Kevin Reilly (pictured in 2018) has gone on to become the CEO at a startup specializing in AI, which he says Hollywood needs to climb aboard. Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Turner Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Kevin Reilly spent more than three decades overseeing the television fixtures that defined our culture, from Glee to Samantha Bee, Hacks to The Office. So when he says a shift is happening, it's worth paying attention. On Wednesday the former NBC and Fox executive, 63, announced that he's stepping back onto the Hollywood stage after five years away - only instead of returning to a big media company he's joining Kartel, a little-known AI startup out of Beverly Hills, as its CEO. Related Stories Business Disney+ to Allow User-Generated Content Via AI TV How to Watch 'The Graham Norton Show' Online Without Cable for Free Kartel is not developing programming - Reilly is leaving that behind - and it's also not developing models; that's for the tech-heavy companies like Runway and Luma AI. Instead it's serving as a kind of intermediary between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, helping the latter zoom forward with machine-based video-generation - or hastening the demise of physical production, if you're the more cynical sort. As president of entertainment at NBC Reilly helped lobby for 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and America's Got Talent; he would take the same role at Fox, where Brooklyn Nine-Nine was among his passion projects. He then spent nearly seven years Turner, culminating in a role that saw him launch HBO Max. So facilitating companies' transition to producing scenes with AI might be...unexpected. But if Reilly's move is surprising, it is also of the moment, when everyone from junior assistants to veteran presidents wonder what will become of an industry beset by technological change, unsure whether to fight or lean in (or jump ship like he just did). Reilly's move almost serves as an HR-flavored metaphor for an industry as it pivots to the unknown. We asked Reilly how he was thinking about it - what motivated his move and why he believed many of his former colleagues were endangering their livelihoods by fighting AI. The conversation was edited for brevity and clarity. First, I think a lot of readers want to know: how have you been spending your time? Outside of an advisory board or two, we haven't really heard from you since you ended up on the wrong side of that AT&T-Warner shakeup in 2020. It's been one of the best chapters of my life. Those big jobs are great but they're 24/7, particularly with the winds blowing in the marketplace, the consolidation and corporate upheaval. I never had command over my own schedule. To be able to wake up and say "how am I going to spend my time, to get remarried, to open up my life" - it's all been great. Kind of "so this is how people live." Not "what have you done for me lately." I was there for the last of the good days of Time Warner [beginning in 2014] but then it was really a hang-on-for dear-life situation with new management every other year. It was brutal. Have you been trying to get back to a Hollywood executive suite? Back in the old days you got a big fat deal and an office on the lot and a big development fund. And of course that's not available anymore. So what do you do? I'll be honest. There were days I thought I'd shot myself in the foot. I never said retirement; I was constantly trying to press on the next big thing. And at certain points things went pretty quiet and I thought "have I done this? Have I taken myself out of the game?" It soon became clear I was not going to go back to the executive suite. And as much as in my life I learned to trust the universe to lead me to where I'm meant to be, there were days when I said "OK universe, now would be good." That must have been bracing. I mean, I know people don't tend to cry over out-of-work executives with rich compensation packages, but any of us can relate to feeling marginalized. It was like that. A lot of people who are successful in whatever they do are used to bending the universe to their will, and then to see that the universe has its own plan - that was hard. There were times I was sure that in a couple of weeks I'd be back to work and for whatever reason it didn't happen - it blew up over financing or went sideways at the eleventh hour. And I'd have to say "OK, next year I guess I'm going to be doing something different than I thought." But then a funny thing happened. As the industry went into more of a defensive mode it started to become less of feeling sorry for myself and more "how do I find the next wave, how do I feel what I felt earlier in my career where I was really doing something of significance culturally?" I didn't think I had the skill set to, you know, build foundational models