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What advice would you give to entrepreneurs, Because that's difficult to plan your exit while you're still in it, right, Like nobody wants to plan their retirement while they're still
an active player. So what advice could you would you give to entrepreneurs, whether it's leaving it to your children or leaving it to somebody that you're not related to, like, or to run it all right while still maintaining equity, like how like psychologically, how can you get yourself out of the business to look at it from not just an emotional standpoint. But from a practical standpoint, you.
Know, I think that you know, Coach Carill was a Hall of fame coach at Princeton, you know, and he taught us very very clearly the most important thing is to always think about your teammates first.
So my responsibility is not about my life.
It's about making sure that the one hundred and thirty people here in an aerial you know, they have they're gonna have a place to work thirty years from now, forty years from now down the road. And the shareholders, friends and family who gave me money when I started. We have a responsibility to those shareholders to get a
great return on their investments. And of course all the people who are invested in aarial neutral funds or the endowments that have hired us from you know, colleges or universities or hospital for corporate pension plans.
So my job is.
To think about all that broad group of teammates. They're all part of you know, I feel like I'm part of their team. They're part of our team, and we've got to make sure that we try our best to create a winning strategy that's going to help us all be successful together.
Over the long run.
So having a strong, independent board of people who are strong wills.
We're going to tell you.
What you need to hear, not what you want to hear, is also very very helpful. You know, people are not afraid to speak up. But again, at the bottom line is you know, looking to find the right person who can take your place and ensure that the business will grow and thrive in the future. It's not about me in the short term. It's really thinking long long term. And the other thing that we did to make that happen. We also make sure that everyone else had equity in
the company. And so early in Mellie's career, we would grant her stock because I could see her potential. I wanted her to feel like an owner, and she started to buy stock herself, and a couple of years ago she bought some of my stocks. She wanted to be the number one shareholder in the company, and I thought that was important for the future of Aerial and having that attitude that you're willing to share your equity, I think is important to growing a firm that can last
from one generation to another. And you want the best leader you could finally you could find and so I was lucky to have.
Someone who's as dynamic as Melody is.
The Only thing I would also say is sometimes family members can be great, but sometimes they're not great. You know, I have one daughter the desire and I had. She's wonderful Victoria Roger. She just turned thirty four. I took her to the Berkshire Halfway Annual meeting once and she said after the annual meeting, she said, you know, Dad, I have no interest in what you do. So she became an art history major of Art World along with
Ray MacGuire. She's leading a group of African American trustees that are on the board's park Museums, making sure they're looking out for our community within the art world, which she loves.
Someone Uch. That's a great story.
So the number one question that we get asked, and I'm sure you've been asked plenty of times throughout your historic and iconic career, is what do you recommend in terms of diversifying your portfolio?
Right?
Is it stocks?
Is it bonds? Is it mutual funds and indexes? Is now crypto a part of it? What is the recommendation?
Well, I think if you have the time and interest and you you love investing, I think you should go for it. You read and study, and I think the most important thing is always if you invest on your own, invest in common.
Stocks that you.
That are in what we would call your circle of competence, the areas you understand really well.
If you're someone that's in medicine.
Make your nurse, you're a resident, or you're a doctor, you might want to invest more in healthcare companies. Some of us love sports and basketball, so I, you know, talk about the companies that I love.
Somebody else.
You find what you really love to read about and study about it and think about where you think you'll have a vision or an idea about the future of that company that others aren't going to be able to see. But your expertise is that allow you to make better long term decisions in areas that you know really, really well, and you'll be willing to buy more when those companies are out of favor and there's lots of fear because you know it so well, you know it cold, you'll
buy those stocks at bargain prices. The second thing I would just say is, you know, if you don't want to do the work yourself, then you can invest in any mutual fund company like ours or Fidelity or Vanguard or Hero Price diversify around many mutual funds where you'll have professional investors doing that research for you, picking the
stocks for you. You know, our aerial fund, our flagship fund, has thirty five roughly thirty five stocks in it, so you get a diversified portfolio, and we have a whole team of people.
You're doing the homework, meeting with the management.
Kicking the tires, getting on the road and seeing that what corporate headquarters look like like. You know, everyone doesn't want to do that, so we do that for folks who invest. You're just one thousand dollars to invest in Aerial mutual fund and get started, and you know you can put money in monthly and save that way.
So you know, that's the thing we think is the best way.
I tell people all the time when I talk to like, you know, NBA players or up and coming leaders. You know, everyone wants to start their own restaurant or their own, you know, their own nightclub. I said, you know, I was on the board of McDonald's for over twenty years. I bought stock at McDonald's when I was thirteen and when I left the board, the stock was three hundred roughly three hundred. You know, you can make a lot of money owning a restaurant company. You don't have to
start your own restaurant company. I use I own stock in the company called The Sphere, which is the new arena in Las Vegas. They owned Hakkasan and Tao. Well, again, you don't have to start your own nightclub. You can be a part owner of two of the most dynamic nightclubs worldwide.
Right, So I think that's the bottom line. I tried something.
Just don't have to do everything yourself. You can make a lot of money in the equities market, and this is that's all I have. All of my money in stocks.
Is MSG part of that Sphere ownership as well.
MSG spun off the Sphere. Sphere is a separate, independent company.
It's uh. They sold Hakissan, they sold TOWB. They still own the Regional Sports Network. Okay, to be clear, there are.
Three publicly traded companies that Jim Dolan controls. Mathis Square Garden Sports that has owned the Knicks and the Rangers, Madies Square Garden Entertainment that owns The Garden and actually has a long term release of Radio City Music Hall for the Rockets and the Christmas Spectacular.
And the third public company is this new extraordinary.
Sphere, you know, through the latest the greatest arena in with the sort of virtual reality on steroids for concerts and movies and everything you'd expect. And then they have the regional Sports Network as a part of that too. So there's three ways to play it. We own all three to be transparent and spend a lot of time working and understanding those three stories.
My final question for you, let's say if someone wants to work for your firm, what are like four or five characteristics you're looking for in a new hire that would make them like an A plus higher within a nuts heet or two.
I think the most important thing that you're looking for is someone who's a great, great teammate.
You know.
I was talking to Steve Mills about this, used to be the president of the Knicks, and you know we played for you know, coach Girl together. See, we want people who are gonna just always think about how they can help the team win and not think about themselves first.
You know, I got I always tell young people. I talk to students all the time.
I'm talking to kids today from the Aerial Community Academy at lunch. You know, the kids are coming down to learn about how we pick stocks and do research, and I'll talk about the fact that as they build it financial services careers, they want to always show up.
As the best teammate possible.
You know, I'll tell them the example of the fact that you know, I got to co chair of President Obama's inauguration, and he wouldn't have given me that privilege if he didn't think that over the years I had worked to help him get elected president first, and I wasn't thinking about any any things that he was going to do for me. It's all about what I could do to help him be successful. So I say, by far, the most important thing is to be a good teammate.
If you're a good teammate, you're also going to be the good listener. You know, someone who doesn't always have all the answers, which willing to listen and learn from others and respect other people's opinions. You're someone who's gonna, as my father would alway say, you're always going to live up to commitments that you make to others, or whatever you promise you're gonna do. You're going to deliver, deliver on time or deliver early. I think that's really, really,
really important. And then if you can help your teammates succeeded something, help them appoint them, you know sometimes you know, you might have a friend that they need to meet you.
You might have a doctor they need to see it.
You might have a board you want them on, you know, just always looking for ways to help your teammates. Early on in Mellie's career, you know, I helped introduce her to her first board, and now she's the chairman of the board of Starbucks, you know, but she appreciates that early introduction that got her on going on her board journey. So looking out for your teammates, all those things come together, we think to make for a successful, firm and successful career.
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