This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Alexis, thanks so much for being with us, Thanks.
For having me. How are you. I'm doing well? Yeah, doing well.
I'm coming off the high of this business a women's sports summit.
It's been a good, good forty eight hours.
Well, this is what I want to ask you. You tweeted, I think just a few days.
I love sports.
Have you always loved sports?
Always?
I did not always love women's sports though, To be clear, I'm not. I jumped on this bandwagon really when I met my wife. That was the first time I even ever watched tennis as a sport. Yeah, but then really went whole hog in twenty nineteen, so I'm new to it.
Well, talk to us about Angel City in terms of how it came on your radar. I mean there's a lot of well known actresses. Mia Ham's involved, There's a lot of incredible women behind it.
What was it?
I don't know the conversations you had within that said I want to be a part of this.
Well, so back in twenty nineteen and I dug up these old tweets, it was March. I was just you know, reading the news the US women's national team was fin for pay equity, and I started looking at the numbers and I realized women's sports, and chiefly soccer, was being
so so undervalued. And again I only just come with this as a businessman, as an investor, and you know, seeing the amount of attention that team was able to capture, seeing the number of follows their biggest stars had on social media, right, this is these are facts over feelings. This is just the democratic nature of social media, which says you are someone I want to pay attention to, I will click follow. Showed that these women were incredibly popular.
They were individually capable of generating, you know, millions of dollars in brand deals. And yet the league, the NWSL, was still kind of a mess. I didn't even know it existed. I think a lot of sports fans didn't. It was showing its matches on Lifetime Lifetime. No offense to Lifetime, but come on, you're not watching sports on Lifetime. And at the time a team had sold for like three million dollars and it was the same team that
Megan Rappino played on. And you don't have the smartest guy in the room to realize Megan Rapino can generate at least a few million dollars a year in brand deals, and really she is worth at least that much and soon money her entire team is only worth three millions. Someone was epically messing up, and so I started tweeting, and I just said, I was like, look, this is a huge opportunity. I want to buy a team. Who do I talk to? I want to start a team?
Who do I talk to? And you know, Twitter showed up in a big way. The diehard women soccer fans were like, all right, you know, don't just talk about it, be about it.
And then there were also trolls who were like, you're going.
To waste all your money. This is stupid. No one cares what womin's sports. So I started talking to existing owners. I realized pretty quickly I didn't want to inherit someone else's team. I needed a blank slate. And because I was so proactively honestly tweeting about it, one of the owners of La FC, the men's club in la introduced me to Kara Julian Natt created, who at the end of I think twenty nineteen, were out to market and couldn't find anyone who wanted to invest, and so I said, well,
look I'm doing this and getting connected to them. You know, they shared a similar vision and you.
Know I wrote the check off and running.
That's yeah, it was. It was kismet. And I think tweeting, I mean seriously, and it's it's.
This shows like it can work. It's like incredible and connecting people.
Yes, and look, I'm also the kind of person who likes being early and right. So I love calling my shots on Twitter because I love having those receipts later when everyone's like history, right, Yeah, bring the receipts, baby.
Well okay, god, I feel like there's a million places I could go. Well does that show to you? Okay, I'm going to take a sidebar here, go for it. So social media Twitter, Yeah, TikTok. There's a lot of things that are on you know, everybody's radar about usefulness, the problems that are created, you know, Elina, Twitter is a whole other story. What's your take on social media? Has it run its course?
Uh?
We and I love a lot?
Wow?
Yes, Okay, Look, it has transformed the world. There have been good outcomes, there have been bad outcomes.
Right.
I very publicly left read it in protest a few years ago, and I was thrilled they did in response. You know, they did finally ban hate communities, They did replace me with a black directory. They made changes as a result of my resignation that I was so happy with at the end of the day. But I realized, for me, I think social media is very much going to occupy a space that our children's generation will look back on with a raised eyebrow. I mean, that's a big part of the reason I left. I got a
she was three at the time. Now she's five and a half, a daughter who I think is going to grow up with a very different experience on social media. And so I think part of that is cultural. You're seeing a generation of young people and their parents who are like yo. Actually, maybe this was pretty terrible for you know, going through adolescents where everyone has a little like button and follower account floating above their heads, right, you know.
Adolescents measure.
It's hard enough to go through that time, and then you now productize and weaponize it.
Probably not great long term.
So I think you can already see the culture shifting, right, You can already see this generation looking to other platforms.
I'm not an investor. You know, the ascent in companies like.
Be Real that are more about not living on your phone chasing hearts, but just sharing with people you actually care about, like what's going on in your life. I think you're gonna see that cultural shift and you're gonna see more technology. So I social media's not going anywhere, but it will evolve in the way that we use it.
For sure.
I'm curious how your daughter and your wife influence you in terms of you know, equities, equality women. Your daughter is an investor.
Yes, I made sure so.
I the owner of a professional sports team.
That's right.
I set aside a few bucks to personally invest. I mean it was via her trust. She doesn't know this, by the way, so hopefully she's not listening to the podcast.
Sorry.
I mean, she has five and a half when to wear. But it was important, right. I wanted her not just to be the youngest center in pro sports, which is kind of cool.
Yeah, but you know, like any.
Parent, you want to create, you want to give your children something and a legacy, and frankly, also I wanted to give her what she was doing. So it was
because of Olympia. That really galvanized this in many ways because during the final the Women's World Cup that year, we were all watching at the home we were staying in in Wimbledon, and I'd gotten Olympia and alex Morgan jersey and She's running around kicking her ball, and I'd commented to my wife, like any proud dad, it wouldn't it be nice one day if she played on the Ones national team?
Wouldn't that be cool?
And without missing a beat, Serena says, not until they pay her what she's worth. And I said, okay, challenge accepted, like all right, And so so you know this, this little three year old was part of the reason why I finally was like, no, I really this needs to happen. And so the least I could do is give her her due. And so yeah, look, I'm very aware of the fact that I am a now wealthy but but a white dude who occupies space his entire life very
differently than my wife has and my daughter will. And so it has given me perspective. But I want to stress it is nothing about the moves I make or the things I do are.
Charitable.
What do you mean, what are you think because you're an investor.
What I mean is none of this is none of this is because of charity. This is what I believe is going to lead to the most effective outcome long term. One of the I really believe, and.
This is something I talk about with my team all the time at seven seven six and with CEOs that I counsel now is I really believe the long term greedy mindset is just a very different way of thinking about building businesses, being more intentional about everything from the way you build teams to the way you deploy capital to the.
Partners that you decide to have. And I actually, like, I worry.
The one thing I don't want people to hear is like, oh, well, this dude has you know, a black wife, a black daughter, and now he cares about these things, right, Because I don't think you should need to have those things in order to care. You shouldn't need to have a daughter to care about women's sports.
But if you didn't, do you think, oh, they've gotten to.
This point probably a lot slower, if at all. So no, I can't.
So yes, it absolutely played a huge role in helping build my perspective.
In the same way, you know, it's a kind of education. You know.
I didn't go to Harvard Business School, clearly, but my you know, I had a different kind of very formative education that's come from being in a relationship and then a marriage to someone like my wife, and having the lived experience of a daughter.
But some would say much richer and much more real.
Understand I think so, oh one hundred percent.
So I think so yes. I can't deny how formative it's been. But I just want to stress that it's not Do not take away from this that that has to be the reason why it's exciting. Women's sports is not exciting just because a bunch of dudes have daughters and now feel like, oh we got to support this. No, Like women's or is exciting because it is a massive business opportunity that men and women, even dudes who don't have daughters, are going to be excited to pay attention to. No.
I agree with you, and I mean your audiences, the people coming to the matches, like you see it gross.
We have look in our first year, Angels City FC has more season ticket holders than the LA Galaxy, which is a men's club that has been around for twenty six years, and they're a great club, but in one year we got more.
Season ticket holders in them. So again that's not that those aren't. That is just data.
That's not like, oh, women's sports should be more supportive. No, no, no, that's just the data.
They're not.
And one of our challenges is a salary cap, which separately I bring up at every Board of Governors meeting.
It's a salary cap that's not high enough. We've raised it, which is good. It's it's on its way up, but it's.
Not nearly high enough. So we're actually limited by the league on how much we can commentate our players. And part of this speaks to the bigger problem, which is this is a legacy of underinvestment in the women's game. All right, we're still carrying the water from decades of underinvesting. When the league is only ten years old. It's barely
survived in those ten leagues ten years. And when you look at the one alternative, and this is this is the really unfair advantage having a front row seat to my wife's experience. Like I said, I literally never watched tennis. I thought tennis was like a boring country club.
Hobby, incredible to watch.
I've watched. So I had never watched tennis before my hous. American football was the only sport that mattered. That's what I played, that's what I watched. That was the only thing. And so then I finally get this education about tennis. A little late, but back in twenty fifteen. And one love the sport. It's an amazing sport. Two I realized, Okay, here is a precedent, right thanks to Billy Jean King,
thanks to a couple girls from Compton. Women are paid the same as men and large, let's use the US Open as example, are marketed and reported on equally as men. So should it surprise anyone that, again, you just look at the data. Even if there isn't a William's sister in the final US Open, the women outperformed the men.
More people watched. Go look at the last run the numbers.
See what ESPN says the last US Open final more Americans watched the women.
Than the men.
And that's not because it feels good or it's socially just it's because it's just more interesting. So what if we had applied the same principles that we've applied to for instance, tennis at the US open across the board in these sports. Why like the saddest part of this is when we look back, we will not just see a legacy of sexism and a certain extent racism. We will see a legacy of business and competence. See a bunch of dudes, old white dudes. Let's be real, who
missed on a huge business opportunity. The women of college basketball had to beg for a decent training facility a few years ago, remember that Cliplin virl I remember they could not get access to even using the branding of the NCUBLEA final four. That was just a few years ago, right, Yeah, this past March madness, we're just a month out from it. The only thing we were talking about in American sports were the women of college basketball, Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark.
They dominated the zeitgeist. That's the attention is everything in sports. I don't even know who won the men's side. Also because UVA lost in the first round, which I don't want to talk about it.
The women. The women dominated.
So now you got to think, NC double A, what the hell were you missing for decades when you did not give these women a fraction of the support they deserved.
It's how stupid were you? It's just business?
You'repplomberg, where like you know, we follow the money.
Yes, that's all I care about. Like you were, you're leaving.
And now here's where it's getting awkward because now the numbers are in and now people got to be ruffling papers and getting a little nervous and sweaty because they're like, oh my god, we just barely started supporting the women of college basketball and and they're they're putting up bigger numbers than the men, Like people care more about these women than the men. It gets worse because now that
nil exists again, the dollars. So we talked about the viewers, we talked about the culturals like geist women crushing it in this last college basketball tournament. Now the dollars, those nil dollars, those dollars are there because the women have followers on social media. Again it's a democratic platform where people say I'm.
Going to follow and give you my attention. Now they're making millions. Okay, so hard conversation to have when you're not paying them.
I you're you're preaching, you're preaching the choir. Since I have I'm going to get in trouble. Fin I ask you if your question Sorry, well we did souchial the media. I know you talked about this with our TV cogs. Yeah, artificial intelligence. You knew I was going to ask.
Sorry, Sure, that's fine, I'm using it every ding.
What's more interesting right now?
Well?
Okay, so what has better investment opportunities AI?
But interestingly enough, if we assume let's go down, let's I just think in ten year terms a gift and a curse. But so ten years down the road, AI continues to ascend. Like you can now spin up anything. I mean, it's the ability to generate. Let's say, content is trivial. Right, we could sit here, you could have you. You could say you want a birthday song sung by Beyonce, naming you and your favorite puppy, and like you could customize everything and mention like I don't know, pizza.
Because you love But that's cool.
Is that valuable?
I think so? And so you need to figure out that.
You need to figure out the dollars so that artists get paid and all that stuff's going to get sort of investment.
But okay, imagine content is everywhere, and anyone can create all the content they want.
It actually now comes full circle back to why having a decentralized global ledger is so important, because with a blockchain, you can now prove the prominence and authenticity of the original, the day one content, And so weirdly, I think in the long term, the proliferation of AI actually makes a strong case for the blockchain because blockchain.
But what about crypto.
You've invested in crypto, how do you feel about that at this point after the carnage of the last six.
Tierson so I seeded coinbase in twenty twelve. I have been through every winter, and every winter I put on my parka and I go talk to people building and they build, and it's it's actually the best time to be investing in crypto because well, every cycle is the best time to be doing my job because when you're early, you know, this is when the noise is gone. This is when the builders are building things people actually want. They're not worrying about what the ETH price is today.
They're just building, they're shipping. So you're investing, yes, absolutely.
And AI are you investing?
Yes?
And so in another two three years will come out as criptocycle. It'll probably be I think gaming will be a big thrust of It'll be very consumer facing as well as infrastructure, and it's not going to use any of those words. You're never gonna hear about NFTs, nor should you never gonna hear about crypt It's just going to be dope software.
That happens to be on Chaine.
Alexis, you are such a mentor for everyone. I've seen Ted talks, I've watched some I make too much content. Well, you make a lot of content, but it's a good content. But you really inspire. And it's not just talk, its action, and you're doing it with your climate fellows. You're looking at ways to make the world more equal in so many different ways. Who who inspires you? I'm assuming your wife, I'm assuming your daughter, you above and beyond. Is it an individual, a company, a book?
The worst answer I can give you it's my mom and dad, because I know that's not no one's going to be like.
How can I learn more about them? I mean you can, but you know, but honestly, it's.
But in the world that like me play in.
I'll give you and then I'll tell you.
Look, it's not really anyone in tech, which is probably part of my problem. It's part of why I think I'm so unpopular in Silicon Valley. I have never felt totally at home there, despite obviously having created Reddit and being a tech entrepreneur and investor in my whole life. When I think of folks who motive to be one of my favorite conversations happened like three or four years ago, five years ago now, jeezs with Melinda Gates and I was so, I still haven't met Bill. Bill is an avid redditor.
Yeah not.
I mean, I wouldn't turn it down, But like, meeting Melinda was who I really wanted to meet because she very obviously was setting out early philanthropic goals in her career, in her life. I think her ultimate legacy is going to be one that is just spectacular as a result of that. And so I talked to her early because I was like, Yo, I'm not ready yet. I've still got a few This was like five years ago, so
I didn't have any liquidity events yet. But I was like, look, I want to start putting the pieces in place for this. How do I think about a foundation? Like what advice would you give to someone who's just starting to think
through this? And it was an amazing meeting, and we've stayed in touch and she's been a great resource as I've started the seven to seven sixth Foundation, And I want you know, I'm at a point in my life where I went from creating a company where I cared so much what hundreds of millions of strangers on the Internet thought, because that was my job as a founder and a CEO of Reddit. But I now really only care about what my wife and daughter think, which is nice.
It's very simplifying in life, and so when I'm thinking about what I'm doing, it's through the lens of frankly, making my daughter proud and obviously always you know, don't get me wrong, I get to work come things that I genuinely love. But through that lens, it's very clarifying
what to do and what not to do. And when I think about the legacy of seven seven six yeah, I want to be the best investor on the planet, and I also want to be the best deployer of capital for you know, nonprofits, for philanthropic work as well.
You asked her to ask you a big question at dinner. Yes, very quickly, we got like a minute last what's the big question? We should all be asking ourselves right now in this world. No pressure.
Well, okay to put it in context though. Her last big question so at dinner, not last unfortunately, I was she's back home last night, but the night before was where do rocks come from?
So I got to be like, okay, well, so.
There's igneous rocks. There's only sedimentary rocks and the metamorphic.
I had to look up that one was metamorphois asking herself, so you should ask you? No, I think the bigger question we should be asking you.
So I just want to put in context. She's not asking like the heaviest questions like where rocks come from?
But still a good question. I love it.
No, it's good we get to learn together. Yes, it's dope. She's amazing. The question, the big question was you asking ourselves? Is? Is you know if you're if you get to spend time listening to a dope Bloomberg podcast, you're probably in a place. I hope you're in a place where you don't have a lot of the like deeper existential dread that a lot of folks have, you think globally right, we're we're so so fortunate even just to be here
in the States. Obviously this reaches worldwide, but but for folks who are tuned in, you're probably thinking on a different wave length because you've got you know, you're you're making moves, you're moving shake, you're doing dope stuff, right.
Yeah, So so I would I would lean into
Thinking through who the people are you actually care about when it comes to their opinions and the work that you're doing and the reason you're getting up and living because if for no other reason, I think you'll just be happier and uh, and that's not bad.