In the summertime of 1964, a letter arrived on the William Morris Company addressed to the pinnacle of personnel. It was a response from UCLA confirming that considered one of their new mailroom hires, David Geffen, had not in actual fact graduated from the college, as he had claimed. However Geffen labored within the mailroom. He opened the letter, altered it, resealed it, and despatched it on its manner. By the point anybody came upon, he’d already been promoted.
That single transfer, daring, quick, and quietly good, captures every little thing that might come to outline David Geffen’s profession. Immediately, Geffen has a web price of $9 billion. He has based or co-founded three dominant establishments in trendy leisure: Asylum Information, Geffen Information, and DreamWorks SKG. He owns a $300 million actual property portfolio, probably the most beneficial artwork collections on Earth, and a 450-foot yacht that usually hosts Hollywood and tech royalty. And it began with a teeny tiny white lie in a mailroom.
A Hustler from Brooklyn
Born in 1943 to Jewish immigrant dad and mom in Brooklyn, Geffen grew up in a modest condo above his mom’s corset store. He was a below-average pupil who flunked out of a number of schools. However what he lacked in educational self-discipline, he made up for in hustle. After bouncing between New York and Los Angeles, Geffen landed a job as an usher at CBS after which as a receptionist on a tv sequence. He was fired shortly for providing unsolicited script notes to the producers.
A casting director recommended he attempt being an agent as a substitute. Geffen appeared within the cellphone e book for the largest expertise company advert he may discover and landed within the mailroom at William Morris. That is the place he solid the letter. That is the place he grew to become a junior agent. And that is the place he discovered how Hollywood actually labored.
The Man Behind the Stars
Geffen’s subsequent transfer was into artist administration. Within the late Nineteen Sixties, he started working with rising musicians like Laura Nyro, Jackson Browne, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. He was relentless, persuasive, and fiercely loyal. When he could not get a label deal for Browne, a buddy at Atlantic Information recommended Geffen begin his personal label. He took the recommendation.
In 1970, together with his mailroom buddy Elliot Roberts, Geffen launched Asylum Information. He named it after the artists nobody else would signal. However Geffen had an ear for outsiders. He signed the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, and Linda Ronstadt. Inside two years, Warner Communications purchased Asylum and merged it with Elektra. Geffen acquired inventory and have become a millionaire.
In 1975, he moved into movie as vice chairman of Warner Bros., however quickly stepped away after being misdiagnosed with terminal most cancers. He retired, however not for lengthy. Three years later, medical doctors admitted they had been flawed. Geffen, nonetheless alive and now very rich, got here again with a vengeance.
Changing into A Supervisor
All the time gregarious and enjoyable, he had begun to make associates within the music group and finally determined to deal with being a private supervisor. His first main shoppers included Laura Nyro, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Jackson Browne, all relative unknowns once they started working with him. He was tenacious about constructing the careers of his artists, and he shortly grew to become often known as a good, formidable, and constant supervisor. Watching him try to safe a file deal for considered one of his artists, a file govt at Atlantic recommended he begin his personal label. Recognizing good recommendation when he heard it, David Geffen launched Asylum Information. He appeared to have an unerring eye for artists whose sound existed exterior of the field, however who would come to revolutionize music. He signed the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, and Judee Sill, to call only a few. Warner Communications ended up shopping for Asylum, merging it with its file firm, Elektra.
David ran Elektra/Asylum till 1975, when he was invited to take over Warner Bros.’ movie studios. Although he had been in a position to determine how to reach the agent and music worlds, his foray into working a movie studio was not significantly profitable. He was additionally sick and was subsequently identified with terminal bladder most cancers. He retired and stepped away from the Hollywood life-style. Nonetheless, three years later, he was nonetheless alive and kicking, and it was revealed that he was really cancer-free and had been misdiagnosed. He dusted himself off and went again to Hollywood.
Geffen Information & A Billion-Greenback Payday
Now re-energized and targeted, in 1980, David returned to his old flame, music, and launched Geffen Information. The label’s first yr was tumultuous. He signed Donna Summer time first and launched her album, “The Wanderer”. Nonetheless, her former label retaliated, releasing a number of tracks from her 1979 album, “Dangerous Women”, and a best hits compilation. Although “The Wanderer” spawned a success single, it was buried within the inflow of different Donna Summer time materials and the appearance of the New Wave sound. That very same yr, he launched John Lennon’s album, “Double Fantasy”. It was a coup for the brand new label, however it shortly turned bittersweet when Lennon was assassinated that yr.
From there, he went on to signal and work with a “who’s who” of music heavy-hitters, together with Olivia Newton-John, Elton John, Sonic Youth, Cher, Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel, Whitesnake, Blink-182, Nirvana, Weapons N’ Roses, Lifehouse, Pat Metheny, and Neil Younger, amongst many others. Alongside the best way, he offered Geffen Information in one of many largest music offers in music historical past and launched one other label referred to as DGC Information, which was equally profitable.
In 1990, Geffen offered the label to MCA for 10 million shares of MCA inventory. When MCA was acquired by Matsushita in 1991 for $6 billion, Geffen’s inventory was price roughly $700 million. Adjusted for inflation, that might be round $1.3 billion at present. He additionally secured a four-year employment contract and famously gave his longtime secretary 1% of the sale, over $5 million.
Geffen remained a dominant power in music all through the Nineteen Nineties, overseeing the continued success of Geffen Information and its different imprint, DGC Information, which launched Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”
David Geffen / Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Photographs
DreamWorks: His Third Empire
He additionally determined to attempt his hand at movie manufacturing once more and launched the Geffen Movie Firm. Like Asylum and Geffen Information, it was a hit out of the gate. The corporate’s first undertaking, “Dangerous Enterprise”, was field workplace gold and made a star out of the unknown, Tom Cruise. He went on to provide the movie variations of “Little Store of Horrors”, “Beetlejuice”, and “Interview with the Vampire”, in addition to the Broadway productions of “Dreamgirls”, “Cats”, “Miss Saigon”, and “M. Butterfly”.
In 1994, David teamed up with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg to kind DreamWorks SKG. The film studio has gone to launch a gentle stream of hit motion pictures, together with “Amistad”, “Deep Affect”, “Saving Non-public Ryan”, “American Magnificence”, “Gladiator”, “Hen Run”, “Nearly Well-known”, “Meet the Mother and father”, “Castaway”, “Shrek”, “A Stunning Thoughts”, “Minority Report”, “Catch Me If You Can”, “Previous Faculty”, “Battle of the Worlds”, “Crimson Eye”, “Match Level”, “Revolutionary Street”, “The Beautiful Bones”, “Cowboys and Aliens”, “Actual Metal”, and “Lincoln”.
In 2005, Viacom acquired DreamWorks’ live-action division for $1.6 billion, together with $400 million in assumed debt. Geffen stepped away from DreamWorks completely in 2008.
Along with his large wealth and affect, David Geffen is proof which you can come from fully strange beginnings and arrive at greatness. He was a median pupil with no contacts within the leisure trade, however he nonetheless managed to turn into probably the most highly effective executives in Hollywood. Typically it isn’t about the place you are from, it is about the place you select to go. David Geffen clearly selected to go all the best way to the highest.
What He Did With the Cash
David Geffen by no means married throughout his early rise, had no kids, and by no means reported to a boardroom. He saved tight management of his property. Over time, he diversified away from music and into actual property, modern artwork, and yachts.
His actual property portfolio features a Central Park West condo purchased for $54 million, a number of properties on Malibu’s Carbon Seashore, and a former East Hampton property. In 2020, he offered the Jack L. Warner property in Beverly Hills to Jeff Bezos for $165 million, on the time, the most costly house sale in California historical past.
His artwork assortment is known. He has owned items by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Jasper Johns. In 2016, he offered a de Kooning and a Pollock to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin for a mixed $500 million. Estimates put his assortment’s whole worth between $2 billion and $3 billion.
After which there’s Rising Solar, the 454-foot yacht initially commissioned by Larry Ellison. Geffen purchased him out in 2010 and has since hosted friends like Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, and Leonardo DiCaprio. He beforehand offered one other yacht, Pelorus, for $240 million.
The Actual Lesson of the Mailroom
David Geffen’s story isn’t about fortunate breaks. It is about recognizing doorways that had been closed, then quietly jamming them open. He did not end faculty. He did not inherit a factor. He solid a letter, signed the precise individuals, offered on the proper time, and by no means stopped transferring.
He did not simply rise from the mailroom. He turned it right into a launchpad after which constructed a $9 billion empire on prime of it.