Oh, you got that other issue here which is – why did he become CEO? Why weren’t
you CEO? Whoa!
Brian: I think we had that where we said that and I think Dave –
Dave: I remember the story –
Brian: I think it was the investor who said –
Dave: Yeah, it was two things, right? Um, so initially we thought, because we thought our
business initially was going to be like an affiliate network kind of CPA business and
Brian was [Inaudible 0: 33: 39] we thought that would be the kind of
advertising that worked in video so that made sense for him to be that person –
Jerry: To be the CEO?

Page 19 of 34
Dave: Yeah, and then as it changed, like we would be in a [Inaudible 0: 33: 49] financing,
we got the JW put on the acquisition side, the business began to change and as we were
going through that process, the investors thought it would make sense to – for that to be
the other way. That was one thing and I don’t – and then this was like one of things that
I think – I think I know, I have the most respect. This is one of the things that makes the
relationship where you and I worked very well is that we are both pretty – in many
ways, egoless people.
Jerry: Well, this goes back to Scott [Crosstalk]
Dave: It goes back to that and it goes back to like who Brian is and who I am and who Jeroen
is and I think that's the whole key to what we have been able to do especially as we
have grown and introduced new people to the organization. We are able to adapt pretty
easily and I give Brian all the credit in the world to all that. He deserves it.
Jerry: So that was a major conflict and as I recall, you ended up turning down that deal or did
they walk away?
Dave: What happened was, like we were like – they clearly understood that we were not into
it. Jeroen and I went out there to go visit them where they were located and it became
clear to them that Jeroen is obviously an important part of the deal, he was the creator
of the JW Player and he wasn’t into it and so that became very – that was obvious to
them. So they kind of like knew that we were like 'meh' and so they – it was [Inaudible
0: 35: 13] that pulled the record but – and we were still very much like straddling
that line and that's –
Jerry: So did you ever resolve the inherent conflict that existed behind that?
Dave: No.
Brian: We did, actually.
Dave: Brian and I? Or –
Jerry: At this point, it's still the four of you.
Dave: Yeah exactly. Yeah, well, the fourth person had to go –
Brian: The fourth person fell out.
Dave: Had to go.
Brian: He had to go, that's right.
Dave: Right.

Page 20 of 34
Jerry: So was that another termination or it was a mutual parting? How did you handle this?
Brian: [Crosstalk] it was almost like an ultimatum on some levels from the other partner.
Jerry: 'If we don’t do this, then I'm out of here'?
Brian: In a sense but at the same time, there was –
Dave: Be fair in terms of what really happened, I mean, don’t get specifics because like it was
behavior –
Brian: There was a conflict with behavior, it was conflict with the board, it was conflict with
investors, it was a – we were all immature and young had never gotten through this
before.
Jerry: All four of you?
Brian: All four of us and no one knew how to handle it and no one handled it right.
Dave: That's fair.
Brian: And when it all was finished and the deal was dead, one of the partners left.
Jerry: Of his own volition?
Dave: No.
Jerry: Sort of?
Dave: No.
Brian: But he was partly responsible for having [Inaudible 0: 36: 39] [Crosstalk]
Jerry: So there's a maturing thing that's happening which is in Brian in your observation, you
are starting to see is a difference. So one of the things we were talking about before is
the notion of being fierce, the other is, a kind of recognition of what I would say is
complacent-ness in creating the condition which you say you don’t want.
Jerry: It's like, you know, as I often say, if the first five people you meet in the morning are
assholes, guess what?
Dave: Maybe you are.

Page 21 of 34
Jerry: Maybe you are, yeah. Maybe you are doing something. So without revealing any details
and the guy from the Netherlands was perfectly innocent, what were you doing with
remorse, would you have done differently?
Dave: On the second one or the first one?
Jerry: On the second one.
Dave: Yeah, I mean –
Jerry: During that conflict –
Dave: I've been – your take on this, for me, I wish we had just come to a decision earlier; like
faster, like stop the debate. I wish we had talked about it beforehand.
Jerry: Why didn’t you convince them that you were right?
Dave: I tried to, that's part of the problem with –
Jerry: [Crosstalk]
Brian: We tried to. We tried, we had a lot of debates about it.
Dave: Yeah, I mean –
Brian: I don’t know, there's probably better ways to have done it but I still think that being
where we were as a company, being where we were in the world at the time, that's how
it played out and being how immature that we – [Crosstalk]
Jerry: Now that you’ve got a little bit more maturity and a little bit – a few more grey hairs,
was there anything that you didn’t say at that time that you wish you had said? Like,
'This is really important to me, Dave because I'm scared shit about paying my bills'?
Dave: Well, he never said that to me.
Brian: I never said that.
Jerry: Did you feel that?
Brian: I always feel that.
Jerry: You always feel that.
Brian: Yeah.
Jerry: So why should I mention it?

Page 22 of 34
Brian: Right.
Jerry: And I'm always afraid.
Jerry: I'm just curious about –
Brian: I just think we should have talked about it Dave and I think we should have –
Jerry: Rather than argue –
Brian: And maybe we should have brought in an outside advisor to say we can't figure this
out, help us, give us some advice [Crosstalk]
Dave: Where were you?
Brian: Yeah, where were you? You were too late.
Dave: Well, you came in as a result of that, I'm kidding.
Brian: I think on the other side –
Jerry: I think you're right. I think that if you had brought somebody in -- in that kind of
conflict mediation what you try to do is, you try to first of all establish what it is in
agreement and you know what you were in agreement about? You wanted a safe,
warm, happy life.
Brian: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: Jeroen wanted a safe, warm, happy life. Dave wanted a safe, warm, happy life; right?
How you got there is where you were in disagreement.
Brian: Yes, that's correct.
Jerry: So what you tried to do is you said, wait a minute, we're actually in agreement about
purpose of the company perhaps; what our outcome is, what do we really want to have
happened. You probably want to just invent cool shit and really get an opportunity to
like change the world by inventing cool things. You wanted the means – I mean, you
don’t strike me as the guy who says, 'I got to have that private jet.' You strike me as a
kind of guy who just wants to pay his bills, make sure his kid can go to college, make
sure you and your wife can retire and not worry about money and the fear that you
always worry about, maybe that can be quiet and you want to be able to buy a new pair
of shoes that don’t have holes.

Page 23 of 34
Dave: I just want to go shopping.
Jerry: I just want to go shopping.
Dave: Yeah. [Laughs]
Jerry: He used to come in with holes in his shoes.
Brian: I remember those shoes.
Jerry: You remember those shoes. [Crosstalk]
Dave: Yeah, they'll get there; pretty close. [Laughs]
Jerry: That's what I would have worked with you on in that regard.
Brian: Yeah.
Jerry: Do you think that might have helped?
Brian: It might have helped but in the end, the outcome aside from [Crosstalk] is that we are
happy where we are right now, that it didn’t go through.
Jerry: Well, fast forward, because I think that this – I have a feeling that this didn’t resolve
itself until what was it, 2012 that you had just come?
Dave: Right, I was –
Jerry: 2011 – what am I talking about?
Dave: Are you talking about when we had a conflict –
Jerry: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah, that was somewhere 2012. So I'll just [Inaudible 0: 41: 16] up the situation
and so what happened was, at that point, JW Player had become very successful as a
tool for publishers –
Jerry: Had you moved to New York yet?
Dave: No, not yet.
Jeroen: It was before –
Dave: Just before –

Page 24 of 34
Jeroen: – before the investment.
Dave: So – yeah, we were like making money, we were profitable at that point from 2010
onwards. So three years, '10, '11, '12 we were profitable, making money –
Jerry: And as I recall, you had other buyers who sort of emerged –
Dave: Yeah, we had a couple of guys –
Jerry: – and then they disappeared, you were raising money [Crosstalk]
Dave: We got a couple of term sheets come along, we handled those probably better I'd say.
Brian: We acquired [Inaudible 0: 41: 52]
Dave: We acquired [Crosstalk]
Brian: Also we had six or seven people in the Netherlands –
Jerry: Right, the company is growing –
Dave: We're growing but we also knew that we were under-funded. We'd still only raised that
original angel round and so –
Jerry: Which was how much?
Dave: A million and change.
Jerry: A million in change from 2007-2008 –
Dave: Yeah –
Jerry: – to 2012.
Dave: And we had made – like we were making money –
Jerry: And what was your annualized revenue run rate?
Dave: Five million.
Jerry So five million in annualized revenue run rate on a million-and-a-half; I just want to pause
and say, fucking A –
Brian: We had no other choice.
Dave: We were scrappy.

Page 25 of 34
Jerry: So what? Neither did my grandfather when he emigrated from Italy, you know? You
build a business the old-fashioned way.
Dave: We did.
Jerry: Right, with blood and sweat and tears and hard work and thin, little air mattresses.
Brian: Yeah.
Jerry: Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Dave: Yeah, and we knew we had a big asset in our hands but we also knew that if we had a
little more capital – and we had always debated and this is the thing that we always, I
think we are pretty much in-sync all along on this do we raise money or not? I think we
are always like – we always wanted to keep control and to be able to make our own
decisions about exits and things like that. But we got to the point in 2012 where it's
kind of one of the 'shit or get off the pot' moments where we either – where do we want
to do with the scene. So, we had something valuable and what we decided, VCs had
always called us and we had opportunities to take money. We just chose not to and we
knew we wanted to do a financing round and so we went down that path and we got a
term sheet from our current investors and that was in the summer but at the same time,
strategically we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do as a company. That was
one of the things where we were like, okay, where are we going to go – what do we
want to do when we raise this money? Because we had struggled in terms of how and
where we focus and how we focus and we had a time where we had a series of
meetings that week and we were going through what our strategy is. Kind of like in
2009 where we had contentious conversations about the acquisition, some more things
happened during those series of dates. Without getting into too many details, Jeroen and
I had like a serious disagreement about what we wanted to, where we thought the
company should go right?
Jeroen: Hmm.
Dave: And that was as first time that we had something like that and so, it was – and I will say
and just summarizing and then we can get into the details, I'm sure you'll have follow-
on questions but it was like shit. One of the – I think this was for me one of the most
defining moments in this entire experience for me. I think I have been much better
since in what I do and I think all of us have been but there was a weekend where had lot
of really sort of real conversations and now – I'll never forget this, Brian, in this case,
very much unlike the 2009 situation, was the guy who kind of like made sure it came
together and he did it – I'll never forget it. It was tons of respect for how he did it and
how he went about it and we found a common ground and –

Page 26 of 34
Jerry: But I want to be clear because I know you guys know what he's referring to and I want
to hear your other perspectives but I want to name it. If I remember correctly, what was
called into question was whether or not you should remain CEO.
Dave: That was one of the questions; right?
Jerry: That was one of the questions. So let's just let that one land. That's a Jerry-ism. That's a
big moment; is that right Jeroen?
Jeroen: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: Big moment and so, there is that. The other questions were strategic, what are we
doing, the underlying disagreement. So Dave has given his view of that; Brian, Jeroen,
what was your view of that time?
Jeroen: Yeah, I think at that point I was really all in.
Jerry: You were all in? You were getting ready to move to the States?
Jeroen: No, yet.
Dave: It was contingent on the financing.
Jeroen: That was contingent on the financing. Yeah–
Jerry: The expectations –
Jeroen: I thought it was a little bit before we were still in the 'are we selling, are we financing'
Dave: I know, we had already gotten the term sheet.
Jerry: But you didn’t accept the money yet?
Dave: No.
Jerry: Right, so you were just at this point, do we take the delusion or do we try to stop –
Dave: We were agreed on that.
Jeroen: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: Okay, so it wasn’t about take the investment or not, it was –
Brian: We had another CTO at the time too that was part of us. That was really a – I would
say, you know, we considered him a partner at that point.

Page 27 of 34
Jerry: Right, not a co-founder –
Dave: No.
Jerry: – but –
Dave: He was a partner.
Jerry: Serious, senior leadership –
Dave: Yeah.
Jerry: – who –
Brian: Who did all the [Inaudible 0: 46: 37] stuff here in New York and JW still
overnight.
Jerry: Yeah, gotcha. So the question around on the table is around your leadership. Is that
right?
Dave: Yeah, I think that was one of the questions, sure.
Jeroen: Directions, it was more of – [Crosstalk] we have always been at this, you know, we
started as an advertising network or wanted to start but when JW Player came into play,
and it moved into view technology but that friction has always been there.
Jerry: Between those two –
Jeroen: Between advertising and it's also that something that has popped up a couple of times
and I always felt that initially when JW Player came into play, then the entire
[Inaudible 0:47: 19] acquisition came, we bought another small, British company,
Open Video Ads for its advertising technology. We had so much so good technology
that there was much more to be done in that space; just start it to sell it versus use it as a
way to get advertising. And I think that was part of the conflict, I think a big part of the
conflict was Brian and Dave were from the advertising space, that's also how the
company started and I was completely into tech. The other CTO also at that time was
completely from the tech side and the SAS side.
Dave: It wasn’t SAS at that time.
Jeroen: It wasn’t SAS at that time, it was tech-selling but I think that that –
Jerry: So the disagreement was sort of intellectual but there is an emotional also associated
with it and I'm looking at you Brian because Dave said that you kind of pulled it
together.

Page 28 of 34
Brian: That was a great weekend. [Laughs]
Jerry: What happened?
Brian: I remember that this went on a Friday and Dave was out of town –
Dave: Yes.
Brian: – and then we processed it Friday and Saturday I had friends over at my house. We had
a little backyard and we were having a little cookout and all my friends were coming
over, all sat down and I invited Jeroen who was – you were in town at that time.
Jeroen: Yeah.
Brian: – and our CTO at that time over and I still remember this, one of my friends were like,
you got to come talk to us and it was three of us in the corner and we were just – this
was going on and we were in it and we were talking through it and figure it out and that
was on a Saturday and I remember on Sunday we had a meeting and it was at a bar
down at 15th street –
Jerry: Without Dave?
Brian: Dave was still out of town.
Dave: Yeah, I was out of town for [Crosstalk] yeah, Friday night onward. I was obviously but
he and I talked over on the phone that Friday night.
Brian: I remember the conversations, I remember his voice, it was like death had come over.
Jerry: Oh him?
Brian: Yeah. [Crosstalk] he's like what's going on?
Jerry: So, I just want to pause, okay, so notice what's happening for him right now.
Dave: For who?
Jerry: For Brian. He's feeling what you felt. The death had come into his voice. He was at a –
one of his low points.
Brian: Yeah, that's right. And he wasn’t there too, that was probably a big part; we were out of
control and then we had that – I remember, at some point, I must have – you and I must
have synced up a little on this separately one-on-one and then it was you me and the
CTO at this bar, sat down, laying it on the table, here are our options. And I remember
saying this to the CTO, our best option as a company, Dave is still in charge, Jeroen
here, me here and you're not here.

Page 29 of 34
Jerry: Wow.
Brian: That is how this is going to go if you are going to have me involved.
Jerry: Did you know he did that?
Dave: Yeah, I do. Yeah, I mean Brian and I at this time were very much in sync.
Brian: Yeah.
Dave: We saw that unlike, and again in '09,we saw this the same way, I think.
Brian: Yeah.
Jerry: But there's something different here because what I'm sensing with Brian wasn’t that he
intellectually agreed with you, he did intellectually agree with you –
Dave: Did you? I mean, I was [Crosstalk] I think I was –
Brian: In '09 or '12?
Jerry: In '12.
Brian: I agreed with him there, it was – I went back and forth, I thought it all through –
Jerry: Right but there was something else there.
Brian: Oh, I know what else was there.
Jerry: What else was there?
Brian: I'll let you tell me what else was there.
Jerry: No, you know it.
Brian: I was super selfish on that decision.
Jerry: In what way?
Brian: I said, what is – why am I in this? Why am I doing this? Why am I grinding like this?
And then I said, you know, because I believed there's some kind of success here at the
end –
Jerry: There's a payout.

Page 30 of 34
Brian: There's a success, that's right and what's going to get me there.
Jerry: I was so interested – and what's going to get you there is him.
Brian: What's going to get me there is this team. What team is going to get me there? After all
this just went down what – where are we going here?
Jerry: You were so hard on yourself, my friend.
Brian: I know but that was how I felt at that –
Jerry: That's not selfish. You know what I was seeing? Belief in your friend. Belief in his
leadership.
Brian: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: Now, it may have been because you looked at your own fears and you said, who is the
best person? What is the best configuration of people to address my fears and I think
you are doing a little bit of a Jedi mind-fuck on yourself by calling that being selfish.
Taking care of yourself is not selfish.
Brian: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: If you had believed that he was the wrong person to be the CEO, you are still taking
care of yourself by saying that. You actually believed in his leadership. I mean, tell me
if I'm wrong.
Brian: No, you're not wrong. I remember that piece of paper that we had on that table and then
right after that, I was like, all right, I'm done with this meeting, I'm going up to see
Dave. I remember we met then at that diner –
Dave: Yeah, earlier in the day – I had already met with Jeroen earlier in the day so him and I
had a conversation, there was still a disagreement on how we wanted to move forward
on things.
Jerry: I just wanted to honor that little piece.
Brian: Yeah.
Jerry: I mean, what came out of that was not just an agreement but you are the CEO –
Dave: That helped solidify things like finally and that was the one – I mean like before I was
like that, yes.
Brian: Yeah, that's right, you're right about that.

Page 31 of 34
Dave: That's right.
Jerry: Because I witnessed his growth and I don’t think I have ever said this to you before but
you have actually changed after that.
Jeroen: Yeah.
Jerry: Right?
Jeroen: Yeah.
Jerry: Say more. How did he change?
Jeroen: I think he was much more inclusive, I don’t know how to explain that. Just very
proactive.
Jerry: In my Buddhist lineage, we use the phrase 'taking your seat'. You took your seat.
Dave: I guess so.
Jerry: He became CEO.
Brian: Right.
Jerry: Because his friend believed in him –
Dave: Yeah.
Jerry: – and stood up for him. I mean, I could be – tell me if I'm wrong here –
Jeroen: No, I don’t think so.
Jeroen: It was important.
Dave: It was a tough spot.
Brian: And no one knew what was going on which was most interesting except the four of us
at that point.
Jerry: Right.
Dave: I mean, yeah there's more factors there in which I'm not going to get into –
Jerry: Yeah.

Page 32 of 34
Dave: There is that contributing factor is that we had the address and it came down to that
piece of paper that you talked about. There was a fourth person involved as well.
Jerry: What was the piece of paper?
Dave: That was what you were talking about; the scenario which –
Brian: Yeah, let's just figure out what – let's put the combos together and which combo is
going to work for us. It was as simple as that.
Jerry: It's interesting because one of the things that we talk about at Reboot when we work
with co-founders and one of things we are going to do in the co-founder bootcamp is
talk about drawing up the blueprint of the relationship, a contract in effect, and when
you are talking about this little piece of paper, it's sort of like, okay, what do you do?
What's the agreement that's between us? And if you roll back the clock and we talk
about the arc of this experience, I would argue that until that piece of paper, you kind of
have this open, unresolved question which was, who's calling the shots? Who's doing
what? Now it doesn’t mean that the three of you were still not making the decisions of
course, you were. But what seat do I have? And what is my relationship to each other in
that role and it's incredibly clarifying and it settles and I'm not gonna say that this is a
direct result but after that, your fundraising last year was a little bit easier, wasn’t it?
Dave: Yeah, it was easier for sure. I mean, the initial raise I mean, that is something that I had
worked hard on and yeah, we got a great [Inaudible 0: 56: 13] to come around
and so we were on the cusp – well, it was hard for me at that point in time, despite the
disagreement that we were having around what we want to do with the business. It was
like we were on the cusp of raising a round from a great investor and then taking the
next step in our company's history or whatever it is, or a path or whatever. And –
because you were right there and the [Inaudible 0: 56: 40] was pretty much
negotiated. It was kind of a done-deal and so what we did at that point in time, we
changed a lot as a company and maybe sort of at that moment where roles were finally
decided, maybe that was it but certainly those companies are in a very different sense.
That was three years ago now.
Jerry: And I – that's the point I think we might want to start to wrap on is that you know, I
have this theory and I wrote about this in a blog post, a guest blog post I did for
[Crosstalk] called the 'Crucible of Leadership' and I'm really quoting this guy, brilliant
writer named Warren Bennis [phonetic] who talks about the fact that a leader emerges
often at a moment of crisis and it's not like that Rudy Julianne [phonetic] bullshit
leadership. It's like literally walking barefoot across those coals of a fire. It's a crucible
moment, it's a moment where, you know, the alchemist transforms lead into gold and
you learn actually what does it actually mean to really lead. I'm looking at the three of
you, not just as cofounders but the three of you in that weekend, and I'm looking at you
Brian with that piece of paper, I see three leaders. I see three friends who built on trust,
who faced tough things, who recognized that they could have done things better or

Page 33 of 34
differently, who then emerged as something stronger and I – maybe it's a coincidence,
but the performance of the business since that 2012 –
Dave: Yeah, it's never been better.
Jerry: Never been better.
Dave: It's been unbelievable round at least for the last almost three years now.
Jerry: Right, I don’t think it’s a coincidence guys. I think three leaders emerged and that's
really – if we extract out of this a lesson, I think there is a – you contrast that
experience with the experience in 2009 and what's it been like since then? That's
powerful. I don’t know, does this resonate with you guys?
Brian: It does.
Dave: I have already heard it. [Laughs]
Brian: No, it's good; there were some defining moments and I think you are right, there are
certain moments that we look back on and we realize that –
Jerry: That was it, that was that moment. That weekend. Anything that you want to say in
response – this has been an incredible conversation and I really appreciate you taking
us through this. Is there anything that you would like to ad – I don’t like to cut people
off at the very end.
Dave: I just think we've all – our relationships have evolved a lot over the years and so in
many ways, it's like a brotherhood in some ways and so you fight like brothers, you –
but that at the end of the day, we are at a spot right now so as you get older, you are like
adults when you are siblings. So you are just – tons of respect. I think that's the
relationship now and the trust and whatever Brian says he's doing in the company, I
trust him; whatever Jeroen says he is doing in the company I trust him and that's how –
it's taken seven years – it probably really happened after six but that's where we are
now and it is very much like siblings. Everyone kind of knows their role as people and
families have their roles and I think that's the best way to kind of capture who we are
and how we have sort of evolved as a threesome here.
Jerry: Wow, I think that was beautifully said. I mean, I often think that the goal is to get to that
trusting state. There's a quote that I like to quote when I think about co-founder conflict
and it comes from a beautiful book by David Richo called 'How to be adult in
relationship' and how to be an adult in a relationship. To be an adult in a relationship, is
not to be conflict-free, it's to resolve conflicts mindfully. And/or I would add to that,
with trust. So, thank you so much for taking the time, it was really a great journey to be
on.

Page 34 of 34
So that’s it for our conversation today. You know, a lot was covered in this episode from links,
to books, to quotes, to images. So, we went ahead and compiled all that and put it on our site at
Reboot.io/podcast. If you would like to be a guest on the show, you can find out about that on
our site as well. I’m really grateful that you took the time to listen. If you enjoyed the show and
you want to get all the latest episodes as we release them, head over to iTunes and subscribe and
while you’re there, it would be great if you could leave us a review letting us know how the
show affected you. So, thank you again for listening and I really look forward to future
conversations together.
[Singing]
"How long till my soul gets it right?
Did any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo,
King of night-vision, King of insight."
[End of audio 1:02:44]
[End of transcript]

Reboot Podcast #15 - Becoming a Leader: The Crucible of Co-Founder Conflict with JW Player team

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