Top Hollywood Execs Discuss How They Create the Trends of Tomorrow: ‘You Gotta Be Taking Massive Risks All the Time’

As part of Variety‘s Entertainment & Technology Summit presented by City National Bank, Variety‘s Todd Spangler moderated the “Power Couple: Entrepreneurship + Entertainment” panel discussion, bringing together industry-leading executives to discuss their business practices in an increasingly turbulent media landscape.

What’s the right approach to balancing risk and reward in today’s climate? Panelists talked about when to swing for the fences — and how they do that. “You live on the very bleeding edge of risk of what is possible,” said Donald Mustard, partner at AGBO, the indie studio founded by Anthony and Joe Russo. “If you really ever want to do something innovative and groundbreaking, you gotta be taking massive risks all the time.”

Justina Omokhua, SVP at Parkwood Entertainment, Beyoncé’s media, management and production company, said decision-makers need to ask three questions: “Is the thing that I’m trying to do new, is it novel, is it innovative? And sometimes it’s all three, and other times it’s just one. And so you have to ask the questions of yourself and be willing to take the risk.” Omokhua also said it’s important to make a plan for what to do if an ambitious new project fails, and to learn from the experience to help inform what you do next.

Omokhua later added that following “trends” and “people’s share of wallet” are key to operating at the highest levels of marketing. She said her team is looking at customer inputs on a “monthly” or sometimes “weekly” basis to keep up with market demands.

“What is their likelihood to purchase given the current state of affairs? Is this something that somebody’s going to be inclined to do? Buy whiskey, use a hair product, go to a concert, listen to this specific type of music,” Omokhua said. “All of these thing are very important to all of our businesses in understanding how consumers are going to operate.”

A trap to avoid is falling into “good days-bad days” thinking when assessing a new initiative, said Asad Qizilbash, SVP of product and head of PlayStation Productions. “You’re gonna make mistakes. There’s gonna be things that don’t work out… But you’ve gotta have the discipline to know that things are gonna go wrong in the short term,” Qizilbash said. His advice is to take a longer-term view while also taking decisive action to end something when it clearly isn’t going to pay off.

Launching an untested project requires not just intestinal fortitude but investment, and the cost of capital is coming down, said Judy Tu, SVP and senior relationship manager in City National Bank’s entertainment division, citing the Federal Reserve’s recent interest-rate reduction. Tu was encouraged by the entrepreneurial enthusiasm exhibited by the other panelists: “It’s music to my ears, in that you have all of these companies who are being incredibly thoughtful about how they approach risk,” she said.

Mustard closed the discussion by sharing his excitement for the potential creative avenues opened by the future of smartphone and artificial intelligence technology once available to the general public. Although AI has been a sensitive subject in the media space, Mustard emphasized that he is in the business of crafting the future, and that media execs need to be ready for whatever comes with it.

“The trend of yesterday is the trend of yesterday. Our opportunity is to create the next trend,” Mustard said. “Our viewpoint of the world is, ‘What is tomorrow, and how can we create it?’ That’s our job.”

Watch the entire conversation above.