WEBVTT - Carlyle Group’s David Rubenstein on why Hollywood is a ‘uniquely American enterprise’ 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:12.480 Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcasts featuring conversations with 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.400 industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.319 Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.720 guest is David Rubinstein, co founder and co chairman of 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:28.320 Carlisle Group. Carlyle is one of the world's largest investment firms, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.000 with more than three hundred and seventy billion in assets 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:35.680 under management across five continents. The company's reach is vast. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.960 Rubinstein helped launch the firm in nineteen eighty seven after 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.760 working as a lawyer in Washington, d c. And for 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:47.400 the Carter Administration as a domestic policy advisor. He's made 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.400 piles of money over the years, and Rubinstein was one 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.120 of the first signers of Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, in 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.040 which the one percent agreed to give away at least 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:02.760 half of their wealth to charity. Rubinstein's curiosity is as 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.840 big as his fortune, and he indulges it in non 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.360 fiction series that he hosts for PBS and Bloomberg News. 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.640 His latest PBS offering Iconic America, Our Symbols and Stories, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.800 is an example of Rubinstein's passion for history. He's very 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.240 concerned that not enough of us know enough about our 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.720 history to avoid repeating it. With his latest show, Rubinstein 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.200 visits marquee locations across the country for episodes that delve 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:33.840 into what makes a place tick and what makes it 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:39.840 uniquely American. His stops include Fenway Park, the Golden gate Bridge, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.640 and the Hollywood Sign, but these are not breezy travelogs. 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.560 The Hollywood episode does a good job of capturing a 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.760 region that is synonymous with an industry that is very 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.440 much in the throes of transition. Our conversation takes several turns, 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.960 including his thoughts on why people generally hate the rich, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.080 why his mother deemed him a yenta at a very 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.120 young age, and he dishes on a bipartisan monthly dinner 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.239 series that he hosts in Washington, d C. That's all 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:21.239 coming up after the break, and we're back with David Rubinstein, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:27.880 host of PBS's Iconic America, Our Symbols and Stories. David Rubinstein, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:29.720 thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.600 for having me at your beautiful Madison Avenue offices. 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.240 My pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:35.799 for having me. 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.200 I David, you accomplished in many areas, obviously as an 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:44.320 investor at the highest heights of investment in private equity. 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.600 You're an author, you host, by my account, at least 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.720 three shows, three ongoing TV shows, and have numerous specials 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.680 and things in the works. How does all of this 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.519 activity in disparate areas come together in your life? Why 0:02:57.520 --> 0:02:58.600 do you stay so busy? 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:04.239 I'm trying to stay active mentally and physically. I'm now 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:06.600 seventy three years old, and we all know that when 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.720 you turn certain ages, your brain slows down a bit, 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.880 your body atrophies a bit. But if you exercise, or 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.200 you exercise your brain as well as your body, you 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:21.160 can postpone to some extent the normal aging process. I 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:26.359 also have a lot of curiosity about things, and when 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.519 I was growing up, my mother would call me a yenta. 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.400 Yenta is a Yiddish word for onet to know everything. 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.280 So when people come to our house, I would always 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.160 ask a lot of questions. And now I find myself 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.120 as an interviewer on television or other kind of media, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.920 asking a lot of questions. And maybe it came from 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.400 my intellectual curiosity or what my mother would call being 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.640 a yenta. So I'm trying to keep my brain active. 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.680 I'm trying to stay interested in what's going on in 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.440 the world and maybe stay relevant. Because as you get 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.000 to be a certain age, and you're obviously much younger 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:57.840 than me, you get to be a certain age, people 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.920 look at you differently. So when I turn seventy, people 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:02.680 said to me at the Kenney Center, where I've been 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.440 the chair for a number of years, mister Rubinstein, do 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.560 you want to take the elevator up? Or can you 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.760 walk these three steps? And so, you know, people look 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:12.600 at you differently when you hit a certain ages. And so, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.600 as you know from covering Hollywood, people don't like to 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.640 announce their age particularly, and they like to mask it 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.520 a bit with either plastic surgery or some other kind 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.320 of cosmetics things. And so I don't have any plastic 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.080 surgery and I don't use any cosmetics. But you know, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.840 obviously I'm trying to do as many things like can. 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.599 And I also think to be very serious, every human 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.919 wants to give back to society before their time on 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.960 their face of the earth is over. And how do 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:44.880 you give back to society. Well, one way you can 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.359 do is help your country. And so I do a 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.280 lot of things that I call patriotic philanthropy. But I 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.440 think by doing interview shows, I'm trying to educate people 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.160 and educate myself as well. So I do a lot 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.880 of different things to keep busy. Maybe that's because I'm 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.680 afraid if I don't, they busy something with atrophy or 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.039 I won't be as relevant as I would like to be. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:06.760 A rolling stone gathers no moss. 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.320 I've never heard that phrase before. That's a you should 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:10.680 coin that. 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:13.560 I think somebody might have beat me to it, but 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.240 you have. And a new entry coming to PBS soon 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.520 that is called Iconic America, where you go to different 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.320 cities and do a really interesting job of looking at 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.839 how monuments or iconic landmarks in those cities, what they 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.960 say about those cities, and the economic and cultural and 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.200 social aspects around those cities tell me. What was the 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.320 spark of inspiration for doing this type of sort of 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.359 travelog and history. 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.800 For the last ten fifteen years or so, I've spent 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:45.960 a fair amount of my time trying to educate people 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.640 met American history on the theory that we should have 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:50.880 an informed citizen ry. That was the premise of our 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.720 representative democracy when it was created. Sadly, Americans don't know 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.120 much about our country's history. We don't require people to 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.040 take American history courses in college or high school. We 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.160 don't even teach civics very much anymore in junior high 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.600 school or high school. So as part of an effort 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.760 to do that, I have started some programs, various interview 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.680 programs and so forth. This particular one was something that 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.800 I developed with PBS helping where we would go and 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:21.119 take iconic symbols of this country and do an hour 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.280 show on each, hopefully telling people about the history and 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.680 the interesting parts about it. So the eighth that we've 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.280 chosen for this part of the series and that we'll 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.840 be broadcast on PBS beginning of eight point twenty six, 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.040 the first one is Fenway Park. So after the Fenway 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.159 Park one, we were going to do the Hollywood Sign, 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.599 which I believe you've already seen that show. 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.400 That one caught my attention, right. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:44.800 That one is the famous Hollywood sign that, as you 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.720 may know, maybe our listeners don't, it was originally intended 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.800 to be Hollywood Land. That was the sign. It was 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.240 designed to sell houses in the Hollywood Hills, and it 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.760 was the Hollywood Land Company that was selling them competing 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.200 with other home builders. Ultimately that land taken down when 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.240 the homes homes are all sold and now it just 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.320 says Hollywood. So that's another one. Then we have one 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.200 of the Golden gate Bridge, one of the American Bald Eagle, 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.040 one of the Gadsden Flag, which says don't treadle me, 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:14.880 which has had a long history in our country. Another 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.400 is Stone Mountain, which is a mountain in Georgia where 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.400 Confederate symbols are now carved into it. Another one is 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.480 a Statue of Liberty. Another one is the American Cowboy. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.960 And what we try to do is to go through 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:30.800 the history of these things, what people might know or 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.400 might not know. Try to do it an interesting, entertaining 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.760 format because you want people to watch it. So in 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.520 many of these I interview people. Many of them other 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.320 people do interviews, and we have some really interesting people. 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.280 In the Hollywood one, for example, we gathered a number 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.640 of Hollywood well known people for a dinner and we 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.120 had talked about Hollywood, and then I went to visit 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.160 the homes of some famous Hollywood stars and so forth. 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.200 And I think it's pretty educational and taught me a 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:57.600 lot about Hollywood that I didn't know. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.680 You do a good job in. These aren't just breezies. 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:07.880 These aren't excuse me, these aren't just breezy celebratory travelogue episodes. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:09.840 These are you do a good job in the Hollywood 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.120 episode of putting. You know, it's a it's a warts 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.920 and all look at the town. You know, it's pros 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.040 and its cons and Hollywood just by its you know, 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.800 just by that what that word conjures up has has 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.040 definitely there's a lot of dark side to a lot 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.160 of the up and the opportunity. I thought you did 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.880 a good job of capturing what can go wrong, but 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.440 also the incredible opportunity. You come to town with a 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.440 great idea that you can package into a form of 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.240 pop culture that can be marketed to the masses, and 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.240 you can be you know, there are any number of examples, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.120 you can be living out of your car and within 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.679 a short amount of time caching big royalty checks by, 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.040 but just by dint of a good idea and that 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.040 and that's an intoxicating place, and you captured that very well. 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.880 Our country has been premised, to some extent on something 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.400 that was a phrase that was invented in nineteen thirty 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.559 six called the American Dream. Now, the American dream is 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.640 kind of a ratio alger concept where you start with nothing, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.160 typically an immigrant many ways, and you rise up the 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.679 success in our country, and the American dream is something 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.760 that people generally believe in this country. But a subset 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.640 of that is the Hollywood dream, which is you might 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.600 not be well educated, you might not be extremely talented 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:22.320 in the view of some of your peers, you go 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.680 to Hollywood and you're discovered as an actor, actress and 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.520 something all of a sudden, you're Marilyn Monroe or something 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.280 like that. And so that dream still lives on and 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.760 many many people go to Hollywood. It turns out that 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.400 what Hollywood actually is is not what people think. There 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.760 is no Hollywood in the traditional sense, where if you 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.600 go to Hollywood that part of la that's not where 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.400 the studios are. We try to point out the studios 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.640 are in Burbank or other parts of the Los Angeles area. 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.760 But the word Hollywood got to be synonymous with this 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.400 is where the movies are made. And of course if 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.280 you go to the actual Hollywood, you don't see any studios. 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.840 You do see Graeman's Chinese theater and you see people's 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.040 uh cement fingerprints. 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:05.720 The Walk of Fame and yeah, but that's. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.360 About all that's actually related to the movie industry in Hollywood. Uh. 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.360 You also see a lot of you know, kind of 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.480 T shirt shops and things like that. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.760 In Hollywood times squarish type. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.040 Yeah, if you go to the real Hollywood, which is 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.760 in the studios in the valley or so forth, that's 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.040 where the movies are made, TV shows are made. But 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.680 the whole culture of Hollywood is one that is i 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.600 would say, uniquely American. And what we try to do 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.560 in these so called symbols of our country is to 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.000 talk about things that are really uniquely American. So there 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.199 there obviously there's Bollywood in in uh in India, but generally, 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.199 if you think about making movies, you think about Hollywood 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.640 and a uniquely American kind of enterprise. 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.680 And that meritocracy of sorts. 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.600 Like you can come you can be Greta Garbo from Sweden, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.400 or you can be Doris Day from a tiny town 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.600 and I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but hi, you know, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.079 so you can be somewhere from the Midwest and come 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.000 out here, and you know, again, if you get that 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.679 right mix of luck and idea, you can find your 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:09.440 fame and fortune. 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:09.640 Sure. 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.160 I mean think of the famous movie stars and the 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.040 diverse backgrounds they had. So Carrie Grant was really Archibal 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.520 at Leech was his real name, and he's from England. 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:20.960 Bob Hope, that was not his real name, and. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.520 He came to really yeah yeah. 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.160 And I think his first name was really Leslie. 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.400 Well yeah, Leslie. I can't Leslie, not Leslie Howard, but yeah, yeah. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.360 And you know people who rose up from very modest 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.880 circumstances and became famous Hollywood icons. 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.120 One thing I wanted to add to your discussion of 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.880 Hollywood is one of Hollywood as the geographical neighborhood of 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:49.400 Los Angeles, is it. One big exception these days is Netflix. 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.200 Netflix planted, It's staked, it has actually has offices in Hollywood, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.160 And that was a pre pandemic decision that I think 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.400 anybody there would say has been very challenging because that 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:05.760 neighborhood of Los Angeles has really got a big problem 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:10.679 with unhoused and it's really created a very difficult environment 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.440 just in and around in and around Netflix. So there's 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.760 a lot of a lot of the kind of wither 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.720 Los Angeles seems to be in that neighborhood. Can they 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.480 make this work? With this they have this incredible sort 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.360 of anchor tenant that for years they've been saying, We're 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.840 going to revive Hollywood the neighborhood, and. 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:29.680 It's a struggle. 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:34.000 Streaming has changed the entertainment world for sure, and what 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.000 Netflix has achieved has really been a major factor in 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.880 changing the way movies are financed, actors are compensated. So 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.520 if I ask people who's the most prominent person in Hollywood, 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:47.640 as I've done from time to time when working on this, 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.760 that people would often say, person like the head of Netflix, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.360 Ted Sarandos, who is the co c O. Now he's 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.760 deciding the green light the script or that script. He 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.400 had a fair amount of money to do it still does. 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.880 And all I'm recently at a Kenny Center event and 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.280 you know, a very nice person came there for an 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.800 event honoring Adam Sandler, who made some movies I think 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.360 with Netflix. That's why he was there. 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.200 Yeah, he's made a bunch of movies for Netflix. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.920 Right, So, you know, you never know who is going 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:17.960 to be the most powerful person in Hollywood. I would 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.320 say today, you know, He's probably one of them. Who 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.000 are the most powerful people today in Hollywood. I guess 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.800 they're typically the studio heads or people like the head 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.880 of Netflix, or there are a couple directors that can 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.800 make a movie. Steven Spielberg can probably get anything finance 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.240 he wants to get financed, and I assume James Cameron 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:36.840 Ken as well. 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.000 I've never seen such a time in Hollywood where all 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.640 most of the major platforms are in the throes of 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.440 this massive transition, and frankly in you know, various forms 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:52.560 of disarray, restructuring, you know, pretty massive layoffs. It is 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.719 just a part of this, you know, certainly difficult, but 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:02.160 it's clearly necessary transition of just as of reallocation of resources. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.560 Can you think, as a student of history and certainly 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.840 a student of business, can you think of analogous times 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.680 in American history where we've seen sectors just going through 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:16.080 such wholesale transformations in the way they make money. The 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.840 way Hollywood makes money on content has changed radically in 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.360 ten the last ten to fifteen years. Can you think 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.240 of analogous industries in time The. 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.200 Industry that I've been in, the financial service industry used 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.240 to be you had investment bankers, and they would service 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.760 big corporate clients and big corporations. Over the last forty 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:40.200 years or so, the big clients for many investment banking 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.720 firms have become private equity firms which didn't exist thirty 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.600 forty years ago, or hedge funds, which didn't really exist 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.360 in any large scale thirty or forty years ago. So 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.440 the people that are often moving Wall Street today are 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.160 hedge funds, particularly those that are involved in rapid trading 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:02.360 kinds of things, or private equity firms of various types, 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.640 venture funds, growth capital funds, buyout funds. It's really changed 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.920 Wall Street, and dramatically, just as as. 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.000 You would you say for the better, for the worse. 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.600 Or historians a figure that I'd say, it's you know, 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.680 as a general rule of thumb, I think when you 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:25.920 have changes, it probably historically better than not. But there 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.560 are always some abuses, some problems and changes. But you 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.400 think about it. One hundred years ago, there were a 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.440 limited number of big Wall Street firms, and over the 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.200 years we still have a limited number of Wall Street firms. 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.280 The names have changed a bit, same as true in 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:44.880 Hollywood you had a limited number of studios, a few 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.160 years ago, and you still have a limited number of 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:47.960 major studios. 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.000 So it's amazing those original brand names still really carry 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:52.600 a lot of weights. 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:54.840 Yes, if you think about it, the big brand names 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.400 fifty years ago, where MGM still exists, Paramount still exists, 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:05.520 Universe still exists, Disney still exists, Warner Brothers. So those 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.160 big names have stayed around, even though the studios are 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.880 completely different in the way they are owned and operated 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.440 than they were years ago. But Hollywood has changed dramatically. 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.080 The way you get movies finances changed, the way you 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.520 become a star has changed. But interestingly, it's still the 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:27.520 center of entertainment creation. In other words, if you want 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.560 to make a movie and you want to get a 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.880 movie financed, you don't typically go to Des Moines, Iowa. 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.520 You probably go to Hollywood or Los Angeles, somewhere in 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.400 Los Angeles. Of course, there's a lot of activity in 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.440 New York as well, but New York Los Angeles is 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:50.080 still the epicenter, I would say of the entertainment that 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.640 hasn't changed in the last fifty years or so, and 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.920 probably he's not going to change anytime soon. I think, 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:58.840 even with the Internet and with all kinds of things 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.320 that you can do. Virtually, you're not likely to see 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:06.520 entertainment creation activity being done out of you know, the 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:08.800 mid Midwest. Let's say it just doesn't happen. It's not 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:10.200 likely to happen in my view. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.760 The locus of you definitely there there. Certainly there's more 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.920 import export happening. South Korea is a really big exporter 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:23.480 of content. Israel is exporting more both shows and formats 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.320 for shows that are remade for different audiences. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:27.720 But there, But. 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.440 You can't and I've seen many times people you know, companies, 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.880 even Netflix at the beginning, really you know, it took 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:35.960 them a lot to kind of get there, find their 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.680 sea legs. But the idea that well we can hire 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.320 people to produce shows, we can pay people to produce shows, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.360 there is something. There's something you having that in house expertise, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.640 having that department, that physical production department that knows how 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.640 to get people before cameras, knows how to get ten 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.399 big trailers out to the out to the field in 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.159 the Midwest where you're going to shoot that pivotal you know, 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.399 the pivotal closing scene in the corn Fiel field or 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.000 whatever it might be like that that level of expertise 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.359 knowing how to deal with tax incentives and all the 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:09.399 different pay literally literally the payroll in production is a 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.920 very specialized job because there's so many different unions and 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.360 so many different rules that you have in contracts. It's 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:18.600 a really it's a very. 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.119 Very expertise hard business to break into. 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.439 That expertise still resides principally in the New York area 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:32.119 and the Los Angeles area. The only non US I 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.320 would say factor that's changed a bit about how people 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:41.679 are entertained in recent years is TikTok TikTok, which is 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:42.560 Chinese based. 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.240 Of course, much in the news these days. 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.000 It has lots of controversy associated with it, but it's 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.560 very rare for an American audience to use a technology 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.840 to be entertained or to be informed that is not 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.800 based in the United States. So, for example, I doubt 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.160 if you or I could get through the day without 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:11.639 using either a product or a service created by Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:16.919 or Netflix, all American technologies. Now. Think about how you 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.040 use one or more of those every day, and they 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.640 didn't exist fifty years ago or so. But how many 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:28.000 Americans are used to getting their entertainment, their information from 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:32.320 a let's say, a China based entertainment form very few, 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.119 and I think that's produced a fair amount of dislocation 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.840 and concern in Washington, d C. For the reasons that 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.680 have been articulated by government officials. But I think part 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.320 of it is we're not used to having technology or 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.919 entertainment or information given to us through a Chinese source. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.400 I often wonder why it is that no European technology 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.280 has taken hold, so that Europe, which is a bigger 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.600 population in the United States, has not created any technology 0:19:57.920 --> 0:19:59.800 that we are currently using to get through our daily 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.320 life lives. Think about it. I mis mentioned the companies 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.800 that you're using probably or their services, but none of 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.000 those companies are really European based. China has come up 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.919 with one so far. TikTok, what happened to Europe? I 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.760 can explain why probably there's nothing from Europe in this 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.400 array of companies. But as a general rule of thumb, 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.359 back to the entertainment area, entertainment more or less for 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.360 the United States is created in the United States essentially, 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.560 and created more or less in the New York area 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:34.960 or the Los Angeles area, with few exceptions. With artificial intelligence, 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.040 you're now going to have the challenge of figuring out 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:42.080 whether you should write your own tests essay or have 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.119 an artificial intelligence service do it for you, which apparently 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.560 are people are doing. And now there's a big push 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:52.600 to figure out whether graters or teachers can have a 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.280 mechanism to figure out whether something's been written by artificial 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.760 intelligence or not when they're greating exams, and that's going 0:20:57.800 --> 0:20:58.680 to be a big industry. 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.560 Does that all of that level of misinformation Does it 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:03.440 affect markets? 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.160 Does it? Because does it mess with people's market heads 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:07.600 when they're trying to figure things out? 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.399 Well, markets move on impulse, they move quickly. There's a 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:14.160 general view get there first with the information and act 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.760 on it. When the information is wrong and you act 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:18.760 on it, that's going to be a problem. So, yes, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.439 people are moving quickly, and sometimes the information is not acurate. 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.119 Don't go chasing after any national landmarks. We'll be right 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:39.080 back after this short break, and we're back with more 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.240 from David Rubinstein, host of PBS's Iconic America. 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:45.560 Our symbols and stories. 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.200 In Hollywood and in other aspects of pop culture, certainly 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.040