Capital Instincts: Life as an Entrepreneur, Financier, and Athlete

353 Pages·2003·1.26 MB·English

by  Richard Brandt

CAPITAL INSTINCTS
Life As an Entrepreneur,
Financier, and Athlete
Richard L. Brandt
with contributions by Thomas Weisel
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Copyright © 2003 by Richard L. Brandt and Thomas W. Weisel. All rights
reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brandt, Richard.
Capital instincts : life as an entrepreneur, financier, and athlete / Richard Brandt
with contributions by Thomas Weisel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-21417-5 (cloth : perm. paper)
1. Weisel, Thomas. 2. Capitalists and financiers—United States—Biography.
I. Weisel, Thomas. II. Title.
HG172.W38 B73 2002
332.1'092—dc21 2002155479
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword v
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1
Never Underestimate Thom Weisel 1
2
Life on the Edge of a Precipice 11
3
Of Midget Boys and Men 25
4
Breaking Away 51
5
A Good Place to Be 71
6
Passion Is Good 103
7
Skiing, Cycling, Selling Stocks 135
8
Postal Services 163
9
The Buildup 183
iii
iv Contents
10
Politics and Art 199
11
The Big Sale 225
12
The Big Boom 251
13
Conflicted 271
14
The New Age and Old Age 295
Endnotes 311
Timeline 315
Index 325
Foreword
Thom Weisel has played a remarkable role in my life and in my
career. It’s not as though our relationship over the last 12 years
has always been easy. In fact, there have been peaks and valleys,
frank conversations, and tough times. But, in the end, it has
given our relationship tremendous depth and color, and we have
gained a strong appreciation for each other. In many ways, he’s
been something of a father figure to me.
Our relationship started when I spent 1990 and 1991 on the
cycling team Thom put together, the Subaru-Montgomery team.
At the end of 1991, I decided to leave the team. I was ambitious
and the Subaru-Montgomery team just wasn’t a great team. I was
offered a chance to ride with one of the top 5 or 10 teams in the
world. It was the old 7-Eleven team, although now it was spon-
sored by Motorola, and it was legendary. When I was growing up,
it was the Dallas Cowboys of American cycling. It’s where you
wanted to end up.
I will never forget when I decided to leave the Subaru-
Montgomery team. I had to call Thom and tell him. Let’s just say
he didn’t like the idea. Here I was, 20 years old, and I had Thom
Weisel on the phone telling me what a bad idea it was. For one of
the first times in my life, I had to defend a choice I had made to
a really serious and powerful person, someone I really respected.
It was a painful conversation.
v
vi Foreword
But I made my points, and Thom gave his moment of silence,
like he does as he thinks things over. And then he said to me,
“You know, Lance? I really respect your candor, and I support
that decision.” I just about dropped the phone. I didn’t think I
would get that kind of support. Because of that conversation,
because of the way we left it, we maintained a relationship for the
entire time that I was on another team. I would occasionally
come out to San Francisco specifically to ride with Thom.
There have also been some tough, straightforward conversa-
tions. In 1998, after my cancer, I wanted to start racing again, but
had trouble finding a team to take me. Thom had started the
U.S. Postal Service team by then, so I called him to see if I could
get a place on the team. But Thom not only turned me down at
first, he told me why, in no uncertain terms. He thought I hadn’t
been the leader I should have been, hadn’t lived up to my poten-
tial, and didn’t think I would fit on his team.
That was probably the most brutal conversation I have ever
had. He just put me in my place. But in the end, I think it was
healthy for someone to tell me that. Thom expects people who
work with him to be the best they can be. Thom was totally hon-
est and straight with me.
Not long after that, my agent, Bill Stapleton, talked to him
again, and walked through the reasons I could be good for the
team. They agreed to a base salary, way below what I had been
used to making, but just didn’t have the money in the budget for
the bonus Stapleton asked for: up to $1,000 for every ICU (Inter-
national Cycling Union) point I earned in races over the next
year. That’s when Thom decided that he would personally cover
my salary. It was an extraordinary gesture.
I have no clue as to why Thom changed his mind about having
me on his team, but once he did, he stuck to his word. I’m sure he
expected me to get maybe 40 or 50 ICU points. Ironically, I got
so many I ended up making more money that year than I ever
Foreword vii
had before! Over $1 million came out of Thom’s pocket to pay
my salary. These days we laugh about it, and he calls me an SOB
for costing him so much.
Thom is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met. In fact, he’s
probably the toughest. He’s also probably the most competitive
person I’ve ever seen. This is a guy who likes to win all the time,
at everything. Absolutely everything for him is a competition, in
every part of his life, whether it’s business, bikes, wine, art, or just
driving from his office to home. To Thom, everything’s a deal.
Everything’s a prizefight, a contest. He gets fired up about it.
He’s hard-charging, passionate, and extremely disciplined.
Thom is an emotional person. Anybody with the kind of drive
and spirit he has shows how deeply he feels about things. He can
be very lively, and he can be very heated and intense.
I remember one time Thom got really mad at me. I had let
another rider win an important stage of the Tour de France.
Sometimes in cycling you help somebody else out, and some-
times they’ll help you out. But this was a tough and legendary
stage of the race, over Mount Ventoux, 6,000 feet high. It’s too
important, too famous to just give away. Thom was furious. “Why
give away one of the most legendary stages of cycling to a guy
that’s not your teammate, not even your friend?” And again, he
was right.
But Thom doesn’t meddle with the team’s strategy or training.
He wants to show up at the race, see his team prepared, see us
execute our strategy properly, and be a spectator with the best
seat in the house, riding in the pace car. There are times when
he’s riding shotgun in the car, and I’ll gain two minutes on the
next rider climbing a mountain. He’ll pull up alongside me,
hanging out of the car, beating the side of the car, just screaming
at the top of his lungs. That’s his bliss. I love it when he’s there.
I wish he would throttle back a little on his insane pace. I’ve
argued with him about this plenty of times. His pace isn’t healthy,
viii Foreword
and he’s done so much with his life already, I wish he would just
slow down a little. But he can’t do it. It’s part of his flesh. But I
guess I’m like that, too. It’s one of the reasons we get along so
well.
Thom has probably invested more in American cycling than
everyone else combined. He has invested time, he has invested
money, he has invested relationships, and at the end of the day,
he has created the greatest professional cycling team ever. Amer-
ican cycling just wouldn’t be the same without him. I doubt if the
investing world would be, either.
I personally will never forget that it was Thom and the U.S.
Postal Service that stepped up and gave a cancer survivor a sec-
ond chance as a bike racer. If not for Thom’s generosity and
vision, there would be no Tour de France titles behind my name.
Lance Armstrong
Winner of the Tour de France, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
U.S. Postal Service cycling team
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following people for their
help and perspective:
Lance Armstrong, Dick Barker, Erik Borgen, Terra Brusseau,
Susie Dean, Amanda Duckworth, Paul “Red” Faye, Irwin Feder-
man, Chuck Ferries, Dick Fredericks, Brad Freeman, John Gruber,
Ed Glassmeyer, Mark Gorski, Kip Hagopian, Tim Heekin, Warren
Hellman, Mark Higgins, Ted Johann, Blake Jorgensen, Robert
Kahan, Jack Kemp, Tim Koogle, Dick Kramlich, Terry Lee, Derek
Lemke, Jack Levin, Glenn Lowry, Peter Lynch, Jerry Markowitz,
Karl Matthies, Jessica Miller, Dick Moley, Leonard Harvey Nitz,
Jim Ochowitz, Ken Oshman, Joe Parkinson, Diana Sangston, Ken
Siebel, Tom Siebel, Paul Slivon, Bill Stapleton, Allan Stone, Otto
Tschudi, Mel Tuckman, Jack Wadsworth, Will Weinstein, Byron
Wien, Dick Weisel, Bill Wilson, Ken Wilson, Governor Pete Wilson,
Steve Wynn, and a few others who prefer not to be mentioned.
Richard Brandt also offers special thanks to Kim and Leila
Brandt for their love and support.
Thom Weisel wishes to thank his wife, Emily Carroll, and all of
his children for their support over the years.
ix