Steve Gottlieb

Founder & CEO Shindig

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Steve Gottlieb has built two businesses out of the same instinct: that a format everyone treats as fixed is usually just an artefact of the technology available when it was set. In 1985, working from his New York apartment with a Yale literature degree and an unfinished stint at Harvard Law behind him, he launched Tee Vee Toons with ‘Television’s Greatest Hits’, a compilation of sixty-five theme tunes from 1950s and 1960s television that nobody had thought worth releasing. The label became TVT Records and grew into one of the largest independents in American history, breaking Nine Inch Nails, Lil Jon, Ja Rule and Pitbull, and taking independent-label-of-the-year honours from Billboard and SoundScan for six consecutive years. It ended badly — a $9.1m judgment over a blocked Pitbull release pushed TVT into Chapter 11 in 2008 — but along the way Gottlieb had licensed his catalogue to Rhapsody, Liquid Audio and Napster before most of the industry would touch them, convened the executives who founded the American Association of Independent Music, and testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on digital music and copyright. In 2009 he founded Shindig, applying the same reasoning to online events: video conferencing locked everyone into one conversation, so he patented a platform where thousands can gather, break into private side conversations, and be called up to share the stage face-to-face in front of the whole room.

Career Highlights

• Founded Tee Vee Toons, later TVT Records, in 1985 from his New York apartment, launching with the compilation ‘Television’s Greatest Hits’.
• Built TVT into one of the largest independent record labels in United States history, with a roster including Nine Inch Nails, Lil Jon, Ja Rule, Pitbull, Underworld, KMFDM, Sevendust, The KLF and Brian Jonestown Massacre.
• Named independent label of the year by Billboard and SoundScan for six consecutive years, 2000 through 2005.
• Launched TVT Music Publishing in 1990; sold it to Reservoir Media Management in 2010.
• Made the TVT catalogue available to early digital retailers including Rhapsody, Liquid Audio and Napster in the early 2000s.
• Assembled the executives who established the American Association of Independent Music in 2000.
• Testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2001 on digital music and copyright.
• Selected as one of Crain’s New York Business ‘40 Under Forty’ leading executives in 1996.
• Named to The Source magazine’s Hip Hop Power 30 in 2005.
• Founded Shindig in 2009 and holds patents on its interactive video technology.
• Built Shindig around a mechanic no webinar tool offered — private one-to-one video chats among attendees and the ability to bring an audience member on stage in front of thousands.
• Shindig’s clients and early adopters have included CNN, The Economist, Forbes, Condé Nast, Accenture, Amazon, Gartner, Hearst, Salesforce, SAP, Viacom and the United Nations, with NOAA using it to train National Weather Service meteorologists.

Professional Journey

Gottlieb was born in New Rochelle, New York, in March 1957. He took a B.A. in literature at Yale and went on to Harvard Law School, but the business he started did not come out of either. In 1985 he founded Tee Vee Toons and released ‘Television’s Greatest Hits’, an album of sixty-five theme songs from 1950s and 1960s television. It was a genuinely odd product and it sold, which financed everything after it.

The label became TVT Records and moved decisively away from novelty into artist development. Nine Inch Nails’ first album came out on TVT; so did records by Underworld, KMFDM, The KLF, Sevendust and Brian Jonestown Massacre, and later the Southern hip-hop that made the label commercially formidable — Lil Jon, Ja Rule, Pitbull. Billboard and SoundScan named TVT independent label of the year six years running from 2000 to 2005, and The Source put Gottlieb on its Hip Hop Power 30 in 2005. Crain’s New York Business had already named him to its 40 Under Forty in 1996. In 1990 he added TVT Music Publishing, which he ran until selling it to Reservoir Media Management in 2010.

He was also unusually early on digital distribution. In the early 2000s, while major labels were litigating against file-sharing services, Gottlieb made the TVT catalogue available to Rhapsody, Liquid Audio and Napster. He organised the independent sector around the same set of questions, convening the executives who founded the American Association of Independent Music in 2000, and he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2001 on digital music and copyright.

TVT’s end came from litigation rather than from the market. A dispute with Miami’s Slip-N-Slide Records over an early Pitbull album TVT had blocked produced a $9.1m judgment against the label in 2007. The company could not absorb it and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2008. In June of that year The Orchard, the digital distributor, acquired substantially all of TVT’s assets, including the master recordings.

Shindig came out of a personal irritation rather than a business plan. Gottlieb’s account is that he could not understand why meaningful social venues barely existed online, and that the video chat technology of the time locked participants into a single conversation — fine for a meeting, useless for an event, where most of the value is in the conversations happening at the edges. He founded Shindig in 2009 and patented a structure that reproduces those dynamics at internet scale: thousands of participants who can see and be seen, move in and out of private side conversations, and be called up by a presenter to share the stage face-to-face in front of the whole gathering. The platform found buyers among publishers, conference operators, enterprises and government — CNN, The Economist, Forbes, Condé Nast, Accenture, Amazon, Gartner, Hearst, Salesforce, SAP, Viacom, the United Nations, and NOAA, which used it to train National Weather Service meteorologists.

Shindig’s current operating status could not be established in this review and is discussed in the verification notes. Gottlieb also writes as a HuffPost contributor.

Education

Yale University

B.A., Literature

Harvard Law School

Attended. No source records a completed law degree.