David i dont consider myself a journalist. Nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Many people in the investment world have bought sports teams. Im not one of them. I do admire others who have to have fulfilled their ambitions to get involved in sports. One of them is steve ross. He bought the Miami Dolphins a number of years ago. We developed the stadium area and this year, he was the host for the super bowl. Its an incredible diversion from all the other successful things hes done. Almost everything he touches works out quite well. His business interests, his real estate interests, his sport interests. One of the early signers of the giving pledge, he has given away hundreds of millions of dollars for education and other purposes. I admire him as an investor and as a humanitarian. You will be hosting the super bowl. This weekend. Is it hard to get to be the host . Do they call you up and say, how about doing this . Is it harder than that . Stephen its very competitive. Every team and every city really wants the super bowl. It is such a Great Economic Development tool for the city and how it may impact it. Its fantastic. The fans love coming to miami. It is the best weather all the time. It is the policy of the nfl to reward teams who build new stadiums, to give them at least one super bowl. This is the 11th time the super bowl, the most of any city, that the super bowl has been in miami. David how come your team isnt in the super bowl . [laughter] stephen that is a good question. Its not as easy as you think. David when will the dolphins be in the super bowl . Anytime soon . I read that tom brady might be a free agent. I dont know if youre a lot to you are allowed to talk about that. Stephen i heard he will be a free agent. I would say, one, we are not allowed to talk to him until sometime in march. We are a team that is building. I dont know why he would want to come to the dolphins. He is probably one of the fiercest competitors there is. We are at the stage with the dolphins, trying to build the team for the future and doing it through the draft. David when it was announced that the super bowl was coming here, did a lot of friends say, by the way, i would like some tickets . How do you get tickets for this . Stephen yes, ive been inundated with requests for tickets. The nfl takes over the whole stadium. They control all the ticketing. I have to buy my own box. A stadium in the city that i own, i have to buy my own box. David do you get a discount . Stephen not really. I am one of 32. David do you get together very often with owners . And what are those meetings like . Are there small egos and nice people and no complaining . [laughter] stephen they are not what you would expect. The nfl realizes that we have 32 egos and that you divide and conquer. The nfl really controls the meetings. They are not what finding all these individuals standing up and stating all of these different reasonings. They are pretty calm, actually. David when the team was owned by wayne zynga, you bought it in 2008. You bought 49 with an obligation to buy another 51 . Stephen we had a buy sell on the other 51 . David you bought it the subsequent year and you paid roughly 1. 1 billion or whatever it was. Stephen 1. 1 billion. David is it worth 1. 1 billion today . Stephen no. A lot more. David would you ever sell . Stephen no. David were you a Football Player when you were younger . Stephen i played high school football. David what position . Stephen tackle. David there are a lot of people who own football teams who are jewish. Are there any jewish Football Players . More owners or players . [laughter] stephen actually, we have a jewish cornerback. Josh rosen. David there are some jewish players. Stephen i wish he was a better cornerback. [laughter] david did you think you would be an nfl player . Stephen no. David lets talk about how you actually came to be an owner. Its not that easy to buy a team. It costs a fair amount of money. You grew up in detroit . Stephen yes. David your father was an inventor. Stephen right. David is that a real job that you tinker with things . Stephen well, i mean, he was always tinkering. Always in the office trying to do something. David is that a steady income . Stephen not really. He did well. He married my mother. She had a wealthy father. David what did your mother to . What did your mother do . Stephen she was a housewife. David you grew up in the detroit area. You went to ninth grade there. Your family moved to miami for high school. Why . Stephen my grandfather bought a hotel. My father, his inventing days were over. He had to make a living. He went down to help manage the hotel. Stephen what was the name of the hotel . Stephen the martinique. David you are living in miami beach and you went to high school in miami . Stephen miami beach. David you did reasonably well in high school . Stephen not really. But anyway. David you were a Football Player. You didnt have time. You went to the university of florida. Stephen for the first year and then i transferred to the university of michigan. David did you like the cold weather . Why did you do that . Stephen it was always a dream to go to the university of michigan. I didnt have the grades right after high school so i was able to transfer from florida to michigan. It had a real impact on my life. I think thats one of the reasons why i have been so active with the university of michigan. David you have given the university of michigan about 400 million. Stephen maybe a little more. David has the university of florida ever said you were here dont you givehy us something . [laughter] stephen i dont think they know who i am. Dont tell them. David then you decided to go to law school. Wayne state law school. Did you want to be a lawyer . Stephen not really. David why did you go because why did you go . Because you were jewish . Stephen we had a draft. I decided i would stay in the army. Until i was 26. David then you went to nyu to get a masters in tax. Then you went back to detroit and worked in an Accounting Firm . Stephen i was a tax lawyer. David then you went to new york for Investment Banking . Stephen thats where i ended up working for an Investment Banking firm. Thinking i would go back to detroit eventually. It was like i came home to a place i have never been. Once you go to new york, its an exciting thing. David you work at bear stearns and you got fired. Stephen right. David did you get fired because youre smarter than everyone else and they didnt like smart people . Stephen that sounds good. [laughter] david how hard is it to call up your mother and say i have a law degree and a masters in tax and i have been fired. Is that hard . Stephen i needed money. I wanted to stay in new york. I did not know what i would do. I didnt think i would be able to get a job, and i did not want to go through that process again. I thought at that point in time, what do i know . Where are the great opportunities and where are my interest and passion . I wrote out, i thought out a process and wrote out a Business Plan and i started my own company. David your mother loaned you 10,000 . Stephen i had to live. David did you pay it back . Stephen yes. More or less. David she didnt want equity in your company . If she had equity, she would be pretty wealthy. Stephen she was a good mother. David nobody negotiated for equity for her. You started a Company Called related. Where did you get the name . Stephen you look at real estate and there are so many ways it is related. Related development, related management. Its a name that made sense. It was a bad enough name that nobody had ever used it before. David so you have the name related and you are syndicating real estate deals. You go to wealthy people and say, you want to invest in this real estate project . Stephen in those days, we had a lot more business cycles. It was boom or bust in real estate. I saw the idea that you had to have a steady stream of income and then you could invest those profits into development because thats where you can make large sums of money. It was like we had this Financial Service arm which is the syndication side. At that point it was selling tax losses to wealthy investors. We had a different tax law at that point in time. Using those profits to put it back into development. Since i didnt know anything about development at all, i saw the opportunities in Affordable Housing. I did strictly, i think for the first six or seven years of my career, all i did was Affordable Housing. David for people who are not Real Estate Developers, what does a developer really do . Stephen its the one who finds the land, has the concept, hires the architect, works through the plans and makes sure the building gets built on budget, on time. Then manages it when it is completed. And assumes all of those responsibilities. David you became one of the larger developers of low Income Housing or subsidized housing in the united states. Stephen just before i started the company, Lyndon Johnson had these Great Society programs that set up the government to provide the funds for Affordable Housing. Then they had the Section Eight Program the government initiated after, so it was a question of taking the government subsidies and applying them across the country. I saw when i read it, i said this is too good to be true. I started a company developing in 1972, and by 1980, we had built something close to 8000 units. David suppose i want to buy an apartment in hudson yards. What would it cost . Stephen now is a good time to buy. The Real Estate Market in new york is soft. David any deals i could get . Stephen i have a deal for you, trust me. Stop the interview right now and lets make a deal. David you were doing a lot in the area of Affordable Housing. Ultimately, you build a development that became the Biggest Development in new york at that time, which is a Time Warner Development on columbus circle. How did you get the right to do that and why was that such a big deal . Stephen i was motivated like most people. You want to do something impactful in life. Its not a question of money. Youre not working because of money. Everybody can make money. You want to do something impactful. Thats meaningful and challenging. David time warner became a big development. It had apartment buildings and office space. Time warner had its offices there and you lived there. Stephen correct. David ultimately you decided to build something bigger which became the biggest Real Estate Development in the history of our country, called hudson yards. For people who do not live or visit new york, what is the big deal about hudson yards . Stephen what was happening in new york, over 60 of the buildings were over 60 years old. They were obsolete. New york was growing. The hottest area of new york was called chelsea. Its down there. I saw the idea when hudson yards came about of creating a live, work, play environment. People are looking for sustainable developments. Hudson yards, by building a live, work, play environment in the middle of new york, there was a need for it. We were able to attract the corporations because they are looking for talent. Chelsea was the hottest part of the city where the young people are. David you got the right from new york city to build this around 2008. Stephen yes. David thats when the recession was going on. Was it scary . Stephen we had just went under contract in 2008 before the crisis really started. Before we signed the letter of intent and put up some money, before we went hard we negotiated points in the deal that we would not have to start the project until certain events happened. In other words, there would be an office market, availability of money, and the condo market would be able to absorb units. David for hudson yards, the total square footage, is it 16 million square feet . Stephen it started out, the request for proposals was roughly about 13 million square feet. We went out and acquired land around it so the Development Today will be over 20 million square feet. David how much of the total purchase price, how much have you and the lenders have to put into this to make it work . Stephen right now, we are in it for probably 15 billion to 18 billion. Then it will be to 25 to 30 billion. David are you going to make a profit on that . Stephen i would hope. [laughter] david no commercial project in u. S. History has ever been that expensive. Even Rockefeller Center was modest compared to this. Is that right . Stephen if you look in terms of square footage, which is how you would measure the size of something, it is the Largest Private Development ever in the united states. David why didnt you call it the ross yards or ross center . You didnt want to put your name on it . Stephen no. David you have a sculpture that is famous, some people think its great and some think its not so great. Stephen who doesnt like it . [laughter] david a couple architecture critics. Stephen the New York Times doesnt like anything we do. David explain what that is. What is so controversial . You picked the architect and he designed the sculpture. What is it . Stephen we call it the vessel. It is a 150 foot high series of steps that you can walk around, and we want to create the newer part of new york. I looked at it, you had to have some type of iconic structure. If you look at new york, and i would think, you take Rockefeller Center, which i look as being the heart of the city. Every tourist, especially during christmas, everybody goes to Rockefeller Center. I wanted a structure that would be a 365 Day Christmas tree. I looked for it and i found this designer who is fantastic. I did not know what the cost was. Everybody thought i was nuts. David what did it cost . Stephen i thought it would cost 75 million. It cost probably 160 million. [laughter] david you convinced a lot of famous companies, blackrock among others, to move there. Did you have to personally go to larry fink at blackrock and say you need to move . Stephen i was involved in selling all of that. The appeal was, corporations today survive by getting talent. They saw they were in obsolete space and this is where their talent wanted to live. When we sold them, they can see what we are creating. We were very fortunate to get the Top Companies in each field in new york. It wasnt any one industry, we hit across all industries. Without building and opening it, we get the highest rents in new york today and its probably the area most in demand. David you dont mean to seen to say the highest rents, you mean the rents most appropriate. Stephen for the thing that we built, yes. David suppose i want to buy an apartment in hudson yards. What would it cost . Stephen now is a good time to buy. The Real Estate Market is soft. David any deals i can get . Stephen i have a deal for you, trust me. Stop the interview and lets make a deal. [laughter] david if someone is watching this and says, i want to be like steve ross. I want to be a successful Real Estate Developer. What is the skill set . Stephen to be successful in anything you have to have a passion for what you are doing. David lets talk about your philanthropy. You have signed the giving pledge with no gates and Warren Buffett and so forth. Why did you do that . Why did you give away half your net worth . What did your children have to say about that . Stephen they dont have anything to complain about. Lets start there. [laughter] stephen yes i am giving away most of my net worth. I have taken care of my children. I believe in giving back. Some people look at their families like a dynasty and i believe i was fortunate and i want to give it back and do something significant. I think i grew up with that idea. I dont think, its a feeling of not feeling entitled. David what are your passionate causes in philanthropy . Stephen you want to do things that are impactful. You dont want to just give it away. I have certain interests that i am very involved in. You start with education and making the cities and places where you live better. To me, the biggest area of concern that i have is the environment, the climate. That impacts everybody. Any disease or anything you might give to when you talk about survival, there is nothing more impactful than that. David if somebody is in the audience and says i want to be a successful Real Estate Developer like steve ross, what is the skill set . Smart, hard working, luck, money from your mother . Stephen all of the above. I think to be successful in anything you have to have a passion for what you are doing. If you have that passion, its great. I looked at Affordable Housing from the standpoint, you are doing well and good at the same time. Using that as the basis. Today, Affordable Housing is the greatest need need that we have in america. To be successful, as you know, it was a question of having an idea and expanding upon it. You connect the dots as you grow. You never stop working. David when you built your company, like my company, at some you say, somebody else can run it daytoday. You might reach an age where somebody else can run it. I am not the coceo any longer. I am the executive chairman. Are you the ceo still . Stephen no. Im just the chairman. I think you will only Grow Companies by surrounding yourself with great people. Likeminded ideas and thought and doing things. I attribute most of my success to the people i surrou