CEO Ariel Emanuel in conversation at Aspen Ideas Festival
For The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
“I supply content, and I charge as much as I can. And I do it well,” media super-agent and power broker Ariel Emanuel, CEO of William Morris Endeavor (WME), told a packed audience at the Doerr-Hosier Center on Friday afternoon in an Aspen Ideas Festival session titled, “King of the Deal.”
“I am relentless,” he said emphatically.
For those who came to see the real-life version of the character Ari Gold from the HBO series “Entourage,” Emanuel did not disappoint. But other than that, one boast while answering a question from first-year festival curator Tina Brown, he presented a thoughtful and engaging — though aggressive — persona as he spoke on a wide variety of issues including the presidential debate, the state of Israeli politics, artificial intelligence, the media and entertainment, and his own battle with dyslexia as a child.
Over the last 30 years, he has built a sports and entertainment talent agency that has become arguably the most important supplier of programming to television, film, and streaming companies on the planet. In 2023, WME generated nearly $6 billion in revenue and has become a leading content contributor in a world where media matters more than ever before.
The seminar began with Brown asking him a question about the previous evening’s presidential debate.
“I’m pissed at the Founding Fathers,” answered the longtime Democratic donor whose brother, Rahm, was once mayor of Chicago and a key figure in the Obama administration. “They gave the president a start date of 35 (years old). But they didn’t give us an end date. This is a pickle.”
Though he did not say that it was time to consider replacing President Joe Biden as a candidate after his performance at the debate, Emanuel made an analogy: “I took away my father’s car keys at 81. If you wouldn’t want to drive with someone from Beverly Hills to Malibu, then that is someone you wouldn’t want to run a $27 trillion economy.”
He has long advocated against Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s positions as prime minister of Israel, and he did not mince words when Brown moved the conversation to a different political arena.
“He is a selfish leader, and selfish leaders do not deserve to be in power,” Emanuel said about Netanyahu.
Brown mentioned that she had first met Emanuel in 2000 when she was editor of a magazine called Talk, and Emanuel came to pitch her on a story about his then-fledgling agency. She noted that he has changed in the decades since.
“I was serial entrepreneur and a bit combative,” he said sheepishly. “But I did a lot of work on myself. Jeff Bezos once told me that ‘you have to know when you’re on the field and when you are off.'”
It is a lesson he has taken to heart.
AI has been a major topic of conversation at this Aspen Ideas Festival, and Brown asked Emanuel his views on an earlier speaker: AI entrepreneur Sam Altman.
Again, Emanuel did not mince words.
“He is a con man. Why do we trust these people? Elon Musk once told me, ‘Think about your relationship with your dogs (Emanuel has four dogs).’ He said, ‘You are the dog to AI.’ I don’t want to be the dog!” he continued. “I appreciate AI, but we have to give long thought on what will and what won’t be happening.”
As far as sports, Emanuel sees the games remaining the same and that there are reasons for optimism.
“Ideas matter more than ever in this ecosystem,” he said.
A fitting concept considering the location of the seminar.
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