Even if Andrew Friedman didn't have much experience with something, but thought it would be a fun challenge to try, he would go after it. Luckily for him, after a few years of what he considered a traditional job, he learned of an opportunity to make games for the internet. Lack of actual qualifications didn't deter him and it seemed like it could lead to something fun. Find out how looking for the challenge and being willing to figure things out can sometimes help you level up.
Even when guest Andrew Friedman didn't have much experience with something, but thought it would be a fun challenge to try, he would go after it. For example, having never played football in his life, he walked onto the college team. Having taken only a couple computer science classes, he started building websites for area business while still in college. In hindsight, trying to get a job in a growing internet company such as Amazon or Yahoo would have fit his self-taught skills and passions. Instead, he found himself at what he considered a traditional job consulting for PriceWaterhouse.
After a couple of years, though, he learned of an opportunity to make games for the internet. Lack of actual qualifications didn't deter him and it seemed like it could lead to something fun. Starting in the industry by building the games and doing the actual engineering, he later evolved with the evolution of the industry, working in product development and product management, as well as business strategy and operations. He's worked inside small start-ups, bigger start-ups and even established his own small company—twice.
In this episode, find out from Andrew how looking for the challenge and being willing to figure things out can sometimes help you level up...on today's Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Andrew Friedman Andrew Friedman, who has spent over two decades in the online gaming industry, having had a hand in every aspect from engineering, product development, and product management to business strategy and operations. He has worked for many start-ups, pivoted to being an entrepreneur and starting and running his own companies, and currently works for Osmo, a children's educational gaming company. He lives with his family in Las Vegas. (290)
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Andrew Friedman: I got connected with somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody type of thing who knew about a startup in New York, where I was, that was making games on the web and was looking for somebody to come in and sort of be responsible for creating a technology team. And yeah, again, I was 23, so I knew everything. So I was like, Sure I can totally do that.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Even if Andrew Friedman didn't have much experience with something, but thought it would be a fun challenge to try, he would go after it. Luckily for him, after a few years of what he considered a traditional job, he learned of an opportunity to make games for the internet. Lack of actual qualifications didn't deter him and it seemed like it could lead to something fun. Find out how looking for the challenge and being willing to figure things out can sometimes help you level up...on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
I'm here today with Andrew Friedman and we are going to talk about what constitutes play and work and how you can maybe have your cake and eat it, too. So, Andrew, thanks so much for being here.
AF: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
LJR: So Andrew, I start this the same way each time with two questions. And they are these: when we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
AF: Huh? I'm not sure that I knew then I'm not sure I know now, honestly. I probably coming in to college was like many of us and was pretty sure I already knew everything. And was willing to try and prove that. I think probably the best example of that was me showing up at college, having never played football before and deciding to walk onto the team.
LJR: How'd that go for you?
AF: Well, I mean, you know, so I played freshman and sophomore year played as a general, right? I was the, the last guy at the end of the bench, you know, but I, I was there and I showed up. So, I guess that says something about my determination or my sense of my own ability to do anything despite often being proven wrong.
LJR: Was it the draw of doing something new? Was it the draw of the game? What was it that…
AF: I mean, you know, I guess football was, and still as something that I very much in joy, I dunno. I think hon, so I, I grew up mostly playing soccer, you know, honestly, I was not good enough to have made our, our team. But for some reason, I thought I could play football. So…
LJR: There were a lot more guys.
AF: But yeah, I mean, I, that, that is probably actually pretty representative of a lot of things that I have done since, which is, it's like, I'm pretty sure I can do this despite, you know, or because of lack of actual qualifications and a willingness to sort of, you know, sort of bowl my way through and either find out, in fact, I can do it and figure it out or, or sometimes fail somewhat spectacularly.
LJR: So awesome. Okay. So that was kinda an early experience. In the last couple years, who would you say you were?
AF: I mean, maybe I didn't change that much at Dartmouth, but I think I was certainly someone who was interested in sort of going out into the world and trying something different, which, I then didn't end up doing initially. But I had, right, I had ended up double majoring in philosophy and psychology, which were certainly not areas that I had come into Dartmouth expecting to focus on, you know, and had done pretty much none of sort of the stuff that I had gotten used to doing in high school. You know, I think I took like one or two sessions of whatever first year math class I got placed into. And then I'm like, wait a second. I don't need to take math anymore. [LJR: Right.] Yeah. You know, so I definitely came out as somebody with different interests, a different perspective and yeah. Sort of an interest in exploring opportunities.
LJR: Great. And when. We were getting ready to leave. What were the opportunities that you thought you had in front of you?
AF: Yeah, so leaving Dartmouth, I interviewed for a whole bunch of tech companies and got jobs at none of them like Microsoft and Apple. And, but what's interesting in retrospect. Right. So I had, I had spent a bunch of time, like senior year doing things like freelance webpages for businesses in, in Hanover. And, you know, had taught myself a lot of sort of web computer programming and, and was very interested in internet development, which at the time was…
LJR: Nascent to say the least.
AF: Yeah. And it does, it puzzles me in retrospect that I didn't interview at, or even consider trying to get a job somewhere like Amazon or Yahoo, sort of the bigger internet companies at the time. You know, and in particular, right, so I ended up taking a, a very conventional job as a, a consultant at PriceWaterhouse. So part of their program was, you know, they take people with sort of whatever background they think are, you know, gonna be sort of, you know, smart and well qualified and they put you through a long training program. So you essentially some like, I don’t know, three or four months before. They think, you know, anything, but, but so as part of that training program early on, like they'll bring in a senior partner to meet with, you know, a group of new recruits to sort of, I think, give you that, that image of like, Hey, this is what your success could look like. You know? So, so I'd been there a week, you know, and having, you know, a group lunch with it was like the, you know, the senior partner who was the head of like the I.T. practice for, you know, for North America. So, a senior guy and I very vividly remember asking him, like, why is PriceWaterhouse not doing anything with the internet and then spending, you know, probably 10 minutes arguing with him about how he was wrong, you know? ‘Cause he was like, you know, we've done studies and the Internet's never gonna be more than a $500 million industry and it's not worth our effort. So, you know, I guess on the one hand it's nice that I was proven right. You know, on the other hand…
LJR: How long was that training program for you? Did that shorten it?
AF: Yeah. So, so I was, I was not there for, I mean, I was was there for almost two years, but yeah. So yeah, it, like I said, it's puzzling that I, it never occurred to me that maybe that was not the right fit for me. Yeah.
LJR: Oh, it didn't…like you're leaving was not like this place is backwards and doesn't see the writing on the wall. It was just…
AF: Well, it was at the end of the day. But it, you know, it was, it was a year and a half or two years later.
LJR: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so when you realized that, was it because you saw something shiny out beyond that, that was like, oh wait, that. That could work or was it, this is not right. I've gotta go find…
AF: Yeah, it was, it was definitely some of both. Okay. So yeah, I, I definitely didn't feel like I was gonna get to do the cool world changing things that I, you know, I thought I was destined for as a, a 23 year old. So I got connected with somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody type of thing who knew about a startup in New York, where I was, that was making games on the web and was looking for somebody to come in and sort of be responsible for their technology team or create a technology team. And yeah, again, I was 23, so I knew everything. So I was like, sure, I can totally do that.
LJR: Even though you're a philosophy psych major. Yeah. You had played football. You did not take coding classes or engineering.
AF: I took one or two computer science classes. [LJR: Okay.] A couple of, sort of computer science oriented engineering classes. [LJR: Okay.] But yeah, almost all of my technology background was and continues to be self-taught, which is why I probably rapidly moved to roles where I was gonna do less harm. But yeah. So at the time I was doing a lot of hands-on computer development, so anyway, but yeah, so like this opportunity sort of appeared and it was like, you know, sort of like, huh, like I can take a job where I'm making games. And that, that definitely sounds a whole lot better and why wouldn't I wanna do that. [LJR: Yeah.] So that was my, my first experience at a startup. And it was, it was very much probably what people think of as an early internet startup. It wasn't, it wasn't in somebody's garage, but it sort of was. So it was a, when I joined, it was six people, six guys in a converted residential space underneath the CEO's apartment in Manhattan.
LJR: That's as garage as you get in Manhattan.
AF: Yeah. Yeah. So it was, yeah, it was okay. Well we need somebody who can, you know, who can build the games. The team didn’t have anybody who worked at the company, like who could do the engineering piece. So, sure why can't I do that?
LJR: Awesome. Good. But that might not have been, I mean, there were people that were learning how to do that, probably around that time and they were gonna start coming into the workforce. So you, at some point found that, okay, those people can do that. Where are you gonna morph into this industry?
AF: Sure. Yeah. So, you know, I very much stayed in the game industry in, you know, sort of the tech and internet space. But the work that I've done has definitely evolved and evolved and evolved. So, so yeah, you know, I started as a hands-on engineer and then I was building and leading teams of engineers.
And then I was building and leading product development teams. And so that's not just engineering, but that's sort of everybody that's involved in, you know, this case in games. So game designers and QA folks and project managers and artists and so on, you know, so that was sort of like my starting to step back from being quite as in the weeds in any one specific big discipline.
And so that sort of, you know, if I'm gonna break my career up into chunks, like that's the first big chunk is like, sort of, being hands on in the creation of the games themselves, which was certainly a very good foundation. And then I had a long stretch in the middle, which was sort of a transition more into product strategy, product management. And, I did that largely again, sort of on my own. I was at a different startup that went out of business and I had a couple of people who I knew professionally contacting me, was like, Hey, do you wanna do some consulting for us? And so I should. Sure. You know, and 10 years later I had built a small, but not tiny consulting company, you know, and we had done a lot of interesting work for large media entertainment companies helping them to put together strategies around gaming and around mobile.
LJR: Yeah. ‘Cause as you were kind of formulating this, or experiencing, this change in your, and morphing of your own career, that entire industry was morphing and changing. Yeah. And not just because more people were doing it and more companies were this whole mobile thing, like it had been kind of these big companies with the consoles, right? It started with the consoles. And then it went to what you had been doing with online gaming, but then mobile changed. Every or started to at least change everything. Right?
AF: Yeah. Being in, in the game industry over the last 20, 25 years has been really interesting cuz it has changed and changed and changed and changed, you know? And it's part of that is, is the evolution of technology. But it's been more than that. It's the way that people sort of think about and interact with gaming. It's the types of stories and content that are and can be in gaming. It's the business models sort of from the ground up. So yeah, I, it it's sort of an unrecognizable industry as compared to, to the one that I started in in many ways. But yeah, so, so, so right: I had been at, at a company doing mobile games, very, very early 2000, 2001, and is probably. Not the first mobile gaming company in the us, but the second or third. So I had very early sort of exposure to mobile technology and for mobile phones to be devices that were not just about being phones. And so, yeah, so I mean, that, that is part of, sort of what led to me having these opportunities to do consulting at these big media and entertainment companies and making this transition for being sort of a technology guy primarily to somebody that could think and talk and, and plan sort of product strategies and help companies think about their opportunities in the mobile space and the gaming space. So, so, yeah, so that was sort of like the middle chunk of my career being a transition in terms of the type of work I was doing. And also, you know, so I've gone from somebody else's big company to somebody else, a small company, a couple of times to trying to do it on my own and having my own small company. A lot of learning's there for sure. Working for yourself, having other people work for you.
LJR: Some would say, that's the pinnacle, right? That you're like, oh, okay. This is my show. I get to run it. I want it the way I want it. And may. Okay. So. Talk to me about that laugh.
AF: Yeah, I mean, it, it, there's a lot to be said for, for sure, to have a, sort of a certain ownership of your destiny. I'm probably too much of a cynic to be a really good entrepreneur myself. Honestly, somebody who's ultimately going to be a successful entrepreneur, I would say as close to a hundred percent true as, as anything in the world is, as they really have this, this unreasonable faith. Every day, they can wake up and they can take this leap of faith and the, you know, the market will catch them. Maybe I just never quite believed that entirely. I really enjoyed the opportunity to, to have more self-determination, you know, and it, it gave me a great opportunity to really start to understand a lot of, sort of the notes and bolts of what, what makes a business fun? And, and then sort of balancing that with sort of the work itself that my company was, was doing for our clients. And it did ultimately lead me to sort of the next step. You know, so now I've been outta school for 15 years and had done a bunch of different things, but almost all of it was self-taught. Here’s something that needs to get done again, whether it's my start for somebody else's, somebody's gotta do it. That somebody is probably me. So, you know, let's try it and see how it goes. And so, you know, so I got to a point where I definitely felt like for whatever I was gonna do next, I should probably spend some time actually learning how things were supposed to get done, at least on the business side. So I went back to school and I got an MBA at Wharton, which is pretty unusual in the game industry. There are a lot more MBAs these days than there were in the past, but it's definitely not an industry by and large, that has that traditional, like MBA bent. In my class, there was me, there was a guy who'd come out of the music industry and I think that was basically it for sort of nontraditional MBA industries, a lot of finance, a lot of pharma, you know, things like that. But it was, it was a really sort of positive, useful experience for me. It did fill in a lot of those gaps. And then, so despite going in thinking, okay, like this will, this will give my career a little bit of structure from my next step. I'll go and probably work at a large company in a more traditional role. I then went in, did another startup. So, you know, that's probably in my blood.
LJR: But it's also in the industry's blood too, right? Like there are major players, but then there are so many of these startups that are filling in a little niche or finding something new or exploiting the evolution. So what role are you now playing, having known some of the business side things that you don’t before?
AF: So, so I did another startup but then went from there to sort of, what's become like the. I guess the third of three phases of my career, which have been roles that have continued to have a lot of, sort of the product side of things, but have also sort of like business and strategy and operations responsibilities and, and also has been the transition to sort of the part of gaming, which I'm in now, which is, which has got kids and learning games. So I took it job at an education technology company that was doing a big push into kids learning gains and, and spent about three years there. And then took an unexpected detour and spent a couple of years at Draft Kings doing casino games. So about as big a switch, probably right, as you can make.
LJR: I knew you were in Las Vegas. So when you said kids stuff, I was like, wait a minute. That's not the gaming side I thought you were gonna pivot to.
AF: So, so yeah. My time at Draft Kings is what brought me to Las Vegas. I joined them just as they were expanding from a company doing fantasy sports to doing sports betting in online casino gaming. And that was why I had tried to help get those launched. And the company was opening up and expanding. An office in Las Vegas to, to really sort of focus on those two new lines of business and asked me to take a role out here as, as head of gaming operations. And, and so off I went having literally never been to Las Vegas before.
LJR: Wow.
AF: Yeah. So I was at an industry conference and one of the executives and I were having dinner and you space and he was like, Hey, do you want, wanna, you know, are you interested in taking a, you know, a different role at the company? It would mean I moved to Las Vegas. We were in Boston at the time, which truth be told I didn't love. So I was ready for a change. And so I, I texted my wife from this conference and I was like, Hey, what do you think about moving to Vegas? And she would relate now that she thought I was joking. And so she said, yeah, sure. So yeah, like, so, so three months later we were in Las Vegas. We came out for like a long weekend with, you know, a couple tiny kids in tow and looked at houses and we're like, okay. And we put an offer on a house.
LJR: It's not snowing here. So sure.
AF: Pretty much. And Las Vegas is a really interesting town. Actually, we're very far removed from what people think of as, as sort of Las Vegas with the strip and stuff. We're up against the mountains, you know, the hiking and, and, and things like that. In many ways, to me, it feels a lot like New York you know, it's a city that's transient, you know; people come from everywhere, you know, they go everywhere. It's a destination. The way that New York is. So I've liked it unexpectedly probably.
But anyway, so I left draft Kings during the pandemic for a job back in kids and, and learning games where I've been for the last couple years. And it's been really rewarding and wonderful, honestly, a company called Osmo. You know, I think in part, you know, I have kids now, which I didn't the first time that I was doing kids games. And so that has given me a different perspective, you know? If nothing else, you know, having my five year old be like, daddy, I'm really glad that you took a job making games for me.
LJR: Oh
AF: Yeah. It’s cute. And does make me feel like I made a good decision. It feels meaningful. It's been a, a really, a great environment. You know, I worked at a lot of companies, you know, either as employer or as consultant. And there are very few companies that have good cultures. Or maybe that's just my experience, but I think it's pretty universally true. And Osmo has been probably the least toxic place that I've ever worked at. People are supportive. Everybody wants not just them themselves to succeed, but the company to succeed and their peers to succeed. And we do really cool things with technology. I think, which, you know, which has always been a driver for me, even as I moved a little bit further away from the really sort of hands-on piece. And doing something that I, I feel like is unique in the market. So, you know, there, there are games on tablets, but with physical pieces. So we're using the cameras on the tablets to like, literally look at and identify what's happening in front of them with the physical pieces that the kids interact with. So it's this really interesting combination of physical and digital, you know, sort of a tangible learning experience that. That holds a lot of value. It's sort of like reverse augmented reality. So it's been, it's been a really positive couple of years and a company that I like that I feel like is making a difference. So, so hopefully I'll be here for a long time.
LJR: Yeah, until the industry changes and something else is new and shiny and like could, could help you grow too, probably. But for now it sounds great. So if you reflect back, Andrew, to that, you know, 20-something getting ready to leave college feeling like Okay, I'm gonna go do this pretty traditional thing now, but I know there's something out there that's, you know, where I can make cool impact. And we told you, oh, oh, you're gonna get there. And you're gonna have all these roles. Would that feel right at the time? Is that kind of the thing that you were envisioning?
AF: I don't know that it would've been what I was envisioning, but I think if you had asked. 22 year old me, if this sounded good, 25 years out, I think I definitely would've said yes. You know, to have been able to spend so many years in my career doing something that I, I thought then I still think is cool making games, you know, to have been able to, to see so many different parts of the industry. Yeah. And, and to get to a point sort of ultimately, well, I mean, right. It's not the end hopefully, but where I am, you know, sort of now. Yeah. Again, I don't think, I don't think it would've been necessarily sort of what I would've expected or, or, or anything like that at 22, but I think I would've been pretty satisfied to have had the look into the future. So…
But I probably should have talked more about all of the stuff along the way that I tried that didn't work.
LJR: Oh, okay.
AF: It probably sounded more like a steady stream of successes, which it, it definitely was not, that's been important honestly.
LJR: Are those not successes about the company's success or failure or your decision to do something or not do something? Yeah, so both, I mean, I, you know, of the many companies I've, I've worked at, you know, I've seen.
Your typical big successes: IPOs and acquisitions and acquiring other companies. And I've seen, have been at companies that, you know, have failed in various ways and gone out of business, you know. But also in terms of sort of my contributions and my roles, I've definitely, you know, I've definitely ended up in positions where I spent time beating my head against the wall and, and walked away, discouraged and disappointed in the time that I spent at a company, my success or lack thereof. You know, in, in my own startups, you know, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm still here working. I'm not retired on a private island so, you know, those have been learning experiences, but not overwhelming successes. It's been important in my development. It's probably an important message for most people to hear coming out of college: It's like a non-trivial part of what you do is gonna be failure. That's just part of how life works. Yeah.
LJR: But I mean, maybe the goal also isn't a private island somewhere it's enjoying the discovery of new parts of you and, and still doing something that you love. So, yeah. It seems like you've been pretty successful.
AF: Right. It's been, yeah. It, like I said, it, it has been more, more ups and downs than the pat narrative suggests. But, but overall, yeah, it's been a good trajectory. So. Yeah.
LJR: Some would say a dream job…as would my 15 year old. So what is the, if someone is getting into quote, the gaming industry, knowing that means about a billion different things, what would you say they should be doing or thinking about when they're young to be a good fit and be happy?
AF: There are much more opportunities now for kids to get real experience in sort of what it means to, you know, to make games. So. I mean games for, you know, for kids sort of as early, as like Minecraft and Roblox, you know, have, have real opportunities for kids to like build stuff within them, you know, and sort of start to see like what that entails, you know, and start to develop skills in, in programming or arc or, you know, like that is, that is really valuable.
You know, for somebody who thinks they would be interested pushing them to sort of explore and experiment, you know, to, to create something in, in the game space, you know, the, the tools that are available are, are much more accessible. A lot of them are, are free for Indies or, or students. Yeah. So, so in terms of sort of like getting a, a taste for, for what's involved, there's an awful lot of opportunity for somebody, you know, who's, who's a teenager or even a pre-teen.
A lot of colleges now have programs in game development. I don't know that I would recommend that though. Honestly, I, I think, you know, most people don't go into, or even come out of college knowing what their path is gonna be. So. I guess, I don't know. I'm a little skeptical of sort of schooling experiences that are so narrowly tailored. And the game industry has a really high, really high bounce rate because it is an industry that people are excited about. It can be a tough industry to stay in. You're not gonna make the same kind of money you would make on wall. Hours can be long. The making of the sausage is not as exciting as the eating of the sausage. And, you know, and the entry level jobs. And I mean, this is true, pretty much in the industry, right? The, in the entry level jobs are pretty entry level. At most companies, you know, there's a lot of not very. Not very rewarding work. And a lot of people will come into the industry and do very sort of junior work or very repetitive work.
So it deters a lot of people. So like I said, getting, you know, getting a little bit of a flavor for what could be involved sort of before you commit to it is useful. And then you're really sort of thinking about, is this something I like doing as an end user or is this something that I think I would want to be a part of?
Right. You might like driving sports cars. It doesn't mean that you wanna, you know, be building a car right? You know, and it's the same with games.
LJR: So right. But you heard it here first: No limits on Minecraft and Roblox time. ‘Cause that's all creative and good. That is maybe not what you said.
Well, it does sound like who wouldn't wanna play games and make games and present games to their five year old or their, you know, whomever. It sounds like a great fit for your flying by the seat pants going to figure it out as you go along, but really capitalize on the things that you're great at. And so, thanks so much for sharing all of these paths with us.
AF: Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. I really have enjoyed the opportunity to chat with you and talk about my weird unexpected path.
LJR: That was Andrew Friedman who has spent over two decades in the online gaming industry. Having had a hand in every aspect from engineering, product development, and product management to business strategy and operations. He's worked for many startups, pivoted into being an entrepreneur, starting and running his own companies, and currently serves as Vice President for Games at Osmo, a children's educational gaming company. He lives with his family in Las Vegas.
Life might not be all fun in games for you every day. So whenever you need a power boost, consider catching up on any podcast episodes you might have missed by visiting the full archive at RoadsTakenShow.com. While there you can access the transcripts, read the show notes, check out all our guests Then-and-Now photos, or even drop us a line. Of course, if you have a favorite podcast platform, that's another great place to find me, Leslie Jennings Rowley and all my guests on Roads Taken.