Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner Discuss Their Family’s Legacy, the Dangers of Social Media, and More

we're trying to do this together and it is thrilling to have you here we got to spend some time listen to that song with Kanye just a couple weeks ago and I loved it so much I said we got to play it one more time for everybody you guys both of you have created a remarkable Empire that's why I wanted to talk to you because I think you have changed culture you've changed social media you changed marketing and you changed the way we all think about so much of this just to give everybody a little bit of some stats here kris has trademarked momager as in manager between Kim Khloe Kourtney Kylie and Kendall there are 600 million Instagram followers for this family Kylie's business is worth a billion dollars you just started skims and I'm told sold two million dollars of product in literally in the first couple minutes of it going live and it's just an extraordinary thing that has happened over these past closed to 20 years that we so many of us have watched you grow up frankly on TV and now social media and so where I wanted to start with you in terms of how you've built this and it's not just you've done it once you've done it now many many times as the momager of this family and with so many things that you've been doing is what the plan was or was there ever a plan for this to happen well I think you know I think it's important to remember that when we first got started and started filming our show back in the early 2000s there was barely Twitter and I remember Ryan Seacrest calling me up and saying you know you got to tell Kim about this little thing called Twitter because she might find it really helpful and you know some business stuff and Kim really was the first one in my family that really taught the rest of us how to navigate that platform and then all the other ones that were out at the time and and we were just my kids were barely off this thing called a two-way that was the phone and pagers and all this other stuff and it was so funny because technology was happening so fast so when we first started and we realized that the show was gonna be a success that was basically the foundation for everything else that we were able to do and Kim and I would sit at the end of remember it said that and then when you guys see season 18 please I'll tweet her and remind her she said that our show was the foundation the foundation things have change about that foundation and the change because one of the things we've been talking about a lot recently is this issue of a fragmented media you guys started and I think to some degree created a franchise on TV traditional winny or TV first right yes and I wonder if you were to do it today using just social media whether you think it would work whether we work the same whether it would be different I'm guessing my mom would say it would work the same she is a big fan of like building a brand and social media and using your voice and believing in yourself that you can make it happen through that platform I think I'm a little bit more traditional where I think there was some magic of us starting on TV and really building up an audience and then the magic of timing of being around at the same time that social media was created I think there was just like a hit with the TV and then a another hit with social media and so when I choose to promote a product where some people I think maybe younger generations will just use social media I love doing traditional team but highly we do what we do yeah well she would probably do just social media if she's launching a product it would be strictly on social media I love to go and do the rounds and do the night shows I mean I was I was talking to Kendall and Kylie about you know the days of Leno and Letterman and they looked at me and was like who and I was like mortified I was so mortified and but it's really funny and it just shows you know but there is something to be said about the way we started the audience that we have now and the people that follow us and the consumers that buy our things are the people that became emotionally invested in the family and there was always a family member that somebody either you know loved or or you know wanted to watch their journey and everybody saw the kids grow up on TV for the last decade or so well that's what's so interesting to me because it's generational right I mean you totally and you've actually now sort of almost segmented out if you will so many different demographic markets in terms of both age and all sorts and just how people approach the family so that's why I was thinking when you guys create products now do you guys sit around and say my brand my the Kim brand represents this the Kylie represent brand represents this the Chloe brand represents that they're all spaced out how does this work well they're all separate businesses for sure and I think everybody has their own completely different demographic and even if you think about Kim and Kylie for example they're what 16 years apart and you know that's two seventeen that's two different generations basically and so I think that we do examine and I treat it like an absolute CEO or CEO of the family brand because you do we have so much in coming and things to choose from and banks and they're all very separate as well yeah I jump separate and discuss with Chloe or Kourtney I mean to give advice absolutely but as far as like the day today managing of our own brands and what we're naturally drawn to and how we operate our businesses is completely individual do you feel like you're competing against each other no we really honestly don't we're very supportive I mean Kylie and I both have beauty brands if we happen to be at each other's houses and see products laying around we'll discuss it but otherwise well we're very mindful in our calendars to not launch a product on the same time but if she's launching concealers and I'm launching concealers they would actually be such a different products we have different you know skin age demographic exactly what she was talking about so we use our products so differently that there has not been any competition even in sales-wise we can see our analytics there hasn't been any crossover so how does this work I'm assuming there are hundreds of companies that are coming to you every day saying I want you to do a paid post on Instagram where I want you to invest in my thing would become the spokeswoman but all of these people are coming how do you sort of sort it out what do you accept that you want to do what don't you want to do take us inside the the the kardashian-jenner Empire well for a paid post I am really cautious about like what I spend so if I over spend on something and a paid post happens to come in at that time I'll weigh it out and think okay well I have to pay for x y&z so that's your own personal yes my own personal expenses or if I'm even like okay you know we have schooling projects and now it's a little bit more personal for me if I have a paid post that comes in and I think okay well this can fund X amount of people that are behind bars that can help free them with simple legal fees that they just can't afford then that would be worth it to me even if the post might be a little bit off-brand for me I really weigh out different things now than I used to what's on brand for you um any beauty as long as it doesn't compete Fitness helps maybe just any health products if I you know when I mentioned I was having a CBD baby shower cuz I needed some calm before the storm of a fourth kid coming every CBD company on the planet reached out and you just it's you know it's it's kind of this joke also that I do if I really want something and I'm a bit lazy I can tweet I'm loving Oriya I'm craving Oreos right now and then on my doorstep later Oreo will show up it's true with her name on each cookie so are there other companies though that come to and you say look I just this is not this is not me and I'm not gonna do it or I just can't do it for whatever reason well absolutely I mean I think we've really learned by trial and error to an experienced I mean there was a time when I was about to say earlier that Kim and I in the beginning would sit and have these goals we would write down for the year and what we really wanted to do and the first thing that we talked about and Kim's passion was from the very beginning was fragrance and that was so just her thing was fragrance growing up she loved fragrance so that was one of our first goals that we wrote down in something that we were able to accomplish and that felt so good I'll never forget her and I sitting at the Beverly Hills Hotel at this meeting and the guy handed us a cheque we probably got in the bathroom stall we're waiting up and he's like whoa and it was so exciting and satisfying and rewarding but there's been a lot of you know we've kissed a lot of frogs along the way and throw in a lot of spaghetti at the wall you know there what hasn't worked for you well I mean listen one one great example that I wanted to toe tell you the other day was the the Got Milk campaign I thought Kim would be so great in like a Got Milk campaign remember like everybody did these Got Milk campaigns and I thought oh well she's like perfect for that I don't know where that came from and I'm sure I was a lot more excited and enthusiastic about this idea then the got milk people were so that really never came to fruition and then at the end of the day a couple years ago Kim was in a music video and she was taking a milk bath and I thought you did it Kim you got milk all over that body so that was kind of like a fun thing but there's been things that talk about off-brand in the very beginning the girls did we did everything with trimming favorite quick trim and when at the end of the day you really just wanted to be curvy exactly everything you could possibly imagine if someone came to us with a product we were just so excited that they were interested that we would do things that were really off grant and I think that even that stage in our life I look back and think that was such a learning growing process for us and I feel like in the last few years I finally found my voice on what to say no to what to really stand up for how to really focus and there could be amazing deals that come our way financially on brand everything you know fits my criteria but if there's just no time like now I feel like there's a power in saying no and having a little bit of time you know for my family and self and everything else that you have to have the bandwidth to be able to put that kind of energy and time and creativity into a brand or an idea that somebody wants you to be a part of and if what they're you know if she's signing up for something that she's never gonna have time to do it's only gonna be a disservice to everyone so how does this work though so did somebody call you and say I will pay you X amount of money for a post is there what's the market what's the market right now for it for an Instagram post hmm well I think that what we do have is I started to say earlier is this great incoming of offers and deals that come through whether it's a private equity a brand a VC a bank you know there's just so much coming in that we and she my kids all have to be their own CEO I might act as the CEO of a bigger picture and just weigh each thing that comes in if it's a acute story since my husband's here so there was a fast fashion brand a few of them and they would knock off easy all the time his color palette designs and so this fashion fast fast fashion brand offered me a million dollars for an Instagram post and I thought okay well that's you know easy just to wear clothes that you know I could pick anything that I wanted it's a quick post and when I told him about it he asked me not to do it and said you know without a respect I don't think that we should be giving them everything they copy everything it's you know it's I completely understood why he said no I gladly said no and then for Mother's Day he handed me an envelope and it was a check for a million dollars saying thank you for not posting before the other brands and then I don't know if I'm supposed to say this or if I have or and a contract to be an owner and easy as a thank you so yeah so there is power and saying no sometimes you know how do you think about your influence on the marketplace broadly in terms of what you project out to the public and the reason I ask is and you know when Kylie tweeted at one point if you saw this that she tweeted that she did when she didn't use snap anymore I stopped think snap snaps market value literally dropped by 1.3 billion dollars so how many means more than hoops abut so when you when you post or when you speak I mean it's hard to sometimes probably remember yeah who you are to some degree what the influence is yeah then this is always something that I struggle with because I believe that people should be themselves even if it's not what you agree went with even if it's not your beliefs and values I believe in being yourself and so when you start thinking about how you have to censor yourself so much because it could I mean I personally might not say bad things about people unless I'm provoked and I have to stand up for you know family but generally I try not to talk about like other brands if I didn't like a particular ice cream or something you know that I feel like could hurt a brand I just kind of stay away from it it's a big responsibility however I do believe that people should speak freely and if that's not what Kylie was doing and that was authentic to her then I I don't think that there's something wrong with that so but I struggle with that because it's like I do I always really do care about people feelings and I'm really compassionate about a headline like that I would feel bad about it but you also just have to be yourself the same time how much you think about your brand and his brand that I'm looking at Kanye right now in terms of how you guys work together and I know that you were part of really actually remaking the way skins actually turned out yeah I mean arm brands we respectfully let each other have our own voices and our own brands and create our own brands but were very much together in in every last decision and detail that we make so like for skims you know he drew the logo he our our packaging was one way and I thought it looked amazing and then he walked in and had about a two-hour conversation with my whole skims team about why it was not so amazing but it was really inspiring and really when you look back it was really trendy the old packaging and it I would have been sick of it by now and he really gave us like amazing advice on how we want it to be classic and timeless and all the packaging that the team was bringing us of other products in the marketplace they were saying isn't this better than that and Kanye's main advice was why don't you go get packaging that is the that you think is the best of all time it doesn't have to even be in the marketplace but any product and you should strive to be on that level why are you striving to be better than the worst and it really clicked to the whole team we all went back to work and he picked like our photographers was involved in the castings for the models for skins and colorways I mean everything you could think of so we really are he's like my ghost stylist and my ghost creative director and it's it's amazing to have someone that you really respect and value their creative opinion what do you think about your impact on culture and the reason I say the impact on culture is there is a sense and social media has been a big part of it but I think a lot of people have looked at you and your family as role models in many ways where people where everything is now just exposed you you you you put it all out there and there's something very authentic about that but I think there's also people especially of different age groups who have misgivings about that sort of where the wine is for privacy and and how much to really share or to overshare well I think from the beginning one of the things that we said to ourselves was we wanted to have a successful show if we were gonna do this and put ourselves out there then we really needed to do that and so we said let's just show everything and just be ourselves and cut to guys remember that episode I'm talking about I need this on a loop okay I had a bad week a couple weeks ago just remember that - okay guys few months yeah so this is gonna turn into a family feud so in the beginning we and that's I think was the you know this whole thing is the perfect storm I think being able to work with the family and having everybody on board but all at the same time willing to show you know the good the bad and the ugly what do you think we're gonna talk to Kevin Systrom in just a little bit who-who co-founded Instagram and there's lots of questions about mental health related to social media whether it's giving people good or bad body images in terms of how they how they think about themselves whether whether liking is actually a good thing right um you know there's so many people I I mean young people today who say I just want to get famous as quickly as possible get as many followers as possible and I'm gonna figure out a way to monetize that and nobody has a plan B that's the problem is if you really put all of your eggs in this basket you know I tell everybody that I speak to is really have to have something to hang your hat on and create something for yourself that sustainable and a business that can grow it's just not about being famous for us we happen to be lucky enough and blessed enough to have a show and that kind of started everything else okay don't say it again so so you know that's very valuable and that's something that continues to be very successful in almost 200 countries around the world and as many languages so we got very lucky tricky it is you know I think about when I raise my kids and screen time phone time what to post what not to post you know even posting things in real time I learned from a bad experience that I had when I was robbed that people really knew my every move they knew what I had they knew where I was what I was doing you know and and that to me really changed maybe the things that I post and and I still want people to feel like they're along that journey with me but I might video something and then post it like 30 minutes later when I've left the location more for privacy but as far as mental health I mean it's something that you know I think taking the likes away and taking that aspect away from it would be really beneficial for people and I know that the Instagram team has been having lots of like inner conversations with a bunch of people to get everyone's take on that and is taking it really seriously and that makes me happy do you read all your comments I do not but I find myself to be extremely mentally strong and I have people friends that are obsessed with reading the comments and I find that to be really unhealthy so I I have to I struggle with like having to step outside of how I feel and thinking about like what if one of my children was like one of my friends that wasn't as mentally strong and would really be affected by the comments that would really affect me and some water will get you some water get some water I had a separate question which which relates to this a lot of a conversation we've been having this morning is about CEOs oh thank you so much about CEOs who have felt like they are now taking or being pushed to take positions either political positions or or or positions in terms of culture and what's happening in society in a way that perhaps they didn't just a couple years ago you've gotten very involved in the mass incarceration topic but I'm curious actually from as a from a brand perspective in terms of how far you think you're willing to go on you know we've had people we're gonna talk about gun violence in a minute actually after this after this session but you know whether it's immigration or all these other issues that are very political and we live in this sort of very politicized world you've now spent some time at the White House yeah how do you think about that I am a really firm believer that you should be who you are believe in what you want to believe in and as a brand I'm the type of person that I could separate political beliefs from brands and I believe that people should have the right to believe in whatever they want to believe in and so if I don't really push politics on my brands I also believe that like Kim kardashian-west is also a person not just like the k'kaw brands so I will speak up personally on politics when I have to and when I want to did you get pushback though there's some people who like the president and there's some people who can't stand the president yeah I mean for me I focus on prison reform and the president has done amazing things in prison reform I will also speak up when I feel like something is not how I feel like the world should be and that could be immigration or other things I'm very focused there's a lot that we have to get done in prison reform and I believe I will be more beneficial if I just focus on that at the moment so I'm grateful for that relationship in that area and I focus on that um but that was a big thing where people so many people advise me don't go to the White House and it didn't that didn't make sense to me cuz I was like a life if someone can get out of you know prison and get their life back versus my reputation of going to the White House where there is only one person on this planet that can make the decision and that would be the president and that was even a question of you know for the media I that just absolutely didn't make sense to me I would go see anyone in power that would have that decision to change someone's life you don't like politics I know you do I know you don't like politics never talks I want to get to questions in this audience because I know there are people who want to ask you a handful of questions okay and we're gonna do that in just a second but you're you're you're starting to be a lawyer I am your father was a lawyer l won it's almost over okay so tell us what's the plan what is this about um you know I think that the more I would go into the White House and I remember sitting in the Roosevelt Room and they called me in for a clemency meeting and I'm thinking to myself like holy they're asking me to be in a clemency meeting like I'm just gonna you know and I definitely raise my hand and ask questions and was as involved as I could have been but there were some attorneys there that I knew and so I felt this comfort in asking them all these questions and I just wanted to know more I wanted to the more that I know the more that I can do and it's so interesting because had I done this back in college I wouldn't have cared at all like I wouldn't have gotten through it now when I'm studying contracts and these are like actual life things that I'm dealing with now and now that I own my own home and I'm old enough and I'm you know studying torts and I'm learning about personal injury like everything I'm so interested in it actually pertains to my life it does not feel like I am I mean I'm definitely working really hard and it's a commitment that I've chosen to take this time away from my family to study and to not go out with my friends and like live a different life and I'm so okay with that I love it and I just hope that one day I can start a firm that will help with prison reform and really help I would love to hire these men and women that are behind bars cuz they know the law better than so you want to start you start a law firm I do yeah I really do let's open it up to because I know there's so many people who have hands up I don't know I see Lesley Stahl who taught me my whole career watching Lesley Stahl do interviews herself from 60 minutes Lesley Stahl get her a microphone so first off Andrew you're doing a remarkable job Thank You Betty absolutely yeah I'm in awe every so many people to interview in one day Wow and I want to congratulate both of you not only for building such a successful business but for using it now for proper issues that you think are important but what I want to ask you about is social media in general it's come under a lot of controversy attacks spreading things like calcium pills cure cancer there's bullying and now the question of political ads so this world that you live in has become extremely controversial and I wonder if you're worried about it and if you think it will hurt your business just to be on these sites just what your general opinion is of the direction social media is taking I think for me just to answer your question about as far as family goes what I worry about our future generations and my grandkids and so my biggest issue is the bullying side of it because it really is so upsetting and the kids that are being affected by it are younger and younger and younger I have every age of 10 grandchildren so that's every age you can think of and the stuff that they see I see in my almost 10 year-old grandson who talks about it often and very dramatically about how it affects him so I can only imagine you know everyone else in the world and how their families are affected by it and the families that aren't paying attention there's so many parents that are you know working parents and don't pay as much attention and you know we're really on all of the stuff that are my kids are on what their kids are watching but it does worry me a lot but it does worry me as I don't think social medias going away but I do think that like me just I'd say in the last few years and my evolution maybe some of the things that I would post a few years ago wouldn't be certain things that I would post now for those reasons of maybe the wrong message but I do believe that the social media brands are paying attention I know that I personally received meeting requests and calls from really high up people that want opinions and input on how to try to fix these problems people from Facebook and Instagram people like that or from the government Facebook and Instagram people so I do know that people are taking it seriously and but it is something that I worry about all the time for my children and what they see so I hope that they do make some changes just to make it a more friendly place let's see if we could speak in a couple more questions and I don't know if I can do this connieyc can be can be getting your microphone just for one second I have a question for you which is no no you've now joined this family and they've learned a lot from you which they just talked about and I'm actually curious what you have learned from this empire that's being built yeah I think if my family wasn't so that they didn't work so hard and they weren't so omnipresent maybe I would just rest on my laurels of just being the greatest artist of human existence and that would just be but that's that's shown that that is not enough good you have to you know you have to hit the gym that you have to communicate that you have to it's a modern day it's like modern day Medici or Rome it's an it's an era that people remember for all of human existence in this you know social media I have up every time I ask a question I have a thought on it every time because social media is like the new not saying that it's particularly as negative as cigarettes and that saying that it's a full Edward Bernays you know torches of freedom you know full empowerment but I do think that I've said I've done interviews often that you know if I post 100 posts they're like all he needs to go to a hospital he's going crazy but Instagram and different social media out you know they they have the likes come back at a slower speed they have a certain amount you know post that you should do to look normal and it's acts actually controlling the rate at which we're supposed to advance and communicate as human beings for the what is said is the common norm and actually that makes it be where you know 50 people can control the billion people that are now getting into you know real estate to try to control two billion or three billion up see we cut the mic right now okay so you know it's a matter of my perspective you know Jesus already already run the Jesus has already won the victory and it's for me as a man as a Christian as a billionaire as a founder of a three billion dollar company to stand up and be you know this has to be stated because the forbes chose to call me a cent to millionaire when i showed them the receipts of 890 million last year and you know that was it wasn't funny to me but just as a a mailed opinion looking at my daughters and looking at my family and as we are starting this church and saying that this innovation and community and what we're doing with education and we're doing you know in politics even now like we have twelve thousand five hundred acres in Cody Wyoming Trump has actually opened up the ability to buy more land and in America you know America you can buy land and we can be owners and we don't you know often have to be just the product of what black Twitter tells us what we're supposed to do were you know any black man that you know this has to been taken out of every single one of my interviews so I'm gonna say it now my my father's a black panther my mother was arrested I mean for the citizens at age six to fight for us to have the right to vote but it was the right to vote for who we tell you to vote on it's okay that any black man voted for Hillary is coming up next but if a black man didn't vote for Hillary you're a LeBron we're gonna burn your jersey and Akron if you choose a team you want to go to you come back to Cleveland in your hero you go to hell no that's not where we want you to be but my parents fought of course to have the right to have our own opinion and sometimes with social media they can even put false comments about six-seven in to try to incept indoctrinate and control our minds of what the mass is think look at the century yourself look at every renée's the kpop again man see the mic cut I would I would continue this for hours I just know that we've got a couple of other fabulous people they're never not just fabulous of Chania I want to thank you for that I appreciate that very very much um final question for me for both of you which is if we came back here in ten years from now and sat together again and talked about what that what the Jenner Kardashian Empire looks like well what do you think it will be I think we would be just continuing doing what we're doing I mean the one thing that everyone asked me is what what more what's next and I always think like well I want to live in the moment because there's already a lot on my plate and I want to nourish each thing that we're doing I hope that my beauty brand and fragrance brand continues to grow I hope skims is an amazing business and everywhere and a necessity for people I really want to focus and I hope that I'm a lawyer in ten years and have an amazing firm and changing the whole prison system I really hope that I will just be more into that and I hope that all my sisters and brother and everyone is just happy and living on a farm in Wyoming what do you say Chris you take a 10% of everything so I know it's fabulous well 10 years from now I'll be 74 it was her birthday yesterday yeah but thank you guys you know I'm so proud of them and I think that one thing that a lot of people probably maybe they do but you know a lot of people don't realize is the workout that gets second-to-none and I think just watching them grow and build their companies getting more and more independent within their own brands and figuring it out and the creativity the way they work together I think that we're building something so fantastic and just being able to figure out what really works for each one of them is very rewarding for me and hopefully in 10 years I can sit back and watch them do it all by themselves please join me in thanking Kim and Kris and Kanye [Music]

Channel: New York Times Events

Views: 1,621,106

Rating: 4.7426691 out of 5

Keywords: kim kardashian, kris jenner, kanye, kanye west, kim k, kim, andrew ross sorkin, dealbook, dealbook conference, branding, social media, instagram, prison reform, law, keeping up with the kardashians, kim kardashian interview, kim kardashian on kanye west, kim kardashian kanye west

Id: jIgPQHycuQQ

Length: 37min 0sec (2220 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/electrikdreamachine]

man he's a strange dude

[u/TwoSocks0]

That's wild, you hear part of his brain realising that he's rambling so says that he should"cut the mic" then the crazy part kicks in again and he keeps going.

[u/DrSenpai_PHD]

Cringey part wasn't that he was talking about himself. Interviewer asked what "you learned" about the empire after all. So he could talk a bit about how he changed and whatnot.

What's cringe is how little sense his response makes. He clearly was not prepared for this question. Was like being pulled up in front of class to comment on something you forgot to study. I think halfway through the ramble he even forgot the question.

I would've said some shit about "drive, determination, dedication. She is always guided by those three things, and while I was originally just a musician, I've learned to grow using those same values" or whatever. Really empty statements, but at least they're pertinent.

And when in doubt, keep your response short so you don't forget the question.

[u/Dealwithis]

Manic phase.

[u/Revanslave]

Has he learned shes a hobbit yet or is he still not sure?

[u/xHypnoToad]

Does this guy seriously think he’s the greatest artist in human existence? Like come on dude how did your head even fit through the door to get in there.

[u/BangersByBangler]

holi crapp that is awful

[u/Clownbrownies]

Ill never understand how people can like this idiot.

[u/vasco2024]

If he was talking about drugs and violence you would accept it as OK. Kanye is a misunderstood free thinker, despite his mental illness. He said more in this "cringe" comment than many celebrities have said their whole life