Parenting & Family Quote by David Geffen

Geffen doesn’t reach for a tycoon’s usual self-mythology (the visionary, the disruptor). He reaches for Billy the Kid: young, lethal, myth-sized, and permanently framed by speed. “Fastest draw” is boardroom swagger translated into Western shorthand, where power isn’t negotiated; it’s decided in the half-second before the other guy understands what’s happening. It’s a line that wants to end the argument before it starts.

The neat trick is the pivot: “It’s not arrogance. It’s the truth.” That’s not humility; it’s a preemptive strike against the one criticism that sticks to moguls. By naming arrogance first, he tries to disarm it. The subtext is transactional: I’m not bragging, I’m warning you. In Hollywood and music, where Geffen made his name, reputations are currency and speed is dominance - moving faster on deals, sensing shifts earlier, cutting sharper. “Truth” here doesn’t mean objective fact so much as industry consensus: people already believe I win; I’m just saying it out loud.

There’s also a little self-aware theater. A businessman adopting an outlaw persona hints at how entertainment capitalism works: legitimacy is less important than narrative. Billy the Kid is both hero and villain, and Geffen implicitly claims the right to be either, as long as the outcome is control. The line functions like a brand slogan for a certain kind of American success: aggressive, mythic, and allergic to apology.