During SXSW, Diddy held an interview and Q-and-A session at the Austin Convention Center. Diddy discussed his business ventures, how he was once uninspired by the music business, and why it’s harder for new college grads going into the work force.
Rolling out was on hand to capture every moment.
On why how he would find success if he was a recent high school or college grad …
“My first step would be to find something that I love. But I want to give you an honest answer; I don’t want to give you a school teacher’s answer. I would be scared to death, I would be overwhelmed, I would feel abandoned in a sense. But I think that the anger would fuel my passion. Because I just feel that there aren’t as many opportunities as it was when I first started as an entrepreneur. It’s like everybody starts from the bottom and nobody is trying to help pull anyone up. And that’s why we have so many entrepreneurs. We have this revolution going on digitally and socially around the world. Everybody in here is taking responsibility for their future. You came here and figured out how to get a ticket. You don’t know if you’re going to learn anything or not, but you’ve taken that chance.”
On being the first black owner of an NFL team …
“You know I’ve always had a dream of being the first minority owner of a football franchise. I just feel like it’s important for any area that I go into and diversify. There’s a lot of blatant tragedies and blatant things that need to be fixed and diversified in the playing field to be fair. And so when we think about a majority of our heroes in sports, there’s not one African American owner of a football team. That’s something that motivates me because I love the game and I think that it would diversify and also inspire people.”
On being uninspired by music at one point …
“To be honest, I went through a year and a half of being uninspired. I just hit a wall and was just like ‘why am I getting out of bed?’ I was also putting out my last album and I was putting out other artists. It was like so much bulls— being put out, the lack of real music and the lack of true artistry and I kind of got uninspired a little bit. For some reason, I must have got a bad crop of up and coming executives I just didn’t feel like people had the passion that I had. Due to the social revolution, things started to change. I started to be able to connect with people around the world, I started to see different things, I started to get put on to different things that inspired me. I told myself, ‘your journey is not done, you have a mission, you have to be able to share your experiences with people that are coming behind you, you have to be able to take chances on people and be patient.’ And I think that has inspired me.”
