Summit Flagship Event: Interview With Gary Vaynerchuk and Michael Ovitz

*An interview I conducted with Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and VaynerX and Michael Ovitz, co-founder of the Creative Artists Agency and previously President of the Walt Disney Company. Interviews were conducted while working as a journalist for Summit at their annual flagship event

Michael, your art collection is known as one of the most prestigious art collections. When art is seeming to be devalued, especially in education, what do you say to children who have the desire to get into art, but feel their work might be devalued?

Michael Ovitz: It's a great question. It's a subject that really gets under my skin because I think that art is so critically important to driving commerce. Because everything that we see, read or hear has some cultural ethos to it, it's always backed up by something visual, whether it's a painting, a sculpture, a piece of film, a record, this is all art. Kids need to be encouraged, need to have more programs for art, make art more acceptable, particularly, in the inner city. 

Gary, you emphasize a positive perspective and optimism as integral for happiness and drive. In the times we live, where things always aren’t so cheery, do you find pessimism or negativity necessary to stimulate positive change?

Gary Vee: You need to always be aware and thoughtful, but I think we need a proper perspective. It all depends on what your purview on the world is. For me, as a human, my social stance is being mean to another person is unacceptable. That being said, I think you have to take a long view.

I am optimistic because I see a lot of good, and I see a machine that doesn't have as much leverage as it used to. When I anticipate blockchain and AI and all sorts of other things, I think life has never had more options than right this second, and you can dwell or you can do something about it. Whether that's voting or moving or starting something for yourself, there are a million things one can do. I think the world is going to do a very good job telling all these people how bad it is. I just don't see the same way, and so, I think I have a responsibility to make positivity louder in the truth of the data behind where the world actually is right now.

What accountability do corporate or media entities have to environmental and social sectors, if any?

Michael Ovitz: I think that there's a disconnect between what they think they have and what they should have and what they do have. What I think a lot of them are struggling with is if they are accountable every millisecond of every minute of every day based on what's happened. We're in an environment where everything is instantaneous. There are no secrets. If they're not responsible, they're going to get in trouble, and we see it all the time. They got to be thinking ahead. Traditionally, media companies always thought in future-thinking, never the present or the past. Now, they've got to be thinking in all three dimensions, past, present, and future, and they have to be accountable for what they're doing because the public is holding them accountable. 

Do you think that’s part of a larger shift in changing what we view a corporation or a company, not only to serve shareholders or profits but also to be of service to the public? 

Gary Vee: Listen, it's a little bit of both, always. 

I know what I do as a human quietly versus what VaynerMedia's executives want me to do for VaynerMedia, to position VaynerMedia as a politically correct organization of the moment. So, I don't want to judge. If an entrepreneur wants to make every penny, never give back to anything to anybody, and then she wants to give away 99% of her money on the seven things that she cares about that aren't the current state of what you should do, I have no interest in judging her.

Michael Ovitz: You can't judge her.

Gary Vee: That's right, and you shouldn't judge her because she's actually doing a better job than a company that's checking the box and donating 1,000 bucks or a billion bucks to make everybody think they're good.

Michael Ovitz: To amplify that point, the responsibility of a CEO to a public company, not private, was always to the shareholders. I don't believe that's the case anymore. I believe that it's to the shareholders and to the public they serve. 

Gary Vee: Michael, I think that's a really interesting point of view on the future. Do you think a current CEO of a Fortune 500 that she or he can navigate that dichotomy which is inevitably going to cost money in the P&L?

Michael Ovitz: You just hit the key problem. If they're willing to make it a budget item, they're going to be able to do it. They're not going to be able to scrape a few bucks here and a few bucks there. They're going to get criticized, they got to have to earmark the money to serve the public, and they're careful about that.

Gary Vee: 20 years ago, they probably already would be feeling way too much heat for the stock price. Now, the next CEO can walk into General Mills or Kraft or BMW and say, "Before we start this show, and you want me, I'm going to need the room to do good for the world that's going to make me less profitable, and I want to create that upfront."