Ravi

Love hanging with great people who share ambitious goals for changing the world.

[George Jarjour @GeorgeOnTap]

The Los Angeles Lakers just sold for $12.5 billion, the most expensive sale in American sports history. And there’s some for a lack of better words, interesting connections. The seller is Mark Walter, who is under active federal investigation.

The buyer is Josh Kushner who’s brother is Donald Trump’s son in law and the man whose firm tried to buy the FIFA World Cup. The most famous franchise in sports just passed straight from a man being probed by the feds to a man who tried to privatize the world's biggest tournament. Let’s take a look at the full picture, because the full picture is ugly.

Let’s start off with some of the facts because this story is LOADED.

Mark Walter bought the Lakers 14 months ago at a $10 billion valuation. He didn't buy them to just flip them. He tore up the front office, rebuilt the scouting department, overhauled the business side, all the moves of a man planning to own this team for a decade. Then, 14 months in, he sold the Lakers?! Nobody does that. You don't buy your dream asset and unload it before you've finished redecorating, unless something changed and changed drastically.

Here's what happened. Walter is under federal investigation, a probe into the insurance companies he controls, the same case where the FBI reportedly seized his phone and laptop off a private jet at a Chicago airport. Separate investigations by U.S. prosecutors and the SEC are underway.

Now there is no proof of guilt yet. No one has pointed out for sure that the investigation forced this sale. Walter hasn't been charged with anything. The teams themselves are not named in the probe. Every serious outlet says the connection is unproven, and it is.

But you're allowed to look at the picture, and the picture is ugly. A man under federal investigation does not sell his trophy asset 14 months after buying it, at $2.5 billion above what he paid, in a matter of days, for no reason. That's not a normal exit. That's a fast, wildly profitable, remarkably clean getaway from the spotlight, executed at the precise moment the spotlight turned into a liability. You don't liquidate the Los Angeles Lakers this quickly unless you have a reason to want out. What that reason is, only the investigation knows. But the timing is not small.

But then who is buying it is a whole new story.

The buyer is Josh Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital. Weeks ago, that same firm was the lead investor in Gianni Infantino's $20 billion plan to sell off the commercial rights to the FIFA World Cup, the scheme that collapsed under a global revolt and nearly cost the FIFA president his job. Same man. Same firm. Different sport, different continent, weeks apart.

And there's a layer under the Kushner name that makes this bigger than sports. Josh Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump. Which means the most famous franchise in American sports is now owned, in part, by the sitting President's son-in-law's brother. Not the President himself, to be clear. He has no stake in this and no role in it. But the Lakers just became connected by marriage to the First Family, at the same time the seller is under a federal investigation run by that same administration's Justice Department. You don't have to allege anything to notice that's a crazy plot twist.

Two of the biggest money scandals in sports right now, a federally investigated owner on one side and the private equity operator who tried to buy the World Cup on the other, just resolved into a single transaction. The investigated man sold America's most famous team to the FIFA guy, in days, at a record price, and most people are reading it as a fun headline about the Lakers getting a new owner.

Here's the thing about the money at the very top of sports. Fans watch 30 teams, 30 owners, 30 separate franchises with their own colors and cities and rivalries. But the capital behind all of it is a small room. It's the same few dozen people, and they keep turning up in each other's deals. The Lakers, the Dodgers, the Giants, the Heat, Liverpool, the World Cup itself, pull the thread on almost any of them right now and you find the same handful of names, buying from and selling to one another.

That's the lesson that runs underneath all of this. At the level fans watch, sports is a game. At the level that actually owns it, sports is an asset class, and it is a far smaller and more connected world than anyone lets on. The Lakers didn't just get a new owner. They moved one square on a board most people don't know they're looking at, from a man under federal investigation to a man connected by marriage to the President.

The Buss family owned the Lakers for 46 years. Mark Walter owned them for 14 months. The next chapter belongs to the man whose firm tried to privatize the World Cup, and whose brother is married into the White House. That tells you everything about how fast the money moves at the top now, and how very few hands it moves between.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

Can’t spell IAM without Ai. CSO of F50’s talking about how they use Ai to solve privileged risk security and compliance.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

Opinion | Time for Accountability on the Covid Lab-Leak Coverup - The Wall Street Journal https://t.co/6zHvb0mDjK

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley Wonder what the 6 month EV will be and if above Adobe deal.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley Monster throw down!

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley Draft kings VIP program.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley Yet we were all told to “follow the science” and outcast if you even dared to ask a simple question or suggest thoughtful consideration of all possible explanations of the origin….same thing a year later with vaccines.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@elonmusk Wow!

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@markets Not “lost” revenue but money citizens get to keep and invest or spend vs government wasting it.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@jkbjournalist @MalcolmNance Awesome!

[Ravi @rkhatod]

An Unfond Farewell to Lina Khan - Only corporate defense lawyers will miss her. Sayonara! https://t.co/770hds5O6h

[Lex Fridman @lexfridman]

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley @satyanadella Wow. That’s quite a guest! Talk about real value creation for customers, employees, investors, and overall tech future! Bravo!!!

[Ravi @rkhatod]

Amazing.

[Chess.com @chesscom]

The emotional moment that 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju became the 18th world chess champion 🥲🏆

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@rabois Hahahaha. Great response.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley Excellent break down. Thanks @skydayton for publishing. Everyone should read including my own comp committees from prior companies.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@altcap @bgurley Unbelievable open display of everything wrong with lawfare by the left. I’m getting tired and ready to become a libertarian.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

We need to put these statistics on billboards in SF with the upcoming rent control ballot initiative.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Milei repeals rent controls in Argentina.

The results in Buenos Aires since last October:

- housing rental supply up 170%

- rents down 40%

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley We need to put these statistics on billboards in SF with the upcoming rent control ballot initiative.

[Ravi @rkhatod]

@bgurley Very cool. On location. Look forward to the episode.