#436 Ari Emanuel's Autobiography

Founders

This episode dissects Ari Emanuel's autobiography Roll the Calls, tracing his journey from a dyslexic young man in New York to the architect of Endeavor, one of Hollywood's most powerful entertainment and sports conglomerates. The host

Key takeaways

• Ari Emanuel's dyslexia initially caused severe anxiety and rage, but he later channeled that frustration into relentless ambition and a self-directed education through phone calls with industry experts.
• Emanuel learned from his first boss Robbie Lance that building your own curriculum is critical; he replicated this by calling dozens of top experts to master subjects like TV before writing a white paper that fast-tracked his promotion at CAA.

Main topics

• Rage as a motivational force
• Self-directed education & mentorship

Notable quotes

"Every story starts with rage and every story, one way or another, ends up there."

Conclusion

The episode underscores that relentless execution and strategic ruthlessness built Endeavor into a media

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Every story starts with rage and every story, one way or another, ends up there. Because rage demands a response, a resolution. Rage might not solve every problem, but it sure as hell clarifies the problem. Rage brings things to a head. Why does rage get so much bad press? Why are people always telling you to keep calm, carry on, all that bullshit? That's what I would like to know. From the beginning of my career, I've come at things differently. Rage first, ask questions later. That has been my philosophy. Rage to make them hear you, rage to keep them honest, rage or else you're no different from them. Ben Franklin said it best, there is no little enemy. If I've ever gotten a tattoo, I might have had that line across my knuckles. I'm a Hollywood agent. Rage is one of the occupational hazards. If I'm good at this agenting thing, And in all humility, just by the numbers, I'm damn good. Rage might be my secret sauce. Human beings want. That's what it is to be alive. Our superpower as a species is dissatisfaction. It's how we came to dominate the planet, for better or worse. We want something we don't have. We want something we used to have. We wish we didn't have something that we can't seem to get rid of. And that leads to frustration, which leads to anxiety, which leads to rage. and finally action. Rage means shit's finally going to get done. That is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today and one of the most entertaining autobiographies and just frankly craziest books I've ever read. And it's called Roll the Calls, a memoir written by Ari Emanuel. So Ari Emanuel is one of the most famous agents on the planet. And now I'd say he's much more, you would know him more as like a founder and a dealmaker. And I want to jump right into his very first job. He's 24 years old, and he's going to apply to a job listing that says you can be the assistant to talent agent Robert Lance. One of my favorite parts of this book is it almost reads like a diary. It kind of moves through his life in a mainly chronological order, and you kind of get insight into what's going on in his mind that he just happened to write in the book, which I heard he worked on for over a decade. So he's been working on this book for over 10 years. And the reason I think it's fascinating is he just is unbelievably honest and there's a lot of things that happen in our heads that we don't share with other people and I feel Ari's just like, you know what, forget it. I'm just going to put everything, I'm just going to put it down in the book and you can just read my innermost thoughts. So what I like about this part in his life, he's 24 years old. He applies to be the assistant to a talent agent. He doesn't even know what an agent does and yet he will come to dominate this entire industry. And he talks about, okay, I got the job as an assistant to a talent agent. What does my day look like? I have no set hours. My workday has no official start time because there's no official end time. Weekdays, weekends, late nights, I'm here in the office. And when I'm not here, I'm still sort of here because I'm on call. Whatever Robbie needs, whenever he needs it, I'm up. And so let me actually go to the very, one of my favorite quotes in the entire book is the very first quote that we see in the book. And it's from this actor, director, and producer that was alive in the late 1800s. And it says, work, that's the true story of Hollywood, but who wants to hear it? So what's fascinating to me, and it's obvious as we go through this book, is Ari's describing his work ethic that he had the very first day he steps into this industry that, again, he's going to come to dominate. And he's like that till this day. It's like if his eyes are open, he is working. And there is a bit of an irony here because the talent agent that he is working for is essentially one of the most important talent agents in like literature. And for authors and people in movies that want to option like all these novels and these books. And one of the main themes of the book is the fact that a lot of this rage that Ari carried with him for a decade after decade actually stemmed from the fact that he was dyslexic. And when he was very young, a lot of people told him, oh, you can't read, so you must be stupid. And obviously we know that's not true because you and I have covered. I don't know, there's probably at least a dozen, maybe 20 of the founders that you and I have talked about on the podcast so far that are dyslexic. So this actually comes, this idea like, hey, I'm different, I don't fit in, winds up being fuel for a lot of these people. So he says, walking home from the office, I tell myself how crazy that I'm in charge of all these writers and books when I still can't read. He can obviously read, it's just a great difficulty. And so he was talking about when he got diagnosed when he was a kid by a doctor being dyslexic. It says, the diagnosis was scary for my parents, but it was a huge relief for me. Before the diagnosis, I was a bundle of self-loathing, anxiety, and rage. This is what I mean about this book. It's almost like you're reading somebody's personal diary or personal journal. It just talks about how unhappy is a person's life, how he can't sleep. He's going through anxiety. A lot of things that, you know, I think a ton of founders have to deal with because of the work that we do is just, you know, very high stress. You're taking this on, you're this challenge voluntarily. And, you know, this entrepreneur emotional rollercoaster that Marc Andreessen, who also appears later in the book, describes as like when an entrepreneur is building a company, they only ever feel two emotions. Euphoria and terror and nothing in between. And they just kind of, you know, swing from one side to the other. Euphoria to terror back again. And so we see a lot of that in Ari's book. So he says, before the diagnosis was a bundle of self-loathing, anxiety, and rage. After the diagnosis, same. But at least I now knew why. I had a reason for all of my darkness. And so one of the things that a young Ari Emanuel learns from his boss, this guy named Robbie, is the importance of building your own curriculum and that you can do it in any way that you want. And so it says, Robbie was the world's greatest reader. In conversation with Robbie, it emerges that he's never once been forced to read. Not only has he read all the books in his office, he's read them voluntarily for pleasure. Ari cannot believe that. Robbie also spends part of each day keeping up a lively correspondence with geniuses around the world. Most of this is through writing letters back and forth. It seems to be his ultimate passion, the thing that gives him the most joy. So one of my favorite ideas that Ari shares later on the book is, He does this later in his career. He builds his own curriculum. And the way he does it is through phone calls. And so, you know, let's say he's interested in any subject in the world. He'll try to find and track down the world's most expert on that, call them dozens of times until he gets them on the phone, then goes, flies, meets with them, and then builds a relationship, and then essentially just is learning all day long. Now, there's an awesome story in the book where one thing you learn about Ari, and I think it was there right from when he was a kid, is he kind of has like unlimited ambition. You know, he applies. He's like, he doesn't even know what an agent does. Okay, well, now I'm in the game. Like, who's the best guy? Like, let me go learn from that guy. And then what is the best guy doing that, what is the best guy not doing that I think, you know, the person in this profession should do? There's kind of no ceilings on his ambition. You see some of the deals that he does later on the book and kind of where he's at today in his career. But this story is one of my favorite ones. I'm just going to read huge chunks of the book to you right now. I listen in on Robbie's phone calls with everyone. Robbie wants me to. It's what assistants do, he explains. It's how assistants learn. Also, if a question arises, the assistant needs to run and find the answer. I can't lie. I enjoy my role as an invisible audience while Robbie woos and charms and does his schtick. Most people on the other end of the line have no idea that I'm there, taking notes on their most intimate secrets. A feeling I've never experienced. Being on the inside. It is a feeling of power. Soon after I start working for Robbie, he starts having regular phone calls with a dazzling movie star. A young woman. Reviewers and audiences fell in love with her, and now every director wants her in their next film. Every agent wants to rep her. Robbie just wants her. Robbie would kill to rep her. She talks to Robbie every day, but will not formally agree to be his client. So this goes on for a while. It says gradually the conversations heat up. Robbie's getting close to signing. Her name's Debra. He can tell. I can tell. I think Debra can tell. And then, out of nowhere, another agent swoops in. Like a pirate. This other agent grabs Debra right out from under Robbie. And for added indignity, it's the same pirate who recently stole one of Robbie's biggest clients, Al Pacino. All that work for nothing. Fuck that fucking pirate agent. So I'm going to interrupt my own story. I just saw this interview that Ari did for the book. The word fuck is in this book 460 times. And when he was asked, like, why did you use that word so much? That's, you know, 460 times in your book. He says, well, it's one of the greatest words in the English language. So he says, I can see that Robbie's taking it hard. Weeks later, pirate agent phones us. I put him through and listen while he grills Robbie about some matter related to Pacino. He tells Robbie to send over the pertinent paperwork. Right away, Robbie says, voice quivering. I've never heard anyone make anyone quiver. It embarrasses me. A voice in my head then whispers to me. Maybe I should go work for the pirate agent. The pirate agent's real name is Michael Ovitz. Before we get back into this, I want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, Ramp. I have been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. SpaceX is one of the most valuable businesses in the world. 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Go to ramp.com today to learn how they can help your business save time, save money, and grow revenue. That is ramp.com. And so before I move on the book, I have a bunch of now funny Ovitz's stories. So I've been making podcasts on Ovitz. I think Ovitz's autobiography, who is Michael Ovitz, is one of the best entrepreneur autobiographies ever written. And I was making episodes on him for like, I don't know, probably like five, six years before I met him. And so I was actually at breakfast with my friend Rick Gerson. And Rick's, I didn't know this, but Rick had been friends with Michael for like 25 years. And we're at breakfast and his phone is on the table and it rings. And I see it because it's right in front of me. He says, Michael Ovis. I'm like, oh shit. Like I read his book. Like I've made podcasts about this guy. And Rick puts the phone on speakerphone. And he goes, hey, Michael, I'm sitting here. uh with my friend uh you really should know him uh his name is david center and he does this excellent podcast called founders and then there's a there's a like a pause and then ovitz goes i listened to four of them yesterday and ovitz was on like his boat like saint bart's or something and at the time he was listening to like the cornelius vanderbilt episode i think the carnegie episode he was like listing them off and then i wound up having dinner with him and now i have dinner with ovitz probably every uh every few months i just saw him like two weeks ago in new york But he's a huge character in this book because eventually what Ari's talking about, he's like, well, you know, I don't want to be, I want to work with the guy that puts the fear in everybody else. Like, I don't want to be working with the guy that's going to cower. And I don't want to be on the losing team, essentially, even though Robbie did a lot of, you know, kind of mentors Ari. And it essentially pushes them and says, hey, you have a lot of talent. You have a lot of ambition. You need to get out of New York and go move to LA and build your own empire. And the first thing that Ari does, which is in the book, is, okay, who's the top? CIA's the top? I'm going there. Which I think is really smart. So we pick this up where Robbie sees that, you know, this, Ari's not going to be an assistant for long. He goes, you need to go to LA. I'm old. A young man like you with your energy, your drive, you should be out in Hollywood. Get out there and build your own empire. Robbie's right. He's already built his empire and it's crumbling. It's getting plundered. Barbarians aren't just at the gates. They're taking big shits on his desk. Robbie can't help me anymore. He can barely help himself. He tells me that I'm destined for big things. His destiny is in the rear view, but mine's up the road, around the bend, waiting. He calls, and then he does a huge favor. Robbie calls his old friend, this guy named Bill Haber. Bill Haber happens to be one of the co-founders of CAA. And so he goes, flies up to California and tries to get a job, right? And he's going to do exactly what Ovitz did. When Ovitz started his career, he starts in the mailroom. Ari is a little bit older. Most people who start in the mailroom, they're like, you know, 20, 21. I think Ari's like 26 years old at the time. But he's like, okay, I'm going to go to CAA. I'm going to start in the mailroom. Says, Ovitz has famously said of this place, meaning CAA, we're like Studio 54. Not everyone gets in. That is a gross understatement. Nobody gets in. CAA is the epicenter of the entertainment world and represents the biggest stars and possesses all the clout. And I think at the time... Obits and C.A. kind of essentially monopolized Hollywood. I think they represented something like 90 % of all the talent, some crazy number like that. And so... He applies to get a job. There's this guy and he calls office dad which is in charge of picking the people in the mailroom and Even though Ari's smart and you know, obviously driven. He's like no you can't have the job and Ari's like why? He's like you're too old and Ari's like I'm only 26 years old and he's like sorry this jobs for younger people you're too old get out of here and Ari does something now that we see he does his entire career and he's actually gonna be Recording a conversation with him on my new show I assume if you listen to this, you're already listening to my other show, which is not called Founders. It's called David Senra, where instead of me just talking about the books I read, I actually talk to some of the greatest entrepreneurs living. And so this is one of the things I want to talk to Ari about. Like, how does this actually work? Because there's so many times in the book where Ari's MO is just like, I want something. I'm going to call the person once, twice, three, four, 15 times. I just saw Jimmy Iovine a couple of days ago. And I told him, me and Jimmy were reading the same book. Jimmy had this book with him. And Jimmy and Iovine and Ari are friends. And I was like, is he actually like this? He goes, yes, he's exactly like this. If he wants something from me, he calls me 15 times until he gets it. And so he does the same thing when he's 26 for like this shitty job in the mailroom that pays nothing. He just wanted to get in the foot in the door in the best place possible. This is really smart. So he says, I start pounding off his dad four or five times a day I call. And then he's getting like pushed away by his assistant. No, he can't come to the phone. He said, okay, cool. So. Besides the messages I leave with the assistant, I began leaving recorded messages late at night. Office dad probably isn't even listening to these messages. I don't care. I keep calling. I know that sooner or later, a basic rule of human nature is going to kick in. If you arrive at your desk every morning and find 11 messages from somebody, the same somebody who left 11 messages yesterday, you've got two options. Call the person back or call the police. And so eventually he calls them back. He says, I tell him I will give up limb and part of my spleen to work in this goddamn mailroom. And office dad says, I already gave you my answer. And Ari responds, I do not accept your answer. And then, so that's the end of the conversation. 10 more days go by where Ari is calling him 10, 11 times a day. After 10 days of this onslaught, office dad calls. All right, all right. Look, if you can get yourself to LA in one week and Ari gets a job, moves across the country to work in the mailroom, this. no job has no prestige, no status, and no money. And he is thrilled. And so a big part of Ari's story is obviously, I think he became famous because he's the inspiration for the character Ari Gold, the agent in the show Entourage that was on HBO for a very long time. But he also comes from a family of these extreme winners. So his older brother is like one of the best doctors and I think even like a scientist in the world. And then his another older brother, was chief of staff for Obama and then the the the mayor of Chicago and they're you know, they're a few years older I think they're all in like their 20s maybe early 30s at the time and He's meeting his brothers and they're making fun of him. They're just like you're you're working in the mailroom So this is my older brother Zeke is studying become a doctor My next oldest brother Ram is getting into politics. The Emanuels have always been ruthless about achievement and success And they said, Ari, you're crowding 30 and you're stuffing slips of papers into pigeonholes for men in fancy suits. That's really the best you can do? And his response is, all the best agents started in the mailroom. I share them, including my new bosses, the founders of CA. Even Ovitz the Great started in the mailroom. And they said, who? I was shocked that they never heard of Michael Ovitz. I already can't remember a time when I didn't know who Michael Ovitz was. Guys, he's the most famous agent in the world. And then he has this great description of his first day at CAA. No one gives me introductions. No one gives me a list of names. Just figure it out, asshole. That's the whole ethos of the job, of the whole agency. And one thing he learns from working at CAA and then studying the history of Hollywood is like, oh, wait, they think this is like about creatives and directors and actors. It's