Joshua Topolsky: Ari Emanuel, this is where I work

At this week’s All Things D conference — D10, which marked a decade of these retreats — Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher were gracious enough to invite Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel on stage to talk about the changing entertainment market as it relates to technology. Ari is a Hollywood agent who is an incredibly powerful player in film, TV, and increasingly even web content — he’s the kind of guy who can say things like “you’ll never work in this town again” and actually make it happen. Now you probably haven’t seen much of the real Ari, but you’re likely familiar with the character of Ari Gold (played by Jeremy Piven) from HBO’s bro-fest, Entourage. That Ari is a raging, expletive-spewing egomaniac whom I always thought was a broad exaggeration of the real thing. On Wednesday night, I learned that was not the case.