Inside Magic Johnson’s Billion-Dollar Empire | EP #163

I don't know if folks really understand the depth and length of what you have done there. The first person ever to franchise Starbucks, Burger King, 24 Hour Fitness, TGI Friday, Best Buy, Fat Burger, steaks in sports teams. But life insurance, TV networks and real estate, where did that begin for you?

My dream was to make it to the NBA. That was my only dream. You tell me I can't do something. I'm about to prove you wrong.

It's been 30 years since you went public with your HIV diagnosis. Your wife is pregnant.

Yeah, with our son, E.J. i told her I could understand if you want to leave me. She stood up and smacked me right upside my head. True story. And she said, we're going to beat this together.

There's a big debate right now in our political system about, you know, funding public research.

We just got too many resources to not help people. This is not about Democrats, Independents or Republicans. It's not about that. It's about life. Now that's a moonshot. Ladies and gentlemen.

Everybody, welcome to Moonshots. During this episode, I'm going to be speaking to an incredible moonshot entrepreneur. His name is Magic Johnson. You know him as the NBA All Star. You know him as someone who's overcome aids. But did you know that he has bought into dozens of companies? He had the largest franchise at Starbucks. He's been into Best Buy, Burger King and a multitude of other companies. We're going to talk about his life. We're going to talk about how he overcame aids, what that was like dealing with, telling his wife. We'll talk about his career in sports and then his follow on career in buying sports teams. Mostly. We'll talk about the incredible lessons he learned. Now this conversation takes place at the Lake Nona Impact Forum. It's an extraordinary conference in Lake Nona, Florida. It's where Fountain Life has its headquarters. And every year, the Lake Nona Impact Forum brings together incredible leaders from Jeff Bezos and President George W. Bush and other incredible world leaders. I'll ask my team to put a link to the Lake Nona Impact Forum in the show notes below. All right, let's jump into the episode with Magic Johnson.

Thank you, Peter. It's a pleasure being here with you as well.

Pleasure. You know, you give a new meaning to looking up to somebody. Before we start, I just want to say congratulations to Gloria and Tarani for putting on this event for 13 years, bringing amazing people here every year. Let's give it up for them, Gloria.

Beautiful. It. It is.

It is beautiful. So I want to kick off with, you have multiple congratulations. What an extraordinary year it's been so far. And we're like just in it. First off, at the beginning of the year, our former President Biden gave you the Presidential Medal of Honor here, the highest civilian honor you can get. Let's take a look at this B roll here of that event.

Magic John. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded.

To Earvin Magic Johnson.

With unmatched vision and versatility, Irvin Magic Johnson drove the Showtime era for the Los Angeles Lakers. 5 time NBA Champion, 3 time MVP, 12 time All Star, Olympic gold medalist and an A. Smith hall of Famer. His honesty about his HIV status shattered stigma and saved lives. The first retired athlete to build a true business empire. He champions underserved communities with a legendary will and smile. Magic Johnson rose from the playground in Lansing, Michigan to become one of the most beloved athletes of our time.

Does that amazing. Does that ever get old?

Well, listen, it doesn't get old, but something like that is. You can't even describe the feeling. The greatest moment I had was when, you know, my mother, who was 89, got a chance to go to the White House and witness her son, her baby, get up there and get the Medal of Freedom. And so to hear her and see her smile and cry and be happy about this moment. Because only thing I wanted to do, and still the only thing I want to do in life is to really make my family, especially my parents, feel good about, you know, what I've done in life.

Yeah.

And so it was a great moment. My kids were there, of course, Cookie. So it was just a great family moment. And I guess God is saying, hey, you know, this is what happens when you understand your purpose and that you give back to the communities, the underserved communities, and put people to work. And so I never thought I would receive an award for doing the things that's on my heart, but it was a blessed moment for me.

That's beautiful. And I want to get into purpose, I want to get into family. But before we get there, another magical event. Louisiana. Dodgers take it for the seventh win. What was that like?

Well, it was an incredible moment. First, with Cookie and I, you know, with us being the first African American owners in Major League Baseball, all that is first important. And then second, what's important is that the fact that when we took over the Dodgers 12 years ago, they were not where they are today. Right. We built. We built a really successful team that our fans just love. You know, everybody thought at that time, when we paid $2.2 billion for the Dodgers that we overpaid.

And can I come in on that?

And then now they see the two World Series rings that I have. And we won our division every single season but once, so. And we're number one in attendance for 12 straight years that we've owned the team. And I think that we've changed, you know, the fan experience. And then we included everybody because we have a big Latino fan base, we have African Americans, we have, of course, whites. And they all come together and cheer for this incredible team. And so it's a melting pot. And I'm just so proud of the fact that our guys are serious about baseball and that we could make the Dodger fans happy. And they finally got a parade because when we won during COVID we didn't get a parade, but this year we had a great parade and everybody was able to celebrate in Los Angeles what we accomplished.

Well, as a fellow Angeleno, thank you for all that you've done.

Oh, thank you.

It is great pride.

I appreciate that.

There are so many sides of you and what you've accomplished and will accomplish. I'm here talking about longevity over these next couple of days. So I want to give you another 65 years of life here.

Yes.

After you left the game and actually towards the end of your game career, you started pivoting into entrepreneurship, into business. And I don't know if folks really understand the depth and length of what you have done there. And I'm going to dive into these separately. But it's important to realize this isn't like a one shot success here. We'll talk about Starbucks, the first person ever to franchise Starbucks. I want to hear that story. Because how you convince Howard Schultz to do that? We'll get there. Burger King, but beyond that, 24 Hour Fitness, TGI Friday, Best Buy Fat Burger. You go from there into, of course, buying stakes in sports teams, but life insurance, TV networks and real estate, I mean, that's a conglomerate. I think it should be the Magic Johnson conglomerate of companies here. What drove that desire was that innate interest in being an entrepreneur, building businesses. Where did that begin for you?

Well, definitely back home in Lansing.

When in high school.

Yes, because my dream was to make it to the NBA. That was my only dream.

And that started how early in terms.

Of when I was a little kid, right. 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, playing basketball, watching games with my father, sitting on his lap or sitting beside him watching the NBA. And I always wanted to emulate. After watching that game, I would run out on the basketball court and immolate Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, whoever was on TV at that time.

Did you voice that to your parents and your siblings?

Oh, yeah. Everywhere we went, I had my ball and my mom, it would drive her crazy. You know, we. In the grocery store, I'm bouncing that ball all around.

Did anybody tell you you couldn't do that? Or did anybody. Did they say, you're going to go for it?

No, of course my parents didn't. And my brothers and sisters. I have six sisters, three brothers. They never said it, but outside of that, they said I could never make it. But I didn't. I. I use that as fuel.

Of course.

I'm a very competitive dude.

I've heard that.

So you tell me I can't do something. I'm about to prove you wrong. Right. And so I was driven by that. And so my parents always encouraged me. But they also said, if you don't get good grades, you can't play. So I knew I had to apply myself in the books as well. But this is what really changed my life.

Please.

We were driving, my father and I, and I saw these two African American men, and they had this beautiful Mercedes Benz. I've never seen a Mercedes. So I'm like, dad, what kind of car is that? And he said, that's a Mercedes Benz. And I said, oh. And I said, what, a black man is driving it, right? And he said, yeah, that's Greg Eaton. And also his business partner is Joel Ferguson, and they own businesses in Lansing, Michigan. So I didn't know that we could do that, Right? And so they owned all these buildings and car dealerships, on and on and on. And I said, oh, I want to meet them. And sure enough, my father set it up for me to say hi to them. About 13, 14 years old. And then as I grew in terms of basketball, they start coming to my games. And then they said, let's go to lunch. I want to take you to lunch. So they took me to lunch and they explained what they do. And I just. At that moment, my dreams changed from just being wanting to make it to the NBA to I want to be a businessman like those two guys.

I think most of you know that the news media is delivering negative news to us all the time because we pay 10 times more attention to negative news than positive news. For me, the only news worthwhile that's true and impacting humanity is the news of science and technology. And that's what I pay attention to. And every week I put out two blogs One on AI and exponential tech and one on longevity. If this is of interest to you and it's available totally for free, please join me. Subscribe@diamandis.com subscribe. That's diamandis.com subscribe. All right, let's go back to the episode. I think most people don't realize that that dream was simultaneous with your sports career.

Yes, yes, it was. But, but sports, it was probably 98% and the dream of business was 2%. Because I was still a young man at that time until I turned about 17 and I asked him to give me a job in the summer. Because when you have six other sisters and three other brothers, your parents can't give you no extra money. So my dad, my dad took me, he said, you want some money to go to the movies? All right, let me take you to the garage. And he introduced me to Mr. Rake, Mr. Lawnmower and Mr. Shel. And he said, if you want some extra money, here's the three things that can help you get that right. And so that allowed me to understand that I have to have a work ethic not only on the basketball court, but outside of it. And that helped me to get ready. So I met them when I was 17 and asked them to give me a job. They gave me a job. They owned an office building, seven floors. And I had to clean it after 5 o' clock on Friday, between Friday and Sunday. So, Peter, this was really again changed my life. So I cleaned the first six floors, but the CEO's office was on the seventh floor. And I'm a big believer if you don't dream it, you can't become it. So I would bust in the CEO's office like I was pretending I was him. And I would go up to his desk, recline the seat all the way back and put my feet up on his desk. I would hit the intercom button like I had an assistant out front. You know, I think of some name like, Ruby, can you bring me some coffee and donuts in today's paper? And for hours I would sit there dreaming that I was a businessman and I was the CEO. Well, look what happened. God put me in this position. And here I am now, over almost 50 years later, I am the CEO of my own business. And so that changed my life forever.

You know, people talk about visualizing success and importance in, even in sports as well. Is that always been something that has been a go to tool for you?

Yeah, well, for me it's being smart at basketball. I just didn't Play the game. I was smart at the game.

Sure.

There's a lot of guys that more athletic than me and Larry Bird. Right. We both can only jump this high, but nobody was smarter than both of us. There was more other people that could run faster than us, but they were not smarter than us. So I've always leaned toward making sure that I was smart at the game, just like I leaned toward now being smart at business. And so that carried me a long way. Having high basketball IQ and making sure that I was competitive, I was disciplined. I enjoyed the process of winning as well as losing. You had to enjoy the process. And then Larry Bird, I gotta give him credit, he made me a better basketball player.

Man, it's nice to have someone to compete against.

Yeah, I hate that blonde hair dude. But he, but I gotta give him credit. He really helped me and I think I helped him. And what the people should realize, really know out here is that game, Michigan State versus Indiana State is still the number one watch basketball game of all time. Is that that's 40 something years later. Right. It's amazing.

You figure someone be able to do a better job by now.

Yeah, yeah. Now, Peter, I'm not a sit in the seat dude. So I like to be down. Is that okay? Yeah, I like to be with the people. I don't like to sit. So I'm going to take the question. But I like, because that's my thing. I didn't come all the way to Orlando just to sit in a white chair, you know.

So let's go back to that moment when you're, when you're approaching Howard Schultz about Starbucks. Now it's one of the iconic companies on the planet. It's nice to have a legal drug you can sell people.

And that's probably what it is.

And I, I swear I give more money to Starbucks than I, you know, it's insane. Good old app. So you walk into his office, tell us the story of how you got to get the first franchise and ultimately own 125 stores, which I bet you wish you still owned them.

Yeah, well, not really where the stock is today. No, I'm not a guy that go backwards. I want, I want you to know that about me. You know, when I do something, I sell it. I'm done and keep moving. I'm never going to be going backwards. Only one time I went backwards. And can I tell you that story? I would love to. Yeah, please.

We'll come back to Howard.

So Larry Bird and I were the best two basketball players in college. Basketball at that time. And so when I won the national championship against Larry Bird, all the. I gotta always add that.

The three.

Shoe companies came to recruit me. So at that time, it was Adidas, Converse, and then this new company called Nike.

I've heard of them.

Yeah. So Converse offered me the most money, and then Adidas, and then this blonde haired dude, long hair, came in from Oregon and said, hey, I can't offer you what Converse can offer you, cash wise, but I can offer you stock. I wish I was that when you grow up poor, you take the most money.

Yeah.

Peter, they just ran analytics about how much money my stock would be worth today, a billion five. If I would have took that stock in 1979 all the way to now. Isn't that something? But again, I don't look backwards. So.

I mean, just to put this in perspective, when the numbers I looked up, when you left the game, you had a net worth around 40 million. And today it's at least according to the various LLMs, it's about 1.6 billion. You had a 40x increase. Not bad.

Not bad, not bad, not bad. I could have had a little bit more, but I'm not gonna go through that. So we're playing Seattle, and I always like to know who's sitting on the floor of the game from opponents, because in case I want to meet somebody.

Sure.

So they said, oh, man, Howard Schultz sits and comes to the Seattle Supersonic games. And I was like, I asked their PR person, what seat does Howard Shore sits in so I can go over and say hi to him and introduce myself. So he told me the number I ran over there, said, hi, I'm Irvin Johnson. Da, da, da. I would like to, next time that we come back to Seattle, I'd like to come and take you to lunch. And he said, well, that'll be great, but you don't have to take me. I'm gonna take you. I said, okay, yeah, you got more money than me, I get it. So came back to Seattle, got together with them, and we had an amazing lunch. And I said, howard, I built Magic Johnson theaters and they're doing very well. We surprised everybody in the inner cities of America. Everybody thought no way they could be successful. Well, my first theater came in top 10 highest grossing theaters in the nation.

Extraordinary.

So proved everybody wrong that you can invest in the inner cities and make money. Howard, I gave him the information about that. So he said, let's get together the next time you come back. So went back up to Seattle. Sure enough, we talked About I told him, I think Starbucks would perform very well in the inner cities. Latinos and African Americans, we like coffee too, right? And sure enough, he said, let's take a look at it and see how you operate your, your movie theaters. He came down on a Friday. Whitney Houston's first movie was coming out, Waiting Exhale. And I had 500 black women wrapped around the corner to get in to see this movie. And we sold out every theater, right? And he said, wow. He saw the cash register ringing, making a lot of money. And then he finally got inside and said, wow, you know, this is great. And I forgot to tell him that we go to the movies a little different than everybody else. And as soon as the movie started, every woman in there started talking to the screen girl, why you still with him? Dump him. And sure enough, he pulled me out and said, magic. I never had a movie going experience quite like this. You got the deal. Now why did I get the deal? Couple things. He saw what happened at the theater. Also, I drove him around the community. He saw these beautiful homes in urban America, well kept, and some successful people living in those homes. Right. And then I had to go before the board, they signed off. And then the shareholders meeting. Probably the thing that I was most nervous about was the shareholders. They signed off. And so sure enough, I built 125 Starbucks in 40 different markets across America. And they all were very, very successful. I sold them all back to Howard.

Yeah.

And so we created so many job opportunities. And then the last thing, I think.

That was one of the most important things. I mean, you brought jobs to the market you care about and that's been a consistent part of your life.

Yes.

Over and over and over again, bringing.

Job opportunities as well as giving suppliers, women owned and minority owned firms, giving them those suppliers contracts to deliver goods.

To us as creating opportunities. Let's give it up for that.

Yeah. And the only thing I had to change out was the music, you know, it wasn't going to work, what they were playing in the innocent, you know. So I had to bring in Lionel Richie, Earth, Wind and Fire, Michael Jackson. And so we had to tweak it so you always understand your customer and how you can over deliver to that customer.

So we go on from there to Burger King, to tjf, Friday to Best Buy. What are the characteristics of a company that you would say, okay, I want to own a stake or I want to promote that company?

Well, I think, you know, those were things that Burger King is the headquarters in Miami. It was a situation where the owner had to get out. And so I could get pennies on the dollar, I picked up about 40 of them. I was able to take the bottom line of these Burger Kings and drive them up. And sure enough, I just resold them. Made a lot of money reselling them. I would say the fitness was more that minorities needed that because we didn't have no fitness clubs in our community. So it was a good thing to make sure that we had access to fitness clubs. They were making a lot of money as well. But it changed people's lives.

And. But people diet.

The whole thing.

People's. Your connection to those opened it up as something that was accessible.

That's right. And it proved to Fortune 500 companies that they can come into urban America and make money. That's. That's also why I did it. And so I sold those back to 24 Hour Fitness. And, you know, so I'm all about, how can I change urban America? How can I create jobs in those same communities that I grew up in? And then show people that people of color can be successful businessmen and women, and I was able to do that. And athletes as well.

Would you say that's your moonshot to really impact the communities around the world up, level them?

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. And we've been able to do just that through all the different businesses and.

Even real estate in Detroit. I mean, you went. You went heavy on trying to. In the revitalization of Detroit.

Yeah, not in Detroit, of course, but Los Angeles, all over the country. I had a real estate fund. We did 300 million, then we did 600 million, then we raised a billion dollars to. Again, it's all about real estate. How do we make sure that we either build hotels or build different businesses in those communities? But they all had to win, because it's not just enough for me to build them, but they have to be successful because I want other minorities to come behind me. And I was able to do that, open up institutional capital to other minorities because they turned me down five times. Okay. So when I went up to Seattle to raise money, people turned me down because they didn't believe in urban America. So I knew I had to be successful.

Everybody, Peter here, if you're enjoying this episode, please help me get the message of abundance out to the world. We're truly living during the most extraordinary time ever in human history. And I want to get this mindset out to everyone. Please subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts and turn on notifications so we can let you Know when the next episode is being dropped. All right, back to our episode. Let's pivot to the Washington commanders. So tell us the story there.

Well, again, we have some images in the background. First, I think the NFL is a. There's a machine and there's no league that can even keep up or even come close to the NFL making money wise the power that it gives you. And so this was an easy decision for me to make, but also too again lacking minority ownership. So it was good for the NFL, good for the community and the terms of the Washington D.C. or I should say the DMV. And so we took this franchise that had been losing that previous ownership. It was, it was, it was tough. We took it for now. We've only for only two seasons, but look what happened. We drafted right quarterback and Jaden Daniels and this season. Thank you. We brought in 40 new football players, got rid of 40 and brought 40 new ones in. And we go all the way to the NFC championship game. So we are really set up to have a long run. The fans love the team again and so we're excited about, you know, building this organization into a Super bowl contending team. But the one thing we had to do was the morale of the employees were low. So I told my team, let me talk to the employees. You guys gonna handle the business? You know, so they all said something, but I said, I gotta let them know that we're gonna embrace them, that we're gonna respect them, that we want to value them and. But we're gonna become a world class organization.

Can you say we have a lot of CEOs in the room here. Can you speak to the importance of having the CEO, the owners truly uplift and unify an organization? Because I see, you know, sometimes organizations divided, sometimes organizations not performing at their peak. Did you bring those experiences from basketball into the organizations that you're owning and running?

Oh, for sure. You know, because you only as good as your employees, right? Everybody's sitting here today. The business is still running while we're sitting here, each and every one of us, right? So we know we got great people who work for us. So. And you know, they want to be patted on the back, they want to be valued, they want to be respected. So that's what we went in there to do to tell them that we are here for them and, and we will listen to them because they gave us some great ideals too. And so how to improve everything because previous owner didn't put a lot of money into the stadium, didn't Put a lot of money into the team or the practice site. So we did all of those things, and we just got a great grade from the NFL on how we improve. Improved everything. And so that was very important. So we know that you want to bring some experts together who can do their job, but also when we need to, we got to high five them. We got to say, great job. And I believe in that because I come from team from sports. And when you come from sports, that's what it's all about.

But sometimes you also have to cut members of the team.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't mind cutting them now. They're not doing their job. I'm. I'm going slice and dice.

So you hold a high. You hold a high standard for them. And if they're not performing, I tell.

Them all the time, you know, I'm driven to win.

Yeah.

And you have to do your job. And if you're not doing your job, then I love you, but we got to get rid of you.

Yeah. And I think one of the problems is a lot of times people just want to hold on. Can't do it, and hope you can't do that.

Can't do it. Listen, I'm the first one in. I get up at 4:00 every morning.

You beat me. I'm up at 5.

So I work out for two hours, and then I'm in the office all day. I'm gonna set the tone for my employees. I always have, always will. Right. And then they buy into the vision that I set. Right. And so they know that winning's in my DNA and I'm gonna do things. Right. And so they had to follow that. Every woman and man in here, all the employees follow them, you know, and so. But I'm gonna treat them fairly. I'm gonna pay them and go out.

Hopefully, and win together.

That's right. Well, we have to. Yeah, we have to. I mean, we got executive teams, we got management teams, all of us, you know, so we all got to win together. And then I don't have to come up with every strategy because I got great people. They can come up with strategies to help us win. Hey, we're going to roll with that strategy. I don't want to be the only smart guy in the room.

Magic. I'd like to turn to health next. We have a lot of people in the health industry here, and it's been 30 years since you went public with your HIV diagnosis. I'd like to take you back there. We're going to Roll a quick video. Let's talk about it.

First of all, let me say good afternoon. Late afternoon. Because of HIV virus that I have attained, I will have to retire from the Lakers today. I just want to make clear, first of all, that I do not have the AIDS fees, because I know a lot of. I want to know that HIV virus.

You're in your doctor's office, he comes out, and he gives you his diagnosis, which for the last part of a decade has been a death sentence. What's going through your mind? How do you go home and tell your wife?

Cookie, I think that was the hardest part. First, I thought I had did everything the right way. So to. I'm gonna answer that, because I can tell the magic is right here. I could have told him you was busy, you was hanging with me and so getting that news. It was devastating news, no question about it. And then, you know, you have to spend probably an hour just sitting there trying to comprehend this.

I mean, you're at the peak of your career. The last thing you expect to hear.

Yeah, last thing I expected to hear. We just been to three straight NBA Finals.

Amazing.

And one two of those. Lost that one. And then I'm coming receiving this news.

And your wife was pregnant.

Yeah, with our son, ej. So the hardest thing, Peter, was not me dealing with it, but actually going home to tell my wife.

Yeah.

And we had just gotten married. She's pregnant. And as soon as I hit the door, she knew something was wrong. She already knew it. And she said, what's going on? And so I sat her down and I began to tell her I had hiv. And of course, she started crying, not knowing what it meant for her and the baby. And so I'm letting her just really digest what I just told her. And then I told her I could understand if you. You want to leave me.

Yeah.

And it took about five minutes to. For that to register to her. And she stood up and smacked me right upside my head. True story. And she said, we're gonna beat this together.

Yes.

And so that's just at that moment, that's when I knew I had a chance. So that's.

That's amazing. You're a lucky man.

Yeah, no, I. I understand that. And because support system, to be anything like this, you need your support system. I needed her, my parents, my brothers and sisters. And so. So we just got dropped to our knees and started praying. And then from that, I'm a. I'm a guy who always got to know everything. So I started researching, and I found out that Dr. Ho was one of the leading doctors in the world. And I called him up and went to see him in New York and he really gave me a great regimen for me to in drugs, but also educated me. Yeah, he educated me about the virus and what it meant to me. And so here I am 33 years later. Right.

And I have to say, looking amazing. I mean, compared to your, you know, the video 30 years ago, I think you look even better right now.

Everything is good. I get in that gym and take my meds. But the main thing was I got to give a lady who actually died. And that was Elizabeth Glazier, saved my life. So she. So as I was doing my research, I had Dr. Ho. But then she was the face of it at that time. And so I went to go see Elizabeth and she told me, irvin, you're going to be here a long time because there's so many great drugs coming down the pipeline. She said, but I need you to do one thing. And that's become the face of it and get involved. So I did that. And not too long after that, she passed away. And then I met Elizabeth Taylor, who then was. That was her whole mission. And so we all, her and I partner up and we, for 20 years, we raised money for HIV and AIDS. And. And I'm still doing that today.

Extraordinary.

It's been a blessing, but what a journey.

And so you're still using the same antivirals?

Yeah, yeah, it's the same thing. The three drug cocktail. Nothing has changed until Dr. Ho tell me something to do something different. But you. And I said there's some great things coming, so I'm gonna lean on you too.

Yeah, sure. I know one of our speakers tomorrow, Lou Reese, has got a company called Kana Life and it's a monoclonal. One of the biggest challenges, I don't know if you think about this, is the multi drug resistance. You know, the AGE virus continues to. HIV virus continues to mutate.

Right.

So being able to solve that and there's incredible research. Their particular monoclonal has been 100% resistant against all viral mutations.

Beautiful.

And so that's a cover of Nature this week. I think science is doing extraordinary things.

For humanity in all areas. That's why it's so important this conference. And let me thank all of you because you've helped people like myself live a long, productive life. And when you think about the science, you think about the doctors. You think about, I should say, scientists. Think about everybody coming together to help so many People around the world, not just here in America. It's been amazing. And just think about this. When I think about going back, you know, 33 years ago, AZT was the only drug. Just think about that one drug. Right. And now What? It's over 40, I think, somewhere around.

I lost my best friend in the early 80s to HIV. If he had just been able to hold on a little bit longer. Timing is everything.

Exactly.

You know, there's a big debate right now in our political system about funding public research and public health right now. Is there a message you want to send people about that?

No.

Listen, I don't get into politics, but I'm just curious if you want so.

Many people who depend on that public funding. And this is not about Democrats, Independents or Republicans. It's not about that. It's about life. Right. So when you think about federal government, state government, the local government, we need that funding because a lot of people are going to be hurt and may die because they can't pay for their drugs. And so that's what this is about. So I don't want anybody to think that it's nothing other than we, we need to help these people.

Listen, at this level of society, with the level of abundance that we have.

Yes.

We owe a debt of gratitude and the ability to uplift everybody together.

That's all it is, you know, so I'm hoping that the funding is there that we can continue to help people who can't afford to pay for their drugs and their meds. I know I work with different organizations who supply the drugs for the people who can't pay. And it's been beautiful. I know we've done a lot of that work from the Magic Johnson foundation as well. So we hope that we get that funding. It's going to be important. And, man, we just got too many resources is to not help people. You know, we gotta all be about that. How do we help people? You know, how do we give back to people? How do we help communities? That's what America is built on.

It's what gives life meaning.

Yeah.

At the end of the day, you know, no one gets points for dying with the most money. Yeah, you get points for supporting and uplifting the most people.

Exactly. See, we're dealing with that. And then I'm still dealing with the LA fires. So I was just.

So I have two last questions. I have two last questions. Let's dive into that one. So Governor Newsom just appointed you to help revitalize la. So I'm still out of my house. We live in Santa Monica, Palisades border. We're one of the lucky ones. Our house is still standing but we're going through two months of remediation and an incredible, incredible damage. I'm very proud. One of my organizations is called the X prize and put up these large cash flows, prizes to solve problems. We've got one for reversing aging 20 years which I hope we'll all benefit from. And we have an $11 million prize for wildfire detection and extinction. And to win this, teams have to like monitor a city or region and if they, if you see a fire that's 2 meters or bigger, it's bigger than you, Right? Right. Or it's moving, put it out within 10 minutes automatically.

Yeah.

What's your vision for where LA is going? Well, I'm curious. I live there.

I think that when the governor called me and wanted me to help, he had had somebody who was going to handle Pacific Palisades. He wanted me to deal with Altadena and It's probably an 80% African American community.

Sure.

And, and what he would concerned about was those people were selling their land. People were taking advantage of them. Yeah, their land is worth millions and millions of dollars but they were selling it only for a couple hundred thousand.

So they're scared.

They're scared, don't have anything. So what I did was a couple PSAs to tell them to hold on to their land, get what it's worth in terms of if you're going to sell it, make sure you know what it's worth and get that money. Right. And so these are things that we're talking about and then so many other things that they need, clothes, food. So we're dealing with all those things. So I love giving back, man. I listen, I've been blessed over and over and over again. Now my whole mission is like in life is how do I bless other people. And so these fires have just devastated what, four or five communities. And I'm going to get to work and try to help those people as much as I can. And I've always been involved anyway, so this is just another thing that I'm involved with.

And so I want to close out on a combined question. You're going back to a younger version of magic. What advice would you give yourself as a kid in your career here? The other is you got so much from your parents, from your mom, your dad, work ethic, the attention to detail, all of those things. What advice do you have for parents? I have two 13 year old boys I'm always looking for great advice. Can you talk about advice you give to yourself and what advice you. You suggest to parents today?

Well, you know, Listen, I got three kids, two grandchildren now, right? In at age 16 and 13. And, you know, I. It's so funny, you know, we come to dinner and all five of them have them cell phones.

Yeah.

And I. And I. I make them go all the way back out the door, go back, put them cell phones up. You're going to give me two hours. Because if you go in restaurants now, nobody's talking, Right. You look at every table. When we used to have a great time at restaurants, nobody was on cell phones. You know, they were just talking. And so I tell my kids, I just want to know what you've been doing, how you doing, how school going, going on and on and on.

And it's the hardest thing to rip out of my kids.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got a rule when we go on vacation, they gotta leave them.

Yeah.

They just gotta leave them. And so. And what happens?

Everybody is talking, playing games, having fun. Yeah.

Yeah. You. Two hours. You can give me two hours, you know, so. Oh, you want to be on this vacation? Oh, you won't give me two hours. I know how to get them. Oh, you think you're going out tonight? There's only one credit card in his family. And so they say, okay, dad. And then they turn out, they love it. And now they do karaoke nights with each other. And we're sitting there, see, we gotta bring us back to the family.

Yes.

And so that's been good. And when I think about how I grew up and listen, I was so blessed we were poor, but we never knew we were poor because there was so much love in the house. And my parents always encouraged us to dream big. But you need an education, and education can take you anywhere you want to go. And so all of us, I have four of my sisters are teachers. Right. And they love to teach, give back to the kids. And when I think about. I never regret anything. I never look back. My childhood was excellent because I had my parents and my father. I took his work ethic, and he worked for General Motors for 30 years. Never missed a day, never was late. And guess who's built just like my love here told me what time to be here. I was early. I'm always going to be early. I get to every meeting an hour ahead of time. And I'm a very disciplined man. And so. And then I got my mother's smile, and I got her heart. Yes, You, Honor, my mother taught us this. Peter, I couldn't believe this. So, so we're lining up for dinner and when you got 10 kids, wow. So my mother would go around from everybody's plate and take a spoon from everybody's plate and make four or five other plates. She would then put them, wrap them up, put them in bags, said, junior. She called me Junior. Go delivery. Deliver these to, to the lady across the street. She's 75, she can't cook for herself. Go down the street, deliver this one. And I said, mom, we don't even have enough. You're gonna go and learn that you have to give back and help people. So she taught me that as a little boy. So what am I doing now? Helping people, giving back because of my mother. And so I just want to say to all of you, thank you for your heart, thank you for what you do. Leaders in this country doing great things, not only it's like the double bottom line, right? I believe in that you can make money, but also too, you can make an impact on giving back. And that's the double bottom line to me. So continue to do what you're doing.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it ups everybody. Thanks for, for listening to Moonshots. You know, this is the content I love sharing with the world. Every week I put out two blogs, a lot of it from the content here. But these are my personal journals. The things that I'm learning, the conversations I'm having about AI, about longevity, about the important technology transforming all of our worlds. If you're interested again, please join me and subscribe@diamandis.com subscribe. That's diamandness.com subscribe. See you next week on Moonshots.

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