Michael Ovitz

If you were an intellect, they thought you were an idiot. It was the 60s in the San Fernando Valley. If you didn't have athletic prowess or some kind of unbelievable talent, skill set in something like you were a great auto mechanic and you could fix a 57 Chevy up. Something that demonstrated to a working class community that you had something special.

So I went to all the clubs that were kind of persona non grata to build a constituency outside of what everyone called the normal people, who frankly turned out to be abnormal. They all peaked when they graduated high school. All of them. We had three teams, all city, number one. We had nine of 11 players on our football team make all-city first string.

So I went to all the clubs that were kind of persona non grata to build a constituency outside of what everyone called the normal people, who frankly turned out to be abnormal. They all peaked when they graduated high school. All of them. We had three teams, all city, number one. We had nine of 11 players on our football team make all-city first string.

One made it for five years in the pros and then got injured. The rest disappeared. Disappeared. They peaked. So for me, it was about careful with the time, careful on acceleration, careful on de-acceleration, meeting people, that would enrich my life intellectually, emotionally, and financially. And it's important to add all three.

One made it for five years in the pros and then got injured. The rest disappeared. Disappeared. They peaked. So for me, it was about careful with the time, careful on acceleration, careful on de-acceleration, meeting people, that would enrich my life intellectually, emotionally, and financially. And it's important to add all three.

I'm a capitalist and I get into these huge arguments with people that are more social leaning because it doesn't work. And we've seen that over and over again. And it's the capitalists that drive the foundation of giving They make jobs. Look, they don't do everything right. They do a lot of stuff wrong. Believe me, everybody does, me included.

I'm a capitalist and I get into these huge arguments with people that are more social leaning because it doesn't work. And we've seen that over and over again. And it's the capitalists that drive the foundation of giving They make jobs. Look, they don't do everything right. They do a lot of stuff wrong. Believe me, everybody does, me included.

But by and large, it's a better system than Marxism or just being a pure, you know, socialist. I think our system's better than the Chinese system. You know, you've got 50 million communists controlling a billion, 400 million people. That doesn't smell right to me. I had lunch yesterday with a guy who's very smart named Steve Radner.

But by and large, it's a better system than Marxism or just being a pure, you know, socialist. I think our system's better than the Chinese system. You know, you've got 50 million communists controlling a billion, 400 million people. That doesn't smell right to me. I had lunch yesterday with a guy who's very smart named Steve Radner.

And I was commenting about what an amazingly great mayor Mike Bloomberg was, even though he got in by accident, because he was a business guy. And he thought about everything in terms of getting it done and how do you do it? What's the path of least resistance? What's best for everybody?

And I was commenting about what an amazingly great mayor Mike Bloomberg was, even though he got in by accident, because he was a business guy. And he thought about everything in terms of getting it done and how do you do it? What's the path of least resistance? What's best for everybody?

You're not going to get it right for everybody, but if you can get it right for most of the people, but how do you do that? You have to have a business background. So I said to him at lunch yesterday,

You're not going to get it right for everybody, but if you can get it right for most of the people, but how do you do that? You have to have a business background. So I said to him at lunch yesterday,

I think that in order to run for governor or mayor of any city or state or president of the United States or vice president of the United States, you have to have had five years of business experience. You have to show on your LinkedIn that you ran a business, period.

I think that in order to run for governor or mayor of any city or state or president of the United States or vice president of the United States, you have to have had five years of business experience. You have to show on your LinkedIn that you ran a business, period.

And that you had employees and you had healthcare problems and people had deaths in the family and they needed days off and somebody was getting a divorce and you had to balance budgets and you had to find where to raise money. These are all things that are critical to running a business, which is a city or a state or a country.

And that you had employees and you had healthcare problems and people had deaths in the family and they needed days off and somebody was getting a divorce and you had to balance budgets and you had to find where to raise money. These are all things that are critical to running a business, which is a city or a state or a country.

Yeah, I must say he's one of my heroes. Steve, I met Steve in the 80s, and he was at Lehman Brothers. Very smart guy, very motivated, wanted to do something special. He and his mentor, Pete Peterson, and Pete was on the board of Momo with me. We got involved very early together because Pete was on the board of Sony. And I was Akio Morita, the founder of Sony's personal media advisor.

Yeah, I must say he's one of my heroes. Steve, I met Steve in the 80s, and he was at Lehman Brothers. Very smart guy, very motivated, wanted to do something special. He and his mentor, Pete Peterson, and Pete was on the board of Momo with me. We got involved very early together because Pete was on the board of Sony. And I was Akio Morita, the founder of Sony's personal media advisor.

And I got that position because he made a decision that he had better technology with the Betamax videotape than Matsushita, also known as Panasonic, had with VHS. And he did. His tech was better, but they beat him. They killed him. They killed him for two reasons. One, he had a max running time of two hours. There's no movie that automatically stops at two hours.