​VICE co-founder Shane Smith and former Viacom boss Tom Freston took the stage at the annual PromaxBDA conference in New York City on Tuesday to talk about empowering youth in this expanding media universe.

But first, New York Times media, business, and culture reporter David Carr wondered if Smith wanted to make a bit of news on the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel Grand Ballroom stage.

Carr was asking, of course, about the reports that emerged late Monday that Time Warner was interested in purchasing half of VICE Media for around $1.1 billion.

“Even if I was talking to anyone, hypothetically, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it,” Smith said in side-stepping the question.

When it was on to the business at hand, Carr asked Freston about his own experience helping get iconic cable brands like MTV off the ground in the early days of cable, and whether he saw any similarities to what’s happening with the expanding media universe today and the growth of the digital space today.

“There are a lot of similarities,” Freston said. “The gateway drug then was Home Box Office (HBO). Now we’ve got a gateway drug for online video, which is Netflix.”

Freston, who during his tenure at Viacom invested in VICE, and is now an advisor to the company, said he was originally attracted to Smith and his colleagues because they were the first to really understand the importance of providing premium video at internet prices.

When Carr asked why Smith thought his company had been so successful in an area where others had failed—transitioning from a print brand to a digital one—Smith said there’s no way to just retrofit an Old Media company for the new landscape.

“The problem that a lot of people have is that they can’t give the company over to the interns,” Smith said, pointing out that the majority of the VICE staff is in their mid-twenties. The young people have to shoot it, cut it, produce it, host it. It has to have a different tone and resonance that the audience picks up on.”

Smith said that VICE was motivated partly by the fact that they know they won’t always be the hot It brand for kids.

“We’re a challenger brand. We’re supposed to throw spears,” Smith said. “And then people will come after us. It’s an endless circle of life.”

Freston’s advice for anyone trying to start their own challenger brand?

“Any entrepreneur with a good idea is going to be told no,” Freston said. “It’s about the fire in your belly.”

Image courtesy of John Minchillo (AP)

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