HeyJaredThe Messy Middle
The Messy Middle is a cinematic conversation series by Wael Abou-Zaki exploring the unseen process behind creativity, leadership, and purpose.Each episode goes beyond the results to uncover the messy middle.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 3
- Latest publication
- Sep 7, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 6, 2026
Latest episodes
From Super Bowl Ads, Kendall Jenner, Fanatics & Creative Directing | Johnny Dantonio on Taste & Staying True to Yourself (opens the original)
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Johnny Dantonio has built a career at the intersection of creativity, culture, and instinct. As VP of Creative at Fanatics, he's shaped global campaigns across the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the World Cup, including the Kendall Jenner "bet on the right guy" spot. He once sat across a table from Kobe Bryant and told him, to his face, that his idea was bad. And through all of it, he's held onto a belief most people in his industry would resist: advertising isn't art, and staying humble about th
They Gave Us $64 Million. Who Am I? | David Metz on Building Prizeout, Failure, and Gratitude (opens the original)
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The night someone wired his company sixty four million dollars, David Metz's first thought wasn't victory. It was, who am I to deserve this? David is the founder and CEO of Prizeout, a fintech company that partners with credit unions to put rewards and cash back into the pockets of middle America. But he didn't set out to build a fintech. He was running a real-money trivia app, FleetWit, when he noticed customers cashing out their winnings to gift cards for brands they'd never used. One cold cal
Peace Is Your Center of Gravity | Shadeh Smith on Culture, Burnout, and Coming Back to Yourself (opens the original)
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Shadeh Smith spent more than fifteen years building culture for some of the biggest names in music. From Kehlani and Burna Boy to Ed Sheeran, and more recently the new world of streamers like IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat. She came up the hard way, from picking up laundry and driving artists to becoming a music commissioner and creative director at Atlantic Records. Then she walked away from the machine to build her own studio, evrdydrmr, and a nonprofit, She Made It, that opens doors for filmmakers
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