Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner on Cultivating Creative Talent

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Welcome to the hbr ideacast from harvard business review. I'm alison beard. In 1967, my guest today and a few friends published the first issue of a new magazine.

Like a Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone changed music journalism because it covered rock and roll and other emerging genres seriously. It also shifted the way politics and social issues were covered in America and eventually abroad through its foreign editions with embedded reporting and innovative writing on war, elections, drug use and the environment. Its founding editor and publisher, Jan Wenner, spent five decades at its helm cultivating an impressive crew of editors, designers and photographers, from Hunter Thompson to Annie Leibovitz. He also featured and befriended some of the biggest names in music, from Bob Dylan, whose song you just heard, to the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Bono. His new memoir chronicles that whole history. And you'll find more of our conversation in the November December issue of HBR and soon on hbr.org but for this interview, we're going to focus mainly on spotting and managing creative talent. Jan, it's great to have you on the show.

Thank you very much.

So first, let me ask you, why.

Did you launch Rolling Stone?

Well, I was a rock and roll fan and was not a very good guitar player, and I just wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to learn more about it. I got consumed by the music and how it affected me and the message I was getting from it. And I just needed to be a part of what the loving Spoon Cole called the magic that will set you free.

And I want to just clear it up for people who don't know. Did the name come from the old proverb, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones? All of the above.

All of the above. But principally the Bob Dylan song.

And how did you decide on it?

We kicked through a bunch of different names that nothing really sounded quite right. I mean, remember, it was the sort of hippie psychedelic era. So we were trying for kind of quasi psychedelic names. Like the groups had names like the different Airplane or the Grateful Dead. And so we're thinking of things like, I don't know, the Electric Tomato or the Electric Newspaper or something like that. And finally, Rolling Stone was a phrase and a song that sort of defined the times and kind of the things we were thinking about. And Ralph Gleason, my co founding partner, wrote an essay for the American Scholar called Like a Rolling Stone in which he laid out all the themes that we were going to explore in the magazine. The basic philosophical underpinning of the magazine, that rock and roll was important. It carried serious social and political messages. That it was a kind of a tribal telegraph, a glue that held a generation together.

And how did you assemble your first.

Group of editors and writers, the people who really launched the thing?

Well, it was really me and some volunteers. Whoever would work for free were very few people. It really was me and Ralph. And the other editor there was a guy named Michael Lyden, who was a Newsweek bureau chief. Who at that time, who could work part time at midnights and was a friend of mine. And I think I got a college buddy, Jonathan Cot, to write in the first issue. And somebody had been reading in another fanzine called named John Landau to join me. But it was all. It was just volunteers, free for the first time, almost first year.

And at that point, what was your ambition for it?

Just to do something very serious about rock and roll. Something reflected the changes that we saw. And we had no particular business plan of any kind. Didn't know anything about the business. I was 21. I had no idea whatsoever about magazine distribution or advertising sales or financial management or planning or forecasting or marketing or zero.

So how did you figure that out? How did you get readers?

Well, you just learn on a job. We found a magazine distributor in San Francisco at the last minute whose main business was selling yachting magazines and boat magazines. Distributor was sent out to cities around the country. We sent out 40,000 copies and boxes. We got like 35,000 of them back. Unopened boxes to. They were sent to distributors who never ordered them or didn't ask for them and just sent out blind. You know, a few stuck out there and it got into a few people's hands. And we started getting letters and back from people who've seen it and wanted to see more. You know, there was enough letters, like, I don't know, 20 or 30 letters to say, oh, I'll keep going.

And how did you decide which musicians and bands to feature? Obviously they were very famous musicians at the time. But particularly the up and coming ones. Like, how could you and your team predict what might resonate with people?

Well, we didn't try. We just covered what we liked. We didn't think about what was up and coming and not. There was no thought. It was just what we liked. And what we liked was, you know, John Lennon and Beals and John Lennon was on the first cover. We didn't cover what we didn't like. We Only covered what was accessible to us. The implication of all your questions here is that it was some kind of methodology or premeditated intent, you know, or knowledge that went into all this. None. It was completely on the fly, spontaneous, catch as catch can, serendipity. Other random acts of chance and luck went into it.

Yeah. And in the book, you describe some early growing pains, editorial differences of opinion, where you sort of had to step in and say, no, this is the direction I want this magazine to go. So talk to me a little bit about sort of that move toward a little bit more sort of hierarchy or methodology or a plan.

Well, I mean, again, it was all intuitive. I had my instincts and my ideas about what the magazine should be and what it should stand for and what it should cover. You know, as I brought in other people to help with it, including, by this time, people getting paid and had some professional experience, but still, again, you know, very low on the ladder. Kind of people willing to work for, you know, 75 or $100 a week and, you know, quit some other job or, I didn't have another job. You know, there were differences of opinion, and they were, you know, passionately expressed. I mean, in those days, everybody's young, you know, in their early 20s. They were working for purposes that they believed in, for not really for money. And if they disagreed with me, then they would leave. You know, I felt very strong about my vision. My vision was that it was, you know, the culture and the messages that music carried it. And on the notions and thoughts of people like Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Stones, you know, they. They were expressing what the yearnings of this generation were.

Yeah. And I will say that your descriptions of those sort of early working environments. There was a ton of drug use by yourself and others in the magazine. So how did you function both personally and as an organization during that time? You know, it seems sort of shocking in retrospect that Rolling Stone became such a success.

Well, the drug use was off the premises, but it wasn't a daily drug bacchanal by any means. It was the recreation of the time. And that culture didn't really bother anybody or get in the way of anything. I mean, a lot of time was wasted in having fun, but it didn't interfere with any of our processes. But also, you know, the idea of having fun, of being happy, infused both what we did and what the message was, which was not a hedonistic have fun, but a life should be happy. Your work should also be fun. You should be gratified and Fulfilled with your work. If you're really good at something and you can do it well and in a way that's gratifying and what you're putting out is helpful for people and help for society, then enjoy yourself.

You also identified and worked with some of the greatest writers of the late 20th century. Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, many others. First, you know, how did you know that they were or would be great? How did you spot them?

Well, they were great to begin with. I mean, I read, read a book of Hunters about the Hells Angels and thought he was terrific. And I looked him up and invited him to write for us, and he did. And right from the beginning, he was producing amazingly well written and funny and precise stuff. Tom Wolf again. I was a reader and a fan of his when I was younger, in college and just out of college, he had already been writing for the New York Herald Tribune, New York magazine. I looked him up and got him to write for. So I known of these writers, they went on to produce their best work at Rolling Stone for sure. And I offered them the kind of home and place and editing and space that they so wanted and so took advantage of and the kind of topics and freedom that really nurtured them.

Yeah, distinctive voice seems to be, you know, something that you looked for, certainly identified and helped them honed, you know, but they are sort of big creative egos. Right. You know, I think genius comes with that. So how did you pick their assignments, get them excited about it, get them focused, and then actually reign them in with editing, you know, when obviously they were some of the best in the world.

Well, I mean, I think first off, my experience is the best talent is oftentimes the easiest to work with. Certainly in the area of writers, they are disciplined, they have a vision, they know what they want to do. I think that part of what you have to do is find the right things for them to do. I mean, you know, you need to help steer them where they're naturally inclined to go. So I would understand, both with Tom and with Hunter, the kind of things that interested in, the kind of thing that sparked their passion, the kind of topics that they could bring some of their insight to and just encourage them along the way. You know, I mean, I didn't tell them how to do anything. You have to let them do their own work. It's just monitoring it. It's like nudging it a little. You don't do big abrupt moves. I mean, the big abrupt moves to pick. Oh, your assignment is going to be cover the Election, say, for Hunter with Tom, it was, you know, his territory was American culture, American society. And so I said, write a piece of fiction about New York, knowing New York was coming alive at that particular time. When we commissioned Bonfire the Vanities, and it's the classic novel of New York at that time. I know it's insight and sympathy, tolerance, humor, inspiration, passion, patience.

Yeah, I've had a lot of patience. So there weren't ever any sort of battles over cutting paragraphs or changing headlines or.

No, no, no. Again, you know, you don't want to intrude on something. You do if you're good. Like I was with Hunter, I could intuit what he was planning to do or where he was planning to go. You didn't change much. I mean, the biggest issue with Hunter was that he was always writing on deadline, and I knew how to edit or finish his stuff up. When he didn't have the time to do it, I knew where he was going and what he wanted to do.

Because you followed so many musicians and their managers, did you see parallels in how musicians were steered and focused in a way that made them more successful?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think there's. I think probably one of my best gifts was being able to understand talent and how it behaves and. And. And how to bring the most out of it. I mean, I really do have a good understanding of what it takes to. To make a record and what goes into it, and it kind of the processes, and I. I could understand how to manage creativity. And I think that was one of the most successful things I did, both with the artists that we covered and with the writers who worked for us.

You were, you know, fairly chummy with all the big musicians and record label heads. You know, some might see that as a conflict of interest. How did you handle it, the fact that you were covering your friends?

I mean, you have to make decisions according to your journalist instincts and your sense of news. And, I mean, we never shrank from that even then, when there were some, you know, strong conflicts, when people didn't want us to write about things. But by and large, it was very easy because nobody expected anything different from us. I mean, we started small, we started independent. We grew up as not being part of that system. Artists did not expect us to give them favored record reviews or slant anything. I mean, our value to them and to the readers was that we were independent, that we had integrity, and nobody ever questioned that or acted in a way as if we weren't going to do what we intended to do what we didn't feel was right. It was kind of the ground rules that we established with everybody and including people who became my very close friends. It rarely led to any difficulties because people were artists, they were people making records, making music, making life better for people and for themselves. These people were not, you know, producing shoddy cars or digging up coal or running for office with, you know, real scrutiny and investigation. These were people making records.

Right. As Rolling Stone grew and expanded internationally, how did you manage to sustain the sort of entrepreneurial rock and roll culture and make sure that it didn't become too corporate or bureaucratic?

Well, first off, it was a smallish business. I mean, at our peak, I think we had 400 people or something like that. Secondly, I was always in charge and quite clearly so, I mean, I owned the joint so I could say what was going to happen was going to happen. Thirdly, there's a harmony of purpose among the staff. Not just the editors, but the business people. Everybody felt a sense of common purpose. So I had relatively little politics and bureaucracy to deal with. Having said that, of course, you can't tell everybody all the time, what do you have to enlist people's enthusiasm. You have to lobby for what you want. You have to, you have to convince people to go along with it in the same manner you would run anything. You don't. You really have to be persuasive as well as commanding it. Bureaucratic. But again, I was capable of making quick and fast decisions.

Yeah.

And then did you sort of, you know, you'd always been good at spotting writing talent. Were you also good at spotting managerial talent?

Well, I kind of was weak at that. I mean, I was never looking for somebody to run it instead of me. I was always looking for people to manage it on my behalf. So I didn't quite let the reins go there. We had some really good, wonderful, hard working people on the business side in various capacities for a long time. But. And also I just wasn't interested in, you know, the rapid expansion of the business. So I guess I kept it in the limits of what I could tolerate rather than opening up and saying, okay, let me go find a bunch of really extraordinary entrepreneurial, hard working people to run it.

How do you think your leadership style changed over time? You know, you started at 21 and then, you know, managed it, you know, into your late middle age.

You know, I guess I grew up, I got a little less mercurial, more thoughtful, steady. I learned to delegate more, you know, the typical things you do. I mean, I Learned that, you know, once you start yelling at people, you've already lost your argument.

I'll need to remember that with my teenage children.

The same thing, though. Yeah, exactly the same thing. If you start yelling at teenagers, they've already got you. Yeah, it doesn't work there either. My manager said I was kind of trying to inspire people to do their best. On the other hand, I was very tough. I wanted people to do a good job and do their best job. And if they do that, I didn't care about the rest. I didn't care what the days they were working or hours or too much, how they got about it. You know, just do your best and be happy, enjoy yourself. You know, give me your best. That's what I demanded of people. And if I didn't, they weren't doing their best, you know, they're lazy, then I, I would let them go.

Yeah. You know, from the beginning, the magazine made a point of covering politics very rigorously as much as music. Why did you make that decision?

Well, I was raised in a political family. My parents were both active Democrats. So I grew up with politics. I love politics. And it just became a passion of mine. The other reason was that the whole initial concept of Rolling Stone was that music was a voice for social and political change.

Let's also talk about environmental journalism. You know, you had a lot of coverage at Rolling Stone. There was a short lived magazine called Earth Times. You found it outside. Why did you put such a priority on covering the environment and especially the climate crisis earlier than so many others?

Well, again, I think it probably has to do with the sensitivities of a generation that grew up with the promise of the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And within that is this definite love of the natural world, nature, and not despoiling the countryside around you, not exploiting all this stuff. That living cleanly on the earth is part of the, of life as part of your liberty. It's part of the pursuit of happiness. A clean environment, a place to live that is safe. And we saw this endangered. 1970, I think, was the first Earth Day when we were three years old. And we were very aware of this. We were also in the west coast was the home of a lot of conservation societies and the Sierra Club. But it became apparent this was our responsibility. It was part of our awareness, part of our, our cause, and just came naturally.

Yeah. So among your many accomplishments, you also started the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. In your view, what is the most important criter induction Well, I think that.

It has to do with creating a body of work that's important and essential, that's influential, that is original, you know, real. A real excellence in what you do, a real originality, and that you make important, lasting music. I mean, it's an award for creative excellence.

And again, were there any battles or concerns over that when you were part of the nominating committee or friends who got upset that they weren't inducted quick enough?

Well, I know there are people who are upset that weren't inducted. Very few of them have expressed that to me. There were lots of battles because the people that are passionate about it, the critics, the music fans, Everybody has their FA. I mean, after about. For the first 10 or 15 years, it was very obvious who should get inducted. You know, then it's just differences of taste and opinion and personal preference and what you grew up with and what you love and. And every single person brought so much passion to it, you know, and many, as many artists obvious agreement on, you know, of course, Ray Charles, of course this person belongs to that. But then as the years went on, as the talent and the styles got more diverse, it became, you know, everybody again, had their separate, different passions and the artists they were fans of. And so unanimity of choice got less and less. But again, I think the thing is, everybody, it's just a matter of just passion, you know, different tastes. I mean, it's all legitimate.

Yeah. And, you know, as music became more diverse, your tastes, as you said, sort of the founding group's tastes were, you know, squarely rock and roll. So, you know, how did you make sure that the magazine and then the hall of Fame acknowledged other genres, country, rap, hip hop?

Well, as it got into more recent in the last 10 or 15 years, and it became more pop, especially hip hop, and, you know, other kinds of new forms of music. You just simply have to get younger people involved. You know, people who are more sympathetic and grew up with that music. I mean, really, the people who are being inducted now are not people I really am that familiar with. I mean, I know who they are, but I'm not familiar with their music. I don't sit in judgment on it anymore or make those decisions. But there's a committee of people that keeps being refreshed with people that are more contemporary. And the same with the magazine. I wasn't that deep into the music of the last 20 years or so, but the music staff was younger and more on top of it, and I just basically trusted their judgment and also had enough judgment to Know if their judgment was good or not.

I like that. So in the memoir, you also talk in depth about your personal life and in particular you coming out publicly as a gay man in middle age. You know, how did that decision play out in your professional life? How did you tell your colleagues? And do you feel like there was a shift at work, you know, once you were able to be a more authentic person there?

Well, I didn't tell my colleagues. I mean, kind of got around on the gossip mill and there was some stuff in some of the local newspapers about it, but it didn't change anything at all, Not a bit. I mean, the business, my relationships with my colleagues, my leader changed nothing, neither professionally nor personally. The people who are my best friends then, you know, the creative milieu remain the same. Not a thing changed. Isn't that interesting?

Yeah. So do you wish that you had done it earlier?

No, I don't because, I mean, I had a very happy marriage up until a point and I had three kids and I, I love that life and, and that life during the time, the first 25 years of wrongs, it was great. I wouldn't, wouldn't change it at all.

And then you fell in love and.

Then I fell in love, which unexpectedly. And you know, then you go with that. And then I have three more kids on top of it. I see them all, all of them from ages 37 to 14, all the time.

And one of your older children became, you know, very active in Rolling Stone. Right. So how did you manage that?

Well, my 30 year old son came to work for me after, right after he graduated for college. I didn't expect he was going to end up taking over, but as it happens, we worked together really closely for four or five years. He got the kind of knowledge and a training of what the magazine was about and he sat on my meetings and it became clear that he had the talent and he had to do, to do, take it over. And when we sold the magazine, he did the sale and he went with the magazine and they put him under contract and they've just renewed his contract and he's the. Although he doesn't, he has a piece of it still. He is the, you know, CEO of the, of the company. I mean, just worked his way up and the biggest issue was getting me out of there. I still thought, well, even though he's running things, I get to be in charge and say what everything is going to be. No, no, no. He had his ideas about it and he politely and eased me out. He was not even telling me that it was time to go. I had to read it myself. And I finally said, look, Gus, just tell me the truth. What do you want me to do? Well, nothing. It was right. After 50 years, you have a hard time letting go of being in charge, especially if something you built yourself. I mean, it's your baby. You have a deep attachment to it. It's your pride, your joy.

And what do you hope that your legacy will be, you know, both for the magazine industry and the music industry?

Well, I think that in addition to having put out being a really good editor and sponsored and discovered a lot of talent and having promoted and advocated and proselytized for one of America's greatest art forms, which is rock and roll, to also have made a difference, you know, have made a consequential contribution to society and to progress, to what the nation stands for and looks for, what, what people are going to do that somehow we furthered, you know, human justice.

Terrific. Well, thank you so much for your time again. The book is terrific. It was really a pleasure speaking with you.

Thank you very much.

That was Jan Wenner, founder and longtime editor and publisher of Rolling Stone. His new memoir, Like a Rolling Stone, is out now. And more of our conversation can be found in the November December magazine and in a few weeks on hbr.org if you like today's episode, we have more podcasts to help you manage yourself, your team and your organization. Find them at hbr.org podcasts or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Mary Dew. We get technical help from Rob Eckart. Hannah Bates is our audio production assistant, and Ian Fox is our audio product manager. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I'm Alison Beard.