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UPDATE: The people who run Hollywood agencies may talk tough. But in reality they’re a bunch of pussies. For the 3rd time since I founded Deadline Hollywood in 2006, agency bosses wrongly thought I gained access to an internal document because someone supposedly leaked it to me. And their response was to fire people. This first happened at CAA a year ago when I obtained an internal schedule. (While CAA Agents Go On Retreat, Their Assistants Go To “CAA U” …Mandatory!) Then it happpened at WME last October when I obtained an internal memo. (WME Keeps Alicia Keys After CAA Catfight) But I’ve now learned that yesterday WME carried out a mass firing over an internal email I posted last Sunday. (WME Floater Sends Harsh Goodbye Email). When the reality is that not one of those fired staffers at CAA or WME leaked anything to me. Yet, in each case above, both CAA and WME told me that staffers were fired because they had “violated company policy”.
So here’s what happened yesterday: At Ari Emanuel’s insistence, WME conducted a witch-hunt to determine who had sent that Marcus Washington goodbye email to addresses outside the company. (Yes, all the top agencies have the technology to determine that, which has a creepy Big Brother feel to it.) My insiders say 75 staffers were ID’ed.
In the NYC office, an assistant was fired for forwarding that email to a close friend at ICM who had previously worked at William Morris. At LA headquarters, there were multiple firings. First, HR told the ID’ed staffers to come to the conference room. There, they were informed that they had violated company policy by sending the email to their personal accounts or outside parties. Ari Emanuel personally delivered the mass reprimand and spoke about how they’d violated the “trust” of the organization and hurt the company’s ability to work together. Three staffers who’d sent the email to Industry types were axed. (I heard Ari wanted to fire all 75 — but was told he couldn’t.)
Not one of the fired or even ID’ed staffers was responsible for the leak to me. But here’s what also disturbs me. In the case of CAA, a Latino was fired. In the case of WME’s first firing, a gay man was fired. In this latest episode, the leaked email itself was from an African-American who felt “bored, miserable, stifled, underutilized and looked over at WME”. Draw your own conclusions.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Who wants to be a client at WME if they’re so busy firing people for fwding a damn email? Ari needs to get a life
Depends.
Forwarding an email with company confidential information is a problem. In fact, prohibiting that often protects the firms clients. So not a bad rule to say “no internal emails” can never be forwarded outside the firm unless authorized (implicitly or explicitly).
However, I agree this is different. “Goodbye” emails are often shared. Some are funny, some harsh, some try to be poetic,…often unique and interesting. Such goodbye emails rarely disclose “confidential information” although they sometimes a rant or negative opinions.
So unclear why forwarding this goodbye email would have violated the firm’s policies (I’ll have to re-read) but most would assume the author shares with personal email and friends so inherently no longer confidential.
I’m a client at WME and happy to be there and Ari is a good boss. Whining assistants: get another job if you can!
if i was a client i would be concered that they just wanted to fire people and this was an out. if it was not this then it would have been mass layoffs. so ari’s latest huffpo piece was sent to minimize the racial tones of his admin. also no one can blame nikke for this, they would have eventual found out this was floating around, nikki just gave some clarity.
I spent three years at William Morris back when they first merged with Triad. This is their second big merger and unfortunately there are certain confidentialities that WME has as do all of the sgencies. You must understand that a lot of those agencies are very narrow in their choices of how to fully implement people of color. Not only are those people exciting to watch and interact with their intimate bond with creativity if they are of some intelligence is beyond what any of the ideas of the old croonies that have been there. Most of them are burned out and minds simply won’t extend any further.
Did you know that most of the Black acts including comics and the like are repped by non-minority agents. go figure
I am literally laughing out loud at your ridiculous leap from the overly dramatic WME reaction to your “disturb”-ing racist conclusion. Give me a break. This punk was clearly weak and sinking fast. His email should have remained inside the WME firewall. Period. Any WME employee forwarding it to external contacts is an idiot, violated company policy and deserves to be reprimanded and/or fired. Cherry picking “gay,” “latino” and “black” examples is beneath you. This has nothing to do with racism or homophobia and everything to do with confidentiality.
Reprimanded yes, but fired? No.
Rotweiler,
Since you’ve clearly never worked at an agency, let me help you realize that agencies are populated like Congress. Only a handful of minorities and enough “open” gays to count on one hand.
Calling out racism doesn’t mean your bitter, and blind. Maybe he’s telling the truth!
Karma will haunt Ari.
I can’t wait till he’s an old man. I will laugh when I read that he breaks a hip at the nursing home.
who knows it might happen before he gets old
Karma will not get Ari, he is going to laugh all the way to the bank. The first king of the world mogul who won’t fail, he is to brilliant.
obviously you forgot but that is exactly what everyone said about Ovitz. Remember him?
Uhhh right. A genius who drove Endeavor $80 million in debt, and the only reason he still has a career is because Jim Wiatt is a gullible jackass. “First king of the world mogul who won’t fail, he is to (sic) brilliant.” Are you kidding? Leave the conversation to the adults.
Ari’s actions got this letter WAY more attention than it would get had he ignored it. I don’t call that brilliant management. It’s a little letter from a little guy who tired of waiting more than 2 or more years before getting on a desk and realized there was no future at the company for him. So he quits and expresses his thanks to those he wants to keep in touch with and expresses frustration at his investment of time there not paying off. YAWN. That’s it. How did this letter even get on the radar of the head of a large company? Much less get that company head to fire anybody over it?
I wonder how many were assistants and how many were agents. It’s a joke that Ari doesn’t think this stuff gets out. Like any agent, he leaks most of it out. But to fire people over something that the entire industry already knows (how they treat their assistants and minorities) is pathetic. Is anyone happy at WME? I personally know many of the agents and partners. Not one is happy. Greed is bad my friends, greed is bad.
hahaha this is why I’ve dreamed about being an agent since I was in highschool. I LOVE IT!!! “I heard Ari wanted to fire all 75 — but was told he couldn’t.” I actually laughed out loud to that because I know I can picture Ari trying to do this.
in this day and age, if you are not smart enough to realize that every email you send from wme (and everywhere else) might as well be cc’d to ari’s desk, and that your every move is tracked by the it dept, maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to press ‘send.’
do yourself a favor, consider all emails ‘public.’
except tips to nikki, of course
Dept.: you’re more right than you know. Privacy is a thing of the past, esp on someone else’s (Ari’s) network.
Messages from any company-owned device can be tracked by unique alphanumeric identifiers assigned to PC network cards, computer motherboards, Blackberries, actually all smartphonesthat communicate over a network both wired and wireless. Many people are oblivous and think they won’t be caught. IT staff can track the electronic trail to devices that are registered to specific users. Beware. As Nikki’s post indicates, even forwarding an email to your private accounts raises suspicion. Cut-and-pasting into a private document may reduce the risk somewhat, but anytime a company device is used it very likely becomes part of an electronic trail.
Well, if there firewall is not sophisticated, you could print such an email to “PDF” and make it a PDF document. Then, using a generic FTP program, you could transfer it to a safe, unknown web address for retrieval later. It would be very hard to track. Especially if you erase the generic FTP program after you’re done.
Then go home from work and retrieve it from your secret web address and you’re good to go!
Evil Helen
WME can trace every email forwarded, every document printed even as PDF. Because WME IT can record every key stroke. That is why when I was there I would bring in my digital camera and take an actual photo of the computer monitor screen instead. Try tracing THAT Porter and Dates…
heh.. Porter & Dates. more like Reed & Georgious.
As a vet of the assistant and executive world. Has no one the brains to write it down with a pen and paper and then recreate it. Not that it was that important of a doc anyway.
or print it out and take it home to scan it.
Fan(of)Tozzi -
Did you grow up watching BOND films, GET SMART, MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, etc. I get the sense that your secret goal in life is to own a camera that is hidden in an office implement or in something you wear. I have to wonder what would you have said if someone caught you?
schecky redbone —
Why waste the time to re-write it, and risk having to explain your way out of that (especially when you have multiple bosses and co-workers who hover around, and you’re already overwhelmed with work)? As allen douglas suggests below, you can just print a copy and then scan it at home or at the local Kinko’s.
Bottom line: Keep It Simple & Straightforward.
it’s not very complicated . . . you could just print it out then scan it on your home printer since most printers have scanning capability now.
i certainly understand the issue of confidentiality and how important it is.
but . . .
agree with most that suggest that Ari erred by making it a bigger deal than it was . . .
having said that, they likely fired the 4 people as a deterrent for future breaches . . .
and doubt they fired anyone who they thought was “good” and wanted to keep . . .
yet . . .
they should have used a better example than a “farewell” email . . . . b/c as others pointed out, those are routinely forwarded around and I would question how “confidential” that document really is . . .
I’m with you on the technology front. Why make it complicated? I would hope that people wouldn’t have to worry about getting “caught” for simply printing a document — especially one of any length — rather than reading it on their screen.
Honestly, I don’t feel too bad for these people. If you’re forwarding company internal e-mails, it’s a violation plain and simple. People have to understand, you’re using their computers, it’s their information, this is not your personal computer at home, etc. etc. Kind of a dumb move by those 75 people – though not uncommon. People need to wake up a little bit when at work, this kind of thing is going become more of the norm as we head into the future. And if you don’t think they’re reading your emails or what you do or send on your computer at work – think again and I have some ocean front land in Idaho to sell you. Just print it out, scan it later then send it later. Or – flash drive it. Sending it through their computers is just dumb.
If people get fired because there was a “violation of trust” then so be it.
Don’t insinuate that there are prejudices behind their decision because there were white , straight, non-hispanic people that were fired too. The more times we cry discrimination the more it becomes about discrimination and the less we see the situation about people and there’s enough to write about just on that!
Amen! It’s not as though those were the only people fired at either of those agencies in the last year, there were plenty of non-minorities let go at various times. Adding this detail (about the fired staffers, not Mr. Washington) is simply meant to be inflammatory and sensationalistic (or just an ad hominem attack against agencies you have a grudge against – I dislike them so they must be racist).
Let me guess…you’re not a minority.
I’m a minority and I whole heartedly agree. Do your work and shut up with the racism crap.
My old boss used to tell us “Don’t send any email you wouldn’t want to see in the New York Times tomorrow.” While I agree it may seem petty to fire someone over forwarding an internal email, I would bet these were people they wanted to get rid of anyway and now found a reason. That they are black, gay, etc adds to this theory because they didn’t otherwise want to seem discriminatory in their firings.
If people keep getting wrongfully fired when you post these things, how about you just don’t post them? It’s not like you’re leaking the Pentagon Papers here – this isn’t life or death information – so why bother taking a risk with someone else’s job?
Exactly, Kevin! Good point.
Great idea! This way companies can control media they don’t even own!
nah, it’s easier to find a conspiracy when ever someone who’s not a white male gets fired.
WTF?!?
Next, watch Ari fire anyone who sent you an email about the firings, then fire anyone who sends you email about that. It’s Salem, 1692.
Wow. Big Brother lives. Guess that’ll be a lesson to everyone to just print out the emails and hold onto the hard copy, or do Ari and his cronies have something they can use to monitor that too?
What’s funny is I showed the initial email to people via my site and a lot of them thought that it was whiny and nothing to get worked up over. In fact, most of those people thought that it wasn’t that cutting at all. You’re right, Nikki. What a bunch of wusses.
Bitter…
So very true. You would think the agency would have taken the high road rather than act like someone just leaked our nuclear launch codes.
I so agree with both of you. The myopic sense of self importance… and the colossal callousness.
WME should be picketed for setting back the civil movement 70 years. Not because of the memo ramifications. But for representing the sheer buffoonery circus that is a Tyler Perry production.
Wow! They sure must be pretty powerful to set back the civil rights movement 70 years. It’s as if minorities are not allowed to be fired…for anything. If WME is so discriminating…how did those people get jobs in the first place?
Stop using the word MINORITY like if it were something kind of out of this genre. it’s so tired and old school.
Exactly!
Did you even read what he wrote? Try again.
LOL what a complete MORON! responding to sarcasm with a half-baked response… classic.
hahaha *whoooooosh*.. brush up on your reading comp., my friend
Don’t you just love how everyone in Hollywood likes to bang on their chest and act all thick-skinned, yet the second someone has a differing opinion or goes against the grain in any way, even minor like that email, those same chest banging, supposedly thick-skinned bigwigs FLIP out and throw a fit, and the poor little guy making 1/100th what the boss is making gets the axe? Sheesh.
Yep, corporations are often run by greedy cowards. The only good thing about it is that you can bet they’re not happy folks. Because, happiness requires some courage and temperance.
An african american left.. then a gay was fired.. WME is scrapping the Village People origins story?! say it aint so Nikki.
All I have to say is LOL…. not really, but kind of LOL. It’s a little ridiculous, but most of Hollywood IS ridiculous. Not surprised. Especially not surprised over the people who have been fired. I’ve drawn my own conclusion, but I’m sure its the same as yours.
Disgusting.
“pussies”
well said
Nikki is like The Shadow… She knows!
How is Ari a pussy for protecting his firm. The kid who sent the initial email took potshots on his way out the door. A reckless act. Fine. Shit happens.
But for assistants and agents to send those emails outside the company, where they can then be re-forwarded to you Nikki, is damaging. He has every right to fire or reprimand those people.
Gossip, as you know well, is damaging.
As for the ‘racism’ and ‘homophobia’ you allude to, that’s a joke. It’s not about that at all. Frankly, that is a bit below the belt even for this site.
The only actions that damage WME are the ones made by its leader, the ones some would say make him look like a jackass.
It’s telling that anybody at any agency has to protect the firm from their own employees. Think about it….You have an industry where very, very smart and hard working people kill to get into. Let’s face it, when you mention you are “in the biz” you get immediate up’s from almost everyone, especially outside of LA. Tell people you sell insurance, you get nothing. You would think as soon as you get the cool job have wanted for most of your life you would protect it and everything attached to it, but at many, many Hollywood companies that simply does not happen. My only conclusion is that most people are miserable doing a job that should be insanely fun but isn’t because for some reason the executives choose to make it a bitch. Think about it, even if you hate your competitors, your team should be fun to play with. You deal with high profile people that are at the center of the entertainment world and everyone is miserable, and because of it they feel compelled to act professionally sloppy. I am an indie agent/Hollywood entrepreneur and work every angle I can in film, TV, music, whatever gets traction and I absolutely LOVE WHAT I FUKIN’ DOOOOOOOOO. I absolutely love this biz because it’s like the wild fukin’ west man. If you have balls and can sell there is always a home for you in Hollywood. I know lot’s of agents at the big companies and although some of them are very hard working and damn good at what they do, many are just simply not very smart. You ask a music agent at CAA how ASCAP computes performance royalties and you get deer in the headlights. Nothing. You ask a TV talent agent at WME what a below line budget expense is and you get deer in the headlights. Nothing. If I was a player at any of those companies I would make sure to hire people who live, eat and breath the biz and sponge up any and all knowledge about every facet of the biz. If I am responsible for the career of any entertainer making any money at all I owe it to that cat to do the best I can to understand everything that is going to confront him and make sure he steers clear. Make more, save more, entertain more. That’s what I allow my clients to do. I LOVE MY JOB AND I LOVE THIS BIZ!!!!!!!! I would leave any company in a heartbeat that tried to stop me from being the best I can be. If you don’t love where you are and you are good at what you do get the fuk out and do your clients a favor. 75 people forwarded that e mail. 75 people should just simply leave.
I disagree you can LOVE the biz, and not know every facet. I knew a great agent that didn’t watch tv. Sometimes knowing too much can be counter productive.
You said it…you’re an indie agent therefore working under the umbrella of a CAA or WME is not the same thing. I imagine a lot of these people go in there expecting something exciting and the reality is much different–turns out working at The Bean is much more fun, plus you actually get to network. I guarantee these places (especially now with the internet) are ridiculously guarded. So, I can see every now and then someone wanting to give it to them. I picture scientology, robotic-looking, sleep-deprived, well dressed assistants in a beautiful shiny building.
Mike Ovitz was a turd and treated everyone like a prick.
Now nobody returns his calls. He is dead to Hollywood.
It can happen again, Ari…..
WME, CAA ICM all lazy toads who spend more time managing themselves they do find work for their clients. They are all masters of taking 10% of work their clients find!!Small boutique managers and lawyers will do a better job than these toads.
says the person who can’t get repped there I’m sure…
All the focus on this b.s. and not on getting their clients work. Have made offers in last 4 months to directors/writers who haven’t worked in 1-5 years for real cash money. One of them that was contacted directly never heard a word about it from his WME agent and would have killed for it and for the $$$$. UTA got all $450,000 of it. Sure, $45,000 fee ain’t much, but tell that to your clients who need/deserve the dough more than you do.
Sure you gotta pick your battles in this town…but man, you’re picking the wrong ones consistently.
These comments are hilarious. But, I will tell you one thing. I highly doubt that anyone at WME will be forwarding anything that is semi-confidential in the future after this article. Good work Ari.
I doubt that–they’ll just get creative.
exactly.
real weak story, any company in the world would be pissed about a leaked internal document, how fucking stupid are you guys?
Those assistants are better off. Now they have a great story about how they got fired from the delusional psychotics they worked for. This whole thing shows exactly how insecure and pathetic big agencies are.
love that racial profiling