Jim Augustine on the stage of Hamilton, Chicago with (from left) Teagan Earley (recording artists & founder of Sister’s First Productions), and Nikki Renee Daniels (recording artist & Broadway performer).
JIM AUGUSTINE (Founder & CEO) is a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College and graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Prior to Real Right Good, Jim served as Chief Operating Officer of Zuckerberg Media where he oversaw the formation and management of new portfolio companies, including multiple funds and consumer-facing brands and products. Through Real Right Good, Jim brings his extensive knowledge of corporate finance, governance and development, OTT digital products and content production, web3 / D2C infrastructure, AI workflow strategies, and global partnerships formation and management to top creators and enterprise clients everywhere.
Jim began his career as a creator, assisting in the staging of the 6-time Tony Award-winning original Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. Additional creative credits include work on Broadway’s The Boys from Syracuse; American Repertory Theater’s Lysistrata starring Cherry Jones; the Off-Broadway hit Gone Missing; awarding-winning films The Audition, Club 86 and Angel; and the 2008 NYTimes bestselling memoir Hope's Boy.
During his tenure as COO of Zuckerberg Media, Jim oversaw brand partnerships, venture-fund formation, new company incubation, portfolio management and operations. Jim helped to package the General Partnership of Surround Ventures, an entertainment, media and technology (EMT) fund now operating between Tel Aviv, NYC, LA and Silicon Valley. Jim also co-founded and served as Managing Director of Broadway Beta Ventures (BBV), an EMT fund dedicated to live entertainment and the tech infrastructure that fuels it. Through BBV, Jim inked deals with Clubhouse, Broadway’s Hadestown (2019 Tony Award for Best New Musical), Lin Manuel Miranda's Freestyle Love Supreme (2021 Special Tony Award), Broadway’s The Inheritance (2021 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best New Play), the Asia-Pacific and North American Tours of Magic Mike Live, and more.
Jim is also Co-Founder of ZM subsidiaries Sue's Tech Kitchen, the Zuckerberg Institute, and Assemble Stream Inc., a web3-enabled streaming technology he developed from its inception to a skyrocketing valuation with partnerships around the globe. During the pandemic, Jim returned to his theater roots, partnering with Regional, Off-Broadway and Broadway theaters to launch Assemble’s beta platform which made history by producing and distributing the first-ever simulcast run of a Broadway show (the 2022 Tony-nominated Broadway premiere of Lynn Nottage's Clydes).
Most recently, Jim served as Interim Head of Entertainment for global private equity firm The Sciath Group, and co-founded the League of Live Stream Theater (LOLST), a not-for-profit organization that brings the tech, financing, and marketing support our leading stages need to deliver high-quality streaming content to audiences everywhere. Through LOLST, Jim produced the second- and third-ever simulcast runs from Broadway (the 2023 Broadway premiere of Stephen Adly Guigis’ Pulitzer-Prize winning play Between Riverside and Crazy starring Common, and the 2024 Tony-Nominated Broadway premiere of Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding). Jim is also a founding member of Harvard’s Digital Access Research Project (DARP), a new research initiative launched between the MetaLab and Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Jim credits his success to early learning differences, including his struggle with dyslexia and a speech impediment. Throughout his career, Jim has supported countless mentees, first as a teacher and confidante to students with diverse learning styles, and then as an adviser to a new generation of creators and entrepreneurs who join him in thinking critically about both the products they generate and the business-practices they espouse. Jim has served as a Resident and Non-Resident Tutor, Guest Lecturer and Guest Artist at Harvard, NYU, the University of Colorado at Boulder, RIT and other academic institutions. Jim has led Harvard's First-Year Arts Program for more than twenty years. Jim also teaches Creative Entrepreneurship at Harvard, inspiring students of all backgrounds to prioritize democratic enterprise design, community wealth building, and generative economic models in their entrepreneurial ventures. Originally from Rochester, New York, Jim now lives between New York City and Los Angeles with his twin sons Joey and Eddie.
Make it Real. Get it Right. Do some Good.