Tony Hawk - The Science Behind Landing the 900

I never got into skateboarding to be number one like that was such a jock mentality and that's what I was trying to rail against in my experience of not doing these other projects suddenly I found myself other opportunities just new connections everybody why have you Burlando but I really didn't think that I'd be able to do it I've been trying it for years you know I've mostly just did it too for the crowd certain industries we can say sports there is a player or somebody who comes in that's gotta love it the game that completely completely revolutionizes that game one is Tiger Woods there used to be Tom nobody looked at golf and then a Middle Eastern guy like me we don't golf in Iran we start watching golf because of Tiger Woods and this man sitting next to me Tony Hawk they used to be guys skateboard and until this guy shows up and next thing you know becomes a big game and now millions on top of millions of people worldwide follow the sport because this revolutionary member of so much attention to Tony Hawk well thank you thank you so much so some of your stats that I look at I think a hundred and three competitions you were in 73 you won 18 you were second place twelve years in a row you were a champion in this world I mean you've got the video game Mario is bragging about the fact that he can crack the code in the video game and there's no gravity 1.4 billion dollars of sales with your video game before we get into all this stuff that you're doing right now your venture capital is an entrepreneur all these other things how did this whole thing get started initially when you Oliver Sun started skating I was just skating because my older brother's into it and a few my friends my neighborhood were doing it and eventually I found my way to the skate park and I think that was my moment of realization when I saw I literally saw people flying out of swimming pools and it was like I want to do that because I was a bit of a daredevil as a kid and I was like whatever it takes to do that that's what I'm gonna do and eventually I quit all the other team sports I was playing in and and just focused on skating and luckily I was young enough that it wasn't that I like I was choosing your career because there was no career to be chosen at the time you couldn't really make a living at it but I was young enough that I could do it as a hobby and get away with it was anybody at that time making money doing this no I mean a very few like there were a few pro skaters they were competing for $100 first place really yeah it wasn't it just wasn't it was very ski boarding exploded as a sort of novelty in the 70s but it it was very difficult to make a living at it and there was not sustainable in terms of the growth oven and the popularity and so for a kid like me I just wanted to learn new tricks that was it like my motivation was never to make a living at it in fact the the reality was once you got out of high school or you reach the age of responsibility you had to quit skating you have to well you just you're not gonna make money hundred dollars like you could do it as a hobby once in a while but no one was you know that was never the career path so you have a video coming I by the way he's got a variant he just showed me some clips on what he's doing you're about to turn 50 by the way with happy early birthday to you egg you and and and you'll hear what he did at 48 which is sick what he's doing at 48 he's got this video coming out with 50 tricks he did here and then there's an interesting fall you just have to see it it's gonna come out when next few weeks mate off my burn a talk okay very cool I read somewhere that you got into skating at nine years old meaning your brother gave you the first skate about nine years old from nine years old seven years later you go pro at 14 I think yeah and then at 16 you were considered a number one skateboarder in the world at 16 years old yeah it's it sounds lofty but the skating scene was so small do you know what I mean it was it and for me it was a big deal obviously but like for instance to turn pro I had reached the top of the amateur ranks then you know there wasn't a lot of competition I reached the top of the air mature ranks and then I went to enter the next competition and a lot of my peers were turning pro and and so the my sponsor just said well what do you want to do and so I'm filling out literally filling out the entry form to the competition and instead of the amateur box I checked the pro box purely accidental no no I'm just saying like that's all it was there wasn't there was no celebration there's no contract on it do you know I mean it was just more like okay now I'm moving up a stage in competition and so it wasn't it just didn't feel like such a monumental thing and go back to school the next week and I was a ghost you know skateboarding was far from popular it was like the most uncool thing you could do so all of those elements kept me in check in terms of you know I sure I'm number like I eventually reached the top of the ranks of the pro I was number one pro but I was still this unknown dude in high school now III also read that at 18 years old you started you started getting some sponsorships you started making some money yeah making really decent money at age 17 okay got it because there was something about you were making more money than your teachers yeah when you graduated you bought a house I bought a house while I was a senior in high school you bought a house while this evening yeah how was that that's pretty big deal not a lot of a lot of times nowadays you know people make money in on it but at that time there is no dropshipping or amazon you're making this with no internet yeah well everything that I was making mostly was on royalties of signature items so my skateboards that was my main source of income and prize money and my dad was in the Navy and I mean he was retired but you know he had a very good sense of finances and stability and and he's thought like this is not gonna last you know he immediately realized that like this is probably short term you should put your money away and he's the one who encouraged me to buy a house and he was he was the first one to really be a student that way in my life where cuz all my friends you know we're making six figures at a time when we had no appreciation for the value of money or how long it will last and you know we're buying everything like dropping thousands of dollars a sharper image so is it fair to say like at that time while you're doing this the party side the fund said you're just having a blast going through this process or were you pretty good never started the skating though okay so for sure there were a lot of new elements and distractions you know that came into place and and you know we suddenly we were not just we were beyond being uncool suddenly we were sort of in limelight and girls were finally paying attention to us and things like that so for sure all those things came into play and you know owning a house at 17 your house is always the party house your parents are always gone so that was also an element but but I never lost sight of the fact that skating got me there and people are relying on me to continue skating or expecting me to keep improving and and that's all I ever wanted to do and I did see a lot of my friends get too distracted and lose focus and you know kind of lose their career because of it Tony were there guys that were just as good as you at the time maybe even a little bit better who got lost focus and completely went a different direction I think so I think I think there were definitely some people who had potential that you know that lost sight of it and and skating no longer was the priority the priority was the party but that happens in all walks of life not just skating we have a nephew who was obsessed with soccer everything to him is like he sleeps with his ball at six seven years old the guy's amazing we were at a game last week galaxies were on the field with Slaton and he's just he loved soccer were you that nine-year-old kid that slept with you like were you in love like were you fully in love with this game of skateboarding yeah well by the time I was by the time I was ten years old I knew that's all I wanted to do and I quit I quit Little League the year that may my dad was appointed president what a way to say that it was a conversation yeah how do you have that conversation at ten years old that's what's really well he knew because he he would actually have to forcibly pull me from the park to go to practice and at some point that happened so many times it was like that I don't I don't want to go play baseball you were dreading it you just love this yeah I want to stay here and skate and and I did tell him I think I I think the the way that he accepted that was when I told him I go that every time I go to the skate park I get better like I always learned something new or I can learn a better technique and I improve and when I go play baseball I don't feel like that it's good for him as a military guy because you know military sometime it's a little bit you know is as strong as a former Navy got to communicate and be able to say go ahead and do it you know it's yeah well also I was the youngest of four kids and my my siblings had already moved out by then so he just wanted anything to keep me busy got it got it so by the way this is the I'm assuming this is a very small tight community because when we came in here today Shaun White is doing a bunch of stuff here and he's just you know walking around as if it's not a big deal and yeah you know you read stats that the moment he won the gold medal it was the second most viewed event in the history of Olympics including summer and he was the hundred gold medal for the US which is a victim and it's just you know skateboarding here ripped socks just relaxing is that like my rap is one of the best for sure you know you get what you pay for and a lot of a lot of the top ramp skaters this is their go-to place to practice what makes a ramp great well really how smooth it is and how sturdy it is and and that seems simple but we were building ramps out of wood scraps for so long just to make a structure that kind of resembled a pool that nothing was true nothing was perfect you know everything had a lot of flaws in it and when I set out to have this ramp built this ramp was supposed to tour arenas who like who made it is there a God that makes it as specialized this was kind of an experiment that the before the people made this one there was no true permanent ramp setup I mean there was no true portable ramp setup because all of the ramps were they're so clunky and the best ramps took a whole day to get up they're good but they just weren't efficient and when we set out to build this one I put it to a staging company that does concert venue stuff for like ac/dc and kiss and you know Britney Spears at the time and and they put up big stage productions that go up and down fast and so I said well this is the dimensions this is a design you guys figure it out so let me ask you as far as something like this goes if I wanted to build something like this what would it run me this ramp right here was about six hundred thousand six hundred thousand to build something like this and for somebody like you Tony I'm assuming I'm just assuming it correct me if it's wrong for somebody to be a 12-time champion and you've done all these radical types of stunts in your career do you feel the slightest edge that's off if you've gone a different ramp you feel yes you you know yeah I don't like this part this is it's no you don't like it you just have to adapt to it got it every ramps different from the most part I mean they've gotten more they've gotten more of a standard especially with x-games and you know and and other events like there's there's basically a radius that works best and there's a you know amount of flat and everything and if it's built well it'll feel very similar to this the only thing that varies is the surface but there's still you know there's still back yard ramps there's still ramps that are totally different sizes I used to be much more able to adapt to those things because I skated pools and all the pools were very different and rough and now because I skate this the irony of skating something like this so that's so perfect it it messes you up for everything else got it so you have to go back to a pool or anything yeah you know or any like pretty much any other ramp is for me I have a I have a bit of a hard time warming up let's put it that way elsewhere yeah but I used to be much more a diverse because I had to skate the worst stuff so that was an edge so I mean if you come it was an edge yeah that's that it wasn't advantage yeah which is which is a weird thing to say so let me ask you there was a period in your world where almost like you know how baseball goes through strike you know something's going you guys also had a strike at one not necessarily strike but there was like a flat time right where some guys weren't making money yeah I think you even at one point you said you couldn't even afford to go have $5 was it you had a $5 at Taco Bell you know and a lot of your peers that didn't make the right decisions they left because it was challenged in times and then it seemed like all of a sudden it came back up was there a single event that spiked it back up where became so relevant yeah I wouldn't say that it was very sudden but definitely the early 90s the the wave of 80s skate popularity it was dying off mostly because there were no facilities all the skate parks were shutting down because they couldn't afford liability insurance and so there just weren't that many places to go the you know the the the general attitude towards skating was that it was already sort of rebellious and outcasts and you know maybe not a positive influence for kids so there were a lot of things working against it so in the in the early 90s everything kind of went underground and that's when Street skating really came into play because there was nowhere to go so people took to the streets and and the urban landscape became the skatepark and that's how people learn how to skate ledges and rails and jumping down stairs and and all that and then there was sort of this revolution of technique and and tricks that was happening and so when the first X Games came around in 1995 skating had sort of been through this this transition and then there was a whole new type of skating happening and kids flocked to it they loved it you know they loved the irreverent attitudes they loved the risk factor they loved the excitement and I think that was the turning point for sure was like was exeument wasn't there time like almost like X Games stop because they didn't know if it was gonna continue similar to UFC I don't know I don't know I know the internal conversations I know that through the first three or four years it was it was gaining traction and then sort of in the late like late 90s early 2000s as when they really hit their stride and then they started doing multiple events mmm then they were doing like X trials and and international X Games and then and they kind of went I think they kind of spread themselves too thin after that I cuz I remember I'd watch X Games I'm like you know what I don't know if this is gonna be around or not and then you see it again and again and again boom comes the event what is it June 20 there was a time where they did they did four in one year and then that got to be like okay they're too much yeah how many is it right later on though that was later on now it's now it's two a year I think winter winter in summer yeah got it so so let's talk about june 27 1999 everybody or i can i don't know about everybody around the world myself I'm not even a skater I remembered that day when you were doing your deal and then all of a sudden you landed and it was like you know everybody wanted you to land this walk us through the first time you know that 900 was done on live television Wow well the I think I'd have to go back to sort of the quest for the 900 I learned seven 20s which is a double spin in 1985 and it was always in you know in my head like well the next obvious rotation is a 900 and I didn't actually get the guts to try it and until about 85 probably almost 10 years later is when I really started to spin it and realize that I could gain enough speed and get the spin fast enough to get around and I tried for years I tried to do it I would like set certain days and have people shoot video of it you know I like it's get a photographer today's the day I'm going to do it let's take photos and then I would like the closest I ever got I came down the wall and then I ran to the flat bottom and broke my rib my quest for it was you know almost 10 years in at that point so wait a minute before June 27 99 you've never landed it I never landed oh so you've never landed it off camera no no so the first time you ever landed yeah what's that yeah Wow that makes it even more special my first real attempt at it was 1989 and I ended up on my back on the flat bottom and thought maybe I should wait on this 89 is that the same time as a guy named Danny there was a story about a guy that Danny Way Danny yeah that he apparently did but he didn't he he was the first one to really show as possible for sure he was the first one that showed was passed yeah because he he got all the way around in the air he did the spin and he actually landed back on the wall and now I mean that is a monumental moment to me in skateboarding because it was like Oh Danny shows that it is possible and for sure like I took that I took inspiration from that and the boys Danny part of your community was Danny like a guy that you get local one of the most innovative skaters today I mean for sure he's the guy that started the whole mega ramp movement you know those big big ramps that they have the x-games he's the guy that that was the first to really make that happen so Tony you'll land it but it would walk me through like when you landed it's 900 so well okay so so fast-forward to that night they're having a Best Trick event and they had held best-trick events in the past at different events and usually just ends up people trying their hardest stuff and mostly people falling all the time and I had a little more strategy where I was like I know that I have done these couple of tricks so at least I'm gonna get those in the you know get those in the bank and then I'll have a trick to go off of like for whatever they're judging and I did I did two of them and I got him pretty early and then I tried my what was gonna be my harder trick which was a varial 720 which is like a 720 and turning the board an extra half to her and that was gonna be my big trick and I landed that one early on so I still had time left and for me the next trick and my sort of wish list is a 900 but I really didn't think that I'd be able to do it I've been trying it for years you know so I've mostly just did it to for the crowd did anybody say Tony let's try to 900 now sir I think said something like what about 900 you know and I was like alright I'll do it for the crowd it you know just to show them like this is what I would love to do and I started I tried a couple and something clicked in those first few where I was spotting my landing every time and that rarely happened usually it was like one spin was really good and one just was flailing and eventually I would get hurt that's how it would always go so this night it was like every spin was pretty consistent so I started putting it on the wall and the first couple times I put it on the wall I fell forward the way that I did when I broke my rib but not as bad and then I realized that in the middle of the spin if I shift my weight to my back foot I'll remedy that fall forward and it started working I basically at that moment like the time for the event had run out and I knew that I was either gonna make it or get taken away in an ambulance you met you made that distinction that this is right there it wasn't even like a conscious thought I just I just knew that I was gonna see it through or get taken out doing it you what you you hit it you're for time I was at the for time or the fifth time when you hit it no I think it was it was further it was it was closer to like 12 tries or so which which is standard I mean even even now like if I set out to do it you know and I've done it a few times since then it takes me a good at least eight or nine tries to get start getting it again you tweeted when you turn 48 you said I just landed at 9-under yeah yeah that one like I said every once in a while I get the bug and I'll start spinning it again and I had started doing that I actually started tried it at an event not long before that and thought oh maybe I could do it again and then I waited until the anniversary date June 27th so I waited until that day and set out to do it here on this room here here yeah got it and that was 2016 right I think was like a yeah 17 year anniversary when you hit that mathematically you know what is what is the bigger mathematical you know complexity of hitting a nine hundred what makes it so complicated to a tonight um it's not it's more physics than math it's more when you spin two and a half times you are blind to your landing zone twice and that is is the most that's the most disorienting thing the fact that you have two blind spots yeah twice blind to the ramp is so disorienting that by the time you come around you really don't know where you are and at some point if you've been practicing enough you just start to understand where you're gonna be by the speed of your spin and by the height you got and that's what I've gotten to at this point in my life where I know the exact amount of speed I need and the exact amount of torque I need to start spinning and if that doesn't happen even though I'm spinning and I'm blind I know kind of how I'm gonna fall and that that is something that you only learn through the worst experiences what's in very a twelve year I think only four people have hit the nine hundred since that time now I mean now there are there are young kids that grew up and they skate ramps and at you know before age ten they've done it so I'd say it's closer to probably fifteen maybe fifteen that I've hit there yeah so even though you know it's funny because it's not it's not such a monumental marker now I mean it's it's still a big deal for sure but a a couple guys have done ten eighties the Tom shark it is a Tom char and Mitchie Brusco so what's the limit on this like what do you think the limits gonna be on how because the the Tom Tom char when he hit that obviously his ramp is in this this it's he came with a much more speed right right coming down so is is a big part of how much more we continue with 1080 and then what's gonna be after that it's gonna be a 1260 and then whatever it's it purely gonna be a mathematics we're how much the speeds gonna be going into it I mean is there a limit you don't think I don't think that it's it's not just a matter of math it's a matter of risk and skill and you know to spin past 10 80 is gonna require big height which is tenfold risk factor and faster spinning and and you know body dynamics and there's all kinds of issues with that but I think that um to answer your question yes the bigger ramps will can help because it gives you that more airtime and people like to say like well that's cheating I'm telling you if you're facing a 30-foot ramp there's no cheating about that a 30-foot range well that's I mean that the the ramp that Tom shard did a 1080 on is 28 feet tall twice it's twice this this is 13 and a half this is 13 F yeah so when you're coming up a 28 foot wall that means you have to go double the amount of speed you're going on this thing do you know I mean there's there's no cheating element to that but eliminating and it's dangerous I mean look we were just standing here and Sean fell one time Sean what he fell one time there Mario Mikey it sounds like you are like you just broke your knee right right so when you watch it from the outside and you see these Falls what matter back what's the worst injury you've had worse accident you were show me something right here and to you was like yeah it's not a big deal I almost hit that point where Jackson was broken pelvis that happened when I was in my late 30s and it actually taught me a lot about about sort of my priorities and what I take for granted and how much I love skating that I would push through such a traumatic injury to get back on my skateboard you know what it's not because it's not because I want to get paid again it was just more guys I love skating and it's such my identity at this point and I couldn't do without it and it was really hard it was like it was a long one of the hardest years of my life was really a ting you know what I love doing and sort of making compromises with it in terms of what I could do and getting my confidence back how many times have you broken a bone like if you have you count is there I've been pretty like I do a more minor more like sprains and ligament stuff like that and I've had a couple knee surgeries but actual broken bones was my pelvis my elbow and my rib how do you come back from that I mean how do you come back from that when you have an injury like that and you know your walk me is it's like when Sugar Ray Leonard got lost to nomas and and he talked about for three years I just kind of wanted to be away from the limelight because I don't want to come back how do you make that come back it wasn't it wasn't the lid I wasn't about the lino it was just about me wanting to get back on my skateboard and and how did I come back it took a while you know it took it took a while to because suddenly the thing that I was doing when I got hurt was not something that was foreign to me or there was necessarily that hard and so it made me question everything I took for granted at that point and tricks that I knew that I could do it on any given day and so I would be doing tricks thinking like wait am I is this really safe am i capable of this you start to question everything and it took me about a year to get not only my tricks back but my sense of confidence back kind of being hesitant a little bit yeah yeah and and I should be you know you can't get hurt doing this ya know the world you're in you definitely can't get hurt doing what you're doing so how does how does one so for instance everybody says oh my gosh you're Tony Hawk oh my gosh you're the greatest oh my gosh you're changed the game you're the Michael Jordan back in the days used to compare you to Michael John you and I were talking about it earlier I asked about Tiger Woods you know the Michael Jordan of skateboarding you're hearing all this stuff what are you telling yourself when someone's giving you the compliment for you don't stay level-headed and not be too cocky to forget the basic fundamentals of crossing the line that it can hurt yourself uh what's your self-talk to yourself um I just I never really bought into the hype I mean I was excited that people recognize me and and and I was honored that they would compare me to someone of that stature but I I always felt like skateboarding as much as an art form as as a sport and it's apples to oranges when you're comparing skill levels it's not like who can score the most or who's the fastest it's way more about subjective style and so I couldn't really take that to heart you know what I mean I never I never got into skateboarding to be number one like that was such a jock mentality and that's what I was trying to rail against when I left when I left basketball in baseball maybe that's why you did so well maybe that's why you took it too I also I mean and also I I had enough experience with people who were full of themselves and people had looked up to that to know that like I'm I don't want to go down that path and you see the level of creativity with you now I mean you're at this point for you it's it's just purely trying to test what else is possible I saw you do a couple projects one of them was what was that one thing that you did with Sony you came up and then the spiral was sick by the way I think and you did a loop you know and there's all these other things and then you did the hoverboard stuff what's what's next like what is the next innovative thing that we're going to see like all the things we just sort of wild ideas that that's pretty cool watching what to do with the loop that was sick yeah I mean I but also always thought like well we've done the loop you know why not just turn that sideways and then we presented that to Sony and they agreed to fund and that's kind of how it went I don't really have any big you know I was working I was working on this video of documenting 50 tricks that I've created for so long that I just now have finished it that I'm so you just want to try to process that yeah and I felt like there was some closure there I mean a lot of the tricks I did in that video those that would be the last time I do them for sure so it when did when did a Tony Hawk your your game come out when that when did that game come out 1999 so the year you didn't nine hundred yeah how much long how much afterwards it was not long after that we had been working on it for almost two years prior to that there's a misconception where people think like I made nine hundred then I got a video game deal then everything exploded it was like no those things were very much in the world I had been working very hard on the video game for two years prior to that day I mean yes there was a there was definitely a perfect storm of time yeah absolutely and I felt very lucky in that and mostly the I guess the funny thing is is that that year of competition I already kind of knew was gonna be my last because I wanted to free up my schedule to do other things and then doing 900 was sort of a you know good out was the icing on the cake but I'd never thought of that as being this big promotion for a video game so was purely I never I never put those two things together and the only thing that I remember that come well I remember right after that I called never saw to his making the video and because I knew we were in the last stages of it I mean it was about to be submitted to Sony to be approved and I said hey you know I don't know if you guys have time to do this but you might want to throw a 900 in there as a special trick after you did it or before after I did it after you did it yeah got it but we were so close to the deadline there I didn't know if they had time and I remember I remember getting an email back immediately like we're already on it it's happening so I do it now June 27 one day the video game come on it I want to say it was August or September there's no way in the world that can make a game that quickly in two months and that's time yeah they're working on four years it's it's to be able to do something like that so that led you and and and I know you were talking something about the skateboarding earlier you said there's not enough of these out there so is that what inspired you to start your foundation where you put up now what five hundred and fifty six different skateboarding and you've raised five point two million dollars whatever the number is a little over five million is that where the inspiration came from yeah the inspiration I mean it came mostly from having been lucky enough to have a skate park near me when I was growing up and it was one of only a handful across the country so I that was never lost on me how lucky I was to have that that space and had that community and and I mean it really it defined who I was as a skater and having this really interesting collection of people that would be there at skating bouncing ideas off each other so when I had a chance to when I had a chance to maybe effect change however I could and and through skateboarding my go-to was to build skate parks and that came at a time when some parts are being built and they were being built by cities that were more affluent and were not we're not contacting the local skaters to have their involvement so these these cities would put up money they would go to the lowest bidding sidewalk contractor and they would make a skatepark that they thought was good that was almost unscalable and and and I saw that cycle happening time and time again because they just weren't they weren't designed by skaters this is pre you starting your foundations got it and so my my incentive for starting the foundation in 2002 was to turn that tide of having these facilities be built but to include the actual skaters in the process of the ones they're catering to the one they're providing for but also to direct that money to more needy areas because I felt like the kids in the area is more influenced they did have other options and a lot of these kids and that felt more disenfranchised but chose skating had no support for it and if anything were told not to do it because got it they thought it was had some negative connotation so what places have you build them what what are some cities you put you know you can find we're up to 580 parks right now but I mean you know in places like as iconic as Compton and Long Beach and watts and East st. Louis Detroit oh so you go into the real places where you putting them up you're not putting this up in you know in suburbs and the upper-class you you put them up in places no we want it to go to the board low-income areas where kids choose to skate and having to support it and what have you seen since ever since you've been doing that what's been what's been happening so we see well we try to empower the groups that have already got the ball rolling themselves so we want it we want to help them give them resources give them endorsement validation for their park and that usually goes a long way and we give them money to of course but what we found is that the sense of pride and the sense of empowerment and the kids get when they see a project through and they've actually run through all the red tape and they've gone to the City Council meetings and they see it actually happened that they can affect change there's a sense of of self that comes with that that I feel like a lot of them would have never found otherwise so so what but what are you seeing right now happening with your industry what's next with your world what do you foreseen taking place what level of innovation is gonna come next as a whole industry I think what skating is always innovative it always continues to break new boundaries you know new tricks new techniques new styles so I never worry about that because that's that's been a common thread through my whole life I think what I'm more interested in is the international growth of skateboarding and the places I've seen it grow that are very unlikely places that most people would not associate with skating in light for example there's a strong skating scene in Ethiopia there is there are two skate park projects that involve education in Cambodia there's a skate park in a village in Uganda these are Tony Hawk foundation or no but some some we have helped in terms of either giving them resources or funding the group that is actually the one that did the park skater stand one is one in particular that their work is incredible they have they have a whole skate facility in Afghanistan in Kabul that thrives that's amazing that has you know they're always full they have equal ratio of boys to girls participating and so that kind of stuff is what excites me seeing skateboarding grow in these places that I never imagined anyone would even yep see a skateboard it's it's kind of like what happened with the NBA when yam Inc came in and how Colby and the dream team and you know China and how big they were seen and then Kobe became God to the people in China and then MBA became an international thing and obviously it went to whole different level now the transition from you being a you know skateboarder to somebody that goes and becomes an entrepreneur how did that transition take place for you well I think it all stems from having the video game success because suddenly I found myself with all these different opportunities that were far beyond the scope of endemic skate companies and it became more of a more like corporate endorsements and suddenly I was in this world that had not been traveled from a skateboarding perspective then suddenly I it's like I had to be incorporated and then I found myself looking at various business opportunities of things that I could actually create because it was like for example my siblings and I we all had young children at the time and we could not find cool clothes for him we just you know everything for kids in the early 90s was like dressing them up as little soldiers or like oh gosh my gosh like they were little dolls and it and we wanted you know and the kids were kind of into skateboarding and stuff they wanted to look the part and so we decided to start a clothing company based on skate culture for kids Hawk clothing it was with things like that that was like that it was how I became an entrepreneur was was through those sort of avenues and then with this ramp this ramp was the catalyst for starting a whole arena tour boom boom Hawk Jim talk about that talk about a you know what would this led into cassano you got it you got another thing there you also what's the other business that you have going on right now I'm not talking to one you invested into a was it called blue coffee Bao Blue Bottle coffee that I think Nestle bought 68 years before like 500 million yeah and you were one of the investors all that yeah what what else things like that I you know I think I'm through my through my experience as an opportunity I found myself with other opportunities just through connections and that was just through a friend in San Francisco who-who found out I was a fan of Blue Bottle and because I mentioned it to him one time and he said hey you know I'm actually part of a group that's going to buy Blue Bottle and so I got in at the early stages of that and then you know when Nestle came in I got cashed out and it was amazing but um it's more things like that where if it sounds interesting and you know I'm I'm I'm one that is prone to take risks through my eyes life through skating and so I do the same with with doing business stuff is there is there a process you go through on who you invest in do you have like certain it's just more if it's intuition if it feels right if it's something I'm excited about that I'm in got it very cool so last but not least what is the name of the business you currently run there was another business that I think your partner was telling me about that started off purely accidental with the skateboards and then now it's Burroughs yes birdhouse so birdhouse is my skate company that was the first company I started 1992 it's it's been my passion project ever since you know we've definitely gone through ups and downs of sales we've gone through many incarnations of team but I feel like now we're in a sweet spot in terms of we have one of the best teams around we have a streamlined business you know we we do it more like licensing and and I'm still proud I mean 25 we're at 26 years now is ask a company that's pretty unheard of most skate companies have they're sort of the flavor of the month or you know they have a good run for a few years and then they're gone so it's still fun and it keeps me grounded because the the guys on the team they're awesome they are they are entrenched in skateboarding in the most hardcore way and and I love spending time with them that's cool so who are some of the current 20 Hawks you see who's like the next Tony Hawk some of the younger guys coming up are there anybody have your eyes on when you say this guy is gonna be special um well I guess with the Olympics coming up you know they're people are wanting to know the sort of favorites there I can tell you there's this pool skater from Australia Keegan Palmer who won the last event there and he's at least five years younger than everyone else and he is going to be a force to be reckoned with of the bat the ball of it for sure how old is he right now that's a good question I want to say 15 maybe yeah I remember the first time I got on a skateboard in Iran I was six years old I fell so hard on my back I said this ain't for me I put the skateboard aside the line in the sand for people it's the first time they get ahead like that that's it I'm good you know I I was at the what is that one place in Denver not Aspen not veil over there now with its would it be as well what's a crowd you know there's it's a real mark what was this name of the place I was at in Jennifer loves this place anyways we're over there and I'm trying to snow pour it right snowboard and it's just you know no matter how many times we know when I fall and and I still like the I still like the part of it but it's not something that I can pick up so for me I always respected guys who were skaters because you were kind of like man you're doing something there's no way in the world I could do it myself but it's it's great to see guys like you and I think one of the things when I watch it from an outside as a fan and I see you and I see Shawn and then you watch both of you just talking to Shawn the way he was talking like you know it's no big deal it is amazing the love of the game the two of you have for what you do it is amazing to see a guy like you kinda like tiger guy like Jordan guy like Kobe that love of the game is so common for the people that make it to the highest level where it's more than just the money part where it's more than just the fame part where it's more than it because once that comes what do you do next uh well it's mostly with if that's your motivation and you get a taste of it then you lose you lose the incentive to keep going to get better and that was never my motivation so to this day you know I do something that I get paid ridiculous amounts of money that I would do for free till Thursday yeah anytime that's cool that's cool well listen what's your handle by the way on Twitter it's just Tony Hawk or Tony Hawk look if you watch this interview and you are skater yourself or somebody that's watch this stuff and you've played this game or whatever it is send them a tweet and let them know what you got out of today's interviewees yeah Santa mattoon let them know what you got at the interview and by the way May 12th if you watch this before after when it comes out go watch the video what's the title that video gonna be about that's a good question I have to make it up right now so it should be 50 at 50 50 at 50 Tony Hawk I can't wait to see it on mates what brother thank you so much for exam truth you

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 46,872

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur Motivation, Entrepreneur Advice, Startup Entrepreneurs, valuetainment, patrick bet david, tony hawk, tony hawk 900, tony hawk pro skater, tony hawk story, tony hawk foundation, tony hawk birdhouse, tony hawk 50 tricks at 50, activision

Id: 5-XVgdgrOm4

Length: 41min 56sec (2516 seconds)

Published: Thu May 31 2018