← Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant
Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant
Money & Wealth: Reviving the American Dream w/ Michael Milken
01:07:59
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- [00:00]
Commercial Announcer
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- [01:05]
John Hope Bryant
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- [02:11]
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- [02:40]
John Hope Bryant
Peace to the Planet Charlemagne Tha God here. Before we get into today's episode, we've got to celebrate. The Black Effect Podcast Network is turning five years old man. Five years of powerful voices unforgettable moments and a community that keeps growing. This is the power of the platform. Now let's get into it. Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a production of the Black Effect podcast network and iHeartRadio. Hey. Hey. This is John Hope Bryant and this is Money and Wealth podcast Network series. This is my season two of Money wealth on iHeartRadio and the Black Effect Network. I want to thank everybody for making this a top 100 business podcasts and top 50 for entrepreneurship here in America and top 200 around the world today. As you know, I don't normally bring on guests. This is my sort of personal ministry of finance. I don't normally bring on guests. If I bring on a guest, they're very special. And I don't think I've ever brought on the same guest twice. This is a guest that I would bring on over and over and over and over again because his cup of knowledge and insight and wisdom runneth over. You know him as the legendary Michael Milken. I know him as my friend. He is an extraordinary human being. Some of you who know your history would know that Alexander Hamilton is credited for being sort of the father of finance, father of the really traditional banking system in America. If there was a modern father of finance in the last 100 years, one would have to credit, at least in part, Michael Milke. Let me give you a little bit of his bio, then I'll tell you why I think he's important personally. And then we'll get into a very powerful session that is really talking about the future of America, the future of this thing we call the American dream. Born in 46 as a financier, became a financier and a philanthropist and a thought leader. His career spanned Wall street innovation, large scale philanthropy, decades of work advancing medical research, probably the largest contributor to prostate research in the world today. And he had prostate cancer. And as he solves most things, he took a problem and turned it into a solution at scale to not only benefit himself, but everybody else too. He rose to prominence in most people's minds in the 70s and the 80s at Drexel, Burnham Lambert Shorthand Drexel on Wall street pioneering the use of high yield bonds. He probably hates me saying this, but some people call them junk bonds. You wouldn't want anything named tied him with the word junk on it. But it was just a high yield bond instrument that had never been created before and he pioneered that himself. That opened the doors for a lot of entrepreneurs to get into the game. His financial models opened up capital access for companies and entrepreneurs that traditional banks overlooked. He fueled growth in industries like cable, cellular, as in cell phones and healthcare. A third of all companies you, you do business with today are industries. Michael had a hand in those. And in philanthropy. I've already mentioned prostate cancer. He has the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Faster Cures. Medical research is multifaceted and deep seated to this day. In education, he has a Milken Family foundation which does great work in K through 12. His global influence includes the annual Institute global conference, the Milken Global Conference in shorthand, he's got the Milken Institute as well, which is sort of his base station for all things advancement. He's working now on a number of initiatives including medical philanthropy, inclusive capitalism. I call it the center for the Advancement of the American dream in Washington D.C. which I'm very proud to be associated with and we're going to talk a lot about today because it opens very soon. Just one of his pet projects, side deals that he raised a billion dollars for. Collected six buildings in Washington D.C. across from the White House, across the Treasury Department, next to. Hello, the Freedmen's Bank. You can't make this up. Ambassador Andrew Young would say coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Is next to the Freedmen's Bank. And when I was with Michael, by the way, for a soft opening, I think it was July, it was for July 4th, but we were there July 2nd and he was on the balcony. I was there with him overlooking Treasury. It was about 6pm and I looked at Michael's. I just remembered something. July 2, around 6pm 1874, I believe was the date that was the last day that Frederick Douglass walked out of what was called the Freedmen's bank for the end of that experiment. He thought it had failed. And on July 2, 2025, Michael Milken had turned the lights on on MCAD. The Milken center for the advance of the American Dream. In my opinion, to turn the light back on in America and to give people once again a ladder for their aspirational success. And he's got the Economic Mobility alliance, which we're going to talk about promoting, promotes pathways to capital inclusion, entrepreneurship and financial security. Financial literacy. That includes me, by the way. I'm involved with that. Michael's been called the man who changed medicine for his role in accelerating cures and medical research funding. Again, for black folks in particular, prostate cancer is a game changer and he had a big hand in that. But the thing that I'm most proud of is that really the Martin Luther King Jr. Of Wall street is a man named Reginald Lewis. And Reginald Lewis had a vision. Harvard educated, very qualified, overqualified. Was. Had a vision to do a deal to buy a company. I think it was called Beatrice International. 40, I think, was involved in 40 countries. It was a billion dollar deal. And he couldn't get anybody to back him. Michael backed him. So when folks who remain nameless said, this deal can't be done, Michael, this guy can't find the capital to do this deal. He's a nice guy. Michael said, well, I'm his capital. That's my kind of guy. You don't hear that backstory. But everybody needs a Michael Milken. And my Michael Milken, well, is Michael Milken. But it's also people like Tony Reser, who worked back at Drexel for Michael Milken. Tony resident, who is one of the most successful people in the world today, helped to back me in some of the things I've done. And so the story continues. And so Michael is a PhD and a PhD too. He's a get it done guy, and I call him an honorary brother. He's real cool, and he's down to earth, and he deeply cares, and he doesn't change his values or his beliefs based on political wins or who's in office or whether you're a conservative or Democrat or black or white or rich or poor. He just says things because he believes it's the truth. That's my kind of dude. And I'm about to introduce him to you as my friend. Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, the living legend, Michael Milken.
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Michael Milken
Well, hello, my young friend. That's quite an introduction. As you know, my mom, if she was still alive, would be blushing with that description. But both you and I are dedicated to a number of things and working together, not the least of which is access to capital and opportunity for all.
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John Hope Bryant
And Michael, this is not just talk for you. I mean, you've walked your talk. You've put your money where your mouth is and everybody else's money that you can get a hold of from your friends to do well and do good at the same time. I mean, last week you had a bunch of really powerful wealthy people in the Hamptons for a dialogue. And then you have a dialogue in la and you have a dialogue in Florida, and you've got things going on in Singapore. You've got meetings in Africa, in the Middle east and Asia, as if you have spare time. I thought I was busy. I looked at your schedule. I mean, you are restless in your desire to make the world a better place. And today, you and I, I think, would agree with. At least I think we would agree. We didn't talk about this in advance of the interview. The world's feeling a little challenged. I mean, people are questioning whether the American dream is still real for them, whether they can actually. We do, I think, disagree on what that American dream is for people. We'll get into that in a minute. There's nothing wrong with the constructive friction and positive disagreement. But what I think we can agree on is that it was your quote, education, sorry. Intelligence is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. And that's a Michael Milken quote. And I think that's more the case now than it was a decade ago. I think people are feeling that no matter how hard they work, they just can't get ahead. They feel like they're on a treadmill, maybe even depressed. And that's why I think it's a good time for this conversation. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. That's a scientific fact, actually. It's not Just good metaphor. And so it's time for a rainbow. I think people are exhausted. They're worn out. They're tired of people arguing and being experts in what they're against. And even the division. So how do we bridge folks together? What is that shared dream? Is it still possible for people to achieve and become successful here? I think America is a lighthouse for.
- [13:00]
Michael Milken
All of our problems.
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John Hope Bryant
Let me just get this out of the way. My second great grandmother was a slave. My second great grandfather was a slave. My father was a share. My grandfather was a sharecropper. I mean, I get that America's highly imperfect, but sort of capitalism, for me, capitalism, democracy in America. Sort of like horrible systems, except for every other system, right? And America has got all kind of problems, but I really wouldn't live anyplace else. But we still need to be that light on the heel. We need to renew that promise. And most wealth comes from the private sector. Most jobs come from the private sector. People don't know that. And people, big companies were once small ones. People don't know that they started small and somebody made it big in a household name. Is that dream dead, Michael? Or does it just need to be revitalized? And is that in any way why you created what is people call shorthand, mcat, the Milken center for the Advancement of the American Dream? Or did you just not have something else to do with a billion dollars?
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Michael Milken
Well, it all started in 2007, John. I became really concerned that People were feeling more and more disenfranchised, didn't feel they had a chance at that dream or redefine that dream. So I bought some property in California with the idea that you could overlook the Pacific Ocean and have that dream. But over time, I felt we needed to do it in Washington, D.C. okay, all the decisions, all the rules were there. And who knows, there was a chance to buy the building next to the Freedom Bank. What better location could you buy?
- [14:50]
John Hope Bryant
Freedmen's Bank. Vision. That's right. Alive and well. You didn't know that at that time. Right. You didn't realize it was Freedmen's bank next door when you bought it. Right.
- [14:59]
Michael Milken
Well, you made it. You got that name, John. It used to be called the Treasury Annex until you enlightened the government. And so I felt we need a beacon of hope for the whole world, not just the United States, that someplace there's a beacon in hope. And on July 3rd of this year, for the first time in 83 years, we opened the skylight in the old Riggs bank building and let light back in. And after they bombed Pearl harbor and Germany declared war in the United States, and we all know about all those bombing runs in Britain and London. They were not allowed to have light. And so this building was shedding the light, not only in Washington and the world, but financing many different things. And the government made them take out the skylight. And we restored all 190 panels, put it back in on July 3rd of this year, opened that light again. But you've told your story, and we're filming 10,000 stories with the idea that a person can come and find their story in the American dream. And we have filmed people whose ancestors came here as slaves, not by choice. We filmed people who lived in homeless shelters, HUD centers. We filmed people that never met their father. We filmed people that basically lived in foster care. We didn't just film the most successful entrepreneurs. And we recently filmed someone who's achieved his American dream. And we asked him, what was your dream? His dream was to coach his daughter's soccer team. But economics, economics, when you ask people, only 16% of people think wealth is required to achieve your American dream. Number one factor is over 80% will tell you it is freedom. Freedom to live your life.
- [17:16]
John Hope Bryant
Okay?
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Michael Milken
Freedom for a good family life, freedom for retirement. But you and I both know it's hard to have a great retirement if you don't have any pension fund or savings account later in life. So where is money? Wealth is not essential. Having a Degree of financial freedom is. And you have taken leadership. And I've spent 60 years working on financial literacy. When you talked about credit or bonds. 99.99% of every business in America is not an investment grade company. And yes, those 500 companies thought it was good. Let's not give an entrepreneur like John Hope Bryant or Craig McCaw or Ted Turner, let's deny him access to capital and the world will be better.
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John Hope Bryant
You talking about the Fortune 500? The 500 companies that we're talking about the Fortune 500.
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Michael Milken
Well, not every Fortune 500 is investment grade, but these are the ones that have the highest rating.
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John Hope Bryant
Got it.
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Michael Milken
And these companies, large companies, created minus 4 million jobs in the last 30 years of the 20th century. And those small and medium companies that grew, grew into large companies today, created 62 million jobs.
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John Hope Bryant
Wow.
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Michael Milken
And so there are. We cannot rest on the past. And we cannot deny those with the best ideas drive creativity. We cannot deny them capital. And all these companies, every one of your most valuable companies, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook, Google, that we know, Tesla, none of them existed in the 1970s. None of them. And so these ideas. And I remember I was speaking to a young group in South Central Lake, not Campton, but. But it was close down there in South Central, John, where you were one. I wasn't in Camden. I wasn't in Compton either, but we were in parts of la. And I remember speaking with Reverend for the audience.
- [19:45]
John Hope Bryant
I'm teasing Michael. He's been to Harlem more than most. More than most Caucasian folks have ever even seen a picture of Harlem. He's been. He's been to Harlem maybe more than a lot of black people. He's been South Central on a regular basis. I think the first time I met Michael Milken actually 25 years ago was in South Central, deep South Central LA, at a conference where we asked him to speak. He was very comfortable. I'm teasing him, but so. But I just. I'd like to tease him, but I'm seriously.
- [20:15]
Michael Milken
Harlem?
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John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
- [20:16]
Michael Milken
He's taught school in Harlem. I taught school in South Central la. And I remember holding up in the early days a mobile phone. And I asked them what was more powerful. Where did this mobile come from? Where did it come from? It came from the ideas of people, a new industry. And if you wanted to own the franchise for New York City, 8 to 10 million people just in the city. What did it cost? It cost $10,000. That's all you do to apply for that franchise, really now it costs a lot of money. To build it out. But that's where I came in. But in the case of Reg Lewis, here was a person that was the best prepared, most knowledgeable, and was going to do the best job running Beatrice International, right? And when the owners and the sellers told me he had no credibility with them, I told him he had credibility with me, and that's all he needed. And, boy, did he do a great job. But there are so many of those young entrepreneurs that are household names today that people met from that standpoint, and it's amazing what they can do when you give them a chance. But in building the center for the Advancing American Dream, we want it to be a beacon of hope to the world, John, not just to Washington, D.C. but the world. And if 6 million people walk down what used to be called the People street, they can't go into any of the buildings. You got to get permission and clear security.
- [22:07]
John Hope Bryant
You can't go to the Freedmen's bank building either, because it's a secure facility. So your building is the only one that anybody can enter. You can't enter treasury, you can't enter the Freedmen's Bank. You certainly can't enter the White House. I mean, no, we're going to open.
- [22:20]
Michael Milken
The People street again to the people.
- [22:22]
John Hope Bryant
Beautiful.
- [22:23]
Michael Milken
But you and I both know, as we thought about what it takes to think about that dream, we thought of the four pillars which have been the four pillars of my life. One is financial literacy, the free enterprise system, access to capital.
- [22:39]
John Hope Bryant
What are they, Michael? Forget. What are they?
- [22:43]
Michael Milken
Finance, financial freedom, all financial literacy. That's all. One, finance. Number two, the entrepreneur and innovation. Who thought of all these new ideas? Okay, who thought of them? You're an entrepreneur. But many of the entrepreneurs, John, are social entrepreneurs. They're running foundations, they're running churches.
- [23:09]
John Hope Bryant
Right.
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Michael Milken
Or they're like Lee Kuan Yew and they built a country as an entrepreneur. Third is health care and medical research. It's hard to have a good life if you're not healthy. It's hard to have a good life if your life is cut short because you don't have access to good health care. And fourth, education and the educator and the world we live in today, it's that education that's freedom. And that's why we're so focused on the historically black colleges here, to make sure that those kids who have the intelligence have the opportunity. And that's why we run these programs with getting them to be money managers. Because when I noticed at a very young age, it was funny. If I financed an entrepreneur from Vietnam somehow. There were more Vietnam employees from Vietnam. And if I financed a black entrepreneur, it was just funny, but there were more black senior employees than if there weren't. And if I financed someone from Mexico, lo and behold, there were more people from Latin America. And so we want to make sure that everyone has access to capital. And this program on economic mobility alliance that you're such a big part of, John, is to bring everyone's programs together. So KKR started a program called Ownership Works. So when they buy a company, they give stock to every single employee of that company. And then Blackstone, who's the third largest employer in America, 700,000, they started something called Career Pathways. So if you're working for their company and you want to move up, whether you need education, a graduate degree, some technical skills, or whether you need an education in financial literacy, they're going to tell you you have upward mobility if we're working for us. And so each of these entities becomes important. And today we have employers of over 4 to 6 million people that are waiting for the rules that are going to give money to every child of every employee. Today in America, we have the most millionaires of any country, but we have a very large percentage of our population with a net worth under 10,000 who have to worry about a medical emergency or something going wrong in their family. And so when I look at Australia today, Australia has the highest median net worth of any country in the world. It has more than 20 million people because they created these superannuation funds where every single person has their own pension fund and retirement and has a feeling of confidence that if they ever retire or they have a medical emergency or they need something.
- [26:33]
Commercial Announcer
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- [27:31]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [28:01]
John Hope Bryant
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- [28:07]
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- [28:13]
John Hope Bryant
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- [28:36]
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- [28:39]
John Hope Bryant
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- [28:54]
Michael Milken
We also are part of the effort. We have to stop loaning money to people to go to college and then they get out and they feel they're going to spend the rest of their life having to pay it back. We have been focusing on investing. I can invest in you. I'll give you the money for you to go to school and we'll share revenue. So after you get the first hundred thousand or two hundred thousand, it's not debt. I'm betting on you. And if I'm betting on you and made an investment on you, you can rest assured I'm going to help you with your internships. I'm going to find a way to get you capital and make your ideas available. So hundreds of different programs and the idea for this John, as you know, came from what we did in healthcare.
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John Hope Bryant
Yeah, you revolutionized healthcare led by the prostate piece, prostate cancer research and all these efforts have changed healthcare and you're basically going to reboot that model as I'm hearing and try to connect it to economic mobility, creating a compact of leaders wrapped around all these different programs and initiatives. I want to slow down for the audience and bring I Want to tease out a couple things. Michael talks about this stuff. He's such a genius. He talks about stuff so naturally that it may be hard for people to catch all of it. I want to come back and slow the music down for a little bit. Mcat, in no particular order, Milken center for the Advancement of the American Dream. I want you to go after, after September, whatever it is, 20th, whatever, it'll be open to the public. You can go to Washington, D.C. i want you to go. I want to take your kids. I want to check your mate. I want you to take your business partner. I want to take their fellow dreamer. It's not a museum, people. It's not a museum to the past. It's a lighthouse for the future. It's, it's, it's a rebuilding of the American dream. And it'll inspire you to be that dreamer. And you, and you're not a, you're not an, an observer in this. When you walk in, there's a beautiful gold tree and you'll be able to walk over and tell your story, take a photo and tell your story briefly. That photo, within 10 seconds, will show up on the tree. You're going to see yourself on that tree right next to Magic Johnson, right next to Oprah Winfrey, right next to whatever hero or she rolls you admire most, Alex Rodriguez, whoever it is you admire. You're gonna see your picture right up there. You take a photo of that. I believe they're give you some keepsake when they take that home. But you're going to be part of this history. And that's just the, that's just the beginning of this journey of being involved, hopefully, with a relationship with, with the Milken center for the Advancement American Dream. And hopefully we're going to tie this in to the Freedmen's bank legacy because we can't go into the Freedmen's bank building. So we're going to Hope meetings about what I call civil rights, from civil rights to civil rights. Inside of the Milken center for the Advanced American Dream. Let's now go to his comment about accounts. I mean, I'm just gonna break this down. He talked about investment accounts, and I believe he's talking about young people. As you, the audience probably knows, Operation Hope partnered with the city of Atlanta, Mayor Andre Dickens, with the help, the inspiration of Mayor Ambassador Andrew Young as an inspiration, and former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, we got a couple million dollars from the city of Atlanta. We put up child accounts, child savings accounts, Hope child savings accounts. And we met it was matching 50 bucks. Mike's talking about much more money than this thing is, a thousand dollars. But we, it was 50 bucks from the city. We matched it 50 bucks. Operation Hope and our partners, we have now 10,500 accounts. Every kid in kindergarten for the last three years in Atlanta. Those kids are going to grow up with a different outlook on life. Studies have shown if you have money in an account, a kid is 75% more likely to graduate from college. Just that one thing. Then wrap financial literacy around it. Give them a role model. Give somebody to aspire to. Okay, now the fuse is lit. And we can do this in communities all across the country on the local basis. It's powerful. Bernice King, Dr. King's daughter, is wanting to work with us on their dad's hundredth anniversary of his birthday. Coming up on 20 by 2029 to do 100 accounts in 100 cities. This is, this local effort is very noble, but it'd be nice if there was something national that sort of was a partner to this effort. And I can't speak to the details. A lot of this stuff is still in, in motion. But I will tell you, I trust Michael. I don't, I don't know, I'm not talking about other folks involved with this, but I trust Michael. And Michael tells me that there are billionaires who've agreed to put up a lot of money in major corporations to open child savings accounts, basically invest in the market nationally. And I think that that has a lot of potential. So that's something that he mentioned and he referenced the success in Australia in that regard. I'm just trying to slow this music down a little bit so that people can keep up with you. Michael, go ahead, continue.
- [34:01]
Michael Milken
Well, John, I think you've touched something here by giving every kid an investment in an index of stocks of the largest companies, most innovative companies in America, and having the financial institutions agree that there are no charges, there is no charge to open the account, there is no charge to manage money. And you and I know how many people that these charges eat them alive over time. So no charges, okay? For them, you'll be able to save money. And everyone can feel that they're part of the process. That is the idea between ownership works. If we're going to have a successful company and sell it. And one of the partners, Leonard Green, headed by people, used to work for me, they sold the company to Home Depot and they distributed $2 billion to every low level and every mid level employee working for that company because they were stakeholders they were shareholders. And that's our promise. How do we make people feel now? Our country is a very unique place. Most of the countries in the world, if you were given money to start a business and it didn't work, that's it. There are no second chances here. In places like Silicon Valley, people wear their badges as an honor badge that they started a company, they did their best, it didn't make it, but they get a second chance and they get a third chance. And so you'd be surprised today how many people you read about or hear about that their company turned out to be fabulously successful, but it wasn't their first try. And that's what's unique. And I think that's one of the messages we're going to have in the center. And another very important part of the center that you talked about, John, is that center will change when you come there. There is a word cloud in another hall that you can enter your words as to what you think the American dream stands for. And as you enter your words, the colors of that cloud change to reflect the words you put on. So this is something that changes when you're there. And we've spent a lot of time creating these holograms. So if you want to learn a little bit about being an entrepreneur, you can talk to Sarah Blakely and you can have a conversation with her because she turned into an avatar. And if you want to talk to a young money manager in venture capital, well, you can have a conversation with Serena Williams about her venture capital firm and what she did. And if you want to talk about education, Sal Khan, his avatar, is there to talk to you about it. And if you want to talk about medical, the fourth pillar, where there's Sanjay Gupta from CNN to talk to you about that, right? So this is an interactive experience. And so those, we want people to be energized. And there's stories of people whose lives have been so difficult, being diagnosed with a life threatening disease as a kid, being handicapped, and how they overcame them. And so what we hope is that each person can find their own dream. So our goal in the center is that a story of one of the people, one of the thousands of people will touch someone and say, that could be my American dream. And who knows, John, just like that man that walked into your classroom in Compton, California changed your life. We hope one of the people they meet and interact with at the center, whether it's in person or digitally, might change their path and give them hope for their American dream and make them feel it's possible. If that person could achieve it, then we can achieve it. And when they come there and watch the video of a girl who was hard of hearing and they didn't know she was hard of hearing, and the school told her that she was not going to be successful in life, well, today that girl is the principal of the same school she went to. And so we hope those stories, just like the person that came into your classroom, changed your life. One individual, one story. For me, as you know, it was the Watts riots on 8-11-65, John. That I met this young American, African American man who told me on August 12 that his father, no one would ever loan him money because of the color of his skin. And no one would loan him money because of this color of this skin. And while we were sitting there looking at this building that had burned down, he now had no job, had a family and a child, and no savings. And so that one event in my life 60 years ago changed the entire path of my life. So we hope maybe visiting one, talking to one person, seeing one person, might change their life and give them more hope for the future.
- [40:02]
John Hope Bryant
Audience listening to this, I want you to get this memo. This guy, in addition to everything else I've just told you, he's got these milking fellows that come from Africa and Asia and all parts of the world that he's given a shot. He's given them visibility that I would say from the streets to the suites, from civil rights to civil rights. And he puts them in front of some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world in these private meetings that Mike invites me to, to go speak his dialogues. And he gives them a shot at the big ring where people can hire them or partner with them or back them or. Or they can just befriend each other and get to know each other. Doesn't have to do that. Didn't have to go to Watts. As you just mentioned, most wealthy people. Michael. I'll say it. Michael is one of the wealthiest people in the world. Doesn't have to do this, you say. You could just say, I'm just gonna go sit on my yacht or sit in my beach house or whatever and call it a day. But he. He's all leaned in, and I want you to go to this Milken center for the Advancing the American Dream, because it just might be a way to spark your boldness for you to go from the streets to the suites, for you to climb up your own aspirational ladder, for you to bring an intern or a Fellow into your organization or your company or your orbit. Why should you live your life? And maybe the only Bible anybody else reads. Michael is a weird dude to me because he's. He. He's. He's courageous and kind of inconsistent. And those are. Annie. Uber wealthy. Those are very rare set of facts. And then you, here's a big one. I've already told you the Michael Milken story, right. But he also backed a woman, I think about 40 years ago to become one of the first women to run a big company. Michael, what was her name?
- [41:50]
Michael Milken
Linda Walkner. And she. A company called Warnico, which is.
- [41:57]
John Hope Bryant
How big was that company?
- [41:59]
Michael Milken
It was one of the 500 largest companies. And I did get a lot of hate mail. How could I possibly do that? And I. A lot of us don't remember.
- [42:09]
John Hope Bryant
Yeah, death threats, actually. Death threats. From the hint about that and from Mike backing Reginald Lewis, to be blunt.
- [42:17]
Michael Milken
It was a different world for women. That great movie, you know, about the women that helped our space program, Hidden figures. It's amazing. And when you think of where we are today, beginning in the 1970s, that women have an opportunity. And if I would have told someone when I was sitting at my trading desk in 1969, that a woman was going to be the CEO of IBM, a woman was going to be the CEO of the largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, that a woman was going to be ahead of General Motors, they would have told me, I'm crazy. But that barrier was broken down. And the first woman happened to be Linda walkner in the mid-80s. And it was amazing. People said, how can you back a woman? I said, how can I not back a woman who has ability? So I think we're in a different world. And you know, John, that these studies have shown that if you can get a person to interact with different socioeconomic groups, that they have a much better chance of rising up in their lifetime. Even in the world of a country club. If you're a caddy at a country club and you're a young black kid who's a good athlete and a caddy, you'll have a higher chance of rising up than if you didn't interact with that group. And once you interact with people and discover you can hold your own, all these kids from these elementary schools in the inner cities, once we gave them their superpowers in math, we could then take them. And once they discovered, boy, they were a lot stronger and a lot better than those kids going to elite schools. And they knew that 83 times 87 was 7221 before anyone could enter it into their calculator. That confidence carried them over. And as we look at them later in the life, the 600 of our scholars who've been given that shot, they have a much different world than their parents did and much different self confidence because of that. They're willing to take chances, they're willing to take risk. Many years ago, Reverend Jesse Jackson, when I first met him almost 45 years ago, he told me, you know why so many African Americans go to work for the post office? Because they know they'll get a fair shake, that there won't be discrimination working for them. And many of those people could have built a company, could have done something different, but they felt they weren't going to get a fair shake. And I think that's what access to capital does. It gives you a chance. And this country, which is so unusual, gives you a chance to try and fail and try again. So we want you to hear those stories of all those companies that a Jeff Bezos or someone tried before. It was about 40, 30 years ago when I was interacting with many of the entrepreneurs. You know what they told me? Their secret to success was they fail fast. If it's not working, they, they just move on.
- [46:00]
John Hope Bryant
Right.
- [46:00]
Michael Milken
But it takes a lot of courage to be able to move on. If this is your only job. That's right, your only opportunity.
- [46:10]
John Hope Bryant
And going back to your, going back to what I call relationship capital, which is the whole who you know piece. And you walk past it, Michael. But I want people to hear this. Maybe you can't get the formal internship, maybe, maybe the programs have been dismantled for you to ladder up into, into the corporation, corporate or whatever. But you go get, go become a caddy at a country club. Go work at a, at a, at a private club, try to. But what does a country mean? Country clubs, private clubs, social clubs, a lot of these, these, you know, exclusive meeting events. It's, it's another way to, to, to gain relationship capital. Because if you hang around nine broke people, you'll be the tenth. And the opposite is also true. It's not just about smart. You are, it's about positioning yourself so your smarts are seen. And that's what Michael's helping to do with the Fellows program. And then what he's done we did with, with, with Linda, believe her name was, and with Reginald Lewis backing them. And by the way, I think a lot of hate that came Michael's way in the 70s and 80s and 90s was because he was backing all these outliers. But that's a whole nother podcast for another day.
- [47:15]
Michael Milken
John wasn't just that if you're at AND T and you have 99% market share and then somebody's going to finance MCI and you now have a competitor.
- [47:29]
John Hope Bryant
He financed MCI, by the way.
- [47:31]
Michael Milken
AT&T was broken up four years after we financed MCI. But you would be blackballed if you gave them money. And I think it's very important you know, when you want to find an entrepreneur.
- [47:53]
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- [50:27]
Michael Milken
I had this young African American kid, it came to see me to finance his business. You know what made me finance his business is he didn't have enough money for advertising. So when they had Showtime with Magic Johnson at the Lakers, he bought one seat at courtside where the cameras would see him and had the name of his company on his T shirt. And there, every time they showed the huddle, he stood up. Free advertising. And I was thinking, boy, this young man is a creative individual and gosh, we got to back him, we got to give him a chance if that's how, when he has no money, how he's going to advertise. So there are a lot of people. And you know why a company fails? Two reasons. One of them related to money. One, they have too much money and they waste it. Or two, they have too little money. Okay, so how do you find those outliers? How do you find that person in your neighborhood who is going to think of different ways to solve a problem or make it work today? And so I used to set as time, set aside time every afternoon. I wanted to listen to every crazy idea and I used to have my firm tell me that's a total waste of time. And I told them the day that I stopped listening to the next crazy idea is the day we will be not financing the best entrepreneurs.
- [52:06]
John Hope Bryant
And how many companies did you finance in total, Michael? About.
- [52:11]
Michael Milken
About 3,000 over the years.
- [52:13]
John Hope Bryant
My Lord. Okay, so you. Okay, here's a little known fact about Michael Milken and we're going to round this back out to. I want you to go to this mcat, this Milken Center. I'm going to tell you, tell you why. Because right now you can't see me relate to Michael. You've heard the stories. You're like, oh my God, this guy's incredible. He's amazing. But I can't relate to Michael Milken. Hold on. I believe Michael Milken was a cheerleader in high school. Is that right, Michael?
- [52:35]
Michael Milken
That is correct. And Sally Fields was one of my head song leaders. Unfortunately, my school doesn't have male cheerleaders anymore.
- [52:45]
John Hope Bryant
They all, you know, it takes to be a male dang on cheerleader in 19. Whatever year it was today, frankly, I mean that's amazing. What got. What kind of confidence does that take to become a male cheerleader? And he's proud of it. I mean, it's fantastic. You've been beating your own drum your whole life. Is this part of why you like backing outliers and backing people who don't have visibility and backing people who are different? Like, what is that thing in you that makes you reach do a little bit extra and make sure that everybody's at the table in your conversations and tying us back to mcad, is there a place when you come as a family comes to mcat, do they get to leave their imprint somewhere where their presence has been recorded, that they're also part of history?
- [53:30]
Michael Milken
Well, they get to leave their picture. They get to leave their story, their family story. They also get to see, why are immigrants so successful in America? Why is that immigrant who came from another world or another place. Because they think they'll have a better chance, a better chance for their children, a better chance for themselves, a better life. And I think this is our view. My children, children, my grandchildren and great grandchildren. Their life in this country will be highly dependent on every child feeling they have a chance. If everybody child doesn't feel they have a chance, then my grandchildren and great grandchildren will not have a good life. And I think when you look at polling people, what do they tell you? What is equality? Okay, Equality is that everyone should have a chance. Is it equal outcomes? No.
- [54:41]
John Hope Bryant
No.
- [54:41]
Michael Milken
Only 4% of blacks think it's equal outcome. Only 4% of Democrats, only 4% of whites, only 4% of Republicans think it's equal outcome. But it is an equal chance. And sometimes, as you have pointed out, what I have found is getting on a floor in a classroom with a kid is convincing him that he has a chance. And if you put him in that environment. It was 1993, and we quiz kids in the very difficult area in West Philadelphia, not too far from the University of Pennsylvania. And it was not that safe an area when I went there in the 1960s. And it was interesting. Many of the students didn't feel safe in the hood surrounding the school. But what I was surprised at, you.
- [55:40]
John Hope Bryant
Say the hood, like you like, like you're familiar with it, that is.
- [55:44]
Michael Milken
But how many of the kids in the hood didn't feel comfortable walking on a college campus?
- [55:51]
John Hope Bryant
Right?
- [55:51]
Michael Milken
So I asked him, why are you not comfortable? Come walk with me at school. He says, they're going to ask if I walk there, they're going to ask me questions. And I said to him, like, what he told me, like, the speed of light, I might not know. It's 186,000 miles a second. Is that what you're telling me? They're not going to ask you the speed of light. And so a lot of times you need to know that they can hold their own. You need to put them in that environment. And when they discover they have the same ability or more. Ability or more.
- [56:25]
John Hope Bryant
Yep.
- [56:27]
Michael Milken
The kid who grew up on the tough side of the street.
- [56:31]
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
- [56:32]
Michael Milken
Who had to work hard his whole life or her whole life.
- [56:36]
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
- [56:37]
Michael Milken
You know, has an advantage over this kid who grew up with a silver spoon in their mouth. Really? Okay. You think it's an advantage, but they never had it tough. Everything was given to them. And when life gets tough, how are they going to react? I have a friend that's a professor at one of the leading schools, and he sits there and he looks at the class the first day, and he says to himself, who got into the school because of their family and who got in the school because of their ability? That's what he does the first week. Can he tell? And after a month, he starts to think, how long will it be before the kid that got there because of his family is working for the kid that got there because of his ability?
- [57:29]
John Hope Bryant
That's what I'm talking about.
- [57:30]
Michael Milken
And so when you say today, what are the most valuable companies in the world? You have a guy named Jensen Wang that has the most valuable company in the world called Nvidia. He didn't grow up with anything. He came to this country.
- [57:45]
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
- [57:45]
Michael Milken
And Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs was adopted.
- [57:50]
John Hope Bryant
A Jordanian immigrant. His father's a Jordanian. Yeah.
- [57:53]
Michael Milken
So, you know, they had this drive.
- [57:56]
John Hope Bryant
Yeah. So. So, Michael, as we. This has been fabulous. I want to have you come back. As we wrap this up, I want to leave. I want them to. I want them to know something personal about you. That is an insecurity of fear of something that you grew up with, growing as a young person, that there was an insecurity or fear that you turned into a factor for success. Something that you took it from a negative to a positive that people can relate to. But before you get to that, I want to drop the mic on this because you talked a little bit about immigrants. I believe that 40% of all Fortune 500 founders. I believe that number is still correct. Are immigrants. I believe. I know that.
- [58:37]
Michael Milken
CEO or founders. CEOs or founders.
- [58:40]
John Hope Bryant
Got it. And you do. You have. It's not about. This is not about some soft sub. Soft soap, moral thing. You believe from a straight business perspective that, that, that folks coming in from Africa or wherever with that drive and that innovation is good for the economy. You've got some numbers that are just unbelievable. Can you just drop some of the numbers? We like math here because it doesn't have an opinion. Drop some of the numbers of that people don't know about the demographic realities and demographic trends. As we begin to wrap this up. Bring it home.
- [59:15]
Michael Milken
Some powerful numbers as you start thinking about America today. In the 1960s, 75% of everyone not born in America was born in Europe. They were Caucasian.
- [59:29]
John Hope Bryant
Okay.
- [59:30]
Michael Milken
Today, less than 10% of the people in America who were not born here were born in Europe. There are more people born in Africa than were born in Europe and America. Nigerians are one of the most entrepreneurial, highest performing groups economically. There's a plus and a minus to that. Many of the great Nigerian entrepreneurs are here. They're not building their business in Nigeria because they felt they had a better upside here. They're still great. I did a podcast in Africa. We had 3 million people in Nigeria alone who define themselves as entrepreneurs. Wow. And so it's changed. Yes. The largest group that's here today was born in Latin America or born in Asia. And so they are high performing. The highest performing educational group in the world as a country of Singapore.
- [60:38]
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
- [60:38]
Michael Milken
As a country might be South Korea. But there's a group in America today that outperforms all of them and that is South Koreans in America who have come here. They have a higher output, education output than South Koreans in South Korea and Kenyans and Nigerians and people from Ghana do fabulous here. And so it's a question of giving an opportunity. And it's. That's my view. If we're going to build a place that's a. The ideal of this dream of upward mobility to the world, this shining light, then we have to shine bright for everyone in this country. And you and I understand what that means. And our future leaders are probably kids that are born in lower socioeconomic place. They've had hard knocks. I've hired a lot of smart people, but I always teamed them up with a person from the greatest school, the school of hard knocks. So that they amazing what they could accomplish together.
- [61:49]
John Hope Bryant
I don't know, Mike. If again, we're out of time. This has been a fabulous conversation. Maybe we can do a part two, part three. I don't, I don't really know if you can have a leading economy or. Let me be very specific, I don't know that America continue to be the light on the Hill, the biggest economy, soul, superpower. All that, without the economic juice of all that you just talked about, all leaned in with everybody else, our European brothers and sisters or Africans, Latinos, women, all these Asians, all these different groups, with everybody fulfilling their potential, which is what have been the promise of America since its beginning. I, I don't think that we, it's going to be, it's going to be easy to continue to keep this party going if we don't open the app, keep the, the window open for opportunity and keep the ladder down to the ground. And it just seems to me those numbers just sort of scream at that reality. And I'm actually quite hopeful for the future as a result.
- [62:48]
Michael Milken
John, we have to keep two windows open. One, the window of opportunity for everyone in this country, to give them a chance. Because as you stated earlier, intellect is evenly distributed. It's in Selma, Alabama. Okay. It's in Tallahassee, Florida. And we got to make sure it's not just in Silicon Valley or in New York City. And second, we got to keep the window of opportunity for those that want to come to this country. So when you come to the center, we have a three story trompe l' oeil painting of 68 people that came from 58 countries to this country and became citizens and changed the world. We also have former President Bush's paintings of immigrants that came to this country. So we want to just stress how important that is.
- [63:44]
John Hope Bryant
Former President Bush is a painter.
- [63:47]
Michael Milken
Well, he's. But he painted people that came to this country. They came for freedom, they came from a better life. And we also have to face the fact that the birth rate in America is at an all time low and the number of children. So if we don't have immigrants, the number of people living in this country is going to drop by 40 to 50 million.
- [64:12]
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
- [64:16]
Michael Milken
Energy. And I think for some of your viewers, if you go online and Google President Reagan's last speech in the White House about the importance of immigration to this country. So unfortunately, you and others have relatives that came to this country not by choice as slaves, but many of them have risen up and, and we need to make sure more and more risen rise up. And I'll tell you right now, when I go to a sports event and there's still, if I go and watch the Lakers play, there's still wearing Kobe jerseys. Oh, yes. Whether they're white, whether Hispanic, whether they're black, whether they're Asian, they all have got their Kobe because To them, okay, he wasn't black. He was just a fantastic basketball player. And I think sports is a very interesting thing, John. And I think Covid really hurt the country because we weren't going to sports events. And I told you the story once, as I travel around to more than 500 baseball games to raise money for cancer research. I was in Chicago at the Cub game, and their star player hit a home run in the late innings, and they beat their arch rival, the St. Louis Cardinals. Everybody was dancing in the stadium. They were hugging. They weren't worried about what your relationship was. They weren't worried about your religion. They weren't worried about your race. Their team had just won, and they stayed in the stadium for almost 30 minutes after the game. CHEERING it's amazing how things bring people together. And I think part of our problems today because of COVID is we had a whole year when people never felt they were together or one. They never experienced their team winning in person. And seeing you win and others is a great role model for so many of them. And I couldn't be more excited to be on your podcast. And I look forward to anytime in the future you want to do it.
- [66:47]
John Hope Bryant
Well, I love you, brother, and I'd love to have you back anytime that you have time. I know you're busy as we wrap this up, Mike, and this has been a great, great session, and I'll see you at the opening and. And many times on the road, doing great things together, from the streets to the suites and back. I want to say this. You're one of the 300. This is my statement. It makes you uncomfortable. You're probably one of the 300 wealthiest people in the world. It's 8 billion people in the world. That puts you in an elite club. And with all this other stuff that you've done, the audience might feel there's no way I can relate to that guy. He's like a Martian or something. He's just, you know, he's just a complete outlier. And so it is a nice story, but it doesn't relate to me. I need to knock you down a few levels. I need to. I need to bring you down so that people can touch, you, can feel you can relate to your story. So they get fired about their own, fired up about their own. Is there something that you can share that spoke to a moment where you did not see the light, where you did not feel right, and somebody helped you turn it around?
- [68:01]
Michael Milken
Well, there's plenty of those stories, John. You know that young African American man I met in 1965 turned me around. I thought I knew everything. I was at Berkeley. We just had the Free Speech movement. I was going to run the space program. And he told me I didn't really know meeting a person. When I taught school to autistic kids, I thought I was a great teacher. And what I did was I was covering too many topics. I didn't stay on topic. They were not responding to all this different input. So I had a big lesson there. When I celebrated our kids in Harlem in the 1980s, our scholars, I decided we're going to make them special. We're going to have a black tie affair. We're going to show them how special they were. Then I discovered their parents weren't coming. They didn't have a suit. Forget a black tie, okay? So I switched it to Sylvia's in Harlem, and I sent out a note. No ties or jackets allowed. Okay? We're going to celebrate. So I'm constantly learning, and I would say this, that you're in different environments. And when you put yourself into a different environment, that's why we have two ears, John, So we can hear twice as much as speak. You and I have done a lot of talking, but I'm learning. And when I watch those little kids come in and see what is affecting them, what do they think I'm learning from that? And I also, therefore, can adjust what did they take away from it. That's why I go and sit on the floors. I'm not going to sit in a chair. I'm not going to sit up above them. When I. A lot of times when I want to talk to kids, I tell them, let's go sit on the floor. You learn there is this famous phrase and meaning in the back, and that is, you learn more from your students than you learn from anything else. And so interacting with students. And I've learned a lot from you over the years, John, and I'm going to keep learning and I'm going to do even better job. But I want you to know, money does not buy happiness. It buys freedom, but it doesn't buy happiness. And you can buy. I've told you, you can buy a house, but it doesn't make it a home.
- [70:45]
John Hope Bryant
That's right.
- [70:46]
Michael Milken
It's the people in it that make it a home.
- [70:48]
John Hope Bryant
That's right.
- [70:49]
Michael Milken
And so you and I can make a list of a lot of wealthy people. All they have is unhappiness in their life.
- [70:58]
John Hope Bryant
You speak in a word, then we, we, I, I. We have been to those Places together, be very, very unhappy, seemingly wealthy, financially wealthy people. Look, this has been a incredibly special session together, and I hope that the audience is half as inspired as I have been. And you connected a dot for me. I. I had not put these two things together. But you are really. I mean, you have such a strong personality, such a strong view, and you're so intelligent. Most people just leave you alone and let you riff because. And I guess I'm the same way. My wife calls me a double alpha. People let me go, and they let John lead, let Mike lead. But when you and I are together, we mix it up. People don't know this.
- [71:39]
Michael Milken
We're on the phone.
- [71:40]
John Hope Bryant
You're telling me something. I may say, mike, I disagree with that, respectfully, or I may say something. You say, john. I just. You. Just two days ago, you said, john, I think there's another way of doing that. How about this idea? I didn't agree with you initially, was maybe four days ago, but I agree with you now. And there's been situations where I said something. You said, well, I'm not sure about that, John. And then a month later, I hear you saying something, well, you know, I've changed my view. So we learn from each other because we're nosy and we're constantly learning, both of us. But I didn't ascribe that to you. I assumed I was a student. What I just learned. And I'm learning something also, every time, including today. Mike is a lifetime learner. That's his key. I want everybody listening to this to be a lifetime learner. I want you to be nosy. I want you to know that, as he said, God gave you two ears and one mouth. You listen twice as much as you talk. And I want you to be nosy, curious, and obsessed with your version of the renewal of the American dream. And that starts with you going to see the new Milken center at the. The Advancement in the American dream in Washington, D.C. our nation's capital. That belongs to U.S. people. All of us. I'll see you at the finish line. When you go there, ask if Mike's around. If he's around, she'll come down and shake your hand, take a picture.
- [72:57]
Michael Milken
What we do know is they'll get to talk to you and see you in that finance pillar.
- [73:04]
John Hope Bryant
Yeah, supposedly. I mean, you guys let me know. You let me know whether they. Somebody snatched me off of the. Off of the presentation board. Mike tells me I'm there. This has been a great session. This is money and wealth on the black Effect network on the iHeart platform, a global platform for this podcast. Money and Wealth Season 2 with Michael Milken Money and Wealth with John O' Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Sam Sa Sam, thanks for listening and celebrating five years of the Black Effect Podcast Network with us. Keep following because the next five years are about to be even bigger.
- [75:29]
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- [75:59]
Michael Milken
Come on. Why is this taking so long?
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John Hope Bryant
This thing is ancient.
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Michael Milken
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John Hope Bryant
Whoa.
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John Hope Bryant
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- [77:07]
Ryan Seacrest
Lily is a proud partner of the iHeartRadio music festival for Lily's duets for type 2 diabetes campaign that celebrates patient stories of support. Share your story@mountjaro.com duets mounjaro tirzepatide is an injectable prescription medicine that is used along with diet and exercise to improve blood sugar glucose in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Mounjaro is not for use in children. Don't take Mounjaro if you're allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain or vision changes. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Taking Mounjaro with a sulfonylnorrhea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Tell your doctor if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Once weekly, Mounjaro is available by prescription only in 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 and 15 milligrams per 0.5 milliliter injection. Call 1-800-LilyRx 800-545-5979 or visit mountjaro.lilly.com for the Mountjaro Indication and Safety Summary with warnings. Talk to your doctor for more information about Mountjaro. Mountjaro and its delivery device base are registered trademarks owned or licensed by Eli Lilly & Co. Its subsidiaries or affiliates.
- [78:37]
Commercial Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast.