max s. gerber(the latest shot)

i don’t meet many CEOs who share my encyclopedic knowledge of 80s movies. if fact, with just a few rare exceptions this encyclopedic knowledge has mostly been met with derision from my friends. it’s not really my fault that i memorized the entirety of legend, it just seemed to be on TV every fifteen minutes and the whole dungeons and dragons element didn’t hurt. tim curry as a minotaur? mia sara? ridley scott? sign me up! tom cruise? well, i’m willing to overlook some things.

my parents were in show business. they had a TV in every room, including their bathroom. every TV was always on. they slept with the TV on. if i went in and turned it off in the middle of the night they’d wake up, turn it back on and go back to sleep. my dad claimed he couldn’t sleep unless something he wanted to watch was on. the point is, i saw every 80s movie many, many times over. can’t buy me love? just one of the guys? the flamingo kid? coming to america? doctor detroit? gotcha!? howard the duck? once bitten? check. all of ‘em. my father actually took my brother and i out of school to see the very first show of indiana jones and the temple of doom. when my mom took me to a special industry-only screening of superman II, i burst into tears in the theater when superman lost his powers. my very first date ever was with lani miller and my sister drove us into westwood to see ferris bueller’s day off. (lani, you were adorable and i was scared to death. thanks for going to the movie with me.)

my point is that wade bradley is a CEO. a real CEO. he wears ties, and nice suits and commands power and respect and wealth. he can say “Yes” and actually make things happen as a result. and he knows all this crap, too. that means somewhere in the world an important CEO has filled up some part of his brain with the same useless trivia that i have, and actually is happy about it, too. wade spent time as a venture capitalist and eventually started a company called indievest, to make independent movies.

so all i lack is that venture capital background, nicer suits and ties, any sort of business sense at all and credibility. oh, and any desire to make movies.