The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 9 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Ovitz pitched Jurassic Park to Spielberg, who agreed to direct immediately
“When I put Jurassic Park together, and I read the book, I said to Michael a couple of things. I said, one, it's brilliant, and everyone loves dinosaurs. Two, you don't need a big star, because the dinosaur's the star, which was important financially. And three…”
Ovitz: Rigid VC guardrails are counterproductive when investing in creative talent
“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
guardrails that they won't go outside of. I've never seen a guardrail I don't try to jump. And I think that's the worst thi…”
Ovitz consulted for Steve Jobs on Pixar during its earliest days
“I consulted for years for him on Pixar when he first had the idea, and it was some of the best times I ever had because he's whip smart, unbelievable memory, totally unstoppable with an idea,”
Ovitz: CAA agents were required to watch every major Oscar-winning film
“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.”
Ovitz used three AI platforms for six hours of active deal research
“I went down a rabbit hole on three AI platforms. I spent Six, seven hours, two different days. I was, ah, I had so much information that I needed to add to my instinctual information because I'd been around that business so long.”
Ovitz defaults to twenty-minute Zoom meetings instead of standard hour blocks
“When someone says to me, I have to take an hour of Zoom, I kind of laugh at them. I said, what law is there on the planet that says a Zoom has to be an hour? I said, frankly, if you get free Zoom, they cut you off in 45 minutes. I said, so what rule is it that…”
Ovitz instituted 90-day meetings requiring 200 CAA employees to pitch ideas
“We had a set up where every 90 days we put 200 people in a circle with their chairs tied to each other, and everybody had 30 seconds to pitch an ID and you couldn't pass.”
Ovitz: Loudcloud buyers in 1999 did not understand what cloud meant
“When I was on the board of Mark's first company Loud Cloud, 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 th…”
Ovitz: Traveled weekly to NYC and took red-eyes to work six-day weeks
“I traveled to New York every week, to Japan once a month, and to Europe once a month, and, but I did, 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 …”