Episode summary
This CEO Runs One of the Biggest Museums in the World | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · 24 min · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Max Hollein
Summary
Max Hollein says the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a global-scale institution with about 2 million objects, 2 million square feet of galleries, and 6.3 million visitors. He describes the museum as one of a small set of encyclopedic museums, alongside the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Hermitage, while emphasizing that the Met’s scale comes with unusual operational complexity.
He breaks down the Met’s finances: a $5.5 billion endowment that covers about 35% of the roughly $440 million operating budget, with the rest coming from ticketing, retail, restaurants, and especially philanthropy. He says donor restrictions matter, with about 20% of the endowment limited to acquisitions, and he argues that gifts and donated art are central to both growth and day-to-day survival.
Hollein also defends the museum’s $1.4 billion in capital projects, including a new wing for modern and contemporary art and the reopened wing for the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. He says relevance, not a simple ROI, is the key metric, and he argues that AI, digital access, and open image policies can expand scholarship, security, and audience engagement without undermining the museum’s mission.
Key takeaways
- Hollein says the Met’s $5.5 billion endowment covers about 35% of a roughly $440 million operating budget, but much of it is restricted.
- He says philanthropy is the museum’s most important source of support, ahead of ticket revenue.
- He argues the Met’s current $1.4 billion in capital projects are about relevance, not just financial ROI.
- Hollein says AI is already useful for translation, customized tours, scholarship, and security monitoring.
- He says the Met’s average visitor age is 37, which he cites as evidence that younger audiences are coming to the museum.
Notable quotes
“we have about two million objects. It's very hard to sometime count what uh but it's it's an enormous amount of art from all different uh cultures and throughout time”
“our operating budget as you said is kind of it's a bit below uh it's like half a billion. It's currently at about 440 uh million”
“the biggest and most important uh part for us to how we operate, how we survive, how we can grow is philanthropy of course”
“our biggest metric first and foremost is relevancy. Yeah. We need to be we stay need to stay relevant”
“AI allows you to immediately translate different text. AI allows you to create very quickly customized tours for yourself”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone. I'm Andy Sherw and welcome to At Barrens and welcome to our guest Max Holine who is the CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Max, great to see you. Thanks for joining us. — Thank you for having me. So, why don't we start off by um you telling us about how big the museum is in terms of all the metrics that you use to m sort of talk about that?
Well, I'd say it's not a metric, but certainly the MET is one of the great institutions in the world, one of the most beloved museums that we have. Uh and it's one among very few that are these encyclopedic institutions in the world. If you want to have some numbers, uh we have about two million objects.
It's very hard to sometime count what uh but it's it's an enormous amount of art from all different uh cultures and throughout time. Uh we have about 2 million square ft of galleries. So that's really substantial.
Um only very few museums have that on that scale. We have about right now about 6.3 million visitors. Um and there's there are many other things that I could say about that but basically uh there are only let's say handful of museums that operate on that scale and that are being perceived as such but they all kind of in their own way quite idiosyncratic.
So let's see you you would have the Lou in in Paris you would have the British Museum in London uh you would have the air mitage in St. Petersburg and but they all have a different genesis they have a different setup they have different different logic even uh but on the other hand we are peers and sometimes also quite friendly institutions with each other
Yeah that's fascinating it really is one of the gems of New York one of the gems of the United States and one of the gems of the world when you think about it as — Something that holds such important artifacts and as such an destination um an anchor in New York City um our audience is interested interested in some numbers.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- philanthropy
- artificial intelligence
- museum security
- museum operations
- leadership
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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