CHANGING THE CHANNELS

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and actor-entrepreneur Sarah Jessica Parker —who collaborated on city.ballet, a documentary series about dance that airs on AOL—are experts at navigating the contemporary media landscape, thinking boldly, and engaging their fans and customers. Though their backgrounds differ significantly, both have extensive thoughts on how to foster creativity in business, which they share here with Fast Company’s Robert Safian.

You both have been involved in a lot of evolutions. Tim started at Google and then went to AOL, which was sold to Verizon, which is now buying Yahoo. Sarah Jessica, you are a performer and a producer and you’re in other businesses: fragrances, a book imprint, footwear. Do you think of yourselves as risk takers? Is risk a good thing?

TIM ARMSTRONG: I started in investment banking and quit to start a newspaper. I remember my boss