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rickyv:

Ricky’s Quickies: Book Review

The Operator by Tom King

Another page-turning business non-fiction book easily under my belt. This one, a biography of David Geffen, was terrific.

Geffen’s “win at all costs” attitude makes for an action-packed story of his life. The hardest thing about reading this book was keeping track of whether he was best friends or total enemies with people he knew his whole life. It would go back and forth time after time, depending on a variety of factors, but mostly whether the person had given him what he wanted in their most recent business deal.

Geffen isn’t afraid to lie, cheat, and steal to get what he wants. This has always been the way for him, from when he first forged a graduation letter from UCLA to get a job in the William Morris mail room (he had never attended). The most extreme example of that attitude was what eventually made him rich…

In 1984, when Geffen was negotiating his new contract with Warner Bros Records, he decided he was going to ask for something even he knew was outrageous: that after the five year contract was up, Warner would give him back a 50% stake it had in Geffen Records. Geffen was smart enough to know that Mo Ostin, the head of the label and a friend of Geffen’s, would never give in on such an absurd request. But Geffen knew that he had a chance of getting the demand from Mo’s boss, who he believed he could persuade. Geffen told his friends “If I have to deal with Mo, I will fail.” Thus, Geffen decided the only way to not have to deal with Mo would be to make it so the two of them went from close friends to no longer being on speaking terms. To accomplish this, Geffen devised a plan — he took Ostin’s wife out for lunch and told her that her husband didn’t love her anymore. Of course, when word got back to Ostin, he was furious. The two men didn’t speak for a year and a half. In that time, David Geffen was able to negotiate directly with Ostin’s boss and get what he wanted.

I’d label Geffen with a new term I’ve been using a lot lately: a “likable asshole.” A likeable asshole is, as you can probably guess, somebody who everybody pretty much acknowledges has asshole qualities but people can’t help liking anyway. These people usually are super interesting, have big personalities and are often found in the media and entertainment industries. The term itself is very Dentonian — a positive adjective mixed with a negative verb, or vise versa. Come to think of it, Nick would probably qualify as one.

Anyway, I’d highly recommend the book to anybody who likes showbiz anecdotes and stories about rich men fighting with each other.

My takeaway from this book is that I’d probably rather be a millionaire with a good group of steady lifelong friends than a billionaire who constantly feuds with those closest to me.

This guy, Ricky, another reason I want to be a book reader. I wanna bang out book reads. I still think its just not me.

Hope for change. Hope.