Niki its Gary Vaynerchuk.
You're on The #AskGaryVee Show with Michael
Ovitz.
- [Nikki] Wow, hello.
- Hi.
- [Nikki] It's an honor.
- What's your question?
Thank you.
- [Nikki] So I guess I should just ask my
question.
- Yeah, that's a good idea.
- [Nikki] I assume.
(laughs)
Basically I just wanted to ask
with being with Creative Artists Agency,
what's something that when you work with
a lot of other people kind of high-profile
that you don't want them to do,
that you're like oh this is a mistake they
made,
they could have had been my client but...
- You mean something that you don't want them
to do?
- [Nikki] Like what's a mistake
that when you have artists who want to be
your client,
something that they do that prevents you
from saying yes to them?
- Oh, you mean the other way
when you're at the at the top like a CAA,
what would a emerging actor/actress/director/athlete
say
that could actually turn off CAA from saying
you know what you're not the right client
for us,
is that the question?
- [Nikki] Correct.
- Interesting.
- I've never...
- The answers always yes,
we want as many clients as possible.
- Normally the answer is yes
so I've never thought about it that way.
- You know what's funny?
It's funny that both the you and I reacted
that way.
A lot of people talk about be thoughtful about...
you know my team, very senior people, lots
of great people.
We have to be thoughtful about who we bring
in,
they need to be the right kind of client.
I'm like yes, yes, yes, you know it's funny
that we both reacted that way.
Have you ever had a meeting where you were
court...
let's go this way because I'd love to hear
it,
a play on that question.
Did you ever court somebody because you're
like oh my god,
that would be a crown jewel or that be a big
get
for the firm and I know you went whale hunting,
was there ever as you were whale hunting through
the years
when you actually got closer to it you said
oh shit,
she or he is such a headache or they have
this vulnerability
or somebody in our stable has emerged as a
direct competitor
and we don't have the bandwidth.
Was there ever, to her point, was there ever
any of that?
- Yeah, we had one situation,
which was really difficult for us, which is
we,
as you've already mentioned, we handled Sylvester
Stallone
and he was very competitive with Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Arnold was somebody that I really wanted
to represent
because he was, first of all, he's the most
terrific guy.
He's really smart and he really understood
the paradigm of the action movie better than
anybody.
If you look back at his body of work, it's
pretty amazing.
And I went after Arnold and wanted him
and it got back to Sly
and he wasn't particularly happy about it.
(laughing)
- And that's that.
- That was that.
- Is there a reason you're asking that question?
Are you going through a path or anything
like you're trying to navigate?
- [Nikki] Well the reason why I asked is
because I feel like as someone who's in Los
Angeles
and is along with thousands,
hundreds of thousands of other people,
people always ask oh, what should I do to
get into the door
and so I was like is there something that
I shouldn't do
to what I'm trying to get into the door
because it seems like everybody has an answer
for how to get into the door,
but not like hey, make sure you don't do this.
- You know I think short of anything illegal,
I think anything short of illegal or immoral,
you should do whatever you feel you have to
do
to move your career ahead.
We were lucky, we went after talented people,
and at the end of the day talent wins out.
And I think when you're young you have to
look for breaks.
You really have to look for breaks
and they may be social, they may be business,
they may be because you've got an idea.
Let's not forget we spoke about Stallone,
this guy wrote a script called Rocky
on spec, on his own dime, and--
- [Gary] Sold his damn dog.
- Everybody wanted to buy that script and
move him out of it
and to his credit he said no me, no script.
- That's hard when your hungry.
- It's really hard and took a lot of guts
to do that
because he was offered a lot of money for
that script.
- The thing that's different today
than some of those years past for Sly
or when you were at CAA is people can now
go direct to consumer.
You can now produce content
and use the distribution of an Instagram or
YouTube
or a podcast to absolutely give you leverage
to be courted in a very interesting way
in the way that you created packaging
with leveraging the studios,
the human can now create content
to build leverage to have people bid for them.
- [Micheal] Absolutely.
- That's what happened to me by the way, real
quick,
my little quick CA story is I started a wine
show
on YouTube in 2006 and July of 2007
after showing up on Conan on late-night
because the producers reached out to me
because they were watching it on YouTube,
the next morning I had an email from Endeavor,
before the merger, William Morris, others.
Everybody ironically but CAA.
Then said on my show that I was going to Hollywood
to find an agent, it was like this funny joke
because I thought it was crazy
and then I got an email from some people that
worked at CAA,
they were having a fantasy football draft
that day
and they said why don't you come and hang
out with us.
I said yes, but they didn't say they were
from CAA,
they said what are you doing here?
I said I'm going to see these Hollywood agents,
they said are you gonna see CAA?
I said no and they made it happen
and that's who I ended up signing with.
That was all based on me producing a wine
show
in a store in Springfield, New Jersey.
There was no moving to LA and waiting on tables
and going to auditions.
We have an incredible world we live in now
where you can create the leverage for you
on the back of the Internet.
- Different time, completely different.
In our day there were roughly 25 companies
that controlled the complete gate.
In other words the barrier to entry was severe.
You had seven studios, you had four networks,
you had five publishing houses,
you had five record companies,
and probably 10 companies in Europe
that controlled everything
that you would read, see, and hear.
Our company had relationships with all these
companies.
If you were a client, you got in the door.
If you weren't a client,
you had trouble getting in the door.
Today, this person that called in
if they could make something three minutes
long
using their iPhone or a small Sony camera,
they could put it up and if it went viral,
good god, who knows?
- Kiki do you love me, the dance,
he's in Drake's video four months later.
One video on Instagram, it goes.
I mean just an incredible time.
- And it's the only song
my three-year-old grandson wants to hear.
- I get it.
