We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Steven Fabos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Steven, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I think success comes from chasing a dream that keeps getting bigger, even when it sounds crazy at first. I started with an 800-square-foot bakery on Glen Oaks and Western. Just me. Over time, that grew into a half-million square foot operation with 1,300 employees. If someone had told me back then that’s where it would end up, it would’ve sounded impossible — but I never stopped. The dream kept growing.

That’s the pattern I’ve seen over and over: if something seems impossible, that’s usually a sign you’re on the right track. Most people stop there — they get hit with resistance or doubt, and they give up. But if you push through that, that’s where real progress lives. Look at Elon Musk — the guy didn’t know anything about rockets, but when NASA and Russia said no, he built his own. That mindset — don’t take no, figure it out anyway — that’s how I’ve approached everything I’ve done. Whether it’s food, energy, or entertainment, it’s the same principle: dream big, ignore the noise, and just start building.

Steven, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve been an entrepreneur most of my life. I started in the baking industry, back when I opened a tiny bakery in Glendale. Over time, I scaled that into a national dessert company with massive facilities and over a thousand employees. Eventually, I sold that company and shifted into what I’m really passionate about now — building creative spaces and empowering artists.

Today, I co-own Fab Factory Studios in North Hollywood with my son Shaun. It started as a recording studio, but we’ve expanded it into a full creative compound. We support music production, film, podcasts, events—the whole spectrum. What makes it different is that we didn’t just build a studio; we built an environment. We want creatives to walk in and feel like they can do their best work, no matter where they’re at in their journey.

We’ve also launched Fab Factory Entertainment, a full-service development and production company with a focus on artist development. And I don’t just mean marketing and media — I mean making sure the creatives still have a voice. A lot of what we’re doing pushes back on how the industry’s changed — where financial guys replaced the creative ones, and now you just get sequel after sequel instead of original ideas. We’re fighting that.

At the same time, I’m also involved in a project called Farm Hero. It’s a docuseries I helped produce that’s about regenerative agriculture — real farmers and ranchers who are changing how we think about food, soil health, and even climate. It started in Africa, helping farmers grow without chemicals or pesticides. Now it’s helping spark a bigger movement, including in the U.S.

What sets me apart is that I’ve never been interested in just doing what everyone else is doing. I’m focused on projects that create real change — whether that’s in the food system, the energy space, or the entertainment world. What I’m most proud of is building platforms that support people—creatives, farmers, thinkers—who’ve been overlooked or boxed in by the old systems.

If you’re a creator or a visionary who’s tired of being told no, then what we’re building is for you.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One that stands out is when we got into the entertainment business. After all my years in food, stepping into film and music felt like walking into a mess. The industry wasn’t being run well, and it definitely wasn’t being run for the benefit of creatives. Still, we jumped in.

We had to figure it out in a space where everything was shifting — streaming had undercut traditional models, movie theaters were struggling, and artists weren’t getting paid fairly. It would’ve been easy to say, “This is too broken,” and walk away. But instead, we said, “Okay, how do we make this better?”

So we started building—a studio that didn’t feel corporate, where artists could experiment, collaborate, and be treated with respect. I pulled together a team, and we’ve been working nonstop to create something that helps the right voices rise — not just the most commercial ones.

What kept me going was knowing the problem wasn’t the artists — it was the system. And I’ve never been one to back away just because something looks hard or unfamiliar. If anything, that’s when I lean in.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson I had to unlearn was the idea that just because something’s been done a certain way forever, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way — or the way forward.

A big part of that realization came through my involvement with regenerative agriculture. We started seeing that modern farming — with all its chemicals, tilling, and monocrops — was actually harming the soil, our food, and ultimately our health. For decades, the approach was: add more fertilizer, more pesticides, grow more of the same thing. But that system isn’t sustainable. It’s broken. And it’s affecting everything from the environment to our medical system.

What I had to unlearn was trusting the industrial system just because it was the norm. Once I saw how regenerative methods worked — where the soil literally comes back to life, where food becomes medicine — it was like a switch flipped. The same goes for the entertainment industry, too. That system’s been broken by people who forgot about the creatives. We had to ask if there was a better way.

So the backstory is simple: I’ve lived long enough to see that the mainstream way isn’t always the right way. Sometimes the system needs to be disrupted. And I’m okay being one of the people who pushes for that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fabfactorystudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabfactorystudios/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-fabos-1217b2b/