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- [00:00]
Mike Novogratz
I'm a good guy to sit around a campfire with drinking because I got a lot of stories.
- [00:05]
Unknown Host
This is Mike Novogratz. Mike grew up as a poor kid on Long Island. Made his first million working as a trader at Goldman Sachs at the age of 32 and made his first billion at the age of 40. Is that life changing?
- [00:15]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah. We were the only company ever where five guys became billionaires in a day.
- [00:20]
Unknown Host
That's wild. Mike is a cowboy in his personal life and his professional life. This guy likes to push it and he's max risk all the time. Yeah, that's crazy, man. Mike's made and lost a fortune about two different times.
- [00:35]
Mike Novogratz
We made a bunch of mistakes and next thing you know, not only aren't you worth $2 billion, but you're going under the billion pretty quick. And you're like, oh shit, that sucks.
- [00:44]
Unknown Host
And what are you doing? Like, what's the lesson to be learned here?
- [00:47]
Mike Novogratz
The gap between the really greats and the next level. And I put myself in that next level is I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
- [01:00]
Unknown Host
I put my all in it.
- [01:01]
Mike Novogratz
Like no days off on a rol. Best travel, never lookin me.
- [01:04]
Unknown Host
I value people who are good operators at life and who live a certain way that I like. I'm dressed like a cowboy today. Cause I'm like, you're kind of like a cowboy a little bit like in the energy that you have. And that's something that I really respect. But I thought one of the coolest things was how you've made and lost a fortune. I think two or three times.
- [01:21]
Mike Novogratz
You know, I certainly have lost lots of money. That narrative exists. And one of my kids and a few of my friends are like, dude, this is a little unfair because even at your lows, you still had a lot of fricking money.
- [01:34]
Unknown Host
So your first hit was in your mid-30s. You're at Goldman, right?
- [01:38]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah, I was a partner at Goldman Sachs. Goldman's an amazing firm. It might be one of the firms that everyone should study because they create a culture there where maybe not good for your mental health, but good for the firm. People define themselves by what their boss thinks about them. Lloyd Blankbine was like the big guy at Goldman in the later part of my career, in every single person. What does Lloyd think about me? You gave your heart and soul to this culture of Goldman and it's a culture of excellence. It's a culture of world class people. You're competing and working alongside the best and the Brightest. And so you feel like you're on the New York Yankees when the Yankees are winning. And one of the big advantages of that is they paid you wildly less than market on your working your way up because you had the right. The privilege of being at Goldman Sachs. And one day you might become a partner. And so I started at 24 because I had done the army and flew helicopters for a while. And April 1, 1989, I got my job and, you know, I moved out to Asia, which was a great move. The Asian financial crisis happened. And what you'll learn in a financial crisis is, is you're either on the right side of it or the wrong side of it. And if you're on the right side of it, that is, if you're bearish when the world blows up, you make far more money than you thought you would for the firm. And so Goldman and me and the team I was with was very lucky that, you know, we got ourselves on the right side and you killed it. Asia blown, and we killed it. And so I became a managing director first and then a partner.
- [03:16]
Unknown Host
What age were you when you left?
- [03:17]
Mike Novogratz
I think 33 when I became a partner, 34 when I left.
- [03:20]
Unknown Host
And what was your big year?
- [03:22]
Mike Novogratz
97. 98. I made a ton of money for the firm. Now, in 97, I got paid $2 million, which was by far the most I'd ever been paid, which was a. It's a ton of money. No matter what you look at. I was a millionaire at 31. I wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was 30, but I didn't have a net worth of a million dollars until I was 31. But the first year, I really felt like I got paid. I got $2 million, you know, 1997. Now, me and my team had made the firm like $200 million. And so that was a 1% payout. Right. If you work at Citadel or any big hedge fund today, you're broadly getting paid 15% to 20% of what you make. Goldman paid us 1%. But you're going to be a partner one day, and it's part of. And you listen, you didn't make it all on your own. There was a huge infrastructure. Goldman deserved more than, let's say, Citadel might. But they had this mythology at the place that allowed you to stay there. And at one time I almost quit. And the bosses would take you out and say, oh, no, you're gonna be a partner one day. And listen, I made partner in 1998, and in 1999, the company went public. And listen, anyone who was a partner at Goldman Sachs when they went public in 1990 was just lucky because the company had been built over a hundred and plus years. So all those people who had built that enterprise value that weren't partners that day, you know, we got all their hard earned effort. We sold this enterprise that was built over 100 plus years to the public. Was one of the coolest IPOs of all time. And the junior partners, we all had 420,000 shares and the stock was a $55 IPO which traded to $75. And you can do the 400,000 times 75. And we all were roughly worth $30 million overnight. $30 million is still a huge amount of money. In 1999 it felt a lot bigger.
- [05:14]
Unknown Host
Did you have to vest the, did that need to vest for the next four years?
- [05:18]
Mike Novogratz
If you were a partner, it was automatically vested, but you weren't allowed to sell it for three, four and five years. I think four or five and six years or three, four and five years.
- [05:25]
Unknown Host
So when you left, you had to keep it?
- [05:27]
Mike Novogratz
Yes.
- [05:28]
Unknown Host
Okay, good.
- [05:30]
Mike Novogratz
And listen, I left Goldman in not the nicest of ways. I had a personal. I kind of blew up personally.
- [05:41]
Unknown Host
I've been there, man.
- [05:42]
Mike Novogratz
That was horrible. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. It was, you know, you're letting people down, guys had made big bets on you. You're like, oops. One of the great conversations I will ever remember. At that point I was working for a guy named John Thornton who was the one of the two co presidents of Goldman. And he had taken a big risk on me. And I was like, John, I just feel so bad for you. Feel bad for me. He's like, I'm the president of Goldman Sachs. I'm worth a zillion dollars. I've got a house here, here. I got a nice wife and kid. Like, you don't need to feel bad for me. You need to worry about yourself. And I was like, it was such a nice thing for him to say. And it was so true. I was so worried about what those other guys were thinking about me and having, letting him down. And, and instead of saying, oh my God, like let your family down, you let yourself down. Like, go fix your own shit. I left their tail between my legs and spent a year sorting myself out. I had to shrink for the first time in my life.
- [06:46]
Unknown Host
I heard you tell the story that you said it one time and it kind of got glossed over, but it's kind of brilliant. I think you said your brother was near world trade on 2001. And he calls you and he's like, I think there's a terrorist attack. I think I'm in this. Was he in the World Trade Center?
- [07:04]
Mike Novogratz
He was in the building right next to me.
- [07:05]
Unknown Host
He's like, what do I do? And what did you say your reply was?
- [07:08]
Mike Novogratz
I was like, you should buy euro dollars or two year notes. And he was like, what the fuck? And I was like, oh, maybe get out of the building. And then I was like, maybe I should go back to Wall Street. I literally thought that. I was like, well, partly. I then decided to run down. I'd been in the army, I want to run down to help. And I picked my kid up and I'm running down the block. We lived in Chelsea at the time. And so I'm running to the west side highway so I could actually see the World Trade center because you couldn't see it from my roof. And my kids started crying and I said, oh, that's not a good idea to run down there with the kids. So I ran back in and watched on tv. But they wouldn't really take volunteers at that point. Right. The police blocked it off. And I was like, I felt a little impotent, like no way to participate. I couldn't participate financially. I couldn't participate like in safety or physical.
- [07:54]
Unknown Host
It's like when you spent all your life trying to make money, trying to be charismatic, trying to be powerful, and you're like, fuck it, none of this matters right now.
- [08:00]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah. And so I literally remember saying, I want to go back to work on Wall Street. And there's another chapter left in me because in between I was looking at things like Outward Bound or just a whole different career path. I was like, you were going to.
- [08:12]
Unknown Host
Be like a camp instructor.
- [08:13]
Mike Novogratz
I was going to try to run Outward Bound. There was, you're looking at. You got headhunters. What are jobs that you could qualify for? Remember, I was the president of Goldman Sachs Latin America. I was a young partner from Goldman. And so that's wild. Camp instructor was below my pay grade at that point. But I was trying to think of other ways to contribute to my life and to society than Wall street. And that 911 thing was like, go back to Wall street, you got another chapter.
- [08:41]
Unknown Host
And that's what you said. Fortress.
- [08:44]
Mike Novogratz
I actually, to be sure, didn't start Fortress. My partner, Pete Brigger, who was a partner of mine and a good friend, both from Princeton, Goldman Sachs and in Hong Kong, he had called me up and said, hey, why don't we partner up. And Pete's an amazing guy. He said, how about this? You have a fun life, and I'm a pretty good investor. And you're a decent investor. Decent. Thanks, Pete. And he said, we'll go together and we'll split it 50, 50. Half of what I make, half of what you make. And at that point, his stock was trading at a premium to fair value, and my stock was trading at a huge discount to fair value. And that he would make that call meant the world to me. And so I say, I'll do it. And so the two of us were going to partner up in something. And Pete had known Wes Edens, who had started Fortress a few years earlier. And at that point, fortress was probably 80 people and about a billion dollars asset.
- [09:42]
Unknown Host
And it was a PE firm or a hedge fund.
- [09:44]
Mike Novogratz
It had been a PE firm.
- [09:45]
Unknown Host
And you were buying any type of businesses.
- [09:47]
Mike Novogratz
Well, it was a PE firm that Wes ran with a guy named Randy Nardone and Rob Kaufman, who are still friends of mine and partners in some other things. And they were doing mostly structured credit type PE buying. But Wes was a genius. He came up with the idea of, let's buy all the cell towers, and then think of cell towers as a reit. And so he would look at business opportunities and literally craft companies that would then become billion dollar companies. And so we thought, Pete has a real expertise in building a credit hedge fund. I was going to build a macro hedge fund. And the three of us sat there and said, one plus one plus one will equal 10. No one had ever taken a hedge fund or private equity company public. And we said, let's build a company where we all build our own businesses. And to be fair, 90%, 95% of the time we spent alone, we didn't like each day. What are we doing today? I built a company. Pete built a company. Wes built a company that we all put in the same box.
- [10:49]
Unknown Sponsor
All right, this episode is brought to you by HubSpot. They're doing a big conference. This is their big one they do called Inbound. They have a ton of great speakers that are coming to San Francisco September 3rd to September 5th. And it's got a pretty incredible lineup. They have comedians like Amy Poehler. They have Dario from Anthropic Dwarkesh, Sean Evans from Hot Ones. And if you're somebody who's in marketing or sales or AI and you just want to know what's going on, what's coming next, it's a great event to go to. And hey, guess what? I'm going to be there. You can go to inbound.com register to get your ticket to Inbound 2025 again, September 3rd through 5th in San Francisco. Hope to see you there.
- [11:25]
Unknown Host
Did you have to come up with any of your own capital to join?
- [11:28]
Mike Novogratz
I did, I did. And I actually didn't have that much capital. You know, you, you, when I said Goldman had, you know, we got $30 million after Goldman, well, that's pre tax and the stock goes down. And I think Pete and I put in roughly 10 or $15 million is all I had.
- [11:46]
Unknown Host
So you, you were worth 15 or 10 and you put all of it.
- [11:49]
Mike Novogratz
Into Fortress, all of it into Fortune, actually borrowed some, I think.
- [11:51]
Unknown Host
And you're what, 37?
- [11:53]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah, 37. And, you know, started a hedge fund and I started a macro fund. Pete started a big distress fund. And Wes continued to build his private equity business. And part of our ethos was if we do what we say we're going to do, people will trust us. I learned that at Goldman Sachs as well. Goldman Sachs assets management business didn't have the greatest returns, but they had lots of money because people trusted them. They. And so how do you build a sense of trust in investors? It's doing what you say you're going to do. No one expects you to win all the time. What was wonderful about Fortresses and Mary Cool is that over the first five years, really 2002 to 2007, Pete's business, I don't think lost money in a month. He'd buy broken debt. He'd give loans to people like, you know, I called him a loan shark. Like if you couldn't get a loan from Deutsche bank, he came to Pete like private credit. Now private credit's a huge business. But he was early in private credit, and so he built this very diversified portfolio of loans. Wes continued to do his stuff and literally his track record just kept going up and up. And I had a very good run as a macro trader. And so by the time we went public, my macro fund in those five years was a top performing macro fund. It was in the top 5% of macro funds. Pete had never lost money in a month. And Wes's track record looked like Warren Buffett's.
- [13:24]
Unknown Host
And that 15 million that you invested, or 10 at its peak, what do you think it was worth?
- [13:29]
Mike Novogratz
Well, when we went public, we were the only company ever. And I think to this day this holds where five guys became billionaires in a day.
- [13:38]
Unknown Host
So in roughly 10 years, you turn 1 million into a billion.
- [13:42]
Mike Novogratz
2.7, 2.3 billion. That's what the. We're sitting around our office after we rang the bell at the stock exchange and I got my two young daughters and all of a sudden Bloomberg puts a picture of Wes Eden's. I was like, oh shit, Wes Eden's 2.3 billion. And then a picture of Pete brigger. Pete Brigger 2.3 billion. Picture of Mike. No, I think Wes owned a tiny bit more. So Bess would have been 2.4 billion. And then Pete and I own the same 2.3 and 2.3 billion. And my two like 9 and 10 year old daughters looked at each other and high five. Because we had never talked about money. Right. You know, like, you know, is there.
- [14:17]
Unknown Host
Any difference, is there any difference between making let's say $30 million then from 2 point whatever.
- [14:24]
Mike Novogratz
I think that fortress frenzy of us becoming rock stars almost because we were the first company to take a hedge. We're the first guys to take a hedge fund private equity company public. And that we were all on such a high. It didn't last long because the 08 financial crises happened. You get treated a little differently. All of a sudden you're getting calls from the president of the university who wants to sit down and talk with you. You're getting invited to cool dinners. And so it goes to your head a little bit and you're not really ready for the rush of excitement around it. You don't feel that different. I see the same friends and you know, but you've. There's a little bit of. Everyone gets a little bit full of themselves.
- [15:06]
Unknown Host
Did your, did your life stay the same? But the, the people who wanted to talk to you change or did you get yourself.
- [15:12]
Mike Novogratz
You're getting emails and calls from people you haven't seen in years and people you don't even know that say they know you. Yeah, you get this. There's a. Especially because it was public, right. If it doesn't quietly no one would have known. But we were like on newspapers and magazine articles and so. And it goes to your head a little bit. And then you know the wonderful thing about being six brothers and sisters is they don't treat much differently. They're like excited for you but they.
- [15:34]
Unknown Host
Well, and you have six or seven, you have a bunch of siblings who are also ballers too and friends.
- [15:40]
Mike Novogratz
And so you know, and then the markets always take their pound of flesh. You know, we, we made a bunch of mistakes. 08 happened and next thing you know, not only aren't you worth $2 billion but you're going under the billion pretty.
- [15:56]
Unknown Host
Quick and you're like, oh, you're losing a comma.
- [15:59]
Mike Novogratz
Oh, that sucks. Some of this goes back to. And this is going to sound crass as heck, but if you were a kid in high school that played sports and the girls liked or the guys liked, if you were a girl and had a decent social life and didn't have a chip on your shoulder, it doesn't seem like success is a little easier to handle because you were used to it. And it's not the same magnitude of success. But like if you got lucky with the girls in high school, you usually turn out to be okay. Like it's often you see the problems of people that really have a hard time adjusting was when they were misfits or social and that chip on their shoulder drove them to this crazed success.
- [16:44]
Unknown Host
And you, the reason I'm interested in you is because you've won in a bunch of different parts of life. So you're a great wrestler, you went to Princeton. Like you did a lot of amazing things. But then you, you. What's funny is because your personality is so loud and because you're so like funny and tell these crazy stories like you talk about trading and you're like, oh yeah, I forgot. You actually had to be skilled at something. What the people who are around you, what do you think they would say you're good at?
- [17:10]
Mike Novogratz
I have a weird insight into looking at what the future is going to be. You know, it's called pattern recognition. I can look at the charts and say this is going to happen or I can synthesize information well. And so I'm a good speculator because I see the future pretty well.
- [17:26]
Unknown Host
You read a lot?
- [17:28]
Mike Novogratz
I used to. I watch a ton of TV now, but I read a lot of like non fiction stuff that's coming through my desk all the time, right. So I keep up on news and the world and talk to people. Most of the great CEOs read a lot. They're curious. I'm curious as heck. I get a lot of my curiosity and learning from conversation from. I have this amazing network of people that I've met in the world and I'm learning all the time. I literally had lunch with Goldman's chief information officer. So he's got 19,000 of Goldman's 45,000 people that work for him and that was a master class in AI. And so then I'm like meeting some other guy in AI. And so I'm learning AI from reading articles, playing with it. But Mostly finding out the world, experts and, and learning from them. That's, that's the way I've been learning as I've gotten older.
- [18:21]
Unknown Host
So you think that people would say that you're good at seeing patterns? What else would they say you think they think you're good at?
- [18:26]
Mike Novogratz
And I'm a good storyteller. And so why that's been important is crypto in the last 10 years has been about narrative, right? It has been about the story of understanding the world and then telling that story. And I think I've been unbelievably well suited for this moment of time to be a crypto CEO because I'm a good storyteller, right? How do you convince someone to buy Bitcoin, right? You've got to tell them a story.
- [18:54]
Unknown Host
What about being a good trader because you were actually a trader for life?
- [18:57]
Mike Novogratz
I still am a trader. That's a hard job because you have to first of all, develop a process, an internal algorithm that wins more than it loses. You got to be really honest with yourself, am I good at this? It's not, am I intelligent, Am I smart? But am I good at this? Am I good at taking this information and making bets on it? And even if you are, then you need to develop a discipline that allows you to make sure that your guesses are in your portfolio. There are so many people that say, oh my God, you gotta be short the dollar. Right now the US is on a downtrend, right? Trump is pissing everybody off. The short dollar is the biggest, easiest trade to see. Every single macro investor, almost every single investor right now believes that you should be short the dollar. And it's a maximum conviction, belief. I would bet if you took all their portfolios, only 40% of them have a really big position. It should be tautological that if you're bearish, you're short, and if you're bullish, that you're long. But it's not because of fear. What if I'm wrong? And so, so much of trading is anxiety management. So much is, how do I overcome my fear?
- [20:23]
Unknown Host
I heard a guy the other day say, anxiety is just when your brain is a lot bigger than your balls.
- [20:30]
Mike Novogratz
And so we listen. Anxiety is real, right? Like there is this, the lion that shows up and you go into fight or flight. In trading, you see the lion all the time and you get nervous when the market's going higher and you're long, well, what if it goes back down? I'll give back my money. And so there are all these different reasons you get scared. How do you learn to trust yourself? That's a really hard process. What I've learned from the best, and I'm really good at this, but there's a group that's better than me, and I think about this all the time.
- [21:01]
Unknown Host
Let me say this. You're good at what?
- [21:03]
Mike Novogratz
At being a macro trader.
- [21:04]
Unknown Host
But does that mean you're good at managing anxiety?
- [21:08]
Mike Novogratz
The whole process of seeing the world and then betting on it and making money from it. And so there are 25 macro traders that people have probably heard of. Stan Druckenmiller, David Tepper, Paul Tudor Jones, Lewis Bacon, Alan Howard, Chris Rokos. There's a bunch of people that are great at this. The gap between the really greats and the next level, and I put myself in that next level, is discipline. And so you have to have a set of rules that you follow.
- [21:36]
Unknown Host
Do you consider yourself a highly disciplined person?
- [21:38]
Mike Novogratz
I think I'm a really hardworking person who has. And I was really disciplined at parts of my life. And I think I have sporadic lapses of discipline, partly because I have this really diverse group of interests and I get excited. I'm a people pleaser, so I'm trying to help things out, people all the time. And it's a prioritization. Like Stan Druckelmiller, for instance, who I think is the best, or, you know, David Tepper's pushing on him, but the best trader of certainly of his generation. Tepper's a little bit younger, 32 years, never lost money, compounded over 30%. Everyone in our seats look at him.
- [22:20]
Unknown Host
As like the guy.
- [22:21]
Mike Novogratz
The guy a ton of integrity on how he lives his life and how he lives his portfolio. When he was managing other people's money, he never golfed during a workday, and he loves golf.
- [22:33]
Unknown Host
But what you said, you said you had this great quote. You go, you were quoting Napoleon or someone. But you said, I hire lucky generals, not skilled ones.
- [22:41]
Mike Novogratz
So this was. How did I learn that I was. Had the right to be good at this? Right? You're. I was making money lots. And I was like, yeah, everyone has a bit of imposter syndrome. And UHUD Barak, who had been the prime minister of Israel, I'd hired as a consultant.
- [22:57]
Unknown Host
How do you hire the prime minister?
- [22:59]
Mike Novogratz
One of my investors said, you need to meet Ahud Barak. And Ahud Barak was looking at ways to make money. And he had just started this business and he had two clients. Lewis Bacon, who was a multi billionaire, you know, one of the pantheon of the greats. And Bruce Covner, multi billionaire, one of the pantheon of the greats. And Mike Nogatz, who was a little peanut at that point.
- [23:19]
Unknown Host
What was his rate?
- [23:20]
Mike Novogratz
Maybe it was 200,000 a year or something.
- [23:23]
Unknown Host
So you got the former Prime Minister for 200 grand a year to give you feedback and advice. That's pretty good deal.
- [23:28]
Mike Novogratz
I just remember thinking, I've got the same consultant. He only had like three clients as two of the world, like literally the great traders of all time. Bruce Cubner, who built Caxton, and Lewis Bacon, who got more capital. And I'm sitting with the Hoot for lunch, and he said, you don't know if I figured you out. He said, you know, you're not so smart, but you're lucky. And I was like, that's the compliment. He said, don't worry about it, because, you know, I was just with Louis Bacon and spent time with Bruce Kovner. He said, kovner might be smarter than you, but, you know, all of you guys have an intuition, you know. And he gave me this quote from Napoleon. He said, of course I didn't know French. He's like, I forgot, you're not so smart, you don't know French. Son of a bitch. And Barak, at least, allegedly had the highest IQ of anyone in the Israeli military. And he was the most decorated soldier in the Israeli military. He was a wonderful guy, charming. And he said, you guys have an intuition, a pattern recognition, an ability to sense where things are like a general did, and that's your intelligence. Instantly, I was like, that's why I'm right more than I'm wrong. I never knew why I was right more than I was wrong. It's easy to know you're being commercial, right? You and I can be commercial. If we can make these cups of broth for 50 cents and sell them for $2, we're both gonna say, how many can we sell? That's not hard. But why should I be able to predict where dollar yen is gonna go in a year better than you?
- [24:55]
Unknown Host
Are you able to do this in other facets of your life where you're like, man, I met this person. I predict that they're face these problems or whatever.
- [25:02]
Mike Novogratz
What's interesting is without being conscious of it, like, I've invested in a few independent movies. Nobody makes money in independent movies like almost nobody. And I've invested in two of the top three selling independent films of all time. Independent films that sold for the top prices, right? Birth of a Nation still, I think is the highest.
- [25:25]
Unknown Host
19 or what? 19 million. It sold for, I think, 19 million.
- [25:29]
Mike Novogratz
And then there's a movie called Assassination Nation, which didn't do well in the box office, but sold for, like, 13 million. Like, those are two of the top, you know, five prices for independent movies. At least they were. And was that just luck or was it intuition?
- [25:43]
Unknown Host
I mean, it's not luck if it happens twice.
- [25:45]
Mike Novogratz
Right. And so for me, that conversation with Barack was giving me confidence that my decision process wasn't random, that there was something in it. So I went back and I thought about, like, how do I make decisions? And it is at the intersection of lots of data and a gut feeling, and there's that, I think, moment. And so once I understood that, I was much more confident in telling investors how I made decisions. My hedge fund went from $300 million under management to 2 billion. And my performance went straight up over, like, the next six months, but mostly because investors could feel my confidence. And so the lesson for you or for listeners is spend time figuring out what you're good at and where that comes from. And not everyone has the same skills.
- [26:38]
Unknown Host
Where does it come from for you, though? Because I remember reading about. I'm not in the finance world at all, but I read Blackfish, which is about Steve Cohen, and they told stories about how in the 80s, there was a physical ticker, and he would, like, he could just hear the rhythm of the ticker. And I'm like, that is just so vague. And it's a pain in the ass because I'm like, you're explaining it like an art, but I want it to be more of a science because I want to learn. But that's how you're describing it.
- [27:05]
Mike Novogratz
It's very artistic for me, the type trading I do. It's very intuitive and it's very pattern recognition. If I went blind, I couldn't trade. I need to see the ballet of the charts. There are other people that do things very differently. Like, the interesting about training is there are a thousand different ways to approach it.
- [27:24]
Unknown Host
What does Steve do, you're saying?
- [27:25]
Mike Novogratz
I know Stevie pretty well, but I don't know his exact process. But I would tell you he's one of the most competitive guys out there. He used to go on vacation and have all his screens set up. And if he didn't and he wasn't in feeling things right, he'd fly right back to get it to his desks like he was obsessed with beating the markets.
- [27:44]
Unknown Host
Are you. You think you're competitive?
- [27:46]
Mike Novogratz
I'm not as competitive, which is interesting when I think about, like, with Stan Druckenmiller and Louis Bacon and like, why those guys have. Have been in that. And maybe one day I'll catch them. But they're. But I'm not in their category at this point. They're more competitive than me. They just. I mean, you. Louis Bacon, I remember playing croquet against him and I'm like, how's this guy killing me in croquet? Well, he had hired the world's best croquet guy to teach him he doesn't like to lose. There's partly. These guys are ultra competitive, but they also are ultra disciplined. And those two cross factors creates a maniac. Well, creates an amazing performer. Maybe not the easiest person to go to cocktails with. Sometimes they are. But like an amazing performer. And I don't want to discount. I've had an amazing run of success at trading. I just know myself as I compare myself to the other guys. Little more disciplined now. I would probably argue I've had more fun. I've done more different things than most people. But again, each person makes their own decision on what path they want to take. And I'm not making a value judgment on how people live their lives. The key is to figure out how you want to live your own life, but figure out what you're good at. And again, that comes from mentors. It comes from sometimes chance. Without that conversation with Hubrock, I was miserable because I was feeling so much pressure. And I remember telling my wife, I said, I might even just shut this hedge fund down if I can't have more fun. And I was winning, but I was feeling so much pressure. And I think I was feeling pressure because I didn't know why it was good. And that literal conversation over lunch unlocked this story in me that said, hey, this is why I should. This is why I win.
- [29:32]
Unknown Host
And that was intuition. You're just good at. You feel certain things and you should trust it.
- [29:36]
Mike Novogratz
And it doesn't come just like you don't get it from sitting in a box. There's a tremendous amount of information I'm shoving in my brain, right? Looking at charts, talking to people, understanding psychology, looking at who's long and who's short. There's tons of stuff that goes into the algorithm, but it was at that intersection of the intuition. It's all in the part of your brain that you're not tapping normally. A lot of it's historical, too. Like, you see things, they repeat themselves.
- [30:02]
Unknown Host
Yeah. I heard one of my heroes is John Rockefeller. And I was listening to Business Untitled. And you're like, when I was in fifth grade or eighth grade or something, I wrote a paper on Jaiden D. And I thought that was cool because he's a fun dude to learn about. And you also. You and your partner Wes did the train thing.
- [30:16]
Mike Novogratz
Wes did the train thing. I was a cheerleader and an investor, but. But, yeah, that was fascinating when I went down there and I was reading about Flagler.
- [30:23]
Unknown Host
Yeah, he's a man. These guys are hardcore.
- [30:26]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah.
- [30:29]
Unknown Sponsor
This episode is brought to you by HubSpot Media. They have a cool new podcast that's for AI called the Next Wave. It's by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands, and they're basically talking about all the new tools that are coming out, how the landscape is changing, what's going on with AI tech. So if you want to be up to date on AI tech, it's a cool podcast. You could check out, listen to the Next Wave wherever you get your podcast.
- [30:50]
Unknown Host
I went and talked to a bunch of friends of ours who we have mutual. You and I have some mutual friends, and I want to tell you what they said. They go up. He's Max risk all the time, his entire life. He takes tons of risk, and he lives life on the edge. And another person said, he's blown up a couple times and he's won a lot more. I'm amazed at how good he is at managing risk. And then I actually talked to some of the guys you work with, and they also use the word risk constantly.
- [31:19]
Mike Novogratz
It's hard to be in the crypto business and not to be comfortable with risk. Like, it's an asset that, you know, bitcoin went up and crashed down. Yeah.
- [31:27]
Unknown Host
I think it's bigger than bitcoin. I think that you got lucky that bitcoin exists. When it does. I think that you're a guy who. You enjoy risk. You enjoy. I think you were telling. I heard a story about how you said, like, you are a 37 out of 40 in terms of, like, some type of personality test of freaking rules. And you're like, it's funny. My kid, like, is the exact opposite. And then you hear I read the New Yorker or some article where they're like, he flew a helicopter down the street, like, during the Princeton's graduation. Like, there's clearly like, this thing of, like, this guy likes to push it, and he's pretty comfortable teetering on, like, big ruins. And so are you for your personal finances. Are you at risk often?
- [32:10]
Mike Novogratz
So part of it is there's this balance between, like, yeah, There's a, there's an adrenaline need. Like I, I like adrenaline like in sports and in trading and you know, it's a dopamine addiction if you want to think about it. But part of it is I like my life. And I was a helicopter pilot at Fort Rucker, Alabama and I made 18,000 a year after tax. I remember because I had 1500 dollars per month paycheck. Pat Tierney, who's a buddy of mine, still was one of my buddies down there and we had the time of our lives. When I look at how much fun and how much I enjoyed that in the middle of frickin Lower Ugly. The ugly corner of lower Alabama, right? The wiregrass it was called by Dothan. With 700 other guys and almost no women around because all the women have gone off to college and there are 700 guys and a few women at flight school. We still had one of the time in our lives. So when I think was that year better or worse than the year I made lots of money, I can't tell. That was a great year. And so I think if you enjoy your life, it's easier to take risk. If I lost my money, it would hurt my ego for a while. I would be embarrassed, I'd be frustrated because all the money really does at one point is allow you to help other people, right? And that's both a blessing, It's a huge blessing, but it's also a lot of responsibility and sometimes it's a pain in the ass. And so I actually don't think I've tied how I live my life on a year to year basis to, to money. Now some of my friends say, oh that's bullshit. Look at the parties you throw. You spend lots of money. I do spend lots of money, but I threw tons of parties when I didn't have a lot of money either. I just threw cheaper parties. And so I think so much of being able to take risk is being okay with your life and not being defined by just your money.
- [34:06]
Unknown Host
Have you met a guy named Brad Jacobs?
- [34:09]
Mike Novogratz
No, I wish I have.
- [34:10]
Unknown Host
He has a book. I've never met him. I've read his book, it's called how to Make a Billion dollars. He's created I think $6 billion companies like XO Logistics is one of them, if you ever heard of that. Like these like huge like $10 billion logistic companies. And his whole shtick was he fragmented industries, bought all of them, operated them well, took a public whatever. And he talks in his book about how he was like, I research like crazy. Like, anytime I get into a business, I research like crazy. So I read all the books. I use Tejas or whatever else, like, the services and their alpha sites, whatever they are. And, like, I hire experts, but then I go and talk to the employees and I just research. So it's like, I'm really confident that this is going to work because I've Talked to literally 500 people and I have all these notes. What I've noticed a pattern with you is that you don't. I don't know if you call it research, but you talk to a lot of people. And so, like, I just. On the way here, I was hearing a story about how, like, your roommate was Gloria Vanderbilt's son or something. Like, that was like. So that's like, pretty magical, like, to be around and hear stories of that family. And then, like, your other roommate helped create Ethereum. And then there was like, this other story. This other story. There was like 20 stories where I'm like, what the hell? Like, it's like. It's like you.
- [35:18]
Mike Novogratz
I'm a good guy to sit around a campfire with drinking because I got a lot of stories.
- [35:22]
Unknown Host
But there's just so many times where it's like, oh, I just. It's like normal people would be like, I know a guy. You know, I sat at a bar next to a guy and he did this. You just have all these stories, except they just happen to be like, these, like, wild, crazy people who. What was the story about how you first heard about bitcoin?
- [35:35]
Mike Novogratz
So Pete Brigger, who had been my. He lived above me my freshman year at Princeton. He lived in the room above me.
- [35:43]
Unknown Host
This dorm was amazing.
- [35:44]
Mike Novogratz
We had a pretty cool little group of people, right?
- [35:47]
Unknown Host
Is this wild? This is like the greatest dorm on earth.
- [35:49]
Mike Novogratz
He lived above me.
- [35:49]
Unknown Host
How many billionaires are from that dorm? What do you think? No, seriously.
- [35:53]
Mike Novogratz
At least three for real in that dorm. But he's the reason I got my job at Goldman Sachs. I was literally wandering around Bleecker Street a little drunk, and I ran into him and I was interviewing for jobs. He was like, bullshit. You got to work at Goldman Sachs. And I was from the army. And so he got me an interview at Goldman Sachs. And 41 interviews later, they gave me a job. And then we lived in Hong Kong together. And we slowly became very good friends. I'm the godfather of his youngest son. Then we did Fortress, and he was. The guy said, was the distressed debt investor. Well, because he made a promise to his wife that at one point they'd move back to California. He moved his entire business or the bulk of it to Stanford area.
- [36:37]
Unknown Host
Right.
- [36:37]
Mike Novogratz
Palo Alto.
- [36:38]
Unknown Host
And what year was that?
- [36:40]
Mike Novogratz
This probably would have been. He probably moved his business out there, 2010 or something.
- [36:44]
Unknown Host
All right, good time.
- [36:46]
Mike Novogratz
But he's not a tech guy. But his brother in law was a tech guy and the group of friends he had were tech guys. And they all started talking about bitcoin. And Pete wanted to be part of the, part of the, you know, the clan. And so he called me up, he said, I'm hearing about this thing, bitcoin, all my smart friends are doing it. What do you think? And I never heard of it. And I quickly did a Google search and asked around and this was in 10. This was until this would have been 2012, 2013 maybe. Bitcoin was at like $96.
- [37:15]
Unknown Host
So it was nothing really. I mean there's not. There would have been like bitcoin.org or like some forums.
- [37:20]
Mike Novogratz
There wasn't a lot, but it was online. The Chinese had just started buying it. And I made a thesis, I said, oh, we gotta buy it. And we started buying some of it. My friend Jeff Lowe, who's become a great investor was working in my family office and he bought my first bitcoin for me. And, and then Pete and I kept talking about it and we like, maybe this should be bigger than just us buying a little bit of it. So we called a third friend. Dan Moore had another Princeton guy who I had invest who had, you know, had a similar, went to Princeton. He'd worked on Wall street, he worked at Goldman, he worked at Tiger. I had invested in his first hedge fund and he was on the sidelines in between. You know, after 08, his hedge fund didn't do well. He was trying to figure out what to do. He'd done some cool stuff in Argentina. He researched this for a while and came back and was like, guys, this is going to change the whole world. And Dan was really confident and was willing to put a whole bunch of his net worth into this thing. Pete and I were wealthier because fortunes had gone public than Dan at the time. And we're like, if he's putting that much in, we need to put at least that much in. And you know, that's the way guys think. And so we all roughly put similar amounts in.
- [38:26]
Unknown Host
Was it like eight figures or you.
- [38:29]
Mike Novogratz
Can even say that it was seven figures.
- [38:31]
Unknown Host
Seven figures.
- [38:31]
Mike Novogratz
But it was a significant amount in dollar terms at 100. But not in our net worth terms. Right. We were very Wealthy guys at the time. And it's one of the reasons we were able to hold it so long, because even it went up. If you're a young guy and you put $10,000 into something and all of a sudden it's worth a hundred thousand, your friend's like, dude, you got to take some. You can buy a house your girlfriend wants you to buy. You know, like, there's so many reasons you're going to sell that thing and almost nobody can hold. But if you're already having a lot of money, it's just another investment. And so we get a lot of credit for having made lots of money in crypto. It was easier having started rich. And it's got me thinking why this world is so offsides. When you're wealthy, you have assets. Assets are basically chips on a table. You know, I bought SpaceX when it was one twentieth of what it's today, because everyone's like, ah, you gotta buy some SpaceX. And you looked, you're like, elon Musk is killing. He's brilliant. Let me get some private SpaceX. And so all of a sudden you make 100 million plus in SpaceX. He didn't do anything other than put a bet down. And so getting money and getting network makes making money so much easier. It's almost unfair. It's why Piketty wrote that book. He said that there's no way the rich poor gap ever comes back into balance. Because once you're wealthy, you have such an advantage. And the advantage isn't just capital, it's capital and network. And one of my strengths is I like people. I like cheering people on, I like talking about people. And it makes it easy to make friends and network. And through that network, you learn stuff.
- [40:17]
Unknown Host
So for our podcast, my listeners will make fun of me. I. I own a company now that does well and hopefully that's going to be a huge home run. But my liquid net worth, I just do basically the S&P 500 and bonds.
- [40:32]
Mike Novogratz
You invest like you're a white guy from Missouri. Oh, yeah, look, it's worked out boring.
- [40:39]
Unknown Host
Which means I've outperformed about 90% of hedge funds. So it's worked out. But, like, listen, it's been a great. Yeah, I've, like, I started making money in the greatest bull market of all time. And do you, for your personal finances, do you have any boring stuff or are you always, Are you active for the whole thing?
- [40:57]
Mike Novogratz
No, I. Listen, I have a chunk of money in, you know, these credit funds like the one Pete Rand which are private credit funds which, you know, roughly have, have done 10% plus a year compounded. And if you can compound a piece of money at 10% a year for a long period of time, you get rich real quick. And so I have some in private credit. I have a lot in my own company. Then I trade currencies and stuff on my own. And then I have a bunch of private equity investments and venture investments. I own a chunk of Bojangles, the chicken company that got announced yesterday that the group that owns it is putting it up for sale. So hoping that sells for a high price. But I haven't really ever done bond stocks, partly because that's what I do. And my money has often been tied up in the enterprise that I'm engaged in. At Fortress, I owned a lot of Fortress stock.
- [41:51]
Unknown Host
I guess you've been illiquid like for a large portion of this.
- [41:55]
Mike Novogratz
I probably have run the lowest liquidity to net worth ratio of anyone who's been on your podcast.
- [42:02]
Unknown Host
Can you tell me more about that?
- [42:03]
Mike Novogratz
It's not necessarily what I would want. It always, I've always had a lot of faith that I'd make money. And so I've always either wanted to live a big life and also make a lot of investments. And so.
- [42:12]
Unknown Host
So you just spend a lot.
- [42:14]
Mike Novogratz
Spend a lot, live large. I invest large. And I always think I'm going to win. And so in 2021, we thought we were going to be able to take Galaxy public and I was going to get a lot of liquidity. And it turned out we took a little too long to get into the secq. The administration changed. Gary Gensler shut the door. And so for four years, no liquidity out of Galaxy. You know, my other stuff, I made some good investments, some bad investments and didn't really change lifestyle. And you slowly start burning the furniture of liquidity. Right. And so we just did a, we just did a deal. We took some chips off the table in terms of liquidity.
- [42:48]
Unknown Host
Did you. You live life on the edge. I mean, I think that I admire like your ability. Like I'm adrenaline seeking too, but I'm also way more risk adverse than you, I think. And I, but I admire people who are into risk because I think it's held me back.
- [43:04]
Mike Novogratz
I think one of the things that people say you blew up twice. I listen, I, I had a personal shit to deal with and I lost my job at Goldman Sachs. Actually, to be fair, I resigned, but that was embarrassing because I was on a high flyer track there and I loved Goldman Sachs. And so that. That was painful. Coming back from. That gives you a lot of confidence that, yeah, you can fall down and, like, you can lose money. It's not the end of the world. You're gonna. You gotta learn how to get back up. And being a wrestler teaches you that, like, no wrestler wins every match. Cale Sanderson did it in college, but then he lost in international. Like, you know, no one wins every match. And learning how to come. And I lost a lot. Learning how to come back from losing is one of the most important things. Cause losing doesn't mean you're a bad guy. It doesn't mean you're a shithead, doesn't mean you're not competent. It just means you lost that game. And I think Nadal, when he left tennis, gave the best. He was like, you know, I think he lost 48% of the points he played. He was the greatest tennis player of all time, or one of the top three. That process of stumbling and coming back. And I think a lot about how I have managed to do that myself, because I often asked to help people to think through it.
- [44:22]
Unknown Host
What, like a downfall and like a rebirth come back.
- [44:26]
Mike Novogratz
Part of it is take some time off and do some work and understand, like, what the hell happened. Like, how do you. Most people don't spend enough time figuring out who they are. Like, literally trying to understand, like, who they are and why they're. That who they are. It's always your parents. You've got a relationship with your mom and your dad, whatever the story was. Dad disappeared. Processing that, right? That's the human condition, right? And trying to understand what moves you. Some people get there and they're like, ah, the whole world. Other people just make progress getting there, right? I think I've made progress. I'm not sure I've ever gotten to enlightenment by any. Not even close. But I keep making progress and going on that journey. And there's lots of ways to go on that journey, right? It's through getting a shrink, through meditating, through prayer, through ayahuasca or psilocybin journeys. Like, there's radical ways, there's subtle ways, there's taking time by yourself, but it's investing in yourself. Most people don't invest in themselves. Matter of fact, I once asked a room full of 800 wrestling coaches how many. In the last five years, it's been one week with just themselves, and not one hand went up. Not one.
- [45:37]
Unknown Host
You do that now.
- [45:39]
Mike Novogratz
I try once a year to spend a week by myself.
- [45:43]
Unknown Host
My friend Chris, who has A public drink company. And he's like, man, I screw up all the time and I always try to journal. What's the lesson to be learned here? And I thought that was a really good way of asking himself that question. What questions are you asking yourself during that seven day solitude when I did.
- [46:01]
Mike Novogratz
The silent meditation in Cardiff, England? You sit there for freaking 11 days meditating. You can't read, you can't do music, you can't exercise, you can't even masturbate. I mean, it literally is for 11 days. Your back hurts, you starve.
- [46:23]
Unknown Sponsor
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- [47:24]
Unknown Host
Do you set goals like this? Like, like to have such a full life where you're running a. I don't know how many people work here. 200 people? A lot of people.
- [47:32]
Mike Novogratz
600.
- [47:32]
Unknown Host
600. Oh my God, I didn't realize it. And you have all the, you have a lot of shit going on, but then you're like, I do this week meditation and then this party here. Are you setting like at the end of the year? This is what a win would look like.
- [47:46]
Mike Novogratz
We do, we do set goals. We've got a management team that's got agenda of things that we want to happen. And I think the crypto business is in such an interesting. Both crypto and the data center business, we have two businesses. Both are at the forefront right now of like, explosive change. And there's a ton to do in both of them. And so when I think about my time for the next six months, Galaxy's going to get a ton of my time. There's been times when we first started it was a smaller business. My philanthropy got a ton of my time when I started doing criminal justice. So I've dialed back my participation in philanthropy solely because this 600 person baby needs a lot of energy. And so I do think of it that way. But my brain, you know, like, how do I have fun? Think if I make this much money, what are we going to do with it? So my son and I are brainstorming on like a cool project, fantasy project that you would do if you actually had x hundred million dollars to give away to one thing. You know, what could you do to make New York City better? And so, like, like, and I'm on perplexity. I'm trying to figure out. I'm working with people and so I multitask in that respect. But I got goals. There was that do what I say don't want to do. I'm much better. Talking about, like, the meditating and the exercise and this is where the discipline. My wife wakes up every day 6:30 and meditates an hour and meditates an hour at night and doesn't miss. I'm just like, she's like a metronome. And I'm like, I know that would be good for me. And I do meditate once in a while when I'm stressed.
- [49:28]
Unknown Host
I can meditate, but it doesn't seem broken.
- [49:31]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah, when I break, I figure out how to fix myself. But no, I don't feel broken.
- [49:35]
Unknown Host
Yeah, but on this other podcast you did, you were like, oh, I went to a therapist for the first time ever. And the thing was like, I gotta love myself and forgive myself. And. And you're like, that was like a huge breakthrough. And I'm like, in my head, I'm like playing armchair expert here, but I'm like, you're doing it again. You know what I mean?
- [49:50]
Mike Novogratz
Like, dude, people have a hard time changing patterns. One of the things you'll learn as you get older is that you see very few people that actually do enough of the hard work that they do change. And most of the times you see those people is when they literally hit some horrific rock bottom, that the only way to live is to change. Right. That's the whole AA cycle where they just give up and say, okay, I'll do what you tell me to do because I gotta change. Change is hard. Even subtle change is hard. And again, if someone's living their fullest life, maybe they don't wanna change. Right?
- [50:30]
Unknown Host
Yeah. I mean, I love hearing about this because I think that, you know, this is gonna sound pompous of me, but in my head I'm like, I can be like, you know, he's, you know, I'm 35, so I'm like, okay, he's 25 years ahead of me. And like, I.
- [50:45]
Mike Novogratz
And we both can't hear.
- [50:46]
Unknown Host
Yeah, we're both a little bit deaf. And I came from a blue collar, like, family. And I. I think you talked about Princeton about like, you're like, oh, my God. I thought I was the. And then I got around people that like, kind of were the. And I'm like, oh, so, like, I've like, thought that like, many, like, I hadn't been in New York City and until I was like 26 years old, hadn't been on the airplane until I was 21. And so like, I always felt like these.
- [51:08]
Mike Novogratz
That line in New York, New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. There's nothing like New York City because you're never going to be the guy.
- [51:14]
Unknown Host
Like, I go home and I'm like, I'm the man. And then I go to New York, I'm like. And I'm like, looking at apartments and I'm like, I'm nothing.
- [51:21]
Mike Novogratz
But. But it's. It's both so liberating and so awesome because, I mean, you go to a Knicks game.
- [51:27]
Unknown Host
Oh, dude, we were supposed to do a podcast and you canceled. And that night I turn on the tv, I see Timothy Chalame, I see the Jenner girl, and then I see Mike. And I was like, that motherfucker. We were supposed to do a thing. And then I was like, my. My wife was like, can you blame him? I'm like, no, I can't.
- [51:46]
Mike Novogratz
Knicks in the playoffs is as much. This city erupts. When, dude, you were.
- [51:50]
Unknown Host
You had like, there was Timothy. And then you.
- [51:53]
Mike Novogratz
We got good seats.
- [51:54]
Unknown Host
You were like, the man. How much does a playoff seat cost? Where he. I imagine so.
- [51:59]
Mike Novogratz
Those seats are free. And if you want to buy front row in the playoffs, you know, they could cost as much as 50, 80 thousand dollars. The second row, the guy who sat next to me, I think paid 15,000.
- [52:09]
Unknown Host
But yours were free.
- [52:10]
Mike Novogratz
Well, no, ours. We have season tickets.
- [52:12]
Unknown Host
Okay.
- [52:13]
Mike Novogratz
And so you just pay the normal, whatever Knicks charge you for playoff tickets.
- [52:17]
Unknown Host
That's crazy, man. And so do you see Ryan? You know Ryan Cohen is. Yeah, billionaire Ryan Cohen. I don't, I mean, I don't know him, but I know who he is. And I saw him sitting right in front of you during a game, and, like, Jalen Brunson, like, fell in his lap, and he didn't break eye contact from the beautiful woman he was with. He just, like, he had the conversation the whole time.
- [52:34]
Mike Novogratz
Those seats are fun because you always have the celebrity sitting in front of you. I went to one game, just a regular season game, and DeVito, the Nigerian superstar, you know, there's, there are two guys in, in Afrobeats, right? DeVito's one of them. The other guy's Burna boy was there, and I didn't know who he was, but he had a great chain. I like chains. And I'm like, dude, where'd you get that chain? And I went to get a beer, and I was like, you want a beer? A Coke or something? And he did it one way. He came back, he turned around, he's like, you know, no one's offered to get me a beer in a long time. And I really appreciate that. And we started talking. I had no idea he was this megastar. And he posted a picture, and then his uncle texted me and was like, dude, dude, that guy knows more about crypto. Get to know him. And so he came on. He was on our podcast. No, became friends with him.
- [53:23]
Unknown Host
That's the, that's the power of gifted. Like, the gift of gab, I think is what my father calls it. He did the same thing, but it's sort of like, it's like this weird blue collar grit or, like, hospitality, but with, like, big number swag.
- [53:35]
Mike Novogratz
People, people are scared to be nice to people. I don't want to, I don't want her. Hey, the guy's sitting in front of you, you know, ask him where he got his chain like most people like.
- [53:43]
Unknown Host
To be, and you end up doing some type of business with them.
- [53:45]
Mike Novogratz
No, just he came and did our podcast. He invited me to Nigeria. I, I, I made a huge mistake. He invited me to his wedding in Nigeria, which turned out to be like, the coolest looking thing of all times. But it was like a week before my daughter's wedding, and I didn't think I could go and miss.
- [53:58]
Unknown Host
But haven't you noticed the pattern of, like, this? All these silly small interactions have been like, I think you said with The Ethereum purchase. You like, bought a golf stream or something crazy. And like it like, it's just funny that serendipity, I guess serendipity might happen to everyone, but not everyone capitalizes off of it. And I've noticed a pattern where like there's so many, like, you're like, oh, I just happen to do this. And it like, I've heard that like 12 times.
- [54:22]
Mike Novogratz
You know what I love? I love other people's stories that you must as well do the podcast. And so I get excited for other people. Like you meet Davido. You're like, that's freaking so cool. And I wanted to know his story. And, you know, I didn't realize he grew up a rich kid. And even the relationship with the dad, it all fascinates me. And I think if you show interest in people and you're open with yourself, it opens up a lot of opportunity. And it's not a strategy. It's not like I think about doing this. It comes from partly being raised with seven kids. It partly comes from feeling loved your whole life. Mom and dad love you, your friends love you, and so you feel comfortable in your own skin. The gift you can give your kids, the gift you can give your employees is for people to feel comfortable in their own skin. When I went to Princeton, my great insight, you know, I had this roommate who was Gloria Vanderbilt's son. Unfortunately, he ended up committing suicide later on in life. And it was so painful because he was such a nice kid.
- [55:20]
Unknown Host
Would that have been Anderson Cooper's brother.
- [55:23]
Mike Novogratz
And Anderson's written about it?
- [55:24]
Unknown Host
Yeah. Well, I read Anderson's book on his mother is amazing.
- [55:26]
Mike Novogratz
Yes. And, you know, I'm a young guy, I see I'm meeting Gloria Vanderbilt, I'm like, oh my God, you know, like with royalty. I'm with royalty. And I'm a middle class guy. And my mom had grown up in.
- [55:37]
Unknown Host
Queens and so probably wore Gloria jeans.
- [55:40]
Mike Novogratz
But she knew the whole story. And after about six months at Princeton, you know, Princeton's in a unique place in that everyone lives in the same dorms and they're kind of crappy dorms. There's not like a hierarchy of rich and non rich, and in terms of living space and even quite frankly, social life. And you're like, they all shit on the same toilet as we do. You know, he's got his insecurities, he's got his strengths. Just like. And the moment you realize everyone's kind of the same, everyone's a little bit insecure, everyone's got an imposter syndrome. Everyone's trying to figure out who they are.
- [56:21]
Unknown Host
You had that realization in college.
- [56:22]
Mike Novogratz
I had that realization in college, freshman year, man.
- [56:25]
Unknown Host
So when I used to host these conferences called. My old company was. It was a newsletter company, whatever. It was like, this media company. We own trade shows and. Or conferences, like a TED talk. And I would. I was 24 when I started doing it. And we would get, like, the founder of, like, We Work, or like, Casper or Bonobos, like, brands that. Or Zapier, which is now, like, a $10 billion company. These companies that were, like, at the time, obviously, before we knew WeWork was WeWork. We're like, these, like, $10 billion or whatever companies. And I would play a little trick on them where I was like, all right, your talk is at noon, but you gotta be here for mic check at, like, 10. And, like, there's no mic check for conferences, right? Like, it. Like, it works. The mic works. But I just wanted to be around them in the green room. And I would hear these billionaires complain. It would be. I would just be sitting listening with about four or five of them, and I knew, like, how big their companies were. And I would hear them complain about stuff about, like, I've had this CFO who I need to fire, but frankly, like, I just hate the confrontation. Or, like, you know, this one company had just raised $400 million, and they were like, things are going horrible. I'm like, dude, I just read about you in the New York Times. I thought you guys were the shit. And I remember thinking that that was, like, the most, like, enlightening lesson I'd had, probably, in terms of business and how to live life probably ever. And I was like, these people, they're. They have the same downside, they have the same issues I have, yet they're still, like, just moving forward and doing it. And I found it very freeing to know that the people I admire were broken.
- [57:55]
Mike Novogratz
Listen, everybody is going through a similar journey. Like, there are very few people that are enlightened. I've met a couple.
- [58:02]
Unknown Host
I've met one or two.
- [58:03]
Mike Novogratz
We're all on this path. And so I think the lesson I learned at Princeton wasn't that I was the same as everybody, or is that I was no better or no worse than anybody. Sure, I did some things better than people, and I did some things worse than people. Right? Wrestling is a pretty objective. This guy beat your ass. He's a better wrestler. And I've tried to keep that ethos my whole life. It's why at my parties, I got my friend. I got. I got a real weird collection of people because I just like them as opposed to a hierarchy of people. And I think that is what's brought me lots of joy, but it's also giving. When I got to Goldman Sachs, I would walk into the boss's office. He'd be like, dude, I got this great idea. I thought I deserved to be there. Now, often he'd say, that's a stupid idea. Oh, okay, good. And I'd go back to my seat, but the guys around me were like, dude, how'd you have the courage to walk into the office? I was like, he shits on that same toilet as you do. And so part of that sense.
- [59:07]
Unknown Host
Were your parents confident?
- [59:09]
Mike Novogratz
My dad was an all American football player from West Point, but very quiet and stoic is the right word for him. Nice. He's become the kindest man in the world as he's gotten older. But he was tough but kind. But my mother was very aspirational, the greatest storyteller. And she pushed us, not in a direct way, but, like, in an indirect way. Like, you know, we'd complain about some kid being able to do something, and, well, she jumped off a cliff. Would you do it? Right? And there was almost this, like, we could be the Kennedys. I tease my mom all the time. She looked like Jackie O. She named my first daughter, my oldest sister Jacqueline, her first daughter. So we had Jackie, Robert, John, John.
- [59:55]
Unknown Host
Do you really have a John? John.
- [59:56]
Mike Novogratz
John. Yeah. John Michael. Like, I was like, mom, you named us after the Kennedys. I did not. My mom and dad got married right when Kennedy became elected. You know, I mean, it's Kennedy.
- [60:06]
Unknown Host
Kennedy's one of my. I'm a huge history buff in the Kennedy family. I've probably read 12 books about him. Thank God you aren't the Kennedys. Right?
- [60:14]
Mike Novogratz
Like, but it was very. My mother was very aspirational. She wanted the best for us, and she was a big cheerleader. She wasn't what you'd call, like, you know, the Jewish mom or the Korean mom that pressured, pressured, pressured. But, like, there was an internal sense of, of course you could do this. And I think all of our. My brothers and sisters picked up on that.
- [60:33]
Unknown Host
Are you nervous about raising rich kids? I think about that all the time.
- [60:36]
Mike Novogratz
I thought about this when I became wealthy. I was like, there's nothing I can do about it. And so I had one rule to my children. Be kind. And the only time I lost my temper, I had one son who was a Whippersnapper a few times and was, like, tough on his brother. I said, wow, where does that come from? Like, I would really. Only a few times in my whole life with my kids, I lost my temper. And it was always when I thought they weren't being kind. But I didn't think you could fake, like, not being rich. Like, I worked a ton for my. When I was a young kid because I was kind of part of the labor force. And if I wasn't mowing the grass, my mom or dad had to. If I wasn't doing the dishes, my mom or dad had. Like, we had a labor force besides my kids. And so you couldn't, like, fake. You've got to do this. It doesn't make any sense. And so I thought, and my wife probably did a better job than me. All you can do is model good behavior. If you want your kids to work hard, work hard. If you want your kids to be kind to people that in your house and the cab driver, be kind to them. If all you do is talk about money, your kids are only going to talk about money. If you talk about interesting things around the dinner table, your kids are going to talk about interesting. And so parenting really is modeling. And, you know, by no means have I been a perfect model. And my kids probably could give you 85 stories on I know how I haven't, but that was my philosophy. And they're going to be rich kids. And so, so far, they've turned out lovely. Fingers crossed. You know, they've all finding their own path and doing cool things. And I think it's much harder to be a rich kid than a poor kid. Like, for us, our success was providing. It's going from here to there. It's. We wanted to make money so we can go on a date so we can get laid, so then we can buy a house so we can send our kids to school.
- [62:24]
Unknown Host
You want to be better than your parents, and your parents want you to be better than them.
- [62:26]
Mike Novogratz
Yeah.
- [62:27]
Unknown Host
And with my situation, I'm like, man, I got really lucky at a young age. Which means compounding is like. It's like. And I feel actually sorry for my children. I'm like, the natural state is that you need to beat me, but I don't want you to feel the pressure that you need to do that.
- [62:40]
Mike Novogratz
But they don't need to beat you. The book Sapiens was all about humans are people of narrative. Right. I love storytelling. The narrative in America was the American dream is your kids are gonna have a better life than You.
- [62:51]
Unknown Host
Yeah.
- [62:52]
Mike Novogratz
So that got built into our system at one point that's, you want your kids to have a good life. The European ethos is, I just want my kids to have a good life. And as you get wealthier, I want my kids to feel self actualized. I want them to have a wonderful life. Like at one point, if you're Bill Gates's kid and he's worth a hundred billion dollars, impossible, like, I don't have 500 billion. Like, it becomes idiotic. And then you're like, what are you talking about, dude? And so I think the moment you get even half as wealthy as you, that narrative shifts and it's like, how do I help my kids? How do I scaffold them to be self actualized, whatever that means. I got one son, he's quirky and smart, and we have no idea what he's gonna do. My wife and I, like, gamble on it. We're like, God, what do you think? It can go from here to there. He's hopefully gonna find his niche and be successful, and we will cheer him on.
- [63:44]
Unknown Host
Appreciate you doing this. You're the man I really admire. I admire your business stuff, but I don't think that's what you're great at. I think you're great at, like, living a full life. And I think that there's only a handful of people who I, I, I know from the outside or I know personally where I'm like, I enjoy if, like, life is like five different facets. I'm like, I really admire, like, up to four or even five of, like, the way they live life. Whereas there's a bunch of people who are, like, amazing at business. And like, yeah, he's amazing at business, but, like, I don't admire anything else about them. And so that's kind of cool to, like, be able to hang out and meet with someone who I put on that list of people who I really look up to and how they live all different parts of their life. So thanks for doing this, and this is awesome. I appreciate you.
- [64:24]
Mike Novogratz
Thank you. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
- [64:29]
Unknown Host
I put my all in it.
- [64:30]
Mike Novogratz
Like, no days off on the road, let's travel.
- [64:33]
Unknown Host
Never looking back. All right, so when my employees join Hampton, we have them do a whole bunch of onboarding stuff. But the most important thing that they do is they go through this thing I made called Copy that. Copy that is a thing that I made that teaches people how to write better. And the reason this is important is because at work or even just in life, we communicate mostly via text. Right now, whether we're emailing, slacking, blogging, texting, whatever, most of the ways that we're communicating is by the written word. And so I made this thing called Copy that that's guaranteed to make you write better. You could check it out. Copy that dot com. I post every single person who leaves a review, whether it's good or bad. I post it on the website. And you're going to see a trend, which is that this is a very, very, very simple exercise. Something that's so simple that they laugh at. They think, how is this going to actually impact us and make us write better? But I promise you, it does. You got to try it atcopythat.com. i guarantee it's going to change the way you write. Again, Copy that dot com.