Tom - MTV Founder and CEO was awesome. He has been with MTV since its ineption (1980) and CEO since 1987. This is quite a rare feat by all means. And he strikes me as someone who still possess such a strong and clear vision for his company. Like most great business leaders that I have come across, you might or might not agree with them, but there is one thing that you must admit: they are truly inspiring and larger than nature personalities.

Tom had a great sense of humor: well, when I first heard about putting music on TV, I was unemployed and very much looking for a job so I would have gotten excited about anything really.

and is a visionary:
of course, we see digital content and it is a problem. I don't have the answer but I am sure that there is a bunch of them. We will obviously be playing online but I don't want us to become just a store, just like Virgin Megastore.com. Everyone can do this. We are still in the entertainment and the media business. I want someone to stay with us and hang out in the store. Perhaps make up their own show, as they can select the content but we need to embark on a journey together. That's how we can be different

and a realist:
so to answer your point about the lack of sophistication of our music: our target audience is 15 - 25. Actually, this is a clear choice that we have made. This means that we accept that our customers just go through us. When someone reaches 28, we expect them not to like us anymore, to perhaps turn back and look at us with a smile. Their taste will evolve until 25, then be fixed for the rest of their lives. We have done a lot of research on it. And the tastes of the 15-25 segment is fast changing and unsophisticated. I wish there were an MTV channel that aired the music I like! But I am a little over 25...Actually, this personalized choice will happen. Online.

and a good leader: planning for the long term and acting short term
We have a strategic intent to be in China - with 2 bn people, this is not a market that we are not going to at least look at. However, in China, we are patient. We have a very low key approach. We went in, locally. We played with some local and regional cable players. We are learning. We learned that the Chinese wanted some sort of reciprocity so we have become also the distributor of the chinese-in-english-news channel in the US. We are not highly profitable but we are hugely profitable in the US and in Europe, so we can afford to start off small ventures here and there. Another continent that we are looking at - but it will take a lot of time is Africa. We want people to say that MTV is truly global INCLUDING Africa.

and not afraid to change
- in Europe we started as a Pan-European channel blasting english speaking content all over the place. Then small local players started to do the same thing, in the local language and with local content. A lot of people at MTV Europe thought that we were too big, that this wouldn't be serious competition. Meanwhile, they were killing us. It is dangerous to be complacent when you get too big. So we broke up MTV Europe into 17 different channels, pretty much one of each country. In fact, now worldwide, there are so many channels, I am sure that we must be getting close to one channel per person

and honest
- Marketing shock therapy? well, it is not quite something that we plan ahead. It can really backfire. I mean, I am in trouble right now. I don't know why a 37-woman would want to show her breast to hundreds of million of people. Maybe I understand better Justin Timberlake ...Anyway, we don't all meet up one day and say: let's have some sex shock therapy. It'll happen on such and such a day, etc...

Delicious moment. Thank you INSEAD.