Uncategorized
Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google & Jonathan Rosenberg, former SVP Products, Google
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
How Google Works
An Evening with Eric Schmidt
Executive Chairman, Google
and Jonathan Rosenberg
advisor to Larry Page, Google CEO
in conversation with Larry Vincent
Chief Branding Officer at UTA Brand Studio
Moss Theatre
New Roads School
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
SOLD OUT.
Video will be available on this page on 11/10
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Seats
$43 Includes the book, How Google Works + Reserved Seats
$95 includes reserved seating + pre-event reception + book
His most recent book, Brand Real, was released in March 2012 and was named one of the best business books of 2012 by Strategy + Business Magazine. His first book, Legendary Brands, was released in 2001 and was translated into seven languages.
Peter Thiel, Co-founder, Paypal, in conversation with Peter Guber
Thursday, October 2, 2014
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
An Evening with Peter Thiel
Technology Entrepreneur and Investor;
Co-founder PayPal
in conversation with Peter Guber
Zero to One:
Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Moss Theatre
New Roads School
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
SOLD OUT.
Watch the video
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Seats
$43 Includes Thiel’s book + Reserved Seats
$95 includes reserved seating + pre-event reception + Thiel’s book
>On Peter Thiel in Fortune magazine, 9/4/14
Peter Thiel first gained attention for innovations in banking and startup finance. In 1998, Thiel made e-commerce easier, faster, and more secure by co-founding and leading PayPal, which now has more than 128 million active financial accounts. In 2002, PayPal sold to eBay and he founded a global macro fund, Clarium. He works to accelerate innovation by identifying and funding promising technology ideas and by guiding successful companies to scale and dominate their industries.
In 2004, he co-founded Palantir Technologies, which offers platforms for finance companies and intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities to integrate, visualize, and analyze the world’s information. In the same year, he made the first outside investment in Facebook, whose board he serves on, and now has more than a billion active members.
ZERO TO ONE (co-authored with Blake Masters) is Thiel’s impassioned plea for an entirely new way of thinking about innovation, urging future business leaders not to compete on well-trodden paths but to explore a new frontier, stake their claim, and do something that has never been done. It is about the questions one must ask to find value in unexpected places. It is at an optimistic view of what the future of progress looks like in America and an intellectual meditation on the nature of innovation and other challenges of today’s business world of which Thiel writes: “If American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even thousands, of miracles. We call these miracles technology.” READ MORE.
Building on his personal success as a venture capital investor, Thiel co-founded and manages Founders Fund, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital fund that has pioneered new methods of venture financing that benefit founders. Through Founders Fund, as well as through his private investing, he has helped the next generation of tech companies, such as SpaceX, LinkedIn, Yelp, RoboteX, and Spotify.
And in 2012 he co-founded Mithril Capital Management, an international technology investment fund.
Thiel established and funds the Thiel Foundation, which promotes freedom in all its forms. He sponsors the Committee to Protect Journalists, The Seasteading Institute, and the Human Rights Foundation. He funds the artificial intelligence research of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He also aids work against violence through the Oslo Freedom Forum and through the research of philosopher René Girard, which is extended and promulgated by Imitatio. He also promotes better health by funding the longevity research of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon and the SENS Research Foundation.
Thiel created the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, which nurtures the tech visionaries of tomorrow. And he formed Breakout Labs to help independent scientists, engineers, and inventors advance their most radical ideas.
Thiel earned a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he occasionally teaches on globalization and technology and serves on the board of overseers of the Hoover Institution. His articles have appeared in Policy Review and the Wall Street Journal. He co-produced the film Thank You for Smoking, was rated a master by the United States Chess Federation, and received the Innovation Award from the Economist in 2010. He lives in San Francisco.
Peter Guber is Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group. Prior to Mandalay, Guber was Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Chairman and CEO of Polygram Entertainment, Co-Founder of Casablanca Record & Filmworks and President of Columbia Pictures. Guber produced or executive produced (personally or through his companies) films that garnered five Best Picture Academy Award nominations (winning for Rain Man) and box office hits that include The Color Purple, Midnight Express, Batman, Flashdance, The Kids Are All Right and Soul Surfer. Peter Guber is Owner and Co-Executive Chairman of the Golden State Warriors, and an Owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is Chairman of Dick Clark Productions, Chairman of Mandalay Digital Group and Chairman of Mandalay Sports Media. Guber is an Entertainment and Media Analyst for Fox Business News and a full professor at UCLA. He is the author of the #1 NYT bestseller, Tell to Win.
An Evening with Gail Sheehy
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
8:00pm
An Evening with Gail Sheehy
in conversation with Lisa Napoli
discussing her memoir
Daring: My Passages
Moss Theatre
New Roads School
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Seats
$43 Includes Sheehy’s memoir + Reserved Seats
Gail Sheehy is the author of sixteen books, including the classic New York Times bestseller Passages, named one of the ten most influential books of our times by the Library of Congress. A multiple award-winning literary journalist, she was one of the original contributors to New York magazine and has been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 1984. A popular lecturer, Sheehy was named AARP’s Ambassador of Caregiving in 2009.
Daring: My Passages is Gail Sheehy’s inspiring memoir—a chronicle of her trials and triumphs as a groundbreaking “girl” journalist in the 1960s, to iconic guide for women and men seeking to have it all, to one of the premier political profilers of modern times. It is the story of the unconventional life of a writer who dared . . . to walk New York City streets with hookers and pimps to expose violent prostitution; to march with civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland as British paratroopers opened fire; to seek out Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat when he was targeted for death after making peace with Israel.
Gail Sheehy reveals the obstacles and opportunities encountered when she dared to blaze a trail in a “man’s world.” Daring is also a beguiling love story of Sheehy’s tempestuous romance with and eventual happy marriage to Clay Felker, the charismatic creator of New York magazine. Sheehy recounts her audacious pursuit and intimate portraits of many twentieth-century leaders, including Hillary Clinton, Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush, and the world-altering attraction between Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Sheehy reflects on desire, ambition, and wanting it all—career, love, children, friends, social significance—and lays bare her major life passages: false starts and surprise successes, the shock of failures and inner crises; betrayal in a first marriage; life as a single mother; flings of an ardent, liberated young woman; her adoption of a second daughter from a refugee camp; marriage to the love of her life and their ensuing years of happiness, even in the shadow of illness. Sheehy speaks from hard-won experience to today’s young women. Her fascinating, no-holds-barred story is a testament to guts, resilience, smarts, and daring, and offers a bold perspective on all of life’s passages.
Lisa Napoli is a journalist and author. She was a reporter and back-up host for public radio show Marketplace. She covered the Internet revolution and the cultural impact of technology as a columnist and staff reporter for the New York Times’ CyberTimes, and as a correspondent for MSNBC. In her 25 year career in media, she has also worked for CNN. She is author of RADIO SHANGRI-LA: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. Presently, she is does arts and cultural stories for NPR affiliate KCRW. Visit her website.
Randall Munroe in conversation with Wil Wheaton
Sunday, September 14, 2014
4:30pm
An Afternoon with Randall Munroe
in conversation with Wil Wheaton
What If?:
Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
The Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(NOTE: Due to demand for tickets, we moved this event from William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica)
EVENT IS SOLD OUT*
*video will be posted a week after the event.
Tickets:
$20 General Admission
$40 Includes Munroe’s book + Reserved seat
From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.
Watch Randall Munroe’s TED Talk
Randall Munroe is the author of the popular webcomic xkcd and the science question-and-answer blog What If. After studying physics at Christopher Newport University, he got a job building robots at NASA Langley Research Center. In 2006, he left NASA to draw comics on the internet full-time, supporting himself through the sale of xkcd t-shirts, prints, posters, and books. He likes candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Very long walks. Lots of people say they like long walks on the beach, but then they get out on the beach and after just an hour or two, they say they’re getting tired. Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe’s iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. In 2013, a main-belt asteroid (4942 Munroe) was named after him
Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by signature xkcd comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion. The book features new and never-before-answered questions, along with updated and expanded versions of the most popular answers from the xkcd website. What If? will be required reading for xkcd fans and anyone who loves to ponder the hypothetical.
Wil Wheaton began acting in commercials at the age of seven, and by the age of ten had appeared in numerous television and film roles. In 1986, his critically acclaimed role in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me put him in the public spotlight. In 1987, Wil was cast as Wesley Crusher in the hit television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Recently, Wil has held recurring roles on TNT’s Leverage and SyFy’s Eureka; he currently recurs on CBS’s The Big Bang Theory. He played Axis of Anarchy leader Fawkes in Felicia Day’s webseries The Guild, and currently hosts Falling Skies: Second Watch, for TNT. Off-camera, he is the creator producer, and host of the wildly successful webseries Tabletop, which is currently in its second season.
But Wheaton is much more than just an actor; he’s an author, blogger, podcaster, voice actor, widely-followed original Twitter user, and a champion of geek culture. For more on Wheaton, visit his website.
Ben Mezrich in conversation with Brett Ratner
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
Ben Mezrich
in conversation with Brett Ratner
discussing his novel, Seven Wonders
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$40 Includes Ben Mezrich’s book + Reserved seat
$95 Pre-event reception (6:30-7:30pm) + Reserved Seat
Ben Mezrich has created his own highly addictive genre of nonfiction, chronicling the amazing stories of young geniuses making tons of money on the edge of impossibility, ethics, and morality. He has authored twelve books, including the wildly successful Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which spent sixty-three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, His book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal was also a New York Times bestseller. The book was adapted into the movie The Social Network –written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher.
While writing these true stories, he has been afforded access to worlds seldom talked about. During his research for Bringing Down the House, he taped $250,000 to his body and smuggled it through airport security with some of the most notorious card-counters in the world, getting to taste the lifestyle of the Las Vegas high roller upon arrival. While writing Ugly Americans, he visited exclusive “Japanese Only” underground sex clubs in Tokyo and juggled roadblocks and run-ins against the Japanese mafia. Sex On the Moon, Mezrich’s twelfth book, is being developed by the same producers and studio as The Social Network. Both of Mezrich’s other New York Times bestsellers, Ugly Americans and Rigged, have been optioned for the big screen as well.
Seven Wonders is a departure of sorts — a high stakes epic thriller that races around the world to unlock the mystery that links the Seven Wonders of the World. Jack Grady, a field anthropologist and 21st century Indiana Jones, lives for the thrill of adventure and the joy of discovery. When his estranged brother, the introverted mathematician Jeremy Grady, is murdered, Jack is determined to find out what happened. His first clue: his brother was stabbed in the chest with an ancient ivory spear. It reminds him of the weapons of the Amazons, a fierce tribe of female warriors dating all the way back to the beginnings of mythology and history and the subject of Jack’s research for nearly half a decade. Jack embarks on a far-flung journey around the globe – from China to Peru; Egypt to Brazil – as he unravels the mystery that links the Seven Wonders of the World, represented by seven divided segments of a golden snake. With the help of the beautiful and brilliant botanist Sloane Costa and Jack’s intrepid grad students, the team discovers a conspiracy to hide a roadmap to the Garden of Eden – and the truth behind a mythological ancient culture. The movie rights have been sold to 20th Century Fox with Brett Ratner and James Packer producing.
Brett Ratner is one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers. Ratner’s films as a director alone have grossed close to $2 billion at the global box office. He most recently directed and produced the action adventure “Hercules,” starring Dwayne Johnson.
Ratner began his career directing numerous music videos before making his feature directorial debut on the crime comedy “Money Talks,” starring Charlie Sheen and Chris Tucker. He followed with the blockbuster action comedy “Rush Hour,” starring Tucker and Jackie Chan and launched two hit sequels. Ratner has also helmed the films “The Family Man,” “Red Dragon,” “After the Sunset,” “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “Tower Heist.”
Also a successful producer, Ratner produced the smash hit comedy “Horrible Bosses” and is currently working on the sequel, due out in November 2014. Additionally, he produced the re-imagined Snow White tale, “Mirror Mirror.” His credits also include the documentaries “Catfish”; the Emmy-nominated “Woody Allen – A Documentary,” for PBS’s “American Masters” series; “Helmut by June,” for HBO; and “I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale.” Ratner also executive produced the Golden Globe-nominated television series Prison Break, which ran for four seasons on FOX.
An Evening with Tavis Smiley
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
7:00pm (Reception 6:00-7:00pm)
An Evening with Tavis Smiley
in conversation with Terrence McNally
Death of a King:
The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year
All Saints Church
504 N. Camden
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Seats
$43 Includes Smiley’s book + Reserved Seats
$95 includes reserved seating + pre-event reception + book
Tavis Smiley is a nationally known radio and television personality, entrepreneur, political commentator and activist. Currently, Smiley hosts the late-night television talk show, Tavis Smiley on PBS, The Tavis Smiley Show on public radio distributed by Public Radio International (PRI). He is the first American to simultaneously host signature talk shows on both public television and public radio. He founded the ground-breaking and historic State of the Black Union series. Smiley has authored several best-selling books, including The Covenant and The Covenant in Action. In 2009, TIME magazine named him to their list of “The World’s 100 Most Influential People.”
A revealing and dramatic chronicle of the twelve months leading up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination
Martin Luther King, Jr. died in one of the most shocking assassinations the world has known, but little is remembered about the life he led in his final year. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley recounts the final 365 days of King’s life, revealing the minister’s trials and tribulations — denunciations by the press, rejection from the president, dismissal by the country’s black middle class and militants, assaults on his character, ideology, and political tactics, to name a few — all of which he had to rise above in order to lead and address the racism, poverty, and militarism that threatened to destroy our democracy.
Smiley’s DEATH OF A KING paints a portrait of a leader and visionary in a narrative different from all that have come before. Here is an exceptional glimpse into King’s life — one that adds both nuance and gravitas to his legacy as an American hero.
Terrence McNally is host of Free Forum on KPFK which is heard in Los Angeles and New York. On his weekly radio show, McNally engages the most visionary thinkers, writers, and doers he can find to make sense of the current moment and shed light on the path ahead.