David Rubenstein joins James Altucher to talk about what he learned interviewing sports team owners for his book Inside the Owner's Box: Conversations on Power and Leadership in Sports. They compare firing, hiring, negotiation, and luck in sports ownership with his decades running Carlyle, and discuss why winning matters more to owners than profit.
In this video:
- Why owners tend to remove the coach rather than themselves, and the Orioles’ decision to part ways with manager Brandon Hyde after he was Manager of the Year in a first-place season.
- Why Rubenstein says player salaries have more than doubled under his ownership without matching results on the field.
- His admission that he was so bad at firing people at Carlyle that he sometimes ended up promoting them, so a partner took over.
- Negotiation advice: be prepared to walk away, because if the other side knows you will pay any price, you probably will not get the best deal.
- Job interview tips: always have questions to ask, and never lead with salary.
- Why talent is hard to predict: Tom Brady in the sixth round, Johnny Unitas, and why early picks are more reliable in the NBA and NFL than in MLB.
- Why fans feel personal pride in a local team, even though its wins do not change their lives.
Timestamps:
00:00 Coaches Get Fired
00:53 Baseball Season Uncertainty
01:39 Why Buy a Team
02:49 Spending Money vs Winning
03:06 Firing the Manager
04:14 Luck Credit and Humility
05:19 Owner Decisions That Matter
08:09 Hiring and Gut Reactions
09:59 Job Interview Advice
12:45 Sports Spotlight and Fans
14:40 Buying the Orioles Deal
16:58 Walk Away Negotiation Rule
20:25 Draft Picks and Hidden Talent
23:22 Unpredictable Success Stories
24:27 Cal Ripken and Player Owners
24:48 Athletes As Owners
25:25 Great Players Bad Managers
25:57 Knowing Your Limits
27:16 What Owners Control
27:48 Building A Winner
28:30 Handling Fan Criticism
30:23 Media Rights Future
32:53 New Sports Investing
33:21 Baltimore Giving Back
33:56 Bobbleheads And Fame
34:35 Moneyball And AI
37:50 Stats And Betting Risks
39:34 Why Fans Care
42:43 Population And GDP
44:45 Life Expectancy Wrap
45:36 Final Thanks And Outro
Mentioned:
-People: Brandon Hyde, Mike Elias, Robert Kraft, Tom Brady, Drew Bledsoe, Johnny Unitas, Cal Ripken, Alex Rodriguez, Zion Williamson, Earl Weaver, Winston Churchill
-Book: Inside the Owner's Box: Conversations on Power and Leadership in Sports
-Teams and companies: Baltimore Orioles, The Carlyle Group, New England Patriots, Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers
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