Scooter Braun, music mogul: ”There is no retreat. We’re going to figure this out, or we’re going to die here”

Scooter Braun is a media proprietor, record executive, investor and manager, best known, perhaps, as the mastermind behind the careers of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and many others. He started his career selling Fake IDs at Emory University, before becoming one of the most successful club promoters in Atlanta. After dropping out of college, Scooter jumped headfirst into the music industry — where he discovered an angelic young street busker called Justin Bieber while scrolling through YouTube one evening. The rest, as they say, is history — but that leaves out all the wild highs and lows of the years that followed: the way that the music industry bigwigs described the pair as “that internet kid and his crazy manager”; the trials and tribulations of fame and success; and the succession of canny deals that turned Scooter Braun into one of the most formidable forces in his field today.  

In a fascinating and candid interview, Scooter talks to us how he slept with a gun by his bedside for years; why he loves founders with a ‘burn the ships’ mentality; and how he’s finally re-claiming his real name, Scott, once and for all.