In a wide-ranging conversation with The Growth Distillery’s Dan Krigstein on the Rules Don’t Apply podcast during SXSW Sydney, former Seven digital chief Ricky Sutton argues the media industry has forgotten how to build, why creativity is the last real moat, and how the next wave of growth will come from people unafraid to break things.
Sutton has seen the media business from every angle – journalist, product leader, founder, global executive – but he keeps circling back to the same diagnosis: the industry has become obsessed with optimisation and allergic to invention.
“We stopped building,” he told Krigstein, reflecting on how publishers drifted toward incrementalism while big tech dictated the pace. “We’ve been perfecting the machine instead of making a new one.”
The conversation also explored what’s holding media companies back – and where the next bold leap might come from.
L-R: Ricky Sutton and Dan Krigstein
Creativity as the last competitive advantage
For Sutton, creativity isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s the only durable defence left.
“Technology is getting really good at the doing,” he said. “What it can’t do is originate a weird thought or a truly new idea. That’s where the moat is.”
He argued that companies with rigid hierarchies and risk-averse habits are draining themselves of their most valuable currency: original thinking. “If people are afraid to try something stupid, you’ll never get anything brilliant.”
Audiences, he pointed out, aren’t bored with content – they’re bored with content that refuses to surprise them.
Breaking things with purpose
A recurring theme in the discussion was the value of purposeful disruption – not chaos, but courage.
“You need breakers,” Sutton said. “People who look at something that’s working and say, ‘Yeah, but what if we threw half of it out?’ There’s no evolution without someone willing to smash the mould.”
Those breakers only thrive, he added, under leaders who reward possibility over perfection. “If you’re leading with fear, you’ll kill every good idea within a week.”
The culture gap
Sutton is blunt about the mismatch between what companies say they want and what they structurally allow.
“Everyone says they want innovation,” he said, “but they also want committees, approvals, certainty. You don’t get both. You’ve got to pick.”
He pointed to the organisations winning globally – creators, micro-studios, digital natives – all built for speed, not ceremony. “They don’t have the time or the luxury to be precious. That’s why they’re eating the world.”
What the next decade requires
For Sutton, the industry’s future belongs to people willing to rebuild foundations rather than polish the edges.
“The next era belongs to builders, breakers and believers,” he said. “People who aren’t afraid of being wrong, who care more about the outcome than the process, and who understand that creativity can still move mountains.”
Breakthroughs, he argued, won’t come from legacy teams trimming the edges. They’ll come from people with the urgency – and audacity – to try something uncomfortably new.
“If you’re not creating anything new,” he said, “why would an audience choose you?”
Sutton’s message is ultimately upbeat: media isn’t out of runway – it’s just overdue for reinvention.
“Everything we need is already here,” he said. “We just have to stop waiting for permission.”