Patrick Whitesell invests in Alex Cooper's Unwell, betting on creator-led media empires over platforms

Patrick Whitesell built WME into one of the most powerful talent agencies in the world, sold Endeavor to go private, and is now running a leaner vehicle doing the same thing he always did — backing talent, earlier.

His firm, Whitesell, launched with $250 million to make investments of $20 million to $100 million in entertainment, sports, and content. Silver Lake's Egon Durbin is a backer. The firm's most recent disclosed deal is an investment in Alex Cooper's Unwell, the media company built around her Call Her Daddy podcast on Spotify and SiriusXM.

“Alex was saying yesterday that she thinks that by end of twenty seven, the revenues of the advertising agency will exceed her podcast revenues, which is quite a feat. I think there are going to be unique individuals and opportunities that can build multi billion dollar media companies — and this is not a thing you can do at scale.”

Why Unwell

Whitesell's pitch on Cooper is that she has already done the hard part. Unwell spans live events, consumer products, scripted and unscripted content at Hulu and Netflix, a YouTube channel network, and a digital creative advertising agency. Cooper projects the ad agency's revenues will exceed her podcast revenues by end of 2027.

Whitesell says the investment isn't about supplying capital Cooper doesn't need — her Spotify deal alone made that clear. The value he is offering is strategic help with M&A, content strategy, and live events, drawing on three decades in the industry.

Creator economy investing, done right

Whitesell's view is that creator businesses are not scalable across a portfolio the way a platform is. Capital is rarely the constraint — audience reach is. The smart early-stage creators don't take outside money because they don't need it; their ad-driven businesses generate cash quickly. The right entry point is after someone like Cooper has already proven the platform, then going in with real dollars and strategic weight.

He expects a wave of capital to flood the space and make the wrong bets for exactly that reason.

The Hollywood crossover

Whitesell sees the next generation of filmmakers coming from YouTube, not film school — pointing to the summer 2025 breakout of creator-made films like Backrooms, which was made for around $700,000 and arrived with a built-in audience. His thesis for Unwell is a version of that playbook: incubate a micro drama or concept on YouTube, let it build awareness organically, then take it to Netflix or a theatrical release with distribution already de-risked.

The constraint has always been that traditional Hollywood projects required creators to abandon their core business for six months for a fraction of the payday. Whitesell thinks the better path runs in the opposite direction — start on YouTube, prove the idea, then let the studios come to you.

Exit outlook

Cooper controls the timeline. Whitesell's expectation is that she keeps building indefinitely, with room for additional capital partners to come in as the company scales. He draws a direct comparison to the Endeavor model — dilution over time as the company grows, but governance and control staying with the founder as long as she wants to run it.