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FAILING UPWARD, THE UPDATE: INDUSTRY REACTS TO LYOR’S YOUTUBE GIG


Key industry players including managers, attorneys, label execs, former colleagues and others not only reached out to us about Lyor Cohen’s appointment as Global Head of Music at YouTube, but also weighed in on social media and long email threads that were somehow forwarded to us. Here’s a sampling of our favorite reactions. Send yours to [email protected], or use the hashtag #UpwardFail on your account of choice.

“This is proof positive that YouTube refuses to take its relationship with the music business seriously.”

"There was this meeting at Warner, all the execs were in the room (and some international ones on teleconference) and he referred to it as 'The Google'."

“So he’s going to go to the top people in the music biz and convince them to accept lower rates? Or is he going to go to his boss at YouTube and talk him into paying more in licensing? I don’t see either scenario playing out.”

“The guy has spent his career working for other people. He’s not an entrepreneur. He spouts a lot of buzzwords but has no clue how the tech sector works. Besides, who believes he’s actually going to work and not just make the scene in the Hamptons?”

"Remember when he first started on SnapChat and he called the Matt Damon movie ‘The Android’?"

"He's been shopping his 300 distribution deal with Warner for ages and had no bites, because nobody wants to work with the guy—nobody trusts him. Which will be an even bigger problem in his new job."

"YouTube has been taking advantage of artists for years, so I guess it’s a match made in heaven."

“I’m sure he’ll do for them what he did for Twitter.”

“We were talking about an artist’s song going viral, and he asked me what ‘UG’ stood for.”

"I suppose that holidaying on St. Barts one time with Tory and Eric [Schmidt] makes him qualified for the job. I saw Bobby DeNiro once at a restaurant in Tribeca—does that make me qualified to work with Scorsese?"

“Google just became the world’s biggest sugar daddy.”

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