This magician has an MBA

The idea that “magic is business, and business is magic” inspired magician Jared Molton to pursue his Master of Business Administration at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

On a family trip to Las Vegas when he was a high school sophomore, Molton caught a performance by Lance Burton, one of the most successful magicians of all time.

Mesmerized, Molton realized he wanted to pursue a career as an illusionist. He rushed to purchase the classic “Expert Card Technique” and began practicing. His persistence paid off. He founded Jared Molten Magic in 2003 and worked as a magician for 10 years, as well as general manager of Tannen’s Magic, the oldest operating magic shop in New York, for three. It was a wonderful opening act for Molton, but it wasn’t enough.

“What I love about magic is how people light up when you do a trick,” he says. “They have this moment of wonder and mystery, and there’s something really beautiful about that. Then, when I looked at it through the lens of business, of product, of scaling, I realized that business and product ignite the same reaction as magic but at scale.”

With the idea that he wanted to do something bigger, Molton looked at MBA programs and UNC Kenan-Flagler soon stood out.

“What drew me to UNC, more than anything, was the alumni network,” says Molton ’15 (MBA). “There’s just an incredibly strong connection that UNC alumni have with the school. And it’s real and you find it wherever you go. When you find somebody who went there, it’s an instant connection.”

Molton sees three fundamental skills that overlap between magic and business. They were the motivation for writing a book about his nontraditional career path: “For My Next Trick: A Magician Transforms into a Tech Executive” (JM Musings LLC, June 2024).

First, magicians can tweak their performance based on feedback from their audience, while product managers are looking at data from customers to figure out what’s working and what isn’t.

Second, leaders must prepare either for the magic show or the problem statement. You don’t want to mess up a trick or a business decision.

Third, presentation is key in both fields.

“The stakes are always high,” says Molton. “The stakes in a business meeting are high in a different way. But you still don’t want to mess up. You want leaders to see you as competent and capable.”

Writing the book on magic and business

Molton devotes the entire second section of “For My Next Trick” to his experiences at UNC Kenan-Flagler – from courses to career support and the welcoming community – and how important they were to his career switch.

His thriving career has taken him from Amazon to Chewy to Udacity.

He worked at Amazon for more than six years after graduating from UNC Kenan-Flagler. He played a large role in giving users the ability to download video content on Amazon Kids devices and in launching Amazon Halo. At Udacity, an online platform for professional skill development in tech, he is vice president of consumer.

Molton continues to perform as a magician but, as an entrepreneur, manufactures weighted backpacks for burning calories.

He’s also under the spell of his young daughter. “I want to be present for every single moment,” he says. “That’s what matters in life,” he says. “It is the people with whom you surround yourself. That is what will give you joy. That is what will give you motivation. All the rest is just noise.”