3 Crazy Details from ADWEEK's Interview with Madwell's Controversial Founder Chris Sojka

On April 15, ADWEEK debuted a new podcast, Adspeak, with a two-part premiere delving into the shocking exposé of indie agency Madwell’s collapse, reported by senior tech reporter Kendra Barnett. In the second episode, ADWEEK editor-in-chief Ryan Joe sat down for an exclusive interview with Madwell CEO Chris Sojka, who faces allegations of erratic behavior and mismanagement. Here are the three most jaw-dropping moments from that conversation. 1. A $17.5 Million Jet...While Employees Miss Paychecks Chris Sojka defended the purchase of a $17.5 million private jet, despite ongoing liquidity issues at Madwell. “We needed to make new friends and new clients. So I wanted to get in the aerospace... that’s why we bought the plane,” he said. Sojka argued that purchasing the jet was a strategic business move to secure high-profile clients—but it’s hard to ignore that payroll delays for Madwell employees were becoming more frequent at the time he bought it. 2. The Pilot Who Saved Madwell (Literally) In a strange turn of events, Sojka revealed that a pilot became a key figure in Madwell’s survival. The pilot didn’t just lend his flying skills—he financially backed Madwell to keep the agency running during its darkest days. “The pilot is... a renaissance man who... took every penny he had and put it in when we were bent to the point that we were going to go under,” Sojka shared. Talk about an unexpected hero. 3. A “Theme Park” in Texas? Sojka also cleared the air about rumors of him building an amusement park in Austin, Texas. “It’s a plan for an exercise to be built in Dripping Springs, Texas... it’s not a secret,” he said—though he wasn’t keen to share further details. What’s going on in Texas? Sojka remained tight-lipped, but it’s clear that the CEO isn’t planning to slow down anytime soon. Want to hear more from Adspeak? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Read the full uncut transcript of Ryan's conversation with Sojka below. Ryan Joe: This is AdSpeak from ADWEEK. Chris Sojka: I did not successfully outmaneuver a series of compounding problems so that I could meet the payroll obligations and I put every one of those people and many vendors through situations that were wildly, I mean, not just hurt like taxing the existential level on their families and their existence, making them question where stability is. And I can never undo that. And I don't put that anywhere else. Ryan Joe: That was Chris Sojka. As cofounder and CEO of Madwell, he’s been accused by multiple of his staff of volatile and abusive behavior. Sojka has also seemingly made lavish financial decisions at the expense of paying staff — Madwell employees have had their paychecks increasingly delayed over the past six months. ADWEEK’s Kendra Barnett chronicled this saga, which you should definitely make sure to read. And if you’re interested in how she reported this story out, be sure to listen to my conversation with Kendra in the previous episode.Right now, Madwell is in a battle for its life, as Bank of America has, as of late March, asked the courts for permission to seize Madwell’s assets, and its associated LLCs. On April 4, Chris Sojka came to the ADWEEK offices where he and I talked exclusively and one-on-one about the current situation, and what lies in store for Madwell’s future. Now, this interview has been edited for length. Ryan Joe: Chris Sojka. Hey, thanks for joining us. Why are you here? Chris Sojka: That's a great question. I didn't expect things done for all the way that they did. You know, there was nothing to do other than make sure first and foremost, everybody in, in our, in, and Matt Wallach was able to get paid. Um, and now that that's happened, I suppose I, I think the thing I said to myself was that there may yet be some well that can come from all of this mad, and I think that there's, there's a story there that if nothing else, I hope it, it can allow, um, the amazing work that folks have been doing throughout a really wild, difficult time to be inside of a company for to get credit and not overshadowed by me and a former partners. Ryan Joe: So Friday, April 4th, we are recording this. Everyone in Madwell has been paid and their payment is up to date right now, currently. Chris Sojka: With the exception of anybody who had, we have to do it manually, because we're between, we have to pay every person manually. We did that, but that's one of the things that I learned the hard way, is that when you're not using a PEO, because you have to pay people because you've got liquidity issues, you pay every personal manual wire ACH. So I'm going to just say for the technical truth of everything, yes they have, but some folks they have to go back and forth with the finance to make sure that any discrepancies and things that happen with their bank worked out. Ryan Joe: Okay, so right now everyone's up to date. Are there going to be payment issues in the future that you foresee? Chris Sojka: Um, early on, I was like really optimistic. I would say, when I had a good handle on it, um, I would say, no, I can see where it bends. In this case, I'm just going to say that. there are a lot of compound factors that are not fully in the control of me or Madwell that impact that. So as of now, I think we'll complete our equity rates in totality. And then the answer will be no, because that's about raising equity to address bad debt. And that's really what it comes Don't you? Ryan Joe: It sounds like you're saying that if you raise equity successfully, then the payment issues that have plagued Madwell employees over the past couple of months will be a thing of the past and you'll be able to maintain payment consistently. Chris Sojka: I think it's worth note like talking about how come we have payment issues because I think I think that that otherwise otherwise I mean, I'll say that Madwell can't survive unless those issues are solved. It's not right to those people It's right to anybody who's not been paid and that's not a way to run a viable business anymore Ryan Joe: Bank of America is asking the court permission to seize money from your LLCs, from Madwell, from your fabrication company. What's the status of that right now? Chris Sojka: Um... This is, this is where we're going to, we're going to have to talk about it in reverse because it's pretty important. Um, so-- Ryan Joe: I'm just gonna say I'm like a hesitant to litigate the past too much, especially as it relates to here I know you have a had a contentious falling out with your with your co-founder and but I feel like that has, you know, that was settled last year and you've been kind of in charge since it's-- Chris Sojka: Right. You're asking me about Bank of America debt and what's going on with it. Um, how do we have debt with Bank of American that's now turning into this situation? Oh, I mean, you did, you didn't buy a jet. See, and that's the point that I want to talk about. So we have that with Bank Of America for a very specific reason. We have debt because in 2021, this is not me speaking conjecture. This is like, I had to plan whether I would talk about this openly. We have that because of 2021, my ex partner and my CFO. went to Bank of America and raised our credit facility. Ryan Joe: Chris, I just want to interject like that, that is a long time ago and whatever situation got you into this place, you know, you are the boss, you've been the boss since October of last year and you know now you're in the situation where Bank of America is asking to-- Chris Sojka: We were in that situation then. That's why we had, I had to settle. We've been in that situations since November 16th, 2023, nonstop. The entire thing broke in June when the term that was negotiated between them and the bank, uh, ended. And, and, and I've been paying it back since the top of last year. This is the same problem continuing in April of this year. Ryan Joe: But if that's the same problem, I guess I don't understand some of your financial decisions that you seem to have made afterwards. Ask me about them. Chris Sojka: I'll own that and I'll only the decisions that I made, but a lot of decisions that I made I made to not go out of business. The end, it's like getting into a cockpit of a plane in like a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible saga and just doing the best that we could, not me just alone. Ryan Joe: Okay, so speaking of plans, what was the business reason for that? Because that was like a $17.5 million purchase that was, you had to take out like a 14 million dollar loan for that one. Like what? Chris Sojka: This is the exact way that this goes down in this order. In 2023, on March 30th, I'm with my ex, significant other, and she'd been doing work in our industry, judging things. And I went to go visit her to have a couple of days together. And the first day that I was there on the first vacation I attempted in years, I got a note saying for my CFO, my CEO to me, saying we put $1.76 million on a credit line to pay taxes on the recommendation of our accountant. and I spent a lot of time trying to understand what was going on because it was like a shock to the system. What I did know was a fact soon thereafter was that we had lost our credit facility. I'm going to tell you, this is all to the playing. Okay. So stick with me. Ryan Joe: Alright, I mean, I just feel I'm on the tarmac waiting for you to take off, but... Chris Sojka: But my analogy is I'm like a pilot sometimes who comes in and says, 'hey guys, welcome on my plane. I'm going to tell you everything I feel about flying before I let you take off. If you give me a hundred seconds, we'll get to the plane.' Yeah. And then you can, you can shred it. Okay. Shred it. So we get into, into last year, David and I decided that he's going to sell his shares to me for a lot of millions of dollars and he signed a document. I signed document and then he sends a note, this is off. Um, and so I realized that if we got into, if we get to a dispute. 50-50 owners of a company, we would not have any chance at refinancing the debt with Bank of America, and we would have no chance at a future banking. And so I started to panic, and I started to do a lot of research on novel ways to create a totally different approach to bringing together folks to see if they would invest in the business to some extent to keep it alive. In my hometown, David and I had been working on cannabis businesses and where I'm from, that means a lot, it's a small town in New Jersey-- Ryan Joe: Wait, Chris, can I... I just want to get back to the plane. Could you just tell me, like, two sentences, like why the plane was a good investment? Or how it would have helped Madwell? Chris Sojka: We needed to make new friends and new clients. So I wanted to get in the aerospace and get like Dassault, the manufacturer of that plane as a client and enter a whole bunch of new pieces of technology to market in that sector. So it really became a question of what would help us get into a meeting with. Ryan Joe: So is it like, first off, getting to sell potentially as a client, and second, because there's an optics with a plane that kind of conveys power, it conveys solidity, and that's why you bought the plane. Chris Sojka: The truth of the matter is that I was in Mexico with Gabby and we were told that we weren't gonna make payroll and we had to stay there. And we couldn't get-- Ryan Joe:That's less of a reason to buy the-- Chris Sojka: If you can't make payroll, isn't it? We didn't take money just out of our coffers and go buy a plane. Right. That's, that's, doesn't, that doesn't make any sense. Like what, what, occurred is we had no credit, no banking. I took everything I had. I have $3,000 right now. That's it. That's all I have in the world. And so the plane, I literally was looking for a novel way to bring people to the table, to have meetings with the plane change that. Okay. So you have this plane. What's the, what's your. What's going on? They suddenly were intrigued because they, they liked that idea. And so it, it, I, it was a business goal to enter a variety of different business outcomes. The biggest one being getting into, yeah, working with the, so who were, you know, have been talking to done some amazing things for that are, we're in the process of pitching and showing them that's been going on for about seven months and, uh, and I hope to, to really be able to work together in an official way, starting in the next-- Ryan Joe: What other clients have you been able to get because of the plane? Chris Sojka: The plane was in our world for 55 days, the end. It's a business plane and we set up a whole lot of new relationships that we're now there. Those are the relationships that are, that are that equity round that are bringing everything together, the plane showed an aggregate vision for non-traditional thinking about business assets, advertising and entertainment. Ryan Joe: I'm just curious how a plane would necessarily influence them more than anything else. You know, do you mention that you have a plane in the, you know, during the pitch? Do you? Chris Sojka: The plane is irrelevant for how it allows the beginning of a dialog to occur, right? Or it's relevant for people in that sector. This is an asset that we had for a period of time. It served a function already, very likely when it's done with where it is right now, which is going through a mandatory check that was preordained from January 13th to now it will be the top of May. likely we'll just have to have to liquidate it like you know there's no reason to care the plane created it we bought it for 17 and a half it'll be worth 23 that's the short answer to your question how is it going to be 23 after the age of 15 planes depreciate rapidly because that changes their loan to value ratio that plane's a 2023 year ending right that 7x was discontinued in 2023 final deliveries happened last year going to an election year there was a crush on ultra long-range planes and if you could find one that was under the care of de seau you know, care, which is basically maintains value and it could have an EU component. So if it was in Europe and you could purchase it and you're going to go into that year and it was, it was happened to be 15. So it'd be entering at 16 service here in 2025. If all those things could come together, there, the act of how it would have to get up to code by the seller, be integrated into the United States and then have to get further repairs. By the end of that, you'd be purchasing at this price, but it'd be worth this price. You know, on the market, somewhere between conservatively will be 21 and a half and, and 23 probably. 22 would be the consensus. Ryan Joe: Where's the plane right now? And when will you have it sold? You really want me to sell it, huh? You indicated that it's a temporary asset. So, I mean, unless you want to give it away. Chris Sojka: The plane is in Geneva. It's at the Dassault facility. The two seat process, basically the plane is taken apart completely and put back together. And they just identify everything that could be wrong with it so it can have another eight years of safe service. And then when it's done, it can rotate back into service. Ryan Joe: You mentioned also you have like investors who are who are buying in like who who are they-- Chris Sojka: In the statement that I issued, I mentioned some names and a few people, like the plane essentially brought together a few who performed an angel function at a time where we're in litigation and they put in capital and essentially, would you take a risk on holding this place together for a long-term relationship? I met them because of an email inquiry to one plane and only one plane ever. And so those folks have become. angel investors, advisors, and in some cases, like working executives in this company. Ryan Joe: Like the pilot, and um... Chris Sojka: Oh yeah, so yes, the pilot is, I would say, a type of renaissance man who... He's put in the blood and the sweat to save an odd world. Ryan Joe: What does that mean? Chris Sojka: [He] took every penny he had and put it in when we were bent to the point that we were going to go under and he did it not for interest not for remuneration but to hold the place together because he saw it as a special grouping of people and I saw him bend you know all the way to fumes you know and it's not like he's just a random person he's got a family and responsibilities and lived his life that way but he but he did that and if he hadn't done that-- Ryan Joe: Yeah, his family's also involved with with Madwell. Chris Sojka:Yeah, like in the same way that I have a number of employees who have other people in their life who are also employees, they're involved that way. Ryan Joe: So, like, the pilot put money into Madwell. That was his role. How about the... Chris Sojka: That wasn't his role. That was something he did. Ryan Joe: Ah, so within the context of working at Madwell, what does the pilot and his family do? Chris Sojka: Well, they do different things. So he's a pilot of the airplane, runs logistics operation of the airplane, all of our other logistics pieces, like how we move around equipment, how we store things. We've been building an operation in Austin, you know, a little out of time. And so he runs our operations versioning as they are in, uh, in Texas, and he will be a partner in what that will become. Ryan Joe: So he's a pilot, but he also runs those operations in Austin, Texas. Chris Sojka: Yeah, I would say he runs our logistics operations. Ryan Joe: And then how about his, is his wife involved? Chris Sojka: She runs what I jokingly call the Department of Existential Fulfillment. We do merchandise for brands. Ryan Joe: Uh, okay. Chris Sojka: And we relocated that to Austin. We wanted to do domestic fulfillment. It was not viable to try to continue to sustain that out of Madwell. I'm very anti-waste. So in our industry, we do a commercial, spend a bunch of money, you don't take it anywhere. I want to keep it and have all the furniture and have the set pieces and have their raw materials and have the picture cars so that they can be reused and reused. And so if you now have warehouse space and it made sense, we're doing all this merchandise, let's co-locate that there as and she happens to she happened to essentially So yeah, I would love to do that. Ryan Joe: There was a third person with the same surname who we couldn't figure out if it was a son or if it was a brother or... Chris Sojka:Brother? Steven. Well, yeah. He's my chief of henchmen. Ryan Joe: What does your chief of henchmen do? Chris Sojka: Enhancement duties? Ryan Joe: Well, it's usually, like, you know, just bludgeoning people upside the head. I mean, maybe I read too many Batman comics, but you know. Chris Sojka: He's like a chief of staff, but also like assistant like, so, so he's not a, we don't have enough of an ecosystem built back up for a true chief of staff role. Ryan Joe: No, no, no. That makes sense. Well, when you said chief of henchmen, I kind of have one thought when you say chief of staff, that does kind of create a different picture. Chris Sojka: I know, but isn't chief of [henchman] so much more fun? Can't we just let, can't we let that ride? Ryan Joe: Oh yeah, sure, but you know, chief of henchmen, but essentially doing chief of staff duties. I get that. Chris Sojka: Yeah. I mean, there's a story in here that we're like, that I want to tell, right? If there's no exploration of it, then like this whole story is just kind of like random, right. There's like a, there is a plane and some debt and some stressed employees and some erratic behavior. Ryan Joe: I mean, there was a lot of erratic behavior, there were a lot of stressed employees. And I kind of feel like at the core of it, it is about the stressed employees because they're the ones who are going through this crucible without having any power and without having any payment. When people aren't getting paid and they see you, you know, paying Wiz Khalifa when he gets the jewelry. Chris Sojka: When for client work, paying the person we hired to do client work with approval. Ryan Joe: Okay, so that's that's how it was there. Chris Sojka: Was there, wait, Osium did approve Wiz Khalifa? Go to cleartheair.osium.com. You think that's on their site without their knowledge? We did the project for them from the beginning. Ryan Joe: Right, they said, okay, we'll pay for this or because the the thinking is that but you guys-- Chris Sojka: Oh, you guys, the thing is that they said, no, we won't pay for it. Came to the shoot, we put it live, it's all in their things, but they said no. So I did it for charity for them. We don't have a business relationship. I just did it because I party. Well, yeah, that sounds super cool, but I'm not that bad ass. That doesn't really make any sense. Ryan Joe: So, okay, so you paid $145,000 to get Wiz Khalifa and his, I guess, the jeweler to show up on set. And you got-- Chris Sojka: And you've got totally different things. So wait, what was that? So, so it was an exercise of producing art. So the song is actually a Makua song, Makua Rothman song, but they feature by Wiz Khalifa. Of course it made sense. Osium is a brand that has a very deep relationship with the cannabis community. But the future price for doing a brand appearance for a person like that, who's, who's completely unattainable for even Osium to support. We couldn't afford his full, his full rate. And so in the beginning of the process, I mean, to be honest, like it was June of last year and Gabby had to do the solemn exercise of terminating my former partner for abdication of duty and I wasn't able, I didn't want to be even near that for the appearance of impropriety, right? So I stayed in Los Angeles and I missed a really important meeting with Osium and I was incredibly apologetic and I was like lost about what to do and I was walking and I passed Iffenco and I walk up and down Sunset and over there because-- Ryan Joe: Wait, sorry to interrupt. I'm a little confused. So this $145,000, you know, we've seen the emails where you're like, we need to pay Wiz Khalifa $144,000. He is not going to show up on set. Like, what was that? Chris Sojka: We need you to make good with payment on set. It wasn't a bag of cash and it wasn't on set literally. It was like, won't appear unless the deposit is paid. So that's it. Like my email was about the fact that of course we had liquidity issues. So what was happening internally was this idea of no, some folks saying, no payroll first. And I said, that doesn't make any sense. The shoots here, right? If we fail at the shoot, we will go out of business because we will lose multiple clients. Ryan Joe: So it's true to say that everything you did with Wiz Khalifa and Osium was paid for by Osium? Chris Sojka: There are things that we did that were make-goods to a client that stayed loyal to us through a very trying period of time. Ryan Joe: Just just so I'm clear like the overages specific to this project like what were those specific overages and how much did they cost? Chris Sojka: Overages were like, huh, this is looking really great. We should probably see through the special effects process to make these shots really good. And we should probably swing for awards consideration because it'll be good for our future. And if you look at the video, that's what happened. Ryan Joe: The reason where I'm kind of pushing so hard isn't because it's just like, wow, how dare this project go over. It's because it seemed to come at the expense of employee payrolls. So people were talking about that. Payrolls, people were talking about that. Chris Sojka: Let's, like, I don't really know how to answer one line of questioning about business, but not allow in circumstantial foundational stuff. And I don't mean recriminations between me and somebody else. I mean facts. Without that, we can't talk about business meaningfully. So it looks like I'm right. So if you want to talk, I'll just be very simple, okay? One person factually took millions of dollars. It's factually that I'm not saying broader claims, I'm saying what was in the court I'll see you guys next time. One person put in millions of dollars. One person is still there. One person left. So the idea that I stayed, worked myself as hard as I could and put in millions of dollar, literally at times, PayPaling employees payroll so that I could spend money recklessly to miss payroll, it doesn't add up. It doesn't make, that makes no sense. I guess for me. Ryan Joe: Okay, so like the focus on the past and all of the entanglements of the past to me feels, I'm just gonna be blunt. It feels like obfuscation. It's feels like that's that's my read on-- Chris Sojka: Nothing in the world has ever hurt, like made me more uncertain whether or not I had the capacity to lead anybody than not being able to navigate the last four months in particular, regardless of the past. That is on me. So whatever the issues were, so if you take it or put it over here, I was the person steering that ship. I did not successfully out maneuver a series of compounding problems so that I could meet the payroll obligations and I put every one of those people. many vendors through situations that were wildly, I mean, not just hurt like taxing the existential level on their families and their existence, making them question where stability is. And I can never undo that. And I don't put that anywhere else. Ryan Joe: Are you the person to lead Madwell in the future? Chris Sojka: Yeah, I am a person. Ryan Joe: Well, okay, that's not the question, though. Chris Sojka: I don't, I think, I have strengths and I have weaknesses. So I'm the person who can do the part of Madwell. I mean, I started Madwell because it's the place I want it to be. Ryan Joe: Okay, I'm going to ask the question again, like, are you the person to lead? Chris Sojka: And the present, but not alone. In other words, like I am. Ryan Joe: Is Bank of America going to take over Madwell and your LLCs? Chris Sojka: I don't think they offered to take it over, because I would say, you can have the L season. The people will all go and do something else. But they have made it very clear in their language that they would like to take everything, whatever that is, and we'd cease to function. Ryan Joe: They're gonna happen. Chris Sojka: That depends. Do you have any questions about what you're asking about, or it was just that? Ryan Joe: Because they've asked the court, right, for permission to move, and I just wanted to know is there a way out for you and for your employees so that they don't, so that Madwell doesn't Chris Sojka: There's only one way. Ryan Joe: What way is that? Chris Sojka: Telling the story to the world. Oh, I think there's, I don't. That's the truth. That's only way. Because I know what my agenda is and so do you, right? You know that I want to talk about this outlier stuff. The reality is that there's a really scary set of business challenges that are impacting Madwell that have to do with big companies and things that were done that, forgetting any like gossipy stuff, like is it really complex and hard to get out of. Ryan Joe: You said, like, the way to get out of this is telling the story. And my point of skepticism is that when somebody wants money, giving them a narrative isn't going to work. The only thing that's going to work is you paying them off. Chris Sojka: Then we're gonna end our business. I mean, that- I mean is that- I mean it's the headline that you want, and so- Ryan Joe: It's not that, I'm just asking the question and I just want the answer, like is there a way out for Madwell? Is there a way for Madwell to kind of pay off Bank of America to be solvent for you to consistently pay your employees or, you know, just speaking bluntly, do they, do the people working at Madwell need to start sending their resumes out? Chris Sojka: Mad World World Madwell will survive. Ryan Joe: What does that mean though, in like a name or like as a company like with all the like... What does it mean when you say Madwell will survive? Chris Sojka: All I can say is Bank of America is exercising its rights to enforce the contractual obligations that we have to live up to a settlement that though we voiced concern about our ability to live to that settlement even then, we had no choice between settling or continuing to be under a judgment threat then. So we did our best. We signed it. We said along the way, we're not going to be able to meet these payments here. We will go out of business. So, it is because of Bank of America that we don't have a credit line. It is because of the lack of a credit line that I have no more liquidity put in. The reason we had to go and ask for equities, I've spent a year trying to just get a bank, a year. And I can't do that because Bank of America has first position. And I didn't take any debt out with Bank of American. But in actuality, we've tried to continue to pay them. We cannot continue to play them. It has to be solved in a full on settlement. And the settlement has to knocking out that debt and a few others so that there's cleanliness for a new bank relationship and that can only be effectuated by. somebody stepping in as an equity partner. Ryan Joe: And if that doesn't happen, is it bankruptcy or what happens? Chris Sojka: I think bankruptcy is a cruel tool because it over favors big creditors and it hurts small businesses, families, employees, and it favors the capital aggregators. So I've been fighting having bankruptcy be an option this whole time. I wanted to continue to move forward. Even now, I won't do that because we're going to keep operating and I don't want to hand over to somebody else the moral obligation to make good on every penny. Right? That's nobody else's to just pick and choose what makes sense. I'm not selling the place for parts. And so will it happen? Yeah, it's already happening. Ryan Joe: Are your clients like Verizon, Visible, E.l.f. Cosmetics, are they still working with you, and are they paying Madwell into the LLCs or some entity affiliated with Madwell? Chris Sojka: Firstly, like, I just want to say this is really serious. Like, I have no idea how we've been lucky enough to have clients who chose to continue to work with us through a lot of drama and extra-ness, but they did. Nobody left for, for going on two years. Ryan Joe: And they are, they are paying. Chris Sojka: And they pay us, right? This is about, this is about the, this is not paying employees again, isn't it? They paid us and I didn't pay them. Fundamentally. What did I do with the money? No, tell me, do this. Where did the money go? No, I wanna know. 18, 19 days in a row, I didn't pay them, so, so tell me since we're not gonna ask questions, you tell me what happened. Now, I don't have access to bank accounts until 2024, February, but somehow back in 23 and 22, I was out there gallivanting. The CEO and the CFO were just poor victims of this, this crazy creative. It's funny how money guys are always the victims of the largess of creatives. And that narrative plays in the entire aggregation of capital and advertising. Is that the story? Other, another creative who's, who's, who's weird and too much and zany. He, he also just also is superficial and weak and shallow. And he had to go and live this life of, of, I'm not really sure what it is, like Samuel Bankman Fried, like, like whatever it was that I was doing. And then I thought to myself, you know, 'fuck everyone that I care about, this whole place together, I'm going to let them suffer because I'm going to spend the money on.' Ryan Joe: I honestly don't know what you've been doing. I mean, we've heard that you were in Austin, you were building an amusement park. There are rumors going around your staffers because they said you haven't been in the office for a long time. So could you clarify? Chris Sojka: Do you want me to clarify, was I in Austin or do you want to ask me a question? Ryan Joe: Were you in Austin, Texas? Are you building an amusement park? Chris Sojka: I am often in Austin, Texas, and I'm not building an amusement park because that question is quite narrow. Ryan Joe: Are you doing anything related to an amusement park in Austin? That's the rumor that's been flying around. Chris Sojka: It's not a rumor. I've told my employees what I was doing. So I don't know why you guys are putting it as a rumor, like there is a plan for an exercise to be built in Dripping Springs, Texas. It's a not a secret. Ryan Joe: What is it exactly? Chris Sojka: Um, it's, uh. It's a thing that I don't feel comfortable talking about unless, I really don't. Ryan Joe: That's fair. Chris Sojka: Like, it's quite in confidence and I share it with my employees. And I'm happy with a theme park. But as I told you, the problem with all of this is that I got so frustrated in this journey at how I have these shortcomings that I do, whereby I went through something deeply emotional and it comes out emotional. It comes out emotionally. Like, I... I changed, I had to reboot my understanding of friendship and trust, like at its base level, back to being a young man. And so it comes out in a way that is apparently somehow not the way executives are supposed to act. But so. Ryan Joe: Here's why, you know, I keep pushing on this. It's that as much as you, you feel that you are a victim, there are a lot of people who feel victimized by you. Chris Sojka: And they're likely, all of them, except for these folks over there, they're all right. Fair enough. Or in particular, the anger that I felt like I was barely holding on, you know, and that's no excuse. It's just like, I literally was not a good force for a lot of people in the orbit of Madwell in the past 24 months. And I was not good leader. I was a good leader, I even wrote in multiple emails, I apologized because I was like I'm sorry, I have been working almost two days awake for two years, not because of Adderall, because Adderalls saved my life. It was the other drugs I was on in 2022 and other times in my life where I was truly about to lose my ability to live. And I went to my parents and my business partner and my girlfriend and my doctors. And I said, I need help, I needed help and I need to think about how to reimagine my life and so it's like. All the stuff that is like that, I will own and not squeeze out of. I think there's nuance to it, but not nuance to excuse my character. Nuance of the circumstances, like I have those flaws. Ryan Joe: This time next year, where are you? Where's, where's Madwell? Chris Sojka: Last night I was hiding out in Austin, where I live half the time, in a very official way. And Gabby sent me, reminded me of an email I had sent in April. I didn't remember sending it at all. And she read it to me, you know, over the phone, and I just started crying. And I looked at who was on that email. And so many of those people have left. I couldn't hold the pieces together in a way that allowed them to have positive life interactions or stability. I mean, this time next year, I hope that we are. I hope that we're back to the place that we never were, which was like able to be an independent company, not driven by money, but having plenty of it. We had plenty of, I want us to be a place that is able to take our relationship with entertainment, with advertising and producing things that last and be making all of them comfortably and not having to try to get back into any one box. And I want it to still be owned by as an independent entity and working to create value for employees. Ryan Joe: Chris Sojka, thank you. Thank you for being here. Chris Sojka:I appreciate it.

Agencies

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A jet, a pilot, and a Texas-sized mystery: Sojka spills the wild details on ADWEEK's new podcast

1. A $17.5 Million Jet…While Employees Miss Paychecks

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