Robbie Starbuck

So my family already lost everything to communism once, and I mean everything.

and so you know having had that experience in my direct family lineage you know you grow up with constant reminders how lucky you are to be american just constant and so you know i understand very clearly my father figure in my life was my great grandpa and he reminded me all the time

that the reason it was able to happen in Cuba was that so many people were afraid to speak up, to ruffle feathers, lose business, whatever it might be.

And in the end, they lost all of those things anyways, right?

So, I mean, they should have just stood up when they had the chance, but that was lost on them in the moment.

In the moment, safety felt like silence.

You know, if I was silent, I was gonna be safe.

And too few people spoke up.

And so, you know, he imparted on me this need, not a want, but like an absolute need, a duty to stand up if you ever see signs of this in America.

So here I am, young man,

i come from a family that didn't have a lot i didn't have hollywood connections or anything and i built a business really bootstrapped it myself i didn't even i got denied for the one time i went to a bank to try to get a loan um so that that tells you like this was like a bottom-up operation and so i start this production company and we got to be very successful we had you know over 14 directors across the world i directed oscar-winning actors actresses some of the biggest

biggest music stars in the world, you know, was nominated for and won a lot of the biggest and most prestigious awards out there.

And you know what's funny about that, actually, side note, I never went to an award show when I was nominated, not for the MMVAs, not the VMAs, none of it.

I never went.

I always thought that Hollywood was kind of a disgusting hellhole.

And so I didn't really want to be around the people unless it was directly work-related and I was getting paid for it.

It was just never a fit.

I'd rather be home.

And so that speaks, I think, a little bit to my psyche.

I'm much more happy and comfortable at home with my family than I am going and doing these things, which probably makes me more effective because I don't have to worry about the interpersonal relationship stuff that other people worry about.