00:00:00
the legend I'm I don't say that L the
00:00:02
legend Michael obitz is in the building
00:00:04
arguably one of the most successful
00:00:06
Talent agents ever he R from working in
00:00:08
a mail room to become a super agent
00:00:11
representing some of Hollywood's biggest
00:00:12
stars one doesn't get to a place of
00:00:16
success without having made mistakes
00:00:19
people say all kinds of things about him
00:00:21
really really all kinds of things about
00:00:23
him we went out to win and when you go
00:00:25
out to win you make certain sacrifices
00:00:27
we were tough and we were aggressive and
00:00:30
I had a philosophy of win at all costs
00:00:32
when we did uh the cost was huge rise or
00:00:36
fall on our own Deeds our own brains our
00:00:39
own willpower it's no crime in being
00:00:42
vulnerable with people everybody has an
00:00:44
issue I want to leave the planet a
00:00:46
little better than when I came on please
00:00:48
join us in welcoming Michael loit
00:00:53
wow thank you so
00:00:55
much Michael all right we have been
00:01:00
we have been trying to make this happen
00:01:02
for three years you're a hard one to get
00:01:04
a hold of
00:01:06
um if you don't know
00:01:09
Michael you shouldn't be
00:01:13
here Michael um co-founded
00:01:17
CA and his book is uh fantastic by the
00:01:20
way yeah who is Mike Ovitz yeah it's
00:01:22
such it's such a read you could just
00:01:24
skim through it by like read right
00:01:26
through it because it goes by so fast
00:01:27
it's incredible um in 1975
00:01:30
where um you know Michael is really
00:01:33
known for transforming Hollywood and
00:01:36
transforming the media business um one
00:01:39
of the big Innovations of many in
00:01:41
Michael's career has been the the the
00:01:43
the innovation of packaging which really
00:01:45
changed the power dynamics and the
00:01:47
trajectory of uh how content was made in
00:01:50
Hollywood um Michaels had we were just
00:01:52
talking about this kind of three careers
00:01:55
both as the founder of CIA and then
00:01:58
later um a partnership with Andy Grove
00:02:01
in 1993 where you formed the
00:02:03
ca Intel media lab and really tried to
00:02:07
bring technology to Hollywood and then
00:02:10
later joined up with Mark Andre and have
00:02:13
helped Mark and Ben since then scale up
00:02:17
and recent horowits and really change
00:02:19
how Silicon Valley operates and um it's
00:02:22
just an incredible reinvention story but
00:02:24
one where it seems you've brought a
00:02:27
similar sort of set of Innovations to in
00:02:30
in all three phases maybe you can tell
00:02:31
us a little bit about those three major
00:02:34
Transitions and the you know the the the
00:02:37
way that you kind of made the decision
00:02:39
to kind of reinvent yourself and uh
00:02:41
bring technology and media together well
00:02:44
first of all uh thank you for having me
00:02:47
I I'm honored to be here uh I must say
00:02:51
I've been going up to the valley since
00:02:55
1992 probably hard for most of you in
00:02:57
the audience to believe this but I'm
00:02:59
much older than all the guys up here um
00:03:03
and these are four of the uh not just
00:03:06
the smartest but the uh most effective
00:03:10
men that I've met up in the valley with
00:03:13
respect to what they do how they do it
00:03:16
and then lastly I have tried since they
00:03:19
started the all-in podcast I have
00:03:22
applied 15 times to be a
00:03:26
best and I I have been rejected by one
00:03:31
of the four up here which I will not say
00:03:34
which
00:03:34
[Laughter]
00:03:37
one but we all want to have what they
00:03:40
have and I was saying to David in the
00:03:43
backstage it's so fantastic how they've
00:03:45
set something up that is so interesting
00:03:48
to listen to to learn from even to push
00:03:51
up against you don't have to agree with
00:03:53
it which is what I like about it but to
00:03:55
hear it from something we all want in
00:03:58
our lives which is close friends where
00:04:00
you can say whatever you want as a
00:04:02
matter of fact some of the stuff they
00:04:03
say to David I find offensive but I
00:04:06
think I too he he he handles it really
00:04:10
well so back to the question um I I have
00:04:14
an insatiable appetite for information
00:04:18
and for trying to stay up with things
00:04:23
that are current I started in the
00:04:25
entertainment miss this when I was 17
00:04:27
years old believe it or not I was the
00:04:29
first tour guide at Universal Studios
00:04:32
they had hired five uh men and five
00:04:35
women and uh I really learned so much
00:04:40
about the media business and and how
00:04:44
they made entertainment because
00:04:46
Universal was in every area in film
00:04:49
television music books everything and
00:04:52
it's all the same by the way it's just
00:04:54
different uh iterations of it it's all
00:04:56
made to entertain people and I got the
00:05:00
bug uh I went to
00:05:02
UCLA uh took me 3 years to get out of
00:05:05
there I couldn't get out of there fast
00:05:06
enough but I went to the first class and
00:05:09
the last class that's why when I was
00:05:11
here I got really scared cuz I kind of
00:05:15
missed the classes in between because I
00:05:16
worked full-time at 20th Century Fox and
00:05:19
just had a blast uh and then I went into
00:05:23
the agency business in my early 20s I
00:05:26
was at Universal was a tour guide I saw
00:05:30
uh these men uh and women dressed really
00:05:34
well being received well by everybody on
00:05:37
the studio lots and I I said wow that's
00:05:40
interesting what do they do I found out
00:05:41
they were agents and I realized I could
00:05:43
get a very wide education and I've
00:05:46
always been interested in making myself
00:05:49
smarter about things because I'm not I
00:05:52
don't have the gift that a couple of
00:05:54
these guys up here do which is or all of
00:05:56
them which is raw intelligence I've I've
00:05:59
got uh educated intelligence I have to
00:06:02
really work at it and I really
00:06:05
enjoyed that time and and getting into
00:06:08
it we broke off when I was 26 A bunch of
00:06:12
us for a whole series of reasons from
00:06:14
the William Morris agenc he started CA
00:06:16
with a very simple thesis which was that
00:06:19
we were going to do something as a team
00:06:22
rather than
00:06:23
individually and it just worked really
00:06:27
well artists enjoyed having a group of
00:06:30
individuals to talk to which is not
00:06:32
dissimilar to what these four guys have
00:06:34
accomplished artists liked being
00:06:37
surrounded by multiple people with
00:06:39
different uh skill sets so that worked
00:06:42
really well uh in
00:06:46
1992 uh you could smell in La something
00:06:51
going on up North but the thing about
00:06:54
Los Angeles and the enter and
00:06:55
particularly the entertainment Community
00:06:58
is it's an incredibly siloed Community
00:07:01
they don't accept people very well from
00:07:04
the outside which by the way makes it
00:07:07
very inbred and it's not particularly
00:07:11
wise it may be smart for the moment but
00:07:13
it's not wise so I started going up to
00:07:17
San Francisco to see what was going on
00:07:19
up there and then in the middle of ' 92
00:07:22
I called cold Bill Gates and he it
00:07:26
wasn't the Microsoft of today it was a
00:07:28
small company company and I went up and
00:07:31
met with Bill and then he introduced we
00:07:35
talked for 4 hours about where my
00:07:39
business and his business could converge
00:07:42
and the only thing I will tell you is
00:07:44
neither of us had any idea but it was
00:07:46
the start of a discussion Bill
00:07:48
introduced me to a man named Nathan
00:07:50
mirval who I'm still friendly with today
00:07:52
who was the first CTO of Microsoft and I
00:07:55
was an advisor to three of the four
00:07:59
major record labels and I remember being
00:08:03
uh at one of the music uh labels that
00:08:06
had 25% market share and there were
00:08:09
stereo speakers in there and Nathan had
00:08:11
said to me I can't explain this to you
00:08:14
but music's going to come from up there
00:08:18
I had no idea what he was talking about
00:08:21
and I advised all four companies that
00:08:23
something was happening and that hard
00:08:25
Goods weren't going to be able to be
00:08:28
sold and
00:08:30
I got fired by one of them I got thrown
00:08:33
out by the other three they thought that
00:08:36
Nathan was crazy they didn't understand
00:08:39
what Microsoft was and they had no
00:08:41
interest in computers or anything
00:08:44
digital and then from there I went and
00:08:46
met Andy Grove we started a dialogue and
00:08:49
we brought uh every conceivable piece of
00:08:52
hardware and software available to Los
00:08:55
Angeles put it in our Beverly Hills
00:08:58
Building uh the top of the building had
00:09:00
like eight dishes on it it looked like
00:09:03
we were going to take off and we invited
00:09:05
everyone from the entertainment business
00:09:07
to come in and see and test all
00:09:11
this to to wrap this
00:09:15
up it was a great thing and a sad thing
00:09:20
we knew something was coming we had no
00:09:22
idea what but the business did what it
00:09:25
always does it put its head in the sand
00:09:27
and no one looked to San Francisco go
00:09:30
and today when I meet with people in the
00:09:34
business it's interesting when I explain
00:09:37
to them how streaming has basically
00:09:40
changed the Legacy business forever and
00:09:43
it will never change again and it's all
00:09:46
because everyone that we worked with
00:09:49
refused to embrace change which to me is
00:09:54
sort of the Mantra of my life I want to
00:09:57
change I've changed my life personally
00:10:00
I've changed careers three different
00:10:02
times it's all about learning and about
00:10:05
pushing yourself and it wasn't just
00:10:07
media because you were very early to
00:10:09
helping company like like paler as an
00:10:13
example it's not just hey Michael Ovitz
00:10:15
is a Hollywood guy or a media guy you
00:10:16
were an adviser to a pure tech company
00:10:19
yeah can you tell us a little bit about
00:10:21
what you did with paler and how you got
00:10:24
involved and what role you played so in
00:10:27
99 um uh
00:10:29
a young man named Mark Andre who
00:10:31
happened to have been on the cover of
00:10:33
Time Magazine barefooted which I thought
00:10:35
was really weird uh and he called me
00:10:39
cold I didn't know who he was frankly um
00:10:42
I had heard of him I had heard of him
00:10:44
because we were doing work for Jim Clark
00:10:48
um who Mark was in business with and uh
00:10:51
he had a company that was very close to
00:10:54
the media business at the time I guess
00:10:56
you could say it was a pre- Adobe type
00:10:58
business
00:11:00
and I met with Mark and I can't explain
00:11:03
to you what happened but we went to a
00:11:05
lunch that was going to take an hour I'm
00:11:07
not long on lunches I don't do 1our
00:11:10
zooms and I hate long calls because you
00:11:13
can't get anything done so I thought we
00:11:15
were going to be an hour we were four
00:11:17
and a half hours and at the end of that
00:11:19
he said will you come on the My Board
00:11:22
with Ben Horwitz we starting a company
00:11:25
called
00:11:26
loudcloud and I said explain it to me
00:11:28
and he did and I had no clue what he was
00:11:30
talking about I I just didn't understand
00:11:33
it he said all this data is going up in
00:11:35
the sky and all I could think of was
00:11:37
Nathan telling me that about music and I
00:11:40
said wow now two smart guys really smart
00:11:42
guys a lot smarter than me are talking
00:11:45
about what's going on up there so I went
00:11:47
on Mark's board uh I'm still involved
00:11:50
with them 25 years later and uh Mark
00:11:54
basically introduced me to everyone up
00:11:58
in the valley Reed Hoffman Peter teal
00:12:00
Mark Zuckerberg everybody that he dealt
00:12:03
with and one of the guys he introduced
00:12:05
me to was Peter teal who I just had
00:12:08
dinner with last week and is one of the
00:12:09
smartest guys I've ever met and he put a
00:12:14
ton of his own money into paler he had
00:12:17
no investors he had a small investment
00:12:20
from
00:12:21
DARPA I had no clue what they did but he
00:12:24
called me up he said can you help me
00:12:26
because
00:12:28
we are in business with the US
00:12:30
government and they don't pay very well
00:12:34
and that I could empathize with um they
00:12:37
they take a lot of money in tax but they
00:12:39
don't pay very well and I said what do
00:12:42
you want me to do because you know my
00:12:45
coding uh is a bit limited and uh he
00:12:49
said I want you to help get com uh set
00:12:52
up a commercial business so without
00:12:54
going through a long boring story uh
00:12:57
after Peter got a dozen phone calls
00:12:59
being criticized for bringing me in to
00:13:01
do this which he actually enjoyed by the
00:13:04
way which is what I love about him uh I
00:13:07
met with Alex karp for three months in
00:13:09
his office I was living in San Francisco
00:13:12
uh three days a week and I looked at
00:13:14
everything they were doing they only had
00:13:16
at the time about 25 30 engineers and
00:13:20
came up with some ideas starting with
00:13:23
three silos narrowed it to advertising
00:13:26
health care and finance got rid of the
00:13:29
two of them quickly because Finance was
00:13:31
a no- breiner the whole world had gone
00:13:34
under with the mortgage crisis and paler
00:13:37
actually had an
00:13:39
algorithm that you could plug an address
00:13:42
of a house into it and they they did
00:13:46
this after I asked them to you could
00:13:48
plug an address of a house and it
00:13:49
scraped a million data points within one
00:13:52
mile of the house how many kids were
00:13:55
leaving private school how many
00:13:56
hamburgers were sold how many dry CL
00:13:59
cleaning stores closed it was like a a
00:14:01
brief in a nanc of the economy and JP
00:14:06
Morgan couldn't off a mortgage for the
00:14:09
life of them if they wanted to
00:14:12
because they had local branch managers
00:14:14
who love their jobs all the mortgages
00:14:17
were underwater they didn't want to make
00:14:19
a decision we put palent online they got
00:14:23
permission to plug the address in and
00:14:25
whatever the bid ass came up they could
00:14:27
close we promised we deliver in 90 days
00:14:31
I always over uh I always under promise
00:14:35
and overd deliver and we delivered in 55
00:14:38
days and we saved them $150 million to
00:14:41
the bottom line in that 55 day period
00:14:45
and that became a request from them the
00:14:50
only problem they had is they forgot to
00:14:53
make a deal with me for the
00:14:56
software so they had this unbelievable
00:14:59
old and no deal and uh they offered I
00:15:03
think 2 million for a one year license
00:15:07
for five years and I called Peter and he
00:15:09
was just dancing on his desk he couldn't
00:15:12
believe it and I said I turned it
00:15:17
down so he said you've lost your mind
00:15:21
and started yelling at me as only in a
00:15:23
nice way and I said just give me 15 days
00:15:26
I used to be an agent and he said uh
00:15:29
okay in any case 15 days later they came
00:15:32
back and they made a deal that was um
00:15:36
many many multiples of that price and
00:15:39
they became the first of the commercial
00:15:43
business at palente tier and then and
00:15:45
now today their business I they were
00:15:47
just added to the S&P sorry they were
00:15:49
just added to the yesterday and they
00:15:51
6040 I'd say commercial versus
00:15:54
government government Michael can we
00:15:56
talk a little bit about the move mov
00:15:59
business the entertainment business we
00:16:00
were just watching all this generative
00:16:02
Ai and I got the sense you were looking
00:16:05
at it um with either anger contempt or
00:16:11
sadness um you've made such amazing or
00:16:14
you know orchestrated such amazing
00:16:16
seminal Works um during Peak Cinema
00:16:19
something fredberg sax and I grew up in
00:16:22
defined you know a lot of um the way we
00:16:24
look at Art and now it feels like it's
00:16:26
lost in many ways I'm curious when you
00:16:28
see people making things with generative
00:16:31
AI what happens to your heart and to
00:16:34
your mind it's a great question Jason
00:16:37
and I'll tell you why first of all
00:16:40
streaming has basically destroyed the
00:16:42
Legacy business you've probably all seen
00:16:44
in the Press what's going on with
00:16:45
Paramount where the elant have purchased
00:16:48
the company at a at a price that's
00:16:50
probably 20% of what it used to be um it
00:16:54
was one of the great seven horsemen of
00:16:56
the entertainment business business I
00:16:58
was was talking to David about and Jason
00:17:01
earlier there's the entertainment
00:17:03
business went from a you get paid
00:17:06
upfront and then you get a piece of the
00:17:08
profits so since streamings come you get
00:17:11
paid up front there are no profits your
00:17:13
products in The Ether your books in The
00:17:16
Ether your songs in The Ether music is a
00:17:19
little better because thanks to danielc
00:17:21
everybody gets a royalty but it's very
00:17:23
different than it used to be so
00:17:26
streaming has destroyed
00:17:28
the business that I grew up in it's why
00:17:30
I wanted to get out of the entertainment
00:17:32
business you could see it
00:17:33
coming uh
00:17:36
secondly I think that the if you look
00:17:41
past that and you look to AI right now
00:17:45
it's
00:17:46
bittersweet the things that can be done
00:17:49
are mind-boggling we just saw a slight
00:17:51
example I'm involved uh with a company
00:17:54
out of Germany with three young phds
00:17:58
from the the University of heidleberg
00:18:00
they have just released their first
00:18:03
product uh of text to video I've never
00:18:06
seen anything like this in my life
00:18:09
visually um you can say what you want
00:18:13
and it shows up and I mean it's
00:18:16
perfect um the technology is staggering
00:18:19
and I've seen every one of them for
00:18:21
obvious
00:18:23
reasons the people that work in this
00:18:25
community and
00:18:27
250,00 thousand people in Los Angeles
00:18:31
make their living in the media
00:18:33
business they are all afraid of one
00:18:36
thing and that is are they going to have
00:18:39
a job or be able to work so if you talk
00:18:42
to a production designer the man or
00:18:46
woman who comes up and draws and Designs
00:18:49
every shot so they can light it and
00:18:52
figure out continuity and who's wearing
00:18:55
what and what they're going to shoot so
00:18:57
they can get their to minutes of film in
00:19:00
12 hours because that's what you get you
00:19:03
work two 12 hours a day you get 2
00:19:05
minutes of usable
00:19:07
footage I am working on a project right
00:19:10
now with Netflix and a production
00:19:13
designer I interviewed asked me at the
00:19:16
end of the meeting he said Michael I
00:19:19
need three weeks to do this project but
00:19:22
I'm using these two AI programs which I
00:19:26
approved and he said I can do it for you
00:19:28
in 3 days he said does that mean I'm
00:19:31
going to be out of a job when that 3
00:19:33
days is an hour and anybody can do it
00:19:36
and I honestly I didn't have a clear
00:19:40
answer to put his mind at e because the
00:19:43
answer is probably a little yes and a
00:19:46
little no but it's incredibly disruptive
00:19:51
now on the other side of the
00:19:53
coin is it going to have emotion and
00:19:57
heart if you look back all the way to
00:20:00
the history of video games to Pac-Man
00:20:03
which was a a nothing game but a it was
00:20:06
viral in the world it had no heart it
00:20:09
was nothing it was just some thing
00:20:11
eating other
00:20:13
things but look where we are today with
00:20:17
full motion video video games and once
00:20:20
you get the face and the eyes right in
00:20:25
video games and in animation and
00:20:27
animation has done the best of that it
00:20:30
sucks people in emotionally so the
00:20:32
question Jason can AI do that or do they
00:20:36
need a human being to do that and nobody
00:20:39
has the answer can we just talk about
00:20:41
the the community aspect because the
00:20:43
implication of generative AI is I sit in
00:20:46
front of my screen and I say show me
00:20:49
something romantic comedy horror film
00:20:52
sci-fi here's the premise and you get
00:20:54
something or you have some directions
00:20:56
and everyone ends up with personalized
00:20:57
content which is
00:21:00
effectively what you know distributed
00:21:03
social media did everyone's kind of
00:21:04
consuming different Tik toks and
00:21:05
different Instagrams but everyone seems
00:21:07
to coales around one and then we still
00:21:10
all watch the same Netflix show and we
00:21:11
talk about it we have a conversation
00:21:13
about it does generative AI change the
00:21:16
nature of media which is a shared
00:21:18
experience a community experience that
00:21:20
we all talk about or do we end up in a
00:21:22
world where everyone's got their own
00:21:24
Media or their own content and what's
00:21:27
how does the jury kind of
00:21:29
ultimately decide that I think I think
00:21:32
it's an individual decision from all of
00:21:35
you sitting in the audience it's binary
00:21:38
you either want passive entertainment
00:21:40
because you're exhausted you want your
00:21:43
brain taken to another place I used to
00:21:46
love to watch big set movies that were
00:21:51
took me outside the United States to
00:21:54
relax when I was in the agency business
00:21:56
I mean we watched 105 minutes of film
00:21:59
every night just to get a sense of what
00:22:01
directors do but when we were stressed
00:22:04
believe it or not even being in the
00:22:05
business we would go back to pictures
00:22:08
like David leans Lawrence of Arabia or
00:22:10
Stanley Kubrick's 2001 or um any of
00:22:15
these pictures that transported you
00:22:17
James Bond the early I represented
00:22:20
connory the the early Bond movies were
00:22:23
made for a nickel and took you all over
00:22:26
Europe and there were places I just
00:22:28
wanted want to experience the other side
00:22:30
of that coin on the binary side is
00:22:33
active entertainment do you want to
00:22:35
create your own ending do you want to
00:22:36
change characters do you want to try to
00:22:38
put a movie together do you want to go
00:22:41
to a site that has the rights to an old
00:22:43
movie star like Clark gel or Humphrey
00:22:45
Bogart or Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper
00:22:48
or the greats of the 40s and 50s and
00:22:52
make your own movie it's all individual
00:22:55
I think everybody will make up their
00:22:57
mind Netflix an experiment with a show
00:23:00
with a bunch of different endings and
00:23:02
it's fascinating you never heard
00:23:04
anything about it I want to ask you
00:23:06
about attention spit can I ask a
00:23:08
question yeah sure of course um let's
00:23:10
talk about um free speech and censorship
00:23:13
when you were building your business you
00:23:14
had these free speech absolutists like
00:23:17
Larry Flint who are not anywhere related
00:23:19
to your business but over there fighting
00:23:21
for a certain set of basic rights um and
00:23:24
then underneath that as a result I think
00:23:25
there was like this envelope that it
00:23:27
created for
00:23:29
creative people to just go and push the
00:23:31
boundaries tell stories explore things
00:23:35
um how is that the same as what's
00:23:37
happening now and different so you know
00:23:38
you talked about working with Netflix
00:23:40
one of the jokes about Netflix is it
00:23:42
sometimes starts with sort of like an
00:23:43
agenda per se say around content and you
00:23:46
know even if it doesn't necessarily map
00:23:48
to good content it reflects certain um
00:23:51
ideas how do you think about that just
00:23:54
well it's a it's a great question
00:23:55
because it's like at the Forefront of
00:23:58
every conversation um this company I'm
00:24:00
working with in Germany it's called
00:24:01
Black Forest they you know they put
00:24:04
certain guide rails on what can be done
00:24:08
and then they found someone uh you know
00:24:11
someone on X used the content to I mean
00:24:14
use the algorithms to create something
00:24:17
that was questionable right but they
00:24:19
can't stop it they're just the provider
00:24:22
so it's a debate going on all the time
00:24:25
when I started in the business in the
00:24:27
60s the every the there was only three
00:24:30
television networks seven Motion Picture
00:24:34
companies there was five publishing
00:24:37
companies that publish books and there
00:24:40
were five record companies and they were
00:24:43
The Gatekeepers to everything we read
00:24:46
heard or saw and as agents and the
00:24:49
reason I became an agent is we became
00:24:52
the gatekeeper to the gatekeeper which
00:24:54
no one had ever thought of so we
00:24:57
basically took 75% of the talent to the
00:25:00
company within eight years of
00:25:03
starting and we went to The Gatekeepers
00:25:06
and we told them what they could have
00:25:09
versus them telling us what they could
00:25:12
have so we would uh Michael kryon who
00:25:15
was a longtime client gave me a book um
00:25:19
and it was a book about three people uh
00:25:22
on a island off the coast of Costa Rica
00:25:26
and it was an amusement park with
00:25:29
Prehistoric
00:25:30
monsters and the Monsters got out and I
00:25:34
read the book and I called them up I
00:25:36
said my son likes dinosaurs I like
00:25:39
dinosaurs and my dad likes dinosaurs
00:25:41
we're doing this movie I called Steph
00:25:44
Spielberg and I said I need you to read
00:25:47
this tonight which I've never done in
00:25:50
all the time I represented him and he
00:25:52
said you have to get permission from My
00:25:54
Wife and because he wasn't allowed to
00:25:57
read at night so I called Kate who was
00:26:00
also a client and she said it was okay
00:26:02
he called me at 6:00 the next morning
00:26:05
and said I'm
00:26:06
in it was the first time in my history
00:26:10
that a filmmaker had said to me I'm
00:26:12
going to do a movie with no script I'm
00:26:14
going to do it off the book it was that
00:26:17
good and Jurassic Park has probably done
00:26:20
four or five billion dollars of box
00:26:23
office minimum plus ancillary rights and
00:26:26
I think that when I think about it it
00:26:30
suffered the same thing that happened
00:26:32
when I started in the business there
00:26:33
were actually was a
00:26:36
department at the three networks that
00:26:40
read everything looked at everything and
00:26:42
told you what you could not do and some
00:26:45
of it was so
00:26:47
ridiculous that the creative people went
00:26:49
crazy some of the biggest fights as
00:26:52
agents we ever had was protecting our
00:26:55
creatives against the authority of what
00:26:58
what was the censorship department and
00:27:00
we're right back there now we are right
00:27:03
back there now this whole concept of AI
00:27:08
how do you protect I had a conversation
00:27:10
yesterday something I never thought of I
00:27:13
was looking at Cyber companies and I was
00:27:16
on the phone with someone that works at
00:27:18
a big cyber
00:27:19
company and he gave me a
00:27:22
thesis asked me what I thought how they
00:27:26
could protect the following someone does
00:27:29
a piece of
00:27:31
AI that
00:27:33
is you Troth and it's got an
00:27:38
invoice with you on it approving that
00:27:41
that invoice should be paid right the
00:27:43
invoice looks very legitimate it's got
00:27:46
your wiring instructions and it goes to
00:27:49
the
00:27:50
company and it's not you and it's not
00:27:54
your invoice and you your office
00:27:58
automatically pays the bill they see you
00:28:00
they see the invoice they pay the bill
00:28:03
how do you protect against that that's
00:28:05
just the tip of the iceberg and it's all
00:28:08
everyone's talking about right now how
00:28:10
do you handle this there was this
00:28:12
incredible moment I guess from Robert
00:28:15
Evans to yourself um Bob Delhi of the
00:28:19
studio head the person who could make a
00:28:23
gut decision to Greenlight something as
00:28:26
you were sort of just describing with
00:28:27
Jurassic Park and then something crazy
00:28:32
happens the accountants the
00:28:35
financiers take over and they OU the URS
00:28:38
and the and the people who have taste um
00:28:41
and then we're all suffering through the
00:28:44
78th Marvel movie or television series
00:28:48
that is just done without any care or
00:28:51
thoughtfulness and we lose these adult
00:28:54
movies that you made that your
00:28:56
contemporaries made uh um that Define
00:29:00
Cinema that Define art that defined
00:29:02
storytelling whether it's the Godfather
00:29:03
the conversation shape culture you know
00:29:07
and I'm I'm curious when you look at
00:29:08
those Studio heads in that moment in
00:29:11
time is there any chance that could ever
00:29:13
come back because we're I think part of
00:29:15
the reason why people don't have an
00:29:18
attention span for Cinema and for this
00:29:21
incredible art form that's being lost is
00:29:23
because these Bean counters these
00:29:26
bureaucrats are not letting the artists
00:29:29
make important work anymore like you did
00:29:33
it's a different world I got I'm so
00:29:35
lucky I can't articulate it enough I've
00:29:39
seen both so I got to work at the with
00:29:43
where there were people running Studios
00:29:45
like Lou waserman ran
00:29:47
Universal uh dick xanic ran Fox and all
00:29:51
the um the executives were they didn't
00:29:55
work for big companies some of the
00:29:57
companies had stock that traded just you
00:29:59
know on its own and those that didn't
00:30:02
were private Universal was Private up
00:30:04
until I sold it to matsoua Electric it
00:30:07
was a private
00:30:09
company
00:30:11
and I was telling this story to someone
00:30:13
at dinner the other
00:30:15
night no one that studies film when I
00:30:18
teach at a film class I will ask how
00:30:22
many of you see black and white movies
00:30:23
almost no hands go up how many of you
00:30:26
have seen movies prior to 1980 no hands
00:30:29
go up how many of you know who Frank
00:30:32
kapr is or David lean or Stanley cubrick
00:30:35
I just go right down the list of the
00:30:38
greats that set the foundation for the
00:30:41
American cultural ethos in entertainment
00:30:44
and and at one time entertainment was
00:30:48
the second largest export of the United
00:30:51
States which no one realizes between
00:30:54
movies television books and Records
00:30:57
second largest export after aircraft
00:31:00
those numbers don't exist
00:31:01
anymore and
00:31:04
it's it's a different world and I tell
00:31:06
this story about
00:31:09
how a man named Irving thalberg at
00:31:14
MGM in the late 20s and 30s at 28 years
00:31:18
old pumped out 350 films a year and if
00:31:22
you look at the titles they're some of
00:31:24
the greatest movies ever made
00:31:28
it was all from his stomach he didn't
00:31:31
have any data he didn't look at Tik Tock
00:31:33
which none of us should look at anyways
00:31:36
but that's a different issue um he
00:31:39
didn't see reals he wasn't on Instagram
00:31:43
he wasn't looking at short form
00:31:45
content the you know the one negative
00:31:48
thing that the valley has done for
00:31:52
creativity is they have trained viewers
00:31:56
which I thought was imposs possible 20
00:31:59
years ago to consume content differently
00:32:03
I want it
00:32:04
short I want it fast I want to ease drop
00:32:08
on other people they don't need to be
00:32:10
celebrities I'm going to make somebody
00:32:12
that's celebrity that isn't a celebrity
00:32:15
and has no
00:32:17
talent but they seem to know how to put
00:32:20
makeup on so I'm going to follow them
00:32:23
and there's data coming out of your
00:32:25
eyeballs you have the streaming service
00:32:28
is giving
00:32:29
filmmakers data on who's looking at what
00:32:32
how old the character should be how
00:32:34
good-looking this one should be how badl
00:32:36
looking this one should be what should
00:32:38
the heavy look like who the director
00:32:40
should be based on the past 20 films
00:32:43
because we've put it in the
00:32:45
computer it doesn't work like that and
00:32:48
social rules social is and this is a I
00:32:51
mean you know I don't know if you want
00:32:53
to comment on that before we wrap we are
00:32:55
uh running a bit late but that's it
00:32:57
David we could keep going I mean um but
00:33:00
there is a there's a there is a big um
00:33:03
he's a bestie yeah there's there's a
00:33:05
you're best now I'm trying out here so
00:33:08
you guys I need you guys to convince the
00:33:12
one of the four guys up here that I
00:33:14
should be with them on this podcast wow
00:33:18
that would be be honor you know Michael
00:33:21
it used to be that Hollywood kind of set
00:33:25
culture Hollywood
00:33:27
um Hollywood kind of created whatever
00:33:30
social phenomenon became The Fad dour
00:33:33
but now um there's culture there there's
00:33:36
there's social rules and restrictions
00:33:38
that are being imposed on Hollywood I I
00:33:41
no one wants to talk about it out loud
00:33:43
but how much do you feel like the
00:33:45
business is constrained and challenged
00:33:47
Now by you know these social movements
00:33:51
well I mean let's start with the woke
00:33:53
movement okay I wasn't going to say it
00:33:55
yeah okay here we go I mean I I don't
00:33:57
have any problem raising it if it
00:33:59
doesn't bother you guys I think I'm okay
00:34:02
with
00:34:05
[Applause]
00:34:07
it it uh it's hard to believe that it's
00:34:10
had a huge impact on what you see what
00:34:13
you read not what you hear musicians
00:34:15
have been really clever about getting
00:34:18
around that because if you watch some of
00:34:21
their music videos they just do what
00:34:24
they want to do but it's short form it's
00:34:26
3 minutes around under can I just make a
00:34:29
quick observation as we wrap up here so
00:34:31
I didn't really understand what Michael
00:34:34
had done to disrupt the agency business
00:34:36
until a couple of decades ago I had the
00:34:38
opportunity to visit the original
00:34:39
William Morris office and the original
00:34:41
CA office that you designed with imp and
00:34:45
the original William Morris office it
00:34:47
was like this honeycomb where the each
00:34:49
agent would have this little office and
00:34:51
then uh there was an outer office where
00:34:53
they had their assistant and there'd be
00:34:54
a hallway to get to that it was and you
00:34:56
know there'd be like a longer hallway
00:34:57
way no one could ever see each other
00:34:59
everyone was kind of on their own and
00:35:01
then if you visited the original CIA
00:35:03
office it was this open space it was
00:35:05
like this modern office like get see in
00:35:07
a startup where everyone could see each
00:35:08
other and it immediately helped
00:35:11
underscore and helped me understand that
00:35:13
how significant this team approach that
00:35:15
you had to team packaging was and why
00:35:17
you could do such a fundamental
00:35:19
disruption in the industry so that's
00:35:21
observation number one the second
00:35:23
observation is that when I read your
00:35:25
book the one of the concepts that really
00:35:26
stood out to me was that when you talked
00:35:29
about packaging and putting together a
00:35:30
package you always had this concept of
00:35:33
what you called the motor which is it
00:35:35
was the element in the package that
00:35:37
would make it go so in the example you
00:35:40
gave with Jurassic Park you had the
00:35:42
element of Steven Spielberg and really
00:35:44
in that case the element was the IP that
00:35:46
you got from Michael kryon right and you
00:35:48
put that together there was two elements
00:35:49
two elements in that case but that
00:35:51
always stuck with me and you know even
00:35:53
when I'm dealing with startups I'm
00:35:54
thinking about what's the motor here
00:35:55
it's frequently the founder in their
00:35:57
vision should be um but it seems to me
00:36:00
that uh that you were the motor not just
00:36:03
for CA but really for an entire era in
00:36:07
the entertainment industry and I want to
00:36:08
give you credit for that well thank you
00:36:10
thank you Micha amazing we'll have you
00:36:13
back
00:36:15
again yeah