David SenraBuilding an Empire with Risk, Rage & 200 Phone Calls A Day | Ari Emanuel, WME & TKO
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
85 min read · 17,447 words- 0:00 – 3:33
The UFC negotiation that blew up
- DSDavid Senra
[bell dings] Right? This is like a caged tiger.
- AEAri Emanuel
No, I thought a caged tiger.
- DSDavid Senra
You had this whole story.
- AEAri Emanuel
We're either having a conversation, 'cause I'd rather just have a conversation than, like...
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. All right, go. Tell, tell the story.
- AEAri Emanuel
So Dana's, Dana told you the story about Philippe Dumont.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
Or Phil.
- DSDavid Senra
Let me, let me back this up.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
We were just talking. The funniest story anybody's told on the podcast so far-
- AEAri Emanuel
Right
- DSDavid Senra
... is Dana White, and he goes, "Let me tell you about this guy named Philippe Dumont."
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And he goes, "His name..." He goes, "His name is Phil Dumont. He's from fucking Jersey." [laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
Right. So-
- DSDavid Senra
And then you're like, "That was a funny meeting."
- AEAri Emanuel
Here, here's... So we're, the UFC has taken off on Spike, right? Our term is up. This is when we had the reality show, and it had some fight nights. And so we call a meeting. I'm now representing them. It's Dana, Lorenzo Fertitta, myself, the head of Spike at the time, and, um, Phil, and I think one other person, his other co-CEO, whatever. And we're pitching that you gotta consider it a sport. It's not a reality show, et cetera. He goes, I knew this was bad, he goes, "We made you. If you leave, you know, we'll get somebody else, and w- we'll replace you." And Dana, you know, and Lorenzo, I, I just saw, like, knowing them at that point for about three years, they were just, like, ready to explode, and it was really getting heated. And you don't insult somebody from what they created, as if you can just recreate Dana White. Impossible. And what Lorenzo put into it, their heart and soul that they put into it. So the meeting ends, and I call him like, "What are you doing?" Like, this is an, an easy ask we asked for. It was like we're doubling it. It is a sport. It was, like, their highest rated thing. I represented WWE. We had moved it back to USA coming off of that. That's when the lawsuit happened with Barry Diller, when we moved it off USA. And he didn't get mad, but he was boiling, and I know Dana when he boils. It's like, "Oh, you wanna get competitive with me on a sport that I know and what we've done, and you think somebody can replace me?" And that's what the offensive thing was. This guy had no idea what he was doing. He couldn't start anything. He destroyed that company, destroyed it. He let everything go that was of value and just bought bad stock and bought it back from, I think $80 all the way down. He made a lot of money. So yeah, we just moved. What made the deal at Fox, incredible deal at the time. The funny thing is, after we made the Fox deal, and that deal was coming up, and then the world, which is in the book, the world blew up. So we thought Fox had to make the deal just because they own these things, the RSN, the local station group, and how much play the UFC had on it and what it was doing for the network. They were gonna have to make a deal. Look, you know, Rupert then sells that business to Disney. There's no need economically. They're on pause until that deal goes through. President Trump slows down the AT&T deal, so that went away. Comcast didn't want it. They had all the sports they wanted.
- DSDavid Senra
You're, you're talking about af- now, this is after you bought the UFC.
- AEAri Emanuel
This is af... This is, like, four years after we moved the UFC.
- DSDavid Senra
Yes. So let's give some background. You, you signed Dana, but then later on, you and Egon Durban buy the UFC.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
For $4.2 billion.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right. The cheapest.
- DSDavid Senra
Everybody... And everybody's telling you, it's like, "Oh, these guys don't... They're fucking idiots. They don't know what they're doing. They're overpaid." And then in the book, you talk about the story of trying to sell the rights after the Fox thing.
- AEAri Emanuel
Correct. W- we buy
- 3:33 – 7:30
Meeting Egon Durban and buying IMG
- AEAri Emanuel
IMG.
- DSDavid Senra
For $2 point, like, $4 billion.
- AEAri Emanuel
$2.4 billion. And the thing about my life is I love puzzles, and my phone is a way to kind of put the pieces in place. I'm gonna go way back, if you don't mind.
- DSDavid Senra
Let's go.
- AEAri Emanuel
So I start this company, Rain, with Joe Ravitch and Jeff Sine, this merchant bank. I'm raising money for them. I fly to Abu Dhabi. I get $100 million out of my friends in, in, in the UAE. I read this article from Marc Andreessen. This is gonna be way back. He comes to see me. We just, you know, it's just creating serendipity, which you do in your life, and people that are successful, I think they do. They just have relationships, and they figure out how they fit into your life in a good way. I ask him in that first meeting I meet him, one, what he does, and but two, I'd like him to put money into Rain. We're raising a m- a fund in the merchant bank. He says, "I'll do it. I'll do it with this guy, Egon Durban," and Nikesh, who was working at the time at, uh, Google, in Google. They're at, at-
- DSDavid Senra
Who's now at Palo Alto Networks.
- AEAri Emanuel
Palo. Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
We're recording with Nikesh next month.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. He's fantastic.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
And through that, I meet Egon Durban. He buys a company that he sells to Microsoft for, um, Skype, for... He buys it, I don't know, from whatever, and that was h- one of his first big deals. Incredible. But in that conversation, he realized the value of content in a distribution platform. We were talking about creating animation, and I, he was really creative. Cut to l- lunches and dinners. Teddy Forstmann, who at the time had bought IMG, he had Forstmann Little, bought, buys IMG. He had gotten sick and was dying and, and passed away of brain tumor. Horrible. Egon flies down and says, "Can I have lunch with you?" And we had now a great relationship because of the introduction that I made. And he goes, "I wanna buy a piece of you, and I wanna g- go after IMG." I was trying to raise money around him. Like, Batista flew down to Brazil. Martin Sorrell at WPP. I was trying to put the pieces together to raise the money. I thought it was gonna be about $2 billion. He says, "I wanna do this, and I wanna go after them." I said, "You're a P from no chance-"
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
"... you're gonna be able to figure this out." He goes, "Give me your numbers. Give me three weeks. I'll come back." And we now have William Morris, and that's a whole nother story. So Patrick and I meet with him. He brings his team down. We explain our economics, TV packaging, everything we do. Three weeks later, he comes down and makes me an offer that we could have signed as is. We do the deal after a little... I could, I could not not negotiate.
- DSDavid Senra
Right. [laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
It's, it's in my nature. And we then go after IMG. So we then got a global footprint, US sp-- we got movies, television, music, theater, books, exactly what we wanted, and then we added events, sports, production, licensing. It was one of one. Egon's vision, incredible. I mean, we had the idea too, we just were trying to figure out money and the perfect partner. Long-term, cares about what you're doing, w-when he, when he gets involved in the company, learns everything about the company, brings incredible ideas to it. He's an incredible investor and incredible partner. Once we had that, we came to him with this guy, Brent Richards, Mark Shapiro, myself, and we said, "This is the representation business. In addition to that, because we have all the pieces that you need, we negotiate with all the networks globally for sports rights and for movie and television rights, we should put a piece of ownership on top, something we own in sports, 'cause here's where the world's going with Netflix, et cetera, et cetera."
- DSDavid Senra
Where did you think the world was going?
- AEAri Emanuel
Well, I, I knew they h-had a SVOD business, right? Where you, you, you buy a subscription to Netflix. Hulu had started. They were eventually gonna go to AVOD, which is advertising base, and one of the things that keeps people engaged was sports, so we needed to own, we needed to be in the sports space.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- 7:30 – 15:16
Betting $4.2 billion on the UFC
- AEAri Emanuel
I don't know if it was a year or two later, they had danced with it, Frank and Lorenzo, about selling the business. About two years later, they came back and sold it. Uh, we're opening it up again. We heard about it, and so we started getting into it.
- DSDavid Senra
This is where you call Lorenzo in the book, and you're like, "Just don't... Just at least let me get a shot before you sell to anybody else."
- AEAri Emanuel
Correct.
- DSDavid Senra
But you said he was, he would not commit.
- AEAri Emanuel
He would not.
- DSDavid Senra
He would not say either-
- AEAri Emanuel
He would not. And listen, Lorenzo and Frank Fatiga are incredible negotiators. Coolest customers of all time. Tough.
- DSDavid Senra
But what you said to them before you get there, I love your line. You're like, "Okay, before you l-let him get off the phone," you're just like, "Close your eyes, and when your eyes are closed-
- AEAri Emanuel
Closed
- DSDavid Senra
... just tell me what this, this incredible number-
- AEAri Emanuel
What would make you happy? [laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
What's the number that you see when your eyes are closed? And he's like, "It's a big fucking number, Ari, and it starts with a four." [laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
Right. Exactly. Which is I, I just needed the framing.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right?
- DSDavid Senra
Were you shocked when he said it starts with a four?
- AEAri Emanuel
No, because I had a, because I had been involved with the company for twenty years. I knew where the network business is. I knew how much Fox needed it. I didn't know what was gonna happen, and I, in my mind, I just did math about what the license fee would go to. I asked Egon if it gets to this, and we start doing our, you know, running our numbers, what, what we needed to get to. So we're in that negotiation, and our biggest c-competitor was the Chinese, actually. I actually thought it was gonna be Warner Brothers and Jeff Bewkes, and I think a lot of people at TNT wanted it, and Egon said, "No, it's Fox," 'cause it's already on Fox, an easy transaction. I didn't think Fox would, but I did think TNT was gonna possibly do it. But Jeff was, Bewkes was downsizing to sell the business, so he didn't wanna do that right now. So we got into it, and I think Dana at one point turns to them and says, "Please..." He had an unbelievable relationship with me for twenty years. "I, I, I wanna be with a guy that knows the business and loves the business," and he knew I did. So we got it for a little cheaper than they did, but it was four point two billion. At that point, but pull back, the hardest thing for Egon and myself at that point, and this is where I learned, I mean, he taught me everything here. We had Brexit happened. All the banking system fell apart. And, and the great thing about Egon is he, he stayed, he stayed as steady as it could be, 'cause he believes in where distribution was going, the value of sports, and we pieced it all together with Michael Dell doing the preferred, I mean, the p- And, and I learned so much, and he took my hand and walked me through everything here. It was incredible. It was just brutal, right? Cut to, this is where I got sick, actually physically sick, 'cause it was so much stress. We had put clients into it. We put all the chips in the middle of the table, four point two billion dollars. People were saying it was the most expensive deal in the history of sports. We're crazy for doing this deal. Egon separately put money in KKR. Henry and, a-and George were incredible from the founders of KKR of backing Egon and me in this situation. The world blows up. Rupert sells to Disney. AT&T came, and I thought I had a deal on the backside if, i-if they weren't gonna pay what we want them to pay at Fox, that AT&T was gonna make it.
- DSDavid Senra
Now we're talking about the television rights.
- AEAri Emanuel
Television rights.
- DSDavid Senra
After the deal closes.
- AEAri Emanuel
After the deal closes.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
And there's no place to go. There's no place to sell to, 'cause Netflix wasn't in sports. Nobody else had really gotten to the level. We almost had a deal with Jeff Bezos and, a-and, and Jeff Blackburn.
- DSDavid Senra
And Amazon. That was like two hundred and sixty million or something like that.
- AEAri Emanuel
Two hundred and sixty, right.
- DSDavid Senra
And they pulled it.
- AEAri Emanuel
Well, we had negotiated for four months, and they said, "Oh, it's gotta go to this committee. No big deal. It's a rubber stamp." This was on a Saturday. We had our fight in Boston. And, um, by Monday, it comes in at, like, one forty. I'm like, I'm going crazy.
- DSDavid Senra
Didn't you go to Jeff? I think-
- AEAri Emanuel
No, no, I, Jeff, Jeff was at one of our parties.
- DSDavid Senra
Yes. [laughs]
- 15:16 – 22:58
Getting the ESPN deal done
- AEAri Emanuel
trouble.
- DSDavid Senra
It's in the book.
- AEAri Emanuel
It's, it's in the book.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
He gets in trouble. He's out. Kevin Mayer is in place. They're going direct to consumer. He calls us, "We want the deal." The first offer was for shit. Mark and I work an, a weekend, and he, K- Kevin and I know each other for a long time. We work on a letter, we send him what, what we think it's worth, why we think it's worth. They then come up, not exactly where we want, and we're, we're negotiating, right? Back and forth. He's saying stuff. We're giving him stuff back and forth. We're still pitching other places. We go in to see Bob Bakish, who's at Viacom now, and we're pitching him, "Let's reinvent Spike where we originally started, make it into a sports channel," exactly what AT&T and, uh, wanted to do with TNT. That's what the conversation was with AT&T if they could've closed that deal. As we're pitching, I'm here, Mark Shapiro's there, Bob Bakish is there. I get a WhatsApp, WhatsApp from Kevin Mayer that says, "The price we want, you have a deal."
- DSDavid Senra
300 million.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. I slide the phone over to Shapiro. As he's pitching his heart out, I'm pitching my heart out, but he was, at this point, he was pitching. He looks down. He's still pitching. I'm like, "Meeting over." [laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
"We gotta go."
- DSDavid Senra
Why not show it to these guys?
- AEAri Emanuel
No, no, no, no.
- DSDavid Senra
Like, do you want to match it?
- AEAri Emanuel
We get, get into the car, 'cause I had the deal I wanted, which was an incredible deal.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
Like, it w- it hit the number that was in our pro forma.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
We had four months left until it was gonna be a nightmare. We get in the car. They're in the plane, Iger, uh, Kevin, and we're negotiating. We're going back and forth, and over WhatsApp, we're negotiating deals. It was eight episodes on ESPN, the rest behind the wall on ESPN+. They were just launching ESPN+, et cetera. Cut to we, we get back to the office. We call Dana. You know, we're all sweating bullets, you know, not healthy, and we say, "It's eight episo-" Dana goes, "No, I'm not doing that."
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
I love him so much, and he has pushed me so hard and made me better, Dana. I go, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "Uh, I'm not doing it unless we have 10." And I said to him, "We have nobody else right now." He goes, "I don't care."
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
I'm like, "I don't care. What, what are you talking about?" Cut to I had no move. No move. I get Kevin on the phone. I go crazy on him.
- DSDavid Senra
This happens several times in the book-
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... where you're like, "Okay, I have no move."
- AEAri Emanuel
I, I went crazy on him.
- DSDavid Senra
"I'm gonna just go crazy."
- AEAri Emanuel
Crazy.
- DSDavid Senra
And so ex- explain to people that haven't read the book yet what going crazy means though.
- AEAri Emanuel
Well, I said, "You motherfucker, you f- I need 10 fucking episodes. I can't do this. You gotta break stars. You're gonna launch stars. You need stars for, to put it behind the, the paywall so that people buy the paywall. You need it to be on ESPN so they understand the sport." And I just gave him this whole story, which was actually true. Slam. [laughs] Shapiro, I, I, I think he turned as white as this chair.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- 22:58 – 30:02
Taking over William Morris
- AEAri Emanuel
like-
- DSDavid Senra
And then the merger, I'm, there's a-
- AEAri Emanuel
The merger took-
- DSDavid Senra
That, that was to me the way more-
- AEAri Emanuel
... the 2003 merger.
- DSDavid Senra
Yes, the 2003. They're laughing at you, like, "Ari, you're gonna buy us?"
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
That was one of my favorite parts of the book where you go to speak to the Harvard professor and they're like, "There's no such thing as a merger. This is a lie. There's one company-"
- AEAri Emanuel
Professor Nitin.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
Incredible.
- DSDavid Senra
He's gonna-
- AEAri Emanuel
Actually, I think he's on the bor- board with Josh Kushner at Thrive.
- DSDavid Senra
Yes.
- AEAri Emanuel
He's an advisor.
- DSDavid Senra
Thrive, Thrive just reached out to me to see if I want to talk to him.
- AEAri Emanuel
He's incredible.
- DSDavid Senra
You think that'd be, that'd be interesting to do.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
But I just love what he told you. He's like, "There's no such thing as a merger. Like it's, there's an alpha, there's a beta, there's a conqueror, there's a conquered." In fact, you, you met, uh, you mentioned Egon Durban. So, um, Michael Dell has been like a huge influence on me. He's like become a friend. I just had dinner with him like two weeks ago. I met at one of Dell's events, this guy named Hock Tan.
- AEAri Emanuel
Hock Tan, yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
The, the CEO-
- AEAri Emanuel
Broadcom.
- DSDavid Senra
Broadcom. And he said the, the funniest shit, 'cause he, he's done a lot of acquisitions, and he was giving advice to another tech founder there. And he goes, "Here's my most important piece of advice for you." He's like, "When you're acquiring something, uh, somebody, make sure they know on day one," you know, Hock Tan's an extreme fucking personality, and he goes, "Make sure you, they understand on day one that you are the conqueror and they are the conquered."
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And in your book, I love this scene you bring us to, where it's like 2003, private dining room in a restaurant. They laugh in your face-
- AEAri Emanuel
Mm
- DSDavid Senra
... about, "You're gonna buy us? You, like we're, we're a 100-year-old company," whatever the case is, and then that deal takes like four years.
- 30:02 – 32:53
Starting Endeavor with a table and a phone
- DSDavid Senra
When you le- let's, let's talk about that real quick. When you left and started-
- AEAri Emanuel
When we left ICM-
- DSDavid Senra
Yes
- AEAri Emanuel
... the four of us.
- DSDavid Senra
And you started Endeavor.
- AEAri Emanuel
So it was Tom Strickler, Rick Rosen, David Greenblatt, myself.
- DSDavid Senra
And your description of the startup company that now is worth t- a ton of money, right? I love, it says, "Four demons in a room rolling calls."
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
You had-
- AEAri Emanuel
Nothing
- DSDavid Senra
... you had, you had a table and a phone.
- AEAri Emanuel
And we didn't have, we couldn't collect the commission. We put it in escrow because we were getting sued by ICM For whatever reason. They thought, they thought we had, we, we had created a, a horrible situation. Their whole press around us created even a bigger company than it really was.
- DSDavid Senra
And so this guy at the bank, which was named, what's his name?
- AEAri Emanuel
Russell Goldsmith.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah. He's the one back in, when you had nothing.
- AEAri Emanuel
Nothing.
- DSDavid Senra
A million. Now you come to him-
- AEAri Emanuel
We had no money. None of us had money.
- DSDavid Senra
Yes.
- AEAri Emanuel
He's, he was incredible. And then cut to, you know-
- DSDavid Senra
15 or 19 years later, whatever it was
- AEAri Emanuel
... and I said, "Listen, th- y- this dream is gonna end [laughs] if you don't..." And he did. And what happened after that is, as I recall it, we buy IMG. And I said to him at the time, "I don't know how we're gonna repay you, but we'll repay you at some point." He's trying to sell City National and do a deal with the Canadian company, and he said, "Can I have some of your bonds?" As debt.
- DSDavid Senra
This is the $2.4 billion IMG deal?
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah, some, yes.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. Egon had, you know, he has his relationship. That was his thing. And I said to him, I tell him the story, and I said, "I need a, you know, $300 million worth." To his credit, he figured it out and-
- DSDavid Senra
Egon did?
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
And we gave Russell, and we repaid him just on what he needed to kinda, to convince his deal that he was doing, and yeah.
- 32:53 – 35:01
Why you won’t remember the extra $400 million
- AEAri Emanuel
And w- I learned a ton from this. I think Chernin's offer was $1.9 billion. We offered 2.3 or 2.4 billion, and E- this was Egon's dream, right? Eg- Egon goes and says, "You're not gonna remember this $500 million."
- DSDavid Senra
400.
- AEAri Emanuel
$400 million.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
"You're never gonna remember it, and let's make an offer that they can't, like bid up, keep on bidding us up. Let's just take it off the table in one fell swoop." Fucking genius. Like, incredible. I've not done these deals. He's done a million of them. We did it. We got the deal. Shapiro told me before, "They don't want you." I said, "The more zeros win."
- DSDavid Senra
Right.
- AEAri Emanuel
"They can not want us, but..." And this was Egon's play, and it was perfect. We had a huge fight, though, and this is what's also crazy about deals, and you only learn afterwards. We thought we could not, this deal would not be successful 'cause we were trying to secure the college guys running college, George Pine and, and the head of college b- because they had this whole college business inside of IMG at the time. U- American College. And it was a, a, a pretty heated argument about if we don't get those executives, we can't do this deal because college is so important. Not that college went bankrupt, but college is worth, like nothing inside the IM- w- was worth nothing at the end inside the, the, uh, the IMG business. Everything was the international business and everything we, we've done post that. And so, you know, again, that's why all the planning about what a deal does, who knew Fox was gonna sell? You know, you, all this says you just gotta constantly be working at stuff. If you're not working, and there's gonna be huge mountains you gotta climb and f- huge failures, but if you believe in the strategy, you can get through it.
- DSDavid Senra
This is what you were saying. We had this incredible conversation before we started recording, and I was like, "We need to sit down and get some of this on tape," 'cause this conversation's blowing my mind. You had mentioned earlier the advice that you gave to, like, the CEO of one of your companies now, and it was very similar to this.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
'Cause it's just like-
- AEAri Emanuel
So we-
- DSDavid Senra
... you can only do what's in
- 35:01 – 39:21
Stop telling yourself stories
- DSDavid Senra
front of you, man.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. Y- you know, stop telling yourself a story. Brene Brown says, "Stop telling yourself a story."
- DSDavid Senra
Mm-hmm.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right? That, in her books, and o- one of the great things that she-
- DSDavid Senra
Who is this?
- AEAri Emanuel
Brene Brown.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
She's got great books. You know, y- we all do it. We tell ourselves stories in our heads that we then believe, and those are not real stories. Those are just stories. They're, they're just not reality. And, you know, and, and he, m- my CFO of, of this new company, we started this events business called MARI, comes up to me, and we're going through the, the raise we have to do.
- DSDavid Senra
The fund raise.
- AEAri Emanuel
The fund raise. And he's getting very dramatic, going, "We have, don't get to..." And I said, "Stop. All we gotta do is just keep on making the calls. We're gonna get to it. We have a really good product, a really good story. We're creating a great company. The world's going our way. The thesis is right." And he goes, you know, he takes a deep breath. I said, he goes, "You're right." I said, "Just let's keep on making the calls and doing the thing and talking about our story. People will come to it. It's only getting better, this story." And you know, I try every day in my life, and one of the things I say in the book is, not listening to that voice. We all have that voice, you know? We're guilty about stuff. We can't spend mo- enough time with our kids. Is this right? You know? You know, it's not really worth it. That voice always wants to boot up negative or tell you something else.
- DSDavid Senra
That's one of the most interesting parts of the book. Uh, like, really the transformation you see, 'cause the very first word, the very, the, the first [laughs] sentence in the book is one word, and it's rage.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
And then you see this change, this profound change, you go, and the, the book kinda ends in a very different way, which I wanna get to. Before I get there- Uh, I wanna go back to what Egon said, where he's like, "You're not gonna remember the $400 million"
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... which is one of the craziest lines in the book-
- AEAri Emanuel
Ever
- DSDavid Senra
... and it being true.
- AEAri Emanuel
What investment bank or w- or, or, a PE firm would ever say that? That's why he's incredible. Nobody says that they, if that guy's bid in 1.9, let's bid two. He sees the map that is so much different from everybody else in the game of where he wants to go.
- DSDavid Senra
But this is the important part, is like what I always say is like, "Learning is not memorizing information. Learning is changing your behavior," right? You heard that. You didn't just memorize it. You changed your behavior because I think it was the UF- the UCF or UFC deal. It was another deal you were working on, and somebody internal on your own buy team was like, "No, no, let's, like, lower this." I don't remember what deal it was.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right
- DSDavid Senra
And you, you said, "Absolutely not." You quoted Egon-
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... and then you guys wind up getting the deal.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
'Cause he's like, "You're not gonna remember saving," whatever. Let's say it's $2 million. I don't remember what it was.
- AEAri Emanuel
Two, $200 million.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah
- AEAri Emanuel
$100 million.
- DSDavid Senra
But you're gonna remember fu- you said in the book-
- AEAri Emanuel
Losing
- 39:21 – 45:19
David Geffen: Get in traffic and get hit
- AEAri Emanuel
It's the David Geffen line he gave to me when we were trying to do William Morris. I should've listened to him way beforehand. David Geffen said-
- DSDavid Senra
Let, let's talk about this
- AEAri Emanuel
... so David Geffen says to me-
- DSDavid Senra
You're [laughs] hold on.
- AEAri Emanuel
With the, with the-
- DSDavid Senra
Let me, let me set this up 'cause you're, like, freaking out. I love how in the book... So, uh, I, I, I have the audiobook version, which I highly recommend.
- AEAri Emanuel
Mm.
- DSDavid Senra
I have this book, obviously the hardcover book, and the Kindle book.
- AEAri Emanuel
All right.
- DSDavid Senra
People listening to this, you kn- the bare minimum, order the Audible right now.
- AEAri Emanuel
Bob Oelrich's incredible.
- DSDavid Senra
I've never read a book like this. Like-
- AEAri Emanuel
Oh, wow
- DSDavid Senra
... the amount of just, like, you're just unbelievably honest, and you're just, like... You, you share, like, "Yes, I'm very successful and smart and driven, but I'm also, I got some fucked up shit, too," like we all do, and I think the, we do a disservice where we try to pretend we're perfect. We're all imperfect human beings.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And you're just like, "Here's it is."
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
"Deal with it."
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
"You probably have this, too."
- AEAri Emanuel
We're trying to-
- DSDavid Senra
David Geffen. So you-
- AEAri Emanuel
We're trying to grow-
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah
- AEAri Emanuel
... the business.
- DSDavid Senra
And you're terrified 'cause you have this thing that's like, "I don't feel safe because if Endeavor is not safe, I'm not safe."
- AEAri Emanuel
Right. So, you know, he was, he's been an incredible advisor to me and, and kind of mentor to me, and he says to me, "Just merge with William Morris, get in traffic, and get hit."
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
And, you know, ultimately he was saying, "Believe in yourself. Believe in your partners. You're gonna win that battle."
- DSDavid Senra
And the-
- 45:19 – 49:35
Why Ari rolls the calls
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
So I, uh, obviously knew who you were because of the Entourage character, and then, but then when I heard you, uh, writing a book, I was like, Roll the Calls? I was like, "I don't even know what that means." So explain why you named the, the book Roll the Calls.
- AEAri Emanuel
When I'm walking into the office, and I'm down the hallway, and my office is down there, I'll just start screaming, like, to my assistant, "Roll the calls." Like, you know, people have called me, I want people, and they just start hitting calls. My whole life, as I just said, how I met Marc Andreessen, that then led to Egon Durban, that then led to, you know, this, that, and the other thing, or, it's a puzzle, and the way you get into the puzzle for me is on the phone and then meeting people after. You read something, you call somebody, you meet somebody, and they, in a good way in my life, they have created serendipity, and I've created a world that way, and rolling the calls is how I do it. And when I get into my car, and I'm on my phone, and I call my office, "Roll the calls." And we're just rolling calls.
- DSDavid Senra
I just heard you do this when you were in the bathroom. [laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, let's, let's roll the calls. And I don't know where it's gonna lead. Hopefully, if I'm good at my job, and I think this is what's great about being an agent that's taught me in business, like, creating a TV show or a, a movie that you put together, that's creating a puzzle, and as great as Marty Scorsese is or Jonah Hill or Aaron Sorkin or, or Seth MacFarlane or Tyler Per-- uh, my list of clients, they're incredible artists. The job as an agent in the entertainment business, you have to be an incredible new idea businessman for them on their deals and how to put a movie together and, and get through conflict, 'cause there's always conflict. I've taken that skill set, and now through great teachers, Egon, Nitin, other people, and just witnessing people, I call people when I'm in situations. I can take that same skill set and apply it to our businesses. And that's how I live my life, rolling calls, doing my thing, David Geffen, getting in traffic, getting hit, and not being scared that... I was scared. I, I was emotionally scared, and partners have helped me through that. Like, am I, because I'm dyslexic, am I smart enough to do this? I'm now, I don't have that fear anymore, and that I can get through these deals and be creative and looking at what Egon does, looking at what Michael Dell does, look at-- They're, they're incredible artists of how to run a company, how to build a company, and I think it is a great art form.
- DSDavid Senra
Michael Dell's worth, I don't know, like quarter of a trillion dollars, and I'm telling you, he's so, still underrated. He's unbel-
- AEAri Emanuel
He's incredible.
- DSDavid Senra
This exactly, it's funny you use the word puzzles, 'cause I, that's what I ask him about, is, and that's the way he looks at, like, a business, like a, a giant puzzle.
- AEAri Emanuel
He's incredible.
- DSDavid Senra
And it's just like the guy started his company at nineteen with a thousand dollars in his dorm room.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. He has.
- DSDavid Senra
He's in his sixties. Look what he's doing today.
- AEAri Emanuel
And he's a monster.
- DSDavid Senra
But, but he's also, like, unbelievably, he's got a very, very friendly UI. He's, like, spent hour, will spend, I spent hours, like there's no reason for him to spend hours with me teaching me stuff.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
But he does. He's just a-
- AEAri Emanuel
I promise you, he's learning something, though.
- DSDavid Senra
But he's a remarkable human being.
- AEAri Emanuel
Those people that you, like M- Marc Andreessen, they're, they're artists at what they do. And here's what I don't like in the world right now. For some reason, certain part of the population thinks that that is a horrible thing what these great businessmen have done. Like, they, they think it's a no-no, that they've created great wealth for people, great wealth for the country, great, great, and that in some way- It's not good, and I love capitalism. I think it's an incredible-
- DSDavid Senra
I'm a son of a Cuban immigrant.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Like, I literally, I-
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. Well, my son is Israeli, I'm Jewish.
- DSDavid Senra
I, I tell this story over and over. Like, it's not a joke. I grew up in South Florida. I literally, I remember being fucking nine years old and meeting people that came over here on rafts. And all, all... Just like, okay, well, how many people go to the end of South Florida and put your... You have four kids?
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And when, when they were small, put them on a raft-
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... to Cuba? That's a one-way trip.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
It comes in this direction.
- 49:35 – 51:56
Building your own school of entrepreneurship
- AEAri Emanuel
don't give-
- DSDavid Senra
And it's like I wanna learn from these people. So let me go to the next question I have for you. Explain this, like, Ari Emanuel rolling school of entrepreneurship. Where did you get the idea, and how long have you been doing it?
- AEAri Emanuel
It just started. Like, one of the first ideas about this, my boss at this company InterTalent, this guy Bill Block, who was running it, he was a really curious guy, and he read this book called... And we talk all the time now, still.
- DSDavid Senra
Still sits there?
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah, yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
And he read this book back in the day, I think this was '92, Life After Television by George Gilder. I read the book, very short book, thank God [laughs] very dyslexic, and, um, I called George. I don't know how this came about in my life that I would just read an article, call the guy, people would pick up, but it just happens to me. And I, as you know, as you read the book, if they don't call me, I call them and call them and call them-
- DSDavid Senra
Right
- AEAri Emanuel
... until they do call me. Sometimes people think that's stalking. If you can use some levity and some humor and some self-deprecation, you get away with it and don't get committed to a jail. And he started talking to me about the business. That little thing in has l- led me to realizing when we started the business in '95, there's gonna be more television, and it's about the, how, how distribution's gonna change. Same amount of people making content, maybe even some new content, which we now have podcasts, social media, et cetera, you know, micro dramas, and that content creators were gonna be more valuable. That premise was all I needed to start the company with my three other partners who had the, who believed in the same thing. And that just continues. My relationship with Michael Rapino, one of the great executives of all time, grew up $200 million company now to $40, $50 billion. I don't know what he's done. It's incredible. Marc Andreessen. I mean, it's just my life. That's how I live my life, and those are the puzzles I create. And I then, the great thing about it, I get to always tap into them and call them if something's coming up and take them to lunch and listen to them. You know, same thing. That's how I met Elon. He was-- I read about him starting a car company. I didn't know the guy. I called him. We met, and we have an incredible relationship. Like most friendships, I don't agree with him all the time. I do agree with him. I learn a ton. I disagree a ton. Life.
- 51:56 – 53:58
Learning from Elon Musk and betting on live events
- DSDavid Senra
What have you learned from Elon?
- AEAri Emanuel
He gave early on where AI was going. Him and he, he, he was talking about AI in 2007, what it was gonna be. And then he enabled, one, sports was gonna... live was gonna be important. Definitely sports was gonna be important. He talked about that, so did Egon. And then he said, "The only thing that is, can't be disintermediated by AI is live in the entertainment business." Well, I mean, he didn't talk about entertainment, 'cause I was asking about the entertainment. And that's what gave, you know, the, the idea behind Mari. And, uh, so we're now building pretty big business into live.
- DSDavid Senra
But how is Mari related to TKO?
- AEAri Emanuel
Separate companies.
- DSDavid Senra
Separate companies.
- AEAri Emanuel
Separate companies.
- DSDavid Senra
But they're, but they're doing similar things, though. Like-
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah. One's in sports, pure.
- DSDavid Senra
Yes.
- AEAri Emanuel
And one's in live events from art to, um, uh, car auctions to holiday events to tennis events. It's just the live events.
- DSDavid Senra
So-
- AEAri Emanuel
Michael Rapino's just in music.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
TKO is just in sports, right? It's a sports dur- you know, live business. And Mari is an events business. There's some sports assets. We have the, the Miami Open, the Madrid Open in tennis. We have participatory sports, Escape from Alcatraz. We have a collectible business in, in Frieze and Barrett Jackson and this thing called CollectCon, which is in the Pokémon space. And so it will be everything live events on a global basis.
- DSDavid Senra
How do you split your time? Is it, are these the two main companies-
- AEAri Emanuel
These are the two companies
- DSDavid Senra
... you're spending almost 100% of your time on?
- AEAri Emanuel
These are the two companies.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And, like, what's the split right now? 'Cause one is obviously-
- AEAri Emanuel
Well-
- DSDavid Senra
... huge and growing-
- AEAri Emanuel
I, I, I spend-
- DSDavid Senra
... but this one's brand new
- AEAri Emanuel
... well, time's a crazy thing. Like, y- y- you know, I spend a lot of time on both, [laughs] you know? And yeah, I just, I just work.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
I have my clients. I still do my clients 'cause it's important for TKO and everything else. I had been doing all the work around Mari, so it's what I've been doing anyway, and, and TKO.
- 53:58 – 1:00:23
Learning from Hollywood’s greatest agents
- DSDavid Senra
Okay, I wanna go back to the very beginning of the book, the very beginning of your career. Basically, the start of your l- your new life, right, uh, uh, that took you on the path that we are today. It can be traced back to when you're 24 years old.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
You see this job listing. "I'm gonna be assistant to talent agent." You don't even know what a talent agent was.
- AEAri Emanuel
Well, I kinda did.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah. [laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
This guy Mike Mendelson, um, told me, he w- like, I landed in New York, and I, and I, friend of a friend, and, and he says what William Morris is. You know, I'm from the Midwest. I didn't know.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
I had no idea what an agent... I didn't know they existed. And for whatever reason, it kinda like, "That seems like I would be good at that. I could do that."
- DSDavid Senra
Well, well, there's a handful of things that I took away from that section of the book that I think are really important, that you kinda used your entire life and continue to develop, was, like, one, um, Robbie had the same kind of school of entrepreneurship, but he did it through, like, dictation and writing letters-
- AEAri Emanuel
Right
- DSDavid Senra
... of the great minds.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And they'd, they'd c- carry on, like, this discourse-
- AEAri Emanuel
Discourse
- DSDavid Senra
... which is... And I was like, "Oh, shit. Ari does that later on-"
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... with his-
- AEAri Emanuel
Differently
- DSDavid Senra
... yeah, with his phone, right? Uh, the other thing that, that I thought was very interesting too is you had somebody older, really successful, telling you, a young man, "Hey- I, I can't serve you anymore.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
You have insane talent and drive. Move west and go build your own empire.
- AEAri Emanuel
Go build, yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And then one of the third things, and most important, is you got to listen in on his calls.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
And this guy used to be at the top of his game, right? And then now you have this younger, this tales old as time, younger, hungrier kid that's coming for what you want, and you're listening to his calls.
- AEAri Emanuel
And he was the king. Mike, Mike even though he's younger and hungrier-
- DSDavid Senra
Ovitz, we're talking about.
- AEAri Emanuel
Mike Ovitz. You know, there's Lew Wasserman on Mount Rushmore-
- DSDavid Senra
Yes
- AEAri Emanuel
... and Mike Ovitz on Mount Rushmore. And Mike Ovitz created what nobody had created. He created the packaging business and the movie business, saw what all these other guys... And there was lots and lots of agencies. But he, four guys or five guys, I, I don't, I think-
- 1:00:23 – 1:10:10
Outgrowing rage without losing ambition
- DSDavid Senra
are incredible.
- AEAri Emanuel
It's 100%. But I, I need to get to this crazy transformation, because me, you know, I was, I was seeking your advice. I'm obsessed with, you know, people that you have dec- a few decades on me, so, like, you know where I'm going, and I asked. I was like, "Hey, what were you doing when you were my age?"
- DSDavid Senra
Don't have the guilt that I had. About what?
- AEAri Emanuel
About not, not seeing your kids.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah, let's, we're gonna ta- we can talk about everything publicly.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah.
- DSDavid Senra
I'm, I'm fine with that. But my thing about you is, like, you're, like, a, a more relaxed version than I even thought from the book. Uh, definitely still, I heard you on the phone, so it's like, you know? But, like, you're-
- AEAri Emanuel
[laughs]
- DSDavid Senra
I thought, you know, I was gonna get, like, another Ari Gold or something like that. Book starts with rage. Talks about bundle of anxiety, bundle of fear, not feeling safe.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
Being angry, getting hit by a fucking car and almost dying.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
And then realizing, hey, this isn't a dress rehearsal. This, I think, is the most important part-
- AEAri Emanuel
Right
- DSDavid Senra
... one of the most important things to have in your life. Like, when did you decide, "Hey, I, I got to make this change because, like, if I keep living life like this bundle of uncontrollable rage-
- AEAri Emanuel
Mm
- DSDavid Senra
... like, I'm actually gonna have an unhappy life"?
- AEAri Emanuel
You know, there's a character in there called, uh, Dr. Calm, which is my shrink, and he, he had this concept called the ego project. You know, we all think we can control certain things and, you know, you have this thing about your legacy. All these things that are bottled up in the ego. And he was trying to break it down and, and, and teach me there's your plan, and then there's somebody else's plan. And it started with h- the car, like it's not a dress rehearsal.
- DSDavid Senra
How old were you when you got hit by that car?
- AEAri Emanuel
I was 32.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
Right? And you know, when you're 32, you... My career's going great, life is great, I'm physically great, you know. And you just realize it could end like that. And that starts a chain of reactions in your brain, like you have to constantly remind yourself. Getting sick with the UFC, like, oh no, you're not invincible. You're vincible, right? You're human. And you know, you think you can control all this stuff, and if you play the chess match out in your head, you're gonna win. And when you don't, you, that's when you get angry. I just kept on working on it and realizing and wanting to get better and not enjoying the rage all the time. You know, just, like, you get older and you get tired of it.
- DSDavid Senra
At what age did you start to feel tired of the rage?
- AEAri Emanuel
Well, here's what I realized. I want to be really su- really successful. I realized that rage and anger and the way I was operating the business, you could never get to really big heights.
- DSDavid Senra
Why?
- AEAri Emanuel
I wasn't happy with how I was living my life. And you know, one of the things that the book does, it tell- I, um... It, like, there's, there's JR who helped me write the book, like, there's three weeks I cannot b- what he remind- he showed me early when we were doing this, like, this is what happened in these three weeks. This is what's happened in this month. Like, I'm like, how the fuck did that happen? You know, like, all these things, you know, going to visit my daughter when she was in M- Montana Academy and in the mountains of Utah, and then coming back, and then this thing, deal happened, and then that deal happened, or... It's just like, it's insane, and that's not... I wasn't, I wasn't enjoying it, right? Even though I was getting through it, I wasn't enjoying it. And that just took a process. I, I saw the toll it took on my marriage, which is, you know, the- things get left behind. I, I didn't, I don't think, if you ask my kids, and I think my wife, my ex-wife and I scored a touchdown with four incredible kids. That was great, but I didn't think I could progress, which I wanted to, and the company could do what it do and, and where I wanted to build it was possible in the state I was. And so then I just went on a path of, like, meeting people, meeting people that were gonna help me realize how to get, become a better person. And that took shamans and, you know, other means to get there that were different from Dr. Calm that enabled me to realize, you know, the world's been around for three thousand years. I'm still competitive, but there's a different way to be competitive. I never realized, like, going on a vacation could be better than not going on a vacation. I thought it was like, you know, so bad for you. Jeff Bezos says to me, I don't know, a lot of years ago, he says to me, "You know, you just have to realize when you're on the field, be on the field. But it's okay to get off the field. And when you're off the field, get off the field, and don't play the chess match. Don't be scared of getting off the field." You know, it's not a bad thing, 'cause it makes when you're on the field even, you're more potent. And I never used to do get off the field.
- DSDavid Senra
So eyes open and this is-
- AEAri Emanuel
Constantly working.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
And that, that plus doing Five Meo and other things, that helped me realize this whole thing about legacy, which is bullshit in my mind, or the ego project, or any of these other, however you want to box it.
- 1:10:10 – 1:18:18
Psychedelics, purpose, and letting go of legacy
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs] Tell me about the, the s- the use of, like, psychedelics. You, I think you call it the toad in the book.
- AEAri Emanuel
Toad.
- DSDavid Senra
That, that-
- AEAri Emanuel
Five MeO.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay, Five MeO DMT.
- AEAri Emanuel
That's the best. That's the best psychedelic in the world.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay, but this is literally the, the thing that-
- AEAri Emanuel
That's the turning point.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. So talk about-
- AEAri Emanuel
So a friend, again, guy I met, he had done this psychedelic with this guy in, in New Mexico, and he explained it to me, you know. And I said, "Okay." And most of the time, when I do my health stuff, and I consider this a health thing and a emotional thing, which is part of health, I always call my brother Zeke. And I asked him the very simple question. I said, "Can it kill me?" And he said, "No." So I said, "Okay, I'll do it. I'll try it." So I go to New Mexico with Stod, my wife. At the time, we weren't married. When-
- DSDavid Senra
What's going on in your life?
- AEAri Emanuel
At this point?
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah, so you, you've been through the divorce.
- AEAri Emanuel
So I'm divorced. I'm, I'm divorced at this point.
- DSDavid Senra
You're in a new relationship.
- AEAri Emanuel
Yep.
- DSDavid Senra
Your business is... Isn't it, is this COVID? Isn't your business fucked up or no?
- AEAri Emanuel
'22.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay.
- AEAri Emanuel
2022. And it was, you know, we were kinda coming out of it, and Fight Island had already happened with the UFC, and we were just starting to come back a little bit. So with Five MeO, which is toad or bufo, whatever they call it, you smoke it, you read a poem, which is horrible. You have to read a fucking poem. I'm dyslexic. I'm, "What the fuck? I can't get away from this reading thing."
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
And, um, and you have to read it out loud. Ugh, Jesus. And so you go offline, offline, I don't know how to describe it other than, I got another way to describe it, for 10 minutes, and then you're tripping for about 30 minutes. And you realize how small we are in the world, and it, it's, and, like, how meaningless in a weird way. Not in a bad way that you don't wanna work or anything, that you're not aggressive or any of that stuff. You just, you realize, okay, I understand what it is, and, and you want a meaningful life and not a just... Okay. And that, like, more than Dr. Kom, not in a bad way, just helped me with The Ego Project, realizing legacy's bullshit. You just wanna be here, be happy, do the best thing you can, and enjoy your life while working really hard and have a purpose. And that just started a process for me ex- experimenting a little bit, and I think I'm calmer now, not that I'm not... I mean, most people in my office would say [laughs] that I'm not calm.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay. This is the part I need to understand, though, because Marc Andreessen, who you mentioned a couple times, he was on the show, 'cause-
- AEAri Emanuel
He's incredible
- DSDavid Senra
... but one of the things that he talked about on the show was that he hates that everybody in Silicon Valley is trying to get everybody to do psychedelics because then the founders won't work as hard. [laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
That's not true.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
That's complete, that, that, that's-
- DSDavid Senra
So-
- AEAri Emanuel
That's complete bullshit.
- 1:18:18 – 1:22:32
How Entourage changed Ari’s life
- AEAri Emanuel
to go.
- DSDavid Senra
Just one other thing I want to talk to you about, and this is, uh, a- again, the impact, because you, you, you, you rep Mark Wahlberg-
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah
- DSDavid Senra
... right? And then he's like, "Hey, Ari, I got this idea," uh, because he, he had this crew from the East Coast. They like-
- AEAri Emanuel
He had his entourage.
- DSDavid Senra
His entourage. Uh, and I, I was-
- AEAri Emanuel
I think, see, I think Mark came up with it. It was either Mark or his manager, longtime manager, Steve Levinson, who's E, came up with... I don't remember which one of them came up with Entourage.
- DSDavid Senra
But-
- AEAri Emanuel
But it's the perfect name
- DSDavid Senra
... and then you wind up selling it, right?
- AEAri Emanuel
Right.
- DSDavid Senra
And then you kind of forget about it, right?
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah, at the time, yeah, before it got ren-
- DSDavid Senra
But you didn't think, you had, there was no, again, it goes back to the fact that you like to stay flexible every day because you can't predict a lot of things. You had no idea the cultural impact that was gonna have.
- AEAri Emanuel
I thought it was gonna be completely negative on my career, my life, et cetera. Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson, his manager, said, "You don't realize it," because the show started getting hot.
- DSDavid Senra
Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
And he goes, "This is gonna be the greatest thing that ever happened to you." And I completely didn't believe him. I thought it was horrible. My wife, my ex-wife, hated it. I would never watch it because it was Mrs. Ari, Sunday night, in bed. W- I mean, I didn't want to go through any of that. I just started watching it. I've gone-
- DSDavid Senra
When?
- AEAri Emanuel
I've gotten through two seasons.
- DSDavid Senra
Right now?
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah, now, right now.
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- AEAri Emanuel
It's the first time. He's now just gotten fired or laid off, and he's started a new agency.
- DSDavid Senra
Okay, hold on. But there's a whole... I, I j-
- AEAri Emanuel
I, I, I'm, I'm gonna get to epis- the rest of the season, rest of the seasons.
- DSDavid Senra
I just watched this other, like, short interview you did, and they were, like, giving you lines of other people, and they're like, "Did you say it? Who said this line?" And you're reading this, it's like, "This sounds like something I said." And then it was actually a line from Ari Gold. But in the book, you said after a while you couldn't-
- AEAri Emanuel
No, it, it was leading, I was following. I-
- DSDavid Senra
So talk about this. Yeah.
- AEAri Emanuel
Well, you know, you're sitting there, the show becomes a hit. People are saying things to you from the show, which I'm not watching, and you're like, "Did I say that?" Right? And then you're a c- character of yourself as a person. You don't know, but it is opening doors. My brother's in the White House, and a, and, and a congressman also before that, a pretty big congressman. And it just kind of like the full kind of volcano happens. And, you know, it, it was bizarre that... And I think it happened to a bunch of Mark's friends, too, that were characters, and it just was a bizarre event that people would come up and say, "Hug it out, bitch."
- DSDavid Senra
[laughs]
- 1:22:32 – 1:24:14
Ari never had a plan B
- AEAri Emanuel
mean, actually, J.R. says about it, you know, "Are you sure you wanna go here and show all the fucking scabs?"
- DSDavid Senra
The book?
- AEAri Emanuel
In the book. I said, "I don't know how to do it any other way." He goes, "Well, peop- when you walk in a room, people are gonna think they know you." And I said, "That's fine. I don't mind." I mean, I had a little bit with Entourage, and they, you know. But I'm okay with that. And now kids come up to me that are now young kids still watching Entourage, and there's a whole new generation. And the good thing is, hopefully they get out of the book and Entourage, you have agency for yourself. You, you know, my own version of Art of War, and you go for it. I say this all the time. I never had a plan B. I don't know about you. In my life, it was, it was agency or, or die. And I think now, I'm gonna be a social media star, I'm gonna... No. This is what I'm doing, and I'm going for it. And with all the troubles, as you know, it's hard building a business, and that's hopefully what people get out of it.
- DSDavid Senra
Jeff Bezos has this great line where he's like, "Plan B should be to make plan A work."
- AEAri Emanuel
Yeah, [laughs] exactly. That's a good line.
- DSDavid Senra
Great. The book is awesome. Highly recommend it. Everybody listening should buy the hardcover, the Audible. I'm really glad you wrote the book. I'm glad that freaking we got to hang out. I'm glad we got to meet, man.
- AEAri Emanuel
Thanks, man.
- DSDavid Senra
This was awesome.
- AEAri Emanuel
Appreciate it.
- DSDavid Senra
Thanks for taking the time.
- AEAri Emanuel
Thanks, everybody.
- DSDavid Senra
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders. [outro music]
Episode duration: 1:24:14
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