[

Nelson,

]

Now, it would be easy to pooh-pooh all this by basically saying these are rich people problems -- having a prestigious, highly compensated job that's intellectually very interesting. Shocking that one has to work that hard. But I think it speaks to a larger issue -- one that I'm intimately familiar with. It's focusing on accomplishments -- or using accomplishments as a barometer for happiness. Or assumption that once you've accomplished X, you'll be happy. I've certainly done that many times in my life -- one of the early ones being, "If I only get into Princeton, then I'd be happy." Of course, the opposite occurred -- but even if I was happy at Princeton, I think I would still eventually realize that life -- for me, at least -- doesn't work that way. Getting X does not suddenly turn you from an unhappy person to a happy person. 

I was having dinner with another friend last night and we were talking about this issue. In particular, I was noting that while I very much enjoy my day to day life, in the eyes of many of my friends (principally folks outside the entertainment industry) -- their perspective is that nothing is good enough until I do X. And sometimes X is something HUGE! Like being a series regular on a famous TV show! It did make me think about how accomplishment oriented (or even "stuff" oriented) American society is. It's as if the journey is irrelevant -- it's just whether you win in the end. But it's all about the journey isn't it? And whether or not I enjoy something seems like it should be a significant determining factor in whether or not I should do something or not. 

I often get the question, "Will you ever return to tech?" I'm certainly not fundamentally averse to returning to tech. I enjoyed my time there and still keep in touch with it. But, I've never run across something that I would want to spend the vast majority of my time on. I like spending most of my time on acting (or at least entertainment related things -- broadly) -- so that's what I do. The friend I had dinner with is in tech -- and she was pointing out how in Silicon Valley, if you haven't been part of a *successful* startup, it's as if you haven't accomplished anything. That there's this invisible pressure to have that as a stamp of approval on your resume. I think that's kind of sad. And as someone who has a really strong introduction in tech (formerly of Google and Amazon.com) -- I'm kind of sad for the world that people get so wrapped up in "Where do you work? What do you do?" as if that's the literal core of our identity.

I get it though. I've quit both Amazon.com and Google -- and after the first couple of months of unemployment (when it's euphoric, frankly) -- it can be rough a transition. Ignoring the money component, so much of your identity is wrapped up in where you work. It's an inevitable question when you meet someone new, if not one of the first.

This is not a post against corporate jobs or non-artistic jobs or what not. It's simply stating that (significant constraints not withstanding -- e.g. needing to financially support family, etc.) -- isn't it worth trying to make a living at something you'd love or might love? Or at the minimum, if you're deeply unhappy doing something to consider doing something else? This friend I talked about in the beginning of this post -- if you're making $1mm+/year -- you can just save up money for a few years and ostensibly retire. Sure you can't have a super ostentatious lifestyle, but you surely can have a very comfortable one -- and you don't have to go into work in the morning and have the whole day to do other things!

There are plenty of "what should I do with my life" books out there -- but this musing was more around why so many seemingly hyper successful, staggeringly successful, people are fundamentally unhappy -- by their own admission.

Among the audience members, I'm not sure if I've ever had such an intellectually engaged audience -- not super surprising since the audience was comprised of the larger Vanderbilt community including a number of professors. Some of the questions were around the technical aspects of the film (e.g. what the editing process was like) -- but a lot of it was around themes and areas it explored. One person noted how he liked the ending -- how it wasn't your typical happy ending -- because as a father of 3 kids who does encourage his kids to follow their passions -- that he wanted them to see that sometimes you have good outcomes, and sometimes you have not so obviously good ones as well.

My brother and I were talking afterwards -- he's probably seen the film 5-6 times and obviously I've seen it countless times. This audience was very different than other audiences we've screened it for -- they laughed at different jokes and were completely silent at points which we thought were laugh out loud funny. It's interesting when you're working on a film -- you'll often have something in it and think, "That's really funny." -- and sometimes you're dead on and other times, it takes a lot of screenings before, frankly, someone laughs at it. Then you have this moment where you go, "I knew it! I knew that was funny!" Maybe not nearly as funny as you originally hoped, but at least someone shares your sensibility for that particular line or joke. A similar example -- an audience member noted how much he enjoyed the car scene with Matthew Noah Falk and asked some detailed questions about how that was captured, etc. Penny Falk -- an invaluable consultant and friend to the film -- she had told me early on that that was her favorite moment of the film. How her heart just broke when she saw it. But what was interesting was that no one had previously mentioned that scene to me, even though I, like Penny, found the scene quite moving. So similar to the more whimsical moments, it was intellectually rewarding when this audience member pointed it out specifically.

I remember reading some recap of a meeting Jason Reitman had with various Sundance filmmakers (obviously much earlier in their careers than him) -- and he was telling them how he should enjoy those screenings -- that those types of screenings (even as he was promoting the Oscar-nominated "Up in the Air") were some of the most joy he had experienced as a filmmaker. Obviously on a much smaller and different level -- I've grown to so appreciate every screening, large or small -- for my doc. For all the folks who it engages, raises interesting questions, makes think, or just plains entertains -- it's really quite rewarding. I think sometimes, especially living in L.A. where I'm surrounded -- frankly, by sheer size and success and a level of snarkiness too -- I think back over this past year and consider myself quite lucky. 

Following Ed's comment about my parents, we talked a little about them afterwards and I was telling him that my Mom's view of at least what I do filmmaking-wise has changed completely -- a complete 180 degree turn. She's interested, invested, and tells me how she's sent the film to her friends and asks for updates on it. Totally different than before when this work was dismissed as a sideshow. Ed was noting that they saw it in real theaters (my Mom flew down to Nashville for its premiere at the Nashville Film Festival which was held at an AMC and my parents both saw it in NYC as part of DocuWeeks which was held at the IFC Center.) But it's interesting and weird -- just from a psychological standpoint. Even for me -- at the AMC, I saw "The Hunger Games" maybe a month or two before at the same cinema! Then to see my film up there was weird and surreal. But I think it's this type of stuff that I've grown to so appreciate. Someone -- a festival, a screening series, even random people who email me from Sweden or Hungary or wherever asking if they can buy a DVD -- they're just interested in this piece of work and want to find out more about it. You do the work because you love it and you hope it gets seen -- but it is so rewarding and fortunate when people take time out of their lives and day to see your work and maybe think about it some too.

Al Pacino
Charlie Rose: How did he [Al Pacino] change you as an actress?
Jessica Chastain: Well, he taught me a couple of things. I used to be afraid of the camera and think, like, pretend it’s not there. And he said, it completely opened my eyes, “Most people are afraid of the camera, but for film, you have to be intimate with the camera. Because more than your scene partner, the camera sees into your eyes. It sees into your soul. It’s part of you and just like your arm is part of you, once you accept it, you forget the arm is there. But with the camera, once you accept it has a direct line to your soul, you can forget it. But you have to be more open to it than anything else.” …. It just changed me.

L.A. and Getting into Julliard
Jessica Chastain: I had many people after I got in, tell me, in L.A., after I got in, you shouldn’t go to Julliard because you’ll be too old when you get out of school to be an actor.

Thirst for Learning
Charlie Rose: So if someone came out of high school today, who had talent, and they admired you --
Jessica Chastain: Go to school.
Charlie Rose: You say, go to school?
Jessica Chastain: Absolutely.
Charlie Rose: Go to Yale. Go to Julliard. Go somewhere.
Jessica Chastain: Go somewhere. Even if it’s not acting school. Go to school. You have to learn about life. You can’t be an actor not having experienced life. Uh, every part I get, to me, it’s like a course I’m taking. When I did “The Debt”, I learned so much about the medical - not fun - so much about the medical experiments during the Holocaust and Mengele, and the survivors. Every part I play, I have to immerse myself in that. I have to study that world in order to understand those women. And when you go to school, and you have this capacity to learn, this thirst to learn, I think it makes you a better actor.

Doing the Work
Jessica Chastain: I think I’ve always been the person, I do the work when no one’s watching. I’ve always been like that. Even when I was playing a dead body in L.A. on some TV show, I was at my house doing play readings of “Miss Julie” and ask my friends to come over and read the play out loud. I was constantly, at one point I was writing, adapting “Hamlet” for a movie which I’ll never make. But I was constantly trying to remind myself, every day, I’m an actor. I’m this kind of actor. I need to challenge myself in these stories.

The Prep
Charlie Rose: If you were teaching a master class about acting, what would you want the students to know, that you have learned?
Jessica Chastain: The most important thing, I think, is the prep before you arrive. Absolutely. If it’s someone who doesn’t want to play themself as the character, like in “Zero Dark Thirty”, I’m not playing Jessica Chastain as a CIA agent because then I would be crying throughout the whole movie! …. It’s always, for me, the prep is understanding the world that you’re in and really understanding the character. Understanding your similarities and the differences. It’s a lot of homework. That’s absolutely what I would stress to people.

Giving Yourself Over to a Role
Charlie Rose: The idea of being able to execute it once you understand it? Can you explain it or is that simply doing it that you learn the things that are necessary to being good?
Jessica Chastain: …. It’s about not having a sense of vanity as an actor. Or even a sense of vanity / narcissism. When I was working with Sean Penn on “Tree of Life”, we were talking one time about acting. And he didn’t know how shy I was. At that point, I was still painfully shy but I was trying to hide it. And he said, “That a person who is self-conscious is just as narcissistic as someone who talks about themselves all the time because you’re still self-absorbed.” And there’s something about being an actor where, this is me defining what he said. Something for me about being an actor, that with nudity, or doing scenes, that I can’t be concerned with how I look when I’m playing a character. I have to completely give myself over to the woman, or the man, or whatever it is I’m playing, and yes, have an emotional thruline to myself, but there has to be an absence of self at the same time.

A Character’s Energy
Jessica Chastain: I think a lot about energy when I’m acting. …. I think, “Where does the energy live in the person?” And, for me, Rachel Singer, has survivor’s guilt. Her whole family has been killed. Why does she deserve to be alive? So, for her, I thought a lot about scar tissue. That she is just this walking scar tissue.

Michael Shannon
Jessica Chastain: Working with Mike [Michael Shannon], that’s a master class right there. You can never take your eye off the ball. He’s constantly doing something. If you’re not present, you miss it.
Charlie Rose: Why did you take that role?
Jessica Chastain: To work with Mike Shannon.

Being Part of Something Bigger
Charlie Rose: Are you happiest getting inside the character, or the actual filming of the material?
Jessica Chastain: You mean, like, the research or the filming?
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
Jessica Chastain: I’m always happiest in the filming. Because there is a freedom in that. You do all the work before, which sometimes is really difficult, because you have to go to really dark places, learn things about humanity that you didn’t know. These horrible things. Create secrets for your character. Once I do that, I have this kind of book, this is who I am. I don’t have to think about it anymore. I just show up there, and now it’s in me. And it’s like, there’s this intimacy between actors that is so incredible. Being able to look at someone and have it mean so much. It’s very rare, even walking down the street, when we really look at someone. And there’s something about filming, like I said, that makes me feel part of something bigger.

Confidence vs. Fear
If you’re too confident, you end up not being good, because your ego is driving everything. But if you’re too fearful, you never take chances. I’ve always found you learn more from failure than you do from success. So, if I’m going to risk failure, I’m going to throw myself out there. I’m not going to be good in this. That’s fine, because I’m going to learn more.

Ralph Fiennes
Charlie Rose: Ralph Fiennes. You said about him, “That his performance in “Schindler’s List” made you realize that acting was more than about being in films, it was about playing complicated, very human, characters.”

Thoughts
Charlie Rose: Someone said to me, about acting, that it has to look like you’ve just had the thought. So that’s what's happening there, you’re looking at it as a spontaneous experience. You have to feel it as a spontaneous experience, even though, in your head, and everything you’ve thought about, you have practiced it.
Jessica Chastain. Yeah, the difference for me though is I don’t know what my thoughts are going to be. So I know what the lines are, I know where my character is coming from, but not until I’m in the scene with the person, and I see how they’re talking to me, and the temperature - what exactly is going on in this room, are they rude? Are they listening to me? Is he shutting me off? Is he not looking me in the eye? I don’t know how I’m going to be within it. So for me, the thoughts are always spontaneous because it depends on the actor I’m with.

• "The game is a house, and some players only have one or two windows in their house because they can't absorb any more light," says Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of Team USA. "When I met LeBron, he only had a few windows, but then he learned how beautiful the game can be, so he put more windows in. Now he sees the damn game so well, it's like he lives in a glass building. He has entered a state of mastery. There's nothing he can't do. God gave him a lot but he is using everything. He's one of the unique sports figures of all time, really, and he's right in that area where it's all come together." A voracious mind has caught up with a supreme body. The marriage is a marvel.
• [Game 4, 2012 Eastern Conference Semifinals: Heat-Pacers] Chris Jent, Ohio State assistant coach and former Cavaliers assistant: I sent him a long e-mail before that game, and I talked a lot about my brother, who is a retired Marine. He tells his guys that the mental side is 1,000-to-1 more important than the physical. Your mind will allow your body to get where it needs to go.
• [Game 4, 2012 Eastern Conference Semifinals: Heat-Pacers] Dwyane Wade: LeBron and I have this thing where we kind of look at each other when it's time to step up. Even before we played together, we did it in All-Star Games and at the Olympics. It means he wants more from me, or vice versa.
• Peers often describe James as "a beast," and even though they mean to flatter him, the label dismisses the depths to which he comprehends the game. He can deconstruct the top eight players on every NBA team and many college teams. He can run every set in the Heat playbook from all five positions. In film sessions he sometimes completes Spoelstra's sentences, and at the Olympics, many of Team USA's defensive strategies were suggestions from James in practice. "He's not smart," says Krzyzewski. "He's brilliant. And I don't like to use that word."
• "Everybody sees the dunks and the 35 points, but it's no accident. Carmelo Anthony is the same size. J.R. Smith can jump just as high. Dwight Howard is as good an athlete. It's his thought process that separates him."
• "It's a little like A Beautiful Mind," says Battier, a Miami forward. "He has a quasiphotographic memory that allows him to process data very quickly. Usually, the überathletic guys who are so much more physically gifted than everybody else don't give much credence to the mental side of the game. Dwyane, for instance, has no time for this. He couldn't care less about numbers. He goes out, imposes his will, and that's great. It's made him a Hall of Famer. But LeBron is looking for every edge."
• Only then does he retreat to his meticulously organized locker and clear his mind of the details running through it. Many players function at the same speed all the time. James, constantly searching for mismatches, shifts back and forth from reading to reacting. His brain can bog him down. "Sometimes I overanalyze things, overthink things," he says. "It can get in my way." He slips on his headphones, turns up the hip-hop and finds his attack mode.
• [Game 6, 2012 Eastern Conference Finals: Heat-Celtics] Udonis Haslem, Heat forward: You could tell on the bus. He wasn't going to let us lose.
• [Game 6, 2012 Eastern Conference Finals: Heat-Celtics] Erik Spoelstra: Once the game started, we saw that look. We just call it the look. We have a picture of it now, bigger than life, outside our locker room. It's the look of the ultimate competitor.
• [2012 Olympics: United States - Lithuania] Mike Krzyzewski: Over the years LeBron has learned that it's not just what a leader says but how a leader looks that counts. It's the nonverbal communication that can sometimes carry the day. His body language and facial expressions were so strong that day. He put us on his back.

I used to work out at this gym called HAX [link] -- it's a tremendous basketball facility and a lot of professional basketball players work out there. The biggest names were Paul Pierce, Kevin Durant, and Dwight Howard. I never saw those guys -- but I usually would be told by the front desk that they were there that week. But do you know who I saw? James Harden. James Harden was there, by far, the most of any of the players I saw (second most was Brandon Jennings.) For basketball junkies -- some of the other (lesser well-known) players there included: Jarrett Jack, Shaun Livingston, JaVale McGee, and Javaris Crittenden (yes, that Javaris Crittenden). Now -- it's not that the other players necessarily work less hard than Harden -- after all, Harden may simply have worked out when I worked out. But the reason why this is interesting to me is I saw Harden when he was just establishing himself in the league. Harden was drafted in 2009 [link] and while he was the 3rd pick overall, he was a mildly controversial pick. A lot of pundits, in fact, felt like GM Sam Presti was drafting not the best player, but someone who could fit within their system / style of play / values. (I, myself, preferred for them to choose either Ricky Rubio or Steph Curry.)

Harden's early years in the NBA were good not great [link]. I think the book on him was that he was a solid, maybe even good rotational player -- one that gelled well with Oklahoma City, but certainly not a superstar that merited inclusion on the Olympic team or a franchise foundational piece, as Houstons GM Daryl Morey has now called him. This was when I watched Harden at HAX.

Every time I saw him, he was always running drills. Frankly, he wasn't terribly impressive. In fact, I was talking to one of the coaches at HAX and said specifically in reference to Harden, "If I didn't know who he was, I wouldn't have guessed he was an NBA player." Harden looked ok. I remember him doing a 3 on 3 drill. He was shooting a bunch of 3s, passing, making cuts, etc. Nothing special. But he certainly didn't have out of this world athleticism or anything like that. He just seemed like any other guy working on his game. I should also note that between Harden and Jennings -- Harden was always working on some small aspect of his game. Jennings was always there, but always playing pickup games. I never once saw Jennings run a drill (not that he didn't, I just never saw it.)

Harden made the leap last year, no doubt. But the thing that I love about Harden is his climb. People seem to think -- and this applies not just to sports but even to things like startups or, frankly, any endeavor -- that people are fully formed right out of the gate. As someone who has watched a ton of sports -- nothing could be further from the truth. There are a handful of counter-examples, but they're extremely rare. Players typically show some degree of promise and, of course, have a minimum level of raw talent that they can build upon, but beyond that -- there's a tremendous amount of growth needed before one gets to each subsequent level. That's what we've seen from Harden. He's a really smart, savvy basketball player. His performance last year was one of the most efficient in NBA's history (seriously). He can shoot, drive, run the pick and roll -- and is one of the most unusual, creative basketball players around. But I think it would be folly to simply assume that he got there by some magic virtue of who he was fundamentally -- with the exception of his desire to get better. I loved going to the gym and seeing a near empty place and Harden there, working on his game. I always wondered why there weren't more players there. Some were working out somewhere else -- but if that facility was good enough for Harden, Jennings, Dwight Howard, and others -- clearly it's one of the best facilities in Los Angeles which is where a lot of NBA players make their off-season home. Harden was there, in the summer, constantly working on his game -- so much so that he's now one of the top 25 basketball players in the world.

However, just today, TechCrunch announced the launch of another startup -- very similar in concept -- called Tradesy

• TechCrunch article
• Tradesy website

There's a wonderful concept in the book "Where Good Ideas Come From" [link] called "the adjacent possible". My interpretation of it is that the world basically consumes information simultaneously -- which means that if you have a great idea, there probably are other people -- somewhere in the world -- who also had a similar idea. The author talks about Darwin's theory of evolution -- and how everyone thinks of that as not only a tremendous breakthrough, but also one that would not exist without Darwin himself. However, he discusses how other scientists / thinkers were working on something similar -- they were years away -- but they were working on it and getting there.

Moral of the story? If you have a good idea, work as fast as possible to get it out there. 

This is no dig at the Shop Hers team (I'm sure they were well aware of Tradesy and this is still, really, just Day 1) -- but just a thought to all founders to stay hungry and paranoid. If you're working on a startup, assume others are too -- and worse, they might have more / better people, more / better money, and even things that you might not bring to the table (social proof, experience set, particular insights, etc.)

Build your team, raise your money -- make smart choices -- but move as quickly as you can (but no quicker.)

I've been drawn to martial arts for a number of years -- it served as a respite of some sort when I was working long and stressful hours at Google. I advanced pretty quickly, obtaining a green belt in TaeKwonDo (TKD) before deciding that art wasn't quite right for me. The main reason was because while I enjoyed the sport, I felt it roughly left me unprepared for the type of work I wanted to do. If you ever watch TKD (it's an Olympic sport) -- you'll notice that bigger, stronger individuals easily have a decisive advantage. It's a brutal sport -- obviously not without significant technique or skill -- but I'm 5'10" and 130 lbs. I'm not a big guy. I wanted something that I could use in difficult situations -- against bigger people, stronger people, multiple opponents, people with weapons, and so forth. I ended up researching a lot of different martial arts -- all the major ones including Kung Fu and Judo, and Ju-Jitsu. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses and I may even take one up at some point. However, when I found Jeet Kune Do (JKD) -- I felt like I found a martial art that really spoke to my soul.

JKD is the martial art created by Bruce Lee. He fused multiple arts together -- some boxing, some wing chun (which is probably best known / thought of as close combat hands work), and just new thoughts and ideas that he had from years of training. 

I don't remember exactly how I found out about JKD -- maybe I was just doing a lot of research or even saw a Bruce Lee movie or two and decided to investigate -- but after seeing it, and seeing Bruce work with it, I thought, "That's what I want to learn." So I set about looking for an instructor -- and preferably a private instructor. There are not a lot of places that teach JKD. Especially unlike karate (and to a lesser extent, TKD and Kung-Fu) -- it hasn't been commercialized so it's not widespread and still relatively unknown. The most famous is probably the school run by Dan Inosanto -- which is a pretty big school. I found Jerry Poteet -- who, along with Dan, was one of Bruce's original students.

Jerry, when I met him, was in his early 70s and seemed somewhat frail. He had a kind soul, but moved slowly. He (along with his wife Fran) kept a small number of private students and otherwise taught seminars from time to time. Jerry was a very much in demand speaker and lecturer. Jerry was Jason Scott Lee's teacher and did the fight choreography for the film "Dragon".

I would go, I think once a week, to their apartment in Shermans Oaks where Jerry would train me for an hour or so -- just in his living room. He was relatively informal and patient. Jerry was a fierce and wicked fighter. Despite his frail appearance, his speed and power were stunning. When he would grab my wrist, I could feel the force throughout my body. I could not break his grip. When he would demonstrate a strike at me -- he would be on me in an instant. So much of JKD is feel -- especially in the wing chun work where you're physically connected to the other person and the movements are soft and steady and then the attack is violent and sudden. Your reactions are honed to react, not panic, and stay in the moment. I have a calmness thinking about this work with Jerry -- but I remember calling my brother after one of our sessions and just describing the fierceness of his body and spirit.

I feel like I just scratched the surface of my training with Jerry. JKD is a really deadly art. It's not a points system like TKD where you kick someone in the chest and get a point. I always remember Jerry telling me that if I was in a bad situation, to just get out of the situation -- walk away or run -- don't fight. You never know if the person is armed or something is coming at you from a direction you didn't anticipate. It's just not worth it. But forced to fight -- and this is a lot of what Bruce wanted in this art. He wanted it to be real and realistic. A lot of Bruce's training was from street fights in Hong Kong -- there's nothing like "no backfists" or "no kicks to the groin" -- it's pure survival. This is a difficult art to train -- because you obviously pull back at the last second lest you hurt your training partner (in my case, Jerry). Even as I got good, or at least better -- I never had any doubt. I was totally convinced that Jerry could likely kill me with his bare hands in under 5 seconds -- probably less. He had this amazing combination of speed and power -- but something so underrated was just how calm his mind was. You watch those martial arts movies where Bruce (or someone else) is surrounded by 6 people and they just dispatch their opponents one by one. There's a calmness within the mayhem -- that was Jerry. He seemed to have reached a certain skill level where that was possible.

I'll never forget one of the compliments Jerry paid me. I should note that Jerry, while a very encouraging and warm teacher, was not quick on the compliments. But he told me once, "You have Bruce's speed." If you've ever seen film on Bruce, you know that's frankly a hard compliment to even take in. To this day, I don't think I really believe it. Perhaps what he meant is that if I trained really really hard, I could attain some modicum of Bruce's speed. Nevertheless, it was kind and gracious of him to say it.

I remember at one point when I was working with Jerry -- Jerry by the way was not cheap. I think I paid $150/session (or roughly $150/hour). But I told myself that if I learned self-defense from him, that the total price (in monetary terms) would be completely worth it -- and it was, and much more. I remember thinking, especially because of his seeming fraility, that Jerry wouldn't be around forever, and I should take advantage of the fact that someone so skilled, and with so much history and legacy (and I loved hearing stories about Bruce) -- that someone like that was willing to work with me. I'm sorry to see you go Jerry. Our time together was too short. If there is a Heaven, I hope you're there with Bruce -- training and working together again. Much love.

As I thought more and more about it -- it made a lot of sense to hire a PR agency. At the minimum, they could help with local coverage in support of the festival which would help build up a press kit / etc. and you never know who might see those articles, TV reports, etc. On the far end, perhaps they could even help with getting larger, national media or industry specific media (e.g. either magic specific media or entertainment specific media.)

As someone who has frankly hired a lot of vendors / contractors (I use the term "vendor" loosely here -- I'm basically trying to distinguish it from any sort of full-time employees to make this post more specific) -- the process usually goes something like this. For any particular position / function, there's some group of people I know / have heard about before. I actually keep a Google Doc labeled "To Hire - Startups", "To Hire - Film", etc. that I add to anytime I hear of someone that someone I trust recommends. From there, I usually email out either to a subset of my friends or to an ex-Google / ex-Amazon email list for additional recommendations. 

In this case, one of the startups that I work with had previously told me about their PR agency -- a smaller one from the home state of the founder -- and how wonderful they were. Reasonably priced, very scrappy, and got them a ton of PR when they were nobody. I remember checking out their website and though their bailiwick is clearly businesses, they actually had done PR for a doc before and got amazing publicity. It was a doc short and they got a segment on Good Morning America, etc. (The director of the doc was a former tech exec and even wrote that this was the best PR agency he's ever worked with.)

As I was thinking about who to hire or even who to potentially engage -- it dawned on me that it might be tricky to hire a traditional entertainment PR firm. Here's the list of likely clients for an entertainment PR firm (at least in terms of films):

1. The Avengers (i.e. big blockbuster films whose studio is paying some large order of magnitude more for the firm's services than I am)

2. The Descendants (i.e. mid-size films made by well-known and widely celebrated filmmakers)

3. Films that got into a more prestigious festival than mine -- I'm quite proud that my doc got into Nashville but it's factually not as prestigious as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Toronto, Cannes, and Berlin.

4. My film

So when those firms are out pitching to... anyone really -- if they have those other films in their stable, who are they going to pitch? Has to be 1-3 before they get to my film. (or they give me a very junior account executive who doesn't have those other films and that's problematic for other reasons)

I suppose the only place they would pitch me first is places where my film has a distinct angle -- in my case probably either business media (because of my personal background) or magic media (because of the nature of the film). But the entertainment PR firms are frankly not super likely to have better relationships with those media outlets anyway.

I think it's really easy to get caught up in the prestige of any individual firm when looking to hire. There's a certain amount of aura / social proof / etc. associated with them. Because they have such great case studies / examples -- it's almost like, "If X firm works with Y film, then they can do the same for me." Now -- I should note that I think there are pretty specific variants to this line of thinking. For example, for my movie poster, I went with a firm that has big name clients (they do a ton of work for Sony Pictures Classics and had done the posters for several Oscar nominated films this past year.) They're not traditional big though -- I looked at some of the big ones and even their websites have a completely different (highly polished) feel. However, I loved this firm's work. It had a very evocative yet distinct feel and several of their posters became some of my all-time favorites. (Including one for "Sketches of Frank Gehry" which got nominated for a key art award.) [link] I frankly still thought they would be too big / too expensive for me -- but I figured, what does an email cost me? They got back to me immediately, watched a very early cut of the film, and told me they'd love to work with me. They had a discounted rate for indie filmmakers that I could work with, they were extremely accommodating (they preferred to work on the poster during their slower months, before awards season, and when I didn't get a far enough along film to them to do that -- they still worked fast, did great work, and had no problem handling the change), and did great work I thought.

The common thread in both cases was that I knew who I was going in -- I was the small fish but needed someone who both had experience working with this type of client but also had ideas / a vision for where to take the work.

It's just been a couple of weeks with Dittoe (the PR agency I hired) [link] but I must say, I've been quite impressed. They're smart, aggressive, and I've learned a lot just in watching them work. They're slowly building up interest within the magic community (multiple magic publications are interested in screeners and just today I had a magic group requesting a screener because they'd like to show the film to their membership) along with strong outreach to wider known / national media. I find what they've done with social media (Twitter + Facebook) to be very smart and their overall strategy to be thoughtful. Even in their proposal -- among other things, they listed out who they would go out to and it's pretty clear what type of tact / angle they would use. I also like the fact that I personally like and respect them -- I want people who represent me to be people I would like to represent me -- because they're an extension of who I am.

We'll see what it turns into, but I'm hopeful. My final point though, is that I'm really glad I invested the $ into this. I have a friend who got his first film into Sundance a few years ago. In his words, he basically expected that once it got in, his whole life would change -- and it didn't. Even today, he's struggling to gain traction. When I was at Sundance earlier this year, I met a producer who has had several films in Sundance and I recounted this story to her. She then said, "Unfortunately, getting into Sundance is just the beginning." While PR is not cheap, docs (and any film) are expensive and ultimately, my PR cost will be a fraction of my overall doc cost. However, I think this investment will give the doc its best chance to succeed -- and that's a really worthwhile investment to me.

Manish and I, by the way, are friends and we used to work together at Google. He's currently a venture capitalist at Highland Capital [link].

Davida (the principal) mentioned that our panel was so popular that she had to cap signups at 30 and they had a waiting list. These panels can be a little difficult to navigate. In this particular case, there was no formal agenda, so frankly -- it was Manish and I riffing a little while the room warmed up enough to begin asking questions beyond the "sample questions" that Davida had provided them. Honestly, I was really afraid we were boring them or saying inane things until I was interrupted by the theme music from Super Mario Brothers. (It plays over their speaker system to let them know when to switch classes.) When they told me what the music signified, I said, "Oh, do you guys need to go?" To which multiple people shouted, "No! Keep talking!" I took that as a good sign though it's certainly possible they just didn't want to go back to class :)

Both Manish and I spent a lot of time talking about the various companies we worked at, what we learned, how it helped us prepare for subsequent jobs, and so forth. It was all nice and good. Then towards the end of the talk, one of the students asked, "To what extent does money factor into your career decisions?"

Wow. I didn't see that one coming. But I decided to take that one since I felt like I have a particular perspective on it.

I left amazon.com for a whole host of reasons, but one of the reasons was because I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. I failed. Looking back, the reasons were pretty clear and maybe I'll delve into them in a future post, but after that failure, my mind was oriented around, frankly, getting more money. If I couldn't get something off the ground because I didn't have enough money, well, I would find a job that would pay me more money, save up, and then give another go at it. I should note that at this point, while I wasn't literally running out of money, I kind of was. I had a non-trivial amount of money in my bank account (~$20-25K) but with no income, that money was going quickly. I moved into the basement of a friend's house (initially they had me house sit while they were on vacation in exchange for free rent and I just ended up staying there for a while). I would save money on everything -- one example is Subway had (and still has) a deal where you can get certain foot-long subs for $5. So I would buy a footlong meatball sub $5 for lunch -- and then eat half of it for lunch, and half of it for dinner. So for someone who really never wanted for anything money-wise, this was a very strong wake up call as to why you make money.

After a difficult and humbling job search, I ended up getting a number of job offers -- including one from Google. At the time, the tech crash had occurred and there weren't a lot of tech companies hiring. Google was one of the few. But even more interestingly, for those that knew, Google was one of the very few chances to change your life. Why? Google fit all the criteria -- it was pre-IPO by a couple of years, it was still reasonably small (800 employees when I joined), growing very fast, and the whisper was that it was already profitable. That's a sure bet. You never know what your stock options will be worth, but this stood a good chance that they would be worth something significant.

I remember interviewing at Google. It was weird and quirky. While I was waiting for my first interview, in the lobby was a gift-wrapped arcade machine (I think) and the discussion that I overhead mentioned that one of the venture capitalists was giving it as a holiday gift to one of the founders. That was completely outside the bounds of my understanding. 

The core group of my interviews were just fine. I met, I think, half a dozen people who all seemed perfectly nice and I was in full-on interview mode. At the end of the day, the recruiter brings me in for 5 minutes to meet with the VP -- he was apparently driving a candidate to the airport or picking someone up at the airport, but even though he was tight on time, they wanted to make sure he met me. Ok. He pretty much asked me only one question -- something about whether CPCs would be higher for a more general search term or a more specific search term. I talked about how more specific terms are likely to result in a higher CPC because it's more targeted and brought up the example of comparing why someone would pay more for the term "Canon S100" over the term "digital camera". He seemed to find this acceptable and then left. 

As the recruiter was walking me out, it was around 630pm, and literally, the entire office was still there. Everyone. They were working away at their cubicles and it was dead silent save the sound of typing of keyboards. No one was even on the phone. I saw my life, I knew exactly what it would be like, and I knew I would be terribly unhappy.

To answer the student's question, I said something to the effect of, "I knew I would be unhappy at Google and I took the job because I knew I would get paid more than I would get paid anywhere else."

Mark Suster wrote a blog post a few years ago where he espoused the theory that in any job, you should be learning OR you should be earning [link to blog post]. The problem is that people want it all -- they try to learn and earn simultaneously. 

My first job out of college was at amazon.com. Because I had a competing offer that offered me a more senior title, amazon.com offered to match that offer (which was for a "Product Manager" title -- a title usually reserved for folks coming out of an MBA program or promoted into after a few years of working). However, my pay was set at the level below that. It's possible I could've gotten more money but I didn't bother negotiating because I got what I thought was the most important thing -- I got that title, and got it with a legitimate tech company. To amazon's credit, within a year, they adjusted my pay by bumping up my salary almost 50% -- but my crystal clear focus in that initial offer was to learn -- it didn't matter that my salary was way below what others with an equivalent title would be getting. (As a matter of reference, one of my colleagues -- her signing bonus was what I got in first year comp + signing bonus)

I remember telling myself before I took the Google offer that I had to get my mind straight. That I had to understand what I was doing. That I was taking a job where I believed I would be unhappy in exchange for the fact that I would get paid. And I took it. And I was deeply unhappy for at least the first year and a half. Now -- despite this unhappiness, I would say that I worked the hardest when I was unhappiest. 

I had a friend / colleague in a very similar situation in terms of unhappiness, and we would get together every week or two at this cafe in Menlo Park called Barrone, order some drinks, and literally sit in silence as we wallowed at how miserable we were. At one point, maybe 15 months in, I called my brother and said, "I don't think I can make it." And he told me the most liberating thing that he could've said at that point. He said, "Then leave. You made it over a year. You don't have to stay." For whatever reason, that gave me all I needed to stay and stay for 4 years. Now -- I should note, that the last couple of years were relatively enjoyable and I should also note that I don't say all this in a blame Google sort of fashion. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I could've carved out a far more compelling, interesting, and enjoyable existence at Google with a number of small changes. I certainly don't put all the blame on myself, because in so many ways, Google was great for me, and great for lots of other people -- and I don't want that to get lost in this blog post.

Around maybe 2006 or 2007, one of my friends who was a pretty senior person at a prestigious tech company told me that some folks at Facebook had inquired as to whether or not she'd like to join them. I knew Facebook and I knew them for a while. They were Google but even earlier than when I joined. They had all the attributes too -- they were going to be huge. I told her, "Whatever you do, go to Facebook. Even if you know you're going to be unhappy, go there, because you can work there for 4 years and then retire and do whatever you want for the rest of your life." She didn't go -- for a combination of reasons. Some of it was she'd have to take a temporary pay cut (her base + bonus at her current company was likely way more than what Facebook would pay) and some of it was pure comfort (she was in meetings with the senior management team of her company and these were very well-known people in the industry. Back then, Facebook was not the Facebook of today -- it was a good, but relatively early stage startup.) Her not going, conservatively, cost her $10MM. Probably a lot more. Only she can decide if that made sense or not, but she did tell me recently, "I should've gone."

At least the way I interpret it, the conundrum with her job was that she sort of was getting both -- she sort of was learning (though she wasn't ridiculously happy with the extent / scope which is partly why Facebook intrigued her) and she was sort of earning -- she was well paid in terms of yearly copensation but her overall compensation over the long-term was nothing like what it would've been if she took a little more risk and jumped to someone like Facebook.

The overall advice I wanted to convey to this student is sometimes you have to make very significant tradeoffs. The easy answer would've been, "Money is important but [insert all other more noble pursuits / attributes / etc. here] are more important." I was clear about what I wanted, what I needed, and the fact that I worked at Google has enabled me to do what I've done the past 5 years and those have been the best 5 years of my life. For that, I'll always be grateful to Google. But to do so, I had to say to myself, "I'm taking this job because of the money and only because of the money."