strong headwinds and stand up to power. Shami herself attributes it to several things, but none less than her parents. ‘I am the daughter of migrants. They’d both been to university in India before moving to England and they raised me to believe I could do anything. I was educated at the local comprehensive and I knew Eton boys were privileged and different, but I never believed they were better than me.’
She has a personal motto that encapsulates this thinking: ‘Anyone’s equal, no one’s superior.’ It’s a principle that guides her approach to life as well as work. ‘It’s a pretty good way to rub along with other people in the world.’
The goal of achieving a society where everyone is equal, according to Shami, is still far away. She despairs at how refugees are talked about increasingly with disdain. ‘“Refugee” to me is one of the most noble words on the planet. When I grew up in the 1970s we loved refugees because they were Russians who wanted to escape the terrible Soviet bloc for our better way of life. But now we cast refugees as “others”, as “less than”, as a problem.’ And worse than that, she sees women’s place in the world as the biggest inequality going. ‘The older I get and the more I see, I think gender injustice is the greatest human rights abuse on the planet. It’s literally like an apartheid, except this isn’t one country, this is global and millennial and it’s insane.’
She has a one-word answer for tackling such issues of inequality and defending our basic rights, and that is solidarity.
‘Powerful elites in the world always succeed by divide and rule, using tools like fear and racism. But solidarity, the basic human connection we can all have with one another, is stronger. It is the magic weapon to achieve change. If we remember that your human rights are the same as my human rights, even if we don’t look the same, and if we support one another we all benefit, we all become stronger. Ultimately, we are each other’s security.’
THE REAL ARI EMANUEL
IT’S OSCAR WEEK AND ARI Emanuel, Hollywood super-agent and inspiration for Entourage’s Ari Gold, is a busy man. He’s so busy even his assistant has an assistant, and she’s worked marvels, getting me time with the most powerful man in Hollywood at Hollywood’s busiest time of year. But there isn’t a second to lose.
I’m grabbed from reception and walked quickly, almost at jogging pace, to his office. A meeting is just ending and this is our shot. Two people are still being shown out as I am shown in – we briefly get stuck in the doorway. Inside, Ari is stood at his chest-high desk, a desk that is placed over a treadmill so he can work out while he’s working. He looks up and over at me, then to his assistant, and asks, quite reasonably, all things considered, ‘So, who the hell is this guy?’ And so my conversation with Ari begins.
If that makes him sound rude, then it’s misleading. Focused, for sure. Direct, definitely. But not rude. It’s just that ‘it’s a shitty week for me, what with it being the Oscars, and EVERYONE is in town, there is a LOT going on’. He talks in lean, rapid-fire bursts, all protein, no sugar. A dark-matter magnetism radiates from him; he’s unquestionably the centre of gravity in the room. He had me at ‘So’.
Ari wants to know why I want him in this book. I explain it’s about people at the top of their game, and that he’s the most powerful and successful agent in the world. He listens to my answer, reflects for a nanosecond and says, ‘That’s true. I am.’ And then, a beat later, follows up with, ‘Well, it doesn’t pay for me to be humble, not in this industry.’
So what does pay in this industry? What is the secret for getting to the top?
‘I’ve thought about this, and my advice for success comes down to three things: be curious, show up, stay in touch. You have to keep reading, listening, talking, thinking, finding out how people think, what they do. And chase down anything that seems interesting.’
He recounts an article he read ten years ago about a new technology that to him sounded intriguing and to us is now known as virtual reality. So he got on the phone to the person in the piece, invited him for lunch and asked him questions. Ari kept in touch with the guy, sent him the odd email, the occasional article. The same guy called him one Friday night saying that he was off to see some whizz kid he was excited about and asked whether Ari wanted to come along. ‘It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday night. I’m in bed. It’s been a shitty week, pounding away trying to make this place work. But I think, right, fuck it. I get out of bed, put my trousers back on and drive an hour to meet this kid. Best thing I ever did. I loved him, decided to back him, and his company has been a huge success.’
I say it’s easier to be curious, to show up, to stay in touch when you are already successful, when your name opens doors, so I’m keen to understand how he first got going, before his name meant anything. ‘Basically I started out by calling the big guys in the agency world back then. I was a nobody, a pimple on their ass, but I just kept calling them and doorstepping them until eventually they gave me an in.’
I say that it takes a thick skin to keep going in a situation like that. He concedes that’s the case and, surprisingly, says that the extreme dyslexia he suffered from as a kid helped him.
‘When you’re dyslexic you constantly fail, nothing comes easy, so you lose the fear of failing, you get used to being embarrassed. So with cold calling, who gives a shit? They say no, big deal, you just keep calling them till they say yes.’
Furthermore, he says being dyslexic teaches you other things too. It gives you better emotional intelligence: ‘You might not be able to read books but you get great at reading people.’ And it teaches you how to put a team together, ‘because you can’t do everything when you’re dyslexic, you need people to help’. And ironically in an industry typically about ‘me’, Ari’s reputation is for being about the ‘we’. The loyalty of his staff seems absolute, as is his to them. As an illustration, one of his colleagues was telling me how, during the terrorist attacks in Paris earlier in the year, as soon as Ari heard the news he got straight on a plane and was there within twenty-four hours, making sure his French team were OK.
Curiosity. Not giving in. Team. All things instrumental to his success.
And it is one of his loyal team members that now gives me the nod. My time is up. As I’m shown out, I take a look back. The last thing I see is Ari going back to his desk, getting back on that treadmill. And thanks to the time he’s given me, now busier than ever.
‘I’VE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS, AND MY ADVICE FOR SUCCESS COMES DOWN TO THREE THINGS: BE CURIOUS, SHOW UP, STAY IN TOUCH. YOU HAVE TO KEEP READING, LISTENING, TALKING, THINKING, FINDING OUT HOW PEOPLE THINK, WHAT THEY DO. AND CHASE DOWN ANYTHING THAT SEEMS INTERESTING.’
– Ari Emanuel
MARTHA LANE FOX, FAIRY GODMOTHER 2.0
I’M IN THE OFFICES OF a hip London digital agency to meet Baroness Martha Lane Fox, the First Lady of the internet. The company is full of people with ironic T-shirts, directional haircuts and piercings that allow you to see through their earlobes. Martha’s sitting in the communal coffee bar, looking gloriously countercultural by being dressed in a smart, powder-blue trouser suit. As someone who knows more about digital than all the trendies in London put together, she doesn’t need to wear the ripped T-shirt and body piercings to prove it.
As we chat
