David people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. All right. 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 of 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 what others have done to fulfill their ambitions. One of these is steve ross. He bought the miami dolphins. This year, he was the host for the super bowl. This incredible diversion from all of the successful things he has done. Most everything he touches works out well. Of thethe early signers giving pledge, he has given away hundreds of millions of dollars for education among other major purposes. Investor andas an also as an humanitarian. Of are going to be the host the super bowl this weekend. Is it hard to get to be the host . Did they just call you up or is it harder than that echo . Every city wants a super bowl. It is such a development tool. It is fantastic. I think the fans love coming to miami. It is the policy of the nfl to reward teams who build new stadiums to get at least one super bowl. This is the 11th time the super bowl which is the most of any city that the super bowl has been in miami. How come your team is not in the super bowl . That is a good question. It is not as easy as you think. When will the dolphins be in the super bowl . Anytime soon . Might be a tom brady free agent. I dont know if you are allowed to talk about that. I would say that we are not allowed to talk to him until sometime in march. Why he would want to come to the dolphins. Of the mostly one fiercest competitors there is. Trying to build the team for the future. When it was announced super bowl is coming here, did a lot of your friends say i would like some tickets . How you get tickets for this . Question i have been inundated with requests for tickets. The nfl takes over the whole stadium. They control the ticketing. I have to buy my own box. Do you get a discount echo do you get a discount . What are those meetings like with those owners . The nfl realizes we have 32 goes and that you divide and 32 egos and that you divide and conquer. When the team was owned by. Ayne, you bought it in 2008 you bought 49 with an obligation to buy another 51 or so. It the subsequent year and you paid roughly 1. 1 billion. Billion. Is it worth more today . A lot more. Would you ever sell . No. Did you play football when you were younger . I played high school football. Really . What position . I play tackle. Were there any jewish Football Players . We have a jewish quarterback. Josh rosen. So there are some jewish players. Maybe out would be playing today. Do everything you would be an nfl player . Not a quarterback. Lets talk about how you came to be an owner. It is not easy to buy 18. Lets talk about your background. Team. Is not easy to buy a inventor . Is that a real job . Tinkering andys always trying to do something. Is that a steady income backup . Not really. What did your mom do . She was a housewife. Your family moved to miami for high school. Why did they move . My grandfather bought a hotel and my fathers inventing days were over and he went to manage a hotel. What was the name of the hotel . The martinique. You did reasonably well in high school. Not really, but anyway. You were a football player. You went to the university of florida . I went there for the first year that i transferred to the university of michigan. Why did you do that . Was always a dream to go to university of michigan and i did not have the grades right out of high school so i was able to transfer from florida up to michigan. It had a real impact and i think that was one of the reasons why i was so active with the university of michigan. You have given them 400 million . Maybe a little more. More than 400 million. Has university of florida every said while you were here, why dont you give us something . I dont think they know who i am. Dont tell them, either. I think they know who you are. You go to the university of michigan and you try to be a lawyer. You go to wayne state law school. Did you want to be a lawyer . Not really. Why did you go . At that time, we had a draft. I stayed in the army. After wayne state law school, you went to nyu to get a masters in tax . Yeah. And then you went back to detroit . I was a tax lawyer. And then you went to new york question mark . I was thinking i will go back to detroit eventually. I came home to a place i had never been. Once you are in new york, it is an exciting place for people who want to succeed. You work at bear stearns and then you got fired. Did you get fired because you were smarter than everybody else and they is not like smart that soundsen good. Call up your mother and you tell her you have a law degree, a masters, i wanted to stay in new york. I did not think i would be able to get a job. I did not want to go through that process again. That point in time, what do i know and where are the opportunities and where do i have my interest and passion and i thought of the process and wrote out a business plan. I started my own company. Your mother lent you 10,000 . Did you ever pay it back . Yes, more or less. She did not want equity in your company . If she had equity, she would be doing pretty well. I had a good mother. So nobody negotiated for equity for her. Calledrted a company related. Where did you get that name . We had development, related management and it is a name that made sense from that standpoint. Name thatad enough nobody had ever used it for. Related andthe name you go to wealthy people and you say, would you like to invest in this project or Something Like that . In those days we had a lot more business. It was either boom or bust or real estate. You had to have a steady stream of income and then you could invest those profits into development because that is really where you can make large sums of money. It was like we had this Financial Service arm which was the syndication side. It was selling tax losses to wealthy investors. We had a different tax law at that point in time. Using those profits to plow it back into development. Since they did not know anything about development at all, i saw the opportunities in Affordable Housing, i did for the first six or seven years of my career, all i did was Affordable Housing. To people who are not real estate developers, what does a developer really do . Stephen it is the one who finds the land, hires the architect, works on the plans, make sure the building gets built on budget, on time. And then manages it when it is and assumes all of those possibilities. You became one of the larger developers of low Income Housing or subsidize housing in the United States. Stephen just before i started the company, Lyndon Johnson had this program that set up the government to provide the funds for formal housing. Affordable housing. They had the section eight programs that the government initiated after. It was a question of taking the government subsidies and applying them across the country and i saw, this is too good to be true. Company developing in 1972 and by 1980, we had built something close to 8000 units. Lets suppose i want to buy an apartment. What would it cost to buy an apartment there . Stephen now is a good time to buy because the Real Estate Market in new york is soft. 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 and ultimately you built a development that became the Biggest Development in new york at that time which was the timewarner Development Center along columbus circle. How did you get the right to do that and why was that such a big deal . Motivated. Was like most people, you want to do something impactful in life. You are not really working because of money. Everybody can make money. You want to do something impactful and meaningful and challenging. Timewarner became a big development. It had lots of office space. Timewarner had his office there and you lived there as well. Ultimately, you decided to build something bigger which became the biggest Real Estate Development in the history of our country. For people who dont live in new deal . What is the big over 60 of the buildings were over 60 years old in new york. They were obsolete and new york was growing and the hottest area of new york was a place called chelsea which was down there. I saw the idea when it came about through creating a liveworkplace environment. Adson yards, by building liveworkplay environment in the middle of new york. We were able to attract corporations because they were 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 in 2008 and that is around the time the recession was going on. Was it scary . Stephen we had just went under contract in 2008 before the crisis started. The letter ofed money,and put up some before we went hard, we negotiated some points of the deal that we would not have to start the project until a certain number of things happened. ,here would be an Office Market an availability of money, and that the condo market would be able to absorb. David the total Square Footage is 16 million square feet . Out, it wasstarted a request for proposals that was roughly four 13 million square feet 413 million square for 13 million square feet. David how much did the investors have to put into this to make it work . For 15 we were in it million to 18 million. To 30 25 billion billion. Are you going to make a profit . Stephen i would hope. David no project in the United States history commercial project has ever been that experience expensive. Even Rockefeller Center was modest compared to this. Stephen if you look at the Square Footage, it is the Largest Private Development in the United States. David why did you consider calling it the ross center . You did not want to put your name on it . Stephen no. David you have a sculpture that is very famous. Some people think it is great. Some people think it is not so great. Stephen who does not like it . David a couple of architects that i read. You pick an architect and you saw something that he designed. What is this sculpture . Stephen it is 150 foot high series of steps that you can walk around. I wanted to create the new heart of new york. It had to have some type of iconic structure. , youu look at new york take Rockefeller Center, which is the heart of the city. Duringourist, especially christmas, everybody goes to Rockefeller Center. I wanted some type of structure that would be a 365 Day Christmas tree. I look for it and i found this designer. I selected it. 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 and it cost 160 million. David you convinced a lot of companies to move their. Say, move from where you are to hudson yards . Stephen i was involved in selling all of that. Byporations today survive getting talent. This is where their talents wanted to live. Them, they could see what we were creating and we were very fortunate to get the Top Companies in each field in new york. It was not one industry. We did it across all industries. Without building it and opening it, i love saying it, you get the highest rents in new york. It is the area that is most in demand. Stephen you dont mean to say the highest rents. You mean the rents that are most appropriate. Lets suppose i want to buy an apartment in hudson yards. What would it cost to buy an apartment there . Stephen now is a good time to buy because 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 lets make a deal. David if somebodys watching is and says, i want to be like steve ross, what is the skill set . Stephen you can be successful in anything. You have to have a passion for what you are doing. David lets talk about your philanthropy. You have signed a giving pledge. Why did you do that . Why did you agree to give away half of your net worth . I given away most of my net worth, i have taken care of my children. I believe in giving back. It, ieople look at believe i was very fortunate and i believe in giving back and doing something that is significant. I think i grew up with that idea. It is not a feeling of feeling entitled. David what are your passionate causes and philanthropy . Stephen you just dont want to give it away. I have certain interests that im very involved in. You start with education and making the city and places where you live better. To me the biggest area of concern that i have is the environment, climate. Everybodyat in fact impacts everybody. When you talk about survival, there is nothing more impactful than that. David if somebody 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 . Is it smart, hardworking, look, money from your mother, what makes it possible . Stephen all of the above. To be successful in anything, you have to have a passion for what you are doing. If you have that passion, i looked at Affordable Housing from a standpoint, you are doing well and you are doing good at the same time and using that as a basis. Affordable housing is still probably the greatest need that we have in america. Successful, as you know building your company, you have an idea and you expand upon it and you connect the dots as you grow. You never stop working. Build your you company, like my company, at some point you say somebody else can run it day today. You might reach a certain age where somebody else can run it. I am not the coceo any longer, i am the coexecutive. Are you the ceo . Stephen i am the chairman. The only Grow Companies by surrounding yourself with great people with likeminded ideas and thoughts and doing things. I think i attribute most of my success, if not all of my success to the people that i am surrounding myself with my partners. In workinghem together and executing is probably the most exciting thing in life. David do your parents live to see your success . Stephen partially. David did they say, you should have worked harder . Stephen my mother could never describe what i did so i was always a lawyer. David you have this incredible career, you have become a very wealthy person, a happy family, any regrets about what you have done with your life . Tophen i regret not going the super bowl this weekend in miami. And ily love what i do still have great passion for it. Successful career. Thank you for taking the time. I know you are very busy this weekend because everybody wants her time and wants a ticket. If i need a ticket, how would i get one . Condo, i gotwant a a ticket. He has spent almost his entire career as a finance chief and working at ebay for nine years. After overseeing the ebaypaypal split, he joined intel as a cfo in 2016. Less than two years later, became interim ceo following the sudden resignation of his predecessor. He was chosen for the role permanently. Today, it is his job to protect and sell intel