Michael Ovitz: The Business of Relationships

Shane Parrish: One of the things that I admire about you is your voracious appetite for learning. And you started in the William Morris File Room and you had access to all these, but it was like you, David Geffen, Barry Diller, all the same sort of path in the file room reading the history. What’s the modern equivalent of that, do you think, for people out there wanting to get ahead at work? 

Michael Ovitz: Well, it’s a really great question. I’m not sure, frankly, because I love the internet and I love being on my computer to the point where my significant other wants to kill me sometimes because I just love surfing through the internet and going down rabbit holes. David Geffen and Barry Diller and I are very dissimilar human beings, but we do share a couple of very similar traits. All three of us cut our teeth in the early years in the entertainment business. All three of us have voracious appetites for learning, and all three of us have voracious appetite to read. David and Barry are two of the smartest guys that I know, and they’re on top of everything. If you talk to them, it’s extraordinary how well-read they are. These guys didn’t go to college. They’re better read than most PhDs that I know in any field.