Shane Smith

I thought I was a pretty good writer, but I didn't have anything to write about. I wanted to go out in the world, have some adventures and then write about them.

The greatest propaganda coup of the American Right has been to convince its citizens that we are in the grip of a liberal conspiracy. As a result, Obama is to the right of Richard Nixon on most issues. And there is we believe, certainly some space to exploit there. And we, VICE, aim to exploit it.

If you're coming from America to Iraq, then how are you supposed to be objective? I mean, you could pay lip service to being objective, but how are you going to objective when you're embedded with the Marines? The Marines are saving your life every day and they're protecting you.

There are only two companies in the world that can help me. That's Facebook and Google, because they are going to make me the largest digital network in the world, which is my goal.

The whole sort of debate of classic objective journalism versus a new immersion journalism - that can go on forever... I made no bones about my position: I don't think you can be objective.

I want to go to the Maldives before they sink, but just because it's the most beautiful place on earth.

It's our job to get into the hardest-to-see places and bring back the best footage - we have the best footage of North Korea ever shot. If that's a stunt, then I'll keep on doing stunts until I die.

TV never takes any chances; they never do anything different.

Advertisers realize that Gen Y is the largest purchasing cohort. Also, that you're going to have to accept some different modes of thinking if you're going to get to them.

The best piece of advice I ever got from anyone was when Spike Jonze said, 'Take money out of the equation.' And that's actually when Vice started making lots of money. That's when I stopped worrying about money and started worrying about what I wanted to do.

Are my politics Democrat or Republican? I think both are horrific. And it doesn't matter anyway. Money runs America; money runs everywhere.

If you look at film, distribution is pre-bought. If you've paid for the distribution, you say, 'I have to make sure it's a film that gets enough butts in the seats.' I think that's the problem: It becomes prohibitively expensive, and you can't develop films for a smaller amount of money.