#CEOForum

So who's the next famous person on campus? I have been looking forward to this event for a month. Here's a little bit of my background: I love animated movies. I think they are a brilliant work of art that tell stories in a very sophisticated way. 

The co-founder and president of DreamWorks Animation, Jeffrey Katzenberg, gave a talk at Newhouse today for the annual CEO Forum. 

Students started waiting in line for this event two hours before the talk. Unfortunately, I got out of class 25 minutes before the talk. Thankfully, a fellow DP 4 floor mate of mine, Owen, saved me a seat. There were about 40 audience members that were kicked out from sitting in the stairwell because it was a fire hazard but I heard that they ended watching the live stream in food.com. The press from USA Today got an entire row to themselves which seemed unfair. How many reporters do you need for a single event?

It was such an honor to have Katzenberg at SU. He talked about how much he loved his job and how he gave 110% effort to get where he was today.  He talked about the new technology being used at their headquarters and that employees have to go through art classes and training to work there. Katzenberg said that the DreamWorks studio has a “campus environment” which encouraged creativity in their employees. I thought that was the most inspiring aspect of a place to work.

The spiffy event program

Katzenberg’s last day of college was when he skipped out on first year final exams in order to go to a police strike. He worked as a production assistant in New York. His recurring mentality throughout his talk was giving 110% in whatever you do. Katzenberg was an ambitious, clever, and motivated go-getter. He exceeded expectations in his assignments and projects he was assigned to and people in high places saw strong leadership qualities in him.

After he was publicly fired by Disney, which he stated was his worst day ever, he announced the establishment of DreamWorks. 

Katzenberg’s talk was informative as it was inspiring. USA Today let students from the audience ask questions. One senior asked how they could be in his shoes one day. They asked what the best step was after college. He replied, “There is no best step. There is only a step and you need to take it.” He said that people need to get into the stream of whatever interests them the most. That was a great thing to hear and it was very relevant to my life as a freshman in college. 

There are certain things that I am good at and there other things that I like to do in college. Sometimes those two categories overlap. Katzenberg basically said that it is okay to fail, but if you try the hardest that you are capable of doing, then that is a winning quality in itself. Katzenberg also said that you should study what you want but keep an open mind. 

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Katzenberg as a speaker. It was inspiring to see the man that shaped the stories of my childhood talk to me now as a young adult and say that things are not set in stone, but that they are going to be all right. I was lucky to be a part of this event but I wish this event was open to more people and was in Goldstein instead of the Herg Auditorium.