RyanHoliday.net:

This article is a really good example of how Hollywood thinks. It's filled with all sorts of completely ridiculous guesses about what works and what doesn't when it comes to online video. Every person quoted in the article as an 'authority' is currently the head of their own uniquely incredible failure, from SuperDeluxe to Prom Queen to 60 Frames. And yet they've all got advice on 'the way it has to be done.'

Hollywood is searching for the magic ratio that will allow them to transfer their old infrastructure right on over to the new - like Ford shifting from making cars to tanks during WWII. Because really that would be the ideal situation for the entrenched - they're totally fine with cutting off some fat, but they can't get rid of everything, that would destroy what they worked so hard to build.

It's really difficult to explain how people in Hollywood think, but if I could cut open the insides and show them to you, it probably wouldn't get much better than this piece. They have, as Umair says, a massive DNA problem. Deeply infused in the model is a sense of superiority, of obligation and an insistence on structure. That's why they want to know the "formula" for online video - is it 3 minutes, 9 minutes or twenty two? Pre-roll or post-roll ads? Who's name should go above the title?

The reality is that there is no 'way' to do digital because there are no constraints. The model of Hollywood at its very core is of commoditizing the production of popular art - creating a replicable process to amortize costs. That's why everything turns out exactly the same. But on the internet, a daily discussion of economics and a series about a kid who might be retarded are both equally viable forms of expression. It doesn't matter whether the peg is square or round because there is no hole.

That is a very different way of thinking about things - it runs counter to almost all of human history. For some of us, that comes very natural and it's why we never really fit in at places where it doesn't. Now is our time. And fortunately, the opposite is what used to attract people to the big city lights of Los Angeles. As executives they could finally prove that artists don't know anything about business and the first thing to do to prove it would be to shit all over them.

So today, in a world where there are no rules, where the middlemen have little control, where 'quality' and 'do people like it or not' are the main contributors to success, Hollywood's way of thinking is utterly outdated. That's why Quarterlife failed, and FunnyorDie is tanking, and record sales hit new lows every single week. The first step for people my age, I think, is to wipe that slate clean and to start thinking about what art is in a totally new way.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Tucker was talking to me about Robert Greene last week and as usual, he gave me some perspective. He said something about the direction in which the books are going - that the apex of the series would be [redacted]. Which is a really subtle but utterly distinct way of thinking about things. I always thought that those were Robert's books and in each one he'd said everything that he'd had to say and that was it. But Tucker is right. You'll notice how different Power is from War, and the 50th Law will be another step. And if you look at as Robert struggling to synthesize and make sense of everything he's learned in his life - getting a little closer each time - everything changes.

Even one of the best in the world is still changing, growing - trying to do justice to their own thoughts. If that can't teach us humbleness and dedication, then what hope do we have?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Of course he tried to kill himself. And I don't mean that jokingly. What do you think selling your integrity feels like?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

For some reason, nothing makes me happier than finding an anecdote about exotic animals. My friends and I in college used to try to outdo each other with obscure references that we'd drop in conversation. These two pursuits combined for what I can only describe as a 'race to the bottom.' I've got books and books tabbed up with funny animal anecdotes from throughout human history. And if you've ever spent anytime with me, you've probably heard me use one. But just because this is fun for me doesn't mean it's not important. Almost every single example I have intersects with power, politics and violence. So clearly there is something to be taken from the majestic and strange world of animals and their influence over us. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. When giraffes were first seen in Rome during Caesar's triumphs, they was considered to be freakish, hybrid marvels. Puzzled citizens attempted to make sense of it, given their limited exposure to African beasts. Coming to the logical conclusion, they called it "camelopard" assuming that it was half of both. And just to prove that science is based on initial impressions just as much as religion, the scientific name is still Giraffa camelopardalis. By the way, the beast that Caesar imported half across the world - it was promptly fed to the lions just to see what would happen.

2. Dachshunds were bred to kill badgers. Their name translates, literally, as "badger - hound" in German. Gameness, the scale used to measure the fight in dogs, is off the charts in dachshunds. They dive ferociously into specially-made badger boxes attacking until they're pulled out and then diving back in with equal fever. And that is why if you leave your belly exposed, they'll try to dig a hole in it.

3. In addition to having a wonderful and beloved white elephant named Hanno, Pope Leo the X also had a pet cheetah who was trained to hunt AND RIDE HORSES. Given to him by the King of Portugal, the cat was as docile and as well trained as a common hunting dog - in fact, it rode into Rome on top a steed alongside the procession of princes and noblemen. And as incredible as this sounds, it wasn't especially uncommon. King Rudolf II had one too.

4. You've probably heard of cock-fighting, but have you heard of cock-throwing? In Medieval Europe, crowds would often gather for the simple pleasure of pelting a rooster with sticks. Often, the bird's bodies would give out long before life expired (which I'm sure could not come soon or sweetly enough) so they were propped up or tied to a pole to make the sport even easier. Economist Gregory Clark has an explanation for why such wanton violence seems laughably foreign to us. These games were commonly played by the lower working classes, who happened to be massively out-reproduced by the wealthy in Europe from the 13th to the 19th centuries as society was stuck in what is called a Malthusian Trap. And so their violent tendencies were basically bred out of practice. But just to blow your mind though, "Utopia" author Thomas More - the man too pious to recognize Henry VII's divorce and marriage to Ann Boleyn - was a renowned cock thrower.

5. The offspring of great men often rival their father's virtues with vice. Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, is one of the worst examples. While Marcus was quiet and withdrawn, Commodus craved attention and pomp. He would fill the Colosseum with excited crowds and parade for them the wonders of the Roman Empire. On the dusty floors of the amphitheater, they'd see lions, panthers, an elephant - things that had never been seen outside of paintings. And then to their horror, he would systematically slaughter all of them, one after another. A rhinoceros, gazelle, tigers - he once killed 100 lions in a single day. The Roman citizens soon realized they weren't there to witness normal games, but the the personal holocaust of Commodus . They knew this when he decapitated a running ostrich with a specially designed dart. He killed a giraffe with his own hands- an animal that Gibbon for some reason dubbed "the most useless" of large mammals. The crowds gawked in horror and disgust, agape that it was even possible to be so cruel. Growing addicted to the rush and oblivious to the disapproval, he fought gladiators, personally, in the arena. And finally, he in turn was killed by one. An elephant didn't grace Rome again for over a thousand years.

6. Theodore Roosevelt probably killed as many animals as Commodus, although under slightly different pretenses. An avid hunter and botanist, he actually dreamed of becoming a taxidermist as a child and grew out of it only when he learned they were all poor. After leaving the at the end of his second term, he safaried for months in Africa, killing some 3,000 different animals. Before politics, he'd headed West on multiple trips aimed at taking a Grizzly or buffalo. In Dakota, his diary states that he killed 119 animals in less than 30 days, including a grizzly bear "right through the brain" and a jack rabbit "cut nearly in two." Somehow he managed to pry himself from the massacre to write 28 books during his lifetime, the first of which was published before he was 18 and became the definitive textbook on American bird life.

7. In the mid-1500's an Englishman created a breed of dogs to do household work. Nothing worthwhile really, like helping the disabled or protecting the sleeping residents - instead they turned meat on a stick. Long and slender, these "turnspit dogs" ran like hamsters in a wheel. The wheel powered a rotisserie loaded with slow-roasting meat and slowly spun it over an open flame. These rather disturbing dogs are now extinct, but their influence is not. Almost all dogs were bred for a specific purpose and the ones that didn't do it well were disposed of. To think that this intense, genetic focus will disappear because you gave it a toy or don't put it to work is asking for trouble.

8. Although we don't often think of it, the Americas were once home to all sorts of awesome mammals. Things like giant capybaras, giant sloths, huge armadillos, and "anteaters the size of horses" were all here as recent at 10,000 years ago. And because they're never seen humans before, they were comically stupid and naive. In Australia, one early explorer tells of walking off the boat and literally beating large birds to death with a stick. They never even tried to fly away.

9. One of Europe's greatest historical disappearances - which like a ghost appeared in Vatican art and was never seen again - is of all things, a stuffed Rhinoceros. Sent as a gift to the Pope on board a great ship, its journey was ravaged by horrible storms. The ship struck rocks off the coast of Italy and was quickly shredded and sunk. As the crew swam to safety, the rhinoceros drowned, fighting at his chains the entire way down. When it later washed to shore, the captain had it stuffed with straw and sent to the Pope anyway. It arrived just as Leo learned of his brother's brutal stabbing in a church service in Florence. For the most part, the rhino was ignored aside from obscure cameos in papal art. For instance, the rhinoceros is seen grazing behind Joesph, Jesus' father in a Granacci painting. From there, no one really knows what happened to this enormous beast - it could have been as big as 13 feet long - except for that it is not in Rome. The Lisbon rhino was likely transferred to the collection of Duke Francesco but no one is sure. And yet, it continued to haunt museum inventories for almost 500 more years, making an appearance in a footnote in the Smithsonian's annual report in 1982.

Sources:
1. The Medici Giraffe by Marina Belozerskaya
2. Wikipedia: Badger Baiting; Gameness; Dachshunds
3. The Pope's Elephant by Silvio Bedini
4. Wikipedia: Cock throwing; A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark
5. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
6. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris; some American History textbook I read in high school.
7. Cesar's Way by Cesar Milan; Wikipedia: Turnspit dog
8. The Origins of Virtue by Mattt Ridley
9. The Pope's Elephant by Silvio Bedini, April Blood by Lauro Martines

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

My first professor in college told me something that I've thought about a lot since. He said although we'd probably never heard of him or cared about what he'd dedicated himself to studying (15th century political institutions in Zürich), it didn't matter because at the end of the day, he knew that he knew more about the subject than anyone else on the planet. He was the best in the world.

The Executive has taught me a lot about that. He got tired of muddling around with actors and their huge egos - people that you've certainly heard of. He's done with that. He only wants to work on things that have the chance to be THE best. Anything else he leaves for other people. And if you look at him and Tucker and Robert, they really have very little in common other than that in what they do, no one else can touch them. It's a whole different wavelength.

That's what I am working for. The rest I'll figure out later. It'll be a good problem to have.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Here we have a man worth nearly 100 million dollars. A man with what seems like a wonderful family. A man who is 59 years old. The front man of one of the biggest rock bands ever. A man with more money than he will ever need.

But nevertheless, here he is, having sex in t-shirt with a woman who can't even bring herself to kiss him, throwing away all that bullshit about being a good father. All for a few minutes of awkward pleasure in a hotel room; looking like a pathetic dork because he doesn't have any restraint.

It's easy to laugh and say "what a self-promoter" but really what we see is an emptiness of magnificent proportions. Or point out that he's in an open relationship like that negates him being an old man and so clearly still desperate for validation. He couldn't even turn down a shot to be on Celebrity Apprentice, even though arguably, he's more famous and successful than Donald Trump. Have you seen his Cribs? He invites Fred Durst over in the middle so we could marvel at his cool friend - and boy, did that stand the test of time. More than anything, Gene Simmons is sad and broken and pathetic. And a constant reminder that before we indulge in pleasures, we should step back and incisively look at the strike price at which we hold our dignity. Because it doesn't matter how much you earn, or what you've accomplished, or the square footage of your house you go home to, none of it will ever be more than an unnecessary extremity compared to that.

For me, I'm moving forward based on the following assumption: When you die, you take self-respect with you and the rest stays behind - it was never in your possession to begin with.

Further reading:
The Broken American Male--Rabbi Schmuley Boteach
The Essential Epicurus--Eugene O'Connor (translator)

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

A couple weeks ago, one of Tucker Max's dogs jumped up, squatted and pissed all over my puppy's face who just happened to be stuck in the middle of a large tractor tire in the front yard of a barrio house in Los Angeles. Apparently, this is what my life has become. I'm totally happy with that. When you're in a surreal space, surreal things will happen - it's what you get when you take a chance and stop listening to "how things are and should be."

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

Play the game but don't believe in it--that part you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a straight jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way--part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy." Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man

Chances are you're playing the game, so what is your raise?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Such a development would in turn damage the quality of research, they argue, by allowing articles that have not gone through a rigorous process of peer review to be broadcast on the Internet as easily as a video clip of Britney Spears's latest hairdo. - NYT: At Harvard, a Proposal to Publish Free on Web

As digital distribution breaks apart traditional content forms, you're going to hear all sorts of whining about how harmful it will be. "Downloads ruin the sanctity of the album." "Blogs aren't as objective as real journalists." "They'll never replace the smell of a good book." The fact of the matter is that all these "forms" exist as a function of the physical constraints of distribution. It is extremely dangerous to assume that "they way things were" is and will continue to be the best or the most reliable. Rarely do traditions resulting from a lack of options rest upon solid foundations. Now that the restraints have been released, change must happen.

In the case of scholarly journals, they existed in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries because it was only way to widely distribute mid-length content. Papers couldn't be sold individually so they had to be packaged and packaging creates gatekeepers and "respected" publications. The idea that a paper is credible only if published in certain journals came second the physical realities. Distribution dictated the process, not the other way around. Albums are the same. If they weren't, the so called "classics" would be downloaded evenly instead of one or two tracks disparately more popular. The concept of a local newspaper was created in a time where the events in another community had little relevance to the reader. And the economic structure was designed with that in mind. The way we format movie scripts is based on the assumption that all writers are using a typewriter.

We made the best possible system based on the environment we faced. Today, the marketplace is fundamentally different, so it is time to do it again. That's all. The rest is just short-sighted people complaining because a powershift effects them personally. They're too attached to a system to see its glaring flaws.

The thing I think we can learn from these comical protests over forces we can't control is that you shouldn't ever base your identity on external factors. Otherwise, you're a slave. And you look like a jackass longing for an ideal that never really existed in the first place.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

From one of my favorite books...

The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others--the living--are those who have pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and and Later.

But the edge is still Out There. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles and LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means of to an end, to the place of definitions.

Here's what I have learned about edges: They are neither as dramatic or cool as Thompson makes them out to be. I think he's totally right, they can be really scary. The only people that can tell you about them have crossed a chasm that makes it impossible to ever relate to The Way Things Were.

But if you go around associating them with motorcycles and cliffs and Capital Letters, you're going to miss all the little ones that are right there in front of you. And you'll forget all the others you already had the balls to cross and didn't even know about.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

There is reading and then there is researching. When you find a book that you really like, you owe it to yourself to do the research.

Tucker explained much better than I can. He said "ideas have consequences" and we have to look at the person that birthed and embodied the book. Just looking at the ideas themselves isn't enough, you have to look at what those ideas have done. It's not always the case, but still--it's short sighted to act as though the author exists in a vacuum where they can separate their ideas and their personal lives.

The easiest way to combat this is to find the work's place in history and then explore both backwards and forwards. This is something I have done for a while. After I read Seneca, I kept wrestling with the idea that he may have been an enormous hypocrite. So I started with Wikipedia. There wasn't much there. Then I went on JSTOR and found a paper called "Seneca on Trial: The Case of the Opulent Stoic" that gave a lot of perspective. (Basically, our notion of his hypocrisy can be traced backed to a single begrudged person) Then I talked about it with Robert Greene and he told me what he knew--his personal history of the work. From there, I got to The Annals by Tacitus which spends a ton of time dissecting Nero and the influence of Seneca. Now, I feel like I can make some conclusions.

If you want to try it with Marcus Aurelius, you should read some of these:

The Opium Addiction of Marcus Aurelius
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I, Chapters III to IV (which cover Marcus and Commodus)
Marcus Aurelius by Mathew Arnold
On Liberty - John Stuart Mill (mentioned briefly but significantly in the middle of the essay)
The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot

The introduction and the last two chapters are crucial to understanding Marcus. The concept of an "inner citadel" was a brilliant metaphor for Marcus' philosophy. Hadot says that Marcus worked to create a core that fate, hysterics, vice and outside influences could never penetrate. And that he wrote to himself to strengthen the walls. . He warns against the psychological historianism--the idea that we can judge Marcus as a person solely through his work is false. There is no way it embodies all of him, just like this site is only a small part of me. So we have to go deeper, at his rule, his letters, what he strove for. (This is essentially what I am saying here) Hadot is also critical, he examines the passages where Marcus literally begs for death, why he surrounded himself with such awful people, and so on.

I am going to start doing this with all my books. It coincides with a project Tucker and I are working on to make sense of his library (with my paltry contribution). If anyone has read deeper on anything I've put into my book list, it'd be great if you could email them to me. I am trying to find some way to organize the casual chain of books...

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

If you've read Pressfield's Virtues of War, you might be familiar with the concept of a daimon. Although the Stoics often called it by a different name, they believed in it too. It's the idea that we have an inner spirit--a destiny inside us--that pulls and powers us. When you look at accomplished people you see a drive that made the success inevitable. I feel that urge. It is insatiable. That's why I read so much, always feel like I'm stagnating, it's the vague notion that I must be heading in the right direction at all times. For the people that've asked: that is why I work so hard.

But here's the thing, I think. A lot of people have that. Maybe even most people. No one "aims" to end up part of a massive shell game, deluding themselves and others. At some point, they broke. When you get to Hollywood you see that most people don't do anything. I don't mean that they don't work hard but that their job literally has no purpose. Again, not in the metaphorical sense--it does not need to exist. They don't even know HOW to do anything. No wonder they're unmotivated and lazy. Somewhere, something went wrong.

For me, it's all about protecting that daimon. I'm absolutely paranoid about it. Were I to lose it, it'd be over. At 20, no less. Your daimon is sort of like your inner-child. Your purity. Your passion. Your clearheadness. The ability to look at problems and solve them instead of accepting them. The drive for a calling over a career. But it is in a constant state of temptation. And when it goes away it doesn't come back. You make bargains like "80 hours a week for the next 50 years" and "yeah, I'll sell a product I know is worthless." Then you're fucked.

By the time most people have made it through school, they're gone. 8 years in intellectual prison breaks quite a few spirits. Each year after that, the world weeds us out. Cognitive Dissonance takes care of the ignorance. In preparing for this radically shifting marketplace, I think the single most important thing you can do is to protect that daimon. To prevent and resist breaking.

Here is the quote I try to use:

"Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, lose your sense of shame, or makes you show suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things done behind closed doors." - Marcus Aurelius

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I feel guilty. A lot. Like, in place of emotion. I get a pit in my stomach sort of like the butterflies before you get up in front of a crowd or on the first day of something new. It's a sinking feeling, a deep and churning anxiety. I have no idea why.

I'm reading Tacitus on Robert's recommendation. All I can feel for Tiberius is pity. His father forced him to divorce a woman he loved to consolidate power. He married Julia who cheated on him so often and so flagrantly that he exiled her to Rhodes in poverty just to stop it. Augustus banned him from ever seeing his first wife because he'd break down and weep whenever he saw her. And he was so miserable that he left Rome to rule itself. Heath Ledger fucking killed himself.

Some people are ok with distractions. You can tell yourself that you get high because it's fun--by all means, maybe it is--but you still can't escape that reckoning. If you're like me, you want to address it now. Before it gets bad, before you wake up one day and have no idea what you're doing. You'll never be able to outrun the things you try so hard to outrun. They will always be right there, growing as you ignore them. No one wants to be that guy, but somehow, so many people are.

Whatever success you're after, keep in mind that someone has already had it, hated it and deluded themselves into thinking that just a little more would solve their problems. Me, I've got to figure this guilt thing out. Tiberius should have realized that a lot of other people would have gladly traded with him, had he the courage not to waste his life. You--who knows. Ultimate, this is going to be way more important than how many books you read, how magnificent an emperor you become, how close you come to achieving the things you set out to do or how great a person you end up with. Because without that, the rest is worthless.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

When I was a junior in high school, I went to one of my favorite teachers ranting and raving about how I was done. I was so much smarter than everyone in the class and I always saw straight to the core of the issue while they were preoccupied with superficial bullshit and I was tired of waiting around for them. I was sick of them stealing my ideas--they never gave me credit anyways. It was like I did all the work and nobody noticed. "Ryan," she said, "that's your job." And I promptly shut up about it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

In The Black Swan, Taleb caught me doing something stupid. He said that only an idiot walks into someone's library and says "Have you really read all these books?" A good library is filled with unread books-- an "antilibrary." Tucker has crates of books in perfect condition.

I used to feel guilty when I saw unread books piling up on my floor. Now I understand that it is still a step in the right direction because it reminds you of what you don't know. It's like the difference between kinetic and potential energy. So I have been adding to the stack. And if I had the money, I'd buy all these and probably not read them for a while.

What is in your antilibrary? What should I add to mine?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I got some emails from kids younger than me asking what this means and what they should do. And more problematically from one of them, what my predictions were with Google and cloud computing, an office suite and dark fiber. NONE of that matters.

Google doesn't even know and that's the entire point. Since no school is teaching it, we need to focus on learning that:

The successful companies of the future won't "sell" things, as much as they will solve economic problems and thus create value for the customer. Sometimes those two things are the same, but often times they aren't.This is the key to understanding the economic future of the world, and why some companies will compete and some won't. - Tucker

Stuff like, which stock your should buy or short, who will up ruling the internet, all that is irrelevant to us. What we should take from this is confirmation of what I wrote about last week--that when attacked, centralized organizations tend to become more centralized and thus exacerbate their own problems.

Whatever your major is, what kind of grades you get, where you plan to intern, how much traffic your blog gets or which company you have storing your data--all that is piddly, logistical, small picture stuff. What really matters is whether you understand the meta-level change: the shift between value extraction and value creation. Forget ALL the details until you firmly grasp that new paradigm. Otherwise, you're studying lesions, instead of figuring out the disease.

You can only beat speed with more speed.

You can only beat strategy with more strategy.

You can only beat Google by being MORE Google (i.e., more open, create more value, be even better to people). - Tucker

So fooling around with predictions is fun, as long as you remember that the chances of them coming through are abysmal at best. We don't know anything. What you can spend your time on today--as you wait for your turn for these things to matter--is learning how to attack strategy, avoid centralization, and to look to the core of things and not their meaningless dressings. Can you do that? If you can't--or even if you sort of can--then just ignore the Yahosoft merger and focus on what counts.

I would start with:
The Pirates Dilemma--Matt Mason
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything--Don Tapscott
All Marketers are Liars--Seth Godin
The Strategy Paradox--Michael Raynor
BubbleGeneration (blog)--Umair
And I have tried to touch on it here, here, and here.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)