Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing with Bob Pittman

Through the many seasons of Math & Magic, we’ve heard from dozens of brilliant creative minds about the importance of authenticity. In this bonus episode, we’re highlighting some of our best marketing stories and how staying true to yourself can lead to not only a better life, but a better business. Media mogul and The Breakfast Club host Charlamagne tha God talks about his own origin story and how it inspires ...

Diego Scotti has made a career of building businesses and brands that span industries and consumers, with leadership roles at American Express, Verizon, Condé Nast, J.Crew, and most recently PayPal, where he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Group and Global Marketing and Communications. He shares what that wide-ranging experience has taught him about connecting with consumers when culture is mo...

Millions of Americans feel like Hoda Kotb is a good friend. She’s an acclaimed journalist and TV pioneer, best known for her years at NBC and the TODAY Show. More recently, she’s turned her focus to joy, stepping into entrepreneurship with her company Joy 101 and launching a new podcast with iHeartPodcasts centered around joy. Born in Oklahoma to Egyptian immigrant parents and raised in West Virginia, Hoda built her car...

Marc Mentry has cracked the code on community, culture, and live events to transform a brand and provide customers with high-value, unique experiences. As Executive Vice President of Brand Marketing for Capital One, Marc leads from the front line. Marc shares how the brand made its remarkable journey upmarket, from embracing its identity as a fintech company to creating its iconic tagline, “What’s in your wallet?”...

In honor of the 45th anniversary of MTV, we’re rereleasing a classic episode: the real story of MTV, as told by the founders. Today MTV is a cultural institution, but people forget what a long shot it was to get the channel off the ground. Bob Pittman led the team that created MTV. In this special episode, he reminisces with co-founders and friends John Sykes, Judy McGrath, Fred Seibert, Tom Freston and Jarl Mohn about what i...

As a Radio Hall of Fame inductee, best-selling author, TV personality, and producer, Charlamagne Tha God is a singular shaper of culture. He’s the co-host of iHeartRadio's The Breakfast Club morning show, driving millions of listeners daily, and he’s expanded his collaboration with iHeart to create The Black Effect Podcast Network. Live from Miami at POSSIBLE 2026, Charlamagne talks with Bob about attention, engagement,...

Working across 190 countries to deliver research-driven early learning, Sesame Workshop is the non-profit behind the longest running children’s television show and so much more. SherrieWestin is at its helm as President and CEO. Sherrie sits down with Bob to talk about the power of mission-driven work and how to stay relevant for generations of kids to come. From addressing social and environmental issues, to keeping pace wit...

From the free market to medical research to philanthropy, Mike Milken has had an outsized impact on it all. In the 1970s he ushered in an explosive era of innovation that changed the world of business and even the world itself. By the ‘90s, when facing his own life-threatening cancer diagnosis, he was determined to accelerate medical research and produce faster cures. Over the decades his work has addressed a vast range of me...

Chief Business Officer at iHeartMedia, Lisa Coffey has run the gamut in media sales. She started out as part of traditional media, at newspapers like USA Today and The Wall Street Journal and at the magazines of Time Inc. Then she made the jump to digital, first at LinkedIn and then spending a decade at Amazon before being named Chief Revenue Officer at LoopMe. Now she’s working across traditional broadcast radio along w...

After finding success from a young age at companies like 20th Century Studios, Vestron, and BMG Entertainment, Strauss Zelnick decided to go out on his own in his 40s. He founded Zelnick Media Capital and became CEO of Take-Two Interactive, the software company behind Grand Theft Auto. Together, they’re a $55 billion enterprise. He’s spent his career at the intersection of technology and media working across film, music...

A skull-emblazoned design with a funny slogan is just not what people expect when they’re buying a healthy beverage. But that’s exactly why Liquid Death Founder and CEO Mike Cessario thought there was room for disruption. He didn’t think funny, cool, irreverent marketing should be limited to things that are bad for you. What if this approach could even help people make healthier choices? Now the healthy beverage c...

Chon Nguyen started his career in the kitchen. As he shares on this episode of CEOs You Should Know, he became an entrepreneur but never left restaurants behind. Today he builds high-impact businesses at the intersection of technology and hospitality. He’s the founder of and CEO of Newgentek, an IT service provider offering a help desk, field services, technology infrastructure, and strategy for companies and restaurants with...

Avani Desai is the CEO of Schellman, the largest specialized CPA firm focusing on cybersecurity assessments for major companies like Walmart, Meta, and OpenAI. In this episode of CEOs You Should Know, she discusses the firm's role in building trust through third-party cybersecurity evaluations, the increasing importance of data privacy, and the evolving landscape of AI technologies. Avani emphasizes the shift towards integrating se...

This bonus episode is all about innovation– that breakthrough that can change individual careers and even entire industries. We’re going back through the Math & Magic archives to hear from top innovators –from Blake Scholl, who is working to revolutionize commercial flights as the CEO of Boom Supersonic, to Gerry Laybourne who changed children’s television forever at Nickelodeon. You’ll also hear h...

From the White House, to Edelman, Microsoft, Nissan and IBM, Jonathan Adashek has had a wide-ranging career. His experiences may span from politics, to the business side of PR, to tech, to automotive, but he has developed core beliefs about corporate culture, work ethic, marketing, and communications. Now as IBM’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Jonathan joins Bob to share incisive thoughts on what a br...

It can take decades to build breakthrough brands and noteworthy careers, and this bonus episode examines an essential building block to getting there – the college years. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon didn’t get the training you might expect for a leader in investment banking at his small liberal arts college. United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer skipped college altogether, whereas Progressive Insurance CMO Remi Ken...

Bobby Bones has been called “the most powerful man in country music.” Host of the nationally syndicated country music radio program, The Bobby Bones Show, and the podcast, Bobbycast, millions of Americans consider him a friend. Audio is his bread and butter, but he’s also made a name for himself on TV, as a mentor on American Idol, the host of Breaking Bobby Bones on the National Geographic Channel, and as a winne...