Patrick Zielinski

I’ve seen this kinda narrative quite a lot. So thought I’d weigh in… First and foremost I strongly disagree. I actually believe we’re about to enter the era of “lifecasting”… Computers have beaten the best chess players in the world since 1997 and chess is bigger now than its ever been, millions of people watch magnus and hikaru stream and almost nobody watches two AI’s play each other even though the AI’s play better chess. A forklift can lift more than any olympic weightlifter and a car is faster than usain bolt and we still watch the olympics, because what we care about is a person pushing their limits, the emotion, the human - because we recognise ourselves, our lives and our dreams somewhere in there. Robin dunbar's research found roughly two thirds of human conversation is about… other people - he made the argument that language mostly evolved so we could gossip and keep track of each other in big groups. This is the need content will increasingly feed in the future. Especially as most of our feeds become full of ai slop. The argument that entertainment will become less human is clearly backwards. In fact every time entertainment adds human resonance we seem to become obsessed with it… F1 cars didnt get any faster or more interesting when drive to survive came out but a global audience - largely of people who previously didn’t care about f1 - became obsessed with it because netflix showed the egos, emotions, human stories and the rivalries. Love island, family vloggers, the premier league, its all the same thing, relatability, a story about ambition and rivalry and people taking risks and getting it wrong, all of which we can see ourselves in. Where i agree is with purely informational content, if your watching someone explain how to fix a boiler then AI will do that better and cheaper and those creators are in trouble. But the stuff thats irreplaceably human gets more valuable as the internet fills up with ai content. So yes the “quant firms” will take everything where the human wasn’t the reason people watched, and i think truly human creators end up worth more than they are now. Podcasting becomes… lifecasting?

Markets love gridlock! Buy buy buy!!! 🚀 (Not financial advice)

Everyone should have at least 3 kids. Here's my math ➕ If you can have kids, you should. 
 Then have one more than you're comfortable with.
 And everyone should be comfortable with at least two. So, three. Minimum. As a father and a provider, more kids is the most motivating thing in my world. Is it always fun? No. 
 Is it the most meaningful thing I’ll ever do with my life? Yes. More kids make you more focused.
 More disciplined.
 They'll push you to do things you never would have done on your own. You become the best version of yourself when you're working to give your kids a great future. So go have (more) kids 😉

Apple HomeView Introduction.

New episode: What I learned from reading @AriEmanuel's incredible autobiography "ROLL THE CALLS" Some of my favorite quotes from the book: 0:00 — "My workday has no official start time because there's no official end time. Weekdays, weekends, late nights, I'm here in the office, and when I'm not here, I'm still on call." 3:15 — "Work. That's the true story of Hollywood, but who wants to hear it?" 8:32 — "The word fuck is in this book 460 times… He says, 'Well, it's one of the greatest words in the English language.'" 12:09 — On Michael Ovitz stealing all of Ari’s bosses’ clients: "Barbarians aren't just at the gates, they're taking big shits on his desk. Robbie can't help me anymore. He can barely help himself." 14:45 — "If you arrive at your desk every morning and find 11 messages from somebody, the same somebody who left 11 messages yesterday, you've got two options: call the person back or call the police." 15:10 — "I do not accept no for an answer." 15:15 — "I tell him I will give up a limb and part of my spleen to work in this goddamn mail room." 17:05 — "The whole point of Hollywood is sales. I'm annoyed with myself for believing the myth that Hollywood is an enclave of creatives." 17:40 — "My rule was never say no. Never say you can't do something. Say yes and then figure it out when the time comes." 23:30 — "Self-belief, that's half the game in any occupation." 24:25 — "The only way to do good agency is to tune out all the extraneous noise, and that's what I do. I keep grinding. I keep rolling the fucking calls, and sure enough, it solves everything, as hard work always does." 26:05 — "One of the most startling questions you can ask somebody, that people are not used to being asked, is, 'Are you happy?'" 28:20 — "What do I want my life to mean? I want my life to mean something, and what can it ever mean if I'm under the thumb of a bunch of dumbasses?" 28:40 — "Money matters to me, as it does to everyone who grew up without it, but I'm not taking 100 spins around the fucking sun just to pile up more chips than the other guy." 31:15 — "Life is not a dress rehearsal. Everyone says this, but few act on it. Opening night is right now. The curtain is already up." 32:50 — "I'm burning with desire to build something of my own. I want the thrill of inventing something new out of thin air." 35:30 — "Scarcity does something similar for me. I now feel licensed to just hang up whenever. Mid-thought, mid-sentence, doesn't matter. Call ended. Goodbyes take time, and time is money." 36:22 — "My partners have mortgaged their houses, maxed out their credit cards. They brought in chairs from their garages so we have something to sit on. Everyone's all in. How can I be any less?" 37:45 — "I'm a fighter. I'll fight anyone, anywhere, but the one thing I'll never fight is the future." 42:05 — Advice from David Geffen: "Ari, it's like when you're in traffic. The one thing you can't do is stand still. Even if you don't know which way to go, you just have to go. Hit the gas, Ari. Go." 42:55 — "There's no such thing as a merger. Every merger is a purchase… Every merger is really just one company swallowing the other. The rest is spin." 45:15 — On the success of the show Entourage and the character Ari Gold: "Fame brings new clout, new clout brings new business, new business brings more clout. A hit show acts as a force multiplier on the power that I wield." 46:35 — "I don't want to be God. I want to be safe. If my business isn't safe, then I'm not safe." 56:50 — "Why do I keep assuming that getting what I desperately want will solve my problems?" 58:05 — Ari on Egon Durban: "Quick, never condescending, effortlessly reducing each question to its basic components, then making the answer easy to grasp. This is the mark of genius. Not enough to know, you have to be able to convey." 59:20 — Advice from Jeff Bezos on learning how to take a break from work: "When you're on the field, be on the field. But remember, you can't always be on the field. There has to be a timeout, halftime. You have to heal, recover." 1:02:15 — Egon Durban on not trying to over-negotiate on price and losing a deal: "You're never gonna remember the extra $400 million. Big number on paper, but in a year it will seem minuscule compared with the gains." 1:03:15 — "The highs never last. No matter how high, they just never last. Kill yourself to reach some impossible summit, then stand before your mirror or your God and ask, 'Really? This is it?'" 1:03:40 — "Rage has gotten you this far, which is very far indeed, and for that you can be grateful to rage. But consider that rage can take you no further. Rage has run its course." 1:04:15 — "The hungriest monster is the ego." 1:04:20 — "Do whatever you do for the joy, the artistry, or else don't do it."