Thank you for being here.
Are you, by way of disclosure, I work for you. You are my agent sort of.
I think that's a role reversal. I work for you, John.
This is the longest I've ever talked to you.
A lot of people could say that.
Very true. You're a powerful man and you're a legendary agent. You're very interesting, but I don't know if you're this interesting, Ari. This is 417 pages.
Did you count how many Fs there were?
There's a tremendous amount. You should have called the book 'Me'. No, you... it's a 400-page book. I had to read this.
We could have waited until Bob Odenkirk did the audio.
Bob Odenkirk did the audio? Yeah. How did you get him?
Well, it goes way back. I was Bob's agent when Mr. Show happened.
Oh god. On HBO. What a great show that was.
And Bob's still a friend. Called him up. He said, 'I'm going to read it anyway. Why don't I just read it and make some money?' I said, 'Great.'
I thought I did my best agenting there. How much do you, as his agent, pay him to do your project?
I see. Yeah. And what is the impetus of writing the book, if I may, because there's a lot of other people in the industry that you've worked with that receive, if I may, less than stellar treatment in the book.
Yeah. But you're still alive and so are they.
If should I be serious for two seconds? No. No. Okay.
Yes. Be serious for two seconds.
No. Listen, I know this is going to shock you, but most of the time I'm talking for other people when I represent them. This is the first time I'm talking in my voice. And the main reason is I'm dyslexic, ADHD. A lot of parents have come up to me and asked me about that. And this is kind of their Thomas guide, which we used to drive in LA, that map to say if you help your kids get endurance and go through dyslexia and let them struggle as hard as it is for a kid, right? They can turn out okay. And here's the ways that they can turn out okay. And the great thing about dyslexia is you're not a linear thinker, right? You're, in my opinion, you become a free thinker because you can't, you're not attached to the words, you're attached to other things. So this is about, given the setback that you may have had with dyslexia, the fact that you can fight through it.
Yeah. And then it's also for kids a road map.
This is not for kids. This is maybe the least, like, this ain't Miss Rachel. Let's put it that way. But here's what I would say to you. A lot of people starting out in the business.
I started out making 15 cents a mile and this was my path.
You were a mail room guy.
I was a mail room guy. And this is a Thomas guide, a way about the struggles that it takes because, you know, success, as you know, is not a straight line. There's ups, there's downs, there's pain, and there's a lot of emotional pain, physical pain actually that you have to go through if you want to make it. And this is just to say it's okay. One, it's okay to say what I want. One, it's okay to go for it. And one, it's okay to have agency for yourself. Right? And I think one of the most important things for a kid is to advocate for yourself. I never had our best.
Did people advocate for you when you had dyslexia? Because I know you've talked about this. Your parents had very high expectations. For those of you who don't know, Ari's brother Rahm Emanuel worked for Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and was the mayor of Chicago. And your brother Zeke is a world-renowned physician.
Correct. And andologist. And that made you feel sometimes insecure.
Well, my mom put our grades on the fridge. You walk in, A+, A+, idiot, you know. And I wanted my voice. Not that I knew I wasn't stupid. Just because you're dyslexic, you're not stupid. But I wanted that ability to kind of make a name for myself. And it takes going forward. It takes agency. And it takes believing in yourself in the face of a lot of different things. And the other thing it does is if somebody tells you no, you can't do it, which they told me I couldn't read. They told me you shouldn't start an agency. Told me a lot of things I couldn't do. But you have to believe. And that takes a lot emotionally, physically to go up against people, right? And that's not easy.
You do talk a lot about that, the dyslexia, your brother's achievements. It's set in, you begin the book with it, a rage, an anger in you. I don't see it right now, but I've been on the phone and have seen it.
I have for you. I have love gone after people with rage.
Yeah, yes. Thank you. But where does, is that where the rage is from?
You know, I didn't have a plan B. I found the entertainment business. The minute I heard about it, I fell in love and I went for it. And that was whether it's not going to business school, making 15 cents a mile, my brother's making fun of me, my father saying, 'What are you doing?' in his heavy accent and going Ali Ali. Yeah. And so for me, there was no plan B. There was only plan A. So I just had to make it work. And it didn't matter what it took, I did it. Nothing illegal, but I did whatever it took to...
Page 47. I don't want to say I circled it. As you look back, because I think, and I don't think I'm speaking out of school here, but you have mellowed. You've been on a journey. Was that, would that be fair to say?
You want to bring the wife out and see if she says the sun out there.
There's like three pages at the end where I was like, 'Oh my god, now he's Forrest Gump.' Like, what the happened?
Here's what I would say happened. Yes. A businessman said to me at one point, he said, you have to know when you're on the field of business and when you're off the field of business. When you're on the field of business, you do what you need to do. And when you're off the field, you got to be off the field. And my wife always points out to me, and I've started a new business. She says, 'When you're off the field, let's be off the field.' And it has made me better on the field. That doesn't mean there's not thousands of calls and a lot of aggressive and working hard is not the same as working angry.
And I have gone through a lot of work to get to...
You go on like licking toad expeditions.
Now, what was that about? What were you trying to get a hold of?
Well, Dr. Comm, my shrink...
His name is not Dr. by the way.
No, definitely not. He said to me at one point, 'You have an ego problem.' And then we did a lot of work on the ego problem.
What was the ego problem? Too much or too little or both?
Hello. What are you talking about? Too much.
And he said at one point which really stuck with me. He goes, 'You know this anger problem, the ego problem. Back in the 50s, people that were really successful in business were considered smart.' And for whatever reason, that statement hit me. And I remember my parents coming into LA and I picked them up at the airport and we were talking about, I had just taken over William Morris with Patrick and everybody and I was explaining the business to my dad who was asking me a question, my mom, and they in the back seat they go, 'Well, who all does all that?' And I said, 'Well, it's not my brother Rahm or my brother Zeke.' You know, hello. And that was my life in not a horrible way, in a beautiful way. And I then kind of figured out, you know, I'm not stupid and I'm not afraid of being found out.
But that's still sticking with you even as you're leading WME, you're still driven by this idea that I'm not that dyslexic kid. And...
Well, if your mom and dad said that to you, like, 'Who does all this stuff on this show?' you would be like, well, you know, you don't think that's what they... so my brother went to Princeton for sake. And so I realized, you know, that's just something in the past. And I went on a journey trying to figure out how to deal with that. I did some psychedelics even though my brother Zeke says he would never do it even though he realizes that there's benefit to him, right? And it helped me get through plus being married to a wonderful woman, right? This little ego thing.
You feel like you've come to a different place. And why does Rahm still give you, I think even at your wedding.
