Ovitz Of Silicon Valley

In a new piece in Fortune, David A. Kaplan writes Ovitz has emerged as a guru and in-house mentor at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where he rubs elbows with everyone from Marc Andreessen to Skype President Tony Bates, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and others.

“Ovitz coaches them on culture and storytelling. He picks them up when they have bouts of doubt, sometimes inviting them to visit the curated mega-million-dollar collection of contemporary art on display in his 28,000-square-foot home in Beverly Hills,” the article says, adding “the nerds – typically a skeptical, evidence-driven bunch – have been uncharacteristically enchanted by their new ally from the Southland.”

And Ovitz’s past life as “the most powerful man in Hollywood,” who “ruled the town with a gap-toothed smile that belied a taste for blood” is apparently of no concern; One Ovitz protégé, the 31-year-old founder of a startup called Wish, told Kaplan “I haven’t seen the type of things people warned me about.”