Page 114 - How To Get Rich

a concert at the Taj Majal in Atlantic City and introduced him to Neil
backstage. Then we went to Naomi Campbell’s party in New York City.
I always made a point of mentioningSurvivor when I introduced Mark
to people, but later I realized I was getting some confused looks when I

did it, particularly from a Chinese poker winner we met at the Taj Majal. It
took me a moment to figure out thatSurvivor probably isn’t on TV in
China. The poker winner thought Mark was a cancer survivor and didn’t
know what to say.
When the crew of the show first appeared at Trump Tower, they
created a bit of a buzz. Our ordinary routine was altered by just their
presence. It was unusual to see all of those cameras. But within a couple of

weeks, it became part of the routine. Jay Bienstock and Kevin Harris, two
of Mark Burnett’s producers, became fixtures of our organization. Then
NBC executive Jim Dowd became a regular. If anything, it was when they
weren’t around that it seemed like something was amiss. They were never
an imposition, and we even missed them when taping was over.
Unlike a scripted movie or TV show,The Apprentice that you have seen

on NBC is pretty much the way it was behind the scenes. That’s the idea—
behind the scenes is in front of your eyes. Right away, I can hear you
saying, But we heard the boardroom was a set, and not your boardroom at
all. That’s true, but the only reason we built another boardroom was
because my own boardroom at The Trump Organization is in constant use,
and having a film crew in it every week for several months would have
disrupted my business. So we built a replica on the fourth floor of Trump

Tower. The reception area was also built there because the comings and
goings of the sixteen apprentices and a TV production crew would have
been a disturbance to our employees and our guests, some of whom may
not have been expecting a close-up.
The set was built in Trump Tower so I could take an elevator and be

there in fewer than two minutes. My regular business schedule is hectic, so
traveling to and from an off-site location could have caused problems.
Using the space we had on-site proved to be a good decision.
The living quarters for the sixteen applicants were also built on the
fourth floor, and the equipment necessary for filming was installed there.
It was an amazing setup, with sound rooms, tech rooms, lights, cameras,
and what seemed like miles of cables. When I first saw it all, I realized the
immensity of the preparations that went into this show, with designers,