It's Jeffrey Katzenberg's Future

His career as a studio mogul just ended with the sale of DreamWorks Animation. But Katzenberg has shaped some of the most important changes in the movie industry over the past two decades— and he’s not done yet.

- Michal Lev-Ram

THE DAY AFTER selling his company to Comcast for $3.8 billion, Jeffrey Katzenberg is doing what he’s always done—presiding over back-to-back breakfast meetings.

In Hollywood circles, the former CEO and cofounder of DreamWorks Animation—and the “K” in its original parent company, DreamWorks SKG—is known for his multiple morning mealtime tête-àtêtes. Today’s appointments are being held in a back booth at a trendy pizzeria in Los Angeles’s up-oncoming Fairfax neighborhood. It’s one of those spots that are cool precisely because they don’t look that cool, with its nondescript, neon-green sign and wood-paneled, sauna-like walls. (For even more hipster appeal, it’s located next to an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.)

Katzenberg fits right in by looking inconspicuous, in a blue-and-white striped button down and slacks. Rimless glasses frame his greenish eyes. Sure, he’s 65, but whatever Hollywood-concocted cleanse he’s been on for the past few decades, it appears to be working. Katzenberg has the energy and drive of a man at the start of his career, not the temperament of someone already eligible for senior-citizen discounts. He is direct, efficient. Take a short pause while asking him a question, and you sense his mind wandering, as though there were a million things he could have accomplished in that split second of wasted time.