The Quiet Dealmaker Who Bought the Warriors and A’s | Lew Wolff

28:17For you to have that, for you to get the bankers to not meet you at an office in downtown Los Angeles, but on the lot, it's, David, I would call it a flex. Guys, just if you were meeting somebody here for one of the tea business and you came to a little studio like that, that's much more fun for a potential investor. Especially a banker who doesn't get around. Or a banker, right. Is that where it was most useful, to raise money? We had something like 14 banks in the project. Not necessarily branches of banks. Bank of America is one. Now today those banks are consolidated. Maybe there's five of them left.

29:00But yeah, having the imprimatur of the studio. It's an amazing thing because you could have easily, you didn't need a studio. You didn't need an office there. You didn't need the promotional rights for it. It's sort of, there's some serendipity to it. But let's go back to San Jose for a second. You're also building downtown San Jose. Talk to us about how at some point you decide, like Oakland's not that far from San Jose. How do you get involved? How does this sort of move from a development project in downtown San Jose while you have an office on the lot at Fox? Let's introduce baseball. Yeah, the baseball, it had nothing to do, well, So now my college friend, Seelig, who was in the fraternity with you.

29:46I was in the fraternity with him. He was a year older. Also, another fraternity brother was Herb Cole, who was a U.S. senator and owned the Milwaukee Bucks for a four-term senator. It was quite the fraternity. In Wisconsin. You guys talk about luck with a lot of your people. How lucky is that? I just happened to walk. It was a fraternity, a Pai Lamb, a Jewish fraternity. Yeah, but the big one, at least in my parents, my mother's, ZBT was the big one. When I got there, I went to each one and it turned out that if you were from Milwaukee or the north part of Chicago, if you didn't get into that particular Pai Lamb chapter, I think your parents had to quit their country.

30:39It was very popular, a very important one. So I got in, I didn't know that. So one day I get, my wife and I were in Paris and she speaks fluent French so we used to go every other year. And I get a call from my office saying that the commissioner wanted to know if I wanted to come to a World Series game that San Francisco was playing against I think the California Angels. I'm in Paris and I said of course that my our most success most important fraternity brother asked me to a game just happened I didn't realize that was the day after I got home with the jet lag anyway I went to the game and I met him at his hotel which later on we owned we'll get there We'll get there, but the ballpark is like a mile and a half away in San Francisco.

31:38I took one friend with me. We met Bud and his wife at the hotel, and then we took a police escort to the ballpark. I could have walked there faster. I've been at about 12 police escorts, every one of them with Bud Selig. So I don't generate any. During the game, he said that the two gentlemen that owned Oakland, both real estate developers, one in the Oakland area and one in the San Jose area, I knew one and knew of one. He said, one of them, they're not getting along, would you be willing to buy out one of them? Was that the reason he invited you to the World Series game? I think so. You think he wanted to show you the game, you know, you love baseball, and maybe convince you at the game.

32:27We can call him and ask him. At some point we should do that, yeah. He's got a much better memory. He can tell you who pitched on Tuesday in 1947 against this. I can't do any of that. Anyway, I said, yeah, sure. You said, yeah, sure to what? That I'd be happy to buy him out. I mean, hold on. I mean, yeah, sure. Well, I don't even know the price, right? I just said yes. And are you a rich man by this point? No. Well, I'm not poor, but I'm not as rich as everybody thinks, even today, by the way, including YouTube clowns. That's okay. But anyhow. Rich enough to buy baseball. So Bud put me with the two gentlemen.

33:13Is it common for the commissioner of the major league, of the league, of Major League Baseball, to connect people in terms of these transactions of team ownership? That's a good question. It's common for him to approve or to open a door, but he's not there. He's not a broker. They have a terrific commissioner now, Rob Manford, and he's now out there trying to broker. but if somebody says they're interested, you really need to go through him first because they don't even want you to look at a team unless baseball's approved of you. In the case of Bud, the joke is F-O-B, you know, friends of Bud.

33:51Got it. Which a couple of your, I think one of your people would be upset that I got the team. But anyway, I said, yeah, sure. So I started meeting with these two gentlemen and I was willing to buy 49, They were 50-50, and that caused a problem, I think. They were nice and fine. And they had Billy Bean at the time, if you know who he is. We'll talk about Billy Bean. Yeah, and I said, look, I'll buy up to 49%. Still don't know the price. And if I didn't have the money, I would bring a couple of people in. I was comfortable about that. And I thought that would be simple, but it took them two years to agree to sell, even though they said they wanted to sell.

34:34So during that period of time, they appointed me the guy to help him on a new venue. Gave me something to do, and I started doing a free due diligence. A venue meaning a new stadium. To help try and build a new stadium, which I failed, by the way. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But at the same time, I was doing due diligence, and a friend of mine, John Fisher, whose family was the Gap family, founders of the Gap stores, you and Mickey Drixler on, was calling me because he likes sports. And he said, what's going on? And we were in the hotel business together. I'll tell you about that. So I said, well, I'm trying to buy this team.

35:18And the two guys that are trying to sell don't seem to get it done. But I'm getting a free look. And I'm getting a lot of publicity. Meanwhile, Bud is telling everybody that Lew Wolf's going to be buying into the... So almost to a point where I had to do it. I had to go rob a bank to do it. I had to do it. And how much was it? How much was it? It was about... 180. Well, 180, but they had 80 of debt on it. Okay. But I remember spying, I thought 49 or less per cent. Meanwhile, John Fisher's calling me, and he's interested, and I said, well, let me see what happens. Then I get a call from the partner that didn't want to sell, that was going to stay, who I was going to let be the head person.

36:05He said, Lou, I decided to sell. So if you want to buy it, it's$100 million cash. I said, well, I'm out of it. Meanwhile, Fisher called again. I said, well, I was going to buy a piece, but now they want to sell the whole thing. He said, what do they want? I said, they want 100 million. It's 100 million of cash up front. There's a limit on how much financing you can put on a team. He said, well, let me talk to my dad, who was the founder of the Gap. Tremendous guy, passed away, but terrific. He said, what would Lou put in of his own if we bought this? So I assumed that John would run the team. And I said, well, I'll do 5 million.

36:52Five of 100. Five of 100. that means there's 95 left. You're from Canada. Maybe you can't figure that out.

37:06Anyway, I said, John, why don't we do, if you want to do that, I'll be happy to do that. And I'll work on the venue. You run the team. He called back, I don't remember the sequence, but he called back and I said, my dad said, Lou's great, but could he do 10 %? I said, okay. Meanwhile, I'm pregnant anyway, right, with buds already telling people, drinking champagne. And that morphed into 15%. At the very last minute, John's representative called and said, you know, we need you to be another 25%. $25 million. Yeah. But he said, but the extra 10 million, we'll lend you at no interest for a year and you can pay it.

37:54I, there was no, even if I didn't want to do it, I had to, I had to say yes. We'd say yes because of John, but you also had to say it because of the commissioner. Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't John Fisher was, he would have done it. Okay, it was the commissioner really wanted us. John's fantastic and he would have done it anyway, but I, you know, so I said yes. I will tell you that I syndicated that extra 10 million in one week. Wow. Yeah, Lou, let's talk about that. That partnership is a big theme for you. you like to get other people's money in these deals. You talked about the A's and the 50-50 partnership before you came in, not working out.

38:29How do you think about partnership and raising money and putting it all together? Thank you for asking, because your interviews, some people want to be sole person, others happy to have partners. I like partners for a couple of reasons. One of them may be psychological, but if I have a partner that's capable, like you two guys, something happens to me, that person can step in. I still keep going back to my dad passing away. If you're by yourself, it's just a psychological thing. So I've always enjoyed partners. I haven't had any problem with any partner. We haven't had a lot of... We're not syndicators to where we're going to asking Goldman Sachs to raise the money.

39:18and I enjoy having other people, two things, I enjoy other people's success. I love the tea business all of a sudden. I love what you guys are doing. I just assume if other people can be successful, maybe I can be too. But I applaud other success. There's like a real kindness to that. There's a real, you seem to not just enjoy other people's success, you seem to celebrate other people's success. Yeah, it is. Which is a wonderful way to live your life. Especially entrepreneurs. I probably shouldn't use advertising here, but my oldest grandson, who had a terrific career at Palantir, just left yesterday to do his own thing.

40:02I get a kick out of that. That's amazing. Especially leaving a company like Palantir, which is an incredible thing. And he was making more money than I ever made, so they were turning, he and another guy are starting their own business. Whatever they're going to do, I couldn't even explain it. It doesn't matter. What do people get wrong about partnerships? Huh? What do people get wrong about partnerships? I think you have to choose your partners like you choose yourself. You have to be somebody close. Most of the partners I have, I'd like to have them add value, but I don't need them to do that.

40:33I haven't had much interview. On the baseball thing, that little 10 million thing, I decided to only have people that were lived outside the Bay Area, so I wouldn't be bothered. But I think just, I just like people like yourselves that enjoy other people's success. Not every partnership I've had is one of the worst was as a limited partner in the, what they call the Toronto... Skydome. Skydome. Yeah, tell us about that. I forgot the guy's name.

41:09And this guy don't cost$600 million, and he could buy it for$60 million or something. And it had a hotel in it, right? Yeah. Still there. So another guy, I put together a few million dollars, and we invested with it. It was a limited part. We had no say in it. And like a week later, he sold the hotel. I thought, oh, that's a brilliant deal here. You know, all of a sudden we're getting, and then he said, don't worry. What's the big media company that owns? Yeah. Don't worry. Rogers is going to have to buy the facility from it. Rogers didn't have to buy the facility. So we ended up losing it. But let's talk about that moment back to the Open A's.

41:54Do you remember the moment when it all came together and you became the owner of a major league baseball team? Do you remember what that feeling was like? Again, not a poor kid, but very middle class kid from St. Louis, watching baseball as a kid through all these incredible serendipity, hard work, finding yourself at the right place at the right time, you now become an owner. Well, before that, when I did make some money selling some real estate, eventually, I was an owner in a minor league baseball team. I was an owner in the St. Louis Blues. These are all passive. I had no real hockey team.

42:32And in the Golden State Warriors, big mistakes, only that one we did. So I was sort of used to a little bit of that. Not national publicity, just the fact of it. But it was exciting. And it took so long to get to where we closed that the thrill of having it overnight was not there. Most people associate you, obviously, with the Oakland A's, the athletics. but you also owned the Golden State Warriors and famously sold the Golden State Warriors. What happened there? Two gentlemen from Milwaukee, Jim Fitzgerald and I forgot the other guy's name. Shouldn't forget it. They owned the Milwaukee Bucks and sold it.

43:19I had nothing. I wasn't even involved. and the gentleman, I forgot his name also, who owned the Oakland Golden State Warriors had made a deal to contract with a star player whose name I also forgot so long ago and all of a sudden you didn't have the money to pay him so he went to the commissioner of the NBA and the commissioner said, I don't know anybody with, oh wait a minute, these two guys in Milwaukee sold their team, maybe they can help you out. They're real smart guys. They were in cable, banking, and sports. So they made a deal to buy the team, and it was six or eight million dollars. I can't remember what it was.

44:06But they wanted a year of running it. And this gentleman who owned the ball player had to, they paid the player.

44:19Somehow they got my name, and they decided they were going to go ahead and buy the team. So I just, as a passive limited partner, put it in. I didn't think much about it. They ran it beautifully. A guy named Chris Cohan decided to buy, interested in buying the team. Very complicated thing. And one of the two partners from Milwaukee wanted to buy a condo and he needed some money and I had some money, so I bought up. I ended up being the second largest owner in the team. Meanwhile, we're selling to Kohan, but we're not selling immediately. It's over a period of time. I didn't negotiate the deal.

45:05We also had the right to not make this. After Kohan had bought in maybe$20 million,$30 million, we didn't have the total obligation to sell to him, even though I assume we did. So it came to an argument and we had to have an auction in an attorney's office. And to make a long story short, we sold the team for the highest price every NBA team ever sold. I think it was$143 million. No, it's nothing. Now it's nothing. No, we just had on billions, right? I just went along for the ride. Yeah. Was this more shadow or substance? How does a guy who's a real estate developer, owning hotels, handling foxes, real estate, be like, oh, I'm going to go into sports because it's a great investment?

45:59Or is this more shadow, it's going to build my profile as a real estate influencer? I wasn't trying to build my profile. I'm excited about new one-off, I call it activities. I wouldn't know how to build a chain of Four Seasons. I could build one Four Seasons, or we could own the real estate to two or three or five. But A, it doesn't interest me. The other sort of successful person that graduated my high school class was a guy named Jerry Greenwald who became president of Chrysler. He had 160 ,000 employees, or 130 things and we talk together um uh he enjoys that he it's it's an art form he enjoys the scale the management and yeah it's it's not and that's not your thing it's not my thing at all but what is your thing and that's that's not now you've got me worried about it i have to think well because it sounds like all these things do have a common thread i mean you didn't go searching for the Golden State Warriors.

47:08It seems like people kind of came to you for a lot of these things. Somebody, where I read, I think it was Armand Hammer said, somebody asked him, and he had a lot of luck with his, you know who he is? Yep, of course. He said, well, I don't know, I work seven days a week, ten hours a day, you're bound to run into some luck. That's what it was. Most of mine has been luck and relationships that I just enjoy. The commissioner of the Major League Baseball, who you knew from college, liked you, saw you operate, trusted you. There is a reputational angle here, which is that if you do good quality work and you try to make money for your partners, good luck kind of finds its way to you.

47:53Well, it's more than that. There's temperament involved here, too. I like to go back to something you said earlier where you're like, why not? You're describing decades and working extremely hard. what did you do in the moments? It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. What did you do in those really difficult moments? What did you tell yourself? I love to service some mindset lessons. I was my own therapist. I would get up in the morning, maybe my wife was upset with me or something. But once I got in the car or the airplane, wherever I was going, I was on stage. And you guys are the same thing. If people around you feel that you're not happy, they're not going to be happy, especially if you owe something to people that work for you.

48:40That's been one thing instilled in me. I'm a real estate developer, right, basically. My peers have a lawsuit every quarter, and they usually come out better. I've had one lawsuit. I have the law firm I use been using called Greenberg Glusker here for 30 years. They don't invite me to the litigation Christmas party. You don't give them business. I believe everything, maybe not Gaza, but I believe everything can be settled. But it can't be if you're out to get the last penny. And since I grew up, I didn't have the last penny. I never needed to worry about it. I never worried. You know, some tough businessmen do much better than others, have a different attack.

49:31Tell us about a time you settled. I settled everything. Literally, I mean, you can't go this long. I've been in the business for 50, 60 years. And literally, I only had one lawsuit, and that was some kind of age discrimination of one of an employee that I think I lost. There's got to be a way to settle things. And so you don't feel necessarily in these dynamics that a win for you doesn't necessarily mean a loss for them. Is that right? Yeah. Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns the White Sox, and my dear friend, he's such a wimp. I don't know how he's successful at all. In other words, I just... He's saying that about you?

50:07Yeah. Oh, funny. I love... We get a kick on it. In fact, today is his 90th birthday. I just don't think you have to win everything. Win every piece of the... I think you'd be a lot more wealthy if you do that. Right. But it's a lot of energy and a lot of stress. And I have enough stress over the years to put on myself without trying to get the last dollar on everything. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do that. It doesn't mean I'm right. It just means that's the way I operate. You don't necessarily, it doesn't sound like, you know, you haven't articulated or self-described yourself at all, Lou, as a sports guy.

50:50You keep sort of referring yourself as a real estate developer at your core. I'm curious, though, if I just sort of jump for a second to the sports thing, and specifically the Oakland A's, the whole Moneyball, Billy Bean thing, we find to be so fascinating because we think, I mean, for Dave and I, the reason that we love the movie, we love the idea of Moneyball, is because it applies almost like a mathematical approach to something that traditionally didn't have math, to something that actually felt more bravado, more emotional. Can you talk a little bit about the whole Billy Bean, Moneyball stuff that happened in the Oakland A's from your perspective?

51:28You understand. Billy was already established when I got there. He was there, yeah. However, since we bought the team, he had the right to break his contract, transfer of ownership.

51:44I got to know Billy during this prior two-year period, but I got on the phone with him. I said, I think I said, I need you to stay instead of just saying, do you want to stay? And he laughed. And I said, what do we need? Do I have to hire an investment banker or a lawyer to deal with your lawyer? He said, well, how do you do it? I said, I'd rather just talk to you. He said, me too. So I said, look, I don't want to stop you. If you've got other options for your family, you've got to do what's best. But we spent maybe two months on the phone or meeting and made a deal. And then we went to the attorneys.

52:25At least that's the way I embellish it or remember it. And what was the deal? The deal was that I wanted to, I can't remember the salary thing. It wasn't outrageous, pretty much what he was making. But I did want him to have, he and the president, Mike Crowley, a piece of the team. Not because they needed that incentive, I just liked that. More partnership. So we wanted to give Billy 4%, and Mike won. And John Fisher went along with it. Most of the other people that I knew in sports, especially in baseball, said, don't do that. And today I don't think anyone has done that. Meaning give equity to players.

53:09Equity. The equity came with a clause that you were not assessed if there were losses. And I think Mike and Billy didn't work any harder than they would have, whether they had this or not. But there was a point where it became monetized and both got a substantial amount of... But to this day, this is 10, 15 years, they're still thanking me for it. I mean, it changed their life, that equity. I guess so, but Billy and Mike were more concerned sometimes about individual employees than they were the players. A player making, let's use in those days, was a lot less, but$300 ,000. They're worried about the$60 ,000 person who's supporting their family, and that's what I liked about it.

53:58I'm not trying to be a hero, but I like that kind of thing. Character. Yeah, and we had such a loyal staff and hardworking. And probably we had lousy office space, so they had to work even harder. Which is ironic because the owner of the team was a real estate guy, and the office space wasn't very good. We wanted to be in the stadium, which was falling apart. Lou, you said you don't always have to win. How do you know? You've been through so many negotiations. How do you know when you're being taken advantage of? I know when I'm missing out on something. For example, maybe I should have asked for an option to do something, and I didn't ask for it.

54:35You guys are interviewing some fantastic people. They seem to have memory of every deal. I tell people I'm a futurist because they can't remember yesterday. Very convenient. Very convenient. Is that by design? A little bit by design. I don't like the past that much. I mean, bad things. I like good things that happen in the past, but you know somebody passes away or you lose your dad or whatever it is I I don't put it out of my mind but I don't wear it wear it here either yeah yeah there's no you know you don't lick your wounds very much it seems like you kind of move on from that you have to otherwise you're just doing a lot of maybe that's why you know you look so good for your age I do want to ask you a little bit about this idea of I don't have a better term for other than sort of career stacking this idea that your identity, Lou, is so dynamic.

55:28It is sports and it's real estate and more and more it's about philanthropy. But even throughout your career, you kind of stack these different things. You didn't say, well, that's not for me or I'm this, I'm not that. You kind of stack these different elements, different industries together. And I'm curious about, do you think as you look back on your life, was that the right move? would you would you have preferred to spend more time on you know we had a great conversation with Larry Silverstein yeah I've just listened yeah amazing man or day before but Larry I mean I was a real estate guy oh my god this is what he does right he is the king of real estate especially in New York City that's not really you I mean you know we've we've sat down with you know people like like Linda Resnick who is all about brands she's the brand queen but you've kind of done this more of a hybrid thing and I'm curious as you look back and you give advice to your grandchildren or your children even, how you advise them on careers, how to find their thing.

56:27I think people are more important than the activity that they're doing. I don't know if that's a good way to put it or not. Explain that a bit. Well, I've either been lucky or fortunate or both that I've had partnerships and relationships, whether they're even direct or indirect, they've been fantastic. And we are connected, right? Especially listening to your podcast. Everybody has a connection to this person. That's amazing. Look, you're interviewing Izzy, and I remember Izzy pointing to Carpet in Four Seasons and said, Lou, do you think that carpet should be changed? I said, of course not. He said, I do.

57:07You've got to know when I think it's changed, not when you think it's changed. So it's those kind of relationships. are fun and exciting. I don't know how to answer your question any better than I've been lucky with people. People first. Yeah, but someone like Izzy, for example, who Dave and I have had the incredible privilege to get to know over the years, he only does business with people that he likes. And so there's a likability aspect to it also. Maybe that's what your friend at the White Sox was sort of referring to. Yes, I hope so. I hope so too. Not that… He also owns the Bulls, too. He also owns the Chicago Bulls.

57:43I mean, you know, everyone kind of has their own style of business, but your style seems to be a lot more collect really great people in very good deals, leave money on the table if that's necessary. There's not this sort of, you know, this Darwinian, I must win at all costs. It's not Machiavellian. Very good. The only people that don't fit my mold are people that are suffering from, it's a Mayo Brothers defined disease called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. We're all narcissistic, of course not you two, but some of us in this room, a little bit. But you take Trump or Putin or a lot of other people that aren't as important where they would rather you lose they would happy to lose if you lose more I can't that's the only kind of people I had you can't deal with and I had a couple in my life I cannot stand people that are extreme narcissistic yeah yeah though I mean you seem like a guy I want to work for me so but I was gonna ask the job the other way but when you're running the A's you were getting some pretty negative press around the running of the team.

59:01Did you take that personally? We read a story. I hope it won't be offensive because we only have incredible respect for you, Lou. But I think we read this article in our research that ESPN called you the worst owner in sports. Yeah.

59:20You have to be willing to take it, right? I mean, I had death threats. Not death threats, but like I wish you were dead. but I can name five owners right now that have worse than I do. I think we were a pretty good owner. We never had a capital call in 10 years. Wow. Because John Fisher's father, may he rest in peace, said, Lou, they had been in sports before. He said, Lou, the only thing I ask you is don't lose money. I don't care if you don't make money, but please try not to lose because when you start losing in sports, it multiplies faster than. So we ran it, thanks to Billy Bean and Mike Crowley and John Fisher, we ran it pretty tight.

1:00:04And we were, we finished, we got in the playoffs four out of the 10 years and we were close, six out of the 10, and we were way at the bottom of the lowest revenue team and the lowest fan team. Meaning you did a lot with a little, right? Thanks to Billy and Mike and to John. And now what John Fisher is doing, and I just was over in Las Vegas, and I'm only left a tiny bit, is going to change sports. I didn't realize what John was doing in terms of both the venue, and there's no penny saved on what he's doing. It's going to change. I believe it's almost like the sphere is yeah that's what this is going to be for baseball and other this is the new Las Vegas baseball team yeah so this is a very different model I mean John with you with the A's was sort of about efficiency and about he maximizing every dollar he let me alone for 10 years and he wanted to take over which I didn't even realize when we bought the team.

1:01:17I was 70 years old. I used to respect people that age. So it was time for John and he's done a, no matter what the world says, he's done a fantastic job. He tried to stay in Oakland, but owners get beat up all the time. Yeah. So you were used to, I mean, this idea that, you know, I'm sure other people have mentioned this, this ESPN thing, you know, talking about them not liking the way you ran the team. You didn't, you didn't care about that at all? No, I honestly didn't because it comes with the territory. I won't name the owner. A good friend of mine just happened to say the other day that winning's important but also affordability is.

1:01:59And everybody jumped and said, he doesn't care about winning. All he cares about is money. You've got to live with that. But it didn't affect you, which is kind of a wonderful thing. And I tried to meet with fans. When I went to a game, I would sit, you know, the seat behind the catcher so I could watch the pitching for the first couple innings. Then I would walk around the stands. I enjoyed that. And I would say 90 % of the people were there to have a good time. They weren't there. Or the other 10 % weren't there. Maybe they were, we got to win every second. You know what I mean? They were there with their, especially the kids.

1:02:38I love the kids side of it. One owner told me the following people are concerned when you lose a critical game. The owner first has the greatest concern. Then a distant second the fan leaving the ball. The third are the players who are on their phone already calling their girlfriends for a date because they're going to play another game. They played millions of games. That's right. So the whole idea is giving a person a decent experience. And what I saw in Las Vegas, which I was remiss of not going sooner, is going to be fantastic. Unbelievable. You wrote a book called Moments. Why did you decide on a collection of various moments versus one stream narrative like most biographies?

1:03:27The truth, the real reason is I didn't want to bring up too much negatives that if I gave you the entire, you know, this guy cheated me on that or this guy stole the team, a player. I didn't want to do that. I just wanted to put the fun moments. The only one that I still feel very upset about is that the Giants, and not the current Giants, did prevent us from getting a ballpark in the Bay Area. Yeah, that was the deal that never happened. Tell us about that. What happened there? I don't think you got enough. We got the time. Way before John and I bought the team, and John was an owner in the Giants, they wanted to move to—they were either going to move out of San Francisco, I think it was Florida or someplace, but they would also move to San Jose or the city next to it called Santa Claire.

1:04:21This got a little complicated. I'm not sure it's of interest. It's of interest. Okay, so in those days, there were four two-team markets in baseball. New York, two teams. Chicago, two teams. L.A., the Angels and the Dodgers are counted, and Oakland and San Francisco. Each of those teams have a territory. They share the territory except for San Francisco. I didn't even think too much about it. Meanwhile, years ago, before we were involved, they decided to move the team, San Francisco wanted to move the team either to San Jose or Santa Clara, two different deals, and both required a public vote, you know, because there was going to be some assistance or something.

1:05:12I was actually active in trying to help them in those days for my real estate activities. All of a sudden, baseball realized that Santa Clara County, which holds these two cities, was not in either territory. They went to the owner then of the Oakland A's and said, do you mind if the Giants have that territory of Santa Clara County, because they got this vote coming up. They lost both votes through no fault of their own. And then everything was supposed to go back to where it was. But nobody did that. So why? No one knows. And the assistant to the owner of the A's at that time said, we waited for the Giants, we waited for somebody to come and save, and nobody ever came.

1:06:05So we kept the territory. Meanwhile, the Oakland A's didn't have that Santa Clara County. They should be sharing both. Sure. So it was an administrative mistake? No, I don't know. Oh, by the way, in the minutes of the two meetings where baseball, those days the leagues were separate a little bit. They each had their own president and stuff. Both said that if you don't get the vote in these places, it goes back, reverts back to where it was. Those notes have disappeared. Lou couldn't find them anyway. It's much more complicated than that, But basically, we should have shared, be able to share the same territory with the Giants as the other three, two-team market.

1:06:52Yeah, oh, yeah. And the Giants fought that like crazy with my fraternity brother, Bud, who... The commissioner. Commissioner, but, you know, and... Whose side was he on? He was with the Giants? He wasn't on the side. He just let it... He wasn't opening that door. And were you calling him like, you know, Bud, you got me into this thing. No, they appointed a special committee to look at it. That was a total bunch of sycophants for the league. We would still be, I'm happy we're in Vegas, but we'd still be in Oakland today if the Giants had been, I'll use a very technical term, a mensch. If they were menschy about it because they knew it was the right thing.

1:07:34They were assholes about it. Well, because through this administrative error. Not the current ownership. That's right, no, at the time. But because of this administrative error, they were able to have this strange setup, and that led to opening the race. We could have sued baseball. We could have done all that. But John and I were in baseball because of Bud, and if there's 10 good reasons in, nine of them benefited us. This was the 10th one. And we just... So are you going to be an owner, or are you an owner of the Las Vegas team? I have a very minor ownership. I like... It's a$2 billion deal.

1:08:10Yeah, it's a big one. It's interesting. I'll leave one of your other guys. Well, it's really interesting because, you know, we've met people who they may own literally basis points of a team. Right, now, like, I own the team. I own the team. Well, people do. Lou Wolf, who actually owns these teams, he says, well, not, I mean, I own a little bit of these teams. I'll tell you one funny story that's in my Moments book. My daughter was younger at the time, and we were talking to another owner. Actually, well, I won't tell you his name because it's embarrassing, But at that time, we both, both our teams were going up in value, not like they are today.

1:08:43And my daughter was just listening and she said to Mr. X, well, if your team's going up so much in value, why don't you sell it? And he said, Carrie, then I'd be a billionaire without a baseball team. That's true. Lou, you said, you know, we could have sued them and most probably would have. Where did you learn how to let things go? My first investment partner in California was from a very wealthy family. A guy who passed away just recently, 6 '8", handsome. But his family did nothing but, they were one of the 10th largest families in California, wealthiest. But they did nothing but, by his generation, estate planning and tax.

1:09:29And I warn you guys, don't get too complicated in that. Your kids will be fine no matter what. Anyway, so he joined me, and we were working on San Jose. I can't remember the number, but I think it was a Monday, and we had$650 ,000 of something due on the Friday. And he was a bachelor at the time, and he lived off of Sunset Boulevard not far from here. And we were at his place, and I wanted to do it without using his money if I could do it, you know, whatever we were manipulating at the time. and we were deep into discussion about this issue and his shirts came back from the laundry, each one in a separate box.

1:10:12You know, he was wealthier than I was, you know. And he's talking to me and he's opening the box and something was wrong with one of the shirts. And all of a sudden, our entire focus was on that shirt, the mistake from the cleaner. It was just as important at that second as what we were talking about before. We both started to laugh because we realized, at least I did, and he had always lived this way. I realized that none of these things should be life-threatening. And I think that was sort of a little turning point. He didn't so much invest much with me, but gave me the comfort that I didn't have to worry too much.

1:10:59I don't know how to put it. There's like a self, you don't take yourself too seriously. And I think the shirt thing is a great example. You know, I've often said, my wife and I have a family motto, which is how you do anything is how you do everything. And it speaks to intentionality. It speaks to doing things really, really well. But there's sort of the flip side of that, which is sometimes I find myself in an important meeting. And my metaphorical shirt comes back from the dry cleaners. And it's not right. and I spent all of my time focusing on the shirt from the dry cleaners instead of the actual bigger picture.

1:11:33And I think, you know, Lou, would you have, and I mean, maybe this is the longevity secret because you look amazing, but even the way you carry yourself, there's a deep, I'm not going to say happiness because happiness is fleeting. You stub your toe and, you know, you're no longer happy for a minute. But there's a contentment that you have. As entrepreneurs, Dave and I, I think we really admire that. That you're not beaten up from the years of negotiating. You don't feel jaded by the partnerships that didn't go well. You look back with great contentment and great joy and great humor about how it's, how, you know, that silly thing you did by taking a small office on the Fox lot, which, to say the thing, you had no business having at all.

1:12:26It made no sense at all. But that created this aura, and that aura created this brand, and that brand gave you opportunities. But also something we haven't really talked about is the fact that that commissioner of Major League Baseball League thought about you for all these opportunities over your life because he saw something when you guys were in college together. I think he would admit that if you talked to him. I saw a lot in him, too. Naturally, he was president of the fraternity. In those days, fraternities were not, they were segregated, especially the national ones, mainly southern. A lot of them, you know, not just Jewish, all of them.

1:13:07And we had a guy that worked at our house for a meal job, they called it, they still do it today, an African-American named Charlie Thomas, who was also the fullback for, the second fullback for Wisconsin. We had a guy named Alan Amici, I don't know if you know the name, he was All-American. Charlie was right behind him, and the last year Charlie played, he actually played first string, but he didn't want to be the first string, he wanted to get an education. He was one of our buddies. So I said, let's put Charlie in the fraternity. We all said, Bud Seelich said, fine. So we go to the meeting and they had meetings and all of a sudden there were I think two parents from Milwaukee that didn't want their son to have Charlie in the, not Charlie particularly.

1:14:09But they didn't want to have someone, a black person as their brother. And I'm sitting there and they're looking at me, I'm the most southern person, St. Louis. I didn't even know I was southern. And the guy said to me, you know, Lou, how do you feel? I said, I'll put it this way. I'd rather have you out of the fraternity and Charlie in. But I watched Selig that night. And you could blackball somebody. They called it. The last thing of my mind. And Bud basically said, we're going to stay here until Charlie's in. And Bud never had a vote in baseball. His entire commissioner wasn't 100 % at the end.

1:14:48Every decision was unanimous. He had the seeds of that as a, I didn't think of it in a sports sense. But he saw it in you also. He saw here's someone who is high character, who works hard, who's thoughtful. You know, I do, just as we kind of close up here, I want to ask you, Luke, about this thing that David and I are deeply fascinated by. There are 15 million Jews, give or take, in the world out of 8 billion people. I mean, we're talking about literally basis points. I agree. It is a tiny percentage. Yet Jews have disproportionately flocked to entrepreneurship in this remarkable way. For me, it was a way to survive.

1:15:29For Dave, it was a way to use his creativity and his incredible business mind to build something incredible for his family. What is your take on this connection between Jews and entrepreneurship? One of my favorite, deepest friends was a former mayor of San Jose named Tom McHenry. Not a Jew. Not Irish. Irish to the point that Dublin's our sister city. He feels the greatest loss to this country, to the world, was the Holocaust. He said, imagine how many great brains and ideas, and he tells me this every time I'm with him, it bothers him so much. So I just want to throw that out to your 15 ,000.

1:16:10The 15 ,000 probably have another - 15 million, yeah. 15 million. Yeah, it would have been way more. It would have been, you know, six million people perished. But also, that's not a Jew saying it. That is an Irishman, the mayor of San Jose saying it. Oh, no, that's definitely the mayor. He's a... Lou, one more story from you. Selfishly, I'm dying to ask this. You clearly don't get attached and are able to let go both of conflict and also assets. You've bought and sold many assets in your career, including a massive hotel chain that you sold to international buyers. How do you know when it's time to sell?

1:16:42Well, my rule, which is not a good one, is that if somebody's going to offer you a price greater than you would pay for the same thing, you should sell it to them. It's a reverse shotgun clause, I think. I'm not sure that's right. I'm just saying that. The only property—I never fell in love with property. Of course, I never was looking to get the Pritzker Award for design, necessarily, although we use very good architects, Gensler and others. but the only one that I feel about the hotels especially we owned a lot of hotels is the Carlisle I miss I still walk around there like I own it but I don't get back to what you say entrepreneurship and juice I'm not a great historian we were ghetto people we were when you're outside the the walls of the city, you're pretty urban.

1:17:36And I think we're not agricultural. We may have been at one time. So I think there's that tendency. But I see people use a word I don't quite agree with, chutzpah a lot. I think there's good and bad chutzpah. Jumping to the front of the line is not good chutzpah. Taking some risk is good chutzpah. But I see it not just in Jews. I see it in a lot of people that I've been associated with. I think I still am a region of Santa Clara University. I think the Jesuit education is like Orthodox Jew. It's fantastic. And it's dying out. So I think there's a genetic thing there, but I think it's a circumstance.

1:18:23I think we were much more urban than we were rural. That's my philosophy. You've had this remarkable career. You lost your father early. what would you be most proud of you think? I think I'm most proud of not hurting anybody.

1:18:42It's mutual. It's not just me. Empathy is a big factor in my life. People who are empathetic, like I listen to you guys, you're hugely empathetic. Tell our wives. Tell your wives. That'll be a cut, by the way. Yeah, wives are important. As I say, my wife Jean, we've been… 65 years? 68 years. I tell her it takes a lot of patience on my part. What's the secret to your marriage? Her, period. She rolls with the punches. We've had, you know, like any family, have tragedies and they have good things and bad. And she's always there for that in a very calm, collected way. She was never that interested in my business in the sense of being part of it, particularly, because she had to do other things.

1:19:39Was that hard when you had to come home and vent? You know why I didn't come home and vent? Because I just tell people if I came home and told people what went on, told my wife what went on during the day, it'd be like throwing up twice. Yeah, there's a compartmentalization. Yeah, actually, what do you tell yourself on a bad day? I talk to myself, but basically that none of this is as important as we think it is at that moment. So far, there's only two people that have really gone beyond their longevity. Mao, who's still in that casket and long lines looking at him, and the guy in Spain, Franco.

1:20:23Beside that, we're going to forget about Trump and everybody. and everybody, except Canadians, of course. Yeah, of course, of course. Well, Lou, Dave and I like to say at the end of these things that as proud Jewish entrepreneurs, we stand on the shoulders of giants, and you're one of those giants. And I know you're not going to call yourself that because, frankly, you were far too modest for that. But thank you for spending the time with us. Thank you guys. Thank you for telling your story, and it's an incredible thing. And I want to interview you for your careers when you're ready, if I'm still around.

1:20:54We're way too young. When you start your podcast, you let us know. 40 more years. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, of course. Thanks, guys. Have a great day. Started from the bottom, now the whole team hit. Started from the bottom, now we're here. Started from the bottom, now my whole team hit.