Darren Roberts

Biography

 

Darren Roberts is perhaps the most confused genius that you will ever meet.

Both his friends and colleagues will readily admit that they have no idea what it is that Darren does for a living. You could expect to hear utterances of job titles such as entrepreneur, boat captain, or producer. Or perhaps you will hear references to industries such as integrated media, action sports, adult entertainment, or nano-robotics. While the list seems to be endless, you can be rest assured that you are not being deceived. In contrast, Darren’s has a natural ability to empower others through his overtly positive attitude, passion for life, and natural leadership ability.

Last week when we began our story, Darren was deep into the scripting of a new television program that he was preparing to pitch to his agent. A week later he was entrenched in complex engineering diagrams of a nano-robot he had codenamed “Dot”. At night he closely resembles the mad scientist thriving in the midnight glow of a computer screen and by morning he is preaching his beliefs on living a more simplified, and self-sustained life. When confronted on his contrasting beliefs, he quickly defends the behaviors by defining the “Chaos Theory” and confidently claims that in the end everything will make sense and become clear. Darren doesn’t have an MBA, nor will you find his name listed in any of the Fortune top lists and if you were to meet him on the street it is guaranteed that you would never learn of his accomplishments or his failures. What is apparent are his humble mannerism and quiet demeanor, which actually made writing this story quite challenging.

The only thing that sets Darren apart from any other borderline schizophrenic is his ability to deliver amazingly consistent results over a sustained period of time.

When we first met Darren he was sitting on a park bench in front of the popular Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood. He looked like your typical Californian in jeans and a dress shirt. He had been there all morning observing the behavior of the tourists. He was fixated on how everyone was taking pictures in front of the well-known Uniglobe fountain. For over an hour he had been offering to take photos of people so no one was left out of the shot. He was doing this for absolutely no apparent reason other than he enjoys it. “Isn’t that reason enough to do anything?” he commented. When we pushed him more on the subject, we saw another side surface. “Universal is just ignoring this opportunity”, Darren commented in a very stylized and animated frustration. “The Park should be doing this job. They could be collecting data and driving an amazing social media campaign. Their market is standing right in front of them, literally!” This was not the somewhat shy and quite Darren that we had met, he now exhibited an intense passion and deep concern as though he was a Universal executive.

Darren is a native of South California and grew up in the Pasadena area. His parents divorced when he was 2 and he spent his childhood living at first with his mother, until the age of 12, and then with his father until high school. He moved to a small apartment in Pasadena, CA three months shy of his 18th birthday. Hearing Darren describe his childhood is like reading a “choose your own adventure” book with all of the endings happening at once. What boy wouldn’t love to have started off life with drag racing, motocross, scuba diving, skiing, water skiing and backcountry hiking, his list of hobbies is endless. Once you get to know him it becomes obvious why he drawn to the outdoors. To this day, Darren maintains a very active and adventurous lifestyle. He describes his ideal vacation as a week stranded in some remote location having to “figure it out”. “I thrive on complex problems and difficult situations. It just what I do, and where I feel that I’m at my best.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The list of Darren’s career accolades are actually quite impressive, although he often shrugs it off with a “I just did what needs to be done” kind of attitude. Fresh out of high school he used his grandmother’s inheritance to buy a printing press and began his first business called “Roberts Printing”. Fitting in a degree in Graphic Design and Visual Communication during this time lead him to his second business called DBR Graphics & Publishing. He quickly landed some notable corporate accounts such as Sport Chalet and Arthur Anderson. He also created and co-published “Shopping for Real Estate” and “Taste of Pasadena” two forward thinking print models that are still followed by today’s print publishers. Darren sold his printing and design company to Print Smith in 1990 and his publishing business to Prudential California Realty in 1992, now Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.

 

As we all have heard before, everything happens for a reason. The early nineties saw Darren immerse himself in this emerging technology bubble, being at the forefront of HTML code and the World Wide Web. It was through this interest that Alchemy Communications was founded. Initially created to engineer a web-based city guide project, it offering took a very strange turn. It just so happened that the business was located in the same building as one of the largest adult entertainment production companies in the world, VCA.  With the support of his Alchemy partners, BabeNet, Ltd., was created. This would be the beginning of the billion-dollar business. “No one was really interested in what we were doing, they didn’t get it. There was just two of us, I ran around with a camera and Justin (the programmer) figured out how to simulate streaming video, we were like two kids in a dorm-room,” Darren recalls. “We were one of only a couple adult web companies at the time.” However this high would end sooner than expected for Darren and would prove to be a valuable lesson he would never forget. As the money began to roll in so did the increase in partners and in turn his shares were drastically diluted. in 1996 Darren resigned from BabeNet contributing conflicting values and interests as the primary cause for the separation. Darren simply walked away from his $8 million-per-month creation with nothing to show for it.

In early 1997, Darren connected with AVN Publications founder Paul Fishbein. On a technology high after leaving BabeNet, he had a head-full of ideas and needed a place to plant them. Although AVN was doing well at the time, they weren’t doing nearly as well as they were about to. Darren entered the 18 person company as Vice-president and Chief Operations Officer, after only a few short years Darren had lead the company into a dynamic and globally recognized brand with multiple streams of revenue and over a dozen product offerings. AVN Media Network, Inc. became a globally recognized brand publishing over forty magazines per year, producing five large-scale events, and operating over a dozen web properties. The annual Las Vegas trade show, Adult Entertainment Expo, was visited annually by over thirty-thousand attendees and the AVN Award Show was viewed by millions of people around the world and was broadcast on Showtime. Darren was mentioned as one of the most influential men under the age of 37 by Details magazine and many mainstream companies around the world would emulate his unique business techniques in the integrated media space. By the time he would leave his roll as CEO the Company’s net revenues had grown more than 10 times what they were when he began.

 

 

 

 

After selling the AVN Media Network in 2010 Darren decided to take a few years off to spend with his girlfriend, son and two daughters. It was during this time that he reflected on the past 17 years of life in the adult entertainment business. The people he had met, the challenges he had faced, and the adventures he had experienced. “These were wonderful times spent working alongside amazing people, I need a way to share these experiences,” Darren said. The first copy of The Unsexpected Story was sold in March, 2012. The book would later go on to being recognized as one of the most informative and entertaining books ever released on the adult industry. Today the book is considered a best-seller in the category. In February, 2014 Darren dedicated “The Unsexpected Story” to he late friend and colleague Anthony Lovett.

In 2012 Darren launched X3Sixty, a video production company which produces TV-MA, short-form, creative programming for cable and satellite systems. Within a few short months of the Company’s launch, Darren once again joined forces with his former AVN partner, Paul Fishbein. Together the duo formed Plausible Films, LLC. The Company produces both short and long form programs and series, which are broadcast into over 15 million households in four countries. In addition, Plausible Films is the executive producer for a Showtime original programming series will air Fall 2014.