Michael Ovitz, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) | David Senra

Michael, thank you very much for doing this. Always a pleasure to spend more

this. Always a pleasure to spend more time with you. Uh it's been some of my favorite past few dinners have been with you. I want to actually start with

you. I want to actually start with something that you just said before we recording that I that made me laugh out loud that you said that uh Mark Andre scares the crap out of you. Why' you say that?

>> Talking to him is like taking a test.

It's like being in high school and taking an exam or a final in college every conversation. He's got the most

every conversation. He's got the most extraordinary ability to analyze,

to recall information, to organize it as he's thinking and speaking. There's

probably three different processes going on >> in his brain simultaneously while he's talking. His recalls, I've never seen

talking. His recalls, I've never seen anything like it. everything he reads.

In the old days when I was going to meet with him over board issues, I always had to study up very carefully on what we were going to talk about. But and I say

this in the most loving way, he's the most terrific guy and uh he's grown and he's prospered and

he's uh one of the smartest human beings I've ever met in my entire life. So you

think his recall is comes naturally where you I thought you have great recall. I've watched like all your

recall. I've watched like all your interviews, the conversations we've had.

You do have this like encyclopedic knowledge especially about the work you were doing at CIA. But I feel like the way you would describe it is like you have to work a lot harder. I think there

are certain human beings that are gifted with some raw innate uh processing power that is just greater than others. I

think I think we all have processing power but it's a question of degrees and then within the processing power there's specific silos that each of us either

excel at or average at or not as good as uh with Mark and Michael Kitton and Peter Teal and uh quite a few of the top

people in creative and top people in tech have this ability to process information at a very ultra rapid speed

and it's foundationally set in the ability to recall information that they have inventoried and it's very hard to

do especially in the world of technology where you're touching constantly new ideas. So everything's different and

ideas. So everything's different and yes, there's some through line, but each business that's being started has a different conceited.

>> And then on top of it, these guys, I find them fascinating for another reason. They're really nice people. Even

reason. They're really nice people. Even

though they have an intellectual superiority, they don't lauded over you.

And they're chameleon. they kind of adjust to the level that they're talking to.

>> Say more about that. As an agent, I had to ratchet my discussions up or down based

on whether it was a creative discussion, a uh a self-help discussion for a client or for a buyer because we did a lot of

counseling for buyers because it was a good way to build a a bridge to them and be able to have access. uh ratcheting up or down based on mood, based on what you

read at the moment and what your frame of reference about the person is. But

you can't talk to everybody the same way. One has to make a quick Well, let

way. One has to make a quick Well, let me rephrase. At least for me, I can't

me rephrase. At least for me, I can't speak for anybody else and I know Mark does this too. You kind of um look at who you're talking to and then decide

just how deep are you going to go and go how far. I mean, when I was on the board

how far. I mean, when I was on the board of Mark's first company, um, LoudCloud, they were dealing in an area that, frankly, I really at the beginning in

1999 didn't understand it because they were talking about the cloud. I don't

think anybody we were selling to understood what the cloud really was. It

was this amorphous idea of storing data offsite.

>> Yeah.

>> Not in a machine, but in a machine, but not a machine that's with you. It's a

machine that's in the ether, but there is no real machine in the ether. So,

you're thinking about all this and we're building a business around it. And I

watched Mark handle and Ben Horwitz. Ben

is the most practical, brilliant guy I've ever met. Ben Horwitz

is not only really, really smart. When

you talk to him, you get the sense you're talking to the guy next door who's smart, but he doesn't make it ultra clear that he's smarter than you

are. So, it's very very uh gracious,

are. So, it's very very uh gracious, warm, and accommodating. Or if he wants to make a point or if he's being a disciplinarian, he can change his level.

I've watched them get angry at someone and and turn into an absolute, you know, person of strength and movement and

aggressive that you wouldn't know normally cuz he's very very even tempered. But all these guys, sitting in

tempered. But all these guys, sitting in meetings with Ben and Mark, for example, is fantastic cuz they play off each other. They've been together, they're

other. They've been together, they're friends, I guess, 35 years. I'm glad you brought that up because I've been thinking about the co-founder relationship re recently. In many cases, you know, I've read almost 400 biographies of history case

entrepreneurs so far. I would say that like most co-founder relationships are actually tenuous or it seems to be like one main guy. Even if they start the company with multiple people, it's like usually what really one person and I

think I've just finished reading about what may be the greatest co-founder relationship in history. It's the

Michelin brothers who in the late 1800s take over a failing family factory in a remote part of France. The younger

brothers in his late 20s, the older brothers in his late 30s, they build they they essentially from almost scratch or even from like a negative position because the factory is almost bankrupt. They build a family dynasty

bankrupt. They build a family dynasty that lasts 100 years. The company 130 years later is still prospering, still one of the best tire companies in the world. And they did it by division of

world. And they did it by division of responsibilities which kind of uh reminded me of what you were just saying about Mark and Ben where the younger brother made the product and the older brother sold the product. They just

happened to be the best in the world at both of those things and coming together. They they ran the company

together. They they ran the company until they both died. You know 40 they had a a partnership for 40 45 years.

What is it that you see when you observed Mark and Ben together that you thought they had complimentary skill set? Well, first of all, the obvious.

set? Well, first of all, the obvious.

When I first met them 25 years ago, they could finish each other's sentences before they started that business because they had worked together before and they're friends. I think at the

underlying foundation of partnerships in any business, there's got to be a respect for their business acumen. There

has to be complimentary personalities.

They can't both be the same. And there

has to be complimentary temperament. And

there has to be a shared vision. And

that's hard to find. And as you kind of hinted at, you saw two successful founders with the Michelin brothers.

>> Yeah.

>> I can name you too many co-founded businesses where always one of the founders ends up getting pushed out.

>> Yeah. And

>> I would say that's based on the reading I've done, more like the more likely outcome.

>> I don't want to put a percentage on because I honestly don't know, but if you asked me off the top of my head, I'd say 90%. Um, it's very hard to have two

say 90%. Um, it's very hard to have two strong founders that share a singular vision, like you talk about the Michelin brothers, and that have a division of

responsibilities. It's very difficult.

responsibilities. It's very difficult.

Um, but Mark and Ben, for example, Mark knows everything that's going on in the company, but Ben operates it. And Mark's

very comfortable with that. And Mark has phenomenal instincts about uh companies, and so does Ben. Uh, Ben also comes at

looking at a business as a guy who's operated multiple businesses and sold businesses. very hard to find leaders

businesses. very hard to find leaders who understand principles of business, how to execute them, how to handle people, how to be a

leader, how to get along with your co-founder, how to have a intellectual process to support your vision and how

to unfold your vision and while you're doing that to be open-minded. That's

really difficult. At CA, I spent an enormous amount of time making sure that the executives in the company

were stable in their personal lives, their professional lives, not in any order, by the way, in their growth, uh, their profile. You did this through

their profile. You did this through one-on ones with them.

>> I had a system that was, um, pretty random, frankly, but I did a and I wrote about this. We discussed it last time. I

about this. We discussed it last time. I

did a uh when I was in town, which I tried to be in town four days, three to four days a week, but I traveled to New York every week, to Japan once a month,

and to Europe once a month, and but I did I I decided to do everything short.

So if I went to New York, I would go for one day, >> but I'd get in that one day breakfast, lunch, drinks, dinner, meetings in

between. and after dinner, fly back to

between. and after dinner, fly back to LA and pick up the time and then make it into the office the next day so I could get what I called a 6- day weekend. I

got the idea from my college roommate who gave me as a gift a joke clock which had 25 hours in it and it had a one it

had zero through 25.

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you you have this is what I was trying to tell people like since we've become friends they obviously you're a legend people love your book and they're like how's Oitz I'm like you ever heard any

of my episodes on Rockefeller it's like he's like the Terminator where like one of my favorite stories of Rockefeller is obviously like in the very beginning of the oil industry there at the ground floor like people one of the things they

miss when they analyze his company is just how wellunded he was he he was relentless at raising money and he went into every single battle that he had with his competitors with the biggest war chest by by far and any biography on

Rockefeller it'd be written about. And

what I loved about Rockefeller, you have a little bit of this in you where he would go to every single bank or any partner and he'd be like, "I need money.

I would like to borrow money." And

obviously he tells him why. They say no.

He goes, "That's fine." Gets up, not mad, upset. He He says something in

mad, upset. He He says something in there. He's just like, "It made no

there. He's just like, "It made no difference to me. I'm just one step closer to getting what I actually want."

So that person said no. I go to the next one and do another meeting and then I get money. Okay, good. Now I go to the

get money. Okay, good. Now I go to the next one. And he just set it up all day

next one. And he just set it up all day long until he comp like basically set his schedule up where every single hour of the day was going to be dedicated to this task. And then once the task is

this task. And then once the task is done, then what else is on the next task? And I'll do the exact same thing.

task? And I'll do the exact same thing.

Just absolutely relentless like almost they said he went about his business like a farmer plows a field.

>> Yeah. So, I'll tell you a story that I told 500 guests at a party I held for the moment board of trustees at our home

at Tomorrow's My Home. uh when David the last couple years of David's life we hosted all the trustees in Los Angeles for the annual meeting and we gave a

dinner and we invited a lot of people from politics from entertainment and from the museum and gallery world and I told this story cuz David had just

passed away and I told it because his son was there. Um I never went to an art museum and you know I love art. Yeah,

>> you've been to the house and you know that I'm absolutely certifiably insane and should probably be put in an institution, but I love it.

>> You were commenting on the chairs before.

>> Well, because I I just love aesthetics and I learned that >> from my directors in the 70s.

>> They would look at things and everything they looked at showed up in a movie someday. So, they registered everything

someday. So, they registered everything and I learned to register. But I never went to an art museum till I was 18. Now

think about that and think about your being at my home >> with 300 pieces of art hanging. Right.

>> Mhm.

>> And I went to New York for 4 days cuz that's all I had off. I'd never been I left LA.

I was working full-time. I was 18 years old and I worked because I needed to cuz my family unfortunately didn't really have the means to support me which by the way turned out to be helpful in my

later life oddly.

>> Why do you think it's helpful?

>> Because it gave me a a sense of drive, ambition, and a goal oriented thinking that any of my friends that didn't grow up like that sort of either it was

binary. They either had it or they

binary. They either had it or they didn't have it. And most of the time they didn't have it. Um, but some of them did, by the way. But I spent when I was in New York, I had four days and I

had all these things mapped out to see I'd done all this homework. I needed to see the village. I wanted to go to Soho.

I wanted to go to art galleries. I

wanted to go to their 10 museums. I wanted to go to all of them. Of course,

I over my appetite's always, you know, bigger than my stomach. Uh, so I went to Mo. I left six hours later and I went

Mo. I left six hours later and I went back the next day and I went back the third day. It absolutely changed my

third day. It absolutely changed my life. And

life. And I then remember sitting in my office at CA and my this is probably

15 16 years later and I'm telling this story and David Rockefeller sitting in the front at the front table at this dinner for 500 people and the phone my

assistant buzzes in and says and I had a phone assistant one for incoming and one for outgoing calls. So the incoming assistant said it's Michael Mr. Rockefeller for you. And I didn't skip a

beat and I said, "Tell Bill Murray, I'll call him back." Because Bill used to call under different names all the time.

And he could get away with it most of the time. So I'm in the middle of

the time. So I'm in the middle of something crazy. And Bill would give a

something crazy. And Bill would give a name that he knew I had to pick up. And

I love the guy to this day. He's one of the greatest human beings on the planet.

Um, a guy who I will I will be loyal to till the day I die. Um, for a whole series of reasons which I'm happy to come back to. So, my assistant said,

"It's David Rockefeller." I said, "Tell Bill, I'll call him back." She says, "No, I think it really is Mr. Rockefeller. It's his assistant and her

Rockefeller. It's his assistant and her name's Mary and she wants you to Mr. Rockefeller is trying to reach you." I

said, "Look, it's not David Rockefeller.

You know it's Bill. Just get a number.

I'll call him back." She said, "Okay."

>> Why would it be so unbelievable that Rockefeller was calling you?

>> Because I'm a guy in LA with a beginning art collection basically.

No real cultural profile. And this is David Rockefeller. I mean, he's a legend

David Rockefeller. I mean, he's a legend in the world of business and culture. his mother

started MoMA. I mean, if you read the book Picasso's War, which is fascinating. I told you about it at

fascinating. I told you about it at dinner. Uh, it talks about the rock

dinner. Uh, it talks about the rock about Abby Rockefeller and the women that started MoMA. There were three women that started the museum in the 30s

and David grew up around art. I grew up around nothing, you know. It's like I was in the San Frernando Valley and wasteland. One of my favorite parts of

wasteland. One of my favorite parts of your book is that that exact line where you're like I could see the problem is that not only where I grew up and what like you were very aware because you

could see where you wanted you knew where you were but you could see the mansions of Beverly Hills. You could see the Brentwood.

>> Well, we went over the hill every weekend to Westwood. That part of your book I absolutely love where you you're having initial success nowhere near what's going to come in the future but enough to buy your first house in

Brentwood and you wake up and I'm getting goosebumps thinking about this cuz I've had a couple experiences like that in my life. You're like I can't believe I in your book you said I can't believe I live in Brentwood.

>> Listen I still have those feelings at this stage of my life. Tomorrow and I were talking about this the other night.

It happened in New York, not it was a few days around our dinner >> and we were walking around looking at art and we looked at each other and it

was a weekend. It was a Sunday actually and we said, "Wow, we have an amazing life." We were talking about looking at

life." We were talking about looking at art and then we're going to be going on vacation in Europe and I get to be with my grandkids and her daughter and my

kids and I said, "We're just really, really lucky." But the Rockefeller thing

really lucky." But the Rockefeller thing was luck. I didn't think he knew me. So

was luck. I didn't think he knew me. So

I thought it was a joke. And I had a lot of times clients calling saying they were people that they weren't because they thought it was funny and they were pretty good at the imitations. Anyways,

I called back and sure enough it was David Rockefeller. Got on the phone and

David Rockefeller. Got on the phone and he said, "I would like to meet you." And

I said, "Sure, but why?" And he said, he said, "What do you mean why?" I said, "Because I'm in LA. I'm in the entertainment business. We are in

entertainment business. We are in culture but a very different kind than you and I have I'm a giant admirer of everything you've done.

>> How old were you when this is taking place? You had already founded CIA,

place? You had already founded CIA, right?

>> Probably about uh 40.

>> Okay. So

>> 38 40 >> 10 years into CIA or so. Okay.

>> But anyways, to make a long story short, um I said I'm I'm in New York every week.

I'll come meet you. He said, no, I want to come meet you. And then I I was floored because I go to New York every week. And I told him that the second

week. And I told him that the second time. He said, "No, I I I see you're

time. He said, "No, I I I see you're building a building with IMP. You've got

a painting by Roy Likensstein." He said, "These are very interesting choices for someone your age in California." And he wasn't like he wasn't denigrating

California, but he was kind of making it clear we were one of the very first, not the first, but one of the very first architecturally inspired buildings with

a top American architect in Los Angeles.

It wasn't a thing to do architecture of note in Los Angeles. And before I chose IMP, I spent a lot of time and I researched all the top architects in the

world and made that decision and to this day I'm thrilled that I had that relationship. But David came out, we hit

relationship. But David came out, we hit it off in the my office. He asked me to go on the board. I became the youngest board member on the board. I think the

second time they had someone that young.

I think Ron Lauder was uh younger than me when he went on. and we built a relationship and I learned so much. But

here's the point to your point that you just made about David Rockefeller doing things without doing them.

>> It's kind of like that famous uh Bruce Lee line about punching without punching, which I've never forgotten

because it's simple but apocryphal. And

David raised all the money by himself to build the new museum.

And he took me out to dinner after I was a trustee. And we spent 3 hours talking

a trustee. And we spent 3 hours talking about politics, art, people, things that had happened in his life,

travel, his 10,000 index card file because there were no there wasn't a computer. So every time he met someone,

computer. So every time he met someone, if he met David Senra, he put your name and contact on a 3x5 card under S.

>> Mhm.

>> Alphabetized. And he was so proud of it.

It was in his office. And he said to me, "Nothing about giving money. Not one

word."

And as we're leaving, I said to him, "How's the fundraising going?" He said, "Really good. I'm getting a lot of

"Really good. I'm getting a lot of support. I'll talk to you soon." And I

support. I'll talk to you soon." And I made a donation. Uh that was a lot larger than I thought I would. He never

asked me to make a donation. And then I found out later he had that same meeting with every trustee. He didn't ask one for a dime.

>> So is this just like black belt level sales?

>> This is as good as I've ever seen. And

by the way, hard to explain this to because I'm a salesman and >> maybe the best in the world.

>> Well, I'm a saleserson. I don't know if I'm the best, but I'm I'm fairly good at it. I

it. I >> I had um uh dinner with Mark Andre.

Jared Kush, our mutual friend Jared Kusher, invited me to go to dinner with Mark and I asked him about you because I was gonna meet you and as we said the best in the world.

>> Well, Mark's prejudice because I'm crazy about Mark and I consider him family.

But I think the idea of having that kind of restraint, I'm not I don't think I could have >> I wouldn't even think to do that. No,

because I would have had to at the end say something to feel I'd accomplished my intention in the mission. He didn't

say a word and he didn't even come close to it. It's like he it's almost like you

to it. It's like he it's almost like you want to contribute, great. You don't,

that's okay, too. But he never said the word contribute. He never talked about

word contribute. He never talked about money. He talked about the architecture,

money. He talked about the architecture, but he talked about where to hang the collection. He talked about other things

collection. He talked about other things in the world, but three hours, not a word. Not one word.

word. Not one word.

>> He was how much older than you? A couple

decades.

>> Oh, God. David. God. We just celebrated his he died at say he was probably twice my age.

>> See, and you're let's say you're 40 at the time. He's 80. This is something

the time. He's 80. This is something >> I'm guessing. I don't know why.

>> Yeah. We don't need the exact number, but it's it's not like an older brother.

It's like a father. No, he took me to um one of the u the White House correspondents dinner in uh Washington.

The two of us was one of the greatest nights of my life. I'm You talk about pinching yourself. I'm in his limo with

pinching yourself. I'm in his limo with him driving to the airport in his plane in his car to the White House

correspondents dinner. It was just he

correspondents dinner. It was just he and I walking in. He knew every single person in the room. And if he didn't, they knew him.

>> And I'm sitting there, I'm like, it's hard to impress me. I hate to say because I travel around and I've met a lot of people.

>> This knocked my socks off. He knew

everyone in the room. And sitting at his table that night was an experience to behold cuz everyone came up to pay their respects to him. And it was such an

eyeopening experience. And he was always

eyeopening experience. And he was always even and always the same polite guy to everybody, even people that we knew he

didn't care for. He had a very, very short attention span for people with no integrity because his integrity was so high. It was like a learning experience

high. It was like a learning experience for me. But it I got to be pretty good

for me. But it I got to be pretty good friends with him. every lunch, dinner or outing with him was a a graduate course in something.

>> This such an incredible opportunity. So

like sometimes I feel like uh like almost like a bit of a middle child because because of the work I do on founders, I get to meet world-class entrepreneurs. I get to go spend time

entrepreneurs. I get to go spend time with them, have dinner. Many of them are much older. And then I also talk to like

much older. And then I also talk to like younger entrepreneurs. And the advice to

younger entrepreneurs. And the advice to the degree that they asked me that I'd give to young entrepreneurs is like try to spend time like if if rock if D Rockler was let's say 80 years old at

this point he's not twice as smart and twice as experienced as like a 40-year-old. It's an uneven

40-year-old. It's an uneven distribution. He's like 10x cuz this

distribution. He's like 10x cuz this idea is like how many he's seen every deal. He's met every person. He's just

deal. He's met every person. He's just

had so much more time to observe like what actually takes place in the world.

He's read a lot more. He's had all this experience. It's just like and you can,

experience. It's just like and you can, you know, I feel this way when we we've had these three-hour dinners in New York. It's like, man, the amount of

York. It's like, man, the amount of information I learned from you in three hours. It's not like a person that's

hours. It's not like a person that's half your age. We could spend the exact same amount of time together, right?

It's just you just have so much more lived experience.

>> It's my it's my thesis about frame of reference. This old saying that people

reference. This old saying that people always say as you get older, I wish I knew then what I do now happens to be a

thousand% accurate. And I'll tell you

thousand% accurate. And I'll tell you why. You just said it, David. Longevity

why. You just said it, David. Longevity

automatically promotes more meetings, human interactions, and experiences.

That in itself creates more frame of reference. The more frame of reference

reference. The more frame of reference you have, the more experienced you are to make difficult decisions because you've seen outcomes. I was on the phone

last night um with one of my kids on a um personal matter that she was having and I explained that

I was thinking about her situation and the benefit that I have that she or the person she's having the problem with

doesn't have is that I've seen the movie before.

>> I've either packaged the movie, seen the movie, read the script that never got made. I've seen it fictionally done,

made. I've seen it fictionally done, non-fictionally done, done as a documentary, done based on historical fact, done based on someone's biography.

I've just been around too long.

Therefore, I know what silo her situation fits into. And I said to her, "You cannot see what I can see." And I said, "You're going to get off the phone

and you're going to go, "Dad is really a jerk because I'm not preaching to you, but you have to understand. I've just

seen it." And I have, and I know exactly what's going on. And I see it from both sides, by the way. But it's all about frame of reference. And I do wish that I

had when I started the agency the knowledge bank of experiences that I have now. I wish when I started

have now. I wish when I started collecting art I had the knowledge bank of frame of reference of pieces of art that I have now.

>> But your frame of reference from people specifically is very interesting to me because think about how like one of the things I wanted to talk to you about it's okay it it's very obvious like you know I have a few obsessions. One of my

obsessions is people that get to the very top of the profession. I don't even care what the profession is. It could be building CIA. It could be a basketball

building CIA. It could be a basketball player. It could be a sushi chef. It

player. It could be a sushi chef. It

doesn't matter. I'm obsessed with people that become the best in the world at what they do. And I was thinking about you. Not only did you become the best in

you. Not only did you become the best in the world at what you did, but you worked with, competed against, built relationships with countless other people that were also the best in the

world at what they did. And I was very curious and you know I kind of study this on founders just like you've met these people you interact with them compete against them I read about them and I was very curious if you could

describe the one common trait the one what do you think is the most important common trait for the people that you observe that are best in the world at what they do yourself included.

>> Well let me give you an example a practical one. Okay.

practical one. Okay.

>> So, two weeks ago I'm having lunch with a friend of mine at NOBO um and in walks NOU

who's my exact age who was when I met him had just opened a sushi bar on Lassi

Boulevard called Matsuhisa.

And I remember meeting him because I would go sometimes for business or occasionally by myself because the one great lesson I learned very early on going to Japan is the best place in the

world to eat if you're alone is at a sushi bar because you can actually not feel uncomfortable doing that. And I met

Noble when he was the he was his own he was the chef, the manager, the menu planner. He did. He was just him and two

planner. He did. He was just him and two other guys and his wife. That was Nou Stark. Now you look at what Nou's got

Stark. Now you look at what Nou's got right now. Nou has an empire. I don't

right now. Nou has an empire. I don't

know how many restaurants I got. They're

all over the world. He's got hotels.

He's got bottled and packaged goods.

He's got everything. I would imagine he's got a billion dollar empire.

When I met Nou, I took note.

I said, "This guy's got something special." I didn't quite know what it

special." I didn't quite know what it was. But several years later, I

was. But several years later, I introduced NOBO to Bob Dairo.

And he and Noubo started the present business with a sushi restaurant called Nou, not Matsuhisa, which was fascinating

that he didn't try to take his personal brand and put it with Bob. He took the his first name. They opened the first Nou in New York in Tribeca, which was no

man's land at the time. But Bobby

had a hunch because he was developing property in Tribeca and he was a a huge believer when everyone around him was

negative and advised him against it and he convinced Nobody opener. It became an instant hit and they have this amazing

business right now. I had this hunch about Noo. I had this hunch about Wolf

about Noo. I had this hunch about Wolf Gang Puck when I met him the first time.

He was a in his 20s Austrian guy. I

said, "This guy not only is a great chef, but like no, he had a fantastic personality.

Why is it I went to out to every meal of my life as an agent for my whole life? I

went out every night and every lunch and I picked those two guys frame of reference because I knew in interacting

with them they had something special.

>> Is this an intuition that you have or is this something concrete you've picked up about their personality or the way they approach their work?

>> No, it's like the general thesis for me and I use it to this day. I use it in my tech investing and have since 1992. I

use it in finding clients. I used it in building careers. I used it in making

building careers. I used it in making relationships.

I'm interested in growth, personal growth. I'm interested in being the best

growth. I'm interested in being the best at whatever I get into to the point of it probably not being healthy. I'm

interested in excellence. Okay,

>> we got to talk about that.

>> I am interested in excellence and will go to almost any end that's not immoral or illegal to achieve it for myself and everyone that's around me. Is it

excellence for the sake of excellence?

Like what is driving you?

>> I meet people. Okay. And I within 10 minutes my brain automatically scans whatever is

coming to me and it compares them to people in their silo, to people outside their silo, to people with personality traits that are similar. It compares all

the positive and negatives. It's the

same thing when I collect art. When

young uh men or women that I mentor in collecting art want that they ask me what should they read? I say nothing. I

said start looking at images and bookmark whatever you like and then come back to it a couple days later. See if

you still like it. I look to this day probably at 200 images a day. I looked

at 10 this morning before I came over here at 7:00 this morning of a painting show in London. And the reason I do it is the more images I can put in my head,

it's kind of primitive AI in a strange way because I'm like machine learning and my brain's the machine.

>> I tell all my AI guys and gals who are all much younger than me except for a couple guys at Stanford that I work with that are professors that are actually I

guess they're in their 50s and 60s. Um,

there's a thing they call ML, which is machine learning, and I call it ML learning. So, I asked them to explain my

learning. So, I asked them to explain my version of ML when we're doing a complicated AI deal together. But I have kind of a personal AI that I've created

that ticks off all these boxes automatically. I told you when I met

automatically. I told you when I met you, you're very good at interviewing.

You keep a conversation going. You know

what to ask. You what you did on tomorrow's book is insane. You read a book and in 50 minutes or 50 60 >> Yeah.

>> It's condensed into the most salient points and you know you you met her only socially.

>> Yeah.

>> It's not possible unless you have a talent. So my

talent. So my >> perception is additive. I thought you had talent. Then you prove it over and

had talent. Then you prove it over and over. I listen to the to your I told you

over. I listen to the to your I told you I went back and I've listened to every one you've done.

>> Yeah, I appreciate that.

>> You don't have to appreciate it. I got a master's degree in people I never heard of.

>> The So, I should bring this up. The

first time we ever talked and it was just h pure chance is we share a mutual friend in Rick Gerson and I'm having breakfast with Rick and you guys have been friends for like 25 years, right?

And me and Rick are real close friends in the last few years and we're at breakfast and his phone's on the table and it rings and I'm like, "Oh that's Michael Oitz." Like, you know,

cuz I'd read your book already. Like I

obviously knew who you were, but we had never spoken. And then he he picks it up

never spoken. And then he he picks it up on speakerphone and Rick's been hugely supportive and he tries to like push my podcast on everybody in the world and he's very successful doing so. And then

he goes, "Hey, I'm sitting here with you might know who he is. His name's David Center. He does this podcast called

Center. He does this podcast called Founders. There's a there's and you were

Founders. There's a there's and you were on your boat in St. Barts I think and uh there's like a brief pause. He goes I listened to four of them yesterday and you start rattling off the one you corny as Vanderbilt and everything else. I

heard you talk with our mutual friend Patrick about this where you're like hey I like collecting art and people I have a frame of reference because I've met so many people. The more people you meet

many people. The more people you meet the more you can the more benchmark you have to compare people to. So when you met Nou so when I hear this it almost sounds

like it happens like automatically. just

a part of your brain where it's like >> it's an auto response.

>> Yeah. So, you can't even say what it is about that person.

>> Well, no. I could say Noble was personable. He was amazing chef. He made

personable. He was amazing chef. He made

things that I'd never had before outside of the United States. I've had it, but not inside the >> his actual work, >> his technical skill.

>> Yeah.

>> In cooking Japanese cuisine was the best I'd ever had.

>> And this is happening in like a strip mall. No, no, he was on Los Saniago

mall. No, no, he was on Los Saniago Boulevard in an old uh restaurant, an old building.

>> Yeah. So, like

>> it wasn't No, it wasn't anything special. It was just him.

special. It was just him.

>> But you saw >> Well, here this out. He filled the room.

>> He filled the room and his personality.

What do you mean?

>> He filled the room. When you were there, you knew it was his place. You knew he was a sensei. You knew he was the master chef. You wanted to sit in front of him.

chef. You wanted to sit in front of him.

those four coveted seats.

You wanted to talk to him cuz he was interesting.

He had it all. Wolf Gang Puck saw him at the at uh his first restaurant in the United States. He was in his 20s. He was

United States. He was in his 20s. He was

the chef at Mame Zone, which is no longer in existence. That only Hollywood could endorse. plastic patio furniture

could endorse. plastic patio furniture in a parking lot with a kitchen in a one-bedroom apartment at the back of it.

>> And you could see it even then though.

>> Yeah. I Wolf Gang >> Same thing. It's like this >> Wolf Gang would walk out, go table to table and you fell in love with this guy's like his charisma energy, >> everything. This is like 1980 something

>> everything. This is like 1980 something 81. And Wolf Gang's walking around

81. And Wolf Gang's walking around asking everyone at every table and remembering their name and being gracious and being and the food while you're eating this amazing food like

we'd never eaten before. There was no such thing as California cuisine. Clean

food with a French kind of flare, but it wasn't full of butter and oil. It was

great. And you couldn't get a seat there. It was hysterical that the the

there. It was hysterical that the the popularity of this place with a zero economic investment in infrastructure,

right? But the food was to die for. And

right? But the food was to die for. And

Wolf Gang, you wanted to be his friend.

So when he did Spago, it was I just gave him a quote for his book cuz I recognized this immediately. I went to

Spago four nights a week up on Sunset.

And I finally looked at Wolf. I said,

"We got to put you on television." And I just wrote this little story for his book. I said, "I'm bringing the

book. I said, "I'm bringing the president of ABC for dinner, and I want you to just go crazy. I want you to pretend you're at Bowman where he

trained in the south in France and do that kind of dinner and whip out the best wines that aren't on the list. And

I want to get this guy in your corner."

That Wolf Gang served a dinner that night. We spent three hours eating.

night. We spent three hours eating.

There must have been 15 courses. One was

better than the next. He personally

brought stuff over. He hung out at the table. He talked. He He was charming. He

table. He talked. He He was charming. He

was, you know, he was he was just Wolf Gang. He and you loved him. You wanted

Gang. He and you loved him. You wanted

to hug him. But the food was great, too.

And I got the president of ABC to sign on a napkin a contract for a week's work on Good Morning America

>> as an audition to replace Julia Child's and the guy signed it and he dated it and I took the napkin. He also had a lot to drink and the next day >> is that a key

>> and the next day he called me and he said, "I can't thank you enough." It was the most extraordinary dinner. He said,

"I have a slight recollection that I signed something. What did I sign?" I

signed something. What did I sign?" I

said, "Oh, you signed a contract to put Wolf on our chef that you met the little Austrian guy who was so cute to put him on Good Morning America and try him out." He said, "I can't do that." I

out." He said, "I can't do that." I

said, "Well, you made a deal and you're a man of high integrity." So, he said, "I didn't make a deal. What are you talking about?" I said, "I'm going to

talking about?" I said, "I'm going to send one of our assistants over with the contract and you take a look and then you call me and tell me if you made a

contract or not." So, we take the napkin and pin it to someone's shirt. Okay? Put

a sport coat on him, arrange with the president of ABC's assistant to walk him right into the office. He walks in, the guy looks at him. He opens his coat. It

was all in huge print. And he sees his signature. My guy closes his coat and

signature. My guy closes his coat and runs out the door. And I get a my phone rings 10 seconds later. He said, "I guess I signed a deal, didn't I?" And he

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I feel like you operate much more on intuition. like you you spend an an

intuition. like you you spend an an enormous amount of time like preparing like one of my favorite stories in your book and I try to do the exact same thing in in my career. It's like, okay, I'm going to start in the the mail room.

Well, guess what? I'm going to go down to the file cabinets, this this huge room that contains 70 years of history on Hollywood, and I'm going to show up 2 hours early and I'm going to read. Then

I'm going to work a full day. Then I'm

going to go back there at night and and keep reading. I'm going to work my way

keep reading. I'm going to work my way through in a very Rockefelleresque way of just like plowing a field till I get to the end. And then they use this enormous research and base of knowledge you have and then you combine it with

these experiments and the the the frame of reference that we just talked about.

And then when you make decisions, it's almost like it's not even analytical.

It's like some kind of intuition that you're having where it's like this guy's special. I have this guy who has power

special. I have this guy who has power to make this guy's career better. I just

need to put these two together. Let's go

ahead and just write this out on a napkin. Like there is almost no time to

napkin. Like there is almost no time to analyze. Am I getting this wrong?

analyze. Am I getting this wrong?

>> No. But I David, I'm gonna put the question to you. You're a you you get a job in the mail room. You have no family connection. You get it on your own.

connection. You get it on your own.

It's a three-year training program.

You're in the mail room. You have a college degree.

You are not stupid.

What's the alternative? No, I I I think this is why we've get along and we've been able to build a friendship because like I've I this is exactly what I've done with founders is like I did not come for money. I'm the first person in my family. Everybody's like, "Oh, I'm

my family. Everybody's like, "Oh, I'm the you're the first person to graduate college." The first person to graduate

college." The first person to graduate high school. My parents were incapable

high school. My parents were incapable of even graduating high school. But I

had the same thing. And the reason I say what else is the choice? No. I I

>> there's no choice. So I either became more knowledgeable than the 20 other uh they were all men. No. Yeah. It was all men in that pledge class. And that they

did a like three two times a year they started a a group in the mail room of like 20 25 people. I think when I started there were 20 or 25 I don't

remember. But the point is it's 1969.

remember. But the point is it's 1969.

I'm 21 years old.

I graduated UCLA in three years while working at Fox 60 hours a week loving every second of it. drop out of premed

to finish degrees in psychology and business.

Look for the job that I think can educate me the fastest in a business that's all about nepotism and relationship and I don't have any.

How do I distinguish myself differently from the 20 or 25 other pledges in what I call the pledge class? Because that's

what we were. And it became pretty simply apparent to me very quickly.

Everyone showed up exactly what time they were told to, which was 9:00 for a 9:30 start. Everyone showed up except

9:30 start. Everyone showed up except me. I showed up at 6:30

me. I showed up at 6:30 and no one was in. I had to run of the place. So I said to myself, I'm going to

place. So I said to myself, I'm going to learn everything I can faster than anyone else. and I'm never gonna share

anyone else. and I'm never gonna share with anyone what I'm doing.

Let them all fend for themselves. Which,

by the way, turned out to be good for me because it was antithetical to my thesis on building a business, which is you share everything with everybody. And I

learned that by not sharing, all these other people got killed by me. And if

I'm running a business and those people are all working for me, I needed to do the opposite. I needed to include

the opposite. I needed to include everybody in everything. Have tons of meetings, tons of sharing, no egos, no

politics. Everybody has to pull for the

politics. Everybody has to pull for the larger boat. You can't be in your own rowboat.

boat. You can't be in your own rowboat.

You got to be on the big boat and you got to make sure it's all moving.

>> When you're on the same team, but the other 19 people in this group, you looked at them as competitors.

>> Absolutely. My job was to eradicate every one of them. I didn't want any of them to shine.

>> And so the idea there was, hey, I think you said this in your book. You're like,

I don't know if I'm smarter than them, but I know for damn sure that I'm working harder.

>> Well, there were several people, David, there I was not smarter than. They had

unbelievable educations. A couple of them had Ivy League educations. I

couldn't even get into an Ivy League school. The fact is that um I was in a

school. The fact is that um I was in a competitive environment in a competitive business William Morris and a competitive

um arena which is the entertainment business. It's doggy dog and it been

business. It's doggy dog and it been like that since it started. It never

changed. I read everything, got my hands on about the golden years of the movie business and I used it for CA when we started in 1974. I made up a

bibliography and here's the books you need. I have

used >> Who did you give the bibliography to?

>> Every one of us that were working together.

>> So you guys had a shared base of knowledge. You insisted on a shared base

knowledge. You insisted on a shared base of knowledge with your your team. Okay.

>> And our group knew history. And the

reason that became important and everyone thought, "Oh, who cares is cuz when you start talking to filmmakers in those days and they start talking

about Frank Capra or David Lean or Howard Hawks or Willie Wiler or Michael Curtis who all made some of the great

black and white movies of our time.

If you don't know what they did, how can you talk to a filmmaker? How do you do it? You can't. How did we sign every

it? You can't. How did we sign every director in the business? We spoke their language.

>> I've read and done episodes on, I don't know, half a dozen. I'm obsessed with directors and filmmakers. I think the analogy between a filmmaker and an entrepreneur is like so clear-cut. It's

very obvious, but like from George Lucas to Steven Spielberg to uh Quentyn Tarantino to Christopher Nolan, every single one I've read a biography of, they have this encyclopedic knowledge of

film history in their head. There's a

great line on this. One of my favorite maxims I learned from Charlie Munger, which is why he was so obsessed with reading and and studying business history and human history as well, is he says that learning from history is a

form of leverage. Well, it's it's what I've always said, knowledge is power.

And the if you have practical knowledge combined with research knowledge combined with uh intellectual knowledge

combined with a giant education about things that you dig into and you understand how

to have a deep curiosity about everything and I mean everything.

You have an edge that cannot be beaten.

I have sitting on my desk probably 20 notes about things that I

have seen on the internet, on Instagram, on uh perplexity on open AI, on Google

that have come up in other searches. So,

I saw a new set of headphones that were wildly differently designed and I looked it up, printed out the page on it, put

it in my pile to research.

And every night when I am on my computer, I take a deep dive on the moment of what's interesting to me.

I love cars. I love mechanical watches because some of them have, you know, a thousand parts and it's this big. I I

love gadgets. I love uh I love hi-fi. I

just I can't begin. I love art.

>> Did you have the curiosity even at that age when you first started in the mail room?

>> Yes.

>> You had to cuz like you wouldn't have read all that.

>> But you know what I didn't have?

>> What?

>> I didn't have a computer.

>> And that changed my life.

>> That changed my life. I've talked to Ben Horwitz about this a thousand times. The

computer changed my life because I live on it. And it's not because I need to,

on it. And it's not because I need to, it's because I want to. If you put me in a room with a computer 24 hours with no sleep, I would do it. Matter of fact, tomorrow has to pull me off the computer

and gets angry at me because I learn so much every day. I just when my friends want to buy something, they call me cuz I've already looked at it. So if they

want to buy a car, and I'm not being facitious, and I enjoy doing it, and it's rare they ask me about a car I don't know about. I mean, when I was at

CIA before a computer, I had a reading list for all the agents and all the mail room people.

I subscribed personally to 210 magazines. I didn't read everyone. Don't

magazines. I didn't read everyone. Don't

I don't think I did for a second, but I flipped the pages. So, I had car and driver, road and track, automobile,

and um I'm missing one. Motor trend, all four. Why? I wanted to see what everyone

four. Why? I wanted to see what everyone wrote. I didn't read detailed articles.

wrote. I didn't read detailed articles.

I'd always read the headline, look at the pictures, read the first paragraph.

If I loved an article and wanted to go further, tore it out, put it in a pile for Sunday every day. And I had Ladies

Home Journal, Vogue, McCall's, uh, Madame Maziselle. Why did I read women's

Madame Maziselle. Why did I read women's magazines? Because the stylists in those

magazines? Because the stylists in those magazines are 6 months ahead of the curve. They have to see out. I live with

curve. They have to see out. I live with a fashion person, you know.

>> Yeah. Tamara,

>> she knows every season before something comes out. Oh, Michael, you know,

comes out. Oh, Michael, you know, something's back. Wow, come on. 3 months

something's back. Wow, come on. 3 months

later, we're in a place at a dinner and somebody's wearing baggy jeans >> when everyone else was wearing tight jeans and she calls it. And those

stylists gave me a foundation to talk to our actresses and to talk to their stylist. Not that I needed to go deep. I

stylist. Not that I needed to go deep. I

didn't. When I met Paul Newman, cold, I knew there was only one thing he was interested in. He loved racing cars.

interested in. He loved racing cars.

Made a movie about it. That was his hobby. I had been reading about cars my

hobby. I had been reading about cars my whole life. We talked for three hours in

whole life. We talked for three hours in Westport, Connecticut about cars. We

never talked about his career the first time I met him.

>> I think there's a line here that I always think about. The most interesting people are the most interested.

>> It doesn't It doesn't matter. to me it's like I don't really even care what is the source of your obsession. I just

like that you're obsessed with something and you go deep on there. I do have a um what I would say kind of a selfish question for you. So I was listening to

Michael Dell on a podcast and he's got great energy and the the the interviewer was asking like well when you were starting Dell like how many hours did you work and he goes all of them. And

then I read Jensen Wong's biography and he's like, "Listen, there's not a day that goes by that I don't work. Uh when

I'm not working, I'm thinking about working. Working is relaxing for me." In

working. Working is relaxing for me." In

your book, you had this line that when you were building your company that every waking hour was a working hour, which is a great line. So I see this reappear over and over again like, you know, we're absolutely obsessed with

what we're doing. So it's really hard to pull us away from from what we love to do. But there is something that I want

do. But there is something that I want to ask you selfishly. You also say that if you could have worked 10% less, it wouldn't have made a difference in your professional success, but you would have

been a lot happier. So, how should I be thinking about the contrast between these two statements?

>> Well, it's simple. I am a curious person as you know like you are. You're always

looking to learn. That's why listening to founders for me before I met you was a must. I discovered it by accident and

a must. I discovered it by accident and then Rick just went in like a bulldozer, you know, to make sure I met you. He

must have sent, you know, he sent us 20 texts to get us together and then he wouldn't give me your contact cuz he wanted to be the point of contact. Do

you remember that? Yeah.

>> He wouldn't put us together. He wanted

to be the one to do it.

>> So that 10% I would have loved to have been able to do homework.

>> To me, that's a that's working too though. It's like professional research,

though. It's like professional research, you know, like think about your your when you're William Morris, the two and a half hours you get there at 6:30 in the morning, you're doing all your reading, you're working a full day and then you're doing it again. To me, those

two the book ends to your day is just a form of professional research, which also could be >> to it. To me, the dichotomy and difference is that I'm not working to a financial goal. I'm working for

financial goal. I'm working for self-enrichment, which itself becomes a financial product. Because if I make

financial product. Because if I make myself wiser, better, more informed,

a a candidate that can give other humans that have a problem advice. Look, we all have problems. I learned this when I was 18. When I was working at Fox, everybody

18. When I was working at Fox, everybody had a problem. It became very clear to me. That's why I became an agent because

me. That's why I became an agent because I didn't need a skill set other than intelligence, persuasion,

intensity, and curiosity. But I didn't have to know how to make anything cuz I'm not capable of it. I'm talentless. I

can't write. I can't act. I can't

sculpt. I can't paint. I can't direct.

I frankly invest off people, not off all these insane rules that a lot of my friends that are venture capitalists put

up these kind of uh guard rails that they won't go outside of. I've never seen a guardrail

outside of. I've never seen a guardrail I don't try to jump. And I I think that's the that's the worst thing you can do because it creative people have

no guard rails. But for me, I realized everybody wants to have an of counsel. I

I will tell you for me, someone asked me in a in another podcast who was my Michael Oitz who was my adviser. I said I didn't have one and I

adviser. I said I didn't have one and I wish I did because I've saved a lot of people a lot of aggravation that I went through and I went through it because I

didn't have anyone like me to bounce things off of that had seen the movie before.

>> You didn't have it at the time you were building CA but do you have that? Did

you have it after and do you have it now?

>> I do have certain people now but it's not any one person like I am. I

am an advisor to a lot of people that would shock people. And I do it because one, I'm friends with them. Two, I learn

from them. Three, I enjoy it. Four, I'm

from them. Three, I enjoy it. Four, I'm

like a protective mother of my friends.

I will I have a very binary point of view about relationships.

Uh I'm not interested in any relationships in the middle. I'm

interested in >> What's the binary? It's

from a movie I saw when I was a kid that was made in the 40s with Errol Flynn where he drew a sword in the sand and said to his troops, "You're on one side

of this line or the other. Make up your mind." So that's me, friend or foe. Uh,

mind." So that's me, friend or foe. Uh,

you know, I'm I'm like the world's best friend for people and I'm probably not a great enemy.

>> I I would want you as an enemy. So, no,

cuz I'm very dogmatic in my support of people, >> methodical. I think if I made an enemy

>> methodical. I think if I made an enemy of you, you'd wake up every day.

By the way, I don't have that kind of time. And frankly, at this stage of my

time. And frankly, at this stage of my life, I don't have that energy for that.

>> But you did for a few days for a long time. I was a guy who could

time. I was a guy who could >> tell you people that 30 years earlier did something I didn't think was right.

I'm a big um believer in people need to have integrity and they need to keep their word. And the reason is when we

their word. And the reason is when we were starting CA and we had no money, nothing. We didn't even have a lawyer.

nothing. We didn't even have a lawyer.

So we were making tens of hundreds of deals with no contracts. So people had to keep their

contracts. So people had to keep their word, David. And it was very tough when

word, David. And it was very tough when you had no leverage and someone didn't keep their word. And unfortunately in the entertainment business there's kind

of a gradation of lying. The most lies in the when we started were in the movie business because it takes 3 years to make a movie. So you had a long time to

tell different stories. The second area was music. People really didn't tell the

was music. People really didn't tell the truth in music. They still to this day don't. It's like

don't. It's like >> it's a dirty business.

>> It's a dirty business. Um brilliant

business and tough to do. But like I I'm friends with a guy I have the so much respect for, Lucian Grange. This guy has more integrity than anybody I've ever

met. He's got Rockefeller integrity. He

met. He's got Rockefeller integrity. He

just calls it as he sees it. He's

transparent. He's open. He knows how to build a business. He understands talent.

He understands how to read a balance sheet. He's one of the old guard guys.

sheet. He's one of the old guard guys.

Diller was like that. Diller understood

people. Diller could read a balance sheet. And Diller, like a few of us,

sheet. And Diller, like a few of us, could read a script and play the movie in his head. Not a lot of people could do that. If they did, there'd be a lot

do that. If they did, there'd be a lot more successful companies and successful people. You could count on two hands the

people. You could count on two hands the number of people in my day that could do that. And when you're in the television

that. And when you're in the television business, there's no lying because you make these shows every week. So you have no time to c f fabricate a story and set

up a roose. And what we started at CA which was so simple everyone says oh it's so revolutionary. No lying. If you

don't have an answer if David Senra calls you and he asks you a question and you do not have an answer here's your answer. I don't know. I'm going to call

answer. I don't know. I'm going to call you back. That was unheard of in 1974

you back. That was unheard of in 1974 because everyone felt they had to make up an answer to show they were in the no. My point of view was why do that?

no. My point of view was why do that?

Then you got to remember something is that's a story that you made up. And

it's so easy to trap people that lie because they never get the story right twice. And we took notes on everything.

twice. And we took notes on everything.

Adnauseium. Everybody took notes on everything. Every staff meeting we had

everything. Every staff meeting we had that we had a scribe taking notes for followup. Follow-up was the key to

followup. Follow-up was the key to everything. You didn't even have to be

everything. You didn't even have to be smart. You had to have good followup. if

smart. You had to have good followup. if

you followed up, it kind of gave that extra point on the smart side of the scale. So for me, it's all about truth.

scale. So for me, it's all about truth.

It's all about transparency. I was on the phone this morning. I I got on the phone 6:30 this morning working on a deal I'm putting together.

the guy that gave us the idea who is in another company and is not the head guy at the company. He's number three.

There's a founder, a CEO, and this guy who's the COO. The COO is younger, half the age of the founder and really

bright. Came up with an idea. told my

bright. Came up with an idea. told my

young partner, who you know who's 32, which I partnered with intentionally because I wanted a young partner, period,

and called him, gave him an idea. My

partner immediately put him with me. I

spent an hour with him 5 days ago.

I then went and spent an hour with the guy he works for.

I then had multiple calls with both of them separately and then I called the guy who started it this morning at 6:30

in the morning. He's on the East Coast to give him a 100% update of every conversation so he didn't feel left out.

Did I need to do that? Most people would say no. I would say yes. He's now up to

say no. I would say yes. He's now up to speed. He's supportive and they're

speed. He's supportive and they're setting up a meeting for me with their founder because they're comfortable.

They're not getting cut out.

>> So, this is a relentless follow-up.

>> Relentless. And I made the extra call and my partner, my young partner, saw all this unfold and fell right in

step with it and handled it brilliantly.

That's makes me feel fantastic.

Fantastic.

because he's going to be here long after me and he carries on the torch. You

know, look, the guys that I left CA to, some of them I get along with great.

Some of them don't like me and I understand that because they'd like me to have died because my shadow hung over them and we always want to kill the

father and I get it. At the end of the day, I 50 years later, I think I did something right because the place is still functioning and it's still number

one, still has the biggest market share, and it's still the most influential company.

>> This is what I try to tell other founders, too. It's just like you guys

founders, too. It's just like you guys are obsessed with these startups. Like,

the goal should be to build an enduring company that lasts >> five decades now.

>> But you have to be selfless to do that, David. It's like what you're doing. You

David. It's like what you're doing. You

need volume. I told you this. You need

IP. You need to expose people that are underexposed. Expose people that are

underexposed. Expose people that are overexposed and reign them in so that for the audience so they get their essence. Listen, when I listen to your

essence. Listen, when I listen to your This is going to sound really stupid to you, but I never claim to be the smartest guy in the room or the dumbest.

I'm sort of in the middle. When I listen to the Vanderbilt uh podcast you did, now he's dead. So,

you did a podcast based on a book you read. I read the same book, but I hadn't

read. I read the same book, but I hadn't read it for 20 years. And I maybe less.

I don't remember. But you took all the salient points out of it. You hit a point which to use a minor point and to

me said a lot about the time and the person. You told a story of how he was

person. You told a story of how he was in a buggy thinking about sailing ships versus steam ships and that he knew he

had to make a big move and it was really dangerous cuz they didn't know if the steamship technology really worked, but he had to sell all his sailing ships to raise the money.

>> And he was kind of absent-minded and stopped.

>> Uh he was on his boogie. I I don't remember the exact story, but he stopped and somebody kind of attacked him or something and he got out of the buggy

and he beat the guy up. And that story resonated with me because I respected the guy's brain for

what he'd built. I respected the guy's brain based on my your podcast for his foresight and he did it not once, which for me is the key.

>> He wrote multiple successful technological roads when the boats became >> it's very hard for a company and a person to disrupt themselves to say hey

I got really wealthy you know and essentially you know fairing people >> and now I got to get rid of it >> exactly and especially when your point about the technology was interesting because yeah we we might have a debate

should we adopt this new AI technology this new software that technology was killing people people the steamship technology like it kept blowing up so you'd have these explosions they knew that's where it was going to Oh, because

you needed powered, you know, sales.

>> Yeah. But you didn't know if it worked.

>> That's the crazy thing. It's like, no, I'm going to disrupt myself. Get rid of the business that made me wealthy at the time.

>> He was one of the first disruptors and he did it with railroads. He realized he couldn't deliver inland with a boat.

>> Yes.

>> Which sounds pretty simple.

>> He realized his business was transportation, not sailing. And when

you think about what is your true business, it's not sailing. He's like, I just want to move people and goods from point A to point B. And how do I do that?

>> But here's the point of your story. To

me, only me. This shows you me, which as opposed to anyone else. And I don't know who else would think this. Maybe they

would, maybe they wouldn't. I don't

really care. Here's a guy who had foresight, commitment, and courage. He wasn't

afraid. Fear is the killer and enemy of business. Fear is the thing that kills

business. Fear is the thing that kills business. And we had a period in this

business. And we had a period in this country where people were scared to death to do things.

Every single time I had an idea, I told this story to somebody yesterday.

Uh at a at a meeting I was at, every idea I ever had or developed that someone else gave me, somebody told me it wouldn't work. that and gave me all

the articulated reasons and it was always more than one person. You can't

start an agency at 26. There are 180 of them and you'll never make it. It's too

competitive. You need too much money to do it. You won't get the big clients.

do it. You won't get the big clients.

You'll never sign movie star.

>> I'm glad you just said that. That's one

of my favorite parts of your book because again, when I'm reading a book, I actually see some of the scene like, you know, a book is essentially a movie for the mind, right? you have to come up with the the visuals yourself. And

there's this line in your book where they're like, you're like, "Hey, I'm planning on uh signing the movie, the big movie stars." You're like, "They're locked up. You'll never get them." And

locked up. You'll never get them." And

you said, "I'll get all of them." And I don't know if you did this, but literally what I just did, lean forward.

No, I did. Like, just like I remember the guy I said it to.

>> All of them.

>> I remember the guy I said it to. He was

a successful agent. He handled about 500 top writers in television, but never steered out of TV. If I had his business and I told him this in that meeting,

which is what stimulated his comment, I would have signed every movie writer.

>> This is why I don't think your assessment, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. Obviously, you know,

disrespectful way. Obviously, you know, I wouldn't disrespect you intentionally.

It's like, I do think you're creative.

You're saying, "Oh, I don't have any talent. I'm not creative." And uh like

talent. I'm not creative." And uh like this idea where you just said something about like, "Hey, I don't I don't even see guardrails, and if you put a guardrail in front of me, I'm going to hop over that." If you look at where you took There's a note from a friend of

ours. Obids didn't look at the existing

ours. Obids didn't look at the existing agency business as the boundary of his opportunity. He decided on his own what

opportunity. He decided on his own what he wanted to do and then he did it. And

he talks about the flywheel that you built up like this huge density of talent. You said, "Hey, I can actually

talent. You said, "Hey, I can actually control like I can control the supply and I can actually just create the entire package instead of just handling this like one little silo." That's

creativity.

>> Not really. But I It's creative business, but it's not it's we called it creative artist for a reason. Marty

Scorsese in his brain can cut a movie while he's shooting one camera at a time. I asked why do we have how many

time. I asked why do we have how many cameras have he got? I learned that from Marty. I learned so much about movies

Marty. I learned so much about movies from Marty that when I gave him an award in New York 25 years ago, I learned so

much from that guy. I said in front of 1,500 people that when I met Marty in 79 and he was in a bit of trouble, not creatively but financially and he wasn't

getting the movies made he wanted to make.

He became like a student of business.

10 years later he was the teacher and I was the student and I learned so much from him. But he has the ability to look

from him. But he has the ability to look at this setup here and cut it in his head and know where. He used to take his scripts and on the lefthand page that's

blank, he'd stick draw the scene and put little dots where the camera was going.

And if you look at his camera work and it the way his scenes are put together and the way he and Thelma who cuts his movies, the amount of precision and hand

work, it's genius. I can't do that. But

what I can do is smell things that I think work. There was a period in the

think work. There was a period in the 80s where it became very clear in the mid 80s that the studios were in financial trouble. And it started for me

financial trouble. And it started for me when Universal stock traded to a point where the book value of the the market cap of the

company was the value of the real estate in Burbank.

>> Yeah. and a guy named Steinberg, Saul Steinberg, started buying up shares and threatening to overtake the company. It

became very clear to me a number of opportunities were available to me and CA.

>> That's an act of creativity when you realized that the Japanese was just a new form of bank for the studios.

>> Well, but I'd been going to meet them because they were dominating industry in the 80s. If you recall, they were making

the 80s. If you recall, they were making all the gadgets and I was fascinated by Akio Marita and I read his biography >> that one of my favorite books.

>> It's unbelievable.

>> The idea that that guy that they could start Sony right after World War II, the Americans have occupied Tokyo. They

start Sony and they bombed out department stores cuz you know there's just I think they lost uh 66% of the population in Tokyo had left, right? uh

there most of the structures were either destroyed they or they were severely like damaged the very first office of Sony which is going to come you know become this massive conglomerate they

had to have umbrellas at their desk when they founded Sony and these they're like young kids I think a was like 25 at the time and his co-founder is a little older maybe he's like 32 and they'd have umbrellas on the desk because when it rained at work their papers would get

wet >> in 1951 starting in when the war wounds were still fresh. If

you lost someone in the Batan Death March or in World War II to a Japanese soldier or a German soldier, you didn't forget it by 1950. Ako Marita moved his

entire family to New York City.

>> Yeah.

>> You want to talk about courage? When I

talk about Vanderbilt getting out of the buggy and defending himself, he didn't have any security. He did it on his own.

You want to talk about courage? Let's

talk about Akio because this is something I I wanted to talk about when we were at dinner and I forgot because I just finished rereading his book and one of the most remarkable things in the book is you know remember Akio uh came

from he was his family had a saki a family saki business was 300 years old his life had essentially a path set out

for him I think he was going to be the 16th firstborn male heir to take over the business and he's like I'm uh interested in this. I'm obsessed with electronics. He was he was into physics.

electronics. He was he was into physics.

He was in engineering. He loved

technology. And him and his co-founder go and meet his dad. And they're like, "Hey." And he's like, "I really think if

"Hey." And he's like, "I really think if it would be okay with you, your son comes and helps me build this company.

It's going to turn into Sony." And what was remarkable about this is his dad's like, "Well, I had a plan for my son's life, but go and he tells his son, but go do what you're going to do because I

if I know you, you're going to do what you want to do anyways." very wise man >> spoke. Think about how he knew who his

>> spoke. Think about how he knew who his son was.

>> My dad was like that and had no high school education. He had a way with

school education. He had a way with words that was extraordinary. He had

great common sense. And

Morita had a father who let him go with no guilt. But he had something else that

no guilt. But he had something else that I was very impressed by. When I was advising him, he told me a story at dinner one night that just I'll never

forget to this day. The man who became his number two was named Noria Oga. And

Noria Oga, I said to Mr. Morita at dinner, can you please tell me the story of how you found him? And he said, Michael, I didn't find him. He found me.

I said, what happened? He said Sony released their first realtore tape recorder. You know this story?

recorder. You know this story?

>> Yes. It's hire a paid critic.

>> Oga was in college.

>> He was a senior. He was getting ready to look for a job. He went and auditioned at a store the real tore. We couldn't

afford it. He wrote a 10page handwritten single spaceac letter to Morita critiquing the realtore real

ripping it to smitherines.

Morita made all the changes and offered Oga a job and moved him through the company like a hot knife through butter >> and he eventually becomes president. Ao

said something very fascinating. And

he's like, "Listen, just like a ba ballet dancer needs a mirror, right? We

needed an oral mirror where this guy had a refined sense of music and hearing that I lacked." And so instead of being, "Oh, upset like you're trashing the product that I made." He took the

10-page document like, "Oh, this is these are actually good ideas. We need

to work."

>> Think about what you just said. Instead

of rejecting it or getting upset or saying, "What does he know? He's a

senior in college." He took the whole thing and used it. It's like I was very lucky. By the way, you want to talk

lucky. By the way, you want to talk about luck? I lived in a building in New

about luck? I lived in a building in New York that was I set up because I'd come in at all hours of the night because I never wanted to be out of LA more than

one day and one night or two nights I met. And

met. And living above me was Marty Scorsese and above him was Noryoga.

>> Oh wow. So, I would go visit them at night because I'd finish working in New York at usually about 9 because that's 6:00 in LA, sometimes 9:30, and I'd

always have dinner at around 10:00 and unless I had a client dinner, which was always at 8. And then I'd go see Marty and he'd every night watches a

movie every single night. And sometimes

if I didn't get dinner, I'd bring takeout food upstairs and listen to him and ask him questions. And it was like taking a master's degree in film. And

it's where I learned he knew every old director. I mean, every director he

director. I mean, every director he respected. I learned about a guy like

respected. I learned about a guy like Michael Powell who did the Red Shoes and how no one knows about that movie to this day. And it was the most

this day. And it was the most influential director on Marty imaginable.

And I learned to be able to talk to Stanley Kubri. He never had an agent

Stanley Kubri. He never had an agent except me. And I could talk to him

except me. And I could talk to him because Marty basically educated me. And I did a lot of reading and I knew about those old

directors. And I had all of our people

directors. And I had all of our people trained in the history of film and the history of television. I bought every book that was published. For example,

they had these big coffee table books on all the studios. bought dozens of them so our agents could just look through the pictures. I bought a book, I'll

the pictures. I bought a book, I'll never forget, the history of the Emmys and it listed, this is precomputer, all the Emmy Awards from the first Emmy broadcast. History of the Academy

broadcast. History of the Academy Awards. I made our people watch every

Awards. I made our people watch every film in the history of the Academy Awards that won best picture, best actress, best actor, best director, best writer, and best movie. Now, they didn't

have to watch every bit of it because some of them were really slow, but they got familiar with who were these actors, who's Gary Cooper, who's Robert Mitchum,

who's Lana Turner, who are these people, and what did they contribute? And by

doing that, our people were so fluent in their business. They could talk

their business. They could talk television, they could talk movies, they could talk music. They they knew history because past is prologue. If you know

history, you pretty much can predict the future.

>> I read something Jeff Bezos said that changed my perspective on the importance of highquality sleep. He said that he makes sure he gets 8 hours of sleep a night and as a result his mood, his energy, and his decision-m is improved.

His point was that you get paid to make high quality decisions and you can't do that if you're sleeping terribly. And

the product that has made the biggest impact on my quality sleep for years is eight. I'm lucky enough to be friends

eight. I'm lucky enough to be friends with the founder of Eightle, Mateo, and we live in the same city. A few months after I started using my EightLe, I randomly ran into Matteo at a restaurant, I was with some friends, and

I went over to say hi. When I got back to my table, my friend asked me who I was talking to. I said, "That's Matteo, the founder of Eightlee." And my friend replied, "He looks like he gets good sleep. Matteo is living and breathing

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eight.com/ senra. If you reach the top of your

senra. If you reach the top of your profession, you could be a tennis player, a sushi chef, an entrepreneur, a film director. They all have this

film director. They all have this encyclopedic knowledge of their industry in their head that they can draw in at any time. Let me give you example ti

any time. Let me give you example ti tied to Marita because like it kills me when I talk to founders young founders now they don't even know who this guy was and I was like you should study you should read about like oh why well Steve

Jobs built Apple right he's he was obsessed Marita Jeff Bezos built Amazon they literally will talk if you read their biographies you listen to their interviews they will talk about the things they spent why would they fly to

Japan and want to go meet them and spend time with them and read their books and study them it's like this guy obviously had genius ideas and one of the ideas that um Bezos says that he used at the very beginning of Amazon that he learned

from Marita was the importance of having a goal and a mission bigger than yourself. And so Marita's point was it's

yourself. And so Marita's point was it's not, hey, we're going to build the best technology and we're going to sell it.

We're going to get rich. His point was at the time Japanese products were thought of to be inferior, shitty, copycat.

>> By the way, they were and he wasn't >> and he faced it.

>> And so his point was he goes, "We're not going to be this is the genius thing that he did. We're not gonna make Sony known for high quality products. We're

gonna make Japan known for high quality products.

>> Big thinker. Big thinker. I remember

sitting with him and I told him that in 1961 my father gave me a gift of a transistor radio and it had to be David

8 in high, 3 in thick and it was a portable and it was made in Japan.

The Americans invented the transistor and licensed it to Japan to Sony for $25,000.

The Americans invented the realtore tape recorder at Ampex. As you know, we've discussed this. It was invented by a

discussed this. It was invented by a bunch of engineers to be able to record pornography because they were using 8 mm kinoscope to do that and it was inconvenient.

You know, oddly, porn drives a lot of technology in the old days. But it's all about thinking big. It's about doing things that are unexpected. It's about

when you say to someone, I think I want to save Universal and sell it to money that is not in the country. So there's

nothing they can do to take it.

>> Yeah. You can't move the Your point was like you can't move the studio. I got

criticized cover of Newsweek when I sold u uh Columbia pictures to Mr. Marita which was part of the strategy cuz I had

sold him uh with Pete Peterson and Steve Schwarzman because he was on the board and Steve had just started Blackstone

and was brilliant and we sold uh Colombia Records to Sony first which paved the way for Colombia Studios. It

was CBS records actually, not Colombia.

And for me, it served multiple purposes. Uh,

one, it kept these legacy businesses right where they needed to be. Two,

Japan was cheap financing cuz they had cheap money and tons of it. And three,

having a 75% market share of the talent for me wasn't enough, which people thought I was crazy because no one had ever gotten

over 25. We had 46 of the top 50

over 25. We had 46 of the top 50 grossing filmmakers in the world.

>> That's nuts.

>> And to me, I missed because I wanted 50 because it gave me even more leverage for our clients. But I wanted the leverage with the buyer, too.

So if I sold the studio to a Japanese company that no one had a relationship but me and my staff, then CA moved

another notch up in the ecosystem. So by

the time we got done, we had sold Colombia Universal got financing for Warers where they were

in trouble when Steve Ross was alive and sold MGM and saved it when the accountants wanted to plow it under. And

every time I went to do that, I was criticized when I said I wanted to do advertising because we had the skill set to un we understood culture. That was

our job. Why did I look at these magazines? I want to understand culture.

magazines? I want to understand culture.

Why did I read? Why did I collect art?

When I started collecting art, people thought I was crazy except the directors. When the directors came for

directors. When the directors came for dinner, they were mesmerized by the art.

And why? Because you take, as I said, that David Lynch, who I did a show for, Tim Burton, we did an art show, or Marty Scorsesei, we did an art show in New

York. take some of the frames out of

York. take some of the frames out of their movies and make them, reproduce them, mount them,

frame them in an art frame and hang them on a museum wall. You have a piece of art. It's just different source.

art. It's just different source.

>> It's moving art.

>> Yes. And it's the same thing. Common

denominator. People don't see past their nose. So what we try to do is train

nose. So what we try to do is train people to look further out. How do you get to the next step? Why did we do advertising? One, because I thought we

advertising? One, because I thought we could do it. Two, we had a better idea, which we did. Three,

all our clients had downtime. So

everyone said, "Oh, movie directors don't do advertising." Well, that's complete utter nonsense. They want to make money when they're not doing anything and they get to work 5 days and

make a million dollars. So they all did it and all the other agents that criticized us looked just pitifully stupid because they not only did it,

they enjoyed it. Ko was doing six commercials a year for the same budget.

We did 35 for the same budget and we got Quincy Jones to redo their theme song and we

changed their their uh saying for the time which was always coke is what we came up with. Quincy did a theme

song in six beats. He did it in urban, he did it in rural, he I mean in city, he did it in country and western. He did

it in classical and we used it all over the world.

>> There's something tactical about the Coke deal that I was thinking of when I was reading your book.

You knocked it out of the park with them. They were they they even told you

them. They were they they even told you how happy they were and yet they sent you a check and I can't remember the what check I think they sent you like a $3 million.

>> No, no, they sent me a check for a commercial we did. We did a black and white commercial. A guy who just passed

white commercial. A guy who just passed away named Len Frink who I stole from Jay Shy who was a genius advertising guy in LA. shy at day. They were amazing.

in LA. shy at day. They were amazing.

And what did I do? I reviewed who was amazing. I found the guy and I went and

amazing. I found the guy and I went and got him.

>> And everyone was shocked that I got him.

And I got him before we got the deal. So

that I got him and a woman named Shelley Hawkchan who did the most brilliant ad campaign ever at Paramont for Warren Batty's movie Reds. He was just genius.

>> But they send you a check.

>> They send me a check. We did a black and white commercial. They sent me a check.

white commercial. They sent me a check.

You're right. It was for uh $3 million.

No, it was 3 million. They sent the check for 3 million for the cost of the commercial.

>> Okay.

>> I sent it back intentionally telling them the commercial cost $30,000 and that they misread the invoice cuz they thought I made a mistake on the invoice, not me, our accounting guys,

cuz we build for 30,000. They said we >> Yeah, you that was one of your deals like you're not going to you're not going to charge more than >> We never They said we never had a commercial for less than 3 million. And

so we were thrilled and we thought you made a mistake and we trust you. So we

sent you the money. Sent it back. Sent

the check back void cuz we I said we did it on a Apple 2. Lenfink did the commercial on a Apple 2e computer. The first computer

Steve Jobs came out with and we did it in black and white and they didn't want to take the check back and that gave me the opening I wanted.

>> Okay. Explain that to me. I said to them, "We don't want you to overpay anyone except us.

You're not going to overpay for commercials, but you got to pay us." And

by that time, we had delivered the Polar Bears, which they're still using, 40 years later. Think about that. We

years later. Think about that. We

delivered 350 commercials over our tenure with them. No one's ever done that. Madison

them. No one's ever done that. Madison

Avenue got paranoid. But what was the difference between what they what they wanted to pay you and what you eventually were valuing your own work at?

>> It was huge.

>> So how do you get them from and >> well no the what they were paying for was a commercial.

>> Yeah. But I remember in the book like you essentially got them to pay what they were whatever whatever the number was they were trying to settle up on what they actually settled up on was considerably larger

>> because I I basically said there's not much to talk about. It's all visually available.

You you ran the 35 commercials and I suggested they do them in a in the theater in their building on Fifth Avenue, 5th and 55th where Allen and

Company is. And I said run and it's Herb

Company is. And I said run and it's Herb Allen who got me into this >> which is also your mentor Herb Allen the second right >> the best the best man on the planet. You

want to talk about integrity?

I sat in his office where Sar Redstone sent him a check for a million dollars rather than complete hiring him as the banker when he bought Paramount cuz Herb

was the banker of record and somehow got pushed out of it. And as Herb's talking to me, sitting where you're sitting, he took a scissors out of his desk and he while he's talking to me, he starts

cutting up the check and he cut it in the finest pieces he could and then he took it on the desk and he put it in the envelope that some sent it in and sent

it back to him by messenger. This guy

had the highest integrity I've ever seen in my life. never lied, never wanted publicity, didn't want to be in the limelight, did every deal with me, and I learned everything. Everyone said,

learned everything. Everyone said, "How'd you," my son said, "How'd you learn how to be an investment banker?" I

said, "I did it." And Herb Allen made sure I didn't make any mistakes. And but

you know, we talked about mentors before. Tomorrow said to me the most

before. Tomorrow said to me the most interesting thing. She said, "You give

interesting thing. She said, "You give so many of people a good advice." She

said, "You only give bad advice to one person, >> yourself."

>> yourself." >> Yes.

>> Interesting. And it's true. I've made

some of the worst decisions imaginable because I've had no one like me to talk to.

>> When was the last time you made a bad decision?

>> Well, I make bad decisions on a regular basis. I mean, they

basis. I mean, they >> consequential one, though.

>> Well, consequential is a different story. I mean, I made some I made some

story. I mean, I made some I made some bad decisions in parts of my career where I could have done things differently. It's a whole another

differently. It's a whole another podcast. But, uh, you know, it's

podcast. But, uh, you know, it's interesting. Patrick Collinsson, who I

interesting. Patrick Collinsson, who I have amazing respect for.

I got a call from him when my book six months after my book came out, three months, I don't remember. I was in I lived in San Francisco. He said, "What are you doing for lunch this week?" And

we made a lunch date. I went to the office. I sat down with my tray in his

office. I sat down with my tray in his commissary. My book sitting right there

commissary. My book sitting right there with like 90 or 100 post yellow postits in it.

>> I know the >> And I said, "You know this story?"

>> No, no, I do the same thing with my books. You see I Patrick sits down. He

books. You see I Patrick sits down. He

said, "Are you ready?" I said, "Yeah, I'm starving." He goes, "No, no, no, no,

I'm starving." He goes, "No, no, no, no, no. See your book." I said, "Yeah." He

no. See your book." I said, "Yeah." He

says, "I have a lot of questions." I

said, "Oh, sure. Anything." He said, "No, I want to know. I've marked every place you made a mistake. I want you to tell me why you made the mistake, what the options were, and what drove you to

the decision." And I looked at him and I

the decision." And I looked at him and I said, and I'm saying to myself, "Wow, this kid's special." Then I said to myself, I said to Patrick, I said, "And what about the things I did right, he

said,"Who cares?" He said, 'Th that's

said,"Who cares?" He said, 'Th that's expected.

So he went through for two and a half hours every mistake I made in the book, not in the book, that I made in my career.

>> And I said, I walked out of there with such respect for this guy that he took that time to do that in a business that has nothing to do with his, but everything to do with it. Because as you

and I said at dinner, every single business has the same parameters. When

we talked earlier when we started this discussion, I talked about how I was aware of what people that worked for me or with me because I called everyone a partner no matter what their interest in

the business was. I called mail room people partners. I would go around and

people partners. I would go around and do the rounds. The rounds I learned from being involved with the UCLA Medical Center. I was a doctor. And at 10:30 and

Center. I was a doctor. And at 10:30 and 4:30, I went around the building and took me 20 minutes and I looked in people's offices and if I saw a weird

face or a weird voice inflection when they said hello or anything that tipped me off, I asked them to come see me. I

had an open door from 7 to 7:45 every night before I went to dinner. I asked

them to come see me. And every single time there was a problem and 90% of the problems were personal. The 10% business problems were easy to fix. The personal

problems took a lot of time. If you want to put that kind of time in, you get loyalty. We didn't lose an agent in the

loyalty. We didn't lose an agent in the whole time I was at CA. Not one.

>> Yeah, that's that's down.

>> Well, people we we paid people fairly.

We paid them ahead of their market price. Everyone participated.

price. Everyone participated.

Everyone was protecting each other. We

didn't talk badly about people. We

protected each other. If studios tried to roll over one of our people, we'd all get behind that person and make the studio miserable. And we set our we

studio miserable. And we set our we elevated ourselves to a position, treat us nicely, and our clients will in turn do the things you need them to do.

You'll pay them for it by the way, and you'll probably pay them more than you're going to pay through other agencies. Listen, when Mike Nichols,

agencies. Listen, when Mike Nichols, when I signed Mike Nichols from he was one of the last people we took from ICM and his agent, he'd been with him for 25

years. Mike Nichols Price because he was

years. Mike Nichols Price because he was put in with our clients, you know, Oliver Stone, Barry Levenson, Ron Howard, Stanley Cubrick, Steven

Spielberg, Marty Scorsese, everybody.

his price went up $2 million because he fit into a higher strata price with us than with anybody else. And yes, when

asked if we price fix, I say no. And

yes, um we demanded for the AAA clients AAA pricing and you couldn't price one less than the other.

>> So you apply that same idea that you were using for filmmakers to your work with Coca-Cola then.

>> Absolutely. Absolutely. And I also did what I told you personally. Volume coke.

Why did I do 35 commercials instead of six? Easier to do six.

six? Easier to do six.

>> Did 35 because we ran it. The idea I had which they bought which Herb Allen arranged at Sun Valley to meet with the the team of Guisetta and Kio the CEO and

the COO was let's do a relay race. Let's have

Coke thought of 365 days a year. How do

we do that? Well, it's simple.

Christmas, we do something about the cold and about Santa Claus, which was a Coke creation in the 30s. Let's go to Valentine's Day love. These are what the commercial bases are on. Then we're

going to go into Easter family, summer, thirst, heat, beach. Then we're going to go to the fall. What is it? It's back to school. Everybody's kids go back to

school. Everybody's kids go back to school. Then we're going to go to

school. Then we're going to go to Thanksgiving. We're back at family. And

Thanksgiving. We're back at family. And

then we're going to roll right into Christmas. So, we're going to do a uh

Christmas. So, we're going to do a uh commercials specific to those seasons rather than six commercials that play in

every silo of television. How do you put a commercial on Saturday Night Live that you put on a daytime soap opera that you put on Seinfeld? You can't do that. And

we didn't. All our commercials were demographically tailored and it killed it. We made the cover of Time magazine

it. We made the cover of Time magazine and I go back to what I said to you before. Everyone told me we would fail.

before. Everyone told me we would fail.

Everyone said it's a stupid idea.

Everyone said your clients are going to get upset.

>> When did you build the self-confidence to not listen to people? I I it annoys me. I see this in every single one of

me. I see this in every single one of these biographies I read where it's like don't ever let somebody else tell you what you're capable of.

>> You need self-confidence to ignore that information. So like when did you or

information. So like when did you or that that that critique or that advice at what age did you have that when you were in high school? Did you have that before C?

>> I wrote about this in my book. This

self-confidence appeared when I lost the ninth grade election for class president. And I did a complete

president. And I did a complete post-mortem on myself, who my friend group was, and why I lost because I didn't want to be a loser. I thought it

was and it was an it was a apocryphal moment for me and I worked for two years to build different social con constituency and I went out of my way to

make different friends in different areas of the I had a 3,800 kid high school so running for an office there was a big deal cuz everybody voted and

you had to speak to the entire school in three different assemblies cuz that's all they could get into the gym. And it

was critical. I practiced public speaking when I was in the 10th grade and 11th grade. And I won student body vice president, then I won student body

president by wide margins because I really worked it. No different than I worked any business I've been in. And I

realized, and I said this to someone this morning on this call about this deal I'm doing, the young guy who's the number three who started it said to me,

I've never seen anyone move so fast from idea to execution of putting it together. And I said, cuz if you move

together. And I said, cuz if you move slow, it doesn't go together. And he

said, you seem very confident about this idea. And I said, "Yes, I'm very

idea. And I said, "Yes, I'm very confident about it because I see it crystal clear in its entirety."

And I he said, "I'm not sure that our you know that I'm confident about you meeting our founder

because you've probably heard a lot of nasty things about him." I said, "I've heard a ton of things, some good, some bad, but I really don't care." And he said, 'Why do you not care?' I said,

'Because I'll make my own judgment.' I

said, 'I'm very good with people. I will

know if what I've heard is true, false, or just bologoney. And I said, frankly, if you want to know the truth over my career, if you believed everything everyone said, I'd be a miserable

failure and drumed out of life. You

know, because anyone who is confident, aggressive, has ideas, wants to push the envelope is put down.

>> Yeah. Jeff Bezos has a great line on this. It's like, if you don't want to be

this. It's like, if you don't want to be criticized, if you can't take being criticized, then you can't take doing you can't do anything. I'm going to leave you with a a line that I I used when I was 17 years old and gave a speech when I ran for student body

president because when I was student body vice president I usurp the president's duties and he was bad mouthing me like crazy and it was working pretty good because I was having

a run for my money and I said to the students, all 4,000 of them, I'd rather be a do something president who's done something to be criticized than a do

nothing president who no one can criticize.

>> Yeah, that's a great line.

>> And that got me the election.

>> I want to ask you a question because you've mentioned a few times where your appetite is essentially insatiable.

So you had, you know, 46 out of the top 50 highest grossing film uh like best talent. Then you had 75% market share in

talent. Then you had 75% market share in all of Hollywood. There's this great book, one of the most important books I've ever read. It was published in like 1957. It's called The Mind of Napoleon.

1957. It's called The Mind of Napoleon.

>> You got me into this. Yeah, it's it's very hard to find books. So I I have friends that have paid $1,000 $22,000 for the book and I think it's worth it where it's essentially 300 pages of

Napoleon in his own words and >> there's something that when when I hear you speak reminds me Napoleon where he said you know essentially his ambition grew with his success and he says it in

French but it you can the translation is appetite comes with eating you know for excessively ambitious driven people it's not like oh I ate so I'm full it's like no I've eaten and the more I eat the

more I But that's 100% accurate. Listen,

I one of my clients went crazy about, Francis Ford Copel wrote a screenplay that one of my clients that I was also crazy about who passed away named Franklin J. Shaft directed. It was

Franklin J. Shaft directed. It was

called Patton. I am a voracious reader on anything about military leaders. I've

read about Patton. I've read about Omar Bradley. I've read about Dwight D.

Bradley. I've read about Dwight D.

Eisenhower as military leaders.

Blows my mind when everyone said to Patton, "You can't do this." He said, "Okay." Said, "You're right." And he

"Okay." Said, "You're right." And he just went and did it. How did he get his army to march double the amount of

the standard army march, supply them, feed them, and not irritate them? Cuz he was a leader and he had

them? Cuz he was a leader and he had guts and he wasn't afraid. and people

couldn't stand him. Not his people though. Not his people. So for me, if my

though. Not his people. So for me, if my people support me, I'm fine. What other

people say, I don't really care. I don't

think about it. I get asked this question every single day of my life. I

am tomorrow calls me the truth teller because I say the truth. I said it to you. I gave you my best advice of what I

you. I gave you my best advice of what I thought you should do. I may not be right. No, you

right. No, you >> No, I may not be. I may be. No, the

funny part about that is so you know I one of one things that so when I asked you earlier it's like hey if you think about the people that are best in the world at what they do if you if like one trait think about all the people you you

met that are the best in the world to do you became the best in the world to do what is the most single most important trait that you've observed across all these people my answer to that question would be focus and so like I'm insanely

focused on just podcasting and I only think about it that's basically all I think about all day long and when we had that in very intense three-hour dinner 20 minutes of It was you explaining this is what I would do if you were if I was you.

>> But that's to just push you.

>> But the good the interesting part was as you as I told you is like I the advice you had for me I had already put into you didn't it wasn't public so you didn't know this put into motion. I was

like it's pretty impressive that you can come from outside of something I think about all the time and you nailed the single best opportunity.

>> That's the only talent I have. That's

>> the only talent you have.

>> No I I have the ability to think out of the box on any business which is creative. No, not going to argue with

creative. No, not going to argue with you. I have the ability to think out of

you. I have the ability to think out of the box on any business. Even though if I don't know the business because I have this thesis and I've said it a hundred times to you and to everybody else,

every business the same.

>> Now the details are different, right?

But the businesses the blocking and tackling is all the same. And it's

always about momentum and focus and loyalty and aggressive uh control of marketplace and monopoly.

Monopoly. I'm a monopouist. If we were going to build a business, you have to be number one and you have to have the

lion's share of what you're doing or the lion's share of opportunities of what you do. If you pass for fundamental

you do. If you pass for fundamental reasons, that's good, too. But you can't do anything halfway. It's crazy. This I

learned as a kid. There's nothing like when I had a paper route at nine, I realized I had enough time to do three paper routes and I went and under

another name got the other two because the guy delivering the bulk of papers thought he was delivering to three different people and he thought no one could do all three. And I figured out I

could do it. And then I hired someone to help me when it became an issue. So it's

always about thinking the next step.

It's that great Bruce Lee line which I showed you. If you if this is where you

showed you. If you if this is where you want to punch, this is not the target.

This is the target back here and you punch through. That sounds stupidly,

punch through. That sounds stupidly, naively, innocently kind of elementary. But if you think about the broader ramification about

that, it's a foundation of business and those are all things that I think are important. You talked about Michael

important. You talked about Michael Dell. I saw Michael Dell at a conference

Dell. I saw Michael Dell at a conference in Aspen last year. That guy's still working every hour of the day.

>> He's remarkable person. He started his company 18. He's in his 60s. Has no

company 18. He's in his 60s. Has no

desire at all. But that's, you know, he had to paper out, too. But he and but he figured out this crazy in his own way of how to maximize how many subscriptions

he could sell. And he realized that if you were either there's two people that bought uh newspaper subscriptions in Texas, Texas has a much higher rate than the general population, which is

newlyweds and people that moved. And so

he's like, "Hey, all that information is public in Texas." He went down to the courthouse, brought a computer, right?

his his Apple 2 computer and he just had them pull give me a list of all the people that are married just recently married and all the people recently moved just like that doing that at 12 he was 12 years old

>> think about what you just said detail right drive ambition don't give up just keep going you know I had a dinner

in London um I don't remember if I told you this story recently that with a friend of tomorrow who's a businessman and five guys in business asked to have a dinner

with me cuz they want to understand why are American businessmen so successful on a comparative basis broadly to other people around the world

why are they so successful and there's a lot of reasons but the we sat down at the table very formal everybody in suits the five guys were in their 50s they all

were pretty successful except one who opened the the and said, "I'm" He started the dinner said,

"I'm moving toad from London." Oh, I said, "Taxes?" He said, "No

said, "Taxes?" He said, "No >> skiing."

>> skiing." >> So I said, "Do you like No, that was the question." I said, first question in

question." I said, first question in front of everybody before we ordered, "Do you like to ski?" He said, "No."

I said, "What happened?" He said, "My business bank went bankrupt."

I said, "Okay, you don't like to ski.

You're leaving London. You're going to start and it's not a tax problem and your business failed." I said, "So what?" He said, "What do you mean, so

what?" He said, "What do you mean, so what?" I said, "Failure is a part of

what?" I said, "Failure is a part of life." In America, failure is a badge of

life." In America, failure is a badge of honor. It means you tried. You get back

honor. It means you tried. You get back up on your horse and you try it again. I

failed at a number of things. Doesn't

stop me. And all of a sudden the meeting was pretty much over because I said to him, "We don't need to talk about this anymore. There is no such thing as

anymore. There is no such thing as failure. It doesn't exist. You cannot

failure. It doesn't exist. You cannot

give up." And by the time we got done with dinner, he was not going to move to and ultimately did not and is working on a new business.

>> I'm glad you brought that up because one of the things uh there's one of my favorite lines. So you know this like I

favorite lines. So you know this like I take every book I read, right? I try to distill it down to like the 10 most important sentences in the book and one

of them for you was this completely I strip it of all of context because I think if you just read the sentence you'll understand why the sentence is important. So I'm not even talking about

important. So I'm not even talking about what's happening in the book but this is the sentence I wrote down. He stopped

because it was hard. It required

discipline, dedication and hours and hours of time. Everyone stopped. I

didn't stop. It's one of my 10 favorite senses in your book. My question to you is how much of your success do you attribute to just pure endurance or pure perseverance?

>> I mean, to me, it's just part of a fabric of me. And I'm not suggesting I live the right kind of life. It's good

for me. I want to stay edgy. I want to stay with young people. Most of my relationships now are with young people.

I learn I I feel I get up in the morning. I have a purpose. When you were

morning. I have a purpose. When you were building CIA though, you were under enormous amounts of stress. Was there

and you you had this crazy schedule that you detail in your book, you know, essentially on it 20 20 hours a day, 200 phone calls, 300 phone calls a day. Um,

when was there ever a time where you almost quit?

>> No.

A failure is not an option when you come from where I came from.

>> But even after you were already wealthy, you weren't working for money.

>> About money. It's about a whole series of other things. And when you grow up in the San Franando Valley and your father makes about 300 bucks a week on a good

week and you don't get any allowance and you have to have a paper out at 9 to be able to go buy an ice cream and you're also saving for a car cuz when you're

16, you know, your dad can't afford it.

Um, failure is not an option. It's

binary. There's no option. Success

or death. It's like what are you going to do? It's it's you don't have any

to do? It's it's you don't have any choice. I don't want to go back to the

choice. I don't want to go back to the valley. This the most scary thought of

valley. This the most scary thought of my life.

>> Do you think that still drives you? Like

you're so you I I know you're intelligent enough to realize that would never possibly happen. But I can't help but notice that like you still don't let your foot off the gas.

>> That's not the reason. I like it. I love

the action. I love meeting people. I

love learning. I love being focused. I

like I like to get into new things. So

when did your your motivation come from I'm obsessed with this, I love this.

Because at the beginning it was I don't want to be a loser.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. So when did that switch from I am terrified to wind up like I you said in your book like I felt you you felt like you were born in like the wrong nest like a cuckoo bird. Right. It's like I I'm not in the right situation for what

I feel my life should be.

>> Well I always say I should have grown up on the East Coast.

>> Why?

>> Because it's a very different environment. It's a creative environment

environment. It's a creative environment in LA or it used to be not much anymore as it should be but uh New York was

about multi- different businesses and culture and art, film, music, finance, advertising, everything was in New York when I was a kid.

>> Let's go to New York in one second. But

this it went from I this can't be my life is like the way I describe this can't be my life is a very powerful motivator in in your early life. Now it

has switched to I'm obsessed with this.

I don't ever even think of retirement.

I'm constantly like in inspired every day. I want to like create new things.

day. I want to like create new things.

So when did that switch in your life happen though? When did it come from

happen though? When did it come from like almost like a negative uh motivation to a positive one?

>> You mean as far as gaining the confidence to try to do >> I don't even know if it's confidence.

It's just like your your source of your inner this inner desire to win this burning desire to to achieve mission success. And that's very obvious in your

success. And that's very obvious in your early life, right? The source of that was an unhappiness, a deep unhappiness with your present station in life. Now

eventually that drives you so much that you it almost I would say caused of a lot of people's success. Now you're not you're not worried about ever going back to the valley and now you've trans the

source of your motivation and your drive every day is like oh I just like I'm a >> I it's a really smart question and I've

got to answer it and it kind of brings me full circle here. Um,

I say this to certain people I'm close to, which is there are parts of me that still live in the valley

that I'll never forget my whole life.

And it's gonna sound crazy, stupid, but um I find myself sometimes I remember when I was a kid and my dad was a liquor

salesman and his some of his accounts were restaurants. So, he used to take us

were restaurants. So, he used to take us to early bird dinners because he would get a uh a discount on the dinner before 6:00.

And we'd go at 550 to a restaurant that I thought was fancy that had full three course meals for $4.95, 5.95. Think about that. And he'd

$4.95, 5.95. Think about that. And he'd

order one drink, which he never drank.

He just nursed it because it was his product. And we were not allowed to

product. And we were not allowed to order lobster or steak or anything over a certain price on the menu. And

I was saying to Tamara the other day occasionally that I slide back into that which is weird because I don't even look at checks anymore. You know when they come

checks anymore. You know when they come I mean we had dinner together. You saw

that I just sign the check. But

sometimes I find myself looking at a menu and automatically glancing to the price for no reason. By the way, I don't care. But

care. But >> yeah, >> I I it's my childhood and I think it overwhelms me sometimes, which I find a positive by the way because I still feel

like winning and I still feel like competing and I still feel like bringing Right now my mission is to bring young people along and to do well and to make

change and to be charitable and to help young people not make the mistakes I made. and I'm enjoying it and it just

made. and I'm enjoying it and it just that flame is not going out.

>> It doesn't sound silly nor stupid to me at all. I I keep saying this over and over again. I feel

I just tell the same story every week because the same personality type just reappears over and over again throughout history. This entrepreneurial

history. This entrepreneurial superdriven type A personality type.

Obviously you have it. I think I have it as well. And it's it it's separated by

as well. And it's it it's separated by time in which they lived. They live in different parts of the world. they uh

work in different industries and yet that same personality type. It's the

same way I feel. I just uh my my older brother called me and you know it's like very hard to get time with me because I work seven days a week like my eyes are open. I'm thinking about work and he's

open. I'm thinking about work and he's just like why are you working so hard and I was like it's like look up and down our family tree. He's like nothing but losers on both sides and what I feel

I'm doing is it makes no it's not logical.

>> David think about this. I wouldn't be here if we weren't like-minded. Doesn't

matter what we >> Yeah, that's the first thing you said to me when we sat down.

>> I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been friends with you. I wouldn't be interested because there's no common denominator. There's no hook for a

denominator. There's no hook for a foundation for the relationship.

>> I So the Again, a lot of these questions are selfish cuz I I use this format to like learn directly from you. One of my favorite things obviously we spend summers in in Malibu. When you're in

Malibu for July 4th is very important holiday to me. My dad's a Cuban immigrant. I'm, you know, hugely pro-

immigrant. I'm, you know, hugely pro- capitalistic and hugely pro-American and you can't do um fireworks here because of all the fires. So, I try to figure out a way to celebrate America during

July 4th for my daughter. And so, what I do is like at first I made her do this and now she does her own. I made her uh watch Hamilton the musical on like Disney Plus. And there's a there's a now

Disney Plus. And there's a there's a now she'll like she knows all the songs and she went to go see it on Broadway and she likes the soundtrack and everything else. But one of my favorite probably my

else. But one of my favorite probably my there's two two of my favorite songs in Hamilton. It's like one of them is

Hamilton. It's like one of them is non-stop which talks about volume which mean you talk about over and over again just the guy just wouldn't stop. He

wouldn't stop writing. If he's awake, he's writing. He's trying to get his

he's writing. He's trying to get his ideas out there. But the other thing is just the fact that he understood as, you know, same situation. Poor orphan kid comes to America. He's like, didn't matter. He's the right hand of George

matter. He's the right hand of George Washington. He's the first Treasury

Washington. He's the first Treasury Secretary. He he's was impossible to

Secretary. He he's was impossible to satiate. It was impossible. What he

satiate. It was impossible. What he

understood about himself is like, I will never be satisfied. I I'm going to ask you this question. I think I already know the answer because we've talked enough. I just don't think there is even

enough. I just don't think there is even that even registers with you. It's like

you will never be satisfied. You don't

look at it as there's like there's no end to your ambition or the what you want to do in this world.

>> I'm I'm going to give you a simple answer. Um I don't want it to.

answer. Um I don't want it to.

>> What do you mean? I don't want there to be an end to ambition or enthusiasm or curiosity or the things that drive me to

help people to be an adviser to people.

I don't get paid for being an adviser.

You didn't pay me for having dinner with you. As a matter of fact, now that I

you. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I paid for dinner.

>> I offer now that I think about I paid for dinner twice. Okay. In any case, I want that

twice. Okay. In any case, I want that life or I wouldn't do it. Believe me.

>> I just read your friend Barry Diller's autobiography, which is really interesting. And he has a line in there.

interesting. And he has a line in there.

You know, they're just like, I don't even I don't think about retirement. I'm

not interested in. He goes, I wake up every day and I have ideas.

>> Yeah. Well, that's how I feel.

>> Okay. So, I'm going to change gears about what we were talking about real quick because there's one thing on the list that I absolutely have to uh get to and I want to get to. This is probably the last thing we talked about. I want

you to tell me about we talked a lot about people that have a lot of charisma, a lot of intelligence. I loved

what you wrote in your book about your friendship, your deep friendship, your life. You sounds like multiple decade

life. You sounds like multiple decade friendship with Michael Craig.

>> 30 years.

>> What can you tell me about your relationship with Michael?

>> Um, certain people have touched my life in a very unique way. Um, Ben Horowitz and Mark Andre in 99 put me on their

board and I never met either of them and they had the confidence in me to go into a business that I told them I knew nothing about. I mean, I had some

nothing about. I mean, I had some experience in tech from 92 with my Andy Grove Intel CIA deal, meeting Gates in

93, but you know, nothing like they did.

They grew up in Silicon Valley. That was

a huge uh life change for me. Uh

Michael Kiteon was one of these guys that at the beginning I just needed to sign as a client to be on the roster.

And after two or three meetings, I just said, "My god, this man is so special.

He was not just intelligent to a degree I'd never seen at that time. This is

1979.

He was thoughtful. He was ahead of everybody in his thinking. He was

talking about computers in the early8s.

He was an Apple fellow when it was no one knew what the hell that was.

He traveled extensively and wrote articles about it, but kept notes on everything he did. And he loved art.

He wrote the definitive textbook on Jasper John's. To this day, it's the

Jasper John's. To this day, it's the definitive book.

And I talked to him every day of my life, seven days a week. Seven days a week. And if I didn't talk to him, it

week. And if I didn't talk to him, it was odd and I missed it. I would talk to him no matter where I was. I could be in Japan. I could be in Europe. I could be

Japan. I could be in Europe. I could be in New York. Didn't make any difference to me. And sometimes the conversations

to me. And sometimes the conversations were short. Sometimes they were long. I

were short. Sometimes they were long. I

enjoyed every second of it. Going on

vacation with him was a a lesson in curiosity. The guy kept notes on

curiosity. The guy kept notes on everything he saw. So I remember we were in the Caribbean together. He kept notes on everything that he saw and it all

ended up in movies. And

I value loyalty as a very important point for me in a relationship.

every problem I had or every success, he was there for me. I remember I made a couple of huge mistakes and he said to me

um something I've never forgotten. He

said, "Forget it. There's always another rodeo." That's his line to me. And he's

rodeo." That's his line to me. And he's

turned out to be right. I miss him every day of my life. his book stands and on my desk and a a small personal

collected by him uh Frank Stella drawing that he gave me as a gift uh is in a place I see it every single night

before I go to sleep and I love this guy he and I was devastated when he passed away devastated because he passed away

young did didn't have Uh, it was his own fault, I think.

>> What happened?

>> Well, he was a doctor, you know, a medical doctor. So, I personally, I

medical doctor. So, I personally, I could be wrong. I don't know it for a fact. I think he kind of overdid the

fact. I think he kind of overdid the chemo and I think that killed him.

That's my guess. Or it's caused something to happen. But I don't know the facts, by the way. But a loss to me that was devastating. And I remember the night that his wife called me because it

was the night that Obama uh I think won the election. It was that night. I'm not sure. Some some event

night. I'm not sure. Some some event happened and I was in the backseat of a car and I got the call and I was devastated. But for me, mega influence

devastated. But for me, mega influence on my life. Uh mega uh loyal friend through thick and thin. Didn't matter

what I did. He didn't judge me. And he

had this this extreme I think I learned this from you. He had extreme work habits where he wouldn't write every day but when he wrote he would write for like >> Yeah. I had all my writers and we had

>> Yeah. I had all my writers and we had 400 of them had different work ethic and different schedules. So James Clell who

different schedules. So James Clell who wrote Chauvin in Taipan um he would write every day from 7 in the morning till 12:30 hell or high

water 6 days a week. And at 12:30 he went to lunch and he didn't work until the next morning and he did 10 pages a day. That's what he did. So you could

day. That's what he did. So you could almost tell when he was going to be done and his books ran about 1,200 pages.

Michael hated writing. He rather do thinking and he waited for deadlines and he wrote Jurassic Park in five months

because he wrote 20 hours a day, 6 days, 7 days a week cuz it was due and he just waited.

>> What do you think is the most important thing you learned from him?

>> From him?

Oh, unequivocally curiosity about everything. guy was curious about

everything. guy was curious about everything every day of his life and uh loyalty integrity

how to create things out of nothing.

What a what a mind that can think forward and backward. So in other words, he did movies like The Great Train Robbery 18 1850s

with Shan Connory and movies like Andromeda Strain about the future and his thought process and then straight

popcorn entertainment based on science that really isn't science. Jurassic

Park. But when you read the book, the first third of the book, you're being educated without you knowing about paleontology. and you actually think you

paleontology. and you actually think you understand it and that you have a PhD in it. It was genius. What do you do? So

it. It was genius. What do you do? So

then when you it gets a when the movie breaks loose, you actually think you understand what you're saying. It's

amazing. He was a genius.

>> Relentless curiosity. That's a great place to close. Michael, thank you very much for doing this.

>> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

everybody.

>> I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please

remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review. And make

sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've

Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear

your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.