How do I beat bigger competitors? Michael Ovitz, co-founder of CAA and former President of Disney

27 Aug 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:32

In this candid monologue, Michael Ovitz recounts a conversation where he was told his new agency would fail because of the sheer number of competitors. He counters that belief with a relentless work ethic and aggressive marketing tactics, such as taking out full‑page Variety ads each time they signed a movie star and physically sending torn‑out pages to rival agencies for a decade. Ovitz embraces a monopoly mindset, citing Peter Thiel’s Stanford lectures that label competition as a loser’s game. He argues that true success comes from outworking every rival, relentlessly attacking competition, and striving to dominate the market until competitors are effectively blinded. The overall message is a ruthless, no‑compromise approach to building and protecting a business in a crowded industry.

Chapters

He said to me, so good that you're starting this business. In a year, you'll be looking for a job. I said, really? And what makes you think that? He said, oh, you're gonna fail. I said, really? He said, yes, you can't make it. There's almost 200 agencies out there. You're not gonna compete with the big ones. I said, I'm not arrogant at all, actually. I just know I'm gonna outwork every one of them. Every time we signed a movie star, which was once a week, we took out a full red page ad in Variety, tore it, put it in an envelope to those 4 guys. And I did it for the next 10 years. Now, competition, love it. Monopoly, absolutely love it. There's no room for competition. I love Peter Thiel's monopoly lectures at Stanford. He's spot on. He says competition is for losers. It is for losers because you're competing with yourself, basically. That's how I view it. I'm not competing with anybody else. Let's get down to what we're doing. What are we doing? We're trying to build a business. We're trying to market that business, and we're trying to blow out the competition as fast, as cleanly, as simply, and as brutally as we can. Because the idea is, to keep it going until they can't see straight, and to do it any other way makes no sense to me.