Michael Rubin
Appearances
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It's when I work the absolute hardest is like, that's when you need to step up. And you know, when the game's on the line, when you're losing, that's when you have to work the smartest and the hardest. And I always work hard, but that's when like nothing's getting in the way. It's like you have tunnel vision.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So I owed JP Morgan $50 million from 2008. I kept paying them back and I got it down to $3 million. I couldn't get the money. Like I had called friends. No one, like I could, there was no- No one's coming out. 2009, nobody's coming out.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. And I had one fund that I'd invested in. I was his first investor. was worth like maybe $5 million. And I kept calling the guy, asking him for the money back. I probably called the guy 50 times to get the money back. He's like, Michael, if I give you your money back, I'm going to have to give every investor their money back. And I can't do that or I'll go out of business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And literally like on the, 50 first time when I called this guy, I'm like, man, like I'm going to lose my company. I'm going to go bankrupt. Like I need this fucking money. He's like, I'll give it to you if you just stop calling me. I like, I know the guy so bad. He gave me my investment back at what it was worth then. And that saved me from being marched out of the company.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
By the way, 18 months later, eBay bought the company for $2.4 billion. 18 months later, not five years later, not 10 years later, 18 months later. And I'm telling you, you can think I'm like crazy. I enjoyed the experience of thinking that I was going to be pushed out of my company. I was going to be fall apart because it was like an adventure to go on. I mean, why do I like roller coasters?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like I like, like I still today at 52 years old, like going on a roller coaster, you know, with my friends, with my kid, because it's the adventures fun.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
2011.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It would be wrong for me to not say, When I sold the company to eBay for $2.4 billion, I think I had screwed up a lot of pieces of the business and I had actually been a better CEO then. I think the company could have been worth $100 billion. If you think about what we built, we built one of the first e-commerce technology engines. Think about what Shopify is worth today.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Well, first of all, I'm honored to be here with you. Number one. Number two, you get the fastest yes of anybody because I have so much respect for you. You're a beast and I like to learn from you. So I'm looking forward to having fun today.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We built an incredible email platform. Think about what exact target that was bought by Salesforce was worth. So if you go through each of the pieces of what I built, I didn't do a great job. So I actually think I failed up. by selling it for $2.4 billion. But I think you're actually giving way too much credit to me In 2011, FedEx was nothing, okay?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It was a completely undifferentiated e-commerce site of licensed sports merchandise. And eBay didn't want it because they're like, look, we don't want to be an inventory-owned business. It wasn't a good business. It was nothing business. When I bought it, and it's the only thing I focused on, that allowed us to think about how to really build a strategy.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So the only thing I really thought when I bought the business, I had one giant fear, which is there's this little company in Seattle called Amazon. Have you heard of them? You've heard of them?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Amazon. I thought if I didn't completely differentiate ourselves against Amazon, we would be dead. So it was really when I bought it, it was like, how do I differentiate the business? And then the strategies kind of evolved as we've gone.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So yes, I know we had to be highly differentiated or we wouldn't be in business because I watched what Amazon did to Toys R Us and Sports Authority, all these other retailers we worked with. So that fear was very helpful. But I think the reality is Um, no, I didn't know what I was going to do with the business. I bought it and just like, it was just that natural compass. Like I'll figure it out.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah, so first, I don't think what you're saying is accurate at all. Oh, good. All right, tell me. Like, I feel like... Because you feel like you're constantly under attack. In our entire business, across the board, collectibles business, trading cards, sports betting, merchandise, there's tons of competition.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We are number one. You're number one. You're the market leader. Can I tell you something? Every day, everyone's coming to kill number one.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
That's not my mentality. That's the truth. And the second I get confident is when it's over. I really feel like the second you get confident- That's why you're so successful. They kill you. And so I feel like I want to run this business like we're a startup. I'm only looking and saying, what are all the things we're doing wrong? And I got to tell you something.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
In each business, we have things we're great at. We have things we suck at. We have so many things we need to do to be better. We think, you know, our biggest thing we need to do is keep growing the categories that we're in, keep innovating. Let's take the example of the business that you and I are partners in. Okay. Talk about off-season. Talk about Christensen.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Kristen reached out to our company for years and she couldn't get anyone to kind of respond to her, give her the love because we acted like a big company. Okay. Then one day she did something. She put, she, you know, she dressed Taylor Swift. I saw it all over. I started following her back. I'm like, wow. Like I love what she's about. I love this.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And then small world, I find out that she's partnering with you. And by the way, at that point I had to chase her and chase you to say, let's partner together. That didn't bother me. I didn't mind saying, hey- Quite the opposite, right? You were like, what can I do for you guys? How do we partner together? How do we do something great for sports fans?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So like, you know, a lot of people would say like, is the CEO of a 22,000 person, you know, $11 billion revenue company next year going to chase- That is literally what we said. And, you know, I was like, I loved it because I had so much respect for her vision, so much respect for you. I'm like, these guys are killers. Like, what could the three of us do together?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And what could we do for sports fans? So the second you get comfortable and think like, look at like all the changes that are happening. in their parallel footwear business today. And you say like, nothing's forever. And you know what? We have to keep figuring out how to do what we do better. And there's so much that we can be better at. And so, you know, one of the mistakes I think I made
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
you know, in the first decade of the business, we were so worried about competition. We weren't focused enough on how's everything we do going to make it better for the fan. And now, like, we actually, I'll tell you, talk about turning a failure into a success. We had, obviously, it's well known at this point, we had a pretty, you know, tough experience in baseball last year with the jersey.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And, you know, as everyone knows, we're partners with Nike, we're partners with MLB. We make the jerseys together and, you know, everyone in the desire to innovate wants to kind of change the baseball jersey. And it's not what fans wanted. And during that period of time, and by the way, we got, you know, Fanatics took the brunt of most of the, and there was a lot of consumer noise.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You know, hey, these pants are C3, these jerseys suck, this, that. And what did we do? Number one, we listened and we reverted back together with Nike, baseball, and ourselves. We got to revert back to what fans loved. Number one. Number two, how do I use that to make my company better? And literally, we'd been talking about brand purpose. for the last year.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And I was like, what is this brand purpose bullshit? Like, is this just like, you know, consultant noise? And then it hit us. It's like, we need to relentlessly enhance the fan experience in everything we do. And if you ask us, when you go to do things and we do a lot of things, is this going to relentlessly enhance the fan experience? If the answer is no, don't do it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Well, you know, first of all, I think authenticity is so important. I think you have to be yourself. And I think I couldn't be anything other than that because people would see through it and say he's full of shit. So, you know, for me, it's just like always telling you what I think, how I feel, being real about it. I think people then trust you and a lot of good things happen.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Well, I could look back to a bunch of things we did in the past where it didn't. Relentlessly enhance the fan experience. And now we're going back and we're saying, we're re-questioning everything we've ever done to say, how do we be better?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Everything has to go into that brand purpose of relentlessly enhance the fan experience. When we started the sports betting business, we said, hey, if we give you back money in every bet that you make, you can use anywhere on our platform. The other thing we do is players get injured in sports all the time. If a player gets injured in the first quarter of a game, we cancel that bet.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We're the only person that does it. So what are people saying? FNAX is the most rewarding sportsbook. And by the way, they're the fairest sportsbook. By the way, we've picked up, as of this month, I just saw this morning, we have about 7%, 7.5% of the market. We've been live for two years.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Okay? And we're now the distant third, but we're the third biggest online sports betting platform. From people telling me two years ago, I had no chance. Now, talk about sports betting. We made a gamble, my biggest gamble ever. I had no idea whether it would work or not. Still not 100% sure it's going to work or not. I said to people, hey, I'm making a billion and a half to $2 billion gamble.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I think I'm going to be right, but I don't know. But you have to have the confidence to say, is this a big enough business I want to go after? And am I comfortable with what happens if it doesn't work? And so I know I'm a little all over the place in this answer. No, but you're not. I'm kind of walking you through how my brain thinks.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. So I would say I had the chance to start over again in 2011 with Fanatics. I wish I had that brand purpose then. Right. Because I think we'd be a better company today. Fair enough. I think in our online sports betting, iGaming business, we started with that mission. In the collectibles business, we started with that mission.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
In the fangirl business, we started in 2011, we didn't have that mission. And I think now that we have that mission of everything we do has to relentlessly enhance the fan experience. We keep going back and saying, well, what doesn't and how do we change it? And so I think that's the fun part of building a business. Like, let me ask you a question. Skims is roughly how big today?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Okay. It's big. How many people, how many people didn't care about you five years ago and now saying they want to kill you? Oh, a lot. Right. Right now, when we're doing this, this podcast together, you got people out there looking at what's Emma doing? What's Jen's doing? You know, what's Kim doing? What are you guys doing? How do we kill these guys? You know, because you guys are winning.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So that's, you're lucky to be in that position. But if you don't stay on your A game, you're going to be dead.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I look at everything. And let me tell you something. When I see something I like, I copy it as well. Okay? I'm proud of that. I'm so happy that you are honest about that. When I see a great feature, we're not doing that. Fucking do that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I pay attention to everything. I look like, I look at social media for one reason. So I see what's going on. Like I look at, I follow every one of my competitors. I follow everyone who's interesting. I follow everyone I can learn from. And I'm sending stuff to people. I probably send 20 or 30 posts of different shit to people who I work with every single day. So that's how we learn.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
If you don't do that, you're dead. Now, that doesn't mean like if someone's got something really original and apparel and they're known to own it, I may not want to copy that. But let me just take like we're in the business, like our original business All the fan gear that we sell. We sell more than 100 million units of fan gear this year. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
If we see something great in another business, we're absolutely going to find a way to bring that to our sports fans. Okay. And one of the things that's interesting about the fan gear business, what we were really good at was servicing the average sports fan. Why did I call Kristen... so many times? Why did I call you so many times? Because you were doing something different.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You were saying, how do I cover that fashion forward, higher end sports fan that I knew we weren't doing a good enough job with? Why did we start bringing in Lululemon merchandise in hockey? Because we knew our fans wanted that merchandise. Why are we expanding with Nike and so many products that we didn't carry before that we're not carrying today?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You know, we keep figuring out how can we do things better for the sports fans? So I think if you don't pay attention closely to your competition, you're dead. And I think when your competition does something good, in a lot of cases, don't be proud. Like I learn from my competition all the time.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Look, different people can be successful. Like I know so many, like I'm always studying people. You'd see somebody who's like wicked smart, but they don't have great people skills. I'm the opposite, right? I'm honestly not that smart. I mean, people think again, oh, he's being self-deprecating. I got a 780 combined on my SATs.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I mean, I'm English. Let me tell you, it's really bad. It's not the score from the movies. Most people will listen to this. I bet you 80, 90% of people got better than a 780 on their combined SATs. It's bad. Okay. And you know what? I embraced it. So what do I do? I'm going to outwork my competition all the time. I'm going to use common sense. I'm going to use relationship skills.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah, look, I really believe people gravitate to what they do best at. And I think a lot of people think I'm being self-deprecating when I say like, I really was an awful student. Like I had every learning disability you could possibly have. My mom was a psychiatrist, dad was a veterinarian. So they were like, used to like sophisticated, smart people. And I just came out of the womb different. So-
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'm going to have a will to win that nobody else can stop. And you know what? I know that will gets things done where everybody else would give up. I'm never fucking giving up.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Zero chance. What I'm trying to figure out is how I can get an eighth day in the week that only I get. Okay. If I can get a 25th hour in the day, only I get it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So look, I've had a couple of changes in my life. It's interesting. I've realized that I can't be glued to my phone the way I have been because it's actually screwing my brain up. Smart, yes. So now what I'm learning to do is I put my phone down for an hour here, an hour there. My oldest daughter's 19. She does it. It's not like where, you know, she'd call me, she'd need me right away.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So I'm actually... learning to put my phone down, you know, for periods of time, you know, generally like an hour at a time, right? Because I don't want, I don't want my concentration to be broken. I think I can have a much better discussion with you. I'm a hundred percent focused on you and not having my phone with me. That's a change. That's a new thing for me in my life.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'd say each day I'm probably putting my phone down probably 20 to 30 minutes during dinner with them, with my kids. I try to do it because I just think I shouldn't be like, that's the 20. We're fast eaters. Like I grew up like a, like a Labrador retrieve, which is I eat quick. So, but in that 20 minute dinner, you know, 30 minute dinner, I want to focus on, you know, my family.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I don't want to focus on work.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And then I'd say, maybe a meeting or two a day, I'll just leave my phone on my desk. Now, I also have a crazy OCD habit about myself. I cannot go to bed without responding to everybody in my phone and deleting every message I've dealt with. So my phone, okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So ever since I've been a kid, if you looked at my phone right now, I wouldn't have more than 20 or 30 total messages, none unread. Okay. Because that's how I keep myself in order. So before I go to bed, I can't fall asleep. No matter how tired I am. I can't fall asleep if I don't just respond to everybody.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So I don't always respond during the day, but I'll always respond before I go to bed because if not, it actually tortures my brain. I need my phone to be completely organized. So then I know the next morning, what are the things I have to do that are in my phone from the day before? So that's like some crazy OCD thing about my brain.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Also, if you walk into any of my offices, there's no paper, they're perfectly organized. I'm very OCD like that. I've always been that way. But I do think You know, you got to figure out like what works for you. This works for me. Okay. And I do like, I like to be in touch with the people that are around me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I liked even like, there's probably like, there's this guy in Philly who used to be like a complete detractor fanatic. He would tell us all the shit we were fucking up and doing wrong. And then like our company was too dumb before we didn't bring the characters. And now anyone who doesn't like us, we want to bring them in and learn from them. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Um, I really struggled in school. Um, always, you know, couldn't speak well, couldn't read well, you know, struggle with my grades. And so for that reason, I hated school. Like I hate, I didn't dislike it. I hated it. And by the way, as bad as students, I was, I was a pretty shitty athlete too. Like I just, you know, I didn't have good hand-eye coordination. I just wasn't what I was good at.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So this guy now texts me all the time, but I pick up good things from him. I'm always like, it's this customer I just built this relationship with. And I'm like, always this, this, this, I love the guy, by the way. It's like, like I'm learning from the guy. He's like, he's, he's sure. But sometimes there's things, the news he sends me before.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So it's like, like I like I'm glued to information like that. And I think it makes me better.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I don't think that's realistic for the 22,000 people that I work with. I think that would be illogical, not real, like living in a fairy tale. What I would say to you is if you want to be a fanatic's you have to have a will to win. Okay? And if you just like, if you just want to come in, you know, hit the clock, be nine to five, this ain't for you. Okay?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
That said, people have lives, people have families. Like, you know, I'm not a big work balance life person. That's not who I am. You and I have talked about that before. I'm like, people are like, how's your work life balance? Like, I don't have any. Because it's all work. Because I love it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It's too much. I would tell you, if you look at my direct team, the people I work with day in and day out, the six or seven people that kind of run the business with me, they have that intensity.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
They've got to be glued in like I am, have that intensity, love it, be here for the action. No one that I'm with is in it for the money. Like they all want to see the report cards. They want to see they're doing well, but they're in it to win in a big way and to make it better for the fan.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And so we're so obsessed with like, if you just saw the emails every day, it's everything that we could do better at. It's everything we could build to be better. It's like, we're always just trying to do better. And so that takes a relentless effort. you know, kind of focus. If I didn't have it for my key, you know, team, then how would that go down the organization? It never would.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
The person that works, you know, in a warehouse or, you know, a lid store is going to have the same intensity of a top executive at the company. No, but by the way, some of our next leaders work in the warehouse. Some of the, you know, maybe the future CEO fanatics, when I'm dead one day, is in a lid store today. They're in a warehouse today. You don't know. Roger Goodell started in the mailroom.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
He's been the commissioner of the NFL for whatever, since, you know, the last, That's 15, 20 years. So like to me, like I love that story of like you can will anything to happen, but I'm realistic as well.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And if I didn't, we'd be killed because there's so many, we were in three different businesses with lots of competitors, all figuring out how they can beat us. And so we have to be better. No, and I understand that. We have to keep doing things for the fans that are better. And we're not unrelenting about that. We're done.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
No. That's a pretty simple answer. I mean, like, look, it's easy. And so before anyone's going to shit all over my answer, let me just preempt it, okay? Obviously, I've had more than a financial success where I'm never thinking about money, okay? That said-
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You don't care? I don't act any different today than I did in 2009 when I didn't have enough money to pay the mortgage on my house. I know that that's the truth. I am the same exact person and that's what makes me me. And so I think if you look at the people that are the most important people in our company, they're driven by the mission. They're driven by making it better for the fan.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So at a really young age, I loved business. Like I loved it with every bit of my heart. And so I remember, you know, I can go back to when I was eight years older, I probably had four or five different jobs. I mean, I was, you know, buying seeds, like in a catalog and selling them door to door. When it would snow in Philadelphia, I would hire five, six kids to work for me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
They're driven by trying to do the unthinkable. They're driven by like just winning at the highest level. And then generally the report card is money does follow, but that's not what they're driven by. For me personally, I don't care about it at all. Now, again, I know people are going to say, well, it's because you've been so financially successful.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So do I think as an entrepreneur, you should be in it for the money? No, I think you should be in it to build, to disrupt something, to build something great, to do something awesome. And by the way, to have so much fun, do you really, like, let me ask you a question. How much fun do you have doing what you do?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
For me, I was born an entrepreneur. I came out of the womb with those instincts. And by the way, it's kind of weird because like my family, there's no signs of business anywhere else in my family.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. I got to do a DNA check, I think, or something. But, you know, like I... like even as a kid, you know, what I always loved was to be able to play the sport of business. That's what I've always loved. And today, what drives me more than anything is trying to do things better than we do it today or better than our competition. And to try to keep, you know, just like, I want to build
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
the most important brand in sports. I want to build one of the most important consumer companies in the world. We're not remotely there today. Like I was just telling someone this story. I think I was telling your husband this. Like I watched the Nike movie. I think it was called Air.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And I watched it like when it first came out two years ago. And I remember going to Google Phil Knight. How old was he? He was 85. I'm like, I was 50 at the time. I Googled him two years ago. And I thought to myself, wow, I have 35 more years to do kind of what he's done. Like, what can I do over the next 35 years? So I really do think of ourselves in the startup phase today.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I think we have so much opportunity to build each of the three businesses we're in to make them so great for consumers and to build something global that every sports fan needs. And then by the way, we'll think about what other businesses do we want to be in over time? Not today, but over time, once we get better at all the things we're doing. So to me, that learning is so fun.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So when I think about, you know, kind of what's in it from kind of, you know, a job or a career perspective, I think the learning is what turns me on. Yes. That is the thing that gets me most excited. I think if you as an entrepreneur go to build a business, if you just go to build something great, great shit follows. And by the way, sometimes it won't work. Sometimes you're going to fail.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And I would sell the snow shoveling for 20 bucks a driveway and then, you know, pay the guys to work for me. And I was, you know, buying and selling trading cards and I was making stationary on the computer. So I was good at that. So I gravitate to what I was good at. And, you know, for me, I absolutely loved it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And then you learn from that. Like I could go back and chart some of my biggest failures and say, man, I learned so much from that. And that helped me. for my next success. And so like each of my big failures, like, I don't know, they could have been disastrous, but they, they, they leaned into something next. I did. It was great.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. So first, I think it was in you. It just never came out before. I only wish I met you when you were 24, 25. I would have had you on the FNAX team and we'd be that much better. Now I have to partner with you to build off season to be on the same team. We got there eventually. Thank God. It took you until you were 26, 27.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Look, I have seen lots of people that were in different jobs, find that entrepreneurialism within themselves, and then go out and do absolutely amazing things. I've seen lots of people go out and fail miserably and then do amazing things afterward. So, you know, to me, I think it's about having the self-confidence to not be scared to fail.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It's about having the ability to come up with the right idea and test idea, make sure it's big enough to go out and put your energy into it. And it's about doing things you love too. You have to love this. If you don't love it, like why do it?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
No. Never. I'm going to tell you why. Because I'm immune and numb to it. Like I've had so many... I could go through like every week of this year and there's always disasters. There's always... You're like... This year, for sure. By the way, I'll give you an example. It's like someone walks in and say, hey, this tariff thing came and it costs $100 million. I'm like... What are we doing about it?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
How do we turn this into an opportunity? Like you can use these things.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah, profits. Oh my, all right.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Sometimes those can be really good things because you build up, like right now, here's the way- So you go straight to like- Take the existing crisis we're in right now, the tariff crisis, okay? I got together with my team, that business, $7 billion business. We have 8,000 employees in that team, actually more than that in that team. And I said, guys, this is a great opportunity. Like-
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We have to reinvent our supply chain. We have to be fast. And by the way, the CEO of that business is amazing. This guy, Andrew. Amazing. He's so good, Andrew. He's been talking about these things. And I'm like, well, now we have to do these things faster. We need to own less inventory. We need to turn faster. We need to change how we actually make goods. I'm almost excited by it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I will tell you, I had not one negative feeling to someone saying, we're going to lose $100 million in profits, not revenue. This year? Great. How do we help that to be better in the future? I could give you 10 examples right now of different things like that. I mean, you know, probably the only thing where I feel pain, probably I came up with one thing where I feel pain.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
A sight outage.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'm being serious. I remember Super Bowl like five or six years ago, there was so much traffic. The site went down. I feel like someone's stabbing me. And I'm caught. And like, you know, if you keep calling the guy who runs technology, he's not actually... No, he's actually fixing the problem. He's trying to fix the problem with his team. You have to boost that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
If the sports book is down, like something like that, that actually... That kills my inner soul. Okay. Because I just want to fix it. I think I feel pain. Maybe something goes wrong for my kids. Yes. But in business, no. Because like I think… One of the things of a good leader is someone who can deal with whatever comes at them in a calm and thoughtful way.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I calm down during the most difficult period. So when like shit's going crazy, that's why I think we have to be calmest, most focused, like game on.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I think the biggest thrill was being good at something. It was like, you know, if you're not a good student, you know, if you're not a good athlete, you know, that might not make you feel good. But like, if you're really good in business and you see you have that superpower, even at a really young age, it makes you feel good.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You can't panic because the reality is, every consumer company that makes merchandise is dealing with this issue. And by the way, you're going to be able to reinvent your supply chain. Like, look, China's probably not going to be a place where a lot of American companies make merchandise because of the, you know, relationships right now.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And so, and by the way, China's, you know, they're a really good, you know, partner in making merchandise. But you'll figure out, how do I shift that? How do I make my company better? Like, I know in 2026- SKIMS will be a better company from what you went through in 2025?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'm sure of that. Absolutely no doubt. And even though many companies are taking a drop in value today, the good ones will be more valuable next year because they figured out how to take advantage of this opportunity.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. I say I generally try to think about what things look like in the period of five to 10 years. I don't think about what's it going to mean over the next year or two years. Cause I think that's too near term focus. I think it's what, what can you do over five to 10 years after that? I'm like, okay, I hope I'm here.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So she, you know, like I think five to 10 years is kind of periods of time that I think about, I think you can do a lot five to 10 years. You can build something that's, that's really, you know, a leader. You can do something that's just so good for the fan. If you take that kind of long-term mentality.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah, I think history is a great prediction of the future. So, you know, one example that I've used is I interview more people in a given year than anybody at my level. And the reason is I realize how important people are to our company. That is the most important asset.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You know, I bet you in a given year, Um, and I work, you know, probably 80 hours a week on average, 78 hours a week, every week, probably eight hours a week. Um, I'd say 10 to 20% of my time. Okay. And during that period of time, I've never asked somebody for a reference in my life. Why? Because anyone I meet I'm going to figure out who I know that knows them. I'm going to do backdoor chat.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And so I've worked nonstop since I've been eight years old and I felt like it's the greatest honor in the world. And Even today, people say to me, like people, like I've always had an incredible work ethic. It's one of my best skills, but like I'm working the hardest I've ever worked. And I love it. It doesn't feel like work. It's like, I'm honored to get to learn and grow every single day.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'm not, if you ask me for a reference, I would call the people that I gave you and say, Hey, make sure you tell Emma this about me. Anyone who's listening to this, when someone asks you for a reference, when someone asks you for your references, if you don't give them the three or five references, then call each reference and tell them what you want them to say. You're not thinking very clearly.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Okay. So for me, um, What are you doing instead? Because I know you're calling around. I'm calling around and I'm checking on how have they been? What's their history? Sometimes I'll meet someone and I'm like, this person's fucking incredible. I found the person. What questions are you asking? When you reference someone, what are you asking? How well do you know this person?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Are they a killer or not a killer? How smart are they? How do they work with other people? And I got to tell you something, of people that I interview that I love, Two thirds of the people I hear bad shit about. Okay. And I'm hearing stuff, they don't work well with others. Okay. Someone can be so smart, but they're going to be disruptive. That doesn't work. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Another thing that I would hear is they're kind of like the political, the big company. I don't want politics. I want, I want, you know, entrepreneurs.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Someone has to have a track record in the past of being a winner. Okay. Track record is the best prediction of the future. So what are the pattern recognitions you want to see? How has the person done? Are they a winner? Okay. Are they, do they find out how to win? So you're going to always find that by talking to people that they worked with in the past.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And I think the second thing is how do they work with others? Because when you interview somebody, you can't see how they work with others. And you really can't see like, Take anything great. How many, what's the best products Kim's make? Best products. The number one product.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Okay. That ultimate bra. How many people do you think in the world say they invented that ultimate bra?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
50 people?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. They're all going to run around. I promise you, there are dozens of people saying, I invented the ultimate bra. Yes. Okay. So if I interview the person who says, I invented the ultimate bra, I'm going to Emma or Kim and saying, who invented this? Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm figuring that out to figure out, are they full of shit? Are they real? Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So one, I want to figure out, you know, are they real winner? And two, I want to understand their track record. And then how do they work with others?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You are important in sport.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And I'm just picking up tidbits in every conversation I have. So it's like, you know, I go back to when I was eight years old and just know it felt good to get to do what I do. And it doesn't feel any different today. It just feels great.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I love putting great rooms together because what happens when we put great rooms together? Great things happen. I remember seeing some of the people you went up to talk to.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Correct.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Right. And I said, who do you want to meet? Let's go see these people one by one. And to me, when you put great people together, great things happen. But for me, if I'm not just me- And I think people think like… He's full of shit. He wants something from me. They see through it. They know you're not authentic. So like… I can't even like… I don't ever like… I dress like this every day.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I don't ever… Like I think I wear a suit like… You know… Once a year for me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
A wedding. You know… A funeral or something. Like you have to wear a suit. Like you know… I'm a casual guy. Like I don't try to speak… more properly because it's not me. I curse because I want people to know like you're not cursing here, but I am because that's who I am. So I think like owning who you are, something that's really important.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And by the way, like I just try to be my, like my best self all the time. And I think, I think it does work for me. And I think people know that, like that they can trust that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I would call you for anything I need to know you would do it for me. That's true. Well, I would now. That's true. But like, look, I think when you try to be calculated about if I do this for that person, this is what they'll do for me. I think you're dead before you start. Like, I always think if you just do great things, it comes back.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And so I think I've been fortunate that I like, look, I have guys like Robert Kraft. It's one of the, you know, he's one of the most important owners in sports. You know, he and his son, Jonathan Kraft, they took me Like they kind of took me in like 2008, 2009. And they helped me so much in business, both with advice and relationships. They never wanted a thing for me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And by the way, they would kill for me and I would kill for them. And like, I wouldn't be here today. This I'm very sick without the two of them. I wouldn't be here. I would not be here today. Okay. there were a number of people like that, but I want to do that for everybody that I can.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And I don't ever want anything, but I also know like people always like friends work for each other behind the scenes. And so like, you know, to me, I remember saying to you when you were in the corner, you know, who do you want to meet? And, you know, I remember taking you to a couple of different great people. And like, I was honored to do that. Never thought about it again until right now.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Oh, I thought about it. But what would make me happy is to see you do something great with you know, one of those businesses and, you know, whether it's Nike or Target or whoever it is, it's like great things to come. And that makes me like so proud and happy that I could create a room in an environment where people could come together.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And look, I love bringing great people of all different backgrounds together. and watching great things happen. Okay. And that is something that I'm actually pretty good at because I have such a diverse group of friends and people trust me. And then they come in here and I think they're open-minded. No, you knew everyone in that room was someone you want to spend.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So whoever came up to you, you're like, hey, that's going to be good.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Oh, it's karmically beautiful.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. Even though our business would be over $9 billion this year, over $11 billion in revenue next year, we have 22,000 people. I feel like a startup. And I want to always have that mentality.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Well, first of all, thank you. It's the truth. Number two, I will eventually call you for something and I know you'll help me. I don't know what it will be, but like that's just what family… I'll be waiting for the call. That's what family does for each other. I'll tell you, it's funny.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
When we were talking about off-season yesterday and your husband and I were talking about this, he's like, yeah, you know, a lot of this is sourced in China. China's completely… I said… whatever it is, we'll figure it out. Like, it's all good. And by the way, if we need to lose money, you know, on the next launch or the next two launches, who cares? Like we're a big believer in your wife.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We're a big believer in Kristen. We're a big believer. Like, it's just like, we'll figure it out. Like you always think long-term in these things.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah, I'm the most excited I've ever been. And the reason is, For, since 2011, I've always been saying it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, but it wasn't really here. Right. Now we have two major, well, we have a couple of major opportunities. The one is women's sports in general has so much interest from the whole world. And so it's, it's become a real business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like if I think about the WNBA's business five years ago versus today, I mean, what an incredible thing. league it's become. I look at what's happening in each of the women's sports. I think there's never been more excitement. Separately, like think about the woman's category of merchandise. We have sucked in that category. There's been so much. I'm glad you know. Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You know, as they used to call it, shrink it and pink it. Okay. And so when I- We know the people that did that. Right. So when I look at, you know, what you and Christian are doing, when I look at, you know, the Lululemon product that we're now carrying, when I look at, you know, the work we're doing with other people, it's because there's such a big untapped opportunity. Totally.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I feel like a startup. I feel like we're just getting going. And look, Here's the reality. That's humble. I have so much fear about, and fear in a good way, like fear that drives me about what are all the things we're not doing right. And by the way, when I go through our business, there's a lot of things we do well, and there's a lot of things we don't do well.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Again, what I think Fanatics was best at originally was taking care of the average sports fan, of which there's billions of. But the problem is when you have billions of people that are sports fans, there's so many niches. And what we didn't do as a good job is in the niches. Now we're so focused on thinking about each customer segment separately. Yes. And that's a big opportunity itself.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
That's a big growth opportunity for
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
First of all, in our biggest business, the fan group business, our business is only about 15% women's and about 12% kids. It's 50% bought by women.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So they're controlling the purchase power. So let's not forget they are, I'd say, the most important person, you know, in the household. Thanks. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So the way I think about it is the population represents our fan base, right? Because we have 115 million customers. And so we have every type of customer, you know, buys, bets, collects with fanatics. So we need to have a workforce that represents our fan base. Okay. Yes, you do. And by the way, if you think you're going to get there without working at it,
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like it takes real work and we're not near good enough at it. Like we have the workforce that most represents our fan base today than we ever have. We're not near enough good at it. Like we got to keep getting better at it. We got to keep developing people. So yes, we work very hard at it because I think it's in our best interest of how we build a better company.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It will be more successful if our workforce resembles our fan base.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I don't want to talk about what we do good. I want to talk about what we don't do well so we can make it better. And so, you know, I think you have to have that startup mentality, that entrepreneur's mentality that's always driving. I think you lose your edge. And then quite frankly, I think somebody takes you out and it's over.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So I want them to learn work ethic from me. I wanted them to see how fun what I do is. What my daughter said to me, and it was actually one of the proudest moments I've had with her. She said last year at the end of the summer, we went and grabbed dinner one night. She's like, dad, I just want you to know, like we have so many friends that are like influencers. She goes, I want to build.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
She actually, she's dying to do what you do. She wants to build a fashion brand. She wants to be the entrepreneur that builds it. And she wants to be well-known for building a great business. And for me, what I wanted to do is just live out her dreams. Of course you do. That's all any father wants. Yeah. By the way, she just hit me on the way in two collabs we have to do.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
She's always telling me about collabs that we should do together. And by the way, she'll tell me like, this person's hot. You got to check this person out. You should do stuff with them. So yeah, like I'm learning from her all the time. And I love those conversations.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah. So I think the first thing that links to my life is owning who I am. Like, I'm not trying to, you know, be a fake person. Hey, like, you know, I'm, you know, I put my kids to bed every night or like, you know, I'm like, by the way, with Kylie, when she was younger, I was in a situation where I did put it about a lot of nights, but like it, Camille is the most incredible mom.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And you know, Camille's like, Hey, I got the kids. You go do your thing. We, you know, we find the windows, but like, like I love working. I'm like owning how much I love to work. And it's what I do and not trying to like, Apologize for it. Apologize. That's number one.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Number two, you know, non-negotiable. You got to work with great people. And like, I will not negotiate on that. And when I think someone's a liability, see ya. And by the way, certain people can help you get to one place. They can't get you to the next level. You got to know how to just like, I love you. Move on. Move on. Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
one of the biggest pet peeves I have is like someone who tries to bullshit me in any way, shape or form. And I'm, one of my biggest strengths is I have great bullshit detection strengths. So like if you're trying to bullshit me, I will pick it up. I hear, like I hear everything. I pay attention to everything. So I will very much, the second I don't trust somebody, gone. Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'm very decisive, yeah. You are, right? You've been cursed by that. It's okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I am.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I'm here for you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You ready? Here we go.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
That's the most obvious answer in the world.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
For the fourth time since I've been asleep.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Who doesn't?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Obviously.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
What kind of dumb question was that?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I tried once.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It's a great question. I'm inspiring. I want to build the greatest brand in sport. Every sports fan in the world is like, I love this company. And we are so far from that. We have so much to do. But that's my dream. Right. How do I build something? Everyone's not like, not they, you know, it's just where you go to buy something or it's where you go to bet.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It's like, we just make it so much better for the sports fan. Like that is like so exciting to do. And so that is the thing I'm obsessed with is like, how do I build something? It's like just sports fans, billions of sports fans love this.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
you know, it's harder as you get. So I'm 52 now, even though I act like a kid and look like a kid, you know, I think at my age health, like, yeah, it's, you know, I travel with a trainer. I, right now I'm having like, my neck is always, I have a PT person's working on my neck every day. Cause my neck is just pretty, uh, cranky. So I think it's health.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like if you can feel good, I think it's like, I've had the last couple of months just like some, you know, like just, you know, fighting just like you get older, you got to work at that harder.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I remember being on a walk with Robert Kraft in like 2011 and 2012. I was on the phone with a commissioner, very unhappy about something they had done. And I was like… All I want to do is win that battle. And Rob… When I got off the phone… Rob said to me… Michael… Give it to them because this is all about the long-term partnership.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And you're too focused on the individual win, even though I was right. You're too focused on the individual win and not focused on just having that right long-term partnership. And that was a good moment because I chilled out. I took a deep breath. Even though I didn't agree with what they were saying, I did it the way they wanted. And it paid dividends.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I think when I was starting, maybe even until 10 years ago, I was a work hard, play hard person. I really don't like... People see my life, they see like the five fun things I do a year and they think I'm super fun. Like, I don't value... Like, I just value building my company. It sounds like obsessive and people are going to be like, he's a fucking weirdo.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like, all he cares about, you know, is building his company. But like, you know... I'm less concerned. Like the time I used to have to go out, you know, like I think building a great company is fun. Yes. So I don't, I think the things that people would say are fun. You know, maybe I care less about now.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Well, for sure, it's got to go back to health. I want to do this in 50 years. I want to do it in a healthy way in 50 years. So I think I really have a huge respect for health. I'm spending time on that. I'm focusing on that. I value relationships. I really care about my relationships. I think they're really important to me. I think I wouldn't be who I am without those relationships.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So I think I feel fortunate to have so many incredible relationships. I want to respect them, give to those relationships. Those are probably two things I think.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Honored to be with you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So first, our company is not for everyone. Like we tell people, you know, this is an intense company. You know, we're going to keep pushing. You know, it may not be for you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Definitely. But by the way, when I go to hire people at my level, level down, I try to scare people away to see what they're made of. I know you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like, you know, are they going to think, you know, you're crazy when you call them at six o'clock in the morning or, you know, 11 o'clock in the night or when they get email, I don't call people in the middle of the night, but I send emails in the middle of the night. Are they anything that's crazy? They're going to like that. Is that going to drive them?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Are we going to like inspire people together? They're going to not be made for it. And so, you know, to me, I think it starts with leadership. Leadership is really important. You've got to have a vision and get people to buy into your vision. Communication is so important. Like, it's not like we have, 50 people.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
When you have 22,000 people, you have to communicate and get your message out to everybody. Make sure you've got people aligned and working together. And I think that's where a lot of big companies, you know, they get off track.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
They're more concerned with like the different corporate bullshit that you're supposed to have in a company of like, you know, the memos from the different departments that tell you the things you want to know. I'm like, I don't even read any of that shit from us. Like I'm focused on how do we grow our business? How do we keep pushing?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And if you really think about it, why am I working the hardest I've ever worked? You know, we were only in the business that we call Finax Commerce. That's the fan gear business. That's where I started. We were only in that business till 2020. Now we have three businesses. We have the fan gear business, which is called Finax Commerce.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We have the collectibles business, which is primarily trading cards. And we have the betting and gaming business. We only launched the betting and gaming business. Our first dollar of revenue was last year. This year, we've been close to a billion dollars in revenue. Year two, okay? Year two. Our collectibles business- Is it profitable? Gaming business is not profitable.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
We're investing aggressively. It's all right, because I know you're profitable in the other two. Look, the collectibles and trading card business is a very good business. Commerce business is a big business that's grown its profitability. But for us, think about the trading card and collectibles business. That idea popped in my brain the day before Thanksgiving of 2020.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
That business next year will be a $3 billion business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So it shows you when you get something right, how quickly you can do it. But we've really gone from one business to three businesses. And then how do you bring it all together for the fan? And so that takes, you have to be on top of it. Like one of the things that we don't probably talk enough about, I think one of the key jobs of a leader is to stop dumb shit from happening. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And you know, I'm right when I say this, like how many times you're like, what the fuck? Like, why is someone thinking this? Why is someone doing that? So as a leader, you need to be on top of your business. You need to make sure you're working with your team. You're paying attention to what's going on. And sometimes you need to stop dumb things from happening.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So it's like, one, you need to lead the organization. You need to have the right vision, get everyone bought in. But then when you're growing very fast, when you go from one business to three businesses, you go from 8,000 people to 22,000 people, like, you know, kind of, crazy shit can happen. So you got to be on your business to stop that from happening.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So there's so much to do in any given day for what we do.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Well, I think I have some really good ones. I also think I have some bad ones as well. Of course, we all do. Yeah. So I think the first thing is you do need to have, like one of the things I think I'm pretty good at is coming up with a big idea and then sizing it up. Like you need something that's good for the consumer, in our case, good for the fan, but also something that's a good business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So I'm pretty good at figuring out, is this a big and good idea? And is it also a good business? A lot of people come up with great ideas, but they're bad businesses. Yeah. Totally.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And by the way, you and I've seen these things before, you know, so many, they have a great idea. It seems like it's a great thing, but actually it's not a good business. So I'm pretty good at first having the common sense to figure that out. I think we go back to like, as a founder, a CEO, you do need to be a really good communicator to let people know, you know, kind of what are we doing?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
What are we going after? Bringing teams together is really important. That's something I've got a lot better experience. over the last 10 years, because as a decent sized company now, like you need the greatest people in the world to do what we do. And if you don't, you absolutely fail. So I'm unrelenting from that perspective.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Like when I think someone can make a difference to our company, I'll fly anywhere in the world to recruit them. The amount of people have said to me like, Hey, Michael, like, Hey, you know, I made so much money. I'm not into doing this. I don't want to do this. I'm like, Watch this. I'll get on a plane. I'll go see them. I'll convince them why this is a great idea.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And before you know it, we're building together. So, you know, unfortunately, a lot of the people that are my senior leaders, they've been really successful in their business career and financially before they joined me. They didn't need to do this. They bought into the vision, the idea of what they want to do together with us.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
And so I think being able to sell that vision, be able to get somebody on board is so important. But if you don't get the right people at the top, you have no shot. So when you look at your team... If you don't have, you know, your direct reports, your key people that are really A's, then you're dead. Because A's don't go to work for B's. Okay? Never going to happen.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
An A person is never going to go to work for B. And if A person goes to work for B, they're going to move on. Okay? Pretty quickly. So you need A's in the top. I think... When shit's not working, I know how to rip the bandaid off. Like, I'm not scared about that. Are you quick with that?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
You're like... Yeah, like, I will throw shit against the wall, but when it doesn't work, like, fuck it, move on. Like, I don't care at all. And so, I think part of being, you know, having had so many failures in my life, having learned from so many of those failures...
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It gives me great confidence to go for things and, you know, not have any fear about if it doesn't work, we're just going to rip the bandaid off. I mean, think about what we've done in the past four years. We were only in the, you know, Fangir business, which now is, you know, this year it's about a $7 billion business. And we started the collectibles business. We started the gaming business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Within the collectibles business, we started a live commerce platform, a marketplace. We started a fanatics events business. We started, but by the way, I started an NFT business. Four months into that, I was like, this isn't a real business. It's a bullshit business. And I knew, okay, we're getting out of it. I got the investors the money back. I'm like, I'm moving on.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I've seen death in its eyes.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
So many times. I'm sorry. I got to tell you something, that's fun. Oh, stop it. It's fun.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
It's fun. It's fun. It's like, because I remember even recently, the last time that I really thought I was done was 2009. We're in the middle of the financial crisis. My stock and my company had been worth $250 million. It went down by 90%. Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
In stock, which wasn't sellable, by the way, because the market, okay. And then I had maybe my total net worth in 2009. was $10 million outside of the $25 million of stock I had. And by the way, I probably had $15 million in real estate. So I had a negative net worth. Okay. I remember coming home. I was calm as a cucumber. Get out. Are you serious? Yeah, because you know what?
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Because I wasn't scared of failing. Here's what I knew. If I fell apart and it was all over, I would just do it again. And it would be fun.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
I think ever since I was a little kid, I have not had fear in business. I've just always been fearless like that. And so it doesn't even seem off to me. I think a lot of entrepreneurs think that way. I mean, it doesn't, you know, no matter what you tell me, I'm like, okay, how do we deal with it? Because you want to keep everyone calm, cool, and collected all the times.
Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Think about Tom Brady when he was down 28-3. against the Atlanta Falcons. Do you think he was in there saying like, I'm dejected, I'm quitting? It's just like, fuck that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And you see it, like, you know, look at, I mean, we're moving people through the store as quick as we can. And we've already done more, the store's done more volume to where we are now than the entire last year's WrestleMania because of how incredible these fans are. People are just waiting because they want this belt. They want Travis Scott, Cactus Jack. They want all the new things.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Well, and when it's cool... Yeah, it's cool. It's so cool. So it's so fun to see. To me, and I just love spreading the word, the amount of people that came with me tonight who can't wait to watch WrestleMania and can't wait to see what happens. It's just so passionate. It's pretty incredible.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Thank you to you and your family for everything you guys have done. Thank me, but thank you. I won't be here without you.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Well, I'll tell you, as I said, I think, you know, Fanatics has gotten to be, you know, we're a decent-sized company now with 22,000 people. We own a lot of brands that people would know here. We own Lids. We own Fanatics. We own Mitchell Ness. We own Tops. Great activation here, bringing everything together.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
But if there's one thing that I'll tell you is when someone at Fanatics who's in a different business moves to the WWE brand... They're like, you see them like six months later, like these are, it's crazy. Like these fans are incredible. Like I've never seen anything like it before. And, you know, it goes back to the thing you said, you've got to listen to your customer and everything you do.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So, you know, I got here a couple hours ago. I'm walking around to her next with the con afterward. And so what are we going to do? Just ask questions to people. What do you want more of? What do you like? What do you not like? What did we get wrong? What did we get right? How do we do this better?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And, and, you know, and you guys, one of the great things about WWE is you guys move so quick as well. Like, you know, look, we have, you know, we deal with every, you know, and fanatics. We saw every sports property in the world, whether it's the NFL or the NBA, which congratulations.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Thank you. I feel like here's the best thing about what I'm doing. I feel like we're just getting started. I feel like we're a baby startup today. This year, we'll be over $9 billion in revenue. Next year, I think we'll probably be over $11 billion in revenue. We feel like we're a baby startup. And the cool thing about that is you just realize what a big opportunity we have to keep.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
enhancing the fan experience everything we do and we need to get better like we're not good enough at anything that we do whether it's like last year I showed up and we weren't even doing the trading cards yet in WWE and then we launched tops with WWE this January 1st and chrome sold out I think in five minutes it was one of the fastest releases we ever had because we had such an incredible product and then I just walked into our booth over here and it looked incredible
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
But, of course, we're never satisfied. We're like, okay, what else can we do? How do we do this better? You know, same thing with the merch. Same thing with anything we do. If we ever stop doing that, we'll be irrelevant.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, I think the second in business, I think the second you get comfortable, the second you get arrogant, right, The second you're obnoxious, I think, honestly, you're dead. Like, bolt in the back of the head. Because, by the way, there's people trying to kill us right now in every business we're in. I mean, we're in the sports betting business with Fanatic Sports Club. We have Fanatics Live.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We have Fanatics Collect. We have Topps. We have Mitchell Ness. We have, you know, Lids. I mean. There's people coming for us in everything we do. We have to be on our A game all the time. And then, by the way, when we get something wrong, make sure we're super intense about fixing it. So you've got to be a great listener in business or you become irrelevant.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I think it's one of the things WWE does so well. You're always listening to your fan base and using it to deliver an experience.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You guys are not shy, by the way. But I love that. Yeah. And, you know, last year, for anyone who's from the New York area, we launched our first Fanatics Fest last year. And we had, you know, we had every sport in the world there, the NFL, the NBA, hockey, baseball. This year we have Premier League coming, FIFA, F1. I got to tell you something. WWE-owned Fanatics Fest.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You were probably a third of the fans. It was crazy. I had the commissioners of the biggest sports come up to me like, yo, this is crazy. These WWE fans, it's insane.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I say all the time to everyone around me, we always have to stay humble. If we don't stay humble, bad things will happen. And, you know, look at, you know, example, you know, I'm looking right now at all the tops trading cards as I look over that I look left. I think about we're honored. We just relaunched this January 1st, but we took over, you know, we own tops.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We took over NFL cards that we're launching next year and NBA cards and Premier League cards and and WWE cards, UFC cards. And the reason I say this is because. Competitors got complacent. They got lazy. They weren't innovating the product think about we just announced that we're gonna have the debut patch and All everyone in WrestleMania who wrestles we're taking a patch.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah that in a one-on-one card that lets people like these incredible fans Get click. Could you imagine? Yeah, and so taking things and letting fans connect is to, you know, the most important athletes is like something, it's just one of many things that we thought about because we're hungry and humble. The second you get confident, you become irrelevant.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And, you know, I think we came into a lazy business. Like the... Trading card business was complacent was lazy that created opportunity for us when people hear a thing about what they can do in business You want to be an entrepreneur just go look around like things change all the time. There's opportunities all the time We're in the best country in the world.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
There is like I'm telling you new people are disrupting Existing people every day of the week.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Almost five, almost three, and a 19-year-old. My 19-year-old best relationship in the world, we've been fighting a little bit the last day or so.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah. I told you she was getting a little lazy and a little complacent. So I was about to throw water in her face yesterday morning.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Look, I think you have to lead by example. And I think there are like, I don't try to act like I'm the perfect parent because I'm not. Like people ask me about work-life balance. I'm not an expert on work-life balance. Like I work 17 hours a day, just probably 350 days a year. And I love it. I'm honored to do it. It's like, it's so fun for me. I think I have the greatest job in the world.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So what I try to teach to my three daughters is like, They see me pushing unrelentlessly every day. And I think that's something that it's contagious. Like I do that for everybody around me. You know, I mess with people like some of my most important people. I'll FaceTime them at 5 a.m. I'll FaceTime them at 12 o'clock. I'll get someone to go wake her up. Like, you know, like that's my mentality.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You know, sometimes I'm doing it to be funny. Sometimes I'm doing it for like, you know, purpose. But I think it's, you know, I really want them to learn work ethic. I want them to learn about relationships. Relationships are everything. Like. If you think about how I built my business, in good times, you don't need relationships. In bad times, relationships are the most important things you have.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So we've built so many authentic relationships that I think have helped us. It's why people are behind us building Fanatics. I look at the opportunity to connect with all of you here live and say, I want to have a relationship with you guys because you're going to help me build my business.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And so that mentality, I think if my kids learn, we'll let them not be a cocky, arrogant, little rich kid, but let them be a humble and appreciative kid. So look, it is like, you know, they grow up, they see a lot of things, they grow up around like, you know. I do this little party. People probably heard I'm called the white party. Okay. My daughter, you know, my daughter's always wanted to go.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
My daughter's 19. We got, you know, she started coming when she was 15. I said to her and she's like, look, it's a, it's a, it's a 13 hour party. And she sees, you know, 350 people having the time of their lives. And the next morning I go, I went to bed at five. And like 7 o'clock in my room, okay, let's get up. Let's go work. She's like, Dad, are you fucking serious?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
But like work hard, play hard. Like I always want to push that on her.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And by the way, Camille, who I have two daughters with, my 3- and 5-year-old, she's like the sweetest mom in the world. So it's going to be balanced. She's like the nice, super supportive. I'm just like push, push, push.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And she's definitely the sweet one, and I'm definitely the one that's always pushing, so it's a good combination.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, I could give you a couple great examples. So probably the scariest moment in my modern life was the financial crisis of 2008, 2009. And... My company, a year earlier, was worth about $2, $2.5 billion. When the stock market crashed, even though our business was doing pretty well, our stock went down by 90%. So I had about a 10% stake in the company.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And my stake went from being worth about $250 million to being worth about $25 million. Well, the problem was I owed a bank $50 million. Okay? So if you only have $25 million, you owe a bank $50 million, you're pretty fucked. Okay? And... The, you know, I was using that money to kind of, you know, borrow against and invest in other things.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
That was kind of how I was living, you know, because I didn't want to pay myself anything for my company. I worked for virtually nothing. Anyway, stock kept going down. I kept getting something called a margin call. So the bank says either you pay me back or we're going to sell your assets. And so I got it down to $3 million. And I could not get another penny.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
The bank said, we're going to sell all of your stock. Well, there was a guy who had lent me... Sorry, there was a guy who I had invested $3 million in his fund like five years earlier. And I called the guy 50 times for the money back. Like every day, like, man, I need this money.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Like, I'm going to lose my company if not... He's like, if I give you your money back, I'm going to have to give everyone their money back. Well... Literally, he kept saying, no, no, no. It was probably like around the 51st time. I don't know exactly, but like I called it a lot on the 51st time. Like, man, I need that money. I'm going to like I'm going to lose my company. Like, I need that money.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
He's like, I hate you, but I love you. He gave me three million bucks back that day. Wow. I sold my company a year and a half later for two point four billion dollars. OK, so talk about relationships. Yeah, I was like I saw death in his eyes. In spring 2009, spring 2011, EVA buys GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion. So without that relationship, without that work ethic, I wouldn't be sitting here today.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And never giving up. I would have been that guy you heard about that lost this company. By the way, people like negative stories more than positive stories. But I like talking about positive stories because you know what? There's too much bullshit negativity in this world. We've got to all push each other up. That's right. I'm a huge believer in that.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
By the way, I'll tell you guys a great story about WWE and Topps. So I'm walking in the Grove. I live part-time in Los Angeles. And I'm walking in the Grove maybe a year ago, and this guy runs up to me. He's like, hey, I was giving my daughter a piggyback.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
He's like, hey, I hate to bother you with your kids, but I've got this company that makes incredible exhibits, and I would just die to get a meeting with your guys. Um, anyway, I get that like every day of my life. So I just, I said, email me. I forwarded guy hits me two months ago. He says, Hey, I met you at the Grove. Um, we built the most incredible exhibit for you.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I can't wait till you see it. It's that booth right there. This guy who just found me at the Grove one year ago. And you know what? That's great. It didn't bother me. I love the guy. I want to pitch me on what he was doing. And here he is. I got to tell you something. Our experience. for WWE trading cards this year, you guys got to all go through it. It's incredible.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And that's just like, this guy was already like, I did it the other night.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
He loved it. And some guy who just hit me up in the grove, and here he is helping us to build a better business, and that's just being unrelenting and work ethic.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, by the way, I'll tell you another thing I believe. Others may not agree with this. To be successful in business, you need... If you don't think you need luck and timing, you are so wrong. Luck and timing is part of life. Yeah. Okay? And I've had... I've had a lot of good luck. I've had some bad luck. But you know what?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You've got to make some of your luck, but you need good luck and good energy. When you do good things in this world, you also get good karma.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You know, by the way, you asked about relationships. Like, I'll talk about, like, the relationship between WWE and Fanatics. Like, we went from not being in business together three years ago to now we do all the event retail, all the merchandise, all of the e-commerce. We do all of the trading cards. We're doing all the podcasts together now.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We have several other new things that we're not going to announce on stage today. But my point is, like, we built this great partnership, and now we're helping each other build our businesses. So, like, relationships are absolutely everything in business.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
It really is. I'm also not scared. Like, I'll tell you another thing. This will sound crazy. Not only am I not afraid to fail. I kind of like it a little bit. Yeah. Because in each failure, you get great lessons. You learn from it and then you just use it to do the next thing better and better. Like we have we have like in my career, every year we have epic failures. I mean, epic failures.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
But like we say, OK, well, what do we learn from? How do we fail fast? How do we use it to be a better company? If we ain't failing, we ain't trying hard enough. And so I'm a huge believer in failure is a key part of life. I say it to my friends. to my older daughter all the time. Like you got to fail. Like you got to take shots. Like she's got this idea for this new business.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
She pitched me two months ago. I'm like, okay, when are you launching it? What like learn from it? Like, I don't care whether it works or not. I care about you doing it and going through that experience.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah. Well, it was even worse than that. So I was 16 years old. I had, um, One ski shop is about a half a million dollars in revenue. And if you're in the ski business and it doesn't snow, that's not very good. It's like you need snow if you're selling skis. So I was also a cocky little 16-year-old. So I went out when I was 15.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I bought a Porsche with a friend of mine before I was legal to drive that car. So the ski season ends at 16. I have half a Porsche that I own. I have $80,000 of inventory. I have $200,000 of bills. It was so bad. I'm not exaggerating this. In the spring... In the spring of that ski season, I probably got sued 100 times.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
The sheriff would show up at my mom and dad's house every day before I go to school. It was this nice woman. She'd ring the doorbell at like 7.30. Hey, Michael, here are today's lawsuits. I'd give her a hug. I would take the lawsuits. Thank you. And it went on for like 60 days. Like I said, I probably got sued 100 times. Now I'm like, I'm done.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Well, I wasn't getting out. I thought I was done. And so I hired a bankruptcy lawyer. At 16. Yeah. I'm going bankrupt. It's over. I got $200,000 in bills, $80,000 in inventory, half a push. I hired a bankruptcy lawyer. And in our second meeting, he says to me, Michael, how old are you, by the way? Are you like 21, 23? I'm like, no, I'm 16. He's like, what? What? I'm like, I'm 16.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
He's like, well, I got good news for you. You're not old enough to be able to legally incur a debt. So this would be a lot easier than you thought.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Thank you to the amazing fans. You guys are the best fans in the world.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
It doesn't defer to your parents. So they actually got all the creditors together. And, um, it was the first time I actually, so I was able to settle my debts for $38,000, but I didn't have the money. Right. And so, and my parents never gave me a penny. I grew up in like a very middle class family. Like The house we grew up in cost $42,000. Today it'd be like a half a million dollar house.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So, I mean, they were both doctors, but we were, I mean, we were middle, we were, you know, not the way, you know, my kids grow up. They were middle class. So I went to my dad, I said, dad, look, I need to borrow $38,000. He's like, that's your entire college money to go to college. I'll give it to you if you agree to go to college and pay for it. So of course I made the deal.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
But then something, I had a big twist in life about two weeks later. There was another ski shop that went out of business and they had a similar amount of inventory About $200,000 in inventory, rather. And it got auctioned off by the government. And I bought it for $13,000. So I went back to my dad. I said, hey, dad, I got great news. Like, not good news. I have great news.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I'm going to be able to pay you back much more quickly. I just need another $13,000. My dad looks at me. He's like... He was literally like, are you fucking kidding me? Get out of here. No. Cause did he loan you the 38 grand? He lent me the 38,000.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah. And that was like a ton of money to my family. Right. It was my college money. A lot of money. Right. So, I mean, that was the money put aside for me to go to college. I agreed, I'll pay to go to college. He lends me the money. Now I buy this new $13,000 inventory. Now he won't give me the money. And I realized I bought it from the government.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Like, they're going to come arrest me if I can't pay for it. So I start going knocking door to door, saying, hey, I got this great opportunity. I just bought this inventory. It's $200,000. I bought it for $13,000. And the third guy says, I'll lend you the money, but you're going to make a lot of money. I want $1,000 a week interest.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I actually thought $13,000, $1,000 a week interest, that ain't so bad. And I made the deal and I started going through the yellow pages. This is when we had yellow pages. I sold, I got the $16,000 back within three weeks to pay him back and had like 80% of the inventory left. Long story short, that near failure, by the time I was 21, this is unfortunately 31 years ago.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We were doing $100 million buying and selling closeouts by the time I was 21. So almost going out of business at 16 and seeing death in his eyes led me to build the biggest buyer and seller of closeouts in the world of athletic footwear at age 21. So like, again, value's great. Like, here I was, I thought I was a disaster. I can't make it in business. You know, I suck.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I can't have it, right? You can't have it. If anyone gets it, I'm getting it. He's got one already. You guys can share.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I'm going to just be a normal kid. And five years later, I'm doing $100 million a year, making $10 million a year, buying and selling athletic shoes 31 years ago. So every failure, if you embrace it, leads to your next success in my mind.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, I never, ever thought. Like, I always had the confidence, like, I got it. I can do this. It never crossed my mind for even one minute. I'm just like... Like, even in 2009, this was only 15 years ago, when I think I'm losing my entire company. I enjoyed the process. I enjoyed the experience. I enjoyed the learnings. It's like, sometimes it's good to have the goosebumps and be scared.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You know, like, what's going to happen? I don't know. I don't know how the play is going to come out. So, no, I'm just like... Run it back. Who cares? Like when we did this last year, our first WWE world, I didn't know what to expect. Was it going to work or was it going to be a failure? When we did Fanatics Fest for the first time, was it going to work or was it going to be a failure?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Like I told people two weeks before Fanatics Fest last year where 70,000 sports fans showed up. I have no idea whether it's going to work or not. You know what? Fuck it. Let's see. It was great. Now we're going to double the amount of people coming this year.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I'm sure they're going to tell us, you know, I love that episode. You know, that one with Michael Rubin, it sucked. I don't like that one. Okay. You know, they're going to tell us what they like and what they don't like. And we're going to use that to be better because that's what we do.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I mean, this is a incredible Cactus Jack collab with Travis Scott. He makes some of the, you know, coolest merch in the world. And, you know, he's such a big WWE fan. And, you know, WrestleMania coming. He's like, I'm going to drop the coolest, you know, coolest merch in the world. And. People have been staying in line for a long time to get this stuff. I love it.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
pretty great at giving money away to people that I cared about who asked me, but I never cared to spend the time to do the work. So I was really like, you were important to me, you had a cause that was important to you, I will support you. I had a life-changing moment in 2017, and I think You know, a lot of the world knows the story, but a friend of mine went to prison for not committing a crime.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
He popped a wheelie on a motorcycle and broke up a fight in the airport and got a traffic ticket for one and no ticket in the other. And a judge sent him to jail for two to four years. And Meekville, it's a pretty famous story. And I sat in court watching this judge sentence him to two to four years. That moment not only changed his life, it changed my life because...
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I, like, I felt it was the most powerless I ever felt. Like, you know, I owned, I was, you know, a significant owner of the Philadelphia Sixers. You know, I owned Fanatics. I was a pillar in, you know, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, I'm watching this judge sentence my friend of two to four years for popping a wheel on a motorcycle. And... we spent the next, he got sentenced to two to four years.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We spent the next, we took us about five, five and a half months to get him out of prison. By the way, getting someone out of prison, getting a black man out of prison, that is not easy. No matter, they could have done nothing. That ain't easy. Okay. So we got, we, we got him out of prison five and a half months later, myself, um, rock nation and Jay-Z, we worked together to do it.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And we said right afterward, we have to do something about this. Like this can't be about Meek Mill, the famous rapper. How do you take care of the everyday person? At that point, 5 million plus people that were on probation and parole. How do we fix the underlying problem? And we created the Reform Alliance. By the way, I'm talking about just making something up and going for it.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We started the Reform Alliance in 2019. We made a goal. We said, look, there's at this point about 5 million people on probation and parole. We think there should be a minimum of a million less people that we should be able to get out by changing the laws. That made no sense. We've got 850,000 people out of the system so far.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And by mostly been funded by the people we put together. It's like we made a difference there. Make a wish. Yeah. Thank you. Make a wish. Like, I got, I never really understood make a wish, if I'm being honest. And then we had a make a wish kid who wanted to go to the Sixers game with me. And it's actually a crazy story.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
This kid, who was 18 years old, we were playing, the Sixers were a really good basketball team when this kid came. We were playing a shitty team. And I said, we're going to win this game for you, then we're going to bring you in the locker room. Of course, we went off to lose to the worst team in the NBA that night. I went back in the locker room.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I said to Joel Embiid and James Harden, I'm bringing this kid back. And they're like, don't bring anyone in the locker room. They were so embarrassed and mad. Of course, I went, got the kid, brought him in the locker room. And Joel and James Harden and... A bunch of the rest of the team, they spent like 45 minutes with this kid. And they were all texting me afterward.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
They were like, man, that was so inspirational. This was incredible. Anyway, fast forward now. We do every sports Make-A-Wish together. Every WWE Make-A-Wish. I saw all these Make-A-Wish kids coming out of the, you know, doing the walkout for WWE. And these giant smiles on their face. So, like, giving back is the greatest thing you can do. And I'm going to tell you something.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Don't ever worry about trying to say, will this be good for me? Because you do the right thing, things come around. And we don't, you know, for now, I mean, we probably spent our charity giveaway 10 or 11 million bucks last year. Every year we give away more money. We try to make a difference in every way we can. And we love it. Our employees feel better about the company.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
We love making a difference. And we never try to say, like, what's the payback on it? We just know you get the payback. And it's a great honor to be able to make a difference.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I think we were just talking past each other, but I knew there were two Cactus Jacks. I knew we had the Trav Cactus Jack, and we have the Cactus Jack that we all know here.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Well, listen, from my perspective, thank you to everything you guys have done. Thank you to everything you've done for WWE over such a long period of time and the huge impact you've had. And most importantly, thank you to all of you guys, the fans. We would all be nowhere without all of you guys. So thank you to you guys. I appreciate you guys.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
It does. You know, for me, you know, I think a lot of people know my story. I barely made it out of high school, legitimately.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, well, if anyone thinks they were a bad student, I was worse. I legitimately got a 780 on my SATs combined.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So for me... You know, I always think you kind of gravitate to what you're good at. And I was a terrible student in high school. I was actually a pretty shitty athlete too. But so the way I learn, it's just great people around me. So Trav's like a brother to me. And how did you guys meet? Actually, James Harden, who used to play for the Sixers, but has been a long-time good friend of mine.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I met Trav through James years ago. And one day, Trav actually said to me, Hey, when you're in L.A., come through my crib. I want to show you what I'm up to. And it was like a real... Game changing moment for me because I always thought about Travis Scott, the artist. I didn't really think about him as the real product visionary. And I went to his house.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
It's like, hey, let me show this collab I'm doing with McDonald's. Let me show what I'm doing with Nike. Let me show you what I'm doing with, you know, video games. Let me show you what I want to do in art. Let me show you what I'm doing. with all these different brands. It was kind of amazing to me. I realized just how much he really drives culture.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I'd say today there's probably not a person in the entire world that drives culture more than Travis Scott. So it's been a great partnership, a great friendship. By the way, he's headlining Coachella last weekend. Tonight, I watched the performance online. It was so spectacular. So it's fun to learn from each other, and I think that's what we all should do.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Eight years old. I was eight. I tell you, somebody just asked me this yesterday. I'm like, look. You know, I grew up with like every learning disability in the planet. Like I could barely speak, I couldn't read, I dyslexic. I was like everything that could go wrong could go wrong. I was always told like, you suck at all these things. And like, I always did poorly in school.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I was always never a good athlete, but I loved to work as a kid. So eight years old, I'm selling, you know, trading cards, not to my friends, but to my friends' parents. I was selling like vegetable seeds door to door. When it would snow in Philadelphia,
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I would like hire five kids to work for me and I would just sell the snow shoveling for like 20 bucks a driveway, you know, 35 years ago or 40 years ago. And, you know, I'd be paying him like, you know, a buck a driveway. So I just always had those entrepreneurial skills. And, you know. And what do you think inspired that? I think sometimes you're just born with it, you know.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
My parents, my mom was a psychiatrist. My father was a veterinarian. My mom always tried to, like, make me a normal kid because she thought that's what would be best for me. He wasn't a normal kid. Yeah, I was not a normal kid. But I really just loved business from the time I was a little kid. It's funny because today it's normal to be a young entrepreneur.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
There's so many people that are entrepreneurs in their teens or 20s or 30s now. When I started in business, it was like people looked at me like so weird because people didn't start businesses when they were eight years old. I started a ski tuning shop in my parents' basement when I was 12. I actually owned a ski shop in a retail shopping center at 14.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
No, I owned a ski shop in a shopping center. A ski shop in the shopping center. Okay. This is 1986. And what do your parents say? They thought I was crazy.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Well, they did. And it's actually a great story of how I got into business because I first started in my parents' basement with like a little ski tuning shop. It was great. I did $25,000 at age 12 in business. Insane. Well, two years later, I went to my mom. I said, hey, mom, like, you know, I really want to open a ski shop. You know, I found this location. It's $850 a month.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You know, and she's like, like, Michael, you need to be a normal kid. Like, this isn't in your best interest. Like, I can't support this. Like, you know, I don't like I don't want you to do it. So instead of being depressed, like most kids would be, I did what any smart kid would do. I waited until my mom went to work.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Like, I want to start a ski shop. You know, it's in Conchahock and at Ridge and Butler Pikes. He's like, well, why are you asking me? I'm like, well, it was the first time I ever needed anything from him. I'm like, I need you to co-sign the lease. As you know, I'm 14. You have to be 18. It was $844 a month. And he said, look, I'll make you a deal. Well, he actually said, did you talk to your mom?
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I'm like, no, no. I did talk to my mom about this. And he couldn't tell you were lying? He said to me, I'll sign the lease so long as you get good grades in school. Okay. So the good thing was we had a co-op program in our high school where – starting in 12th grade, you could get out of half of your schoolwork to do your co-op program, and that was half your GPA.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Somehow I got them to let me do that in 10th grade. So half of my grades started, half of my entire grades were from, like, if I paid my rent on time, the landlord gave me a good, he gave me an A, so I started with a 2.0. By the way, my finishing grades were also about a 2.0. I got a lot of Fs outside of the, got a lot of Fs outside of the paid my rent on time.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Sounds like you were focused on other things. Yeah, I was focused on building Mike's Ski Shop.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I was not a good student. That was not my strength. And you know what? I think that's okay. Like, look, you know, I think college is for a lot of people, but it's not for everybody. And it wasn't for me. I went for six weeks. I flunked out. I actually posted my report card about 10 years ago at a 1.87 for the short period of time I was there. 1.87 and...
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Like, look, to me, what I really believe is you can do anything you set your mind to. And, like, what's always made me, you know, any success I've had has been because I've outworked, I've out-hustled anyone around me. And I believe, like, you know, if you just, you know, if you can will something to happen, okay? And, you know, like, think about WWE World.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I mean, this was a conversation that, you know, we had, Nick Khan had. You know, probably a year and a half ago. And then we launched our first WWE world last year. I think 60 or 70,000 people showed up. And, you know, you'd see how, like, awesome this is. It's just about, like, having ideas, going after it, having no fear of failing. And that's what I've done my entire life.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Thanks, guys. I think it's completely real. I can tell you. That a lot of people think I try to just be self-deprecating to, like, give a good message. I'm not. Like, I haven't read a book since ninth grade. Like, I don't read emails that are more than a paragraph or two.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Like, my brain wouldn't allow me. I would, like, read each line and then, like, have to reread the line.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
walking around here i'm learning like what do wwe fans want well the best way to figure that out is just walk around talk to people ask questions there's no dumb questions so like i learned from you guys like i learned from everyone around me like that's my personality so like work like work ethic matters a lot i can tell you there's been so many things that i've fucked up in my life and um you know i've just figured out a way to like someone said oh this is impossible you can't do it i just like
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I figured out how to, like, I have a will where I will not quit, period, end of story. And I think that is probably the number one reason, whatever success I've had, that I've had.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, I think you have to listen to your customer and everything that you do. And if I'm completely blunt, we haven't always been as good at that as we are today. Gross. Yeah, no, look, I started, I really like, I've been building, I sold my first real company, eBay bought it in 2011 for $2.4 billion. And they had this little business called Fanatics that they didn't want.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So they said to me, hey, Michael, you know, we don't want to own inventory. It's not what eBay does. Would you like this? And, you know, we bought it back then. It was a pretty small business. And my biggest fear at that point was going out of business from the sort of Amazon.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Because Amazon's this incredible company, and I'd watch them put so many of the big customers of my old company out of business. Toys R Us. was my biggest customer. They're gone. Sports authority, gone. GNC through bankruptcy. Arabistel through bankruptcy. So like, the first thing I wanted to do was completely differentiate myself so that we wouldn't die.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
I think what happened is we got bigger, um, You know, I think I really learned, like, you have to both build your business model and listen to your customer at the same time. And I'd say I've really become obsessed in the last five years of just, like, just being, like, manic at looking at everything a customer wants and says.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
You know, we screw things up every day, and it's not like you're going to make mistakes. WWE screws things up every day. But it's like, how do you learn from it? How do you grow from it? How do you get better? And, you know, I think myself, we have 22,000 people today at Fanatics.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
And those 22,000 people, they're focused on one thing, which is how do we relentlessly enhance the experience for our fans? We have 115 million fans, okay? And by the way, I will say something. I really mean this. I used to say that even though I'm from Philadelphia, and by the way, Philly's got great fans.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
Yeah, I was one of the owners of the Philadelphia Sixers. I used to always say, actually, the best sports market in the world was actually Chicago. They just have such rabid fans.
What's Your Story? with Steph McMahon
Michael Rubin
So I'm going to say something right now. More than any city in the world, I didn't understand. Of course, as a kid, I was a WWE fan. But I grew up and I was working 18 hours a day in my business. Like every other kid. Right. I got back into WWE in such a big way. And I will say. You guys are the best fucking fans in the world without any question. Better than anything are WWE fans.