Trapital Building Businesses Around Artists with Firebird Music CEO Nathan Hubbard
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Nov 6, 2025 
Nathan Hubbard, music executive and CEO of Firebird Music Holdings, shares insights on building successful businesses around artists. He discusses Firebird's mission to create sustainable artist careers through innovative investment strategies. Hubbard highlights the importance of aligning artist incentives with long-term success and explains the role of management companies in this process. He also explores talent discovery using data-driven methods and argues that Taylor Swift exemplifies the ideal artist-CEO, effectively managing her brand and business empire.
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Artists As Undercapitalized Consumer Brands
- Artists are massive direct-to-consumer brands but currently lack the infrastructure to capture full value.
- Firebird combines data, marketing, finance, and label services to close that gap and build long-term value.
Fragmentation Drives Short-Term Choices
- Industry fragmentation creates misaligned incentives that favor short-term extraction over long-term artist equity.
- Equity partnerships with artists change decision-making to focus on durable career value instead of immediate extraction.
Yungblud Case: Company-Building Example
- Firebird and Yungblud formed YB Inc., consolidating his revenue and IP into a company to build long-term equity.
- They invested in a documentary, a London fan space, and other assets that drove streams, audience growth, and direct fan relationships.