David i dont consider myself a journalist. To take on a life of being an interviewer even though i have a date job at running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes some at a tick somebody tick . Did you think at the beginning you were going to change Television History and the history of comedy in 1975 . Lorne i do not think i would talk in those terms but i thought if we got on the air and did the show, that the people doing the show would stay home to watch. I thought there were enough People Like Us because we all pretty much come from the audience. I was the person that had the most experience. David but you were only 30 . Lorne yeah. David the others were in their 20s . Yeah. John bush was 24. Was older than me. David why would a 30yearold be fit to produce this should show . Lorne first, there were low stakes. Was no ones real responsibility. Carson was on 592 week. That was doing well. Five nights a week. That was doing well. I had done television in los angeles. Both in the late 60s and when i moved back in 1976, and the more we did not meet about, they would say we are working prime time. Needed theyou audience this day you need 40 share of the ovid audience. Canada. Om i thought there were plenty of people like me out there. It was a different generation. Shows and donen shows with lily tomlin and richard frier, which were always specials. And done enough that i always knew how you do it. And it was a question of putting together a show that was on some. Evel new we knew that we would be different because we would be doing it. David you grew up in toronto . Doctor grow up being a like all nice jewish boys . Lorne my grandparents had a movie theater. From an early age i think, they , i wasn the third grade loyal but i wanted to be the movies. David did you say i want to make my career in canada or the United States . Lorne i thought at the time it was 1967, the 80 the birthday of the canada centennial. There was a spirit in the country and i thought i would be happy to be here the rest of my life. And then got an opportunity to and ihow in california was working with a partner. Up. Rote stand we had enough experience. David you picked famous people who later went on to be a fortune make a fortune. When the first show goes on, when it is over, or you convinced you have a great hit forever . Lorne i had all the ingredients. Did the first show and the second show, we changed. Ryman. Rd show was rob penny marshall. Bergman. We found the show that resembles the show. David the original idea was to have a cast of characters and a host. Lorne a different host every week. David who was your host . So what if you knew he would be a hit . Monologues of his work and i thought he was funny. The show was the network wanted him to wear a suit. He did not want to. He wanted to wear a tshirt. The compromise was he wore a suit with a tshirt, which was the perfect solution. David did you have to have a sensor . We had a lot about discussions about what we could do and could not do. And what you could do it 11 30 and what you could do at midnight. All those faces from the 70s, that cutting edge, pushing the envelope. We are trying to reflect life as also 1975ving it, and the president had resigned. New york city was bankrupt. It was a little window that opened where there was not business as usual. David the late 70s and early 80s, would people laugh at the same kind of things . Nothinghere is almost we did in the 1970s that we. Ould not be able to play they were making fun of a handicap. Values change. Movie arthur and arthur to not want to do laugh at jokes anymore whereas for 200 years they had laughed at junks. David you laugh uproariously. Lorne it is something i am proud of. Comedy is a disruptive thing. People do not plan to laugh. They are taught to applaud your they are not talk to laugh talked to last. David how is the show produced . Do you ask a good work on monday . Lorne i have a meeting which i have had from the beginning. 5 00 on mondays, has all the cast, the hosts, people from the music department. We all gather in my office. I go around the room and ask everybody what their idea is. Your 45 years, have you had a private equity person . Lorne it has been suggested. David maybe there is an opportunity. Tuesday or wednesday you are writing it. You do dress reversals . Lorne we choose the show on wednesday. We look at 13 or 14. Once that is chosen, deciders begin deciding the sets. Those plans go to shop and they start. We figure out how they are going. O shoot. E are always assessing we left the opening of the show and one of two spots open for anything that happens. David have you ever got and worried that you picked a guest host not up to the task . Lorne yeah. David howd you coach them to do a better job . Lorne it is a hybrid. You are on stage. There are people who are very good at that. The script is constantly changing at the last minute. It takes a level of focus and there is a point at which the it willes up and goes, all come together. David in anticipation of my getting a chance to do this, you invited me to come to one of the shows recently. I was surprised how small the theater actually is. That conductedo in bc workers at one point. They put this in between so that a subway noise were not affected. A lot of that changed when television came in because they thought sound would not matter. David i noticed you were drop you are Walking Around the set of it. I noticed you are staring at what is going on and you do not smile much when you are doing this. Do you ever think, this is not going as well as i thought . Do you say do Something Different in the show . Lorne there is some of that but mostly it is about time. Youre running a minute or two long. You just go and they understand. There are cases where you have a funny script. Suddenly it becomes very funny. Fridayyou were hers on and we do costume and makeup and you do dress or herself which is 100 people come in and see it. But if they thought disagree, they are right. Thought that were sure fire dont play. A lot of it is placement in the. How if it is a harder piece and you played early, it probably will not work. T is where you play things david you do not get people ,alling you from the network saying this is a political figure. Lorne the comcast people are brilliant. They do not want to do the show themselves. They have unwavering support. Youre not doing saturday night live, you are producing other television shows. You are producing latenight. The tonight show with seth meyers, the latenight show. Those, thell of brilliant and writer on snl and cast member he wanted to do a series. We did mean girls together as a movie. Rock. Ed up being 30 what i will do is i will be all over it at the beginning to make it is the best version of what it could be. Is going, i go back to my other job which is snl. Most of my focus was snl. With the tonight show with jimmy fallon and seth meyers on latenight, these are people i have worked with and that we and we have a show of hands and i have faith in them. And you see that process. It is sometimes so show so funny on your show you cannot stop laughing. You laugh so uproariously you cannot control. Lorne it is something i am proud of and also, comedy is a disruptive thing. They are taught went to applaud but not talked went to laugh. Went tod taught laugh. When you see the pairing of good writing and a brilliant performance, when they are locked in david when people are made famous by their show, did they ever call you up and say thank you . Or do they forget to do that . I have very strong feelings on both sides. When we did the 40th anniversary couple years ago, all the people who worked on the show hosted the show. , allpeople looked around the different generations of people who have done it, people realized it was important and recently, a couple weeks ago, adam sandler was hosting the show and he did a song. I did a lot of work with chris far away and adamant he were very close. What happened was during this tributes, he looked around the crew with the same crew. The people who designed with the same people and you felt people tearing up and you realized it is an important thing. Room, that stage, in that where everyone has been working ever david are there things you have not done yet . Lorne the show continues to morph. Election the audience followed it. 90s are times in the mid where they would not. David you are wearing a pin which is the order of canada . That is the highest energy can get is a canadian citizen . Lorne you can be elected prime minister. Youyou received that are a canadian and american citizen. You have also received the highest civilian honor our country can give. What was it like . My family was there. And whenthrilling year i got the call telling me i was to receive it, i was the middle in the middle of working out. I sort of took it in and went, oh. Me. They called there was a month where i knew it was going to be announced and i took it very seriously about not talking people about it. David when you are as prominent as you are and young people in their 20s who might be writers say this is funny, and you say no. Do they argue with you . Lorne if it is 3 00 in the morning and you see two writers , and now th stopped talking as i get closerm thinking, well we have done that eight or 10 times. I have i wrote it three times. It never worked. Say it wont work, he just doesnt get it. But they have to be able to write it. And hope springs internal that maybe this time it will work. Is no idea that somebody brilliant is not able to pull off so we are always hopeful. David today, as you look at the next stephen, are there things even, other things you would like to do with the show you have not done yet . Lorne the show continues to morph. , the audienceion could follow it. There are times were times in the mid 90s where one of the cast members knew who the Senate Majority leader is they would not go. Obviously postwatergate, politics is important. And in good times, it receives. If somebody says, i want to be like warren lorne michaels. What are the qualities this person should have . Hard work, good sense of humor, no house knows how to get along with people . I would not advise anybody on it. Leadership in this particular field is the ability to change her mind. Inwith a better idea comes from a firstyear rider writer, we will go with that. It is the hierarchy. People that the audience is dying to see in the cast could end up in one piece because the pieces that chosen got chosen. Everyone heard it play at readthrough. There is not a week where someone does not have it is not fun because we are running long and people got cut. Forward. Keep moving you try to create a culture where everyone feels they are worth it. Often i ask people, what does it take to be a leader . You are a leader in your area. To be a leader, what do you think and your observation of other people, the qualities you have seen that makes people effective leaders . Power, youou are in know you are in power. You do not have to explain your in power. You are in power. If you are in a room with talented people, you do not make suggestions. A everything you suggest has been covered by someone. About example. It is what you stand for and what your taste is and mostly it is about being right more often than not. And urging people forward because, in my case, people know that all that matters to me is whether the show was good or not. I will be ruthless in the search for that and that is what i see. If you have not caught up with it, i will not have time to explain but after a while you will see a pattern. We have 45 minutes to progress the narrative. Say,around the room, and what do you think . Lets put this here. Ultimately, the decision is technically mine but you can feel consensus. David thank you for letting us talk to you and not making fun of private equity. You dont make fun of private equity, which is a good thing. Thank you very much. Lorne thank you. Hey im bill slowsky jr. , i live on my own now ive got xfinity, because i like to live life in the fast lane. Unlike my parents. You rambling about xfinity again . Youre so cute when you get excited. Anyways. Ive got their app right here, i can troubleshoot. I can schedule a time for them to call me back, its great you have our number programmed in . Ya i dont even know your phone anymore. Excuse me . what . I dont know your phone number. Aw well. He doesnt know our phone number you have our fax number, obviously. Todays xfinity service. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Ill pass. In april this year, the danish beer maker put its reputation on the line when it launched an Advertising Campaign that admitted its beer in britain wasnt what it was supposed to be. It was an admission that could only come as the result of a profound change in the culture of the Company Brought about by this man. Cees t hart, a dutchman with a reputation. I started to talk with many people. Everybody more or less said the same