Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / Tony Ressler on Creating Opportunity, Finding Resilience, and Rebuilding Atlanta

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Tony Ressler on Creating Opportunity, Finding Resilience, and Rebuilding Atlanta · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, hey, everybody,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: it's John Hope Bryant, and this is the Money and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Wealth Podcast Series Season 3 on iHeartRadio, the largest radio
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  Speaker 1: network in the world, and Black affect networks.
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  Speaker 2: I am deeply honored today.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these podcasts, and thanks everybody
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  Speaker 1: for making this top 75 podcast for entrepreneurship in the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: world on every continent, and top 250 for business in
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the world on every continent, at least that tracks it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And a lot of this is me just riffing, me
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: talking from my own experience. When I bring a guest on,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you know they are And I've had Michael Milken here.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I've had Van Jones here. I've had heroes and sheroes
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: that I respect and admire here. And today is one
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  Speaker 1: of my most special days because you've heard this name,
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  Speaker 1: my God, on my, if you did a survey of
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: my podcast over three seasons, probably 60% of them at
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: some point I mentioned Ambassador Andrew Young. You know, that's
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: my mentor for moral authority and civil rights and social
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: justice and dignity in the world. And when it comes
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to understanding how capitalism and free enterprise works, business works,
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  Speaker 1: fairness works in business, somebody who walks their talk, somebody
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  Speaker 1: I believe in.
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  Speaker 2: Hold on. I've called him a business mentor. That's something.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I mentioned the name Tony Ressler. You today are going
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  Speaker 1: to get the chance to spend some time with my
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  Speaker 1: brother from another mother.
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  Speaker 2: Tony Ressler.
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  Speaker 1: There's another brother that we have that you'll hear from
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: hopefully later this year, who also has been very important
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  Speaker 1: to me, Michael Arrighetti, who we, Tony and I started
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  Speaker 1: this business together, bought, built it and sold it called
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the Palmas Homes Company.
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  Speaker 2: And you'll hear more.
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  Speaker 1: About Michael Arrighetti, who's the CEO of Aries Management at
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a later date, but I want to give him his
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  Speaker 1: credit and his flowers. Let me now talk about Tony.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Let me get the formality out of the way. My
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  Speaker 1: guest today is one of the most accomplished investors, entrepreneurs,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and business builders in America. And more importantly to me,
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  Speaker 1: he's a friend, someone who I consider a business hero.
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  Speaker 1: And just last week, we were, this tells you how
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  Speaker 1: close I am to him, how close I feel to him.
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  Speaker 1: We went from talking about important things in the world
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  Speaker 1: on his balcony or his patio to to a short
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  Speaker 1: time later, we were running waves together in the water
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and the beach, like we were both 20 years old.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And it was beautiful. And that's how comfortable I am
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  Speaker 1: with this guy. I'll go from right brain to left brain,
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  Speaker 1: from the East Coast to the West Coast.
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  Speaker 2: I trust him. I believe in him. And you should
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  Speaker 2: listen to him.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Here's his business credentials.
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  Speaker 1: Tony Ressler is the co-founder and executive chairman of Aries Management,
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  Speaker 1: one of the world's leading alternative investment firms in the world, managing.
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  Speaker 2: Over $ 600.
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  Speaker 1: Billion in assets across credit, equity, real estate, and investment strategies.
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  Speaker 1: Tony began his career on Wall Street at Drexel Burnham, Lambert.
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  Speaker 1: He helped co-found Apollo Global Management. And by the way,
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  Speaker 1: this is part of Tony's story because he had nothing
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to do with how it was being managed, but he
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: came from the ashes, rainbows after storms, and built something
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  Speaker 1: From that, from nothing, that tells you a lot, tells
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  Speaker 1: you a lot about what success and failure looks like
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: because the quote Tony Ressler, one great quote, I use
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of them in his, if you don't quit,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: you can't fail. He went on to co-found Apollo in 1990,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: which would become one of the world's most important alternative
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  Speaker 1: investment firm. Then in 1997, he co-founded Aries Management, helping
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to build it from an entrepreneurial investment firm into a
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  Speaker 1: global institution. He's also, you would know him, if publicly
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you know his name, as the principal owner and governor
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team for the NBA, leading
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the ownership group that acquired the franchise in 2015. His
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: commitment to Atlanta extends well beyond basketball, including major investments
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: in downtown revitalization, which includes Centennial Yards, which I'm honored
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  Speaker 1: to play a part of in as an investor owner,
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  Speaker 1: in part because my brother invited me into that after
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: we sold Promise Homes Company. We'll go get into that
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  Speaker 1: in a minute because that's the biggest investment in Atlanta,
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  Speaker 1: $ 6 billion since Atlanta. Let that sink in. The biggest
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  Speaker 1: investment in Atlanta since Atlanta itself. And it is basically
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  Speaker 1: creating a downtown in the city. So this is not
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  Speaker 1: something the government could do on its own. It's not
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  Speaker 1: something the private sector could do on its own. It
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  Speaker 1: needed to be a private-public partnership led by the private sector.
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  Speaker 2: And it's doing a lot of good. We'll get into that.
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  Speaker 1: Along with his wife, Jamie Girtz, who is one of
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  Speaker 1: the famed female actors in Hollywood, Tony has become a
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  Speaker 1: significant philanthropist, supporting education, underserved communities, entrepreneurship, and pathways to
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  Speaker 1: economic mobility. He's been a supporter of Operation Hope, Financial
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  Speaker 1: Literacy for All, which he kicked my rear in about John,
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  Speaker 1: focus on financial literacy, don't get distracted, and efforts to
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  Speaker 1: expand economic opportunity and ownership in America.
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  Speaker 2: And this one is personal for me. Again, I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to get into this.
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  Speaker 1: Years ago, this man, my get into the how and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the what, encouraged me to basically back or start my
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: biggest to date business success exit, which was the Promise
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  Speaker 1: Homes Company, which I sold Christmas Eve 2021.
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  Speaker 2: He was in Arigeti, my support backer group.
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  Speaker 1: Tony spent a career recognizing value, sometimes before everybody else did.
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  Speaker 2: In companies, in communities, in cities, and in people.
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  Speaker 1: That's why I come to think of Tony Ressler as
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  Speaker 1: something more than a great investor. I think of him
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  Speaker 1: as America's chief opportunity officer, which I told him when
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I was with him just this past week. So join
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  Speaker 1: me in welcoming to the Money & Wealth Podcast, my
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: dear brother and friend, Tony Ressler.
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  Speaker 2: Now, before Tony speaks, I'll give you a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more of his personal background. He grew up in Washington, D.C.
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  Speaker 2: in Long Island. His father was an attorney and World
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  Speaker 2: War II veteran.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: He went to Georgetown School of Foreign Service and originally
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: thought he might pursue government and foreign affairs. A State
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Department internship convinced him that maybe business was a better
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  Speaker 1: fit for him.
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  Speaker 2: I think he were right.
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  Speaker 1: He then earned an MBA from Columbia University. His formative
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  Speaker 1: professional career, as I've already mentioned, was at Drexel. in
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  Speaker 1: high yield finance and he have created this Apollo and
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  Speaker 1: I've already mentioned the business successes after that.
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  Speaker 2: Tony, your family is extraordinary. You've got.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Three different poles of incredible transformative success. Your brother is amazing,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Richard Ressler. He's that CIM group that's your partner in
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Centennial Yards. they run a huge enterprise. He's been successful
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  Speaker 1: on the West coast. You've doing this also on the
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  Speaker 1: East coast and West coast. What was in the family water?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: What was in that wrestler water that, that allowed you
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to think differently?
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  Speaker 2: John, it's, um, It's wonderful to be with you.
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  Speaker 3: And with an introduction like that, I'm not sure that
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: speaking could add anything positive for me. So I might
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: have to just drop the mic and move on. But nevertheless,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: there was nothing extraordinary in our water, I think. And
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: every once in a while, some combination of hard work
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: and lots of good luck could get you into a
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: good place. And I'm pretty sure that most of my
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: siblings and I, we just were trying to build careers
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: for ourselves, had some good luck. Learned how to work hard.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Maybe or probably entered the right industry at the right
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  Speaker 3: time in the world of finance.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I don't have a good answer. But as far as
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  Speaker 3: I'm concerned, over the last 30 or 40 years, I
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: do feel like I've had some really wonderful people to
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  Speaker 3: work with and for. And I think that helped me
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: along the way. And again, from people on this show
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: or previous guests you've had, including Michael Milken, there are
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: lots of folks that taught me about the world of finance,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: about how to invest in companies, about how to understand
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the importance of capital, about when to borrow and i.e.
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  Speaker 3: when to use credit. and when to borrow versus when
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  Speaker 3: to raise equity, even though that equity might be much
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: more expensive. Things like that really do help along in
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  Speaker 3: this process. And the ability to invest at the right
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  Speaker 3: time with the right type of capital is something that
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  Speaker 3: over the last 30 or 40 years, you get better at.
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  Speaker 3: And I feel I have improved over the years. Of course,
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  Speaker 3: maybe when you get most knowledgeable is when you change
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  Speaker 3: jobs and don't do it as as effectively as you
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  Speaker 3: once did. But really, at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 3: I think the idea of understanding the world of finance
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  Speaker 3: a bit and understanding how the world has changed, where
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  Speaker 3: you don't only go to banks for capital, And the
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  Speaker 3: idea of having alternative asset managers and private investment firms
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: and insurance company and other forms even wealth channels and
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  Speaker 3: family offices. There are so many sources of capital in
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  Speaker 3: today's world. Understanding what they're looking for and why is
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  Speaker 3: something that really does help an individual succeed in the
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  Speaker 3: business world, at least in my opinion. And as they say,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: and I'm sort of a broken record, but improving your
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: education and understanding and figuring out access to capital. That's
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  Speaker 3: a hell of a combination to try to operate in
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: today's business world.
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  Speaker 1: You know, when people hear about a Tony Ressler, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into things you can look
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: up yourself, audience, but basically he's on every list that
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  Speaker 1: you would assume. And there's 8 billion people on the planet.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And he's top 300 or 400 or whatever you want
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  Speaker 1: to call it on each of these lists. And you
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: just assume, oh, he has always had it. He's had
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: an easy life. These guys will understand pain. And I
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  Speaker 1: want to get into this because my greatest successes came
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: from managing pain and managing failure and slipping and falling
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and getting back up and becoming resilient. And people don't
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  Speaker 1: know that you, and you had this originally this focus
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  Speaker 1: on public service.
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  Speaker 2: You figure, okay, that wasn't a good fit.
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  Speaker 1: You went to which you thought was a stable firm
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  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, which was Drexel and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: your buddy Michael was also there. And one of the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: things people may not understand is that one of the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: greatest successes in modern finance came out of one of
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the most spectacular transitions in Wall Street history, which was
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Drexel disappeared in 1990. And instead of your career disappearing
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  Speaker 1: with it, you helped create Apollo and then eventually Aries.
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  Speaker 2: What did failure teach you that success never could And
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: how does that help you today?
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  Speaker 3: Well, one, please understand, when I was a senior in
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: college and worked at the State Department, it wasn't public
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: service that I felt I couldn't enjoy and participate in
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: my entire career. It was actually working at the State Department,
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  Speaker 3: working for the government at that time in the early 1980s.
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  Speaker 3: I just felt working for the government was not for me, frankly,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: and I thought the private sector would be more interesting.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: But again, to try to deal with or answer I
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: never looked at failure. I never considered failure. And I
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: know this sounds like bullshit to you, but you heard
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  Speaker 3: it so much from me, John, but You know, you
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: just keep if you fail, if you fall down or
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: if someone argue that's failure, you just keep moving. So, again,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: I am I know it sounds so trite, but I
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: really do believe if you don't quit, you don't fail.
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  Speaker 3: So you could you could be disappointed and you could
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  Speaker 3: try to raise capital for a certain type of business.
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  Speaker 3: And for some, you fail. To me, that means it
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: just takes longer. It's not failure.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: So I do believe and listen, you know, we've had
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  Speaker 3: so many conversations and you're such and you become in
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: your business model and your organization of helping people become
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: more financially literate. It doesn't mean everyone's entrepreneur. You know,
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  Speaker 3: some some people are. Absolutely. Absolutely geared and programmed to
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: become an entrepreneur, but not everyone. And sometimes it's a
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: mistake to push people into that role when they actually
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: don't belong there. But those that do and those that
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: are successful as entrepreneurs know that it's a 24-7 job.
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  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 3: So, again, under the category of what people want to do,
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  Speaker 3: I don't get caught up in those speaking about, you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: follow your passion. I try to get caught up in
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: people trying to follow what they're good at. Pursue what
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: you're good at and ultimately you'll build a passion for
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: what you're good at.
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  Speaker 2: Amen. Takes a while. Takes a while. Only in the
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: dictionary does the word success come before the word work
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: because it's alphabetical.
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  Speaker 3: But buying a workforce housing company, you know, an affordable
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: housing in some fashion, which ultimately Promise Homes Company was
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: an affordable housing company. But not everyone should be buying
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: those types of homes and trying to maintain them and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: trying to keep them fully leased and trying to ultimately
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: sell them. You know, you did that successfully. But I
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: assure you, and hopefully from your experience, you would agree,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: not everyone could do that. You bought it attractively. You
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: helped manage it successfully. And you sold it at the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: right time in the right way. And you made a
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: good return doing it. But not everyone should do that.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Right. And we gave people who were renters a chance
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to go from rent to own also and gave them
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: financial literacy and gave them financial coaching and all that stuff.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And I think others should try to replicate that model.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm not going to let you get.
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  Speaker 2: Away with that explanation, Tony, that eloquently.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell a story now that no one
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: has ever heard from me ever about how this really happened.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not like Tony just described giving me my
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: all these flowers.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: So let's roll the tape back because success is never easy.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: It's tough. It's hard. And you got to keep at it.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I followed Ambassador Young for a decade before he paid
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: me any attention whatsoever.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And that's almost the case with Tony. So I ended
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: up on a board. So I was pushing financial literacy.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I met Michael Haragetti at a financial services round table
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: meeting in DC.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: We became friends.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: At some point, he invited me on the board of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: directors of a startup public company at Aries, which I joined.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And as part of that board activity, here comes Tony
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Ressler down the hallway because he was chairman of Aries.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And Tony and I hit it off a little bit.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: And my first interaction with Tony, you probably remember this, Tony,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you asked me for advice about something. And I gave
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you some, it was in the public space. And I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: told you something you didn't, we weren't friends back then.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: We barely knew each other. And Tony was not as
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: refined now as he was then.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: He was pretty gruff.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And basically it's like, if there's an end to this story,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: can you please start there, John? I don't want to
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: hear all this stuff. And so I gave him my
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: opinion and Tony didn't like really what I had to say.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And he didn't hang up on me, but it was
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a short conversation. And later on, Tony's like, that wasn't
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: bad advice. That was actually, you're probably on point. So
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: we earn respect. I rather respect me and learn to
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: like me than like me and never respect me. So
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: now I'm pursuing Tony as a donor for Operation Hope.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And Tony's doing his best to avoid me in all ways.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: He's got everybody coming at him trying to donate to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: their favorite charity. And I corner him. I get a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: meeting with Tony at his LA office. Now, Aries is
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: in Manhattan. I'm living in Georgia at this point.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: He's in his LA office.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: He now has a beautiful family office across the country.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And maybe we'll describe the family offices before we're off
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of this call.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: So he's in his family. No, he's in his Aries
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: office at that point.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And I fly across the country and try to get,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I think it was $ 25, 000 for Operation Hope. I probably
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: spent four grand trying to get there. So plane ticket, hotel.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I go, I'm sitting there with Tony where I'm at.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I said, gave him my best spiel on Operation Oak.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine. You got it.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Here's 25 grand for Operation Oak. And he looks at
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: me and says, what you got in the other pocket?
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this, Tony. I said,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? He said, look, you just
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: took some money out of my left pocket. Fine, for
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: charitable contributions. What you got in the other pocket? You're
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: a smart guy.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: How you making money? What ideas do you have? And
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I want to do this.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I can't do anything that conflicts with Operation Hope, but
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I've thought about this single family residential rental business, and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I want to help with affordable housing in my communities.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: And I told him the thing. He said, I'm in.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And I said, what are you talking about? How much
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: do you need? I said, well, I need about $ 3
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: million to start this particular venture. I'm in. He said, no, no,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: you can't be in, Tony. I've already got a partner
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: in this. Well, who's your partner? I told him my partner. Oh,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I know him. Just tell him I'm in. I'm in
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: for half. Okay. And so I leave his office.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And About two weeks later, we do a conference call.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And this is how Tony thinks now. This is very
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: important for you guys to hear this. And I remember Manhattan.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I'm turning from Manhattan into the tunnel at 4 p.m.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: In the afternoon. I'm talking to you and Michael Gargetti
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: on the phone.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And you say, you know, I thought about this idea.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: It's a good idea. Why do $ 3 million when you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: can do $ 30 million? Why do $ 30 million?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I'm in.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: $ 430 million. And man, if I was driving the car
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I was in, I would have drove off the road.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: But I kept my cool.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: But again, the concept is, okay, if we're going to
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: raise 20 or 30 or 40 million of equity, we
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: should be able to raise 40 or 50 or 60
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: million of debt. Because if you're buying a group of
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: single family rental homes that are pretty much leased or
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: should be leased. That's a high quality asset that's leverageable.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: So all I was trying to do is highlight that
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: if we raise X amount of equity, we could raise
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Y amount of debt and there's more value in that
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: bigger asset than in a much smaller asset. So ultimately
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: we shared, you have the ability to buy these assets,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I thought pretty attractively. So at the end of the day,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: we were both helping each other all right, in pursuing
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: this type of investment opportunity. And by the way, whether
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: you talk about Promise Homes or we talk about what
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: we're doing with Alt Finance Corp to bring more people
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: into the alternative asset management business, or whether we talk
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: how we've tried to help Rice and introduce more capital
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: and more mentorship for young people of color to get
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: into the entrepreneurial arena. activity that they're actually quite capable of,
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: but don't have access to capital to pursue. Even what
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: we've done in Centennial Yards and trying to bring in
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: a large group of local investors in addition to yourself,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: in addition to Sanjay Gupta, in addition to Andrew Young,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: in addition to Grant Hill, in addition to Shaquille O'Neal
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: or 2 Chainz or Quavo.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Pardon me? I think Killer Mike too, right?
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: I think Killer Mike as well. I'm just saying a
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: large usher as well. But to have a large group
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: of local investors knowing that if we could, again, downtown
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Atlanta and what we have seen and are seeing in
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Centennial Yards. And again, we got to be careful. I'm
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: not trying to, we're not there yet. I don't want
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: to bang my chest and talk about mission accomplished. But
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: we're talking about putting $ 5 billion in the ground building six,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: seven million square feet of experiential retail and multifamily and
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: all sorts of assets that will make downtown Atlanta far
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: more livable. And Atlanta is such an extraordinary metropolitan area
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: that has grown to what? Six, six and a half
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: million people.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Which is just extraordinary, is one of the top 10
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: metro regions in the country.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: $ 600 billion economy.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: But it's downtown with the largest airport in the world
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: and all these universities and colleges, but without a great downtown.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: And the truth of the matter is the downtown for
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: the last 50 years couldn't attract a large developer and
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: a large amount of capital. And until we figured out
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: a way to go to the government, yes, for tax benefit,
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: to raise capital, which, by the way, I do not
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: apologize for raising private capital to try to make 15,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: 20 percent on their money by getting a combination of
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: tax benefits. and I might add, attracting all sorts of
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: exciting players. You know, to build a new live nation theater,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: to build a Cosm, to build the hotels that we're building.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: We're gonna have a thousand new hotel rooms. We're gonna have,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: you know, literally 20 plus restaurants. We're gonna have two, 3,000,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: 4,000 apartments. We're bringing life to downtown Atlanta.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Affordable housing.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Affordable housing to downtown Atlanta. student housing to downtown Atlanta.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: The point of the story is downtown Atlanta was not
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: as extraordinary as the rest of the metro area. That
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: is changing as we speak.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: It's a new Times Square for Atlanta, just like you
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: have Times Square in New York.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: But I'm not, we got Tony all round up, which
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is exactly what I wanted to do.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I want you to see his heart. You got his head.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: You know how smart he is. I want you to
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: see his heart, his passion.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I got him wound up and he walked, now he
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: walked past the Promise Homes thing as he should, because
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: he's a left-brain analytical thinker, and he gave you the math.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Why, Tony? You didn't have to do this deal. Come
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: on now. You and Michael didn't have to do this.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And everybody would say the Tony wrestlers and the Michael
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Arrighettis and the Michael Milkens, whoever, in this world, they
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: don't care. By the way, Michael Milken backed, people don't know,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Michael Milken backed Reginald Lewis. The first, really, the Martin
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Luther King Jr. of Wall Street, as far as breaking barriers,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: was Reginald Lewis, who did a billion-dollar deal with, buying
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a company in the eighties. And that was backed by
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the only guy who would give him some money back then,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: which was Michael Milken. Well, I think it was that
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Drexel at the moment and Tony Ressler saw talent or something.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: He asked me an answer for himself. It's something in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: me and decided, yeah, that's worth backing. And it's not
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: just me. He's in back without naming names. I know
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I have a dozen other people who happen to be
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of color and women that he's put real capital behind.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I don't, everybody don't go running, try to track him down.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: He's, He's not an ATM machine, and he's not your backer,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and he's got a life and.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Business to run, and philanthropy is coming out of his ears.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: But I'm just giving you an example that here's a
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: guy who is walking his talk.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: You want to know what somebody believes in? Look at
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: their checkbook register. So why, Tony, did you decide.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: That I had– what did you saw in me that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: other people can take a signal from as they're looking
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to impress some other investor in the world?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: There's no doubt you had a good idea which is
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: to buy affordable housing attractively from large owners of this
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: type of housing to buy it reasonably attractively because you
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: would spend more time and give more love to those
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: assets than these larger companies were capable of or were
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: interested in. So that was an opportunity with an entrepreneurial
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: focus and a spirit that I thought would succeed. And
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: by the way, it was that simple. So, you know,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: when you see good investment opportunities, literally an investment opportunity,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: in your case, it was buying a group of houses
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: at an attractive price that needed more that we say
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: tender loving care than a large corporate could do for it. So,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: you know, having a simple idea and making it better
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: is how entrepreneurs succeed. You know, when we started Aries,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: we thought we could offer better service to the borrowers.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: We were lending money to private company and we thought
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: we could do it more creatively, more attractively, in more
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: of a hands-on nature than other lenders, including big banks.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: So again, coming up with an idea and willing to
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: make that idea work and be better than the competition.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: That's how an entrepreneur's head works. And as far as
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I'm concerned, the idea of what we did at the
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: Promise Homes Company is just an example of a good
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: idea that got better with the entrepreneurs that took it over.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: So again, from my perspective, I know to you, and
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I'm so thrilled you made good money in the Promise
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Homes Company. And I'm happy for you and your family.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I made decent
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: money in my investment.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I paid them back. Listen to this.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: No, no, you paid me back with a good return.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: So I got what I bargained for. And frankly, you
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: did even better because you had more of the upside
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: of the equity return if it performed better. And frankly,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: as you know, you almost didn't make any money if
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: you would have sold it a little earlier, which would
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: have been also a possibility where I still would have
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: made my rate of return because I would senior to you.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: So again, John.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: This is an important point. This is an important point
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: for people. We should, we got to bring you along.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Not everybody's an expert in finance. We got to slow
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: this down just a little bit so people can get
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the messages. So what Tony just described, was I had
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: a five-year window. I promised them I'd get them in
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and out in my investment in five years. And I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: grew it from zero to $ 150 million of assets or
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: whatever they were. And we were doing well. But it
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't at a point where it could mature to a
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: good sale just yet. My business plan didn't need to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: be ripened a little bit. And I was trying to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: keep my promise. So I could have sold it right
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: there and gave him his money back. And, uh, him
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and Michael and with a, with a decent return. And
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the only reason I didn't is Tony said, heck no.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: He did, by the way, he didn't use the word heck.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: He said, you didn't work this hard to make rich
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: guys richer.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no. You know, you take your time.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And he said, I'll tell you what, if you can reap,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: if you can sell this in a year, you know,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it's extraordinary deal for you.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: And, uh, we had a gentleman's agreement.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And I went to work and I refashioned the business plan,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: restructured a few things, got some capital under a new
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: theory I had from a major bank, which showed that
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the marketplace outside of Tony and Michael believed in what
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I was doing institutionally. And then I was able to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: pay that back. It was prime money from an institutional bank.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And the market responded to that, raised the value ceiling
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: on what I was doing. And I was able to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: attract two competitive bids, one of which was from KKR,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: for which I'm still an advisor today. to buy my company.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: And then I sold it and paid them back. So
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: that's what Tony was talking about, that I could have
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: sold it earlier and I wouldn't have made much if
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I had just kept my promise to them.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: But it was Tony that stopped me and said, heck no.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: And he put it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It was another time where somebody tried to force me
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to sell and he stuck his foot in the door
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and said, if John don't come in through the door
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: with me, the door ain't closed.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: So that's... Again, I am... And I say this to you...
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: I am happy you made really good money in that sale.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: But all the two of us were doing was what's
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: called a good business partnership. I gave you some advice
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: that I thought you shouldn't sell at a particular moment
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: in time. I didn't think you had the right buyer.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: I didn't think you were selling at the right price.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: And I thought you could do meaningfully better than you
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: were doing. And that was some of the experience I
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: had over my life. And you, in your defense, I
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: think we're overly committed, which by the way is absolutely admirable,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: overly committed to make sure that your investors, myself and
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Mike included, got our money back with a decent return.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: And I felt we could get our money back with
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: a decent return. And you, shall we say, make a
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: really meaningful amount of money if you were a bit
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: more patient and let the market come to you a bit.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: So again, that's what good business partners do for one another.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: And all I'm saying is, if anything about the Promise
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Homes Company, I would hope it was an example of
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: what I would argue I tried to live by. And
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: I think from what I've seen, you as well, which
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: is if you're going to get into a business partnership,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: live up to your end of the bargain. And by
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: the way, it's a whole other discussion. But for capitalism,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: for opportunity for all, as you like to say, for
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: compassionate capitalism, as you like to say, for this to
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: work better, we've got to widen the fairway of how
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: people can operate. Make sure people have, with good ideas,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: we should be helping more people have better access to capital.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't ignore some of the issues in today's world.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: And frankly, people like you and I have to speak
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: up a bit more, in my opinion. You know, when
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: people say, particularly young people, when they say capitalism isn't
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: working for us, you know, for people... like you and I,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: to ignore that and to say, no, no, no, it's
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: worked for us, so therefore it should work for you.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: That's not an answer.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: An answer is to listen to the criticism. And frankly,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: when people say, which I happen to disagree with, when
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: people say Medicare for all, I'm like, whoa, you know what?
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I kind of like a Medicare. I would love for
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: everyone to have free health care. Unfortunately, unfortunately, in my opinion,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: if you look at current levels of Medicare spending, again,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: you have to put some numbers and some work into it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: But we have Medicare for 60 million Americans, generally age
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: 65 and above. We're spending over $ 1. 2 trillion for that,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: over $ 20, 000 per person. And the health care that we're
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: offering to Medicare patients is not particularly great. So I'm like, okay,
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: do we really want to quadruple the size of a
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Medicare to go from 1.2 to 3 or 4 or
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: 5 trillion dollars where we have a private sector healthcare
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: system that could be much better than it is today?
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: I actually think the recommendation of Medicare for all is
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: a mistake, an error in judgment when you do real homework.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: But to ignore it, to ignore the problems, of expensive
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: healthcare and to reward the problems that 25 or 30%
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: of our population simply don't have access to decent healthcare
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: at affordable costs, nor that. Now that's the bigger mistake.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: So what you're hearing audience is somebody who's not tone deaf.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: A lot of my, unfortunately, a lot of my extremely
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: wealthy friends, nice people with a blind spot called people
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: in common touch. And I don't know what it is
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: about Tony's life, but he keeps his foot in one
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: part of each world. And a lot of what we
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: do together, as you'll hear from Centennial Yards, The Hawks,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: his business ventures, my business with ventures with him.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: It's streets and suites. He connects streets and suites. And
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: so what you just heard was, even though he disagreed
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: with something, he didn't dismiss it. He said we can
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: disagree without being disagreeable.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: In fact, you can learn a lot from listening to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: somebody who has a different opinion than you do. And
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I think if he was going to end the sentence
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: about capitalism, he would say, you came up with a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: correct or wrong, Tony.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: I'll say it. I'll say it. People say they hate capitalism. No,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: they hate rich people. Well, I hate bad capitalism for
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: the record. I hate it. I'm involved in some stuff
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: right now that I think is bad capitalism. It's like
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: foreign to me.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's like, whoa, how did this get so close to me?
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: But it's fine. It's teaching me things.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: But if people say, oh, I hate rich people, my
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: response to my audience, my community, when they say that, no,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you don't. You hate rich people until you become rich.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: What you hate is a game system. What you hate
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: is a system that no matter how hard you work,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: You can't seem to get ahead and you see some
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: half-wit on TV, half the intelligence of you with a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: half-bin on that word that say, this must be rigged
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and you have every right to be upset with that
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and about that. So let's say, let's unrig the system.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And what Tony is doing is unrigging the system. He
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: has said, well, Wall Street doesn't have enough professionals of
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: color on it. So he created a program to train
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: through HBCUs and he funded the HBCUs out of his
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: own pocket to upscale upstream talent to go work on
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Wall Street, including his own firm.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: But more people of color in the world of finance,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: and in my case, in the world of alternative asset managers,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: is good for business. It's good for people of color.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It's good for business.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: And by the way, again, we have to, whether it's
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: health care that you know we could do better and
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: make more affordable. I don't talk about what I hate.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: I do talk about what I love. And I love
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: good ideas. So let's focus on good ideas. By the way,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: when someone says, and someone has sadly, that we're going
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: to fix housing, housing in New York City is not affordable.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: That's a fair statement. So when someone says the fix
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: is let's freeze rents. All right, you can't make a
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: bigger mistake than freezing rents because all freezing rents does
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: is prevent real estate developers from building more units. The
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: way to lower housing costs in New York and everywhere
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: else in this country is to create more housing options.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: So you want to be able to build more affordable housing,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: more high cost, expensive housing, more middle-class housing, more housing
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: at lower prices. All right, that's how you attack high
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: costs of housing. So when you talk about housing, you
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: talk about healthcare, you talk about education, you talk about energy,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: you talk about food costs, talk about good ideas to
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: attack the problem. That's not, as you often say, which
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I quote you too, that's not red or blue, that's green.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: All right, talk about good ideas to attack serious issues
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: and we have serious issues. So the idea of having,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't know, extreme people on the right
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: saying we don't need any government at all, ridiculous in
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: my opinion, extreme people on the left saying the government
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: could actually run supermarkets far more effectively than large supermarket operators.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Guess what? They're wrong. And they think that the government
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: can run all forms of business more effectively than the
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: private sector.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: They're wrong.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: But we have to prove that to them with better ideas.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: And there is no doubt, as John has said many times,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I believe it's called compassionate capitalism is one form, but
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: there's a whole lot of names for it. But let's
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: just say people trying to widen the fairway of opportunity
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: with good ideas. I'm just hopeful, particularly as we're going
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: to close this out, I think I'm just so hopeful
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: that this is where the political discourse will go. What's
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: the problem and what are several potential answers to that
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: problem that we could implement And by the way, if
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: you say taxing the rich, I'm like increasing taxes without
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: destroying an economy or more broadly defined, increasing revenues without
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: destroying the economy should be the objective. Certain types of
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: taxes would not destroy an economy, but frankly, several forms
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: of taxes that have been introduced over the most recent
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: path actually could have a really negative effect on economic growth.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: That doesn't help anyone.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: This has been a great conversation. I want to go
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a little deeper, Tony. You've got great ideas. And I
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: love you because you don't talk it, you walk it.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: You're a PhD and PhD too. So you have credibility.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: In fact, I would almost make you an honorary black
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: man because I don't know another white man other than
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: you is hanging around as many brothers as you do.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I got to turn around Atlanta Hawks games or concerts
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: or whatever. You're backstage with Usher and this person and
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that person and in deep conversation and they're comfortable with
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you and you're comfortable with them and your wife, Jamie, too.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I remember marrying you and Killer Mike and our spouses
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: were hanging out at your house in Beverly Hills. You're
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: a very fair-minded guy. Tell me about how young people
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and particularly young people of color, how can we make
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: this system work for more young people or make it
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: so that they don't resent it and they actually see
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it as a positive? How do we make it work
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: for them? What's some strategies and ideas that you've got?
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Well, as I think I tried to highlight, the idea
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: of making economic opportunity and affordability pillars of our government
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: and our private sector. Highlighting, yeah, things like All Finance Corp. Again,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: this is good business. If you spoke to the vast
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: majority of Aries management employees, they would tell you the
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: more diverse a company we are, the better a company
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: we So again, under the category of how do we,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: you have to talk opportunity, you have to talk affordability.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: And again, what I was trying to highlight with things
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: like housing and healthcare and education, these are all things
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: that can be made more affordable and will lead to
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: more opportunity. And young people must learn and we have
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: to help them learn And I hope to be one
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: of many, many voices to do it. Young people have
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: to learn with all the problems that we have in
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: our economic system, with all the issues that can be improved.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: It's far, far superior to any alternative we've seen operate
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: around this world. So to me, the idea, and I
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: know you've spoken to this far more than I have,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: but the idea of making young people feel they have
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: a better opportunity to succeed. By the way, universities should
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: be focused on educating students for jobs of the future,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: not jobs of the past. My friend Michael Crow, who
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: runs Arizona State University, is one of the extraordinary educators
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: in this country. And by the way, he accepts 65%
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: of his applicants. And for some reason, we judge universities
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: and we extol universities that accept 2% of their output.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: I want 65% of admissions, especially if it costs one-fifth
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: as much to be educated, but yet you could earn
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: the same kind of money because you're being educated for
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: the jobs of the future. So let's make Arizona State
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: a model to be followed. by large public universities. They
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: happen to have 200,000 students focused on the jobs of
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: the future. This is precisely how government and the private
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: sector work together to incent public universities to be educating
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: young people for the jobs of the future. And lo
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: and behold, what you'll find is that with this nervousness
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: around AI, You have public universities and the private sector
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: and the government that should be partnering to highlight if
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: you train for these types of jobs, AI is your friend.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: But again, that requires thoughtfulness and all I'm trying to say,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: and hopefully if there's one message upon this mic drop,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: it's literally how do we get the government and the
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: public sector I'm sorry, the public sector being the government
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: and the private sector and universities across this country to
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: be working together so that young people feel that a
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: more affordable light is possible, but also more opportunity is
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: out there. But they too have to do their share,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: which is hopefully follow some of the crumbs that are
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: being laid for them. Educate yourself, better educate yourself as
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: to what the jobs of the future really are. And
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: that might require getting your news, not from TikTok or
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: from Instagram, but from other places.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe the Wall Street Journal.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Reading the FT and reading the Wall Street Journal. You
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: could also read the New York Post. You could also
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: read the New York Times. You could also read the
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: Washington Post. There's a lot of good papers.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Black Enterprise.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Just TikTok and Instagram and Snap is not the future,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: my friend.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Before we run out of time, there's two questions I
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: want to answer for you. I'll be crisp about it. One,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: you and I, when you're here on the East Coast,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: we have breakfast whenever we can. And one of these
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: breakfasts is about six years ago. You said before it
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: was fashionable that you thought that civil rights was fantastic.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: And I know you honor Ambassador Young. In fact, Ambassador
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Young is an investor because of you and Centennial Yards,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and we love them. But you said that the new
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: civil rights for you were things like low interest rates,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: access to capital, access to opportunity at scale. Why did
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: you say that? Why did you believe it? I think
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: you were ahead of your time. I call it civil rights,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: civil rights to civil rights. And then you told me
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: one day, You make money during the day.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: You build wealth in your sleep. Explain that. Those two things. Well,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: the latter real quickly.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: That's investing in companies. And that means when you're an investor,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: sometimes you're not at the desk nine to five. So
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: that's just being an investor and building wealth as an investor.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Or homes or whatever.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: In your home, for sure. And that's precisely what you're teaching,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: I think, the vast majority of the American public. Listen,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: financial literacy as we both, why don't we have an
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: 11th grade curriculum? Every 11th grader in America should be
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: studying financial literacy as we both discussed. So to me,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: but your first point, it's really the ability to have,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: let's just say, education becoming more affordable and capital becoming
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: more accessible. Listen, that's how you better yourself. That's how
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: communities raise themselves up from where they are. And we
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: could speak all day, but if there's nothing else, reaffirm
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: more affordable K-12 education and college postgraduate education, more affordable education,
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: more accessible capital. for all communities, that's what we're supposed
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: to be doing. That's what folks in the private sector
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: are supposed to be doing in partnership with the public sector.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: And our voices are getting louder, even though my voice
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: is getting shut off because we've now gone way over time.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: But listen, those are the two messages I hope we
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: could leave. And John, I so appreciate your time and
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: your focus and your continued effort. And let's just say
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm grateful for the friendship and have been for
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: a long time.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: So God bless you. Thank you, Tony.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: And for those who want to know more about what
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: he's doing, go check out Centennial Yards in Atlanta as
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: a living example of inclusive capitalism and opportunity. 30% of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: all contracts go to minorities and women and jobs that's
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: coming up from nothing from the streets to the suites.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: And it's a great example of what he's talked about
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: as value several years ago at breakfast.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: He'll come back and we appreciate him being here. This
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: is John O'Brien with Tony Ressler, Money and Wealth. Go
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: change your life.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.