Hi everyone, welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. I'm Sonal. Today we have a unique sort of crossover episode with writer-director producer Brian Copleman, who with his partner David Levine, also wrote some of the most popular and still-discussed movies like Oceans 13 and Rounders, which will also touch on in this episode. But currently, Brian is a co-showrunner with David on

Billions, which airs on showtime and the newest season actually drops this weekend. The reason I'm

calling this a sort of crossover episode is that Brian also interviewed Mark Andreessen for his podcast,

The Moment, which you can listen to on iTunes and elsewhere, if you want to hear more of

their thoughts on the difference between hallucination and vision, putting your art or products and yourself out into the

world and more. We also put the written Q&A version of that conversation up if you want to read it

on A6 and Z.com. But there are two separate conversations, so you don't have to have listened to

either to follow both. Today's discussion

begins with Mark interviewing Brian, and I jump in in between here and there as well, starting

with the business of creativity and the creativity of business, then going into how to speak to power,

speak to one's team, speak to co-partners, as well as managing the emotions and ego around all that.

And finally, ending on some specific moments about billions the show in the last 10 minutes,

where I'll signal a light spoiler alert warning beforehand.

We're here to talk about the business and making of film and TV and startups and tech and the parallels and whatnot.

Take it from the top, Mark.

Fantastic. So, Brian,

thank you for doing this. So I've always been fascinated. I'm deeply fascinated by the process

of creative expression and success, you know, for sure in technology. And we think of what we

do up here is fundamentally trying to find the most creative entrepreneurs and trying to help

them build, you know, enormous, both creative and professional and business success around success around what they do. And, and it strikes me, it struck me for

a long time that there are a lot of similarities between how the Valley Works and tech works and

how entertainment, how entertainment works, how entertainment works, film, television, other forms

...