The New York Times profiles Stephen Chao, a former Fox executive who was fired in 1992 by Rupert Murdoch for hiring a male stripper at a Fox meeting (Here's an old NYT story about it). He has a new web directory of how-to videos called WonderHowTo.com. It has links to 100,000 how-to videos.
Here are some fun quotes from the article:
(Photo by Ann Johansson for The New York Times)
Mr. Chao is an expert at getting attention, but it will be difficult to top some of his previous stunts. Once, during a party at Mr. Murdoch’s home, Mr. Chao nearly drowned his host’s purebred puppy after throwing it in a swimming pool to see if it could swim. Mr. Chao then had to jump into the pool, while in a business suit, to save it.
After parting ways with Fox, Mr. Chao spent six weeks working at a McDonald’s in Redondo Beach, Calif. He went on to head programming for USA Networks, where he helped develop the popular series “Monk.” But a fiery relationship with Mr. Diller, the head of the network, overshadowed that experience. The two executives had a hard time living down an incident when both were at Fox in which Mr. Diller hurled a videocassette at Mr. Chao with such intensity that it created a hole in the wall. Mr. Chao framed that section of the wall.
