Beating the Incumbents with Michael Ovitz on Boss Talk #9

When Ben and Marc started a16z, CAA and its founder Michael Ovitz served as inspiration for how to break into an industry dominated by a few large incumbents. In 1975, a few large talent agencies dominated the entertainment industry. To break into the industry, Michael and CAA came up with a new playbook — rather than a single agent representing an actor or actress, he turned the entire agency into a network. In this special edition of Boss Talk, Michael joins Ben, Marc, and Ali to talk about how both CAA and a16z went from scrappy startup to industry leader by giving talent access to bigger networks.

Boss Talk is the Clubhouse show where a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz and Ali Ghodsi, the Founder/CEO of Databricks, discuss CEO stuff, leadership stuff, management stuff... boss stuff. Live every Tuesday 5-6pm on Clubhouse.