Scooter Braun on Success, Vulnerability and Finding Time for Family

Scooter Braun joins Harry Stebbings after a candid phone conversation about their ambitions and fears. Stebbings says he once assumed success and happiness would rise together, but finds that growing professional success has not made him happier.

Braun recalls setting a lifetime financial target at 19 and surpassing it at 27 as Justin Bieber’s career grew. His initial excitement turned to depression when he realized reaching the number had not brought the peace he expected.

His father asked him to name moments when he was truly happy: playing basketball, sharing meals with friends and helping others. Braun says success can create time for those experiences, but does not itself create happiness; financial success can be freedom or a prison depending on how it is used.

Braun says he continued to construct an outward narrative of success, a perfect marriage and an exemplary life. When his personal life fell apart around age 39, he was forced to confront it and learn to be comfortable with imperfection. He still regards that self-work as ongoing.

Looking back, he thinks his wish to be an example and win approval concealed a fear of not being enough. Stebbings recognizes a similar desire to build businesses in order to feel worthy. Braun describes ‘Scooter’ as an accomplished public mask and says he has been learning to accept the person he calls Scott beneath it.

Stebbings says wealth and power can alter friendships: people may become nervous or approach him for advice or money. Braun says relationships change, but argues that the people who knew someone before success can help keep them grounded.

After his grandmother died, Braun says he felt depressed but did not tell anyone because he was busy supporting his family and preparing for the birth of his son. His then-wife told him that others could not ask how he was doing if he never showed vulnerability. He later realized people had been willing to help, but he had not let them in.

Braun describes the affection he receives from his three children and the deeper friendships he developed when he began sharing his struggles. He says he had focused too much on winning over people who hurt him and too little on those who already cared for him.

Asked about online hostility connected to the dispute involving Taylor Swift, Braun says the experience hurt and affected the good-person narrative he had built about himself. He says he has moved on. This is his personal account of a contested episode; the conversation does not establish the underlying allegations or Swift’s perspective.

Braun says he has tried to distinguish online hostility from his everyday interactions and to examine his own role in conflict. He frames personal crises, including divorce, as painful prompts to reflect rather than as proof that every criticism was justified.

He says he once rushed toward conflict because he needed others to approve of him. Now he tries to notice the resistance a situation creates in himself and ask what remains unresolved, rather than giving every disagreement power over him.

Braun recalls seeing Justin Bieber and believing he knew how to help the young artist develop. He describes a crowded Long Island mall appearance that became national news after his arrest; he says his record was later expunged. He also recalls Bieber’s YouTube performances attracting a rapidly growing audience.

In Braun’s experience, a difficult event can become a turning point depending on the response. He does not claim that tragedy is desirable; he describes looking for a way to act constructively when something goes wrong.

Braun calls the Manchester benefit concert one of the most meaningful things he has worked on. After the attack at Ariana Grande’s show, he asked her to return for a concert and recognizes that this was an unfair request. He says she initially declined, then decided she wanted to do it.

Braun remembers the audience filling the venue despite heightened security concerns after another attack in London. He describes a moment of silence at the opening and credits Grande, the other artists and the people of Manchester for their courage. He also recalls working on March for Our Lives as a meaningful experience.

Stebbings asks about a painful professional mistake. Braun says losses can provide perspective, then recounts giving employees and artists $50 million of his own stock when his entertainment business was sold to HYBE. He presents this as his account of the transaction and his decision, not independently verified financial reporting.

He says earlier deals taught him that it was not enough merely to follow the formal rules or give to charity. Sharing in the outcome gave him a sense that the people involved were treated fairly and that he could choose a different direction without feeling he had left them behind.

Braun reflects that ambition and distrust sometimes made him less transparent than he could have been. He now wants deals in which everyone involved feels they have won, even if greater openness means some transactions do not happen.

During his divorce and self-work, Braun stepped back from daily management and wanted partners as well as more time with his children. He says his relationship with HYBE chairman Bang developed through conversations about life, business, culture and family rather than only transaction terms.

Braun says Bang’s emphasis on how partners would build together after a deal persuaded him they could learn from one another. He also acknowledges that the offer itself was attractive. The transaction was an entertainment-company sale; Braun says his investment firm was separate.

Braun credits his grandfather Irving with a rule for negotiation: the best deals leave everyone feeling they were treated fairly. He says he tries to negotiate firmly but honor his word even when a deal later feels unfavorable.

Stebbings worries that working through his twenties could leave him wealthy but lonely later. Braun says he made similar sacrifices, and suggests weighing them honestly rather than assuming there is one correct answer. He invokes Jeff Bezos’s regret-minimization approach as a way to consider the trade-off.

Braun praises Bezos for job creation and for raising Amazon’s minimum wage, arguing that businesses can contribute through their employees as well as philanthropy. These are Braun’s positive views of someone he knows; they are not a complete assessment of Amazon’s labor practices.

On work-life balance, Braun recounts Bezos’s advice to ‘harmonize’ work and family: let each side understand what matters to the other. Braun says he had formerly kept them separate and now wants the people and projects he cares about to be aware of each other.

Braun describes almost investing in Facebook when he was a college party promoter. He says he corresponded about a possible $100,000 investment for 10%, but the deal did not happen. He recognizes that he did not understand the potential value of the opportunity at the time; it remains a personal recollection of an unrealized deal.

Missing Facebook led him to pay attention to technology investing. He recalls an early investment in Uber after trying the service in San Francisco, despite skepticism from his team. He says he was backing people he believed would find a way forward, not predicting in advance the eventual scale of their companies.

Braun says he invested in Spotify and had not sold his shares at the time of the interview. He acknowledges that his birth, circumstances and other forms of luck contributed to his opportunities. His support for Spotify is connected to his own investment and experience in music.

He describes TQ Ventures, founded with partners Andrew and Schuster, as having expanded from consumer investing into technology, software and games. Braun says it had over $1 billion under management and had closed a $500 million third fund, of which approximately 12% had been deployed. These are his figures at the time, not realized returns.

Braun praises Ashton Kutcher as an investor and friend. Although fame can make founders nervous in a meeting, Braun believes Kutcher can put people at ease. Braun says he tries to do the same by being present and helping others show up as themselves.

Stebbings asks about vulnerability as a way to encourage others to open up. Braun asks whether Stebbings also shares the fears he has not yet resolved, or only those he can safely discuss. Stebbings says obligations to fund investors and a lack of financial security make complete openness difficult.

Braun acknowledges that he too has investors, clients and responsibilities at HYBE. He says his fear often comes from his own shame and concern about whether people will support him. He is still working on trusting himself and believes that choosing one’s needs is not inherently selfish.

Braun asks Stebbings what he would want his life to look like in five years without the burden of proving himself. Stebbings says he loves combining media and venture investing, but also loves children and feels lonely. He worries that pursuing a personal life could interrupt the momentum of his work.

Braun recognizes that building a business can require sacrifice and remembers receiving advice from successful people who had made similar sacrifices themselves. Still, he warns against turning away meaningful personal opportunities because one assumes they will always be available or that one has not yet earned them.

He says fear of losing everything made it difficult for him to be present, and connects that fear to family stories of the Holocaust. He describes repeatedly building more while overlooking what he already had. This is his interpretation of his own experience, not a general account of trauma.

Stebbings admits fearing that a relationship or family might make him mediocre. Braun points to people he admires as parents and to his own grandmother, who worked in a sweatshop, as examples of lives that matter beyond public achievement. In his view, being loved is not mediocrity.

Braun does not dismiss ambition or the satisfaction of achievement. He urges Stebbings to remember the activities that bring happiness now, and to notice when the pursuit of another win is really a search for validation.

His central suggestion is to take one week a year without a phone or email for self-work. Stebbings says the prospect is uncomfortable because he has scarcely taken a full day off. Braun says he too used continuous achievement to avoid facing himself until a painful low point.

Braun describes attending the Hoffman process in 2020 after a friend recommended it. The week coincided with an Ariana Grande album release; he says he prepared the team, explained his need to step away and received her support. He expected to switch off his phone for a week and ultimately stayed off it for two and a half months.

He later tried breathwork and a meditation retreat and says he now sets aside time each year. Braun explicitly acknowledges that his financial security gives him freedom to take time off that his immigrant grandfather did not have. His recommendation reflects his personal experience and circumstances.

Braun says becoming a father made him more efficient because he had a reason to leave work and go home. After divorce and shared custody, he became more conscious of the time he had with his children and says he is more present during it.

He calls divorce the biggest catalyst in his life because it broke the narrative he had constructed for others. He says he and his former wife loved each other and remain partners as parents, but he was not present enough in the marriage. The pain prompted him to seek help and reassess his identity.

Braun tells Stebbings that the public brand was created by the person underneath it, rather than replacing that person. He sees self-deprecating jokes and the fear of not being enough as part of a broader struggle to recognize one’s own worth.

Asked what he still needs to unlearn, Braun talks about faith and control. He uses the metaphor of a friend who has repeatedly shown up for someone, yet is still doubted, to describe his own difficulty trusting that things will be okay.

Braun argues that entrepreneurs can influence events through effort without controlling all outcomes. He says he understands this intellectually but still struggles to act on it, and describes a new ‘faith’ tattoo as a reminder to let go of some control.

His proudest achievement, Braun says, is being a father. He wants his children to feel unconditionally loved, able to make mistakes and free to develop their own identities. He recognizes that he has made and will make mistakes as a parent.

Asked about raising children with wealth, Braun says he worries about it. From conversations with families, he identifies accountability and a separate sense of identity as qualities he wants to encourage: his children need not follow his path or compete with his achievements.

Stebbings says hearing ‘I’m proud of you’ matters deeply to him. Braun responds that he wants his children to hear ‘I love you exactly the way you are’ and understand that love is not contingent on achievement. He says he and their mother are trying to communicate that, without claiming to know whether they have succeeded.

Braun reflects that his father loved him, even though as a child he sometimes experienced expressions of pride as tied to results. He tells Stebbings he values their conversation and would be proud to know him regardless of the commercial path he chooses.

Braun recalls a founder mentioning that others had described him as a ‘shark’. Instead of immediately defending himself, he says he tried to accept that others have their reasons and present himself honestly. He believes people can misinterpret each other, but may also notice behavior one has been reluctant to acknowledge.

Asked whether he considers himself successful, Braun says he is beginning to. In that personal context he prefers the name Scott, though he remains comfortable with Scooter and proud of his career. His grandmother’s advice that maturity means loving one’s 12-year-old self now has new meaning for him.

Braun shares mentor David Geffen’s advice not to be consumed by ego and not to invite unnecessary drama from people who pass along gossip. He also recalls early work dancing at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and jokes about a friend’s assessment of his dancing and basketball skills.

His favorite memories of working with Bieber are backstage moments, laughter and watching him grant Make-A-Wish requests away from attention. Braun says he admires Bieber’s talent and courage in growing from adolescence into adulthood in public.

Braun describes the pressures of fame on young artists, using Grande’s experiences as an example. He wishes he had understood mental health better when he was younger and had helped the people he worked with obtain more support. His remarks reflect personal hindsight, not a clinical assessment.

He recalls discovering Grande through her cover of Bieber’s ‘Die in Your Arms’ on YouTube and learning that she had also been trying to reach him. He says the human experience behind public success deserves attention alongside the demands of producing hits and building careers.

Braun credits Daniel Ek and Spotify with helping transform music into a global, monetizable industry. He describes becoming friends with Ek and eventually investing in Spotify. As an investor, he predicts the company could grow 10% to 12% a year over the next decade; this is his forecast in 2023, not a guaranteed result.

His parting advice repeats the idea of an annual week away from phone and email for self-reflection. Looking five years ahead, Braun says he does not know exactly what his work will look like, but intends to be involved in his children’s lives and continue working on himself. Stebbings thanks him for a conversation both found unusually open.