""I had sort of been on the traditional conveyor belt: go to college, get out, get a job. And then I met all these sort of bohemian characters who - their idea was, you didn't have a career. You kind of improvise your life. You know, the idea was to kind of maximize experience and do interesting things and take some risks.""
""The 80-year-old executive, who sounded remarkably youthful in a phone interview with Fortune, harkened back to the days in the 1960s and '70s when "freedom was in the air." The vibe was very different then: "It was like, I don't want to work for 'the man,'" he told Fortune, referencing a formative summer when he worked as a bellboy in Lake George in the Adirondack foothills of upstate New York.""
""As he writes in his new memoir Unplugged, this improvisational journey took him to Afghanistan and India, a business career that was "wild and fulfilling and for a long time profitable." But it was also "really hard work" and was "really humbling," adding that "humility is not a thing you see a lot of in the entertainment business." He didn't comment directly on the major figures in the current bidding war for Warner Bros.,""
Tom Freston began with a countercultural spirit and built an adventurous, risk-oriented career. He co-founded MTV and later led Viacom and Paramount Pictures, spending 26 years at Paramount and remaining a defining figure in modern entertainment during a period of major industry consolidation. Early influences included beat and libertarian literature, which emphasized experience and individuality. The path included travel to Afghanistan and India. The career proved wild, fulfilling and for a long time profitable, but also involved very hard work and humbling experiences. Freston observes that humility is uncommon in the entertainment business.
Read at Fortune
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