The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

11
Know Your Limits
The Law of Grandiosity
e humans have a deep need to think highly of ourselves. If that
opinion of our goodness, greatness, and brilliance diverges
enough from reality, we become grandiose. We imagine our
superiority. Often a small measure of success will elevate our natural
grandiosity to even more dangerous levels. Our high self-opinion has
now been confirmed by events. We forget the role that luck may have
played in the success, or the contributions of others. We imagine we
have the golden touch. Losing contact with reality, we make
irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last. Look
for the signs of elevated grandiosity in yourself and in others—
overbearing certainty in the positive outcome of your plans; excessive
touchiness if criticized; a disdain for any form of authority.
Counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a realistic
assessment of yourself and your limits. Tie any feelings of greatness
to your work, your achievements, and your contributions to society.
The Success Delusion
By the summer of 1984, Michael Eisner (b. 1942), president of
Paramount Pictures, could no longer ignore the restlessness that had
been plaguing him for months. He was impatient to move on to a
bigger stage and shake the foundations of Hollywood. This restlessness
had been the story of his life. He had begun his career at ABC, and
never settling too comfortably within one department, after nine years
of various promotions he had risen to the position of head of prime-
time programming. But television began to seem small and
constricting to him. He needed a larger, grander stage. In 1976 Barry

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Diller—a former boss at ABC and now the chairman of Paramount
Pictures—offered him the job of heading Paramount’s film studio, and
he jumped at the chance.
Paramount had long been in the doldrums, but working with Diller,
Eisner transformed it into the hottest studio in Hollywood, with a
string of remarkably successful films—Saturday Night Fever, Grease,
Flashdance, and Terms of Endearment. Although Diller certainly
played a part in this turnaround, Eisner saw himself as the main
driving force behind the studio’s success. After all, he had invented a
surefire formula for creating profitable films.
The formula depended on keeping costs down, an obsession of his.
To do so, a film had to begin with a great concept, one that was
original, easy to summarize, and dramatic. Executives could hire the
most expensive writers, directors, and actors for a film, but if the
underlying concept was weak, all the money in the world would be
wasted. Films with a strong concept, however, would market
themselves. A studio could churn these relatively inexpensive films out
in volume, and even if they were only moderate hits, they would ensure
a steady flow of income. This thinking went against the grain of the
blockbuster mentality of the late 1970s, but who could argue with the
undeniable profits Eisner had generated for Paramount? Eisner
immortalized this formula in a memo that soon spread around
Hollywood and became gospel.
But after so many years of sharing the limelight with Diller at
Paramount, trying to please corporate CEOs, and pushing back against
marketing directors and finance people, Eisner had had enough. If
only he could run his own studio, unfettered. With the formula he had
created and with his relentless ambition, he could forge the greatest
and most profitable entertainment empire in the world. He was tired of
other people piggybacking on his ideas and success. Operating on top
and alone, he could control the show and take all the credit.
As Eisner contemplated this next critical move in his career that
summer of ’84, he finally settled upon the perfect target for his
ambitions—the Walt Disney Company. At first glance, this would seem
a puzzling choice. Since the death of Walt Disney in 1966, the Walt
Disney film studio seemed frozen in time, getting weirder with each
passing year. The place operated more like a stodgy men’s club. Many
executives stopped working after lunch and spent their afternoons in

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card games, or would lounge about in the steam room on site. Hardly
anyone was ever fired. The studio produced one animated film about
every four years and in 1983 produced a meager three live-action films.
They had not had a single hit film since The Love Bug in 1968. The
Disney lot in Burbank almost seemed like a ghost town. The actor Tom
Hanks, who worked on the lot in 1983, described it as “a Greyhound
bus station in the 1950s.”
Given its dilapidated condition, however, this would be the perfect
place for Eisner to work his magic. The studio and the corporation
could only move up. Its board members were desperate to turn it
around and avoid a hostile takeover. Eisner could dictate the terms of
his leadership position. Presenting himself to Roy Disney (Walt’s
nephew and the largest shareholder of Disney stock) as the company’s
savior, he laid out a detailed and inspiring plan for a dramatic
turnaround (greater than Paramount’s), and Roy was won over. With
Roy’s blessing the board approved the choice, and in September 1984
Eisner was named chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
Frank Wells, the former head of Warner Bros., was named president
and chief operating officer. Wells would focus on the business side. In
all matters Eisner was the boss; Wells was there to help and serve him.
Eisner wasted no time. He embarked on a major restructuring of
the company, which led to the departure of over a thousand employees.
He started filling the executive ranks with Paramount people, most
notably Jeffrey Katzenberg (b. 1950), who had worked as Eisner’s
right-hand man at Paramount and was now named chairman of Walt
Disney Studios. Katzenberg could be abrasive and downright rude, but
no one in Hollywood was more efficient or worked harder. He simply
got things done.
Within months Disney began to churn out a remarkable series of
hits, adhering to Eisner’s formula. Fifteen of its first seventeen films
(such as Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Who Framed Roger
Rabbit) generated profits, a run of success almost unheard of for any
studio in Hollywood.
One day, as Eisner explored the Burbank lot with Wells, they
entered the Disney library and discovered hundreds of cartoons from
the golden era that had never been shown. There on endless shelves
were stored all of the great Disney classic animated hits. Eisner’s eyes
lit up at the sight of this treasure. He could reissue all of these cartoons

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and animated films on video (the home video market was in the midst
of exploding) and it would be pure profit. Based on these cartoons, the
company could create stores to market the various Disney characters.
Disney was a virtual gold mine waiting to be exploited, and Eisner
would make the most of this.
Soon the stores opened, the videos sold like crazy, the film hits kept
pumping profit into the company, and Disney’s stock price soared. It
had replaced Paramount as the hottest film studio in town. Wanting to
cultivate a more public presence, Eisner decided to revive the old The