Heckwood
Masters of Scale

Know which rules to break, with MTV co-founder Tom Freston

Aug 13, 2026 · 31m 35s
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About this episode

Tom Freston is a cofounder of MTV and former CEO of Viacom. He joined host Jeff Berman to dig into the wild stories and meaningful lessons from his life as an unconventional corporate leader. Freston reveals how MTV’s audience-first mentality and “subway car” approach to hiring helped the network scale into a cultural icon. Tom’s memoir is Unplugged: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Unplugged/Tom-Freston/9781668089798 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Know which rules to break, with MTV co-founder Tom Freston — Heckwood