Though you may not have heard of Carter Reum, co-founder of M13 venture capital firm, you’ve definitely heard of his wife, business woman and OG reality star Paris Hilton.
Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sits down with Reum to chat about the lessons he’s learned from Hilton’s success as the CEO and founder of 11:11 Media, which he says brought in $4 billion in revenue over the last decade. In reflecting, Reum remembers what really matters: “At the end of the day, I’m just a proud husband.”
Watch the full interview with Carter Reum here.
So uh full and fair disclosure.
Um You know, I’m an honest guy.
I originally reached out to, you know, try to talk to your wife first.
This was the, this was the uh fascinating part.
But so I reached out to her team.
I was, went back, I was doing some work maybe 20 minutes later.
What it was like, I’ll check my emails.
Uh It was you, you cut right through the fluff and the crap.
But I mean, is that normal?
Is that just one way?
Do you just believe that in order to get stuff done, you just need to like, push things away and just like focus in, oh, first of all, you know, don’t be humble, Brian.
I saw your name and I was like, oh heck yeah, I’m gonna respond.
But yeah, my, my wife’s uh media company 1111 is a billion dollar plus company.
And part of what I Paris, Hilton, Paris, Hilton paris’ Media Company 1111.
And part of why she’s been so successful three years since founding that company is like you said, she just removed the friction.
She made things more efficient.
She has 25 people internally.
And this is a great example again, in everything you do all day long, you think to yourself, what’s the Roi?
I saw your name, I saw Yahoo Finance.
I said that’s worth an email.
That’s a pretty good Roi, thank you.
And then I knew we’d get along famously once we met.
So what I, I, you, you’re married to Paris and I think, uh a lot of folks in my generation grew up watching her talk to us about her brand.
What is it today?
And having, I mean, you, you’re married to her, what, what’s your secret to success?
You know, have you been able to, I mean, do you study her like that or?
I don’t, I have no, I don’t know what you should do a podcast and study her.
She heard a podcast the other day where Shaq’s daughter said that Shaq had his daughter when she was in high school, study Paris Hilton and said she’s the blueprint.
I want you to study up and she was talking about it on a podcast.
Uh You know, at the end of the day, I’m just another proud husband.
I think I have the greatest wife out there and the two cute, cutest little kiddos.
Thank goodness.
They look like their mama.
The cut is all get up.
But, you know, I think, you know, Paris has always been about content, commerce and community, you know, just to give a sense, her products alone have done 4 billion in revenue the last decade.
And that was with a b, it wasn’t obvious.
Um, and I think if you really think about her career, it’s been defined as being future thinking and not being afraid to take risks.
Right?
So every one told her she was going to ruin her life because she signed up to do this show.
That was a reality TV show turned out, it did not ruin her life.
She was the, you know, og of social media.
And you think about where that came from.
It came from her grandfather, the founder of Hilton who understood customer service.
And she said, oh, how cool is this now?
I can communicate with my fans all over the world.
You think about it?
She was, you know, tweeting.
It’s been well documented in 2017 about e thee having dinner with the founders in Berlin.
She had filmed herself in her documentary in 2018 calling, talking about the Metaverse and how she wanted to do a nightclub again.
She’s just always been two steps ahead and she never sets herself up in a position to fail, but she’s always willing to take risks, you know, and the other day she turned over when she’s giving me a kiss in the morning.
She’s like, I hope my legacy is for all the advocacy work and the impact she’s having.
And so it’s been a fun transition to say she obviously recognizes the business success she’s had.
But she realizes through everything she’s been doing, changing state laws and federal legislation that this idea that she can leave the world better.
And in her case, a little more sparkly than she found.
It is pretty awesome.