This week, we speak with Erika Ayers Badan, CEO of Food52. She previously served as the CEO of Barstool Sports. Before joining Barstool in 2016, Ayers held leadership positions at Microsoft, AOL, Demand Media and Yahoo. She was named one of Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in Sports. Her new book is “Nobody Cares About Your Career: Why Failure Is Good, the Great Ones Play Hurt, and Other Hard Truths.”
She discusses how her early career gave her a taste of using technology to drive creative forms of marketing. AOL to Microsoft to Yahoo have her an expertise in the space that situated her well for internet based medias companies.
Badan explains how she was a fan of Barstool prior to meeting Dave Portnoy. She was hired in 2016, drove revenue 5000%, and sold the company several times — first, in 2020, Penn National Gaming acquired 36% stake for $163 million, and then in 2023, Penn Entertainment acquired the remaining 64% for $388m. (In 2023, Penn sold 100% of Barstool Sports back to Portnoy for $1, along with non-compete + restrictive covenants + 50% if a sale occurs.
A list of her favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Peter Rawlinson, CEO/CTO of Lucid Motors. The Lucid Air is the most lauded EV of the current era, and across a variety of technologies, have become the #1 rated vehicle. Previously, he was the chief engineer designing the Model S at Tesla, creating that ground-breaking car from a clean sheet to a final product.
Erika Ayers Badan Favorite Books
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