Matthew Storrs Pincus^[1] is an American music publisher and investor who founded Songs Music Publishing.^[2] He is also the current bassist of the band New York City Hardcore Band Judge.^[3]

Early life and education

Pincus is the son of Lionel Pincus, co-founder and chairman of private equity firm Warburg Pincus. His mother, Suzanne Storrs, was Miss Utah in 1955 and a television actress, who was married to Lionel Pincus until her death in 1995. He is a graduate of Columbia University, where he received his B.A. in 1995 and M.B.A. in 2002.^[1][2][4][5] He has a brother, Henry Pincus, who is an actor and also attended Columbia.^[6][7][8]

Career

At age 17, he joined the New York hardcore band Judge, where he played bass.^[3][9]

In college, Pincus interned at various record labels, including EMI and Jive Records. He was also a campus representative for Atlantic Records and worked as an assistant editor at the New York magazine after college.^[10]

Having graduated from Columbia Business School, Pincus worked at EMI as a strategy associate. In 2004, he invested $5 million of his own money into Songs Music Publishing with Ron Perry, a fellow EMI alum. The two initially targeted Christian rock and hard rock musicians before looking into more commercial acts including Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Conor Oberst.^[11] Under Pincus' leadership, the label represented a clientele of 300 artists, including chart-topping musicians such as Lorde, Diplo, and The Weeknd.^[12][13]

In 2015, he testified before the United States Senate to demand a revamp of the country's system for calculating songwriter royalties and warned against the encroachment of Big Tech on the music publishing industry.^[14][15][16] In a partnership with Barry Weiss, Pincus co-founded a new independent label, RECORDS.^[17]

In 2017, Pincus and Perry were named to the Billboard magazine's Power 100 list, which ranks the most influential businesspeople in the music industry.^[18] He sold the company in December 2017 for $160 million to Kobalt Music Group.^[19]

In 2018, Pincus joined LionTree as executive-in-residence and took up an advisory role at Snap Inc.^[20]

He has been a member of the board of directors of the National Music Publishers' Association, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Songwriters Hall of Fame, the financial services startup HIFI,^[21][22] and the music creation platform Splice, of which he is also an investor.^{[2][23][24][25]}

Personal life

Pincus is married to Sarah Min, former managing editor of Domino, a shopping publication of Condé Nast.^[1]

After his father died, he and his brother sued Princess Firyal, accusing her of taking advantage of their father's deteriorating mental and physical state by spending extravagant sums to decorate a 14-room duplex in the Pierre Hotel.^[6][26][27]

References