Who is Michael Ovitz?
"Learn how to build an empire and transform an industry from the Jedi master of modern Hollywood." —Marc Andreessen
“You have to read this. NOW.”, said Atul. We were talking about all sorts of things - how to run a company, recruiting the right talent, and negotiating deals. I couldn’t align how reading about the life of a Hollywood agent would help me here. Two words here that put me off - Hollywood(stories of sex, drugs and glitters) and agent(no explainers here!). Regardless, I loaded the book on my Kindle. All set!
Initially, I slogged through it. I couldn’t relate to the references made to the movies and the actors from another era. Slowly, coming to chapter 2, I started relating to the voice of Ovitz — his business sense, his negotiating skills, his charm, and his impact on the industry.
Ovitz, in this book, is raw about his highs and his lows. That makes it an enjoyable read. He details his rise from mailroom clerk to co-founder of the behemoth Creative Artists Agency (CAA), offering insights into the lives of A-list celebrities and industry giants. Rising on top of a commoditised business, having built the leverage to control the pricing power is laudable. While highlighting his successes, he didn’t shy away from his flaws and missteps, acknowledging his aggressive tactics, hubris, and the eventual downfall of CAA. This introspection adds depth and complexity to his character. After the fall of CAA, he joined Disney, and shortly after, resigned, citing his clash with Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Later, he got involved in the startup world, backing and advising a number of successful startups. Throughout the book, his anecdotes are vivid and entertaining, capturing the excitement and intensity of his career.
Some critics have pointed out that Ovitz paints himself in a too positive light, glossing over his ruthless business practices and the negative impact he had on others. They have expressed skepticism towards his self-proclaimed remorse and see this book as an attempt to control his narrative. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that he rose to the top of the famed Hollywood, created a successful business from scratch and rebuilt his career after a public embarrassment with Disney.
"When the history of Hollywood is written, few people will have played a larger role than Michael Ovitz.... It is impossible to read such a chronicle and not see Mr. Ovitz as the Steve Jobs of agenting, possessing a version of Jobs’s fanatical drive and a similar desire to remake an industry." —The Wall Street Journal
Quotes from the book:
On negotiating:
I always tried to plot out, at the beginning of any complex negotiations, the desired end point.
Deals almost always fall apart twenty times.
The first offer is never the best or final one.
Don’t ever think that what is, is — because it isn’t. Never count on anybody or anything.
Don’t ask for a meeting. Ask if he’d give me fifteen minutes. Make it just before lunch.
Companies are like people. When threatened, they get paranoid.
On power:
Power is only power until you exert it. It’s all perception.
Those whom gods wish to destroy, they first give a gift.
On sales:
Our focus on first impressions won us many new clients before we’d uttered a word.
This was my first lesson in business - who you know matters.
Love what you do. Too many people fight their jobs, a battle they cannot win.
I believed that nobody wants to be treated just as we are. Everyone wants to feel encouraged to become even more than they are — to become the best version of themselves.
In a business of favours, the chits add up.
The easiest ways to lose a client to make a promise you can’t fulfill; the client always remembers.
A lot of agents preyed on people’s anxiety and desperation, pitching themselves as a golden ticket. To me, that went against the grain of human nature.
On persistence:
The fear my opponents felt derived from sheer hopelessness: How could they beat someone so tireless, so relentless?
On competition:
You can’t kill the good ones.
On building culture:
Our rule at staff meetings was “No idea is too stupid”.
Service organisations live or die by time management.
We didn't usually fire people at CAA, but we did ease them out — and into positions where they could help us.
CAA had a few rules 1) Never lie to your clients and colleagues. 2) Return every call by the end of day. 3) Follow up and don’t leave people guessing. COMMUNICATE. 4) Never bad-mouth the competition.
I wrote memos to everyone about everything.
I was obsessed with the Spartan phalanx, the idea that you were only as strong as the colleague on your left.
I called every employee who didn’t show up at work to make sure they were okay and to see if they needed anything, from chicken soup to a good divorce lawyer.
At big companies, no one wants to own the big new idea before it’s clear whether or not it’s a stroke of genius.
In a big company, you’re defined by whom you report to and who reports to you.
On building leverage:
The trick was to find the hidden mother lodes of information, and to do that we had to exploit a niche the rest had overlooked.
On thinking big:
“If you aim at the target, you’ll lose all your power. You have to hit through the target to really smash it.” To get where you have to go, you have to set out to go even further.
On failures:
They only win if they kill you. They didn’t kill me.
There’s always another race and another racetrack.
Insecurity and ambition make a powerful cocktail.
I would much rather be a president who has done something that can be criticised than one who has done nothing and can’t be criticised.
On happiness:
If you want to be happy, forget yourself. Forget all of it — how you look, how you feel, how your career is going. Just drop the whole subject of you…People dedicated to something other than themselves — helping family and friends, or a political cause, or others less fortunate than they — are the happiest in the world.
I could have worked ten percent less, and it wouldn’t have made a difference in my professional success. But I would have been a lot happier.
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Brilliant summary and excerpts. Makes me want to grab the book right away.