Michael Rubin
speaker
330 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard May 2025
Michael Rubin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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.
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.
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-
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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