IMPORTANT NOTE: This case study series is a self-initiated interpretation and analysis by me, the blog author. I want to make it clear that neither Dorie Clark nor Michael Ovitz were consulted or personally endorsed this case study and how I've applied the analysis to the valuable teachings in Reinventing You.
Are You Too Old to Professionally Reinvent Yourself After Age 50?
No! You still have time. The real question you should is: How Much Are You Going to Focus, Your Unique Assets, Time, and Energy into Your Post-50 Career Reinvention?
If these thoughts run through your mind or resemble one (or more) of the following, I encourage you to keep reading:
- "I just got layed off and am looking for a job (or I'm worried about getting layed off) …" or
- "I love to learn, try new things, and build different skills …" or
- "What do you mean by unique assets? What the hell are you talkin' about? I don't think I have any …"
Because YOU CAN Successfully Reinvent Yourself After Age 50
This post is third in a series of six (6) about successful career reinvention after age 50.
In this post (and the other five), I talk about linkages I see from Michael Ovitz's career reinvention after age 50 to six (6) of Dorie Clark's Reinventing You principles from Chapter 9: Reintroduce Yourself and Chapter 10: Prove Your Worth.
The bullet point highlighted in blue is the Reinventing You principle analyzed in this post:
- Develop Validators
- Leverage Symbolic Actions
- Go Where The Action Is
- Building Your Portfolio
Note: The following analysis references examples from the October 2013 Fortune Magazine article: Ovitz Does Silicon Valley by David A. Kaplan to describe Michael Ovitz's latest career reinvention in the context of Reinventing You's valuable teachings.
Lesson 3A: Develop Validators
Dorie Clark emphasizes the importance of "having other people talk us up." Here are key quotes from Reinventing You's Chapter 9: Reintroduce Yourself — Develop Validators:
Another important way we can convey our new identities is through external validators, that is, other people talking us up. As a powerhouse group of researchers led by both Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Cialdini discovered, the secret is to have someone else bragging for you.
(Jeffrey Pfeffer) "People don't like people who self-promote. But ironically, even if you self-promote through the mouths of other people, somehow that stigma doesn't get associated with you. It's much better to have someone else toot your horn."
Powerful and Influential Third-Party Validators Address Key Objectives for Michael Ovitz: (1) Promoting Him as a Trusted Silicon Valley Advisor and (2) Defending Him Against Critics. Since 1999, Mr. Ovitz developed and nurtured business relationships with Sillcon Valley's movers and shakers. These people provide and support him with significant third-party validation:
- Marc Andreessen: Co-Founder Andreessen Horowitz Venture Capital
- Peter Thiel: Former PayPal co-founder and Chairman, Palantir Technologies
- Peter Szulczewski: CEO of Wish
- Joe Lonsdale: Partner, Formation 8 Venture Capital
- Boris Sofman: Co-Founder and CEO, Anki
These direct quotes from the aforementioned October 2013 Kaplan-Fortune article highlight how Mr. Ovitz's third-party validators defend and talk him up:
1. Marc Andreesen on Mr. Ovitz role as a trusted advisor to Andreesen Horowitz (Andreesen's venture capital firm):
There are similar tales of Ovitzian assistance around the Valley as he rises again, this time far removed from the lights of show business. At Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, Ovitz is an in-house mentor on how to build a full-service operation in the mold of Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent monolith he built and ran from 1975 to 1995.
"Michael is the classic kind of entrepreneur that we like up here — he's highly aggressive, he's highly disruptive," says Marc Andreessen, with whom Ovitz has cultivated a relationship since 1999. "Michael's a very close friend of the firm. He's a great friend to have." He's also an investor in the firm, though AH won't say for how much.
2. Peter Thiel on the C-Level, cross-industry breadth and depth of Mr. Ovitz's business connections:
"Michael can get us in to see any CEO in the U.S.," Thiel says. "The Valley has this excessive insularity. But he has cross-sector relationships in New York, L.A., and other places." Thiel says Ovitz has a preternatural ability to 'learn things quickly and then communicate them to the outside world."
Since the dotcom implosion of the late 1990s, he (Thiel) says, too many new companies in the Valley have 'retrenched,' de-emphasizing relationships with other businesses and institutions. Consulting Ovitz, whose network Thiel calls 'second to none,' has been a way to overcome that inclination.
3. Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen, Peter Szulczewski, Joe Lonsdale, and Boris Sofman discuss Mr. Ovitz's critics and detractors:
Says Thiel (Peter): "I've learned to discount bad things said about people by rivals, and I'm not aware of a single bad thing about Ovitz that wasn't said by a rival."
Although Andreessen and others in Ovitz's new circle acknowledge the skepticism, they have different takes on it. Andreessen is the most dismissive of Ovitz doubters and ascribes Ovitz's repute more to the peculiarities of Hollywood than to any of his own faults. "We're used to guys like that here — I mean, Steve Jobs, for God's sake! Or my career, right?" Andreessen says. "That's the cultural difference between Silicon Valley and L.A." Had Intel's Andy Grove or Netscape's Jim Clark made his mark in Hollywood, according to Andreessen, he'd have the same kind of bad-boy name as Ovitz.
Peter Szulczewski of Wish says, "I haven't seen the type of things that people warned me about."
Formation 8's Joe Lonsdale agrees. "People are naturally more cautious because of his history," he says. "But he's (Ovitz) demonstrated awesome value in so many tangible ways to different people that they overlook it. And it's hard to map out what's true and what isn't." Ovitz is a limited partner in Formation 8, with a "small" investment of "under $5 million," as the firm describes it.
"There's a disconnect between a lot of the things written about him and kind of the person we've gotten to know," says Boris Sofman, the CEO and co-founder of Anki, who talks almost daily with Ovitz. Sofman says Ovitz has alluded to his own past by counseling Sofman on what happens when you're successful. "When you lead in your industry," Ovitz told him, "it's easy to start getting vilified, and the tide can turn on you quickly and unexpectedly."
Sofman says Ovitz has no stake in Anki, not even advisory fees. That may merely mean Ovitz hasn't asked yet. Or, as Sofman suggests, it could be that Ovitz really is in it for more than the money. "One of the things he shared with me is he truly loves working with young people," says Sofman, who just turned 30.
Closing Thoughts
Your Turn. Okay, you may still be thinking:
- "I don't have high-profile, high-powered connections like Michael Ovitz …"
- "Even if I did, how could or why would any of my connections 'talk me up' …"
- "If I were to ask, wouldn't my connections be offended. It's sleazy to ask for third-party validations …"
YOU HOLD Multiple Assets and Connections In The Palm of Your Hand. They're in your laptop hard drive. They're accessible via the keyboards on your laptop, smartphone, or tablet.
YOU CAN mobilize these connections on your behalf with a few keystrokes or finger swipes.
YOU HAVE Michael Ovitz-Like Third-Party Validators. It's all relative. You already know and are connected to influential third-party validators through these online assets and communities:
- Your Personal Blog
- Blog Comments on Other Blogs
- Klout
Build Your Relationships with Your Validators by Blogging, Commenting, Connecting, Tweeting, and +K'ing. I connect with my third party validators on a weekly basis via these online assets and communities. Several of these kind and generous people are highly influential and powerful in their respective professions. These wonderful people generously support me as career mentors and allies in my personal branding and online reputation work.
Focusing on building these types of assets and participating in these communities enables you to do two important things:
1. Connect with like-minded people who share your values
2. Build what Dorie Clark refers to as an intellectual property (IP) portfolio
Let me be candid:
- I'm not a rocket scientist (just ask my wife and my 9-year old daughter).
- I'm not a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or Amazon.com best-selling book author.
- I'm not professional speaker who makes $45,000 per speaking gig (although that would be totally money – literally)
I'm just a regular dude who enjoys:
If I Can Do It, You Can Too. I'll describe my own experiences on developing and cultivating relationships with my third-party validators in the next post in this series on Reinventing You After Age 50.
Lesson 3B: Developing Validators with Your Personal Branding Online Assets is scheduled for a February 2, 2014 publication.
If you enjoyed this post, here are links to the series' first two posts:
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