The Most Woke Billionaire On Earth
Jul. 20, 2018
The story of Michael Rubin was interesting enough before last Nov half-dozen, a day he refers to as though it lives in infamy. "November 6, 2017, that was life-changing," Rubin says today, sitting in his Conshohocken function in shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops.
Before that day, hither'due south what you would have known near Rubin. He was, in his mid-forties, a difficult-charging billionaire, having grown upward as something of a business prodigy in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Born to a psychiatrist mother and a veterinarian father, Rubin was somehow blessed with an entrepreneurial cistron. He started his first businesses at 8 years sometime, selling vegetable seeds door to door, then overseeing neighborhood kids—his start employees—in a snowfall shoveling business organisation.
At 12, he opened a ski tune-upwardly shop in his parent's basement. At 14, using Bar Mitzvah money, he opened Mike's Ski Shop in Conshohocken. Before graduating high schoolhouse, he had 5 stores; to his parents' chagrin, he bought a Porsche before he could legally drive. He made his first meg earlier he could legally drink.
When eBay bought Rubin's e-commerce company, GSI Commerce, for $ii.4 billion in 2011, it catapulted Rubin into the elite of the American C-suite. Today, Rubin, a stocky ball of free energy with infamous attending deficit disorder, is known every bit a relentless boardroom competitor ("no ways yes") who, mostly through sheer force of will, is remaking the east-commerce space through his 3 companies: Fanatics, Inc., a licensed sports merchandiser; flash sellers Rue La La and, most recently, Aureate; and Shop Runner, a retail benefits program.
"Before that day, you had a trouble and you came to me? I'd write a check," Rubin says. "Now, no joke, lately I've been spending near a third of my time on Meek'due south situation and criminal justice reform."
On summit of it all, he'southward one of the owners of the Philadelphia 76ers, which is how he and rapper Meek Mill kickoff came to know one another. At an NBA All-Star game, Rubin and his now 12-twelvemonth-sometime daughter Kylie establish themselves courtside adjacent to Mill and his then-girlfriend Nicki Minaj—Kylie'due south favorite at the fourth dimension. A bail between Rubin and Manufactory formed, Rubin says, over their shared inquisitiveness. Rubin's attending may famously wax and wane, but he asks rapid-fire questions, the wheels always turning, processing answers before breathlessly jumping to the next new idea. Mill, Rubin found, has the same sense of curiosity, grilling the billionaire on the fine art of bargain-making.
So that's a pretty good life story right in that location, no? But then last November half dozen happened. On that morning time, Mill chosen his billionaire friend, a not uncommon occurrence. How close are the billionaire and North Philly born and bred rapper? For the final five years, they've spoken or Facetimed multiple times every 24-hour interval. Along with the 3rd fellow member of this most unlikely triumvirate, 77-year-quondam Robert Kraft, billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, they regularly holiday together. (Paging Marker Burnett: Is that a reality bear witness waiting to happen, or what?)
On that day terminal November, Mill called on the morning time of yet some other probation hearing—he was arrested in 2007 on gun and drug charges and still has six years left of probation. The rapper said, "I don't accept a good feeling near this." Rubin pooh-poohed his friend's worry. After all, the estimate was calling Mill back earlier her because authorities had seen him on social media popping a wheelie on a dirt bike, and for being in a small-scale atmospherics in the St. Louis airport; no charges were filed in either case. However, Rubin decided to show up for moral support, despite having to surrender his telephone before entering the courtroom, stirring panic.
"Before that day, you had a problem and you came to me? I'd write a check," Rubin says. "That was my mental attitude. I was focused on my businesses. Then, when I saw something similar this happen to ane of my really good friends, you have to take activeness. At present, no joke, lately I've been spending about a third of my time on Meek's state of affairs and criminal justice reform."
What he saw that day was a judge, Genece Brinkley, hellbent on sending his friend away for an astounding two to 4 years for violating probation—despite the fact that neither the prosecutor or probation officer were recommending any jail time for such minor infractions. Only Brinkley had long been oddly obsessed with Mill, in one case even showing up at Broad Street Ministries when Mill was supposed to be feeding the homeless and admonishing him for folding T-shirts instead.
"Heed, I manage almost 8,000 employees at our companies, and part of the job is to exist an evaluator of talent," Rubin says. "Same thing in sports. A core function of what y'all do is evaluate people. And when I sabbatum in the court that twenty-four hours and I watched how she conducted herself, how she treated the probation officer, the commune attorney, and Meek with such disrespect, it was an out-of-trunk feel. I spoke before she sentenced him, and she didn't even wait at me. This can't exist the justice arrangement, can information technology?"
When Brinkley dropped her sentencing bombshell, Rubin says, Manufactory and he looked at each other, both tearing up. And then his friend, his pockets hurriedly emptied, was cuffed and gone. Later, Kylie would say to him, "Dad, you've got to prepare this." He was ane stride alee of her. Turning to the adult female side by side to him, Rubin said through gritted teeth, "I am non fucking stopping until he'due south out of jail. Period. End of story."
"Look how much I've learned from Meek," Michael Rubin says. "Look how much he has opened my eyes to shit I didn't understand before. How lucky am I?"
She looked at him and said: " I'g not stopping until he's out of jail." Rubin didn't know that he was talking to Desiree Perez, the COO of Jay-Z's entertainment juggernaut Roc Nation. Perez has been called Jay-Z'southward "secret weapon ;" Billboard named her one of the most powerful women in music last twelvemonth. Together, they turned what they saw as the injustice of that twenty-four hour period into a crusade celebre.
Suddenly, Stand With Meek Manufactory buses flooded the streets and #FreeMeekMill became a thing. On Thanksgiving, there was activist Anton Moore of Unity in the Community—Moore addressed the 2022 Autonomous National Convention—solicited past Roc Nation to continue Factory's tradition of handing out costless turkeys on the streets in the rapper's absence.
The increased attention led to a spate of stories nearly Brinkley that raised questions virtually her demeanor and tactics, painting her, among other things, as disturbingly litigious. Other stories cast serious doubt on the initial arrest of Mill in 2007 on gun and drug charges, given that the arresting officer, Reggie Graham, has since been disgraced .
For Rubin, it'south all been part of a game-changing procedure of cocky-educational activity, one that began before Mill was sent away. He and Mill would argue about race late into the night. "He'd tell me there are ii Americas," Rubin recalls. "Like, nosotros used to fight about information technology. I'd say, 'Shut up, dude. Stop being such a cry baby. There's one America. Stop with the bullshit.'" A couple hours after being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, Mill called Rubin. "Now do you believe me?" Mill said. "I know you desire to get this gauge, just it'due south bigger than that."
"He was right," Rubin says. "At that place are two Americas. It sucks. Only, to me, that'due south an opportunity. Like, nosotros're not going to terminate racism in a day. But permit'south lessen it every year."
Maybe Manufacturing plant, a symbol at present of a organization in desperate need of repair, is, like his billionaire friend, in a stunning state of becoming. Maybe they're both waking upwardly.
The aperture of Rubin's lens has extended beyond the particulars of Mill'south story. Forth with Kraft, Jay-Z and other one percenters with a conscience, he'll be forming a high-profile bipartisan system to make change. Terminal week, he spent hours interviewing CEO candidates in search of a dynamic leader who tin can spark a move. The more he dives in, the more Rubin learns that Mill'southward story is not unique.
"You lot start hearing these crazy stories," he says. "You know, this guy had a small thing when he was a child, smoking weed, and he was however on probation, so he went to jail for x years. Or this woman who wrote a $75 bad check, she's seven months significant and considering she had a prior crime, they put her back in jail, where she delivered her kid. Now the kid has no parent. Information technology'southward stupidity. The criminal justice system could not exist more cleaved.
"Expect, I have no interest in politics considering I detest people fighting. I'm a uniter. But someone's gotta do something. The criminal justice system has 6.7 million people in information technology, 2.2 million in prison and jail and 4.five one thousand thousand people on parole or probation. I only want to become into the system and address it with some business organization sense. We're going to go one million people out of the criminal justice system in the next five years, and we're going to be unrelenting about it. Jail should be for murderers and rapists. Let's non put someone who smoked weed behind confined, okay?"
Rubin'due south soliloquy about the system'south shortcomings matters so much considering of who is maxim it. First, he's modeling for all of us who alive lives of condolement that it's never too belatedly to become empathetic. It wasn't a couple of months ago that he first heard himself described as "woke." "I didn't know what it meant," he says, grinning sheepishly. "I idea information technology was a misspelled discussion." He had to ask Kylie for the definition.
But there's potentially some bigger meaning to Rubin'due south eye-aged outburst of social consciousness. If Rubin and Kraft—who as well visited Mill in prison and who spoke to Manufactory by telephone about the rapper'southward plight while he and Rubin vacationed in the South of France—together can stimulate the business organization course, it could widen the constituency for reform beyond the already converted. After all, if Mill and Rubin are correct that at that place are ii nations when information technology comes to justice in America, that no incertitude is attributable to the voicelessness of those at its mercy. Simply, to further the strange bedfellows theme of this story, if the donor grade suddenly aligns with the underclass, perhaps that will attract the attending of policymakers.
Rubin's success owes mostly to indomitable volition, simply as well to seeing opportunity for improvement where others don't. Every business he's bought has been fueled past the thought that We can do it ameliorate. How many African American kids defenseless up in the arrangement who aren't famous rappers might do good from some exterior force agitating for just that kind of solutions-based emphasis applied to the wild west that is our criminal justice organization?
Of class, Rubin runs the risk of culturally deifying Mill, which could lead to backfire. To exist clear: As I've written before, not simply isn't Meek Manufactory Nelson Mandela —equally the writer of rhymes similar If y'all ain't near that murder game then pussy nigga shut up/if you diss me in yo' raps, I'll go your pussy ass stuck upwards— his art to appointment doesn't arroyo that of Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar in terms of either literary heft or social consciousness.
But here's hoping that's about to change, as well. Last month, at the BET Awards, Factory debuted his new song, Stay Woke, and it comments on, rather than glorifies, life on the street: It'south amazin', this environment we was raised in/ On them papers, one mistake and I'm gettin' caged in/ You go experience me, experience like the system tryna kill me…
Maybe Mill, a symbol now of a system in desperate need of repair, is, like his billionaire friend, in a stunning state of becoming. Possibly they're both waking up.
If Rubin and Kraft together can stimulate the business form, it could widen the constituency for reform beyond the already converted. If the donor class of a sudden aligns with the underclass, perhaps that will concenter the attending of policymakers.
Conspicuously, Rubin is evolving. Final week, the New York media had a field day reporting that he'd airtight on the most expensive penthouse always sold downtown in New York City—$43 million, consummate with a 5,000-foursquare foot roof terrace with a private puddle.
Merely, in person but days afterwards, it's not his newest plaything that brings him to life; it'south his newfound passion—for the first time in his life—for justice. He'south fixated on talking almost his relationship with a 31-yr-old rap star who, as Rubin points out, was arrested at 18 and has spent the last 13 years in the system. "People have said to me, man, Meek is so lucky to have you as his close friend," Rubin says. "I'yard like, human being, I'chiliad the one who's lucky to have him as a close friend."
He pauses, and fixes me with one of those powerful, determined stares that no uncertainty makes business concern opponents cower, but what comes out next is introspective—not bombastic. "Look how much I've learned from Meek," Michael Rubin says. "Look how much he has opened my eyes to shit I didn't understand before. How lucky am I?"
Photo Credits: Michael Rubin 
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-most-woke-billionaire-on-earth/
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