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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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-
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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