Cuse was an executive producer and joint showrunner on "Lost" with Damon Lindelof. They met during the sixth season of "Nash Bridges". Cuse hired Lindelof, giving him his first staff-writer job on a television series. A few years later, Lindelof and J. J. Abrams wrote the pilot for "Lost". Shortly after it was shot, Abrams left the show to do "" with Tom Cruise. Lindelof had no experience as a showrunner and called Cuse for showrunning advice on the side. Cuse's interest in the material and a conviction that he could turn "Lost" into a long-running series led him to opt out of a lucrative studio deal elsewhere to take the job as showrunner. He subsequently trained Lindelof to be his co-showrunner, and together they ran the show for all of its six-year run.