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Felix Dennis of Maxim, The Week
Related websites
General thoughts
- Dennis seems similar to Walton and Cuban in that he tends to be the more action-oriented risk-taker in his partnerships. (p176)
Chronology of Success
- grew up poor
- worked for a magazine (Oz)
- got sales experience by selling the magazine; also gained an insider's view of the magazine industry, which helped him make decisions in the future. this is similar to a lot of other entrepreneurs (carnegie, kroc to an extent, the founder of the pet shop boys mentioned by dennis)
- while dead broke, he got EXTREMELY lucky by deciding to write the first biography of bruce lee just before bruce lee died. he rushed the completion of the book and was smart and skilled enough to capitalize on the opportunity and make a bunch of money by selling other knick-knacks (pins, membership cards, etc.). he took it international.
- at some point he decided he wanted to publish a comic, so he went through hell trying to figure out how to get it funded and published. it was a complete flop, but he learned from the experience.
- he then started selling monthly magazine-posters of bruce lee (poster on one side, magazine on the other side).
- at some point (late '70s, early '80s) he decided to start publishing a PC magazine back when PCs were totally new and only used by nerds.
- his magazine grew with the computer industry and he eventually started branching out into other types of magazines: videogame magazines, young men's magazines, etc.
Articles / videos
- 1970.11.10 - The David Frost show - Dennis being interviewed about Oz
- I found it pretty painful to watch, the hippies come across really badly
- you first see him at 1:03, all the way on the left, in the brown leather jacket and long brown hair with a brown beard, right behind David Frost. Within 10 seconds of getting on stage he reaches to his pocket to pull out a water pistol and aims it at the camera or audience.
- 2:46 Another guy uses the phrase "buffalo shit" before Dennis has said anything
- 3:08 You can see Dennis in the bottom right of the screen as another guy is talking
- 4:22 You can see him on the left starting to shout out
- 5:20-5:25 You can see him smoking, he says the first audible thing: "It's been running for the past 10 minutes" (referring to a camera that had been moved, which the hippies wanted to come back)
- 5:37 He picks up a phone(?) and jokingly says "Just leave the cameras alone"
- 6:15 Felix says "cunt"; he's off-screen at this point: "He's not a reasonable man, he's the most unreasonable cunt I've ever seen in my life."
- 6:22 He shows up on screen and shoots at Frost with his water pistol...agh it's so disrespectful...
- 2001(?) - Charlie Rose - Interview with Felix Dennis
- 2004.02 - TED - Odes to vice and consequences
- he gives very intense readings
- He reads a poem called "Never go back", which he says was one of his mother's big mottos in life
- Poem: "To a beautiful lady of a certain age" - It's about convincing a woman to stop trying to hold back the effects of time
- "America has done for me, ladies and gentlemen, more than Britain ever has, or ever could have done."
- "convenience owns America, convenience owns our soul"
- Poem: "Love came to visit me"
- 2011(?) - Fox News - Red Eye - Interview
- 2012.04.15 - The Oz cartoon that got Dennis thrown in jail
- I heard Felix talking to Richard at a ’95 Oz reunion in London saying that he’d heard from so-and-so that the whole court case was pre-arranged by the government to first have the fusty old judge declare them guilty, to give ‘em a taste of jail, eh what, then let them go on appeal.
- 2013(?) - Dreamchasershow(?)
- If you don't really believe you deserve to get rich, you won't get rich.
- I don't do emails. I don't do texts.
- 2014.06.23 - Mirror - Maverick publisher Felix Dennis dies aged 67 after losing battle against cancer
- the first person to say c*** on British television. His foul-mouthed first came during an episode of The David Frost Programme which included a lengthy interview with a group of hippies. He later said his mother refused to speak to him for three years afterwards.
- His involvement with Oz saw him stand trial charged with conspiracy to corrupt public morals after a special issue included a pornographic version of Rupert the Bear. The trial was a sensation and made Dennis and his fellow defendants famous.
- 2014.06.23 - NYTimes - Felix Dennis, 67, Flamboyant Builder of Magazine Empire, Dies
- Mr. Dennis drew immense attention for telling journalists over the years that he spent more than $100 million to support mistresses — he said he had 14 — and to pay for illicit drugs.
- He was born in Kingston-Upon-Thames in England’s Surrey County on May 27, 1947. His father went out for cigarettes when he was 3, never to return. (It turned out that he had moved to Australia.) Grandparents raised him in a house with no electricity or indoor bathroom. He left school at 15 to work as a gravedigger, store-window dresser, sign painter and blues drummer.
When the first issue of Oz, a countercultural magazine, was published, he got a job selling copies on the street. The next year he became advertising manager. By the time he was in his early 20s, he was an editor there.- Having leadership experience through a job or club is a very common pattern in successful people. It makes sense, since businesses have you essentially "programming people", and leadership experience essentially teaches you the particulars of doing that.
- After Oz folded, Mr. Dennis failed to make a go of publishing underground comics. He happened to see some teenagers lined up in the street at 9 a.m. and learned they were waiting to see a Bruce Lee martial arts film. That inspired him to start Kung-Fu Monthly, which sold millions of copies in 17 countries, commencing his empire.
- This goes along with Marty Nemko's advice to copy an existing successful business; Marty actually says to look for a business that has people lined up outside the door, and to copy that business. But he doesn't suggest doing what Felix ended up doing, which is to start a business which targets the same customers for the same need, but solves the problem in a situation where the original product can't solve the problem. (In this case, the "problem" is "I want to see / learn about Kung Fu", and the "different situation" is any situation where the customer can't be in a movie theater).
- In June 2007, Mr. Dennis sold his American magazines Maxim, Blender and Stuff to Quadrangle Capital Partners II for $250 million, according to industry estimates. He retained The Week. His company now publishes more than 50 magazines. Profits in 2013 increased more than a third over the previous year on revenues of more than $100 million.
- Last year, Mr. Dennis said his only regret was not having a child.
- 2014.06.29 - Felix Dennis: Devouring crack cocaine with a harem of women - how the publisher blew £100million
“He’d have about 12 girls at a time there. They had a fantastic life, he’d pay them £3,000 a month pocket money and send them on holidays. Sometimes he’d wake up one morning and say: ‘OK, we’re all off to Barbados for a week’. Then he’d rent a plane and they’d all pile in.” Felix would ensure he could easily access women regardless of where he was. Publisher and West Ham football club co-owner David Sullivan knew him at his most hedonistic. He says: “He had about 30 girls at his beck and call. I know because I met quite a few. They’d say: ‘I’m under contract to Felix.’ Sometimes he’d just call them up for sex but other times it was for friendship and companionship."
Born into poverty in Kingston, South-West London, he was largely raised by his mother after his father left her when he was aged three.
After leaving his local grammar school aged 15 he took on menial jobs, ranging from grass-mower to gravedigger, until he got his break five years later.
He wrote in to alternative magazine Oz, which had launched in London in 1967, and told them it was “the most ****ing fantastic mag I’ve ever seen in my life”.
After getting the attention of the editor Richard Neville, he turned up penniless on the doorstep looking for a job.
Starting off selling the magazine on the street, he worked his way up to become its business manager.
But in 1971 Neville, Dennis and co-editor Jim Anderson went too far by printing a lewd cartoon featuring Rupert the Bear.
They were jailed for a “conspiracy to corrupt the young”.
Their nine-month sentence was quashed after just a week but it proved a defining moment.
During the trial the judge said Dennis was “very much less intelligent” than Neville and Anderson. He set about proving him wrong.
After attempting to launch underground comic books when Oz folded, in 1974 he launched Kung-fu Monthly.
It was the start of the Dennis publishing empire which would boom as he spotted the potential in nurturing IT magazines such as PC Zone and MacUser.
Lesson: It may be a good idea to reach out to people who can help you and are likely to respond. (As Felix did with Oz.)
- Lesson: It may be a good idea to learn a particular business thoroughly. (As Felix did by working his way up the ranks of Oz.)
“He was tough.
"An editor once got very cross and threw a glass ashtray at Felix. Felix wasn’t bothered – he just threw it back.
"I’d never met people like that before. He gave as good as he got.”
- This is an excellent article, way better than the other obits
Were you to judge Felix Dennis, never having met him, from those potted obituaries that flooded the daily papers, you'd be likely to conclude that he inhabited two separate characters: the hedonistic wild-man who reveled in sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, and the canny, hard-nosed businessman who took on the biggest magazine publishers in the world and beat them at their own game.
Having worked with the man for 40+ years, I'd suggest it's nearer the truth to say that Felix was always both of those characters, all the time. The balance may have shifted a little over the years, but never in any neat sequence that one could label as "wild youth" followed by “adult wisdom", and those two characters aren't nearly so incompatible as conventional opinion would have you believe: both are above all risk takers, contemptuous of the quiet life.
Felix did in fact play in several rock bands in the 1960s, even made a record with The Flamingos in 1966, but by the time the age of rock 'n roll excess really started (when Keith Moon wrecked his first Holiday Inn?) Felix had already moved across into print-and-paper, thanks to Richard Neville, Jim Anderson, Martin Sharp and Oz magazine. When I first met Felix in 1971 he was still doing some graphic design, and I was reviews editor of Ink: every Friday we'd pull an all-nighter pasting up the reviews pages for press. He wrote excellent record reviews back then, through which I learned that his taste was less for heavy rock than for blues, and for singer-songwriters like Jesse Winchester. In fact his favourite song, Winchester's "Do It", pretty well summarises his whole philosophy in 17 lines:
If the wheel is fixed
I would still take a chance
If we're treading on thin ice
Then we might as well dance
He was neither athletic nor mechanically minded, so his love of risk would never express itself in mountain climbing or driving racing cars: he had the temperament of a gambler, and a lucky gambler too. His confidence in his own luck was unshakeable, and was justified right up until the end. In the 1970s we'd stage weekend poker sessions at his SoHo flat, where Mick Farren and Felix vied to bet fastest and loudest, but Felix always had the cards while Mick was really bluffing.
Do it
'Til you're sick of it
Do it 'till you can't do it no more
Eventually we did all get sick of it, and had to think about making a living. After Oz folded in 1972 Felix and I set up H. Bunch Associates to continue publishing underground comics. We had £96 in the bank from the sale of a battered military chest found in our new office, and a process camera borrowed from the liquidator.
When the underground finally fizzled out in the mid '70s we had to resort to more commercial topics like hi-fi, motorbikes, pop music and kung fu, and eventually to personal computers. As the only one with a background in science, I was elected to take home a Commodore PET and sit up in my basement flat every night for a year teaching myself to write programs in a dozen different obscure programming languages.
During those years we faced bankruptcy many times – whether from titles that lost money or from titles that made money but overstretched the cash-flow – but each time we sat down, examined the prospects and decided to carry on because getting a proper job was inconceivable. And we never once fell out, in 40 years of collaboration, perhaps because my analytical bent and his unshakable optimism complemented one another.
[...]
Despite (maybe because of) his neglect of school in favour of rock 'n roll, Felix became a voracious reader who consumed several books a week, spanning every genre from fiction through poetry to science.
- This is an excellent article, way better than the other obits
Here's a link to Jesse Winchester's "Do It": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwarp9kK0Dw
If the wheel is fixed
I would still take a chance.
If we're treading on thin ice
then we might as well dance.
So I play the fool,
but I can't sit still.
Let me get this rock
to the top of this hill.
Do it 'til you're sick of it.
Do it 'til you can't do it no more.
Friends'll pity you;
I guess that what they're for.
But they just take you like they find you
when they find you on the floor.
But you do it 'til you're sick of it.
You do it 'til you can't do it no more.