The near-total reset of Billie Eilish’s inner circle—culminating in her decision (along with her brilliant brother/collaborator FINNEAS) to join Jason Owen’s Sandbox Entertainment for management—has been a fascinating sidebar to her meteoric success in the marketplace.

Rumors that Eilish was leaving managers Danny Rukasin and Brandon Goodman and shopping for new representation had been circulating wildly for more than six months and only intensified when she changed agencies, landing at WME, and pivoted from longtime attorney Doug Mark to O.G. Don Passman.

Paul Wachter’s name has also come up repeatedly in accounts of the Eilish camp; the financial player and founder/CEO of Main Street Advisors, we’re informed, has been a behind-the-scenes sage for some time. Wachter’s tentacles extend far and wide; he has advised the likes of LeBron James, Bono, Jimmy Iovine, Drake, Red Sox/Liverpool F.C. Chairman Tom Werner and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name but a few, and has negotiated such gigundo pacts as the Beats sale to Apple, the acquisition of the Boston Red Sox and LeBron’s Nike deal (said to be worth about $1 billion). He was an indispensable strategist in Schwarzenegger’s successful gubernatorial campaign, too, and a key voice on policy. Wachter also serves as chairman of the UTA board, is a partner in Fenway Sports Group and has exec-produced various TV projects.

Naturally, FINNEAS and the pair's stalwart parents (especially haimisch, hands-on mom, Maggie Baird) have been crucial to Billie's development as an artist. From a career perspective, though, there’s been no more vital presence in Billie World than John Janick and his team. With Janick’s intense focus, she has gone from strength to strength. He signed Eilish when she was 16 and has empowered her artistry from the start and helped remove any obstacles from her path to becoming a creative force of nature, a path now strewn with Grammys, Oscars and myriad other laurels. Billie's is truly one of the signal artist-development stories of the modern era.

We note that Owen-managed Kacey Musgraves is signed to Interscope, while his more recently inked client Brandi Carlile, who has an album with Elton John coming out on Interscope, is now a free agent, having exited her Atlantic deal. CAA Co-Chairman/CEO Bryan Lourd is said to have been directly involved in resolving her departure from the label to everyone’s satisfaction. The participation of a heavyweight like Lourd—one of the most influential players in the entertainment world—in the process imparts some inkling of the stakes. Vegas oddsmakers say Carlile, too, is headed to Interscope.

Notably, the week also saw the shuttering of Monument Records, Owen and Shane McAnally’s joint venture with Sony, fueling further speculation as to whether the former is about to make another label move. Plans are apparently still in the works for Owen to pursue film and TV production (possibly in tandem with SME) after some success with the Tony-nominated Broadway show Shucked. He previously partnered with Scooter Braun, which yielded success with country biggies Dan + Shay. Back in 2016—three years before the Big Machine sale—Owen’s Sandbox was part of Scooter’s ambitious management-roll-up project, which also involved Troy Carter’s Atom Factory, Morris Higham Management, Brandon Creed’s The Creed Co. and Future the Prince’s OVO. That era, needless to say, is truly over.

Owen is exceptionally savvy and well liked and has a wicked sense of humor. And he’s repeatedly proven himself a fierce, protective advocate for female artists. He was already a major player, and he just raised his profile considerably.