I've only met REID HOFFMAN a few times. But I admire him. Ran into him backstage at LA's 2019 UPFRONT SUMMIT as he was sitting down with MARK SUSTER for a wide-ranging discussion on the blitzscaling model; how startups should think about customer success and global impact; AI, the US and China; and the companies that are exciting him today. On a daily basis, I am in awe of companies like UBER, AMAZON, APPLE, FACEBOOK, and others. From their inception to their product and audience evolution to the massive revenues. They have, in many cases, made our lives easier. They have also sucked inefficiencies out of markets and crushed competitors all in the name of scale, profits, and ultimately success. When the public or government complains, the answers are usually about regulation and breakups.. And maybe in some cases that's necessary. Reid explains in a simple and understandable way that we should not hate scale for scale's sake. In some cases, if U.S. companies are pulled back legally and limited on a scale basis it may put our industries at a disadvantage globally. Other governments, in say CHINA, may help their "blliztscaling" to dominate the same sector. We have to think globally. Reid argues that we "should imagine a future in which the company has succeeded in becoming a global giant, and then evaluate the likely impact of that success on your key stakeholders and on society as a whole." Is Facebook or Amazon so big, so much a part of our lives that they need to now look at their impact on society? To think of society as a customer. The implications are wide-ranging They can affect the mental health of the audience. The discourse between disagreeing POVs. It's political, social, economic and more. Facebook is allowing a level targetting on political ads that affect society? Amazon is going to sell facial recognition to a government? Apple wants 50% from publishers when the news business (the fourth estate) is crumbling? Can the winner take all, scale to win, suck the value out of a market way of doing things reconcile itself with pulling back or making decisions that are not just competitive and financial? We're in uncharted territory. Some of these companies are the size of nation states. They impact hundreds of millions of lives. And yet, do we think that the companies, their leaders and the culture have the ability to respect their power and treat society like a customer? I'm worried. Why? Because in the face of all this, they keep pressing forward often without regard. I'm glad someone like Reid is asking the question. The answers are not simple... Also at the UPFRONT SUMMIT, I sat down with my pal RON HOWARD to discuss the changing media landscape (and what hasn't changed), the evolution of IMAGINE ENTERTAINMENT from a two-man production team to a venture-backed business, and the kinds of stories that drive Ron as a filmmaker... There is literally no “crazy” parade that is nuttier than CPAC and TRUMP... What does—and doesn't—DAN REED's explosive documentary "LEAVING NEVERLAND" say about the KING OF POP, and what does it say about us? And could we cancel MICHAEL JACKSON's music even if we wanted to? MusicREDEF's MATTY KARAS gives us a stellar MusicSET overview... I laughed out loud at SHOWTIME's new series BLACK MONDAY. "Travel back to October 19, 1987—aka Black Monday, the worst stock market crash in the history of Wall Street. To this day, no one knows who caused it … until now. This is the story of how a group of outsiders took on the blue-blood, old-boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world’s largest financial system, a Lamborghini limousine and the glass ceiling." DON CHEADLE is fantastic in the lead role. I think I lost 10 lbs watching him. He's non-stop awesome... Happy Birthday to OREN MICHELS and SEAN ATKINS. Belated to SHAKIL KHAN, BRADLEY SCHWARTZ, TOM ASCHEIM, SEBASTIAN ECHAVARRIA, WALTER DRIVER, JASON KIRK, JENNIFER ZWEBEN, JAKE ZIM, LISA EISENPRESSER, ROBERT STAMBOULI, BILL BEER, CHRIS DOMINGUEZ, SAM GOMEZ, and ARI ACKERMAN.