The Real-Life Ari Gold: How Ari Emanuel Built a Hollywood Empire

Ari Emanuel is one of the most powerful people in entertainment and the real-life inspiration for Ari Gold on Entourage. He started in the CAA mailroom before co-founding Endeavor with three other agents and very little money. Over the next three decades, he merged the company with William Morris, acquired IMG and UFC, and helped reshape the modern entertainment business. In this conversation, Ari and Emma examine the qualities behind that extraordinary career. Ari opens up about growing up with severe dyslexia, being bullied, and using the anger he carried from those experiences to drive himself forward. He explains why you have to say what you want, how he works until he finds the yes, and why curiosity only becomes valuable when you act on it. They also explore the harder side of success. Ari reflects on the rage and aggression that helped him build his company, the moment he realized those qualities could no longer take him forward, and the work he has done to become a better leader. They get into: Turning dyslexia and rejection into emotional enduranceWhy nobody will advocate for your future more fiercely than youWhat Ari learned from starting in the CAA mailroomHis relentless approach to calls, rejection, and finding the yesHow he turns curiosity into relationships and opportunitiesWhy company culture is shaped by the behavior leaders tolerateWhat founders misunderstand about how long success takesKnowing when the qualities that built your career need to evolveWhy Ari ultimately values a life of meaning over a traditional legacyAri’s new memoir, Roll the Calls, is available now.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  On Aspire, I want to understand what successful people had to learn the hard way and turn those lessons into something you can use in your own life and work. I absolutely ate up Ari Emanuel's new memoir, Roll the Course, and the more I read, the more of myself I recognized in his story. We're both dyslexic and we both learned to turn the things that could have held us back into fuel. Ari started in the CAA mailroom and went on to co-found Endeavour and build one of the most powerful businesses in entertainment. I wanted to talk to him because his career is a blueprint for turning challenges into an advantage and for recognizing when the qualities that made you successful need to evolve. As you listen, I want you to notice what Ari does with discomfort.

• 0:53Emma Grede?

  He says what he wants, acts on his curiosity and keeps working until he finds a way forward. That is the real playbook inside this conversation.

• 1:11Emma Grede?

  Ari Emanuel, welcome to Aspire.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Thank you very much for having me.

• 1:14Emma Grede?

  I look at you and see your career as such a blueprint for turning what makes you different and things that would normally be considered adversity into what it takes to succeed. A lot of people who will be listening to this podcast will have something that feels like it stands between them and what they intend to be.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  So can I ask you a serious question? So when you decided to start your business?

• 1:35Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  And you said, okay, this is what I'm gonna go for. And this is what I, hopefully I've taught my kids, hopefully you're teaching your kids. And I think you teach your kids through osmosis by them witnessing you. You have to ask for the job. You have to ask. You have to have agency for yourself. I advocate for my clients. I'm a fierce, you know, I'm a do or die guy, you know, I'm a ride or die guy with people. But then you have to be a ride or die guy for what you want and you have to say what you want or you're definitely not gonna get what you want.

• 2:09Emma Grede?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  And if you're not willing to do that, how the fuck are you gonna ever get them? And for some reason, I think it's hard for people to announce verbally, say it, like, I want this money, I want that, I wanna, this is what I wanna be.

• 2:24Emma Grede?

  You're preaching to the converted. I'm the start with yourself girl. The name of my book was Start With Yourself.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29Emma Grede?

  Because it's the only way that I ever knew how, because nobody is ever gonna come and pluck you from obscurity and say, what are all the things that you need and want? And let me see how I can do that for you. For an agent, dyslexia is debilitating. So much of what I saw coming up in my career was agents reading, reading nonstop. And I just wonder-

• 2:47Speaker 01

  That's one of the reasons I picked television.

• 2:48Emma Grede?

  Let's breathe.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Because in television, a half hour was like 39 pages and an hour was like 60, whatever. A lot easier than a movie script, which I just was, used to sweat, because you have to do coverage when you're in the mailroom and when you're on a desk. I used to sweat when they gave me, you know, those feature scripts. And when they gave you television, okay, I can get through that, I can get through five, six, seven, you know, whatever.

• 3:11Emma Grede?

  That's why I chose fashion, because there was just nothing to read at all. These will make your butt look good, done. Looking back now, how much of your success do you attribute to having something that you had to fight against?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  It drove me, you know, I hate when people say, I was very competitive. I'm as competitive as everybody else.

• 3:30Emma Grede?

  Ari, you might be a little bit more competitive.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. Because I just wanted to win. And for me, that was like being successful, that definition was being the best and having my own business. I looked around and I said to myself when I was at ICM and read the book by George Gilda, Life After Television, everybody said the television business is dead and this and, I'm like, that doesn't make any sense to me, so let's go for it. And when I was a kid, you know, you can't read and my mother made sure that I could read. And I'm okay with, because of maybe that and because of the way my parents brought me up, I'm okay with awkward situations. I don't need people to agree with me.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  In our family, you came to dinner, you fought about politics, you gave your opinion, and all those things enabled me to say, stand up for myself. And I take my hat off to my mom and dad for doing that with the three of us. I think all three boys-

• 4:29Emma Grede?

  You turned out all right.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  And so I'm okay in the uncomfortable.

• 4:34Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  One, it was not comfortable, not being able to read like everybody else. And two, my parents taught me that it's okay to fight and argue and discuss things. Some people get a little offended because I do it probably a little louder than most people in this town, that you're supposed to just get along. It's not like I'm not getting along, but I'm not just gonna agree just to agree, not to have a conversation.

• 4:58Emma Grede?

  You say openly that rage and chaos were instruments of your success. So when did they actually help you and when did they cost you something?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  People think that there wasn't strategy behind it and that it was just shooting from the hip. And sometimes it was just shooting from the hip, but, and not caring what the outcome is, because I'll live with it. One is after you're dyslexic, but two, after I got hit by the car and I say, life's not a dress rehearsal. It's not. So what do you, like, somebody's gonna push you around and try and impose their will on you and you're not gonna fight back? You got the wrong fucking person. That's not who I am. And that goes into being an advocate for yourself and being agency for yourself and I'm doing that for other people and I'll do it for myself if somebody's trying to bully us or take advantage of the company or me or my client. That's just not how I roll.

• 5:47Emma Grede?

  You were bullied and you called yourself the dumb one. So is there any part of you that feels that you need to prove that label wrong?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Well, there was the smart one, which was Zeke. There was the artist, which was Ram. And sometimes I refer to them as the other one, the dumb one. In our house, grades were up. You didn't get really good grades, you were grounded. That creates anxiety at one point, but also being pissed off because being dyslexic, you don't think you're dumb, it's just you think differently. And I think back in the day, I'd have given my left arm not to be dyslexic. But it does, as Alex Karp says, enables you to think freely in a different way and think about things and organize people and do things differently and respecting yourself. Because you're the only one in that situation that actually can.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And as you get older, you realize dyslexia is actually an advantage. And one of the reasons I wrote the book, I wanted parents to realize that if things are, you don't coddle your kid, yeah, it's very difficult when they're dyslexic and to teach them to read or send them to Lynda Wu, about that, I did with my kids.

• 6:53Emma Grede?

  I did the same.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  And it's very difficult for them. It's, you know, it's heartbreaking.

• 6:57Emma Grede?

  It's hard for us. That bloody Lynda Wu barely killed me, let alone my son.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But if you let him go through it, he or she, she gets emotional endurance and she can advocate for herself and she can handle tough stuff. Yes, there's other psychological things, but let them deal with it when they get older and you'll be there for them. And they know that there's love and kindness behind it from you. They come out on the other side of it and it's just incredible. Because you, you just have this EQ, this advocacy, this ability to withstand stuff. It's a great, it's a, it's great now.

• 7:36Emma Grede?

  Well, I'm glad that you frame it in that way, because there is a part in the book where you almost feel a sense of guilt for passing it on to your kids, which I felt.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  We all do.

• 7:45Emma Grede?

  And again, well, of course you would, but to your point, there's so much that if handled and treated properly, that your kid gets out of having something like that, that they have to conquer at a young age, that it actually ends up being a superpower, as you say, in so many ways. I do wanna just talk about the bullying thing for a second, because I do think it's important and so many people are bullied in school. Has any of that stayed with you? Even as successful as you are today, is there any part of you that still feels like you've got something to prove?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Well, if I think somebody is trying to do something that for some reason, I think they're questioning my intelligence, they're trying to pass one over me or questioning whether I'm seeing the world the way I'm seeing the world. For me, that's like calling me stupid.

• 8:28Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Right? And that dog doesn't hunt for me. And that's where a lot of the rage came in. Now, and I don't know when this exactly happened, doing a lot of work-

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And I said to myself, and I came actually into a meeting at the company on a Monday morning meeting after going away to India. And I said to myself, you know, I've helped grow this company through rage and through aggression. It's not going to take us, it's going to get us so far. And I've got to change and admitting that is the only way and understanding that. And it took a long time after admitting it to get there.

• 9:05Emma Grede?

  And I understand that because I think that for so many people, you can use that idea of this is just how I am to avoid changing. Which part of yourself have you genuinely had to change to become a better leader?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Well, it used to be at times I would shoot in an aim, right? There's an incident with Irving, who's now a friend of mine. That was a crazy, stupid shoot aim. I mean, it was just insane. I was insane and Dr. Calm in the book, my shrink at the time, like he screamed at me. And I realized there was moments like you can't do this. If you want to be a leader and succeed, it's embarrassing for myself. God forbid for my kids, for the company. And once you hit a couple of those and you get punched in the face and you you're actually self reflective, you start to change if you really want to get to the next level. A lot of people like say they want to, but don't.

• 10:00Emma Grede?

  Dr. Calm you refer to throughout the book. You've done a lot of therapy, you've done a lot of work on yourself, but like, what does it actually look like to reverse that type of behavior?

• 10:08Speaker 01

  So it was.

• 10:09Emma Grede?

  When it's got you so far.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I wasn't nervous that I was, if I change, it was going to all fall apart. And then I also realized through Dr. Calm that I wasn't stupid, even though I was the third one or the dumb one or whatever. And there's a moment in my life where I've taken over William Morris. My parents come out to visit. My dad's asking me questions about what's going on in business. He didn't really understand it anyway. And I give him the whole thing and classic parents, my parents. And they said, well, who does all that? And I just turned to him and I'm like, well, it's definitely not my brother Zeke and it's definitely not Rob, right? And it was a classic moment.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  And so Dr. Calm says to me at one point, you know, back in the 50s, people who were successful in business were considered smart. And that like was an aha moment, like, yeah, man, I'm not stupid. It's kind of happening and people are trusting me to invest in me. And then truly I did some psychedelics that also realized, you know.

• 11:18Emma Grede?

  What'd you do?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  MDMA, I've done ayahuasca.

• 11:22Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And that also kind of like.

• 11:25Emma Grede?

  Opened you up?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  It kind of says to you the following, life is not, you know, we're a pimple on the ass of an ant. And it's a big place and you're just, and it got rid of the ego, which Dr. Calm talked about a little bit. And I don't believe in legacy, any of those things that for whatever reason I had in the back of my head and it was operating based on. And so, yeah, that was a, I've now been married, four years dated this woman before that. My wife, Stod, for, I think, four years before that. And she's helped also that this, my relationship with her, it's been incredible.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  And so we've been on this great journey together.

• 12:13Emma Grede?

  How amazing. Oh, it was funny, actually, you just talking about your therapist. I think he called you the most simple and the most complicated client he'd ever had. Which I thought, yeah, that sounds about right. I want to kind of take it back to the beginning of your career because it's so important for people to understand this idea of making yourself useful before you have any power. And you came up like through the mailrooms at CAA. I wonder what that taught you about how power actually works.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  I started in the mailroom at CAA here and Mike Ovitz was God. I mean, he was.

• 12:46Emma Grede?

  God.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  I mean, he was incredible. First of all, what he created was, I mean, he's on Mount Rushmore.

• 12:51Emma Grede?

  Unprecedented, I mean, unbelievable.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  His relationship with Ron Meyer and Bill Haber, also incredible. And they built this incredible business. And he had an idea about where the business was going. He made sure everybody stepped in line. And then I left there because I wanted to go to a startup to this company, Intertalent, with Bill Block. And I saw there, and you only get this when you experience it, you know, some dysfunction. People were saying, we're not going to sign television actors. And it was, you know, like the partners didn't play well together. That company sold itself and split up. And then you go to ICM, which the logo is I cover myself.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  That's what ICM, unlike what Mike created where it was perceived and also at the early days.

• 13:42Emma Grede?

  Camaraderie.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Camaraderie, you know, and, and Mike and Ronnie created that environment. And so then I go to ICM, I'm like, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. And then the moment hits. So you've gotten tastes of how good, bad, not. David Greenblatt, Rick Rosen and Tom Strickler, I look at each other like, we don't want to do this. And I get hit by the car and, you know, you wiggle your fingers, you wiggle your toes. I'm sitting in the middle of Wilshire and I realized, even though I was young, you know, I thought I was on top of the world, invincible, and you have infinite time. It's not a dress rehearsal.

• 14:17Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  And so.

• 14:19Emma Grede?

  Now's the time.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  It's 18 months to do the rehab, surgery, rehab, plan. And then we go on my birthday, March 29th, 1995. And it was, we just incorporated, because we'd all been together a lot, our principles. And we just started working on them and we screwed up a ton, but nobody noticed.

• 14:40Emma Grede?

  No.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Right? And the greatest thing happened. ICM, when we left, made a big deal of it. We, as my father, we were four schmucks, right? And they're like, it was New York Times. It was like, we were nothing, zero, we had no, I mean, nothing.

• 14:58Emma Grede?

  You say that, but it was such a move. It was such a move in a town where it's like, you don't operate outside the big four or five. It's like, it was just a power move. And by virtue, it was like, well, they really must know something that we don't if they're just deciding to do.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  I promise you, we didn't.

• 15:14Emma Grede?

  That's a shame.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  But the great thing is they treated us as if it was a coup d'etat. And that then in and of itself just started the ball rolling. And my father freaked out when it happened. What did you do? Because they were offering me a lot of money to stay and take the paper and take the contract. And I said, Dad, I think the environment's changing. I'm going to go do this. And we, we just worked like dogs. We had nothing to sell. We didn't have a script. We didn't have a, we were just signing clients. And the first script, Tom Strickler read it over the weekend, was Cable Guy.

• 15:53Emma Grede?

  Nuts.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  First started out with Stilson Gray and Chris Farley at Paramount. And John Dolgin had a problem with it. We couldn't do it. Then the project moved to Sony and they put Jim Carrey in and he was coming off a big hit at New Line. He was coming off The Mask. And that was the first $20 million actor. And it just started. And the only thing that was unbelievable there, unbelievable. So we were, we were commissioning because we gave him the script, Brad Gray as producer. I know he has passed away, so.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And since you're the baby in the business and people beat up on you, he fucked us out of $37,500. It took us months and months to get the money, only paid us half. It was just a great little lesson about, one, how to treat people that are starting out.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  And two, okay, this is the way the game's going to be played. And if somebody's going to bully you, okay. I don't know when I'm going to get you. I don't know when.

• 16:59Emma Grede?

  But you got them. You do seem to come back around, it seems to be a habit.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:09Emma Grede?

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• 17:51Emma Grede?

  Macy's has free personal stylists in store who can help pull the whole look together. Find the pieces that perfectly capture the downtown muse trend at Macy's.

• 18:05Emma Grede?

  I'm really interested in this idea of power and also of potential. What do you think that you did early in your career that made powerful people notice you?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  I just worked really hard and I wasn't scared if somebody wasn't calling me not to continue to call them. You know, I had this confluence of events. I had the show, so we're working hard and we're growing.

• 18:29Emma Grede?

  Which is nuts. I mean, can you even believe that?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  We're growing the business and we get the basketball tickets on the floor.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  It's like the greatest billboard on Sunset Boulevard. The Lakers are doing what they're doing and just things are just lining up. Luck, the opportunity, we're there for it.

• 18:48Emma Grede?

  Which just to contextualize, because people haven't been able to read the book yet, you getting Lakers tickets was just a power move.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  We could afford them.

• 18:55Emma Grede?

  You can afford it. You didn't have the half a million in your brand new company to buy it.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  But also remember.

• 18:59Emma Grede?

  Courtside seats.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Phil Jackson shows up, Shaq shows up, they go on the run. We're the four right next to the bench. It was insane.

• 19:08Emma Grede?

  It's insane.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then the next iteration is Mark Wahlberg, the show, and my brother, he's in Congress very well, and then he becomes the chief of staff.

• 19:21Emma Grede?

  Pretty major for President Obama. I mean, everything just fell into place.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we were doing well.

• 19:28Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Signing clients, growing, working really hard, being opportunistic. And yeah, shit happened.

• 19:35Emma Grede?

  It just worked out. So then what do you expect? Because I'm interested in this. How do people show their potential? Because you just say, I just worked really hard and if people, I made calls.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Here's what, here's what I did. First of all, you have to have good clients. You have to have good taste and have to have good clients. And the people at the firm did, we had good clients that people wanted to be in business with. So you just, we just kept on winning that way. And people that were of our generation, CAA was of, the guys were the guys and that was their generation. You weren't getting a place at UTA or ICM or William Morris at the time. So we were the last resort and we were like, this is going to be a big partnership. So people started coming. And so we just kept on growing because we were that place where people could come to.

• 20:29Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And it was perceived to be a place where it was collegial. It was people fighting for each other. It was people having each other's backs.

• 20:39Emma Grede?

  Because you created that culture.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, we created, that's the culture because of the experience beforehand, seeing what ICM, seeing what UTA.

• 20:45Emma Grede?

  That I'm not doing that.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  That just started building on itself. And for me personally, I read a ton of articles, people I wanted to meet, just started calling them, getting meetings with them, talking to them, figuring out their business and figuring out how the jigsaw puzzle fit in. It got easier when entourage got on the air, that people took the calls. And sometimes it was entourage leading and sometimes it was me leading.

• 21:07Emma Grede?

  That actually surprised me. I didn't realize that that was so additive to you.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  I didn't think there were to be any.

• 21:12Emma Grede?

  No, no doubt. Like you were hiding from it and cringing through to the last episode. But it was interesting to me that, that, because I thought the cult of Ari was already such a thing.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:22Emma Grede?

  By the time the show rolled around.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Mark Wahlberg says to me when it starts, and I'm like, this is gonna be fucking horrible. And to his credit, him and Steve Levinson say to me, this is gonna be the best thing I've ever had with you.

• 21:32Emma Grede?

  You're welcome.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I've just started the show now.

• 21:34Emma Grede?

  You're down with the kids, basically, because they're all starting it now.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  When it came out, it came out on Sunday nights. I'm married to my first wife. I didn't want her to see Mrs. Ari.

• 21:46Emma Grede?

  You hadn't really told her.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  It just gave me such anxiety going into Monday. So I said, fuck this, I'm not watching this show. And I've now, I'm all the way up to the Bas Mitzvah.

• 21:56Emma Grede?

  Oh, you are?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Second season.

• 21:58Emma Grede?

  Oh, that's good. It's so good. How much of it was true? I mean, I'm sure there were things that were fabricated, but somebody once said to me, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was Duncan Heath. He said, it's a light version of reality, babe.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Well, there were some things like, you know, I think it's Sundance and Aquaman's happening. Harvey's there and he doesn't have Aquaman because of situations, because, you know, Jim's been put on the movie.

• 22:24Emma Grede?

  Some of that stuff.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And you're sitting there like, I've been in situations that we thought we had the offer, the offer and you're playing.

• 22:30Emma Grede?

  It was mirroring to some degree. Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  And that's anxiety.

• 22:33Emma Grede?

  I understand that. But ultimately, it was really, really good. It's very clear that you've been like a rule breaker. I'm interested in how you distinguish being somebody who's a rule breaker with this rage from just being someone who's really difficult. Because clearly your reputation is so.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  It's really difficult.

• 22:51Emma Grede?

  It's a nightmare. No, but it's like you have such a good reputation and everybody at the end of the day still wanted to work with you.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  I don't think a client or an associate, a family member ever had a question. If we were going up the hill, either I was leading or I was on the side. If there was a battle to happen and somebody was trying to screw us over, I don't mind being the first person in the heat. When you have leaders that would do that, you create an environment that people are, will be very loyal.

• 23:23Emma Grede?

  How instrumental do you think that reputation has been in the success that you've had and the deals that you've been able to do?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  As you know in business and any good businessman now, most good deals happen right in the middle. And whether it's a deal or you're trying to navigate somebody who's creative with his vision and a person financing it or marketing or doing it, you're trying to just get them to see each other's point of view. The definition of me being a diplomat would be shocking for your audience to hear, but that's the job.

• 23:55Emma Grede?

  That's the job.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  And that's the job, whether you're an agent or whether you're owning TKO and navigating that or whether you're talking to investors, that's just the job. Trying to be, as funny as it is me saying this, trying to be an ambassador and an advocate for yourself and or for your clients.

• 24:13Emma Grede?

  No, I feel like that's very clear that there was a level of consistency and reputation that you displayed over and over and over again, which made you a really reliable source. Even if you were just reliably rageful, people understood what they would get.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  If I have an idea or a vision or a requirement or something for a client, I'm relentless.

• 24:37Emma Grede?

  Yeah, well, clearly.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  They know that.

• 24:38Emma Grede?

  The calls, I mean, there's a reason this book's called Roll the Calls. You are relentless. You still make that many calls.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was a situation with a client, a show was getting moved early in our career. It was on King of the Hill and Greg Daniels, incredible client, The Office, et cetera. And I get back in the office at the weekend, I have our research people do all the work around the show and we come up with this strategy and instead of moving behind The Simpsons, we have to move it not on, I think it was Wednesday night, not to seven o'clock after football. And I remember, and he's a dear friend, I destroyed Peter Turner's phone sheet to get that meeting, to make the presentation, to get that time slot. Because they were advocating a different time slot.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  It was horrible what I did. I mean, I just, I did not stop calling. I did not. That was on the border of stalking. And yeah, that's what you have to do.

• 25:37Emma Grede?

  Do you think you still have to do that?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Yes. Fuck yeah.

• 25:40Emma Grede?

  So then what do you see?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  But I do it differently now. I definitely do it differently.

• 25:43Emma Grede?

  Well, of course you do it differently now, but what about people coming up? Like, what do you say to people that are sitting there and they're like, I want to be as successful as Ari Emanuel?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Every Christmas, I take all my assistants, former assistants that are now agents to lunch and celebrate.

• 25:58Emma Grede?

  So nice.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And I give them, I've given them watches that they've made it and they're really successful. They're really great at what they do. And we talk about horror stories. And one of my former assistants and now an agent said, it's so tough. And I just turned to her, I said, shut the fuck up. What are you talking about? It's tough. And Bill Haber said this to me a while ago, he goes, just keep on turning over the rocks until you find what you need. The job is to make the calls, not wallow in, oh, it's so hard, and just do the job. Your job is to be business creative. Find the answer to get, if you believe in this client, you believe in that project and you believe in that situation, get to a yes. That's the job.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  And don't worry about all the other things, how hard it is, people are returning to do, do, do. Shut up. Do the job. Do a job until you can't do it anymore, until you get that yes.

• 26:53Emma Grede?

  But Ari, how much of that has changed? Because are you still finding those people?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yes. I have signed a new client.

• 27:00Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  I believe in an idea for this client.

• 27:03Emma Grede?

  That's what you're doing.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And I'm pounding away on, on projects this big. That's a job. And I still do it today. Pick up the phone and don't stop as much as it might be irritating.

• 27:13Emma Grede?

  You have developed a very unique way of working. Like, as you go through this book, you realize that there is a bunch of routines, that you are constantly in learning mode, you are always reading, you are meeting everybody. You take meetings with people that you find inspiring, you have all of these mentors around you, but you also work like an absolute dog. Like you work from morning to night. I cannot still work out when you sleep, how many hours you sleep. It does not feel like a lot. I feel like you're a four, five hour sleeper.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  No, I'm not.

• 27:44Emma Grede?

  Do you get longer now?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  I go 10 to about 3:30.

• 27:49Emma Grede?

  Okay, that's a whole five.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  I'm 65, so I get up and I do what I do. And then I'll up at 4:30, 5 o'clock.

• 27:56Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  And then the workout, the thing.

• 27:59Emma Grede?

  But that's what I want to talk about.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Then the crazy routine.

• 28:00Emma Grede?

  You still have the crazy routine?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:03Emma Grede?

  Do you think that that is part of your system that has obviously like increased your output?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  I think it's very important to have routine. I have the voice like everybody else, like, go back to bed. I don't listen to that voice. I make sure I don't listen to that voice.

• 28:20Emma Grede?

  What do you do?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  I just get my ass up. As much as sometimes I'm exhausted, listening to that voice, you will not win. And a lot of people don't want to win, so they listen to the voice and I'll work out tomorrow. That phrase, or I'll do this tomorrow. I don't do that. I made a deal, right? I'm advocating for myself. There's a contract with myself. I do the job. And then there's other things, you know, I don't eat for like today.

• 28:48Emma Grede?

  Love a fast.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Today was a 24 hour fast day after the workout, the ice bath, all those things so that you have the ability to work and kind of fight the voice in your head. But that routine permits this whole other process. And I read articles, somebody I find interesting in an article, get me the journalist, get me the person in the article, I make the call, I text them, I, in this day and age, you can get to anybody, I get to them, I have the conversation and figure out how it put kind of fits into my jigsaw puzzle of my life.

• 29:21Emma Grede?

  And is that always work related or is it sometimes just for pleasure?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Just life.

• 29:25Emma Grede?

  Just life.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  For example, in the book, I read the article about Marc Andreessen, a dear friend.

• 29:30Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  He does the same thing that I do in his own way.

• 29:33Emma Grede?

  He meets people.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  We start talking, I started this company, Rain. I say, I want you to invest.

• 29:38Emma Grede?

  You asked him for five million dollars.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  He says, I'm gonna do this with Egon Durin and Nikesh, who was at the time working for, for Google. I then meet Egon. So this is kind of how it all starts happening. Egon, who's one of the best business minds I've, I mean, the guy's.

• 29:56Emma Grede?

  He's like a genius.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  I don't like using that word, but when it comes to financially structuring and that.

• 30:01Emma Grede?

  He really knows it.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  And also seeing a vision of where businesses are going, there's nobody better in the world. And he bought a company that he sold to Microsoft that made his career, Skype. Incredible. Nobody saw it the way he saw it, sold it for six or seven billion dollars to them. It was WhatsApp before and Microsoft shut it down. He then calls me, so it starts with Marc Andreessen, Egon then calls me and says, Teddy Forsman had gotten sick and passed away, who I knew very well. And he says, I want to buy you and I want to go after together IMG, because here's where I see the world going. And I had seen the same thing and I had been out there trying to raise money. And I said to him, you're never gonna do this, PE firm's never gonna do this.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  He goes, give me three weeks, let me see your numbers. And that's just how I built my life. Some people say it's curiosity. I try and change it a little bit because I don't like that word and I'm trying to create a new word for it. The new word I'm trying to create for it is this thing called, because I'm still, I feel like a child, wonder. I wonder about these things and I, and I just read them, whether it be health or investing or relationships. And that's what I do.

• 31:12Emma Grede?

  You act on your wonder and that's the big difference because I think a lot of people are highly curious.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Well, that's that voice in your head.

• 31:18Emma Grede?

  Yeah, but you've managed to control it.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  That says, no, don't do, don't make that call. It's gonna be embarrassing. Are they gonna take my call? No, they're not gonna take your call the first time if you've only done it once. Figure out how to get to them.

• 31:28Emma Grede?

  But you did this before you were successful. You would badger and badger and badger and you call and call and call.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  I don't know when Andreessen Horowitz started, but he was on the cover of Fortune or Forbes.

• 31:39Emma Grede?

  You just phoned him out?

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Just phoned him up.

• 31:42Emma Grede?

  How much of success do you think is talent and how much is having just a higher tolerance for rejection, repetition, the pressure, the discomfort, all the things that you think's a bit bad?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. You think you're gonna do it not being smart? You have to be smart and you have to be all those other attributes.

• 31:57Emma Grede?

  Your relationships have become so much a part of your reputation because this, this kind of thirst for knowledge, the curiosity, the serendipity, the wonder, as you call it, has kind of meant that people have trusted you, they've supported you, they've backed deals that you've wanted to do. What did you understand early about cultivating professional relationships that you think everybody should know?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  I just wanted to meet people that I found interesting.

• 32:24Emma Grede?

  But it wasn't just interest because you were also like, it's gonna be helpful to me.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  There was business opportunity in there, so I did it. And then that just, you don't know what the end is. Certain people won't even get to the beginning and it takes work. Those relationships take work. You send articles, you have a conversation, something you don't understand that they think they might, you call them. There's no reason for it. You're just engaged in conversation. You're wondering about stuff and you're talking and then that leads to other things.

• 32:51Emma Grede?

  You're becoming useful to those people.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they're useful to me and I'm in a business, the good thing is I'm in a business that they all like and are interested in. So there's a lot to that sauce.

• 33:08Emma Grede?

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• 33:52Emma Grede?

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• 34:34Emma Grede?

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• 35:15Emma Grede?

  lifestyle and nutrition support like recipes, meal plans, fitness videos, sleep content and so much more. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/aspire to get personalized, affordable care that gets you. That's F-O-R-H-E-R-S.com/aspire. Forhers.com/aspire. Weight loss by Hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit forhers.com.

• 35:55Emma Grede?

  I'd like to talk to you about your leadership style and culture because it's something that comes up around you time and time again.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  What's yours? Guys, what's yours now?

• 36:05Emma Grede?

  I have a very specific culture actually, and I think again, I learned it from all the other places that I've been. You know, as an employee, you always look around and you see like, why the fuck am I doing all this in this person's head?

• 36:15Speaker 01

  So what did you learn from Duncan? Now I'm reversing this interview now.

• 36:20Emma Grede?

  Let me tell, no, go ahead. I'll tell you what, one of my big principles is that so much of your culture will be dictated by who you hire, who you fire and what you tolerate. And I make those decisions every day. So I don't think there's any big secret. It's in the decisions that I make every day. If I tolerate a certain behavior, it's not doing that person a favor, it's what it says to the rest of my fucking team. It's just a zero tolerance. And so in those decisions of who I bring in. And I'm in California, forget about it. But what you can do internally is look at how you promote people. I try to make really meaningful decisions about that.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Well, your decisions are a reflection of who you are as a leader.

• 36:57Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Whether that be employees, how you're gonna run the company, your relationships, that's just an indication of who you are as a person. And once people see in the book, even though a lot of people ask me about Taylor Swift, I wish I could have sold her on William Morris, she liked IMG. And you know, she was a massive star and I fucked that up that I couldn't, I couldn't sell her on and advocate for the rest of the organization. But not signing her is an indication like, here's what I said I'm gonna do and I'm gonna, we're gonna live by that, is an indication of your leadership. What you say to people that offend you in the world talks about your leadership style and who you are as a person. You're saying what I live by.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Who you're in business with and who you're not in business with and, and how you handle situations is an indication for your employees. I got good parents. I got parents that I respect. And that's, that then creates its own culture.

• 37:54Emma Grede?

  What does somebody need to do to succeed as a colleague or an employee of yours?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Well, I'm in at 7:30, 8 o'clock and you can always get me on the phone. I turn it off at 8:30. They know how I am with my family. They need me to do something, I do it that next call, they get it. I pass down clients and I stay involved in clients, but I let them try and lead. All those things, if people do the same, they'll be good associates.

• 38:21Emma Grede?

  Do you require people to be in person with you?

• 38:24Speaker 01

  I want people to be in the office. I think that's important for a culture of creativity, which we are. We just opened up this whole new office. I got really emotional.

• 38:33Emma Grede?

  I heard.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  So it blew my mind. And I think it's important to teach the younger generation to be in the office. So we create, the team, I didn't, they created an incredible environment, giving people credit when it's their credit. And that just creates an environment where people think that they have a voice. Great.

• 38:53Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  And that they one day can be the people running the firm. I don't want to be that guy that sits around forever at the same company and, you know, this company's theirs.

• 39:05Emma Grede?

  That's very clear. I mean, just to contextualize it, because what you've built is so massive. You started Endeavor with three other agents and very little money. You then merged with William Morris, you acquired IMG and UFC, you took the company public, you also then delisted it.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Well, we didn't go public at the beginning.

• 39:23Emma Grede?

  We understand that, but then you did.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 39:25Emma Grede?

  You first didn't, then you did, then you didn't.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  In the middle of COVID.

• 39:29Emma Grede?

  We all watched it, Ari, we saw you. And then you've been building Mari, am I saying that right? You've taken a company through every stage imaginable and I wonder what a founder needs to understand about taking companies through different stages.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  You know, there's a graph and certain people think there's, it's a straight line up for success. I don't know what you feel.

• 39:53Emma Grede?

  I don't feel that.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  It's up, down, all around. That's success. If you're gonna start a company and you've started one, you better be ready to eat glass. And it is a bitch. And not a lot of people. Want that.

• 40:07Emma Grede?

  To eat glass.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, to eat glass and to make it and go through all the good, bad shit that it takes to be successful.

• 40:16Emma Grede?

  It's brutal.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Brutal. There is a tipping point. I don't know if it was Ron Meyer, Michael had said it to me. You know, at that year seven to 10, you start, begin the hockey stick. And for us at Endeavor, that was the case too. So 2005, 2006 started to really go.

• 40:38Emma Grede?

  But it takes so much longer than anyone thinks.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And if you knew it, I'm not sure you would start it. For some other reason, I'm 65 now and I just started Mari and I'm at it again, but I love it.

• 40:49Emma Grede?

  What do you think causes somebody who's extremely talented to fail within one of your companies? Where do people go wrong?

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Ego.

• 40:58Emma Grede?

  Ego.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Credit. Ego.

• 41:00Emma Grede?

  People want to take too much credit.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Or schadenfreude. Like they don't want, you know, they don't want you to get credit. And it just eats them up inside. They don't change themselves because, you know, every 10 years in your marriage, in your life, you're reflecting, do I like this person? Do I like that person that's with me? And you have to, if you want to stay, you have to adapt. It's one of the things my wife has taught me. You just have to grow and continue to grow. You can't stay that guy with rage. You can't stay that guy that's insecure. You can't, you have to keep on growing.

• 41:33Emma Grede?

  You're somebody that has made an entire career out of spotting people's potential, out of seeing perhaps what somebody else wouldn't necessarily see.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Are you talking now in the talent business?

• 41:43Emma Grede?

  Yes, it's in the talent business, but also you've done that with executives, right? You've decided that this person is going to move from an assistant to an agent, that this person has something special in them. And I wonder what tells you that people have the potential to become exceptional?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a question? So when you're dyslexic, do you think one of your really good talents is EQ? I do.

• 42:04Emma Grede?

  A million percent.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  So in the book, I'm on the plane, I'm flying back from New York. In first class, it was two seats, one seat, two seats. And I'm reading all my articles to just learn about the world and see who I'm going to call. And the guy next to me is typing away, like crazy. And I'm reading for three hours, my scripts, my articles. I'm done reading. And this dude is typing away.

• 42:35Emma Grede?

  It's the.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I couldn't take it anymore. I just couldn't take it. I was wondering, who is this guy? So I get up, I go to the guy at the window, sitting next. And so I'm here and there's a gentleman here typing away. And I said to the guy at the window, get up, sit in my seats. He goes, excuse me? I said, what in your fucking understand? Get up and sit in my seat.

• 42:55Emma Grede?

  I would not have got out of that fucking seat.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  So he did. And I go sit down and this, and this guy is typing away. And I finally crossed my legs like this. I lean over to him, what the F are you doing? And that was Mark Shapiro.

• 43:10Emma Grede?

  Oh, I love Mark. I love him so much.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  And that relationship.

• 43:16Emma Grede?

  You became such good friends. Cause that's what you say in the book.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  He's been the president of TKO. Mari is Mark in Ari.

• 43:23Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  And we've had an incredible relationship. He's like the younger brother I've never had. And it's just been an, and that's just seeing somebody, getting to know him, realizing his potential, realizing what we could do together and going for it. And that's been my life.

• 43:40Emma Grede?

  Is there a quality that you consistently find in successful people?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they work really hard. They're curious, wonder, and they care about winning.

• 43:50Emma Grede?

  Yeah. It was funny because you said, you said in the book that you look for people that are consistently consistent.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:56Emma Grede?

  And I loved that.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  I don't have to worry ever with the people that I'm, I back. I don't know all the employees anymore because I haven't hired them, but the people that I'm involved with, they work hard, they're consistent, they have a routine, they're willing to learn and adapt, they're willing to take criticism.

• 44:16Emma Grede?

  At this point in your life, you've said a couple of times, I'm 65. Like you're clearly at like some, you know, other stage in your mind.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  I'm actually happy about it.

• 44:24Emma Grede?

  You look happy about it.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  I am.

• 44:25Emma Grede?

  If I was you, I'd be quite happy with myself too. I'm curious to understand like what you've learned and what you think all the success is for. Because nobody needs to write a book. Writing a book is really, really hard.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  It took 10 years.

• 44:40Emma Grede?

  I mean, I, the rumors are true because I heard about this. I mean, that's insane.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Well, it was.

• 44:46Emma Grede?

  But that's all up to you.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  It was supposed, no, no, no. It was supposed to be, first of all, the guy that wrote the book with me, this guy JR is a beautiful person.

• 44:54Emma Grede?

  My publisher's husband.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  He's a beautiful, beautiful human being. It was supposed to be when we went public the first time, which we didn't go. And so we just kept on going and it wasn't easy. I was nervous, but he was just incredible. And I, I guess I would say to you is, would you rather have a life of meaning or a life of pleasure? And for me, a life of meaning is pleasure. That's why I continue to do it. My parents taught me, they try and even in the smallest way, make the world a better place. I have four beautiful kids and with my ex who's, who did a great job with me. We scored four touchdowns and I'm now in

• 45:37Speaker 01

  a beautiful place and a beautiful marriage and I'm doing what I want to do. And I'm still interested and still involved and still curious, still wondering.

• 45:47Emma Grede?

  Ari, you say the most beautiful thing in the book. Well, what I thought was like the most beautiful line for me, and it's when you meet Mark Bradford and you said, the artist Mark Bradford, and you said it was like a bit of a turning point for you. You said, in the center of your chest, I feel this truth. It's not the art you make, it's the artistic attitude you bring to whatever you make, whether it's a mural or a movie deal. Whatever you do should be approached as art.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  I represent incredible creators like Mark Bradford, who's a friend now, great artist and advocated for him. But I think what agents do is an art form. And I said, you have to be as creative in business as your artist is, writer, director, actor, podcaster, whatever. You, you, you have to be the creative business mind for them. And I take that seriously. And I think my associates take that seriously. And if you can do that, you're as much of an artist, making a deal, creating an opportunity, as the artist is creating it. Cause without you, it doesn't work. That is your artistry, creating the

• 46:52Speaker 01

  opportunity for the person that you have decided to give part of your life to. And that's what I do.

• 46:57Emma Grede?

  When you finally stop rolling the course, what do you hope they all add up to?

• 47:02Speaker 01

  It's a life of meaning. And I, and that I made a difference. My kids can look up to me and that I continue to be, I'm not always happy, but I'm, I'm continuing satisfied. I don't even know what the fuck happy means. You know, I don't know what that means. If you're a really successful person, fuck if you're always happy. You're not, you're, I'm satisfied a lot and I'm happy a lot, but that I'm satisfied.

• 47:29Emma Grede?

  What do you still aspire to be or to become?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I don't think like that. Cause I just, I'm just doing what I want to do. I learn from what I've done, but I'm not looking like, oh, I gotta be there. Cause that's like ego, legacy, all those things that I really think are just bullshit. Sorry.

• 47:50Emma Grede?

  Don't tell you sorry. It's the best answer. It's the best answer. All right. Rapid fire. Fastest way to lose your trust?

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Lie about what you've done.

• 47:58Emma Grede?

  What's more dangerous in a leader, ego or insecurity?

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Are they different?

• 48:04Emma Grede?

  Three things successful people do every day.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  They read a lot. They pay attention to what's around them and have meaningful relationships.

• 48:11Emma Grede?

  Is there a book that's changed your life?

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because this book was written by JR. When I read the Agassi book, because he wrote that, I realized this is the man for my life and he's definitely changed my life.

• 48:23Emma Grede?

  Ari Emanuel, thank you so much.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 48:25Emma Grede?

  You are wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to hear.

• 48:33Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Ashley McShan, Derek Brown, and me. Executive producers from Odyssey are Asha Saluja and Leah Reese Dennis. Producer KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Phil Sweetech and Carlos Delgado. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale. Special

• 49:16Emma Grede?

  thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Josefina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meekle, Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Viera. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelled G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.