Pivot - Bonus Episode: Ari Emanuel at Code 2021

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Kara speaks with Endeavor's Ari Emanuel about entertainment lawsuits, UFC, movie theaters, and more. Recorded live at Code Conference 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration,

and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we've got a bonus episode. It's my interview with Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor, from this year's Code Conference. I love spinning. Oh, do you like it?

Oh, I do. I know. It's nice. Yeah. You've never done this. I want this in my bedroom. No. So, Ari just told me he loves spinning. I want this in my bedroom. I want this in my... So, the reason he's not here, he wasn't here yesterday, is because he bought something

for $1.2 billion. Yeah. So, why don't you talk about that first, Open Bet? Okay. What's the thinking behind it? Well, we're in the sports business. We are in the gaming business, in the data and the video feeds to the 470 bookies around the globe. And it was inside one of our verticals, which is events experiences. And we really weren't getting credit.

We represent 150 sports. We own some sports that have gaming around them. It's an area that is growing significantly around the globe. And we have big competitors in that space. We've always said in our strategy in M&A that we would build moats around our business. This became available because of when they bought Scientific Games off of Mr. Perlman, they had to reduce some of the debt. And it just filled all the verticals that we needed, having a complete stack in this space, whether that be players, whether that be all the different things that

you need in that when you go out to the bookies around the globe. And so it was a perfect fit with us. It puts us at the head of the line in that space. The businesses in 2025, I think they estimate the gaming business on a global basis would be $77 billion. The United States will be a 25% CAGR of that. Globe is about 13. And we then took that out of events and experiences. We made a new vertical, because the other thing we said to the street is that we're gonna give clarity

and more insight into our different businesses. And this does that. Okay, that begs the question of what you didn't buy, because another deal went down this week. Right. Two agencies, CAA and IMG, merged. Right. Or bought. Why didn't you buy them, one of them?

I heard there was a rumor. Did you look at them? Well, I would say the following. Okay. In 2008, I didn't spend any money on merging with William Morris. I'm not sure what CAA paid for ICM. And if you really, first of all, it kind of, they compete with William Morris. I'm not sure what CAA paid for ICM. And if you really, first of all, they compete with William Morris Endeavor. ICM was, it was really probably two and a half agencies

of size, CAA, us, and UTA kind of half. ICM has not been what it used to be back 15 years ago. When Suhail Rizvi bought it, we were looking at it when we were looking at William Morris. Right. He took all the value out when he took all the packaging economics out of the business. At the time, actually, CAA said, you know, we're going to grow organically.

I appreciate them validating my strategy in 08. Yeah. I appreciate them validating my strategy in 08. And past 08, between Mike Barkowitz, James Dixon, the Harry Walker Agency, Artist Voice out of Australia. And in the last six months, we've brought over about 20 agents. We have continued to grow our representation business to stay number one because our thesis was distribution was changing and expanding. And you needed to be in more verticals to also help your clients grow their businesses. And that's what we've done. They're just coming at it 13 years late.

Okay. But what did they buy? And did you look at it? No. I think what they bought was five, and maybe more, I just know the five incredible TV writers. They bought an operating pretty good music business. Kind of not high profile names, but they bought a very good book business. And they bought a soccer representation business out of Europe.

Mazel Tov. Okay. bought a soccer representation business out of Europe Mazel Tov okay but one of the things they said was essentially talent first talent first talent first and I think one of the questions right many people asked me to ask you was right what is professional bull riding have to do with Brad Pitt well let me just say the following I would say the reverse I have been talent first since oh wait and growing different businesses for talent to expand it. So if Mark Wahlberg or Dwayne Johnson wants to do speaking, wants to do a licensing business, if Michael B. Jordan wants to start an advertising agency,

advertising agency, which he did, and we did with him, with our company 160 over 90, we have grown our clients businesses throughout our platform and made sure that they get opportunities across it so if Dwayne Johnson wants to do a live events that's what we do if he wants to do TV shows if he we gave him help when he wanted to buy XFL that's how we grow our business and we grow that because we have enough tentacles what you're asking a question is what are some of the other owned assets that we have too? But when you're doing business with CBS, with something that you own, and then you go into a negotiation with a client that you have so much business with that company,

it gives you leverage as opposed to not having leverage and therefore suing, you negotiate deals and you make your clients a lot of money. I guess there's two different approaches. Why clients hire agents is to make deals and make them a lot of money and create opportunity for them. And certain people decide that they just want to sue people and that's how they do it. I'm not sure that's the job they were hired for, but it is what it is. So when you think about the agency business and how it's changed, would you look at something like UTA? No. Why? We don't need it. We don't need it. We don't need it just to grow that way. No. And I'll tell you the other thing. I think back in 08, when we were starting looking at the world differently, seeing where the world was going,

starting with expanding our business with William Morris and strengthening our platform, and then how we wanted to, and then adding Silver Lake and then going after things and understanding that you want to be not only in the representation business, but the ownership business. We have continued, as I said, growing the representation business in a significant way. It's not like we stood still. We don't stand still, as indicated by yesterday. So I would say to you, we're the largest agency. We feel very good about what we do for a living in that business. I think we're the best representatives in the business. And we're growing businesses where other parts of the entertainment ecosystem is growing,

as you saw yesterday. But your business is UFC now. It's not representation. I would say to you is our representation business for the last 10 or 11 years, take 2020 out, has grown double digits every year for 10 years. It is a very significant part of our business. year for 10 years. It is a very significant part of our business and it is the core feeder for how our business grows and we pay a great deal of attention to it. Also, the business is, which gives us leverage at Disney and other places, the UFC, at CBS, it's full writing. On location is an experienced business, gives us, you know, across the globe where we see the experience economy going. And now gaming, which is a global business, as I said, the economics.

So we're in where the landscape of entertainment is. And the original premise was content and gaming content, movies and television and people that create content on TikTok. We're in every aspect of the entertainment ecosystem. So what's the modern age look like then in terms of that? Well, one of our businesses being an agent, I mean, our agents realize that you have to understand multiple ends of where the environment of entertainment is going. So because clients demand in the representation of actors, writers, directors, DPs, they demand

more services. And so if we're in the photography business, we're in the modeling business, we're in the makeup, they also want licensing for their products. They want to own brands, not only do endorsements. Our agents understand now the whole landscape of what a client wants. And we have provided services throughout our business for that. That kind of begs the question, what do they need you for? Because without us, without us. I'm going to point to some others, like Hello Sunshine or what LeBron James is doing.

What do we represent LeBron James? Right. In certain areas of his life. In certain areas. But the thing that everyone's looking at and thinking about buying is the thing he's doing with Maverick Carter. How do you, can't, don't you see that? Well, I would say to you, not that we are in that deal, but Maverick Carter has called, especially when he's trying to raise money. He says, we've raised a lot

of money and help, trying to help him with certain people that he's, are looking at his business because we have relationships with them. And we have helped because we're good partners throughout that process. So, but do you see a trend of these things happening, these individual branded multi-revenue channel companies owned by celebrities themselves? Well, I would say the following. About two and a half years ago, we saw celebrities getting involved with brands, as we can all see, even though the advertising dollars are going up on on linear channels because where are they going to put their money that much um uh that they were brands were coming to celebrities to not only do endorsements but also which was traditional right was traditional

also kind of get equity in the brands and use their social channels And we started a business called Talent Ventures. I remember. And at the time we did about four to six deals. This was about three years ago. I think it's now up to 45 deals from Naomi Osaka doing sunscreen and to Ryan Reynolds doing aviation gin, Mark Wahlberg doing a tequila. At the beginning, it was a lot of liquor. It's now moved from all the way into fintech to skincare. I mean, it's all over the place. One of our biggest growing areas. And one of the reasons we get this is because how many places we're in, we understand all in our marketing business. We bring all the influence of our marketing business and all of our different relationships to bear to make sure our clients get full value and full exposure.

Do you worry about a day where they don't need you? No. Why? Because I think we actually add value to their dreams and desires, whether that be creating a production company, whether that be producing, whether that be creating a production company, whether that be producing, whether that be representing or endorsements, whether they're doing speaking. In a whole host of areas, we have expertise, and we're number one in those areas. We'll be back with more from Ari Emanuel after the break. Fox Creative.

This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built

to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize?

What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories?

And how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Welcome back to this bonus episode of Pivot. Here's more of my conversation with Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel at this year's Code Conference. All right, let's talk about your IPO. Yes.

First failed attempt. Yes. That's the gray hair on this side. Okay. Talk about it. You know, I don't think about things as success or failure. I think about things as success or failure I think about things as learning experiences okay because I've never been in a situation where something quote

unquote failed and I didn't gain something for it that's the next time around I did better I'm not always but I keep on I'm still curious I keep on pushing forward and so we got a lot of information one is uh we needed all of the usc two is we needed more clarity in our verticals there's a lot of things that we didn't um have have and do right so it took you pulled it at the last minute it took about uh yeah we pulled it the last minute because i think we got caught in the wake of WeWorks and some others. And I think the economy turned at the last minute. But what then we did is we worked really hard for eight months, negotiated the rest of the UFC into the company and clarified our verticals,

listening to what the street told us. Worked very hard with the guys from Morgan Stanley that were incredible, Brian Stern and team. And I think it was successful, has been successful. And as this last transaction, we're continuing to clarify what we do for a living to give people true insight into all the things we touch in the entertainment business. Another question. A lot of your employees were upset when you took a massive stock trove. Can you talk about that $160 million you and your partners pulled out? I get that people pull money out. Well, I mean, I think... With the delay and then you went public. Well, here's what I would say. Everybody has throughout the time, we have set up tranches for people to take money out.

It was, I had not taken money out of the company for 26 years. I went through a personal situation that I needed the money. So I didn't want to, but I also permitted other people to take money out that they got. And last time I checked, I did fund the company. I did invest in the business and didn't take a salary. When the company, as people who have started companies, went through very tough times, I financed the company. I've paid people very well.

It is what it is. It is what it is. Yep. Would you have done anything different in the IPO? In the current IPO? Yeah. I thought it went off It is what it is. Yep. Would you have done anything different in the IPO? In the current IPO? Yeah. I thought it went off pretty well. All right.

So, when we're talking about you bought something- Made me feel guilty that it didn't go off well. Well, too bad. Okay. That's all right. You weren't WeWork at least, right? True. Yeah.

And now you can make a movie about them. So, plans for future acquisitions? I know you just made this big bet. What areas are you super interested in? Well, we think of M&A in two ways, as I said, and I've said several times now. One of the ways is like when we went public, we bought in IMG Arena, which is our other gaming asset. We bought Flightscope, which is a video capturing business. And in our academy business in Florida, we bought NSCA, which is kind of like what I would say is the LinkedIn of high school sports. We always look at how we can

create bigger moats around our existing businesses. And then the second tranche is, are there on locations, UFC, things that will kind of completely transform the company and where we see the world going. So on both of them, you know me, I'm pretty curious. On both of them, we are looking at the world and seeing things that maybe other people don't see. And we will use stock and cash to do that. What about growing things organically? Well, we have. I said to you, we did talent ventures. We grew endeavor content. We've done a lot of things organically, and they've been very successful. And so we do all three. So yeah. So of all your businesses right now, which one is most important?

I love all my children. And I understand that. And I have four. Which one is your richest child who gives you the most back? I don't look at it that way. I mean, I truly, I don't actually. I mean, I think the company is in incredible shape. As I've said in our last earnings call, we raised our guidance

and the company is doing incredibly well. You see, we all see, you know, I said to somebody who was having a conversation up in Silicon Valley, what's the TAM on content? Might be infinite, right? I just went over what the TAM is on gaming. I think we have one of the only global sports in the UFC. We represent 150 sports in the sports rights marketplace. He's going through the roof on a global basis. I love all my children.

All right, so none of them is particular. Let's talk about USC then. Okay. Very badly hit by the pandemic. Are you talking about the UFC? UFC, excuse me. I only lost one fight night. Okay, all right.

So it wasn't badly hit. All right, so you won. That was written correct. All right. So it wasn't badly hit. All right. That was incorrect. All right. So you created Fight Island. Yes. You used the opportunity to create a new business. Well, no.

I mean, it's the UFC. I mean, we did what we did. You know, Dana's one of the incredible partners. He is a driven, driven man. He said to me, we have to figure out how to... Explain who that is for me. Dana White runs the UFC. And he said, we have to figure out how to explain who that is for dana white runs the ufc and he said we have to get to an island we have to create a place so i can bring the european fighters in one of our investors is uh mubadala of abu dhabi um they have yes island

we had a conversation we created that spot we've done we'll do in October, we'll do our third fight there. And then actually interesting, right before the pandemic, we bought the building next to our facility in Las Vegas. And we had already had built out, because if we didn't do that, we would have never been able to put on fights. We built out a whole facility there and we own the whole area. and that permitted us to kind of have two locations to do fights and we then just created a i don't know a 40 page document and we were the first sport up with bull riding that enabled the sports to go on and a whole protocol which took a long time and a lot of work to how to get a sport back up and running with all the protections that you need. And we did it, I think, both teams, the PBR team and the UFC team did an incredible job. And it's an indication that we only lost one fight night.

One fight night. During this whole time. At the same time, your UFC president, who you just discussed, said the entire world had, quote, turned into pussies overnight, which more sounds like you, honestly. You know, that is so not nice. I understand it, but you have to live with your reputation. Okay. Thank you.

I live with mine, so you're going to need to live with yours. So when he said that, what did you think about that? I let Dana be Dana. I don't always agree with him. Okay. So Dana is a guy that makes sure that he delivers on the promise we made to ESPN. And he drove the whole organization to get up on its feet and deliver those fights. And I think at the time, it was actually important because I think the globe wanted a sport back, and he made sure that he was going to deliver it.

And we all got up and kind of followed his lead. So how has the pandemic- I got, you know, one of the things we're not going to be canceling people because of what they say during a period of time. And that was a very tough period of time. First once in a century period of time. Okay. All right.

Still was a really stupid thing to say. How has the pandemic affected business in general? When you think about it, not just that business, but the movie business, what's been the washout of it now as it moves to solution? Well, I think, you know, we've had a drive by Disney, now Warners with Discovery, Peacock launching their um i'm in comcast launch their paramount launching paramount plus and pluto you saw the expansion with netflix and everything else i mean you know again there's been a huge amount of content because you're all sitting at home if you're specifically which i don't want to interpret but i'll ask if you're specifically talking about the movie business overall Overall entertainment, movie and television.

Okay, so if we'll just take the movie business. Right. I don't, you know, people are saying theater business is dead. That's me. Okay, you're wrong. Okay. Okay, so here's my- I didn't say dead.

It's going to be an adorable little thing. No, here's, so the movie business pre-pandemic was a nine plus billion dollar business. Will it be nine plus billion? I'm not here in the predicting business. I listened to your Jeffrey Kat billion dollar business. Will it be nine plus billion? I'm not here in the predicting business. I listened to your Jeffrey Katzenberg business. There's Sony, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Comcast, and Disney. I don't believe they're giving up $9 billion.

And I think there's two things we have to realize. Do you cook at home? Yes. And you go out for dinner? Sure. Okay. So that will be the movie business. And so the other thing that I think is true about the movie business,

and we just saw it in the last Marvel movie that just came out, record numbers, record. For that movie. Hold on, hold on. Record numbers. Okay. The minute you and I are comfortable sharing an armrest, the movie business is back in full form. People want more,

if on location is an indication of people wanting to hang out with other people, experiences, the movie business based on that movie, and those are the movies that are coming out, will be back in full life. Will be some movies that are right for direct to consumer? Yeah. Will there's some movies be right day and date? Yeah. Even Netflix, and I'm in the middle of it with Adam McKay's movie and Leonardo DiCaprio, don't look up. There's going to be, I think it's 12 days. I'm not sure the exact, 170 theaters. They're going to the theater business. So does the window change from 45 to 25, 17? I'm not sure.

I'm not going to be in the prediction. But the movie business is not going away. You and I are going to share an armchair. Never. Never. Never. Okay. So I'll share that with you anytime.

All right. But that's not going away. On the television side, the linear business, cable and ABC and CBS, I think it's $150 billion ecosystem between subs and advertising. They have to have that business. I think people still get to the Internet through AOL. They still use their Gmail accounts. Let's not be flyover people here. So the linear business will still exist and the SVOD business will exist. Will it be the same that it is? No. But if you remember, there was a show that came out, the first show on Netflix came out while Game of Thrones came out. Same time.

HBO had Every Week and Netflix. That's parts. Right? You could have all 13 at once. Both did very, very well. Well, one might argue that the pandemic has been the biggest experiment for the Internet companies in moving people and accelerating trends that were happening. Restaurants are in trouble. Commerce is in trouble.

You're not going to go to a restaurant again? I am, but I have to say, movie theaters, not so much. My son, absolutely not. We're going to all come back here in about three, two years, a year and a half, and she'll have gone to three movies in a movie theater. Three, probably. I wrote a column today about it in the Times.

I'm going to go to the Bond movie. Okay. The 10 others I'm not. I bet you only went to three when there wasn't COVID. No, not so. Oh, stop. No, not so. You're lying. Okay.

Okay. So I think it's been a terrible consumer experience. They've been abusing consumers for years. Oh, I'm not saying that it hasn't been, but I don't believe it is going away That was the question. All right is we you want to know I'll talk about moving to the experience as opposed to whether it's gonna exist Okay, that's a different conversation a little like say Broadway theater It's an important thing, but not the only thing that people have gotten used to straight Broadway gone away. No, okay

Is it going away smaller? It's I said this is a nine billion dollar No. Okay, is it going away? It's smaller. It's smaller. I said, is it a $9 billion business? No, it's probably a little bit less. Okay. All right. Let's talk about streaming, though. All these companies are now calling themselves streaming companies. Wall Street's rewarding them for this.

You yourself said, we're going to make a lot of money in streaming. Well, I think the TAM on content is infinite. All right. What happens to the ecosystem if all the economics change? And what are the economics that you're most interested in? Here's the only thing I care about. Do my clients get to do what they want to do and get paid properly for it? Right. And let me just tell you something. They are like crazy numbers right now. As I said to you, the representation business right now

is growing at double digits over the last 10 years. And just remember the following. We started out with radio. You had the movie business. You had television. You had DVDs. You had cable. Technology has always come into the business and talent has always been paid and been paid very well. And now you have six behemoths, right? With some smaller players like Roku and Paramount. And they all need, which they've all said, Ted talked about the South Korean, I have a different South Korean show that I like

called My Mister, which is incredible. They all need more content and there's a voracious appetite for more content. So from where I sit and where my sit in the ecosystem, my clients are doing really, really well and will continue to do really, really well because when I started this business 26 years ago, there was four networks going to six, three or four cable channels and a certain amount of people creating content. That distribution model has quadrupled and there's the same amount of people making content.

The asset is the people that are making content. And they are going to get paid. And they're getting paid very, very well. And they're going to continue to get paid very, very well with all these guys, trillion, you know, trillion. But how does the economics change? It's not back end. It's not.

No, no, no. So what you're having started with Netflix, you know, probably if you had a slate of movies at Warner Brothers, 10% of them would hit a back end on the movie side. Right. It was a small amount. Right. Now, they're paying each one of those 12 movies as if they've all hit back ends. And we saw it with Warner's, as Jason was here.

He paid out $200 million in back ends. Right? Not every movie would have made that. So, instead of making 10%, the clients, all the clients, it's at 100%. And that's through Netflix is doing that. Apple's doing that. Amazon's doing that. Disney's doing that.

Warner's is doing that. And Peacock will do that. So it's a very, it's great times. So it's good for art. Yeah, yeah. No, it's good for my clients. We'll be back in a moment. Stay tuned.

I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own.

We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees? And it takes forever to build a campaign?

Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Welcome back. Now more of my conversation with Ari Emanuel. When you imagine consumers and what they want from entertainment, what do you think, when you look at social media or TikTok, how do you look at those tech companies now and

their role? Because this is a tech, we focus a lot on tech. When you look at the big tech companies, Apple, I suppose Netflix is a tech company, Amazon, how do you look at them? And how does Hollywood look at them? Well, they all have, I think Jeffrey said this appropriately when you did your podcast. They all have different reasons. Amazon's trying to sell stuff with Prime. Apple's trying to sell services and the phone. Sony's a pure play. Netflix is a pure play, right? Warner's now got multiple, but I think has a double-edged sword on the movie side. Also, Warner Brothers, if you look at Ted's Lasso, is one of the biggest suppliers to the other services. And Disney has picked their three or four main, you know, Pixar, etc., Marvel, Star Wars, and now any assets that come out of Fox.

They've all picked their different, how they're going to play this business. So you have to play them all differently. Do you imagine the tech companies? I was talking to a pretty major studio executive the other day. We had dinner, and he thought. Who paid for dinner? And was it at a restaurant? It was outside.

And was that a restaurant? Yes. I guess you'll go to the movie business okay I like restaurants better than okay um and you've lost my train of thought good and I've got what did he say what did the tech person say no that's a tech person studio person uh-huh as he says I hope to hell Google buys me someday do you see that happening I don't know if if the government would let that happen. I'm not sure that's going to happen. They're never going to let that happen. He was hoping. Well, he should stop drinking. Okay. All right. Last question. I was joking with you about, well, I can either ask you the Trump question, you represented him, or I can talk to you about

the changing wars of Hollywood. You're famous, I think, largely because of that show, having a temper, but you have a temper. I just saw something in page six again that you were yelling at someone at a restaurant. I could care less that you're yelling at people. I didn't actually, but that's okay. Okay, I don't care. I don't care if you did.

Okay, but I did. Okay, okay. Have you had to change the way you behave? I think I've matured but i am still very curious very aggressive as this last deal i mean it took we we did this deal and we were we were weren't invited in we pushed our way in we closed this deal in a very short order and took it away from a lot of big players i I still give a shit and I love what I do. So that's how I operate my life. And the minute I don't, I'm not doing it anymore. What would you do? You know, as Jimmy Iovine said to me once, who, you know, sold me,

it would probably take, you know, when you have a big tanker that's bringing over shipments of goods, it takes about three miles to stop. I'm not sure what I would do, but I probably want to help. One of the things that's in my head that I want to do eventually is I want to help because I'm dyslexic. My three boys are dyslexic. And I don't think they've gotten the privilege of their father and my economics. There's a lot of kids in the inner city that don't have that privilege. And maybe creating a school for that, for kids, would be something I have started talking about with the people out of Yale that helped me

think through my kids' situation. So that's one of the things I've been thinking about. Okay, that's older, wealthier Ari Emanuel. What about young mailroom? You and I both started in the mailroom. Right. As you know. You have a more famous mailroom.

Right. I just had the Washington Post mailroom. Right. What would the young ari emanuel do what would he do i would do what i'm doing now right now yeah agent yeah well i'm not an agent but i would that's part of my life actually i do that too but i'm not only an agent but i would be trying to build and run this company so what would you call yourself now? Not an agent, what? I don't know. Don't call my brothers or ask them what they would call me. I'm an executive, also an agent.

What would you call me? Don't. Don't answer that. Don't answer it. All right, I have one last question. We talked when we first met. I told you Hollywood wasn't entrepreneurial enough. Do you think it's gotten the message?

Well, when you say that and you have now... I meant facing tech companies and their power. Oh, you're just talking about facing tech. I would say that the entertainment business is entrepreneurial because when somebody starts a new show or a new movie, they're an entrepreneur because that takes guts to start something new. And so you now have over 900 shows and movies. And so as it relates to your definition,

which is tech, have they? I don't have an answer for that. Sorry. That's okay. I'd say you're an entrepreneur. Anyway, I thought I was going to say asshole. You could say that too. I was thinking it. It's fine. Anyone, everyone, Ari Emanuel. Thank you very much. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential, a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks performed by a select few. Well, Claude, by Anthropic,

is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Claude's Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Claude can transform your business at anthropic.com slash Claude. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees sees and it takes forever to build a campaign?

Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers.