big bets on cheap chairs

Cedric Marechal is Founder and CEO of New Tales, a Paris-based game publisher and developer founded by industry veterans. With nearly three decades in gaming, Cedric has shaped some of the biggest franchises in the industry, from World of Warcraft and Diablo to Call of Duty at Blizzard, and oversaw major international operations as Senior Vice President at Activision Blizzard.





In this episode, Fabian sits down with Cedric to explore how game publishers pick the right developers, how they evaluate creative vision under pressure, and what makes a partnership between publisher and studio actually work.





The parallels are striking: a game publisher betting on a creative team, absorbing risk when the build looks broken, is making the same kind of bet venture capitalists make on founders. A publisher's job is to hold the line and let the team ship.





The core insight: You need two legs to move. Content, the product. Publishing, the distribution. We're living a publishing renaissance because the best games need both. Sound familiar to how we think about founding teams and investor support?





Listen for insights on talent picking in gaming, what separates winners from flops in the creative industries, and what venture capital can learn from how games get made.





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For the second episode of Big Bets on Cheap Chairs, our host Fabian sits down with Marko Pešić, one of the most respected executives in European basketball. Born in Sarajevo and shaped by his father, the legendary coach Svetislav Pešić, Marko built a playing career across Berlin, Greece, and Italy, winning six German League titles with ALBA Berlin and representing Germany on the international stage - including a silver medal at EuroBasket 2005 and a bronze at the 2002 FIBA World Championship. But it's the second act that makes his story resonate with this series. After his playing career, Marko studied sports marketing and management, then spent 14 years at FC Bayern Munich Basketball - first as Sports Director, later as General Manager - building the program into a Bundesliga champion and a fixture in the EuroLeague. Along the way, he closed 200+ player deals - which makes him the perfect guest for our show to draw the parallels to early-stage investing.





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