Michael Rubin built Fanatics into an $18 billion company after dropping out of college. He started with a ski-tuning shop at 12, sold GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion at 23, and now controls merchandise for every major sports league. His low-profile approach masks intense confidence and a pattern of moving fast.
Have you ever heard of Michael Rubin? That the Fanatics guy? He's worth like $10 billion and yet he's like pretty under-talked-about. At the age of 12, he started a ski tuning bit shop in his parents' basement. By age 16, he was already in $120,000 in debt. Said his dad had a bail amount for $37,000. And then at the age of 21, he starts this business called KPR Sports, an equipment closeout company. By age 21, it has $1 million in sales. 2 years later, age 23, $50 million in sales. And then eventually he started this company called GSI Commerce, and they would buy brands and they would kind of be the logistics and backend that make these brands amazing. And he sold that for $2.4 billion, netting him $150 million personally. And he formed 3 different companies. Fanatics ends up becoming this massive business.
They're like the official merchandiser, basically, of like all major sports.
It's nearly publicly traded and worth $18 billion. And if you follow him on Instagram, he's homies with Meek Mill and he like helped get him out of prison. Very, very, very confident, very fast moving, very intense.
Door is open for him to come on the pod.
