>>Erik: A couple years ago you made a decision to leave Goldman Sachs and pursue a path in
the media, entertainment, and publishing business. What made you make that choice?
>>Phil: Basically when I was at Goldman, I was having a great run there and was really
enjoying what I was doing. But I was never going to be that guy that would be the 15
to 20 year Goldman or Wall Street guy. I always had aspirations to do other things, my interests
varied, politics, real estate, there were a bunch of things I was interested in, one
of those things was the arts. It became a natural transition because I was involved
with an organization called Parks Hall, which was a non-profit, and I was on their board.
That led me slowly but surely into the philanthropy and art world.
>>Erik: After making the transition did the reality meet the expectations?
>>Phil: It didn`t in a lot of ways but it took a lot of time for that to happen. The
path was a little less linear then I would have wanted. I was looking for new challenges.
Parks Hall at the time had a magazine called FREE Magazine; it was one of our programs.
As a board member, there was general oversight into many things that Parks Hall did, FREE
Magazine being one of them. It wasn`t like I left Goldman to go work at FREE. It was
I was going to take some time off to explore many options and by doing so I was spending
more time with Parks Hall and eventually started spending more time with FREE magazine.
>>Erik: At what point did Free Magazine break apart from Parks
Hall.
>>Phil: I would say about a year in. We started shifting it away from that intellectual, bohemian
very deep French arts and culture world and started making it more reflective of a menÕs
magazine. What I realized while at Goldman was that contrary to popular belief many people
that I knew that worked on Wall Street both at the firm and at other firms, clients of
ours, hedge funds, what have you. They were not your stereotypical douche bag traders
that you hear about and particularly nowadays that are more popularized these days as an
image. I knew many thoughtful people both in and around the business, young guys like
myself that were interested in many other things, not just going out and popping bottles
and going to the Hamptons every weekend. They were interested in philanthropy, they were
interested in the arts, they were interested in film, they were interested in education,
politics. They had a lot of passions that went well beyond what they were doing on a
day to day basis, be it Goldman or somewhere else. I kind of brought that mindset and wanted
to reflect that more in the magazine because I felt at the time there was not a menÕs
magazine that spoke to that demographic.
>>Erik: The modern finance professional?
>>Phil: Exactly. More the modern renaissance man so to speak? Someone who was very accomplished
in their professional life but yet was looking to do a lot of things socially. We really
wanted to bring the content to FREE. By doing that, the magazine took on a different tone
and style and really became a young men`s arts and culture magazine for a tastemaker
audience.