Ari Emanuel and Jeff Weiner are the Talents for Talent
Hollywood and Silicon Valley converged at a Churchill Club Premier event in Santa Clara on July 18 to discuss the growing connection between talent, technology, and opportunity.
Ari Emanuel (co-CEO and Director of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, talent agent, and inspiration for the popular television personality Ari Gold from Entourage) sat in between Jeff Weiner (CEO of LinkedIn) and moderator Kara Swisher (Co-Executive Editor of AllThingsD.com). While the meat of the discussion focused primarily on talent, conversation was buttered with business anecdotes, personal jokes, Taylor Lautner references, and the occasional high-five.
Photo credit: Jeremy Waldorph Photography
The Economics of Talent:
“Economics has changed the relationship between money and talent,” said Emanuel. “For example, if you take a celebrity’s webpage, like—” “Taylor Lautner” chimed Swisher. “Let’s say his website gets 47,000 hits, but his eight different Facebook pages get over a million hits total. We can program his social presence by identifying where he is most popular—namely Facebook—and then combining all those pages into one for maximum efficiency as a fan and as an agent.”
Weiner said that social presence is based on the “platforms,” or basically the medium chosen to showcase one’s talents. “It’s not surprising that people become famous on YouTube or Facebook, because that’s what those platforms are intended to do,” he said.
Just as sites like YouTube showcase talent, LinkedIn provides a powerful platform for networking opportunity. Weiner shared a story about a female college film student who sent him a personal thank you note because her entire senior project was funded by one of her LinkedIn connections. “What its purpose comes down to is connecting, networking, ultimately sharing,” said Weiner.
Best Advice:
“‘Stay in traffic’ and ‘Great ideas and great voices are more important than ever,’” said Emanuel.
Weiner added: “Imagination is the only thing that cannot be commoditized. And, everything that can be converted to the web will be.”
Measuring Talent:
Perhaps the ultimate difference between talent and technology is the inability to measure and identify talent through a set system; essentially, there is no algorithm for talent.
“Identify or predict talent through data? I don’t think you can,” said Emanuel. “I don’t think you can predict Larry David…No, I don’t think you can.”
Of the evaluation list in searching for talent, Emanuel put data last. Weiner, on the other hand, said that in his process for recognizing aptitude, he puts data first and talent second. “There is a little difference between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but at the end of the day, we both need, and our work involves, talent,” said Weiner.
Emanuel agreed and added that if talent could ever be measured, then a more rigorous process is required for the “algorithm of talent.”
“But that’s the magic of it all! We can’t predict talent,” said Weiner. “Who said we needed another singing competition on television? Wasn’t American Idol enough? But now we have The Sing-Off and The Voice and The Glee Project. There are not enough television talent shows to contain the amount of unbridled, immeasurable talent out there!”
The Aggressive Talent World:
Business can be cut-throat…especially showbiz. Emanuel and Weiner wrapped up on the topic of their “aggressive career strategies.”
“I don’t know what my mother fed me, or my brothers, but I love what I do,” said Emanuel. “Every time I start a project or a movie, it’s like starting a business, and I love both. The reason I’m so aggressive is because I love it… You gotta go into something that you love.”
Weiner shared his key to success as well: “Ultimately knowing what you want to accomplish. It’s surprising how often people nowadays don’t know what they want to accomplish.”written by Hannah Miller
