Opinion
Ovitz: Businesses should strive to eliminate competition rather than co-exist
“And I'm a monopolist. I believe in Peter Thiel's theory on monopoly. I don't believe that you should have competition. They have to be eliminated. That's the American way, in my opinion. Everyone says there's always room for competition. I don't think there's …”
Opinion
Ovitz: Forced wokeness put Hollywood's content business in its worst state ever
“I think it contributed to the demise of the content business in Hollywood right now. I think the content business is in the worst place it's ever been, and I think this forced wokeness Has not been productive.”
Assertion Contradicted
Ovitz claims CAA never lost a single client during his entire tenure
“In the years I was at CA, we never lost a client, and the reason was if they tired of one person, they'd go to the next, but everyone was up to speed.”
Insight
Ovitz: Packaging tech startups is functionally identical to packaging entertainment projects
“But other than that, the packaging of a film or a television show or a record or a book is no different than the packaging of an idea for a digital company, for a company in technology. It's all the same. The founder's the creator. The VCs, the money in tech, …”
Opinion
Ovitz: 1970s Hollywood agents fabricated answers over half the time
“When I started CA in seven day four, it became very clear to me that lying was a industrial problem in the entertainment business. Everybody didn't tell the truth. One of the reasons they did not tell the truth is since they didn't know the term knowledge is p…”
Opinion
Ovitz: Acting, directing, and writing are among the hardest jobs
“I think they have, I think one of the most difficult things in the world to do besides being a physicist or a brain surgeon or any kind of surgeon, I think it's being an actor or a director or a writer.”
Opinion
Ovitz: Hollywood was built for single people to socialize 365 nights yearly
“I always felt that Hollywood was manufactured for people that had no significant others. No children, no home, no family, nothing, except maybe a two-bedroom apartment, because they could go out 365 nights a year and find companionship with others in the same …”
Insight
Ovitz: Founders unable to explain their business in 20 seconds should quit
“If you can't tell me what your business is about in 20 seconds, you should not do your business because how are you going to market it to the world? You've got, and I'm not talking about that technical algorithms of AI. I'm talking about What does it do?”
Opinion
Ovitz: The US innovation system will outperform Chinese competition
“I am not worried about foreign competition. Yeah, China may have robots that are great, but we got people that are unbelievably smart, and our system just works really well.”
Opinion
Ovitz: AI outputs reflect the biases of the engineers programming them
“I think when you go to the AI websites, I think the different AI companies have the personalities of the engineers that are Programming them. And I think you see that bias in the information you're given.”
Insight
Ovitz: Reading publications cover to cover is impossible and stupid
“I don't agree with people that sit and read things cover to cover, because you can't Equally weight everything between the covers. It's not possible. It's stupid, Franklin.”
Opinion
Ovitz: David Geffen and Barry Diller are better read than most PhDs
“These guys didn't go to college. They're better read than most PhDs that I know in any field.”
Disclosure
Ovitz: CAA agents were required to answer colleagues before clients or buyers
“Our inner office rule was you had to answer your associates first before the clients, before the buyers.”
Insight
Ovitz: Self-deception is the primary cause of professional failure across industries
“Well, I think the first place everybody goes wrong is they start to believe things that aren't true. People tend to deceive themselves. I find that to be a common denominator amongst everybody across every kind of industry. It happens everywhere.”
Insight
Ovitz: Entertainment power lists are nonsense and power is an ephemeral lease
“I thought these power lists that they developed in the entertainment business were just sheer nonsense because there's no such thing as power. It doesn't exist. And when people would say this one's the second most or the 10th most or you're the most powerful, …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ovitz: CAA financially supported early executive allies who fell on hard times
“You know, at CA we kept a list of every single executive That helped us in the first three or five years that then had trouble, and we got everyone a job, and if we couldn't get them a job, we made sure they had money. Because they helped us when we had nothin…”
Insight
Ovitz: Ask the Busiest Person When You Need Something Done
“When I need something done, I ask the busiest person I know to do it, because they'll get it done. Ask someone with too much time, it never gets done.”
Opinion
Ovitz: Michael Crichton was the smartest person I knew until Marc Andreessen
“Well, he was the smartest person I knew until I met Marc Andreessen, and then I had the greatest lunch of my life where I put them in a room with me, and I put one on each end of the table and me in the middle, and I felt like I was at Wimbledon or the U.S. Op…”
Disclosure
Ovitz: Peter Thiel hired me to monetize Palantir before it had revenue
“I was introduced to him by Peter Thiel who had invested a lot of money in Palantir and there was no income. He asked me to help monetize it, which shows that you don't have to be totally technical to be in the tech world.”
Insight
Ovitz: Current tech founders care about past failures, not past successes
“This generation in tech. They just want to know They don't want to know what you've done that's great. They want to know what you failed at and how to avoid it.”
Opinion
Ovitz: Stripe's Collison brothers are among the smartest executives in tech
“And I think the Collinson brothers are two of the smartest guys in the business.”
Disclosure
Ovitz: CAA banned internal political discussions during meetings to protect clients
“I didn't even allow political discussions to take place in meetings. I didn't want to get involved with our clients' politics.”
Insight
Ovitz: Building momentum requires continuous effort without cutting back even 10%
“When you're building momentum, you cannot quit. And that's the counter problem, counter argument to when we talked about cutting back. When you're building momentum, you don't want to stop even for 10% of your time.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ovitz: CAA recruited roughly 80% of executives internally or from standout competitors
“Matter of fact, we recruited, I'd say, 80% of our executives like that. We either groom inside or recruited them from the competition because they had our standards and they were at the wrong place in our mind.”
Michael Ovitz