David Meltzer
speaker
411 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Jul 2025
David Meltzer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
Is that a function of your relationship with your dad growing up and stuff like that? My dad left.
Six kids in a two-bedroom apartment, my mom working two jobs. She literally would pack our dinner in a paper bag and then fill up turnstiles at community stores with greeting cards so we could eat. But education was super important to my mom. It was all... into the Ivy Leagues. They did very well. I was blessed. But I just wanted to make a lot of money.
My entire identity was around money, and that carried through until about my mid-30s. And so it really was a significant thing. My nickname in college was Money Money. The first touchdown I scored in college, I flipped the ball to my coach and I said, Money Money. Everything was about money.
So from college, you graduated college. What was it like? How did that go from there to be working at Sports 1 Marketing?
Sure. Well, I wanted, my mom had a saying, like probably your mom did, or this doctor, lawyer, or failure. So I knew I didn't want to be a doctor. I hated hospitals. So I did my research. My oldest brother gave me this great piece of advice, which I say all the time. be more interested than interesting.
So when I wanted to be rich, I did my research on law schools to find out what type of lawyer makes the most money. I didn't care what kind of lawyer. Oil and gas litigators made the most money. Tulane University had the leading automotive law program.
that's where i went that's where i graduated and ironically when you want to make the most money you don't care what you do so i was always even though i got an oil and gas litigation job back in 1992 for 150 000 a year plus a lot of a lot of money i took a sales job in legal research online from west publishing for a 250 000 comp plan to sell.
Even though my mom said the internet was a fad, don't do it, 1992. So I ended up selling in nine months out of law school. I gave my heart and sold everything to selling. I was a millionaire nine months out of law school. The internet wasn't a fad. We exited the Thomson Reuters in 95 for $3.4 billion, which was a huge exit. Set my career in a different trajectory. I went up to the Silicon Valley.
I was really curious about branding myself as a technology guru. And so I learned to raise money on Sand Hill Road. which was a superpower still is a superpower i do it mostly for charities now right but i i raise a lot of money and i learned how to do that in my 20s on san diego during the internet boom by 99 i was ceo of samsung's since samsung's phone division the first
Windows device, it was a convergence device, not a smartphone. They ended up being smartphones, they called them. But ironically, you talked about the universe saving your life. The reason I got hired by Lee Steinberg, the famous sports agent, Terry Maguire, was not because I was a frustrated athlete who was a Jewish lawyer, which there was thousands of us that wanted to work with Andy Steinberg.
It was because I had two things that no one else had. I had a technology background at the highest level.
Early on, at the beginning of technology.
Yeah. And I also was a venture guy. I knew how to raise money. And so Lee saw the future of sports in venture, in technology, not representation. He was a visionary, which made him Lee Steinberg. So that's why I got hired in 48 hours after meeting Lee Steinberg, because I was what he was looking for.
And he would always say, the universe brought you to me, where I met Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback. Ironically, a hero of mine since 1978, when on the radio I listened to him as the first black quarterback to be the MVP of the Rose Bowl. Right. and literally beat Michigan. I'm a Ohio State fan, so I loved him. And he ended up being my business partner in sports world marketing.
And we never hear that part of your story. We always hear about the fast track to when you had everything and then you lost everything. But what's important for people to notice, because I didn't know that about you, and it's clear you just told us at what point it was early on. You know, some people like, you know, are born like alcoholics. Some people are born with some good things and assets.
Some are born with liabilities. It sounds to me like those qualities that have made you who you are now and have participated and been the components to your success and failure were in you at such a young age. It was forged by trauma. It was forged by discontent and watching your mom.
Because that idea, I think my superpower is I, Bob Harsin said it best to me. He's the founder of GoDaddy. He exited for $4 billion himself. He said, if you can learn to love what you do, and I rolled my eyes in the interview. I'm like, you don't have to work a day. But he didn't say that.
He said, if you can learn to love what you do and learn to love what you don't love and don't like, and you can learn to love what other people don't love and what they don't like, and you do it consistently, every day in joy, and you do it without quitting, it will tell you all its secrets. And that has- So from enjoying. Yeah, learning to enjoy what other people don't like.
So I remember sitting in second year of law school at Tulane, on my bed, my oldest brother had passed away of AIDS. He was a doctor. I had law loans that I didn't know how to go pay back. There was a recession in 1991, 92. And I sat on the edge of my bed and I told God, I said, do you allow me to pay off my law loans and buy a little of my house?
I was troubled, shit with my hands, 12 hours a day, six days a week in gratitude. Like a little elf.
Showing 341–360 of 411 · page 18 of 21
← Previous
Next →