Matt Lichtenberg Receives the Variety Business Manager Elite Award at Variety's Business Managers Breakfast

Variety

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00:00Everybody has their own path, of course not.

00:07My 1974 Evander Child's High, there we go.

00:12My 1974 Evander Child's High School yearbook read,

00:17Matt Lichtenberg, Ambition Dentist, and here we are.

00:29Fast forward to 1980 at the wise old age of 22,

00:35I packed up my Ford Granada and I headed west.

00:40I'd grown up in New York, but watched enough Beverly

00:43Hillbillies, Dragnet, and Barbara Eden in a bikini

00:46to know California was the place for me.

00:50It was fantastic and just as expected.

00:53Sunburned and sold on California,

00:55I returned to New York, and by the chance

00:57the next day ran into my child friend, Paul Provenza,

01:02who had too just returned from California.

01:05And there and then we decided to ditch

01:07the subways and yellow snow for sun-kissed beaches and show

01:11business.

01:13Paul was a working stand-up, and the comedy scene in LA

01:17was raging.

01:19I was wearing a three-piece suit,

01:20working at Pricewaterhouse by day,

01:23hanging out with comics at the improv,

01:25and laughing until my eyes bled at night.

01:29It was way too much fun, and it didn't take long for me

01:31to realize I needed a job where I could ditch the suit

01:34and work around funny people.

01:38Soon thereafter, I left Pricewaterhouse

01:39and went to work for Jess Morgan,

01:41a formative business management firm founded in 1967.

01:47I'd hit the lottery.

01:48I loved what I did.

01:50I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

01:52And after a few years at Jess Morgan,

01:54decided it was time to try this myself.

01:57At all of 26 years old, with a $10,000 City National Bank

02:01credit line, I was handwriting checks

02:04at an office above the Pep Boys on 7th Street in Santa Monica.

02:10My first clients co-owned the improv with Bud Friedman,

02:14and the improv quickly became my personal client recruiting

02:17substation.

02:19Comics were road warriors and desperately

02:21needed to tend to their business affairs.

02:24I was right there, lying in wait at the corner

02:27table at the improv.

02:31Larry became a client early on, and it boggles my mind

02:35to think we've been working together for 40 years.

02:39I'm going to repeat what Larry just said.

02:40He'd often say, Matty, I'm never going

02:43to succeed in this business.

02:44You don't need to keep me on, and I understand

02:47if you want to let me go.

02:49And my response was always the same.

02:51Comics think you're funny.

02:53I think you're funny.

02:54I'm not going anywhere.

02:56And that's true, because every time I saw Larry

02:58at the improv in New York, all the comics

03:01would come to the back.

03:02People would sit there in silence, and they would laugh,

03:05and Larry would kill.

03:06And I knew there was something there.

03:10So when asked by Variety if I'd be interested in receiving

03:15the award, at first I thought, wow, how cool.

03:18And then I thought about it and how pretty much it

03:21encapsulates everything I don't like to do.

03:25I don't like wearing a suit.

03:27I don't like being the center of attention.

03:30I don't like public speaking.

03:32I don't like eating breakfast.

03:35And I really don't like asking my clients to do me a favor.

03:40I try and never ask my clients do me a favor,

03:44except, of course, Larry, who has now clocked in two

03:49bar mitzvah videos and sacrificed a choice early

03:58morning Riviera tea time to do this for me.

04:03Two bar mitzvahs for Asher and Maxime, and now this.

04:07I owe you, Larry.

04:09I'll never do this to you again, Larry.

04:12I love you, Larry.

04:16So here we are, a room full of seemingly smart people.

04:20And I ask myself, what differentiates smart people

04:23from successful people?

04:25Successful people know that to succeed,

04:27you need to surround yourselves with smart people.

04:31As business managers, we wake up every day seated at a table

04:35at a high stakes poker game.

04:37We're all in betting everything we have that we

04:41and everyone who works for us do everything right that day,

04:45that no mistakes are made.

04:46And God forbid a mistake happens, it's small,

04:49and it can be easily fixed.

04:52The stakes are our reputation and livelihood.

04:54And if you lose, it could change the orbit of your career

04:58and everything you've worked for.

05:03There's a lot of pressure to bear every day.

05:05And the reason I share this award with everyone

05:07in this room who works beside me is because

05:11of this onerous profession.

05:15I consider myself beyond blessed to have a job that I love.

05:18Clients who I appreciate and value what I do for them,

05:22listen to and respect my opinion,

05:23and most importantly, are incredibly genuine, nice people.

05:28I am blessed.

05:30I'd first like to thank my brilliant, methodical,

05:33and inspiring partners, John, Mark, and Chuck,

05:37Executives Mark C. right here, and the superhuman employees

05:41at level four who are without a doubt, in my opinion,

05:44among the best in the business.

05:46My wife, Masha, and two wonderful children,

05:49Asher and Maxime, who no matter how shitty my mood,

05:54love and support me day in and day out.

05:58And thanks to D. Lawrence and the show business

06:01sleuths at Daily Variety, Kelly Coffee, Steve Shapiro,

06:05Lisa Torben, and everyone at the best bank a business manager could

06:09ever ask for at Citi National Bank.

06:12And a special thanks to my awesome assistant, Rita, who protects

06:17and shields me from the psychopaths like nobody else can.

06:24And my brother from another mother, Paul Ta, who's here, there,

06:31who's with me in the swamps, by my side, on the front lines every day.

06:36I'm going to close with an excerpt from the first draft of my speech,

06:39which I had written by chat GPT.

06:45So I typed in the following, write a five minute, funny and poignant

06:50thank you speech for a business manager who

06:52works with actors and comics, just named business manager of the year

06:56by the Daily Variety newspaper.

06:59And I got the following, thank you, thank you, everyone.

07:06Wow, what an honor.

07:08And from the Daily Variety, no less, I mean,

07:11that's basically the Oscars of the spreadsheet, right?

07:17I feel like I've become a professional tightrope walker,

07:20balancing my client's finances while they're

07:23balancing on an inflatable pool flamingo in Ibiza.

07:29To my clients, who couldn't be here tonight, well, actually they could,

07:33but most of them are halfway across the world living out of a suitcase.

07:37Thank you for trusting me with your dreams and your credit card bills.

07:42The entertainment industry is a wild, unpredictable ride.

07:46But thanks to you all, I get a front seat every day.

07:50And I get to experience the thrill of every $15,000 floral arrangement,

07:55every impulse buy sports car, and every private island rental.

08:00Really, you keep me on my toes and on the couch with my psychiatrist.

08:05Of course, I couldn't have gotten here alone.

08:08I owe so much to my team.

08:10They're the ones who make sure I look like I know exactly what I'm doing

08:13and who catch my typos before the clients do.

08:16To my colleagues who have spent hours untangling expenses and more than once

08:21rescuing me from tax code-induced coma, thank you.

08:25Your support is priceless, even though I'm pretty sure some of you

08:28may be forwarding my calls to each other when you see my number.

08:33And I have to give a shout out to my family, because they put up with the fact

08:37that I'm always just wrapping up one more thing on the phone.

08:40And thank you especially for not holding it against me

08:43that every Hanukkah, I show up with financial projections instead of gifts.

08:47I'm here every Tuesday.

08:51Thank you, Deli Variety.

08:52Thank you, City National Bank.

08:53Thank you, Venable.

08:54Thank you, Larry.

08:56Thank you, everyone.

08:57Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

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