Technology may have been Andrew Russakoff’s first and longest love, but finance ended up slotting well into his interests. An engineer by training, Russakoff says he’s been interested in tech all his life. At eight years old, he was already programming computers.

“Studying engineering prepared my brain to work in a way that maps very well to finance,” says Russakoff, who goes by the nickname Rusty.

After earning his engineering degree from Harvard University, he obtained an MBA from Columbia Business School. Following a brief stint in the energy industry, Russakoff spent the heart of his career running finances for IAC, a conglomerate that operates People Magazine and Food & Wine, among other publications. The company, which now goes by People Incorporated, also owns Angi, formerly known as Angie’s List.

Russakoff stepped into the CFO seat of digital jukebox operator TouchTunes in April.

In an interview with CFO.com, Russakoff talks through the serendipities that led him from a publicly traded business to a private equity-owned one at TouchTunes, and why he’s bullish on jukeboxes in an increasingly digital age.

Andrew “Rusty” Russakoff

CFO, TouchTunes

First CFO position: June 2022

Notable previous employers:

• IAC, now known as People Inc.
• Angi, formerly known as Angie’s List

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

DAN NIEPOW: Angi and TouchTunes seem like quite different companies. What attracted you to your latest job at TouchTunes?

ANDREW RUSSAKOFF: It comes down to a few things. First, the unit economics of TouchTunes are very strong. Once a jukebox or a dartboard goes into a venue, it stays there for years. The lifetime of these devices is measured in decades.

Second, living in a world where everybody is worried about AI disruption, I see this as a platform where AI is clearly not a headwind. If anything, it's a tailwind as people are looking for more real-life social connection.

Then finally, there's the asset itself. We have this unparalleled network of connected devices in valuable locations, where prime earning-age adults are spending meaningful blocks of time exposed to our jukeboxes, our dartboards and our mobile app. That's all stitched together through an integrated payment and social experience, and that combination is very compelling to venues as well as to major brands, and overall very hard to replicate.

I’d also add that while TouchTunes and Angi are different, there are some real similarities underneath. TouchTunes has this B2B2C dynamic to it. We make and place connected devices in venues, and then we sell services to consumers through those devices. So, there is this two-sided element to it; it has DNA that is shared with marketplaces, and Angi was a marketplace. Many of the IAC businesses were marketplaces.

This job marks your second CFO position. Looking back, how did you know you were ready to step into the CFO seat in the first place?

I had a very unique and ideal setup to be able to make the transition to CFO. At IAC, I had exposure to almost every experience that goes into being a CFO in my prior financial roles. When the Angi CFO role opened up, I was walking into a company where I already knew the people, the history, the financials and the data.

Usually, you're going into a company where you may not necessarily have any of those things. And then on top of that, I had a safety net of people around me who had put me in a position to succeed.

TouchTunes was purchased by private equity company TA Associates in 2022. You came to the company after working for some publicly traded firms. What’s it been like adjusting to private equity ownership?

One of the things that attracted me to TouchTunes was the people at TA Associates. Meeting them reminded me of some of my early days at IAC, which is a holding company, not a private equity firm, but there are structural parallels.

The culture felt similar because even though IAC is focused on the internet space, in some ways, it's like a value investor in the technology space. TA operates with a patient, long-term mindset, highly aligned with management around growing the value of the company, and that's proven out since I've been here.

Any plans for an IPO at TouchTunes someday?

I wouldn't rule it out, but this business is pretty well set up for the structure that it's in today. It has a resilient, stable and profitable core. That kind of business is naturally appealing to a private equity sponsor.

I could also see TouchTunes being attractive to the right strategic buyer down the road, which could be a public company, or to a company in an adjacent space. Maybe one that’s looking to diversify into a hardware-plus-services platform with a social overlay that's genuinely AI-resilient.

We’re fortunate that there are multiple paths forward; we're focused on building value regardless of which one of them materializes.

TouchTunes now bills itself as “North America's largest connected platform for in-venue social entertainment.” But for those who are familiar with it, the company name only brings to mind jukeboxes. How are you thinking about selling the company to investors and the public at large?

The jukebox serves as the physical anchor for sure, but TouchTunes has evolved itself into far more than a jukebox manufacturer, and into a connected, tech-enabled social entertainment network.

We have a mobile app with a material and significant number of consumers interacting with us and with each other every day. We have an integrated payment system that works across multiple devices and device types within a bar to create a sticky ecosystem and user experience for the venues, the operators, and for the consumers. And we've expanded into adjacent bar sports like the darts business.

We're building overall a scalable digital platform that powers the entire out-of-home social experience, and the story to investors then is about a company that has a scaled installed base, sticky venue relationships, multiple revenue streams and a connected platform that gets more valuable as we add devices, users and data to that ecosystem.

What’s your top TouchTunes song choice?

My favorite TouchTunes memory goes back probably 15 or 20 years, so it's not necessarily a song choice today, but it's a song choice that I made back when digital jukeboxes were first coming onto the scene. I was at a bar with some friends, and I thought it would be funny to cue up the entire Pink Floyd “Animals” album. It was a private joke with the group I was with, but I don't think the rest of the bar shared my enthusiasm.

The funny thing is we actually have features now at TouchTunes to help mitigate that one guy who thinks it's funny to monopolize the whole bar.