Unlearning Hollywood: How a Creator Economy Entrepreneur Turned Management Into Infrastructure
“Most of the time when we hire people from film school, there’s more they need to unlearn than to learn.”
That’s how creator economy entrepreneur Zack Honarvar opened my Columbia class this fall.
It’s a line that captures the tension perfectly. Legacy systems teach specialization—writer, DP, editor, producer, creative executive. Business affairs.
The creator economy demands versatility.
There is no “that’s not my job.” Everyone wears every hat, because the audience doesn’t wait for your department head to sign off.
In Zack’s world, creators don’t just make things. They run them.
When I started shifting some of my focus from legacy media to the creator economy, I expected to find chaos—no rules, no structure, no road maps. I connected to a small group of people to be my Sherpas—builders who had carved out their careers in a world without the walls of Hollywood. They had built systems where none existed, thriving without permission or precedent.
Their mindset was so different from mine.
Where I…
