Inside the Long Play, Where CEOs Mingled and Debates Were in the Air

The New York venue was bustling with executives, some of whom governed companies with thousands of employees.

I met my first one within seconds of walking in.

On Thursday, I attended Business Insider’s The Long Play event at Perelman Performing Arts Center. (Full disclosure: Business Insider is my employer, and you’re probably reading this on its website.) I entered the event with a mission: to chat, network, and maybe learn a thing or two about my own career.

Mingling among the crowd, I chatted with the founders of AI startups and communications chiefs. They debated remote work, asked about management styles, and discussed working together. “I’ve got to work on my elevator pitch,” one CEO told me.

I sat down for lunch with some attendees to discuss a question: Is workplace loyalty dead? Most said no, or that it was more complicated. One brave soul, the content creator Colin Rocker, said yes.

“I still think it’s dead,” he told me after the lunch chat. “But, I will say, I got more context that it’s not necessarily working across the org chart.”

He added: “That hurts managers, too.”

Others at our table traded mentorship techniques and thoughts on leading an office. Nitzan Shapira said that, while working at Intel and Cisco, meetings were crucial. He has more flexibility while leading his AI startup, Harmony. “I’m kind of allergic to meetings,” he said.

Munching on my plate of salmon, salad, and a caprese sandwich, I continued to chat with the crowd. Then came the dimming of the lights and the voice on the loudspeaker. The interviews were about to begin.

A who’s who of the audience

You can tell a lot about the crowd from when people raise their hand — and when they don’t.

I learned, for example, that much of the crowd had played “Grand Theft Auto.” What better way to blow off some steam after a career-building conference than with some virtual vice? The attendees didn’t consider themselves avid gamers, though; only a few hands shot up when Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick asked.

There were also a handful of investors in the crowd. Supermodel Ashley Graham asked for a show of hands, and I spotted three. During one of the breaks between talks, I talked shop with yet another venture capitalist.

As for GLP-1s, the crowd was less eager. Senior correspondent Melia Robinson asked while interviewing Ro CEO Zach Reitano, and she got only a few raised hands. (I bet, if we swapped the public hand-raising for a blind survey, that number would go up.)

The attendees around me were rapt. My seatmate, who worked for an AI startup, took notes with pen and paper. I saw some others jotting down learnings in the Notes app on their phones.

WeWork CEO John Santora described upping the once-freewheeling company’s dress code. When he got there, Santora spotted pajamas and shorts; he now spots some salespeople in sport coats.

It prompted me to look around and check out what the audience was wearing. There were lots of blazers, button-ups, and slacks. A handful went more casual with their denim jackets and colorful blouses.

There were belly laughs, like when my talented colleague Sarah Needleman flubbed “how do you define success” with “how do you define sex” while interviewing Zelnick. He chuckled; the crowd joined in, and it bonded the audience.

And there were sobering moments, like when Noa Argamani described her drive to fund Israeli startups after spending 246 days in Hamas captivity.

The list goes on: There were chats with media mogul Barry Diller, banking entrepreneur Cristina Junqueira, and Nadia Carlsten, the CEO of the sneaker-company-turned-AI-infrastructure-provider Smartbird.

The event was really about meeting other people, though, and being inspired. I endlessly looped around the room, talking to C-suiters at startups and public relations agents. You could always hear the hum of new connections coming from the back of the room.

It ended with glasses of wine and hors d’oeuvres. After biting into a surprisingly delicious slider — Graham talked about pairing her wine with Korean barbecue and lasagna, and it made me hungry! — I had officially reached my schmoozing limit.

I ended the day with a full heart and a handful of new phone numbers. If you gave me yours, expect a text soon with plans to get coffee.