get about 15 to 20 minutes a night when I get in bed when I usually watch something on Netflix. Or if I want to completely numb my mind from any potential form of work, I watch reality television. I used to write reality television shows so I really find it interesting from the perspective of how they’re written. People say, ‘How do you watch reality TV shows?’ For me, it takes zero brain cells, so that’s what I do.
I was building a company in New York that was based around the most sophisticated lie detection technology ever created. It was in Tel Aviv; we licensed the technology in the US. It was layered voice analysis; we analyzed the frequency of your voice. It was not a polygraph test; it was not based on your pulse but the frequency of your vocal cords. You couldn’t change anything by inflection, by tone, by pitch. By the time the words came out of your mouth, it was already analyzed by this machine. This was related to counterterrorism.
There are 129 parameters of the voice; 16 were related to attraction, arousal, infatuation, everything that would go into a relationship. We created this technology called “The Love Detector.” This was before there were apps on phones; I was living in New York, building this portion of the company—I didn’t want anything to do with the counterterrorism stuff. I had some friends that worked at MTV. I said, ‘Hey we’ve got this really cool technology, what about writing shows to build awareness of the technology?’
We ended up having 6 to 10 show ideas that I went and met with ABC. The guy that had the American rights to the technology wanted a million upfront for any show idea. … We sold a couple shows, one that MTV eventually ran. One was on the History Channel. One got adapted into this show on NBC.
X: What’s your most impressive or most quirky skill that has nothing to do with your day job?
I take songs—and this is mainly for my kids … anything not related to work is related to my kids—songs that are popular and change the words and sing it to my kids, which is really funny. It’s hard because you have to rhyme the words but the tune is there. My daughter does it all the time now; she’s five. We’re changing the words to a Katy Perry song about how
