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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
2011.
Yeah.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Showing 41–60 of 330 · page 3 of 17
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