Sanford R. Climan
CEO, Entertainment Media Ventures, Inc.
My entrepreneurship is to understand what motivates people and how to help them. And in a way that is completely out of the box, make it happen.
Summary
This week on “Leadership Matters,” Alan was joined by the legendary producer and entertainment executive, Sanford “Sandy” R. Climan, CEO of Entertainment Media Ventures, Inc. (EMV). Sandy founded EMV in 1999, and under his leadership, the firm has become a critical investor and strategic advisor in the entertainment media industry.
Alan and Sandy discuss how his upbringing in the Bronx instilled life-long values that steered the trajectory of his life, from his education at Harvard to his pivot to the film and broader entertainment industry before becoming an industry-renowned investor and strategic advisor. Sandy also shares how he learned the importance of supporting talent at all levels in their projects, as well as the role of mentors in the industry, the power of bringing people together, the necessity of supporting others and their endeavors in entrepreneurship, and the promise of storytelling to change narratives and broader perceptions.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
Sanford R. (Sandy) Climan is CEO of Entertainment Media Ventures, Inc. Founded in 1999 by Mr. Climan, EMV is active in media investment and strategic advisory work, with a particular focus on innovative technologies and entities currently impacting the traditional boundaries of business, media, and entertainment. He is an investor, producer and considered a media visionary.
Throughout his career, Mr. Climan has held senior management positions in the media and entertainment industry. Mr. Climan served as Corporate Executive Vice President and President of Worldwide Business Development of Universal Studios, where Mr. Climan oversaw corporate international strategy, strategic marketing and five studio operating divisions. In addition, Mr. Climan served in senior positions in motion picture and television production and distribution at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its affiliated production companies.
Mr. Climan was the founding head of CAA’s corporate practice, working with global companies including Sony Corporation on its acquisition of Columbia Pictures, Matsushita Electric on its acquisition of MCA/Universal, Credit Lyonnais on its restructuring of MGM, Coca-Cola, NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, Pacific Telesis and other Fortune 500 Companies. Additionally, while at CAA, Mr. Climan was part of the senior management team for 12 years, representing talent including Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Danny DeVito, and Michael Mann, as well as many prominent film and television production companies.
Notable achievements include: Executive Producer of the first digital live-action 3D motion picture, “U2 3D” and Producer of “The Aviator,” directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for which Mr. Climan was awarded a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Mr. Climan has served as a bridge between Silicon Valley and Hollywood since the mid-1990s, and has been an active venture investor, board member, and senior advisor to numerous entrepreneurial companies in media, technology, fintech, and healthcare.
Mr. Climan serves on several charitable boards, including the American Cinematheque and the World Arts Forum of the World Economic Forum. From 2008-2012, Mr. Climan served as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For over twenty years, Mr. Climan served on the board of The Fulfillment Fund, the leading organization for mentoring at-risk public high school students in Los Angeles. Mr. Climan has also served as an advisor on entertainment and media to the World Economic Forum and its Annual Gathering in Davos, Switzerland, as a member of the Advisory Board to the Yale CEO Leadership Institute of the Yale School of Management, and as a member of the philanthropic Advisory Board of Lifestyles Magazine. Mr. Climan was awarded an Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2018 and serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Ellis Island Honors Society.
Mr. Climan holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, a Master of Science degree in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Harvard College.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
My guest today is a visionary producer, entrepreneur and entertainment executive, who has for decades played a major role in shaping the business and entertainment landscape. Sandy Climan is the president of Entertainment Media Ventures, a media investment and strategic advisory firm focused on pushing the boundaries of business media and entertainment. He is one of Hollywood's most respected executives. Sandy spent many years in the leadership of CAA, Creative Artists Agency, where he founded the firm's corporate practice and represented stars like Robert De Niro, Kevin Castor, and Michael Mann. Sandy is also a notable artist in his own right, having produced a substantial number of films including Martin Scorsese's 2004 biopic, The Aviator, for which he was awarded a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.
Today, Sandy is a prominent investor and advisor in media technology and healthcare firms, helping to pass his wisdom and expertise on to the next generation of industry leaders. He is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and serves on a variety of boards, including that of the Fulfillment Fund, the Reuters Editorial Advisory Board, and the Yale CEO Leadership Institute at the Yale School of Management. I am thrilled to welcome Sandy on the show today to discuss his early life, his amazing career, and his thoughts on the ways entertainment can continue to shape our society and discourse today. And of course, to get into the conversation of leaders, mentors, and tomorrow's leaders.
Sandy, you're such a great guy, and I'm so thrilled to have you on the show. So, welcome to Leadership Matters. It is such a personal pleasure as well to have you on the show today.
Sandy Climan
You know, Alan, I am just thrilled to be with you. Because any conversation we have, public or private, is an extraordinarily memorable conversation. But let me correct a number of things you said, which were kind anyway. But let's start with, I don't know that I helped shape Hollywood. It's probably Hollywood helped shape me. And the reality is whether it's Hollywood or Silicon Valley, or the global business community, people think you have an impact on those worlds. What's much more important is that those worlds have an impact on you, and they actually help shape who you are. And the sense that I would give others is, as we say, listen more than you speak, but also understand the opportunity you have to serve, which is how I've looked at every role that I've played, and every communication, every conversation and every project.
And you know, I really haven't made that many movies and I'm not even sure I made the movies that I'm credited with because they are group efforts. You know, in The Aviator Leonardo DiCaprio had his mother who told him about Howard Hughes. As a teenager, he studied Howard Hughes, Michael Mann found him at age 20 (or more to the point, he found Michael Mann at age 20), they developed a script with brilliance that turned into something that when I read it, I said — it was 10 years later and I was partnered with Michael. And I read the script, and he gave it to me, and it was not quite 200 pages. I said, I'll do this over two nights — and I couldn't stop reading and I think I finished at three in the morning lying on the bathroom floor flipping pages while everybody else was asleep because I couldn't stop reading it. But it's ultimately DiCaprio’s vision and Michael's vision. Marty had just finished Gangs of New York with DiCaprio. It's a collective effort. It's Cate Blanchett, it's Kate Beckinsale. It's all of the sort of brilliant actors that are in that movie. Even Alec Baldwin is one trip. You know, Alan Alda as the senator, the sense of how the film was written and shaped into what it was, but it's a massive group effort.
And then like anything else, you start on a journey and you hope it ends well. And many times it does not. In this case, it did, but my joy in life has largely been to help others get their projects done. You know, there are people who think that they should have a beret on and that they should be the center of the wheel in whatever happens. And some of those are titans of creativity. The Spielbergs, the Scorseses, the Michael Manns, the Kevin Costners, the Robert Redfords, the De Niro's, and some of those are people who are there, and I'm very fortunate, who are allowed into those lives. And what you do, whether it is in a creative project or an entrepreneurial company, you're guiding, which has a lot of the same energy and excitement as a storytelling project. Or whether it's just bringing people together in business who might not otherwise have met, and giving them an idea that sometimes can start a project or sometimes can start in industry. It is the sense of, as Woodruff said, Robert Woodruff was the CEO of Coca Cola, there's nothing that you can’t accomplish if you don't take credit. And at the end of the day, I get credit for things at times I probably shouldn't get credit for. I'm most proud of the things that I don't get credit for that I actually had something to do.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. You know, when I think of you, I think of you as somebody who takes on difficult things in the world, you definitely don't take credit, you have a joyousness though to you, there's something joyful about you. That you look at the glass half full, not half empty, even when the challenge is even more difficult or audacious. There's something about your ability to see the possibility and the promise, which is where I want to go now.
You were born and raised in the Bronx. I want to figure out where this came from. Where's the Sandy Climan, you know, where do we get that kind of secret sauce from? Your father was a business agent, your mother was a hospital clerk. I don't know if you have any siblings, I want to hear about the family dynamic. But what was life like around the house growing up?
Sandy Climan
You know, firstly, neither of my parents went to college. So my father held a job that today is held by MBAs. But because of Karl's Shirts in New York, in the sense that there was a civil service exam that was put in place that allowed people who didn't have the means to go to college, came up through the public schools, they could test to sequentially higher levels of performance in the city. And he was of that generation. And my mom, of course, also did not go to college — Walton High School. My dad, Theodore Roosevelt High School. Neither of them prestigious schools. But I remember my dad telling a story once, and this is, this is a world that people today, there's a sense of it's changing in a way back to what you can do, not where your degrees are from.
He was at the retirement dinner for Bernardi Donovan, the superintendent, legendary superintendent of the New York public school system. And the head of the union, which was the executive union, the Communication Workers of America Group, was at the dais. And this is in the 1960s. And he looks left and he looks right and down the dais at the people who are running the Board of Education of the City of New York. And he says, “I'm the only one on this dais that has a college degree.”
And the world I grew up in was brilliantly built by self-made people who came up through the civil service world. And that was the world of my parents. And, you know, I took my kids to see the house I grew up in, and they pasted off. And it was like 17 feet wide. And you know, and look, it was quite luxurious, who grew up in row houses in the Bronx with no land. And you know, they cost $14,000-16,000 at 4% mortgages, and you live there forever in a neighborhood that was originally not racially mixed, because it was prior to the Fair Housing Act. And I remember my dad, when the first African American family moved into the neighborhood, the real estate agents were blockbusters. And there are actually TV shows about this, one with George C. Scott on East Side, West Side, I thought it was exactly what happened. And the real estate agents would go door to door saying, “Your neighborhood is gone, sell now.” And I remember my dad, with a number of other people in the neighborhood, saying we're not going to do that. So this block is going to be integrated. And it's the early 1960s. It's before the Fair Housing Act. And that, you know, my dad was a very ethical guy.
I remember, you know, I told the kids this story that we had a cousin, my cousin Michael who was a lovely guy, and we have a dog who was really vicious. But he was late in life. So he had calmed down and so he had stopped being the vicious dog he was. You know, he was vicious to everyone else, I used to sleep on his neck on the top step in our tiny house. And if he had gotten up, he would have thrown me down the stairs. The dog never moved. His name was Tiger.
So unfortunately, Michael, and I'm very young, Tiger is like in his lap, and he's throwing his head back and forth. And this is not something you should be doing. And I actually said to Michael, “I'd stop, don't do that he is going to get very upset,” and he got bit.
And our cousins, very distant cousins, not people we knew well, whose parents were there, they actually said, “Look, we're going to sue you.”
Alan Fleischmann
Oh, wow.
Sandy Climan
And my parents said, “No.”
And they said, “Look, we'll split the settlement with you.”
At which point my parents said “That would be wrong.”
And they ended up not suing because they were in a cousin circle. And the cousin said to them, if you sue the Climans, we will remove you from this circle. So they did not sue. But the sense is, I remember later on in life, I was in a car accident, it wasn’t a bad car accident, and my boss came to me, I was running a small studio at the time, and he said, you know, call this doctor, get a settlement for this amount of money. To which I said I'm not going to do that, that's just wrong. And if my father had taken a different path, and my mom early on, what would I have done later? And it's these little bits, watch what I do, not what I say. And all of these things.
And I remember, we were later in life and Joe, my older son, was quite young. And we're in the lazy river at the Grand Wailea, which is quite swift for young kids. And it's kind of a water park at the hotel on Maui. And there was a kid who looked like he was in trouble and he might have been, and I went over to the kid and I said, “Are you okay?”
And Joe said to me, “Why did you do that?”
To which I said, “Well, if it were you, I would hope somebody would do that for you.”
I've watched him do that throughout his life. Because my sons, who I'm very proud of, are truly caring. They have a nuanced sense of when someone needs help, and they will intercede. So growing up in the Bronx, you know, the only guy who had a Cadillac went to jail as a union leader who was indicted. You know, we had gangs walk up the street. But at the end of the day, you know, my mom was a ward clerk at Bronx Municipal Hospital and Jacoby Hospital where gunshot wounds on the orthopedic ward was kind of what you dealt with.
And I got a letter at age 14, I was in junior high school, I had just got into Bronx Science, that said, you have to do a directed research project and I misread the letter, which I've done consistently in my life, and it was junior year — not then. And I thought I had to go do it right then. And I took the number nine bus down East Chester Road to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which was affiliated with the hospital my mom worked at. There's no security, I walked up to the second floor, walked down the hall of what turned out to be the neurology department into the office of bearded, bespeckled, pipe smoking Professor William T. Norton, an early researcher in multiple sclerosis and the structure, the very early understanding of the structure of the myelin sheath where nerve impulses or electric impulses are transmitted, and has a lot to do with health. And I said, “Do you mind if I stay?” And at which point he said, for reasons I'll never understand, yes.
And I did six years in his lab. And what I've done with my sons is what happened to me, is you basically are with people who are unlike the people you grew up with. And you learn about the world through the eyes of others, you learn diversity, you learn new thoughts, and again, except for his kindness and graduating first in my class at Bronx Science, you know, we didn't have the resources to visit the colleges I applied to. I knew Harvard was a good school, so when I got into Harvard I said yes. I went there with bell bottoms with studs, my hair parted in the middle and polyester shirts. And you know, was probably one of the least successful chemistry majors, but it changed my life. And eventually I took my fourth year at the School of Public Health, talked the schools into combining it with an MBA when I got into the business school, left in six years with three degrees, and was probably one of the three people in my graduating class that didn't have a job because I wanted to work in movies and television. Because when I was growing up, we had no resources and the way I learned about the world was from books, movies and television, and storytelling. And I thought to myself, if I can find someone who will pay me to do what I love, that would be the best route forward.
Alan Fleischmann
And how did you, what was the idea of “I want to go into movies”? Where did that come from?
Sandy Climan
It came up from the fact that, you know, when you're growing up in the Northeast Bronx, and there are two movie theaters on Boston Post Road, and when I was growing up they had double features. And then you had television, which was not as extraordinarily articulate as it is today, although I watched an enormous amount of PBS. I watched Antigone on PBS. I remember watching Athol Fugard’s play the Blood Knot during apartheid in South Africa. PBS broadcast that play about two brothers, one of whom was white, and one who was half white and half South African Black, but he could pass as white. And the discussion of apartheid in that play, and the words of Athol Fugard, which challenged apartheid. So I looked at these things that had shaped my view of the world — the stories, the love affairs, the travel, the mystery, the comedy — and I thought to myself, if I can get paid to watch movies and television, that's not a bad deal. And having never been west of West Virginia, I actually, the second year of business school at Christmas, got on a plane to California, which required some financial maneuvering, to see what California looked like and whether or not it made sense. And I literally came out later on a boondoggle of a directed research project, which was really to go meet people who could hire you. And I couldn't get hired. So I, actually, my friend Aldo Tenaglia, who I loved dearly, was one of my advisees at Harvard and two years younger than me. He had a friend named Tom Holmes, who was a documentary producer from Canada. He had three friends, one was Camille Marchetta, a story editor for Dallas. She was too busy to meet with me. Anna and Graham Caval, producers, and they were divorcing, and I met with each of them individually years later. And then this woman, he described her boyfriend as a lawyer at Paramount. And that was a woman named Sue Parker, now Sue St. John's, the widow of the legendary film financier, and at the time, CEO of the Guinness Film Group, Richard St. John's. And Richard looked at me and said, “You know, my head of distribution, Mark Damon doesn't have any men working for him. You know, I had three guys from Harvard who had told me I didn't know what I was doing.” And these were my partners, by the way, in a project and they told me I couldn't come to that meeting. So now I'm with the guy they told me I couldn't meet with.
And I said to him, “You're the chairman of the company. Why would they tell you you don't know what you're doing?”
To which he said, “That's what I thought. I like you. Go work for Mark.” And I started as a second secretary. And fortunately, the chief financial officer at MGM had remembered me much like Joseph in Pharaoh's prison. And he said, come work at MGM. And I ended up working in distribution, international distribution, and ran pay TV because there was nobody else to do it in the early days. And eventually, I was able to somehow make the extraordinary — it seems like a simple thing — but the transition from sales to production and creative is like crossing a chasm that's insurmountable. And I became the assistant to the Head of Production at MGM. An assistant meaning an executive as opposed to a secretary.
Alan Fleischmann
How long were you there?
Sandy Climan
Well, you know, the thing is that I thought I was gonna be there for the rest of my career. And I didn't realize that some companies were stable and some companies were not, and they kept having regime changes at MGM. So I was there for about three years and then got fired. So I worked pre-David Begelman. Post-David Begelman, Freddy needed my office. Freddy Fields, who was Begelman’s ex-partner and had gotten David fired to take his job, needed my office for one of his minions. So it was more like a real estate deal, which is I had to go to open up a slot for one of his friends who never worked in the business again.
I fortunately got hired by David Gerber. Peter Turner was working there at the time. And that was the largest television production company at MGM in those years. But I'll tell you one of the great lessons of that. You know, I didn't necessarily grow up with social skills. You know, there's a sense when you watch the movie Julia with Lynn Redgrave and they're sitting there and she's at this brilliant baronial mansion of her friend, and there's silverware spread out on either side of her, and she doesn't know what to do. And they say just work from the outside in.
So where I grew up, no one taught us how to use a fork. And, you know, we didn't learn necessarily good social skills. I mean, it wasn't we had bad social skills. There just was, you know, it wasn't the world you know, first you go to Harvard and you realize there's a world of private schools — so the only private schools I knew were religious. Andover, Exeter, St. Paul’s, St. Mark's, Groton. You know, there's a whole world of privilege and heritage and generations that you're not a part of. So now you're in Hollywood, and you're trying to figure it out. And the one thing that I knew, that instinctively I knew, and it was a lesson that I carried on through my career, is that the creative arts are basically people who make movies and television, whether they're actors, directors, writers, producers, they are essentially always at the mercy of the public. And there's an insecurity because they work really hard to make the best and most popular, impactful, meaningful and hopefully profitable projects. So there was a film called Diner and it was Barry Levinson's first film.
Alan Fleischmann
Baltimore boy, I know that.
Sandy Climan
Yeah, Baltimore boy. And it was the first of the Baltimore series of films of which Avalon and others were later. And we buried it. It was an experimental film, Jerry Weintraub was the producer, the executive producer who really produced it was one of Hollywood's most prolific producers, Mark Johnson. And I really had nothing to do with the film. I watched it, and I was a fan of it. And I thought it was brilliant, but it was small. And MGM buried it. In those days, there's no streaming, there's no cable, there's no real pay TV at this point. And we released it in four cities, none of which were major. The biggest was Baltimore because we had to. We took a quarter or eighth page, black and white newspaper ads, and the film was dead. And I went to the chief financial officer and I said, I'm a huge fan of this film, and he confirmed that the head of marketing was burying the film and David Chasman, my boss, did something that was brilliant.
He knew that the film had great merit. It's kind of Slumdog Millionaire before Slumdog Millionaire. And he called Pauline Kael, the New Yorkers film critic and the most important film critic in the world. And we flew her out, put her in a screening room in the basement of the Thalberg Building. And she watched the movie and wrote a landmark review of the film saying this film needs to be seen, it needs to be discovered, it needs to be thought about. So MGM was forced to release it in New York. And I think it was at the Ziegfeld.
And the lesson is that you have to support the people who have put their life into these efforts. So I don't know what I'm doing. I'm new at this. And it's the Friday the film's opening in New York, and I call Mark Johnson's office at Management Three. And his secretary said, this is before lunch it's like 11 in the morning, and his secretary says, “You know, Mark’s in New York at the theater, and he's preparing for the opening tonight.” And I said, you know, I'm an idiot, really, I'm just calling to wish him and Barry good luck. And just, if you could pass on that messageI said. Of course he's at the theater. At which point I get back from lunch. It's three o'clock, six o'clock in New York. And remember, no cell phones, no faxes, no nothing in those days. And the phone rings on the desk and my assistant says it's Mark Johnson.
I pick up the phone, and I said, “Mark, where are you?”
He says “I'm in a phone booth at the theater.”
I said,”Why? I just called to wish you good luck, why are you calling?” To which he said you're the only one from the studio who's called — Head of Marketing, Head of Production, the executives in charge of the film — not one of them was either there or even called. To this day, both of them remember that. and the lesson is to celebrate with people, to guide them, aim to be there in any way that is supportive. Life is about service. Life is about the human touch. Life is about understanding what is important. Life is about spreading positive things by doing the small things that encourage others.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. Amazing, I mean, you took off right away. Were there mentors along the way here, were there folks who guided you or was it a little bit like the wild, wild west where there was no one really? It's a tough business you got into, so were their mentors? Or was it kind of like, you had to grope in the dark?
Sandy Climan
Well, firstly, there's many types of mentorship. You know, there's mentors who sit you down and sort of guide you. And there's mentors who just let you sit in the room and you absorb what to do, and more importantly, what not to do. In James Andrew Andrew Miller's book on CAA, Powerhouse, he was nice enough to quote me at the beginning of one chapter, saying, “It's as important to learn what not to do from your bosses as what to do.”
And I was, you know, I was allowed to be in the room. Which I never really thought about my role at CAA this way, because I never looked at it this way. They said, look, you know, you helped run the agency, they said, you are on the other side of the glass. Because I was in the room where decisions were made. And I never really thought about the privilege that was. They said, we all had our nose pressed up against the glass trying to figure out what you guys were doing.
And in my life, the greatest gift is that whether someone has given me advice, which has, you know, look, if Dr. Norton hadn't let me work for six years in the lab at Albert Einstein, I might be a doctor today because after six years at a medical school, I decided I was going to be horrible at it and I shouldn't do it. And, you know, the sense of being allowed to absorb. I once described myself and MGM as being a sort of footstool in the office of the Head of Production and I would watch and meet with the Sidney Poitiers, the great directors, the great writers, and I would listen as to how thoughts were exchanged and, you know, ideas came about decisions were made. I remember Sidney Poitier once looking at me and David Chancellor was my boss, may he rest in peace, and he goes, “You know, Sandy went to Harvard Business School.” At which point, Sidney Poitier said, you know, Alan Hirschfeld, who was the president of Columbia, went to HBS as well, to which David said, “Yes, but then Sandy joined the circus.”
And to me, the joy was in joining a circus and being allowed to be around people who thought differently. And that started with entertainment and moved into technology, it moved into global business. Because everybody has two businesses, their own business and show business. And oftentimes children of people who do great things in the world, who have been very successful, they want to actually be in the movie business. So you end up mentoring their kids, and sometimes those kids do very well like Steve Schwarzman’s son, and you know, they, they actually do extremely well or, you know, Larry Ellison's children. But at the end of the day, you know, to me, it is to learn from those who see life through whatever lens they see it. And sometimes those are world changing people. Sometimes it's just somebody on a military trip when you're talking to the troops. Sometimes it's just the factory worker, and you get a sense of how a business really runs, but to invest yourselves in the lives of others is the gift.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s amazing. And I think you've done it your whole career all along. Are there certain projects that you most loved? I mean, you said there's some that you get credit for that you shouldn't, or you don't believe you should, but there are others that you actually loved, that may not be known as being a Sandy Climan project. Are their deals or projects at your time at CAA and beyond that you would say were your most favorite ones?
Sandy Climan
You know, I have trouble always thinking of what they are because what I love to do is to put people together and then good things sometimes can come from that. So I met, as an example, I met Jay Penske, an advisor to the venture firm WR Harper, which is Beijing, Taiwan, and San Francisco and is run by a brilliant man named Peter Liu. And we're at, at my own expense I might add, at the annual meeting in Beijing at the palace in a guest house. And Jay Penske makes a presentation. and it's mail.com. And he was looking at buying Deadline, which was his first building block in the sort of the digital media properties. And, you know, I was so impressed with him when, when he was done, we talked and I became a light advisor to Penske Media, in its earliest incarnation. And then my friend, Dan Loeb at Third Point, said that he needed to know more people in the entertainment industry, who else should I meet?
And I said, well, look, here are all the obvious names. And I can make these introductions. But I think you'll like this guy, Jay Penske. And I said he's a remarkable entrepreneur. And he is good. He's ethical, he's brilliant with people, and he has great vision. And they met. And at the 11th hour and 59th minute, Shamrock pulled out of the funding of the acquisition of Variety, which is really the next building block in what is the dominant business and entertainment research and information, which is Penske Media. And Dan Loeb and Third Point wrote the check.
I didn't suggest they do that. I just put them together. But to me, these are great people who have revived dying brands, who have created global value, and who will be mainstays of what the future of the entertainment business will be for decades to come.
Alan Fleischmann
It's amazing. You know, curious to know, when you think about the entrepreneurial element of your career, because I think of you as, as you said earlier, everything you've done actually is about being an entrepreneur, the way you approach things, the way you live things and the way you change up your career. I know you've been at CAA, you did a stint at Universal Studios, you founded EMV, Entertainment Media Ventures, in 1999. With all the experiences you had there, was there something in you that said, I'm going to do that at my own company all along? You knew there was an entrepreneur that had to start your own thing. I would argue you were entrepreneurial before that, I'd love to see how you approached that.
Sandy Climan
I would correct that thinking enormously. Okay, so like I had no, you know, there are people who had, even if they don't come from a world of means and prototypes and parents who know how to guide them, I had no idea what I was going to do. I had no idea what the future would hold. I literally remember standing in the Bronx in the street, with row houses and a bunch of Italians, Irish and Jewish families that were, you know, destitute. And standing next to a fire hydrant going, you know, I'll be 44 at the turn of the millennium. I wonder what that's going to look like. And the reality is, my friend Josh Friedman at Canyon Capital, he always wanted to found his own company. So after Goldman and Drexel with Mitch Julius, he founded Canyon, and he had the right idea.
I wish I had that clarity of thinking. I also wish I was as smart as those guys. But what happened with me was quite the opposite. I always thought that I would be a great number two. I was
a team player. I didn't need credit. And CAA was the perfect place. Because, you know, it's not that I'm egoless but I really don't need to be out front. I mean, I‘ve always taken a lot of pleasure without anybody knowing what my role was. I mean, generally they did. But you know, Ovitz was, Mike Ovitz, Ron Meyer, Bill Haber owned the agency. I was one of three people who helped run it. And I did the agency side, I did the corporate side. Businessweek did an article and called Ray Kurtzman Mr. Inside, and me Mr. Outside, which I thought was actually not accurate.
But I was always happy to be in the shadows. I wanted to be much like in politics and the world you live in, I wanted to be the guy in the smoke filled room making the decisions quietly. And ultimately, CAA gave me a great platform to do that. Post-CAA, you have to come forward. But on the entrepreneurial path, I would say I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. And my friend Jon Feiber, who was at the time the managing partner of Mohr Davidow, was the first one in the 90s I started to engage with in the venture world. He actually came to Hollywood, because Knowledge Adventure, the predecessor company that became Idealab that was run by Bill Gross, wanted to do a CD ROM with Steven Spielberg called Director.
So that was the first time I saw that Silicon Valley and Hollywood spoke such different languages. And fortunately, I knew a lot of people in the tech world because my generation, Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, others had all gone to that direction in the early days. But that was a different world. And he used to say to students at Stanford, you know, you want to be an entrepreneur, you shouldn't be sitting here, you should be starting a company in a garage. You know, you shouldn't be talking about being, entrepreneurs don't talk about being entrepreneurs, they are entrepreneurs.
I ended up having to be an entrepreneur, because once the platforms change, firstly, the sense of working on projects forces you to think like an entrepreneur. Film projects, deals, early stage companies — so you start to be around entrepreneurs. And the reality is, at some point, you cross over out of necessity in your life, to either sort of fading away, or just saying this is the hand life has given me. And as my ex-wife used to say, and the most difficult issue is “I don't know how you get up in the morning and move forward.” To which I would say to her, “What choice do we have?”
And the reality is that where I grew up, my dad worked three jobs to pay for things. And half my dad's salary, and my mom's entire salary, paid for the tuition at Harvard. Because there were a limited number of scholarships. And honest to God, they were loans. But honest to God, it was such a financial stretch. But in life, you either give up, shrink away, or you mold yourself to move forward and create opportunity. And that's the reluctant entrepreneur.
Alan Fleischmann
I will continue to refer to you as the entrepreneur, reluctant or otherwise.
Sandy Climan
You know what truly entrepreneurial is? I'll tell you where it is entrepreneurial, that's not how most people think about it — most people think entrepreneurs have an idea and are gonna drive it forward endlessly. My entrepreneurship is to understand what motivates people and how to help them. And in a way that is completely out of the box, make it happen. And as I've often told my kids and sometimes colleagues, if you put yourself in the position of the other person, if you ask what can you do to help, and if you can think about how to get things done in ways others can't, there's nothing that you can't do that you also have to know how to ask the question.
Asking the question is one of the greatest things in life, and is best how you can approach something. And when you're dealing with sophisticated talent, I made a decision early on that I would always tell them the truth, but in a way they could hear it. It's not that you sugar coat criticism or negative information. It's that you invested yourself in how to make it understood and absorbed in the right way. And when you wanted to get something done, you simply had to know how to ask the question.
I'll give you an example of this. One day, and this is when Bill and Melinda were getting married. So Bill Gates’ office calls and I go okay, so I picked up the phone and they say, “What can I help with?” They said, "Would you mind talking to Bill's wedding planner?” And I said of course.
And I call the wedding planner. And you know, this is like Twilight Zone stuff. I mean, like, why are you doing this? So I call the wedding planner. And I said, “What can I do to help?” And I said, what can I do here too, which they said, “You know, the only one Melinda wants to play the wedding is Willie Nelson.”
And I said okay, and so the wedding's July 4 on Lanai, you bought out Lanai, not Hawaiian island. I said, you know, Willie's got the big barbecue in Texas that weekend. But let's just ask some very basic questions. I'm assuming you've offered private aviation. They said, yes, we offered private aviation. I said, I'm assuming money is not an issue here. They said, money is not an issue.
At which point, I said “You can't get an answer?”
“We can't get an answer.” So I said okay. So I walked downstairs, we're still at 1888 Century Park East in a skyscraper in Century City and Tom Ross, the head of the CAA music department at the time. Now, everybody's running around in suits and ties and Tom's in a Hawaiian shirt. He looks like a grizzly bear. He's got a Fu Manchu mustache. He's got, you know, this curly hair and he's got a sailfish behind his desk.
And I said, “Tom, do you know Willie Nelson?” Now Tom started like a roadie for the Grateful Dead. And Tom says we don't represent Willie. I said, “But do you know Willie Nelson,” to which he says, “Of course, I know Willie.”
At which point, I say, you know, Bill Gates' wedding wants him to play July 4.
He said, “You know Willie's got the big barbecue that weekend?”
I said I understand. I said, and then it's you just have to know the question to ask. I said, “Tom, does Willie still have a problem with the IRS?” At which point, he says “huge problem with the IRS.” I said, I think that can go away. And he played the wedding.
Alan Fleischmann
You found the motive, you found the opportunity.
Sandy Climan
You just, you know, you just say okay.
Alan Fleischmann
But it's also, as you said, I love what you said, it's asking the right questions. And it's walking in the shoes of the other person.
Sandy Climan
And happily so, you know. The thing is, people have highs and lows in their life, you have to be there for the highs and the lows. And the mistakes I've made in life are not showing up, not showing up for life events, not making things as personal as they could be, and not being sensitive because you don't know someone until you really know them. And you never know what's going on in someone's life. And you have to be sensitive to that. And you have to be discerning as to what you can learn. And then whether it's silence, or just the right word, or just a hug, you know, being there at the right time. Not in a calculated way. It's really just being there.
And you know, the brilliance of the life that I've been allowed to lead, and you as well, is that we deal with so many people in so many ways that we are privileged to be a part of the fabric of their life. Sometimes people who work in, you know, office settings like the show The Office or small groups or factory settings, they don't have the sense of human connectivity that we've been allowed. To me, that's a great gift. But no matter what your opportunity set is, be clear about the gift that's given to you when you're allowed to be in someone else's life.
Alan Fleischmann
Beautiful. Let me ask you a question. You know, I see you in Davos, I see you in places globally, as well as nationally. You know, are you there because of the power that you want to bring to the entertainment industry, to tackling big societal issues? What is drawing you? I know why they want you, I'm just curious, what draws you to be at these global convenings, gatherings of quite powerful people, which you're one, but what makes you want to do global events?
Sandy Climan
Well, I figure I’m like the court jester at these places. I mean, I'm there because, actually, and this is something that relates to both of our businesses, is that we are a world of telecom, telecommunications, technology, media, entertainment and storytelling, they're all quite separate. And it actually took probably 10 or 20 years longer than we thought, but right now, all of the skills are in it. Firstly, everyone loves entertainment. They are mesmerized by things they shouldn't be mesmerized by because if they actually got to know some of the people they were mesmerized by, they would be less mesmerized, and sometimes more mesmerized, which is the real gift.
And so I was originally invited to Davos to help expand the media and entertainment side of the conference about 28 years ago and I'm on the World Arts Forum Board now, which is their arts council. And, I'm very privileged to be in that group. What I get out of it is that, and it's much more important today than it's ever been, is we are on one large global platform. And media and entertainment is a part of almost every business. And technology has brought it all together. Customer bases are now audiences, audiences are now super fans. An automotive company reaching a — there's just many articles about the automotive companies and subscription services and how you basically are dealing with your customer base. While they are in what is today a computer as opposed to a mechanical device that literally has pistons. And every one is gathering their tribe, their audience, their community, and entertainment and media and storytelling and affiliation, aspirational affiliation, all of these things play into that. And the world I come from is storytelling, understanding affiliation, understanding where fans and superfans are going. And the sense of me learning from those groups has been extraordinary. But it also allows me to do the one thing that I really love to do, which is cross cultural storytelling. I believe that the media, social media — there are no more Walter Cronkites, there are no more Chet Huntley and David Brinkleys, John Chancellors, Edward R. Murrow. There's no real trusted sources. So how do we learn about each other? Well, the extremes now take up all of the airspace in dialogue on almost every channel.
And what I would say is that by telling the stories and people understanding that people are the same all over the world, they have the same aspirations for their family, they have the same trials and tribulations, that has been relevant to everyone I've dealt with on every platform, whether it's the World Economic Forum, the future investment initiative in Riyadh and Saudi Arabia, whether it's TED, any of these groups, the Yale CEO Leadership Institute. And by traveling the world, it allows me to have, I hesitate to say the network, but really the friends to create value, and move economies forward that need to develop media and entertainment. Because it is a global platform, create employment, which is the only thing that brings peace, and create cultural understanding, which is the other side of the coin for creating peace.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. Let me ask you a question. When you think about it, you and I both have served as advisors to CEOs across a number of industries. In your experience, what's the most important piece of advice that more leaders and chief executives should be taking to heart?
Sandy Climan
Well, you know, that's a complex question that you should answer. But I'll tell you, if you think about the movie industry, Preston Sturges’ film Sullivan’s Travels, you actually have to be in touch with the real world. And the real world, firstly, you have to have values, you have to lead with values, you have to understand all of the stakeholders and make the right decisions in a Pareto optimal way for all the stakeholders, you have to think about profit as well as social responsibility. You have to create an environment that is healthy for people, and you have to be a good global citizen. And really, if I were giving them any advice, it's don't live in a silo. And don't, you know, develop the values and ethics that allow you to guide others and share with others. And then make sure that on a top down basis, and a bottom up basis, you have not information coming to you, but a real sense of how your world is working in the real world, and what it all means for the future of not just your company, but all of your stakeholders, starting with your employees.
Alan Fleischmann
And the whole idea of curiosity and asking questions and you know, authenticity and being consistent, these are all things that build trust. That’s a big thing I hear you talking about a lot.
Sandy Climan
Building trust is not about building trust in a transactional way. Building trust is about living a life where you have the integrity that inspires confidence and trust.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. When you're talking about mentoring and thinking of the next generation, when you're looking at tomorrow's leaders, what do you give them as advice as a great mentor? You’re known to be a great mentor. And I should mention, by the way — you're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM, and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Sandy Climan, my good friend who is an entertainment visionary and president of entertainment media ventures. And we're discussing his extraordinary journey in Hollywood and beyond, but also how he's a great role model as a leader, and as a CEO, and as a founder himself, and also the advice he gives to others. Now we're talking about mentorship.
Tell me a little bit about how you mentor.
Sandy Climan
Well, if you're looking at the next generation, I would say, and again, you and I will have longer talks about this, not on Sirius XM, because this is a long and developing conversation and thought process. But I would say to my children's generation it is about being a good community member, leading by the sense of engagement and curiosity. It's about lifelong learning. And it's also about having a clear vision as to what you're doing and why.
And then thinking about that, first on a local platform and with your local community, and then never losing a sense that you are a part of a global community, because almost every business today is in some way connected. Just as we are now through Zoom and telecommunications in ways that we never thought possible. Airplanes shrunk the world. First we had steamships, then we had airplanes and cars which made the world smaller. Today, in an instant, I can be from here to Geneva, to Saudi Arabia, to Indonesia.
And the sense of instilling in your sense, instilling in yourself, a love of other cultures and bringing the sort of humanity along with clarity of business purpose, is the duality of how you should lead your life. And then because we have a crisis in mental health, because we have other crises going on, because this generation is for the first time going to be scarred by things that we haven't seen in decades. Instead of becoming despondent, wake up in the morning and think to yourself, okay, what can I do? How do I work in this world with climate challenges, with economic challenges, with the potential for war and disharmony with racial issues with, you know, politically polarized speech with the sense of intolerance and a lack of civility, how does what I do today change all of that? And not worry about making global change. Small steps lead to large change.
Alan Fleischmann
And feeling like you can actually make a difference even if you think it's wrong.
Sandy Climan
You always have to know that. You always have to not think, you always have to know that what you do makes a difference.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And being a part of the entertainment industry and such a leadership role, you see that as often as a key to driving, and it is. To me it's not only a driving, broader social change, it's actually the only way we can actually, arts in general, can change mindset. You know, when you think about what connects us and unites us, it's that storytelling you're talking about, it's the movies, the films, the music that brings us together that can broaden our perspective.
Sandy Climan
There's that rare moment where, you know, you see something special. And to me, I'll tell you what rips out my heart. You know, at my age, you start to see the death of a generation before and many of your own, but I went to the academy museum over the July 4th holiday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences opened up a remarkable museum right next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in what I would say as the Miracle Mile of Los Angeles. And they had a marvelous exhibit of a number of directors, seminal works and social change. And I was devastated by one, which is I went in and there was an enormous amount of film footage and interviews with stars of the film Boyz N the Hood, directed by my friend, John Singleton.
Now, John had graduated USC School of Cinematic Arts. And he was a client of my colleague who was a junior agent named Brad Smith. And Brad called me up, and again, no cell phones, no nothing in those days. And he said, “Look, this film is going to change things. And John is going to change things. I can't do this alone. This is going to get much larger, very fast. Would you help me?”
And I met John and I watched the movie and the movie changed everyone. People in LA, who never understood the plight of those who grew up in South Central looked at this remarkable film made by this remarkable young African American director, who literally, you know, long before all of the changes in Hollywood, John was leading that change. And John passed away in an untimely way from hypertension, way too young. He was a great voice. And I was immersed in what was this film. And I remember, there were gang shootings in theaters. And I was at home and it was 10, 11 o'clock at night, and the phone would ring a landline and it would be somebody from a theater, or John from the theater, CNN is calling you out, a 23 year old director — by the way, I think the youngest director ever nominated for an Academy Award.
And, you know, walking him through the sort of important dialogue that was generated by that film and what surrounded it. And the film today is if you had a list of the 100 greatest films, it's certainly well on that list. But to me, the privilege is to help someone like that. The lesson is that one film can change things. And that the final thought is that next generations need to see these pieces and not forget them. Because they are as relevant today as they were then.
Alan Fleischmann
You've lived a remarkable career. You should write a book by the way. Kind of your pearls of wisdom and insights along the way, would be a brilliant book, actually. You know, I’m just curious, the different chapters of your life, I think of you as an entrepreneur, despite how you describe yourself. I think you're always reinventing others around you and yourself. In the last minute or two, what would be your advice to young men and women who hope to one day follow in your footsteps who see your career and say, I want to do something like Sandy Climan.
Sandy Climan
Well, firstly, do a better job of figuring out your work life balance. You know, you'll stay married longer, you'll lead a happier life, you'll recharge better. So do that for sure. And if you have families, the one piece of advice I'll give you there is, you know, spend as much time with your spouse as you can. Remember, the time you spend with your spouse helps your kids so all the time with your kids without spending time with your spouse, very bad idea. And the last thing is when you have kids, figure out one thing to do, or many things to do, whether it's weekly, monthly or annually, and that pattern may actually continue. We're going this August, we've been going to Alaska, I've been going to Alaska for 30 years, Joe, this will be my oldest son's 25th trip where we go fishing with friends in Alaska, and the Tongass National Forest at Yes Bay Lodge. And it is, you know, no matter what happens in our lives, somehow we will always try to make the things that we started to do when they were young sacrosanct into their later life and think about life that way, whether it's with friends, whether it is with family, and what I would say is this is that you should engage the world.
It is no longer about where you got a degree, it's what you can do. You are getting your — this generation is not learning the liberal arts at college. The internet and everything coming at you, you have the world at your fingertips, and you are learning from a very young age things that we see later in life learned in higher levels of education. It is about lifelong education.
And don't ever let anyone make you feel lesser. Be confident in yourself. Don't be arrogant and don't be overconfident, but be confident, and know that you will find a path that is rich and rewarding for yourself. And if you haven't found it, have confidence that if you keep looking you will find it. Because this generation is purpose driven as opposed to financially driven or security driven. All of those things are important. But know that your voice no matter who you are, is as important as anyone else's voice. And make that voice heard in the most positive way.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that.
You've been listening to leadership matters on Sirius XM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. We've had a wonderful hour with Sandy Climan, who really is an extraordinary mensch, as well as a visionary leader, someone who makes great things happen out of Hollywood and beyond. And certainly in his role as president of Entertainment Media Ventures. Sandy, it's been such a pleasure. We could do this for another hour. We need to have you back on to do another hour, frankly. And I'd love to do it. But to have you on is very inspiring. And thank you so much for this.
Sandy Climan
Alan, thank you for having me. And the only thing that I would suggest to Sirius XM is that you be interviewed, because I know your stories and your stories actually are better than my stories.
Alan Fleischmann
You’re so kind. Thank you so much, my friend.