Paul Newman was one of the loveliest men, wanted so hard to be normal (did racing and go-karts), hated when people approached him while eating, but accepted the fame reality—he said that after hearing enough praise ('best eyes', 'greatest thing since the wheel'), you start to believe it even if you don't at first.

Hollywood's social structure is designed for people with no significant others, no children, no home, no family—they can go out 365 nights a year finding companionship with others in the same boat, which is unique to entertainment.

David Geffen and Barry Diller started in the file room like Ovitz and all three demonstrated that the quickest path was education—they didn't go to college but are better read than most PhDs Ovitz knows in any field.

Ron Conway is a great investor, fabulous human being, one of the nicest men on the planet and well-loved in San Francisco—he connected Ovitz to Mark Andreessen by asking him to just meet the guy despite initial skepticism.

When you tell people the truth about their work (even bad news), they appreciate it—Ovitz never lied to clients about dailies or performance, always told them directness and truth, which was critical to CAA culture.

Max Levchin spent 10 minutes explaining how to brew the perfect cup of coffee, which was a metaphor for life—he'd studied every component (roasting, grinding, water, timing) and isolated them before putting them into fluid movement, like a Japanese tea ceremony.

The Natural movie was packaged when Robert Redford met Barry Levenson at Sundance after Ovitz introduced them, both responded positively to the script, and additional clients (Kim Basinger, Bill Brimley, Glen Close) were brought in, demonstrating Ovitz's packaging and relationship-building skill.

Warren Buffett reads not for opinion but for facts to collect factual information and formulate his own opinion, ignoring the writer's opinion.

I'm currently doing business with young partners—Ali Hammed (age 32-33) and my son with his partner Alex—rebuilding companies from scratch which is the most fun part of life, and I'm learning something every day from their perspective.

Ovitz has made many mistakes in business, personal life, and art collecting, and doesn't look back—it's history—instead he builds on it, and there are cultures that don't believe in that approach but America does because it's about what you can do and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Jessica Tish has done a phenomenal job and comes from a wealthy family, and the fact that the current mayoral candidate won't even commit to keeping her or to maintaining order is concerning.

There's a downside to cutting back as a successful person because you're feeding on the dopamine of getting wonderful things done, and because you're on a roll with momentum you can get so much more done that you want to do it every second of the day.

You always read about mistakes in content—people love to catch them—which means directors who make 300 decisions a day are under constant scrutiny where mistakes are 'noted for posterity' while successes are forgotten.

Michael Keaton was the smartest person Ovitz knew until he met Mark Andreessen, and Ovitz arranged a lunch with Keaton and Andreessen where he put them at opposite ends of a table with himself in the middle, and watched them have a three-hour intellectual sword fight that was the greatest lunch of his life.

What drives Ovitz now are his five grandchildren and his four grown children who are parenting much better than he did, and he can't wait to get up in the morning to meet with founders working on cutting-edge technology.

Ovitz was a stricter parent in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s because he came from a post-World War II household with a very strict father, and parenting styles have changed, which he recognizes in watching his own children parent better than he did.

With Netflix and AI, there could be a future where you and Shane are watching the same show but your versions are different based on your political dispositions and what the system knows about you, with the technology already existing to support this personalization.

Ovitz prefers the New York path where movement from capitalism to extreme socialism is fast enough to be rejected by the system, versus Canada's slow march into socialism which is harder to arrest because it happens incrementally.

There's no such thing as egalitarian in anything—some teachers are better than others, some doctors are better than others, some leaders are better than others—which is true in every domain.

LA rejected a businessman who ran for mayor possibly because he was too rich or his suits were too expensive, but that businessman was the head of the police commissioner and had relevant leadership experience.