Earvin "Magic" Johnson - YPO EDGE 2014

[Music] [Applause] and now [Applause] at guard from michigan state [Applause] standing at 6 9. number 32. the los angeles i want you to see everything like the dream does america believe in magic you bet we do i'm playing the same role i'm the leader the captain i ditch the ball off and we'll go to win the championship bringing the pride back into the urban community putting 40 000 minorities to work every single day i have a lot of people shooting down my dreams it made me work harder you can only receive what you're willing to give and you know he has given so much back magic's impact on the african-american community has been tremendous it's not whether you can become successful it's how many people can you help become successful [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i know you were hollering in the back you want magic where you got him ladies and gentlemen please welcome magic johnson [Music] oh thank you thank you thank you oh wow [Music] thank you thank you thank you man man ypo wpo a standing ovation for the magic man wow i am so happy to be here you saw that i built my brand on the basketball court i was trying to figure out what i was going to do after i was done playing basketball and wearing those little tight shorts that you saw i had on but what i figured i would do is invest my money that i earned on the basketball court take it into urban america now people said it was great risk doing that people said it would never work but i figured if african americans have a trillion dollar spending power latinos have another trillion dollar spending power the demand was there the income was there so i said that would be a great investment for me to make because also there was no competition so i started researching and said okay i'm gonna build theaters magic johnson theaters did a partnership because i really believe in partnerships and i went to sony and said look we should build movie theaters because at that time minorities were the number one group of people going to movies but there was no theaters in our community so we did that deal it took off we had some of the highest per caps in the industry and then i took a trip up to seattle and knocked on a guy's door named howard schultz ceo and chairman of starbucks and i told him the growth of his business would be through urban america and i said you have one on every corner in suburban america but black folks we drink coffee too so howard said we don't do franchisees i said i'm not here to be one dollar for dollar what you put up i put up i have skin in the game and i really trust in our business strategy i've already proven that i can drive roi through the theaters and we can do the same thing with starbucks so howard we met about five times i had to convince him finally he came down to la to see how we manage our theaters and sure enough he said let's do this deal and so we started with three i told him we would be the those three would be number one in their marketplace we will outperform suburban store starbucks he said irvin i don't think you should say that i said i'm guaranteeing you we'll do that sure enough those three outperform suburban stores and so we went from three to 125 and first in the headlines of the la times it would never work no way minorities would pay three dollars for a cup of coffee yes we have paid three dollars for a cup of coffee we quite don't know what scones are so we had to take the scones out of my starbucks and put in what resonated with the urban consumer sweet potato pie pound cake socket to me cake things of that nature and this is what i want you to take away from what i just said my purr cat's 459 his per cast 451. wait wait a minute they said it would never work wait a minute they said it was big risk to invest in urban america well i was smart enough to negotiate a multiple and a nice size multiple in that contract after we built 125 and i could not wait for my contract to come up because guess what happened i sold him back to howard and made a lot of money and i oh thank you i opened up a market for howard schultz to go into now he's building hundreds of stores in urban america then i started an equity fund and a real estate fund we had the number one equity fund and the number one real estate fund canyon johnson fund we raised 300 million 600 million then our last fund was a billion dollars so the washington hilton the new w in austin texas the new w in hoboken new jersey these are some of the investments that we made that was great and one of the guys that really started me off we built sunset and highland larry bond is here we did the beautiful we actually jump started all that redevelopment right here in hollywood larry stand on up i owe you a lot of credit we invested together and made a lot of money and really appreciate that [Applause] so for me it's when i look at deals it's about okay is it going to cash flow what's the history of the performance of the asset who's managing that asset are they good are they great or are they poor because you know that's going to really drive that performance of the asset so if we take it over maybe we got to get them out of there so i'm betting every deal making sure the next five years that asset can really perform very well so then after both my funds have performed very well i sold the lakers which dr bus let me invest he said irvin if you write a 10 million dollar check i'll let you into the lakers and at that time the lakers were moving up strong i said oh yes i'll write the check and sure enough what a great investment so i exited the lakers and starbucks at the same time and who would have ever thought the dodgers would be for sale man and i teamed up with guggenheim and mark waters and todd those guys what 200 billion in assets and we formed a great team and we went in and bought the dodgers for two billion dollars and everybody said they're the stupidest businessman on the face of the earth for paying 2 billion for the dodgers until our tv deal just came out at 8 billion they say oh they're the smartest guys so we went from stupid to smart very quick and the reason we thought the dodgers was going to do very well is because of the brand see a lot of times what i invested in not only the asset but the executive team but also the brand we knew if we could prepare the relationship with the fans increase the fan experience put some money into the team and to the stadium that the fans will come back and sure enough last season we were number one in attendance in mlb we were also the number one role team in attendance in mlb and so the dodgers are back the fans are back because everything we promised them we have delivered and when we think about it we feel this year and this season we're going to go over 4 million fans and so we're excited about the dodgers and thank you yeah we're excited about that investment and what i didn't mention is we have also 300 acres of land what we pay for the dodgers is probably what those 300 acres are worth so you look at the dodgers that was an incredible investment some people say a risky investment but i say you have to sometimes take risk as long as you minimize that risk and understand what you're getting yourself into i'm a guy who'll go for it i've always been a guy who thought and think outside the box i never want to still stay inside that box and so then i have a food service business same thing they said risky but we have some incredible contracts i have over 40 contracts and what companies are looking for right now is minority spend how can they increase their minority spend and so with my company they not only get the best and fresh food and healthy food but they also get minority spend with having my my company as their client and so we have uh disneyland disney world we have those contracts i serve food at toyota their headquarters here in los angeles all state insurance their headquarters in chicago american airlines if any of you flew and went into the atmos club all the cheese crackers sodas beers that's through my company if you flew delta through the sky clubs everything there's through my companies as well so i'm a guy who has made major investments but at the same time when i look at the sodexo magic investment is it has paid off dearly and so i i do other things financial service we just did a deal equitrust which is a about a 12 billion dollar financial service business and again doing very well so i feel you can do good and do well at the same time because also the magic johnson foundation we give back to the community we have 150 students on scholarship through the magic johnson foundation we have technology centers in this those same urban communities and then last but not least for all you investors out there how do you make your business about the community because yes you want a footprint that's nationwide but also too my front footprint is nationwide but it's also i build it community by community and that's why i've been successful i learned that from howard schultz because he said irvin yes i have 10 000 stores but they're all fit that community that they're in and so i took that from howard and i started building my business the same way so i want to have a chance to have you ask me questions i own a lot of other business businesses and thank god and knock on wood that they're very successful and but let's have some fun let you ask me some questions and i think that somebody's gonna come on out and uh do that i believe if not i can do it myself i'm the magic man i know how to do that oh yes okay you guys all know this gentleman you know he needs no introduction so can we i guess the lights okay there's the mic there's the mic okay we got mike's here oh yeah i'll start with the first question okay um better dream team basketball 92 barcelona 2012 london this has been real this is real easy there's only been one dream team in the history of basketball that's 92. that's that's easy that's easy and so michael jordan my that's my bucket list when i played with larry bird and michael jordan that was the greatest feeling in my in the world and also the greatest basketball in terms of i've ever played with a group of guys it was competitive we were about winning kobe and them they blew their teams out by 22 points we blew the teams out by 44 points okay closed case all right whoever wants to go hi i'm noel patton i'm in the uh hong kong chapter but i live in new york okay uh you've talked about a lot of businesses here one success after the other it's pretty uh astonishing that you had such great success so obviously besides being an athlete you have a brain but speaking for some that was i was hoping you were going to say that my question is though you must have had some failures you must have learned some lessons from adversity because it ain't always a one-way street right up and i wonder if you could share some of those things that maybe you'd rather not talk about but that you learned from yeah i think that um i was part of one of them you as part of one of them yeah yeah the show that's right that's right i had a late night show he just said he was on my late night show and it failed you're right and i'm and i learned not because of me you know i learned a valuable lesson stay in your lane and i got outside what i what i get out of my comfort zone and i never wanted to do it but i did it anyway and that taught me a valuable lesson but also to your question the thing that taught me really a life lesson as far as business was i opened a sports paraphernalia store when i was my second third year in the league and i said okay i was also the owner and buyer so i went out to the super show used to be in chicago and bought these jackets these jerseys shorts tops put them in the store for about three months nothing sold why because i bought everything i liked but i didn't buy anything that the customers liked so it taught me a lesson always make your business about the customer and so since then i've been my investments has been about the customer but also about great partnerships and so i built my business on great partnerships and uh you do what you do i do what i do you have like howard schultz had the coffee water the you know everything it takes to to have great coffee and the sugar but i had the experience as far as the urban consumer and and knew what they liked and didn't like so we came together and made a successful business and so um how it how it really jump started my track record in business because he really legitimized me and when he came into urban america because everybody was afraid to come into urban america before then but howard took a risk took a chance and it paid off for him and for the community yes sir leslie michaelson wpo los angeles and a guy i grew up with and went to high school with no way yep oh okay he spent most of his time in the principal's office that's true and that's the truth and that and he was a class president and he ran on the platform get more with less [Laughter] who wants to hear my speech anybody know [Laughter] so magic serious question we all remember about 20 years ago that fateful time you were diagnosed as hiv positive you were standing in front of us as a living testimony to the miracles of modern medicine all right how you doing how you feeling what's the lesson for all of us um i'm doing great uh 22 years and i've done my part oh thank you i've been blessed the mayors have done its part i got a great doctor in dr ho and uh i work out five days a week i'm up at 4 15 every morning and i'm to the gym by five i do an hour on the treadmill and then i lift for an hour and i'm probably in better shape now than i've been in the last 10 years or so it looks good and so i think that the lesson is even though something happens to you you got to keep moving on and forward and upward you know uh i'm a guy who loved challenges anyway everybody said at 6 9 i couldn't play point guard right and i proved them wrong the high school that i went to had never been to the state tournament i took them to the tournament we won the state championship michigan state had never won the ncaa championship i took him to the ncaa championship and we won and we beat that blind head guy what's his name oh larry bird um then coming into the nba they said no way at six nine he can play point guard in the nba and again we won five championships we went to the finals nine times in 12 years and so thank you because that's an amazing run and then last but not least they said i could never go from the basketball court to the boardroom and the the thing that i love the most is challenges hiv was just another challenge in my life and thank god so far i've been beating it and and life is good hi i'm amanda brewer from omaha nebraska hi amanda hi i run the habitat for humanity chapter in our community and it brings tears to my eyes to hear you talk about investing as a business and making money in the inner city areas around the country what advice do you have for people here who might be interested in that okay or how can we get more investment in the community our community has no uh economic development in that area well first come give me a hug because if you tearing up you got to hug me thank you get a picture get a picture thank you thank you suhart um first of all you know america got to stop overlooking urban america as howard schultz is a smart man and now he's building a lot of stores because he's driving roi and when you got a chance to make money and so what you have to do is engage the community first and educate them on what you're bringing them okay minorities have to know what are you bringing them how is it going to benefit them okay so before i went and built every store i went in and said hey i'm bringing the store there's going to be 50 jobs there's going to be this this this happening some of those jobs if you work for starbucks you could also when you're young person you could uh qualify for a scholarship to go to college and so on and on there's going to be upward mobility in terms of you you can manage a store then you can turn in to be a district manager or area manager and so on and so i was able to explain that to them and now they're saying wow got great coffee the best in the world we got job opportunities so they're going to embrace the store support the store and then you're going to have hundreds of people as your brand ambassador right so number one i have the number one brand in urban america they follow my brand they're loyal to my brand so everything i bring them they support that right and so uh and then i also give back to the community and so it's very important so while all you guys are still fighting over suburban america go ahead i'm gonna just make all this money over here in urban america and um and i'm sitting here by myself and that's cool you know but others are coming into urban america now and they see that uh they can drive roi and their store is safe or or their their company will be fine and so i think we answer all the questions all the myths that were out there before they're now behind us so i would tell you please you got a great business and if you don't know urban america get you a minority a latino african-american who can help you through that process navigate well magic magic let me follow up on that for a second let me if i may okay you say that but how do you get whitey to go into urban america without magic johnson and you know and finding that right business partner who is latino who is african-american i mean you know it's one thing to howard schultz and magic johnson to do that it's another for some of the people here who in their hearts would love to do that but they've got to fight you know they don't have magic johnson do they go to a local person i mean how do they do that i say go to a fair question yes very fair go to a local person or you call magic johnson larry and i built the best building in hollywood and partnered with a local minority or you call me up i've had a consulting business for years to teach big boxes and different companies how to go into urban america and so so either or yeah i think that was on a lot of people's minds here that was a great question and i like how you put it too whitey that was good yeah only you could say that hi aaron edelheit i'm from the ypo southern uh seven i live in atlanta and you have a room full of entrepreneurs and business people and one of the most amazing things being part of this organization and how you have a lot of people trying to give back and make the world a better place and i've been thinking about how you can encourage entrepreneurship in inner cities and help provide resources or mentoring to either young people and for to encourage young people to think of uh starting business as as a career path right and i mean i have some ideas in my head but i'm just curious if you have thoughts or if you know beyond bringing corporations in how can we encourage entrepreneurship to bring businesses and jobs well first of all i go and i speak at three four hundred schools a year you see is it's one thing to build them but you're not there to inspire them and encourage them so i go into the schools and i want them to feel me touch me and look at me and say if i can do it they can do it but they have to get an education tomorrow tonight i'm flying to washington d.c the same thing that you're talking about the president and i are going to launch this thing tomorrow um about ceos coming together with minorities being their mentors taking them in so on and on and on so i'm always in the community and it's important that i'm there so they can see somebody who has made it and i can also give them the information how i did make it and so i would love if if you got something a platform that uh will teach minorities how to be entrepreneurs let's come together and do something great and and and and we can do it together because what you need you said something great because it's true a lot of people's a lot of people in corporations have tried to go into urban america but they didn't go in with the minorities they didn't know the pitts falls they didn't know who to talk to and it didn't work for them so you must know who to talk to who to partner with and then you can be successful can i can i ask for a hug yeah well you all right turn around turn around turn around all right that's good give me something bam okay okay you got it hi jeff reynolds with the lost virginist chapter here in los angeles thank you for being here uh so few athletes are able to go on maybe maybe even you're unprecedented to go on to this level of commercial success afterwards you know michael jordan you may have been uh you're near equal on the court but he's still shooting underwear commercials and you've got a billion dollars worth of funds what is what do you think has been the secret of how you've been able to parlay that success into this success in such a different venue um well first of all i had two dreams of playing the nba and be a businessman when i say i get up that early after i'm done working out i'm in the office all day i love what i do i bring passion and fire to what i do every single day i take all my own meetings i'm i'm involved in my business and i think that you know it's so important that see athletes may lend their name to something i don't do that and i'm gonna be involved i'm gonna be your partner yes i'm gonna bring money to the table but i'm also bringing expertise to the table and and then i'm going to be involved so i'm going to know what the business is doing that spreadsheet comes out every week every two weeks whatever every month i'm going to be looking at those numbers and uh howard was really impressed how much i was involved and it's uh so it was it was really funny i tell you how much i'm involved when we had our first opening of our theater in la the food buyer for sony i asked him how many hot dogs we gonna have for the opening on friday night and he said oh you got enough for a month and i said okay so we opened the theater on friday we sold out all the hot dogs in one night that they normally sell in 30 days in suburban america why because what he didn't know about minorities we're not gonna go to dinner in a movie yeah that's right we're gonna have dinner at the movies right so that taught him a valuable lesson on how we have to stock in suburban america versus urban america and so that was a valuable lesson for him i knew that but we had to show him i ran into some resistance in the beginning but after we saw the numbers and they saw the numbers they said okay this guy knows what he's talking about and so i don't i can't say why michael is very successful with his brand jordan very successful uh the charlotte bobcats he's got a lot of work to do but he's very very successful with his brand jordan this is all i wanted to do my whole life was become a businessman i'm so happy i'm doing it every day i thank god that i can walk into my office that i know i put like 50 to 60 000 minorities to work every single day and so it's a beautiful thing for me and for them too as well all right you tell me when the clock is over because i can't see it hey by the way by the way you are you did you tell them you are now the owner part owner of the los angeles sparks women's mba yes we i just bought the sparks two weeks ago and um oh thank you yes we feel that uh again the brand is the biggest brand in the wnba and uh we have a few challenges but uh we go we can overcome those challenges and i'm so excited about uh being the owner and candace parker is the greatest best woman player in all of basketball so we're excited about her as well so this is going to be great for la and the la fans go ahead young lady this is the last question i'm sorry we only have time for one more question all right cool go ahead my name is christina pascucci i'm from los angeles thank you for being here i work a lot with at-risk youth and i mentor young kids especially with big brothers big sisters a lot of the times i encounter these kids they're so broken they're coming from broken homes and before they even get a real chance at life they feel so defeated right what do you think as mentors is one of the single most valuable things we can do to expand the realm of what is possible for them to help expand their consciousness take them out of their environment and show them i was just in chicago at allstate where i have that food service contract and so we were doing an event i was speaking to the employees and then later on i was going to go to an inner city school two of them and to speak to them i said no i don't want to do that let's rent some buses and bring them to all state we rented the buses they came to this big corporate park that all state insurance have you should have saw their eyes they were just looking wow so when i sat them down i said this is the possibility for you so then i made every executive and every worker of all state of color stand up i said guess what they're all from the inner cities too but what they did they got a great education and now they're executive here at allstate you can do the same thing i said the same house that jay-z and the people that you idolize have you can have that house you can have that car you can have that life but your path would be through education and so i get a letter back from the principal and a call the next day right the email irving before they came here before they went to allstate they were dreaming about just little things that they they could become when they got on the bus they started saying oh wow i'm going to get my education now because i can get a good job at our state so it changed their mindset about what is possible and so if you can take them off that block that they're only used to because they really very rarely get outside their community and show them another world that's going to be great and let them dream because i was a big dreamer i was poor but i didn't have poor dreams and that's why i ended up where i am today thank god for all of you thank you for having me on good luck to everybody thank you thank you thank you [Applause]

Channel: YPO

Views: 4,140

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Magic Johnson (Activist), Philanthropy (Activism Issue), Young Presidents' Organization (Organization), Entrepreneur (Profession), YPO EDGE, YPO, Los Angeles

Id: DIYz3KWyF5I

Length: 36min 28sec (2188 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 23 2014