Why the Former Sony Head Blames Himself for the Infamous Hack

Now nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

“The Hollywood Reporter Hales, Zootopia 2, knocks it out of the park with this dazzling”

visuals, sophisticated humor, and genuine emotion for your consideration for Best Animated Feature. Friday, February 20th, most books written by Hollywood people are all about success. Iconic movies, the career path to becoming the biggest star in the world, there's a new book out by a Hollywood person and it's all about mistakes and failure.

And it's most surprising because it's co-written by a guy who made it all the way to the top of the business. Michael Linton was chairman in CEO of Sony Pictures from 2004 to 2017, a very successful run that also included the devastating Sony hack of 2014, an act of international cyberterrorism that Linton is now blaming on himself in a new book with Joshua Steiner called from

mistakes to meaning owning your path so it doesn't own you.

Linton opens up for the first time about the hack and what he says was his grave error

“in green lighting the interview, which if you don't remember was the Seth Rogan movie about”

two guys sent to kill Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, to silly comedy, but the movie indeed ended with the assassination, a fact that the North Koreans did not love. And the US government concluded they decided to hack and cripple Sony's computer systems in retaliation, leaving to the release of hundreds of thousands of personal documents and emails.

Linton says his error was getting swept up in the emotion and hanging out with movie stars, quote, "I had grown tired of playing the responsible adult of watching the party from the outside." He writes, "There is a long history of stars charming and exact into making their movies, of course, but Linton wasn't that guy, or at least he thought he wasn't until the interview.

And he's talking about it today on the town for the first time.

Today it's Michael Linton and learning from mistakes and failures in Hollywood. I'm the ringer and puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is the town." All right, we are here with Michael Linton, who is the chairman of Snap, the former chairman of CEO of Sony Pictures, and the author of a new book that is called "From Mistakes to Meaning." Owning your past, so it doesn't own you.

Welcome Michael. Thank you for having me Matt, nice to see you, too. So it's been a while, you and I both went through the Sony hack on very different sides of the equation. Yeah, you were experiencing it firsthand, and I was covering it and sort of in daily astonishment

of what was going on, very rare that you see a Hollywood person write a book explicitly about their failure or a time in their life that did not live up to expectations. Why in the world did you do this? The book in its entirety is about mistakes, and we interviewed, it goes back to a time I wrote it with Josh Steiner, my partner in this, good friend, and he, about a few years back, said

to me, we were going for a walk, you know, there are all these books about failures that

“are sort of humble brag books, but what I think is really interesting is mistakes.”

Everybody makes mistakes, not everybody has the opportunity, have a big failure. Do you want to do this? I've been, you know, this thing, the hack, and it's what came afterwards had been rambling around in my head for years, and I had not been wanting to deal with it. I had not been wanting to really think about it, and I felt like this was a really good opportunity

to bring it to the fore, and it wound up to be a great experience. Interesting.

You find it cathartic almost to sort of put this out there, because you've never really talked

about this before kind of right now, I mean, you wrote the book, but this is the first time you're really talking about the experience as you lived through it. Absolutely. So yeah, there were a few times that I spoke with the press during that time, and you and I probably spoke then too, but the minute it was possible to put this in my rear view mirror,

I did exactly that, and I never spoke about it. The point to the book and why I did this is by never dealing with it, never really understanding why I made the mistake, and obviously being embarrassed and ashamed of what had happened there, it really was not a healthy thing, and by exposing myself to what actually happened and really trying to get to the bottom of it through this interview process that the book

takes place, it was incredibly helpful to me. So let's get into this and what you call your terrible mistake of green lighting the interview. You say that you made that decision, quoting your words, on the fly outside my normal process.

We all know the movie that as it came out, Seth Rogan, James Franco, Randall Park. But what you reveal in this book is that there was a lot of debate at the time about whether to make this movie, even after you green lit it, so take us through the process and the table read and everything. So what happened was we had made a lot of movies with Seth Rogan, had real success with

him in the R-rated comedies, so at Universal, so he had two places to go, he was in an act

of relationship with both, he presented Amy Pascal with the movie first.

She was co-writing the studio with you, and running the studio part, you were her boss as the CEO, right, and she really wanted to make the movie because everything up until that point had been successful, there was something at the back of my mind at the time that I was a little bit nervous about it, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and so we both decided to get me comfortable with the whole thing we would have a table read.

Now because we were in a competitive situation, we had to make the decision very quickly. I walked into a room filled with actors and executives, I was the only guy there in a suit, which was typically my role at the guy sitting there in the dark suit, and the whole thing started and it was hilarious, everybody was laughing, and when it was over, people were high-fiving and

saying let's do this, and for the first time at that point I've been in the job for about 11

years, 10 years, we had a very strict process in place as to how we greenlit this thing it just went out the window, and I said let's do this, and you know I now I understand perhaps why I made that move, but it was very much out of the norm for me. And for the studio, you write in the book that for a moment I wanted to hang as an equal with the actors. I had grown tired of playing the responsible adult of watching the party from the outside while I played risk. Correct. I mean that's

“a pretty nice summary of what it means to be a studio head. You have to be the adult in the room,”

and what you're saying here is that for the first time in the job, the talent worked on you, they worked the room, and you fell for it. I think it was a combination. I think it was absolutely what you say, and it was also in the job long enough that I got grown a little bit weary of constantly being Dr. No, Mr. No, because that was the job and effect and trying to make sure that it was the you know the responsible thing to do to make a movie and you're right at all

went out the window in a moment. From programs perspective and from the filmmakers perspective, you were you were backing them. That they had made you a lot of money. They had great creative and comedic instincts. They wanted to do this, and you are you know you work at an American studio. You should be able to satirize the leader of a you know a fascist regime and not worry about your entire company being attacked. That would be the argument there, but you're

saying that you did have those reservations. You know they were a little bit in the back of my mind. I can't say they were at the forefront, because I wasn't you know North Korea and that moment

“was in a very different place than the American public's eye than it is today. Primarily I think”

because Kim Jong-un was new in the job as his father had died a couple of years prior. But no, there was something you know needleing me in the back, but in that moment it just you know, I responded. But then you say that within a week I had come to my senses and recognized that this time the writers had gone too far with the subject matter. You then ask them to take out the assassination and tone it down and Rogan according to you called you a coward and you relented.

Yes, we exactly right. Everyone's playing their role here. Everyone's doing their thing. It's totally fair when you're describing I wrote it. It's exactly what happened. Andy and I had a lot of conversations about it at the time. I got I got queezy about the whole thing. We did go to him and say listen, would you take that part of it out? He said no, that's the whole point. We don't have that. I'm not interested in making the movie. We agreed to make the movie,

you know, so we stood by our word. And in his defense, it's not as funny if it's not Kim Jong-un.

“I mean you got to remember that. For sure not. I shouldn't have to send a missile and you know,”

do what we did at the end of that picture. It's funny that you are so open about this because

you this has never been revealed during the entirety of the hack. No, it was always that we made

the movie we wanted to make and then we were attacked in an act of cyber terrorism. But you're now saying that for the first time that we actually tried to pull it back and rain it in and the

We tried to rain it in at the beginning and then once the picture was shot and we put the trail

around and the North Koreans started threatening us. We tried it again. And I'm both occasions the filmmakers stood by, you know, stood by the movie and we stood by the filmmakers. But it's interesting to hear you now say that you you call that a big mistake. I mean a lot of studio heads would say I would do that again. I would back my filmmaker again. But you're not saying

“that. No, because I think in retrospect, you got to remember I was working for a Japanese company”

which has their own specific relationship with North Korea, not a good one I should add. It was probably not the responsible thing to do. So in retrospect, what we probably should have done is past and, you know, maybe universal would have said yes. A very different hack. We'd be talking about Comcast emails. We would have been talking about Com. But I will say once we did say yes,

we stood by those guys and we stood by them all the way through the process. You did ultimately get

the movie released. Some theaters showed it and you put it out via Google and Stripe. I remember this very well over the holidays. He's trying to watch it on streaming platforms and trying to figure out how to how to watch the movie. Can you believe that in a year ago there wasn't streaming platforms or not the way we know them now? Yes, exactly. I know. It wasn't a way to get it out. Now it would be on YouTube in like two days. Yeah, absolutely. We're in the picture.

Well, then you could have done that at the time. But obviously there wasn't the mechanisms to set up payment and all the other things. No, none of it. It's funny because you, you, obviously you have a lot of animosity towards some of the journalists that were covering this at

“the time. I remember you and I having some conversations about that and what we were covering and we”

were at Hollywood Reporter, we were pretty tame in terms of what we were covering in the stolen emails. Some outlets were going really, really far and publishing very private things about the people and we've sort of focused on the business stuff. But you say in the book that you are, you still have some animosity towards a lot of those journalists and you have animosity towards broken still where you, you don't think he was apologetic enough for the support that you showed

him. Well, no. So let me qualify both. So on the journalism, I do 100% right. These were stolen emails and there was a lot of dumpster diving going on. And to your point, you're right, the Hollywood Reporter did report on this with restraint and they talked about the business side of things. A lot of other outlets did not and they went deeply into personal matters of different people at the studio and I was really disappointed in that in the journalists. On Seth, my disappointment

was not that he wasn't apologetic enough but that he never acknowledged the fact that all of these

folks at Sony had, you know, they were, they were made incredibly uncomfortable. A lot of their personal information was revealed. They had a really tough time of it and I would have, I would have hoped that he would have thanked them at a varying minimum. You know, in some way, shape or form, but he didn't. He showed us not to. Yeah. He was also caught up in all of this. I'm sure he had other. Yeah, pretty traumatic. I imagine. Absolutely. And he and I never spoke about it afterwards.

So I'm sure he's got his side of things as well. Well, he's done interviews in the past where he said that he's not even sure it was the North Koreans. He said a couple of years ago. I mean, are you 100% positive? It was them. You know, when the NSA and the federal government tells

“me, it's the North Koreans, I don't have a better source than that. So yes, I think you know,”

yes, I would argue it's 100% the North Koreans. I understand, because joyer betrothed it in a very successful life. Ah, by the kind of partner, you can't make mistakes. Stim? Nice. I don't feel like I'm standing there. Stoyer, you know, he did?

Safe. With what kind of joyer is that? Now, let's get into this psychological thing that happened to you right about how you were swayed by the talent in Rogan and Franco or light in a joint and having a great table read and everybody's getting caught up in the moment. Isn't that kind of the history of Hollywood that the, you know, the agencies, I know,

try to set up these situations where the talent can prove to the suits your term, that this is a project they should get involved in. You know, the history of Sundance is getting the right crowd into that premiere screening. So the executives feel like there's momentum and juice in the room.

later say, oh, maybe that wasn't as as smart of a decision as I should have made?

“You're a 100% right that that is sort of the, the the modus operandate for a lot of folks.”

And you're right that talent can be incredibly seductive. The reason most studios in fact all studios I would think certainly Sony at the time had a whole end today has a whole process in place to prevent that from happening in part of some of that reason, right? You want to get out of that room? You want to get back. I was Amy's job. Yes, and you want to get back in the room with some sober thinking people who have

you know, a couple of financial statements in front of them and some other people there who so you can make a rational decision. But the, with the book tries to do because it's talking about the stakes and why people make mistakes is what is the emotion that's coming to the four in those moments and where is it coming from? And it turns out it comes from a place

“in most instances way in your past where, you know, you've form a certain way of seeing the”

world and that gets triggered in that moment. So what about your past led you to that moment that caused you to want to hang with the cool kids and green light the assassination movie. So what I write in the book is at a very young age I was moved from the United States to Holland where I didn't speak the language where I was sort of thrown into the middle of things my sister and I and I was extremely lonely for a long period and it sort of engendered in me a desire to be

part of a crowd, you know, part of the cool kids so to speak because I was sitting by myself a lot of

the time and I never really lost that and in that moment it sort of came it rose up

and got me motivated to make that decision. I certainly didn't realize it at the time. It's funny because the character that Seth Rogan plays on the studio is kind of similar to what Michael is describing. He was going through at Sony trying to fit in with the cool actors. That is the character that Seth is playing on the studio a little bit. That is funny. I've only watched an episode and a half of that show but you're right that the

little bit I saw of it. He definitely plays that role. Yeah and it's actually kind of a running joke in an episode about the talent charming him and trying to get things out of him, you know, Greta Lee is trying to get the private plane to a premiere and someone else is trying to get the movie green lead. It's like everybody, you know, as a studio head, everybody wants things out of you and they're going to use whatever charms they have to try to get it. It seems like that's kind of

“part of the job 100% and you know that's why you wind up saying no most of the time. And why you”

don't go to the table read and why you do not go to the table read. If it weren't set up like this

in a competitive situation where we had to make a decision in the moment, I never would have been

in that room ever. I never went to table reads and it wasn't a financial decision. I'm sure the interview looked great on paper. I mean the movie was this other thing that was hovering over it that that ended up becoming the problem. Exactly. Exactly. No, from a financial standpoint, given sets track record and given what that movie cost, it was an easy decision frankly. You describe in the book how you define mistakes differently from failures. Yeah. Can you explain that for us?

Mistakes and this is an interesting one to look at. Failures are when people come together and in a very methodical way come to a decision that has ambition, like something should big should happen and then for whatever reason it doesn't work. Mistakes are when a single individual and in this case despite the fact that there were a lot of people in that room, I was the person. I was the only person who was holding out for a decision. When one individual who's pretty

emotionally charged makes the decision in the moment and bad things happen as a result and that's exactly what happened here. And everybody, everybody makes mistakes and we make them all day long. It turns out not that many people actually have the opportunity to make have failures. You would describe the Sony hack and what led to it as a mistake or failure. I would describe it as my mistake. My mistake that I made in that moment. Yeah. And nothing bad that.

I do not want to see some. By the way, the emails are still online. You could still go and search those emails. How is that possible? Well, I mean in the middle of all this, we forget the cast of characters. You probably don't because you were around then, Julian has joined us on, you know, he was holding up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and he decided that he would wiki all of my emails to demonstrate to the world what a US executives correspondence looked like

and that's how to guy, you know, what a guy. What a guy. Thank you. Do you still have a little bit

mayor of LA wasn't in your corner, the MPA that you paid $20 million a year in dues to didn't do anything

for you guys. The president Obama was kind of through you under the bus of that press conference. That was kind of that was famously covered and you write about there was not a lot of voices in your corner. No. Well, in fairness to President Obama, he was caught in the moment as I describe in the piece and he subsequently called me and apologized for it. So I don't let him. But you're right, you know, I and I write this in the book in a previous life. I'd been in publishing and I got into Penguin

books a few years after the satanic verses were published and they are the whole publishing community came around Penguin and the bookstore owners were supportive. In this case, nobody, you know, not nobody from the studio world, nobody as you point out the MPA wasn't there. There was only one

“voice that was public on the subject and that was George Clooney. And he would, I remember that.”

Incredibly good. He was courageous. He came forward. He spoke his mind and I'm very indebted to him. Why didn't anyone else were they afraid? They were. They were. I mean, by way of example, so if you think about it for satanic verses, every book store in America carried that book. When I went around when the theater owners finally said, they wouldn't carry it. I started calling Facebook Netflix. You name it because there were places to get it out. Everybody was worried they

would get hacked. Same with the studios. When I started asking around like, why aren't you guys coming forward and helping out? Same thing. Everybody was worried about getting hacked. So they, you know, that the North Koreans might turn on them. So there wasn't anybody out there supporting us. It was really disappointing. You fear that they're still out there and you're now talking about this again. No, I don't worry about that. Not lately. I have no plans. I imagine that you put a lot less

than email these days. I never put that much in the first place, but I certainly don't put them like

there now. That's for certain. Yeah. That's for certain. All right. So I want to talk a little bit about the state of the business since I've got you on the show. And it almost feels like you got out at the exact right time in 2017. Does the Hollywood that is going through what it's going through

“right now? Does it bear any resemblance to the Hollywood that you left in 2017 in your mind?”

Yeah. No. I mean, a lot of the same people are there and a lot of the same companies are there for sure. But overall, it's radically different. You know, it's as you know, the the streamers have upended everything at this point. And you combine that with where the state of affairs is as far as Los Angeles concerned. And it's pretty unrecognizable to me when I go back to LA, which I just did in

the fall for a period because we sold our house there. Finally, I was I was really surprised by how

the city has been affected. I really was. How so? I mean, just the just the lack of activity. Yeah, there's nothing to do on. I think the city is in danger of becoming the sunny version of Detroit. Yeah. I was slightly surprised just because of the the flight of production and of the downturn in content production and all of it. Exactly. You know, I went to a couple of studios because I had time on my hands to for lunch. People asked me over that there was nothing being shot.

There was it was like going into one of those not that I did it at the time, but going around a factory, I can imagine in Michigan and the in the in the in the eighties, you know, it was it's it's

“was really something. What would you do about that? What would I do about it? I mean, I think I”

would not to put you on the spot and ask you to solve it on a massive problem. I don't know enough at this point to understand what economics would bring movies back, but I do need. I do think at this point we need the industry needs some real incentives that are based in Los Angeles for to return production there. Interesting. You know, Sony went after Paramount when that was for sale. The Ellison's got it. All that now the Ellison's are going after Warner Brothers as his Netflix,

which has a deal. What's your perspective on that situation and how it might play out? I agree. I you know what? I know enough from having been in some of those rooms because, you know, it was part of that consortium that bought MGM to know that if you're not in the room, you really don't know what's going on. I know what you know Matt, which is I'm you know, I'm reading it in the papers that appears right now that Paramount has an opening, but I have no idea where that comes out.

I'm sure people have a better understanding of it than I do. It's just it's an interesting perch from Snap looking at this, you know, hundred-year-old film and television business and where it is right now compared to where the digital players are right now. It is. Is it more exciting than your old job? Is it what more exciting? Is being part of a digital player like Snap with a growth trajectory? No, I don't know.

Looking at the next 50 years of content versus a film and television studio that maybe has seen its best days behind it? No, no, both were really fun and both are really

is if you think about it, you mentioned a hundred years. Those six or seven players that were there or six players, they were pretty much there until about 15 years ago, 10 years ago, without anything happening to me, it's if you look at it, it's probably the most stable industry in the history of

American business. The same folks have been around for a hundred years and finally now it's shifting

through consolidation and everything else, different owners. And the internet and the internet and the internet, absolutely, that changed at all. All right, so back to your book for my final question, what do you want people to take away from this? If people in the industry are looking at your experience and what you wrote in your book, what should what's the lesson from making mistakes and how you have dealt with them in your life? Well, I mean, I'm not sure I would deal with them

in the way I used to deal with them. Let's focus on maybe how I'm dealing with them in this instance. You know, okay, since that piece that just came out, there's an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal, I've gotten a bunch of people who still remember me reaching out from Los Angeles and saying, wow, you're really honest, but I made mistakes like that too. I'm not sure that I would be that honest. And as I mentioned earlier in the conversation, it's been really helpful to me.

The point to the book is exactly the point to the book is really to not avert your eyes, to really try and understand what it is that caused you to make the mistake in the first place and then equally to try and deal with in an honest way the ramifications of the mistake,

“not to sort of bury it and stick it in a drawer. And I think, you know, we all make mistakes.”

I dare say in Hollywood, we make a lot of mistakes all the time because you're making decisions on your own and a lot of those things are filled with emotion. I think the town would benefit from reading the book and dealing with them with mistakes differently. I know I did.

Well, the other lesson is stay away from charming and charismatic movie stars. That is always true.

That is always true. That's a true statement. All right. Well, Michael, thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. I'll talk to you soon. We were back with the call sheet Craig. Have you been to any of these Timothy, Chalamet, career retrospective events that are going on in LA? No, but I did see that he was at my local pizza shop recently. So he was. I just mentioned strategically dining out in Brentwood to

reach the Oscar voters that are deciding on his fate right now. No. Is he the youngest actor ever to do a career retrospective? I mean, it's ridiculous. The fact that they're doing this, but if you know the Oscar race at how it works, very difficult for a young actor to win best actor, the Academy loves to vote young actresses for best actress, but it's very difficult. He would be the

“youngest winner. And I think, you know, 30 something years to win. And so I believe the second”

youngest ever, I believe, behind Adrian Brody. Yes. So what does this campaign doing? They're like, oh, we're going to show everybody that he does have a body of work, that he has worked with

amazing filmmakers. He might be 30, but he's got Chris Nolan. He worked on Interstellar. He's got

Deniseville knew what the dude movies. He's got look at Guadalino with call me by your name. I mean, he's got these filmmakers. He's got Greg Irwin, twice. Greg Irwin, amazing. They're doing this, and it's an extremely smart campaign move. Leo has, you know, the body of work and the history with the Academy. And that was their weakness. And now they are showing the Academy that it's okay to vote for Timmy because he has put in his dues. And this is causing me to change my tied on this.

I am going to now switch, but I was very much in the Leo camp, despite the odds, despite the momentum for Timmy, I thought that Leo would win the sag and that Leo would win the baffet and ultimately win the Oscar. I'm changing that. I'm going, the Timmy campaign has been too good. I'm changing my vote to show him it. I mean, he's a heavy favorite now. If you look at all the gambling odds, he's basically a four to one favorite. So not exactly a hot take, but maybe those odds are

“going to get even worse. So you should get your money in now. I'm not saying that I'm going”

out in the limb here. But I was officially telling people that I thought Leo would be an upset one. And now you're no longer doing that. I think it's helped, Timmy. This is his third best actor nomination. And I think it helped that he had another one last year. Because it almost feels like, you know, like, it's a little more earned, like, it's not out of the blue, that he just had one, that he did win four. And in people thought he had a chance. And so now that this is happening again,

I do think there's a little bit of it's easy to come around to the fact that he deserves it this time because he just lost last year. Yeah. And this, these are all about endorsements when you try to out a Chris Nolan or a Denieville knew this is a mark of acceptance that this guy is one of us and we are putting our stamp of approval on him and on you for voting for him. And there's a lot of people. Why isn't Leo doing this? He, I mean, he has done stuff. He's popped up at

to show up and be like, yeah, I love working with Leo. I mean, sure, it would help. But he doesn't

“do, and also Leo's already one in Oscar. So he's going to do what he needs to do to like help the”

film when best picture. But if he doesn't win, like, okay, whatever, Timmy. So you think it's almost

a sign of Leo growing up. It's a sign of maturity that he is not thirsting for the Oscar. I do.

“It makes me kind of want him to win a little bit more, but he doesn't need this. And I'm not saying”

he's not doing anything. He's doing a lot for him, actually. Yeah. The fact that he's showing up

these events and he's done some press and he's done screenings with different people. But you don't see, I mean, he went to Santa Barbara and did that whole rigor moral there. Timmy is

“really working it. And I think people respond to that kind of enthusiasm. You need to tell”

these voters that you want to win for them to feel like they should endorse you. And he's doing it. And I think it's going to work. All right, that's the show for today. I want to think by guess Michael Linton, producer Craig Horaback, Arthur is Jesse Lopez and John Jones. And I want to thank you. We'll see you next week.