June 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Fawn Weaver is the Founder and CEO at Uncle Nearest, the fastest growing American whiskey brand of all time, and the most awarded American whiskey (which includes the category of bourbon) of 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Black Tech, Green Money, Will Luca's here with another one phone.
Weaver is the founder and CEO at Uncle Nears, the
fastest growing American whiskey brand of all time and the
most awarded American whiskey which includes the category of Bourbon
for twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So I'm gonna start here, Fu. I think you should
know this, like there are there's a five people who
have been on my list that since I've been doing
this podcast that I have dreamed about interviewing, and I'm
two down so far. You know, I had Omar from
who was the CMO of Apple a couple of weeks ago.
You know, a black man you and you are on
(00:39):
that list as well. So to be here talking to
you today is an honor. So I'm so glad to
be spending some time stream here. I appreciate you saying
that absolutely. So I want to get into this because
there when I do these interviews, I would I typically
like to take a mix of things I've heard that
person say before and a little bit questions I have.
(01:01):
But there's so much content out there. Yeah, we do
a lot of interviews and I'm like most of it,
Like every question I have is based on a quote
that I've heard you say previously. I like, and I'm like, yeah,
So I wanted to provide an opportunity to go like
a level deeper on these things. And so I've heard
you talk about the what the country was built on,
(01:24):
So I want to start here. You said before the
country was built on money and power. Yes, and we
keep trying to give it more.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yes we do.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
And so with that, how do you encourage black founders
and people who are black and trying to figure out
how to build wealth to maneuver based on all the
things that we can be upset and dismayed about today.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Think about capital when you're building. Here's here's the thing.
If we keep building and failing, our companies keep folding,
then we can't be helpful to the community anyway. People
because they see me going and visiting the troops a lot.
I spend a lot of time with our military, that
immediately jump to you got to run for office. Absolutely not.
(02:09):
I am more powerful if I stay out of office, because,
as we have seen firsthand, because our current president, this
is the first time that we're actually seeing a president
all this stuff usually goes on behind the scenes, right.
You usually have the Koch Brothers, some really major players,
writing huge checks and pushing their agendas forward unapologetically as
(02:32):
they should. It's their money and it's their beliefs. But
this is the first time we're actually seeing it play
out in real life, like in front of us, right.
But we have to understand this has been going on
behind the scenes forever. So the amount of money that
Elon put into that campaign is not new. It's just
we're seeing it out front, and he's been given unprecedented access.
(02:54):
That's the part that's new. But I say that all
to say that I understand that the larger I can
grow this company, the better it is for those who
I'm able to go back in and reach and touch.
And when I look at Nears's family, for instance, next
week and I think it is I'll go to one
of the universities where one of Mirs's descendants are graduating,
(03:17):
and you know, go cheer them on. And we've been
doing that since before we sold our first bottle. We've
been paying for them. But if the company isn't successful,
we can't do that. We're doing, you know, different things
with HBCUs and and helping, especially in this period of time,
and figuring out, Okay, how can we reach even and
even further than we have up until this point. Again,
(03:40):
I can't do that if it's not successful. And so
what I try to push our entrepreneurs of color, especially
African American, especially black entrepreneurs, is stop getting wrapped up
in the morality of other people and how they do business.
You you go your life in your business based on
(04:03):
the morals that you have, which is what I do. However,
if you spend time frustrated at someone else's lack of morals,
guess what, that's time you're not spending on your business.
That's time you're not spending on your marriage. That's time
you're not spending in the community. It is a big,
old giant waste of time.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So what happens for the people or what is your
response to to people who feel like what's going on
causes them to not have a road to success?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Why? What about what's going on causes anybody to not
have a road to success? And every single challenge I
think Winston Churchill said it, Warren Buffett's doubled down on it,
A few others have said, it has never waste a
good crisis. In every single crisis, what happens is there's
a group of people that become laser being focused. I'm
(04:53):
a part of that group. There's a group of people
that become laser being focused and say, we're not going
to focus on the problem. We're going to f because
on the solutions we can create. In this moment and
every single major challenge that this country has ever had,
there are some people that come out of it really wealthy.
That's just the nature of it. And so we do
(05:13):
a whole lot of talking, and I'm trying to help
us to do a lot less talking and a lot
more doing. I don't see a single thing happening in
this environment that prevents people from succeeding because you cannot.
And this is a quote you've heard me say a
million times, I'm sure, is that failure doesn't exist unless
(05:36):
you give up before you succeed. And so that is
in every that's in every season. When I saw the
interview that you did with Monique Rodriguez, she said something
that I actually haven't heard anyone say before, and I
loved it. She said, Listen, everyone going through life is
going to have some level of heart. That can be parenting,
(05:57):
that can be school, that can be work, that could
be a you know, you're on your feet twelve hours
a day as a nurse. It was the example she
used because that's what she was, was an rn And
she said, she tells her children, you have to choose
your level of heart, right, and so this this season
is you have to choose your level of heart. It's
(06:17):
going to be hard for everyone, but some people in
the middle of that hard is going to take advantage
of it. So why not it be you. It's the
same thing I'd sell people all the time with gentrification.
People be up in arms about gentrification. I'm like, gentrification
is not about race. Me as a black woman, can
go in and gentrify Kevin Johnson in Sacramento. When I
(06:39):
went to go see the area, I don't know what
the area is called. But his mother's got a bookstore,
they've got a theater, he's got fixing's the best soul
food on the planet. He's got you know, swimming huskies
across the street. I looked around and I looked at
the blocks heading into that area. I said, boy, you
don't gentrify this. And I am here for it, and
(07:00):
so we've got to stop looking at that stuff as
disadvantage to us. We should be the ones taking the
same opportunities.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So I want to hear, like, what is your mindset?
I mean, because I've heard you say, you know, when
you were going through it, when you were building, you
would look at your husband saying, you know, this is
just another chapter in the book.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I did that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
What do you mean when we were building? Are you
getting me? This is an everyday conversation too. I mean
literally last night. I am in four to five states
every single week and out there pounding the pavement sharing
the story. The spirits industry right now is in the
(07:42):
most turmoil it's been in at least three decades. In
at least no one in this current generation in business
has seen what we're dealing with right now in the
spirits industry. It is unprecedented. Where we're coming in, where
we're getting it from every side. Now you want to
add TIFF's on top of that of everything else going on,
and so every single day is a box of chocolates.
(08:06):
We have no idea what we're going to get, but
we look at every single challenge and we go, Okay,
how quickly can we get to the solution? And this
is going to make a great chapter. Like literally, this
is going to make a great chapter in the book.
It's going to encourage people, it's going to inspire people,
because what we won't do is die in this moment.
What we won't do is fail in this moment. We'll
get to the other side of this. And so we're
(08:27):
confident that, you know, all of these things will become
really great chapters in a book. That's how we look
at it, and it'll inspire and will encourage and it'll
challenge other people that would otherwise give up well before
it's time.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I love it. I love that. So I wonder, like,
because you are personal your persona at least on social media,
like he is he black for real?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Listen who I am on social media. You gotta understand
every social every every investor that I have follows me
on social media. Every bank that I do business with
follows me on social media. I am the same person
at all times. However, I love people of every background.
(09:14):
I love people of every race, and so I know
how to speak to them in a way that allows
me to remain authentically me. But then also allows them
to be able to create a natural connection with me.
That's the part that I think that many of us
miss is that we think, in all of our blackness,
(09:34):
that we're the only ones who can understand us. And
maybe that's true. We've got a different swagger, we've got
a different confidence, we've got a different way that we move,
different foods that we like. That may be true, but
everybody in this country is an immigrant. That means that
there is a tie that binds all of us, and
(09:56):
I choose to lean into that whenever I'm talking to
people of other races, of other background, of other socioeconomic status.
A lot of people don't understand this because of possibly
the circles they're in. But I've been in every circle,
from the hood, from Watts, from Jordan Down's. I've been
in homeless shelters, I've been in that circle. I've been
(10:18):
in exclusive, more exclusive, billionaire you know, retreats than I
can count. And the thing that is consistent in every
single one of those situations is every single person is
still longing for something. So I walk in without that longing,
(10:38):
and they want to know why they're drawn to Why
do you not have this longing I was in. I
was brought up to speak for a group in Big Sky,
Big Guy, Big Sky, Montana. I joke because all of
these these billionaire groups ISAI. I don't know what it is.
But white people when they get money, they want to
(11:00):
go where there's no air, where you need a can
and where you need motrid. Black people, we get money,
we want to be on a big sea level actect'.
That's the biggest difference. But what I have found in
every single one of those scenarios. In that particular group,
they had me come in to be a speaker. In
(11:21):
that room, there were about one hundred people. That one
hundred people represented one hundred and sixty billion dollars. You
want to know what their question was for me? How
do we find our purpose?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Wow? So what we don't understand is money doesn't. Money
doesn't give us purpose. Money doesn't give us purpose. Money doesn't.
There is a There have been so many reports that
show the point of diminishing returns. I think it's like,
after you reach seventy thousand dollars a year annually, I
have to go back up and look to see what
that number is. But the bottom line is is once
(11:58):
your needs are met. It's a point of diminishing returns
from there because no matter what you buy, no matter
how much more you have, everybody's at a level playing field.
Wants niter men.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I want to understand your mindset,
like your leadership minds. I've heard you. You know all
these gems for sure. I hear all that which I love,
And I wonder what is how does Fawn think about
leading her team? Like if we were to interview your team,
(12:32):
what would they say about how fun runs the.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Meeting way that she is That she literally stays out
of our way. She cares about one thing and one
thing only. You go after your goal and don't let
anything distract you from your goal. And I don't care
if they're doing it at two o'clock in the morning
from a pool at a biza, or if they're doing
it at two o'clock in the afternoon from our distillery.
(12:57):
It is of no consequence to me where the success happens.
And so my team will tell you they are given
a lot of freedom to do their jobs. So many
leaders are so focused on the process that they micro
manage it unintentionally and end up with a really high turnover.
Right for me, I am not micromanaging the process. I
(13:21):
am squarely focused on the end result. What is if
there's a problem, what is the solution. But one of
the things they will tell you I don't play with
is not owning mistakes. I'm not looking for an apology.
I'm not looking for you to tell me what happened.
All I need to know is a mistake was made.
(13:42):
You're owning it, you're fixing it. I don't even need
you to tell me who made the mistake. Let's just
it came out of nowhere. And what they'll tell you
is is the amount of grace that I give with
mistakes is as long as you own it and you
fix it, you'll never hear about it again from me.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I love that. What is in your E d C,
your everyday care? You know I asked this because you've seen.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I saw you, but I hadn't about it myself. Sunscreen.
I was like a black women because we just started
using sunscreen, had doctor all those years ago and had
us seek that our melanin keeps us from need to
have UH. So I so consistent with with with with
(14:32):
UH with Monique, I always have water you this like
this sucker. You gonna see this with me at all times,
and and there's you yeah exactly. There's usually ice in it.
So that's a newer thing for me over the last
few years. Premu apozzle on my body. It creates ice.
And so now I went from drinking water room temperature
(14:53):
all the time. But I always have water with me
at all times. You will always see it in my hands.
I always have snacks. Like if you are my bag,
you just find Tats, oatmeal, raisin cookies, You're going to
find Lily's chocolate cover omens, You're gonna find many peanut
butter kind bars. I always have snacks. And then the
(15:17):
other thing I always have with me, I literally have
this in every single thing. Are these because I don't
I don't use powder. They're are charcoal things to get
off the shine because I don't use powder with makeup,
so I have to like and I and my skin
can get wally. So I'd say that those are the
things that I always have with me, are those charcoal wipes,
(15:40):
my water and snacks.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It's ask. So there's again I told you I got
a bunch of qults from fall Weaver. So his is one.
It says I am not going to fail and I'm
not going to sell. Yes, say more on this please,
Well you know and this And here's why I ask
because when you go to we have investors, and investors
want to know where's the exit, where's the liquidity event? Yes,
(16:07):
and you say I'm not.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Selling secondary That's that's the piece of it that I
think a lot of people a lot of people miss.
And the only exit is not to sell or to
go public. There is a third exit that you're bringing
in new entrepreneurs that are want to be a part
of your journey from where you're beginning. Now. People always
(16:31):
assume that the investors who began with you that they're
the only investors that go throughout, But it's I mean,
right before I got on here, I've got a secondary
transaction in my emails to approve where one investor is
selling and a one investor is selling a portion of
their shares to another. Now, we've not had anybody sell
(16:53):
all their shares. I don't even think we've had anybody
sell twenty five percent of their shares. But when there
has needed to be a lidation, then I am always
out there. People ask me all the time, when are
you doing your next raise? And I tell them I'm
raising at old times. I'm not necessarily raising for the company.
I'm raising to make sure that I have investors always
interested so that when I have investors that want to
(17:16):
go out, they have the ability to do that. But
a lot of people don't understand what secondary what that
secondary market looks like. And so I would encourage our
entrepreneurs that are out there to really understand that. Is
it easier to sell to a big spirit conglomerate. Maybe
(17:40):
I'm not convinced of it. And I'll tell you why
I'm not convinced of it. I'm not convinced of it
because if you see every single entrepreneur that does these
deals with the conglomerates, and they say they have control,
and they're the ones that are out there, and they're
the ones that the faces all the rest of that stuff.
When stuff hits the fan, somehow, some way, those CEO
(18:03):
and founders somehow get replaced or pushed out. And what
do they do every single time they try to create
a new business that can recapture the passion they had
in building the first business. Even when I look at
Sarah Blakely, she didn't need to sell. Sarah took no money.
(18:25):
I mean she owned one hundred percent of the company.
She brought in strategics, all was well, all was great.
Now she's selling tennis shoes with heels. What the heck
does happen here? But do you see what I'm saying.
You see that time and time and time again, and
you can't convince me that's a coincidence. And so I
(18:49):
think that there is this thought process that if you
don't fail, then your goal is to sell. No. When
I look at one of our investors and she's an
incredible advisor to me, as a woman by the name
of Helen Johnson Leopold. You can find her on the
Forbes list, really high up. She is sc Johnson Air.
(19:10):
All of the sc Johnson Airs are good, Like whether
they work in the business or not, they are good.
Why because sc Johnson decided one goes out. You can
go through all of our greatest companies and in every
single instance, how beautiful is it when we set up
(19:32):
the next generation to not have to start from scratch.
And so many that sell a part of why they
go back into businesses. They blow through that money so fast.
So now they're trying to start again instead of just
keeping the original vision. I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with selling, Don't get me wrong. If you want to
(19:55):
build to be acquired, that's a beautiful thing and there's
nothing wrong with that. But if God has placed it
on your heart to hold for the next generation and
has told you you are the steward and this generation,
giving it up is not an option. So for me,
giving it up isn't an option. And so every week
(20:17):
I can tell you stock transfer agreements, I'm signing them,
I'm approving them. I have to approve every single share.
I've got first right of refusal on the shares in
my stock, on the shares of my company, and so
I either can match it or I can approve it.
But people bring investors in all the time that are
excited about the journey. The first seven and a half
(20:40):
years of this, the first eight years coming up on it,
we've been a single branded company, Uncle Niars, Premium Whiskey,
one brand. Moving into the future, we have a Cognac
house in France that is coming and is going to
revolutionize what we've seen in the cognac business in America.
And by the way, We're gonna do it during a
(21:01):
period of time where everybody is questioning my judgment on
this because they're looking at it and saying the category
is dead. The category is dropping faster than any other category.
African Americans, the culture has decided they no longer want cognac,
They want tequila. Only way to believe that is if
you're not a part of the culture. What the culture
(21:23):
wants is a better Kognak. And so I'm going into
a space where if you're looking at cognac as a
category in the ten k's and the ten qu's of
the big Sphere conglomerates, or if you're looking at it
on a graph, what I'm about to do is absolutely crazy.
But those who are investing at this current moment are like,
(21:46):
we saw her bet big on whiskey, on bourbon, going
into a space in which the only consumer that anyone
really knew or marketed to were all white men. And
she's coming in unapologetically as an African American woman and
telling a uniquely African American story. And yet she's marketing
(22:09):
to everyone, including the core consumer of bourbon, that had
never been done before. Whenever we had come out with
a spirit, we would market to us, and I said,
I'm going to market to everyone because I want to
pass this to the next generation. That means that I
can't be reliant on this small percentage of the thirteen
point nine percent of African Americans Black Americans in this
(22:32):
country that drink alcohol. There's a lot of us that
don't drink alcohol. There's a lot of us that are underage.
There's a lot of us that are over the age
that we would be drinking alcohol. So if I built
this whole entire company on just a fraction of the
percentage of people that drink, how do I get that
to build and scale large enough to pass to the
next generation. How do I turn that into a global brand?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, A couple things there, because I wonder what your
reaction is when you I'm sure you've seen online there
are people who, let's say, you got a company you
want to sell, and then people in the culture are like, oh,
you shouldn't sell. You sold out, and now look at
Fhon Weaver, she don't have to sell. And then there's
the entrepreneurs who are like, well, the only way to
get to that next place is to sell. Yeah, and
(23:16):
so like, how do you process that debate that we
have in our community.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Well, Number one, I don't believe that it's the only way,
and so a part of what I'm doing is showing
it's not the only way. That's the first thing. We
don't realize it's not the only way because we've not
tried it. But when you look at a company like Bakarty,
if you go and actually look through the lawsuit when
Jay sued Baccarty, what Jay was suing for was to
(23:43):
see their books. Why Because they're a public company. They've
been running it, family owned forever, and so they're able
to do things that publicly traded companies cannot do. They've
been doing this for generations. Sazarak Sasarak is one of
the biggest spirit companies in America. They own all of
(24:05):
Buffalo trees. They own almost the entire bottom shelf. It's
actually a brilliant model. What Sasara did is they decided,
if we buy all the shelf kickers, that's what we
call them, Like if you walk into a store and
you can accidentally kick the bottle shelf kickers, right, They
strategically began buying everything on that bottom tier. Fleischmann's Gin
(24:28):
like who even knew that Fleischman's was still being made.
They started Southern Comfort. They bought that from Brown Format.
They started buying all of the shelf kickers. Why because
if you own the entire space of the below ten
dollars bottles of liquor, right, you can look at that
and go, well, that's not worth as much as what
(24:49):
they're doing with their Blantons where they've got Pappy and
Blanton's and Eh Taylor and all the rest of these
high end bourbons that everybody wants to talk about. You
want to know where they make their money. Shelf kickers,
how because if you own the entire category, then you
can raise every bottle by four cents and nobody know it.
(25:10):
Oh wow, that was their model. They don't need to sell.
The gold Ring family out of out of New Orleans
has no need and no desire to sell to a
strategic Why because they built themselves into into a strategic
and so it is perfectly fine if you want to
sell to a strategic But I would challenge some of
(25:32):
us to build into a strategic to become the one
that is acquiring, to become the one that's buying. I'm
not saying one is better than the other. I'm not
saying that one is right and one is wrong. I'm
saying that we have options.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, back to your mindset, because I've seen you talk
about you know, there are entrepreneurs who say there's not
enough entrepreneurs showing the hard stuff, the difficult stuff. Everybody
wills to show the highlight reel. And what I've I
don't want to translate for you, but what I understood
was that you were, like, you know, you probably shouldn't
(26:08):
be focusing on the things that are not going well.
You should focus on the positive. Can you speak more
about why? I understand because I understand why people want
to see the hard part because people do show the
glamorous life, and it's not all glamorous. But can you
talk about your reasoning and your thought process behavior.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
First of all, who in their crazy mind would believe
that being an entrepreneur is not hard. The nature of
being an entrepreneur, the reason why so few do it
is the risk is so great. You give up so much,
You sacrifice so much, You sell your house, you sell
your cars, you sell you give up all the time
(26:46):
with your family. I show all of that, I talk
about all of that. What I don't do is focus
on it. What I don't do is dwell on it.
Because whatever you focus on grows. Whatever you give sunlight
to rose. And so when you're sitting there and all
you're talking about is how hard entrepreneurship is. I don't
(27:07):
know if you've noticed, but the people that sit around
and talk NonStop about how hard entrepreneurship is, and every
now and again they'll give you a glimmer of hope,
but the majority of their focus is on how hard
entrepreneurship is. Have you ever noticed that it gets harder
for them? And the one that focused on all that
(27:27):
is good, all that they can achieve. Instead of focusing
on the problem, they focus on how quickly can they
can I get to the solution? Instead of focusing on
the challenge, they look at how what is the lesson
from this? What is the gym from this? What can
I get from this? How quickly can I get it
and go to the next level? Those are the ones
(27:47):
that you see succeed. Those are the ones that you
see keep going even when you look at chat GPT.
Sam Altman, I've been around him a few times, right,
Sam Altman. What a lot of people don't know is
the reason why chat gbt has such a bad name
is that it was not ready to launch. Anybody like
me who used chatgbt out the gate knows the thing
(28:09):
couldn't calculate how to hell you AI and you can't calculate.
But they hadn't finished programming the math side of it.
They hadn't given it enough inputs. If you look at it,
you would think if you understood all the things that
didn't have, you would think it's crazy for it to
go to market. But the reason why it went to
(28:31):
market with so many flaws they didn't even have enough
time to bring in a branding company to come up
with a name. Chat gbt was the internal name. It's
because Sam Altman was traveling somewhere. He got a call
that there was an AI company, I want to say,
out of China that was about to debut within twenty
(28:54):
four hours. So he had a choice, perfect it there
a second or put it out with a bad name.
Kink's glore. It can add, he could add it just
had some problems with division and multiply cation, and so
(29:16):
you know, do you do that? So imagine he had
his company was valued so incredibly high. You had investors
putting in all of this money, and he was launching
it before it was ready, so it was NonStop. Kinks
that he's working at how many hours a night do
(29:36):
you think he got to sleep? But what we do
is we focus on how much money his company is worth.
That's not because all he's doing is showing you the
highlight reel. What he's not focusing on is the problems.
You solve the problems. You find solutions as quickly as
you can for the challenges, but you don't focus on
(29:59):
either one of them.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It was a quote. It wasn't joy, but there was
a quote I heard one time that said, you know,
a life worth living is worth recording. And I wonder,
how how do you if you do journal, how do
you record this life? Other than being an author? But
how do you just record this life and capture social.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Journal on social Like I don't even once I post
a video on social, I deleted off my phone, so
it doesn't I live in the moment. I don't really
capture it. I don't really journal it. But I already
know the next three books and am already simultaneously writing
that the next three books. Now my priority is building
(30:38):
Uncle nearest, and so for me, if something doesn't tie
directly to that, it's on hold. Because we are very
much so in build mode, we are very much so
in high risk mode. We're we're adding a vodka company,
or we already did acquired a vodka company. We're in
negotiations to acquire a cognac company, we had already acquire
(30:59):
the and so we're in a very high risk environment
and doing things that are enormously high risk. But every
single person that you have ever seen on the side
of the building, I don't care if it's Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon,
JP Morgan, Charles Swab, name them. If they're on the
(31:20):
side of a building, Tyler Perry, they enormous risk. And
the difference that you will notice about the mindset of
all of them, none of them focused on the problem.
None of them highlighted the problem. And I said this
to Brandy Harvey not long ago, is I think one
of the mistakes that I see us make as women
(31:42):
and as people of color is when we're dealing with
these challenges, we're talking about them in real time as
if God can't turn it around in an hour. So
it's a little bit this is the best way I
can say it. It's a little bit like if you
have a really good friend and every single time that
friend is talking to you, and whoever it is that
(32:03):
they're dating, is you know, kind of doing them and
speaking to them in a way that you don't like
because of the way it's been said to you or
something that they did, and all the rest of that.
So you're on your friend's side, but then your friend
decides to marry that person, you will never look at
that person in a favorable light because of every single
(32:25):
thing that person says. Now the two people dating, it's
no longer a big deal for them, but it stays
with you. That's what we're doing when we talk about
our problems and our challenges publicly while we're still working
through them and investors are listening. They don't have any
(32:46):
ability to solve the problem. But what it does do
is make them nervous because they don't have an ability
to solve the problem. So I stand by solve the problem,
then talk about it. I stand by it.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, I was watching this YouTube vide I was trying
to find it again. I couldn't find it, but this
was months ago. I saw it, and you were talking
about like you gotta have some you to have some swag.
But what you doing and you were talking about the bar,
and you were saying that one of the reasons you
built the largest bar in America is because you had
in the world in the world. Yeah, and you said
(33:22):
one of the reasons why is because you needed people
to know when they google where is the largest bar,
they saw a black woman had this bar, the largest
bar in the world.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So I don't know whether that someone someone else probably
said that with regard to me, because I've never positioned
in that way. The reason why, the reason why I
built the world's longest bar is because we're an hour
south of Nashville, and people don't have any reason to
leave Nashville. You walk down Broadway and every two steps
(33:54):
there's a new bar owned by a celebrity with live
music every single one. You never know when Gard's going
to be in his, Dirk's, Bentley is going to be
in his, kid Rock's going to be in his. And
so to compete with that, I had to do something
they couldn't do. Their real estate up there is way
too expensive to build out a space as large as
(34:15):
what was required for Humble bear. So the reason I
did that had nothing to do with race or color.
The reason I did that is to make money.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, I dig it, I like it. I got two
more and I'm gonna let you go. You were a
board member at Endeavor, one of the largest, if not
the largest global entertainment sports countsing company in the world,
representing all the stars and stars.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I was a board member. We just took au we
just took a private So there the board was dissolved
about a month ago because we took the company private.
Silver Lake bought.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, got it? Okay, fair enough? So what was your interest?
The question is there relevant? So what was your interest
in joining a board? Like, what is a good reason
to join a board?
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
In your perspective, So.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
There's a lot of different reasons. Most really great boards
pay you a lot of money. So when you're talking
about Endeavor, it was a great board to sit on.
But I don't go to celebrity events, celebrity driven events.
I don't go to the Oscars, I don't go to
the Emmys. I don't go to you know, I could
have had courts, I seats at games, I like don't.
(35:31):
I don't. Let's put it this way, if there is
a red carpet, there is a really good chance I
went to avoided at all costs. Like it's just not
my thing. I'm here to work, I'm here to build,
and if it is helpful to the building of the company,
I'll show up. But if you can't show me how
it's tangibly helpful to the building of my company, You're
not going to see me there. So sitting on an
(35:53):
entertainment board really isn't beneficial for me from that standpoint,
because I'm not going to the concerts, So having the
great seats doesn't matter. I'm not going to the big
sporting matches and all the rest of that stuff. And
so it really was about experience, and publicly traded boards
pay you a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, the last one you talk. You've been asked several
times about you know, stewardship of your brand, and I've
heard you call yourself a steward of this brand, not
just the founder and owner of this company, but the
steward of the brand, and that you don't think about
yourself in the process at all. It's not about you know,
farm's legacy. And so can you leave the audience with
(36:35):
something about how if this, you know, speaks to them,
how should they be thinking about building and how they
fit into that narrative.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Well, first of all, just do what God told you
to do. There there are I am very clear in
what He told me to do. I am a steward
in this generation to build this so large the next
generation can't mess it up, and to make sure that
the succession planning is in place so that it transitions. Well. Now,
(37:09):
hopefully God willing, I'm leading this thing for the next
twenty five years, and I'm going at the same breakneck
pace the entire time, because that will let me take
that back. I do want to have two days off
at some point in life, right, But my point is
is to continue to build, to continue to enjoy the
building with all of the challenges, with all of the
(37:32):
difficulties that come in doing what I'm doing. And I
mean it doesn't take a rocket science to understand there's
a reason why what I'm doing has never been done before,
is hard, and so I want to be able to
continue to do it, to continue enjoying what I am doing.
But I'm very clear in what God told me to do,
(37:54):
and it's to build it for the next generation. Now,
if God didn't tell you to build it for the
next generation, then don't do it. But here's the thing.
I don't recall a time in the Bible where God
wasn't having a person do something for the next generation.
I don't recall a time. I'm not saying that it's
not there. I can go back and study it. I've
(38:15):
never studied it, but I know the Bible pretty well,
and God spoke generationally. He spoke in everything that we
are doing in this season is for the next, and
everything that we're doing in this generation is for the
next that we hear over and over again, and his
(38:37):
word doesn't come back void. So the question becomes, if
you're building something just for you in this moment, can
you do that and it be biblical? I don't know.
Tossing it out was a question because I haven't looked
at it myself. I'm just thinking in this moment about
everything that I know about scripture, and I don't know
(38:57):
if there is a scenario in which you could have
the heart of God, in the mind of God and
only be focused on their current moment, on your own legacy.
And I've seen a lot of people work themselves into
the ground because they care about how people remember them.
And so I'm really clear in saying I don't care
(39:20):
about my obituary. That's not what I'm living for. Give
me a blank sheet of paper and sprinkle my ashes
somewhere over the water, so I don't care. I want
to enjoy what God has given me to build today
heart Side.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast network in night Hire Media.
It's produced by Morgan, Debaonne and me Well Lucas, with
the digital production support by Kate McDonald, Saarah Ergan and
Jaden McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis and Lovebeach.
Learn more about my guess other technishof as an Innovator's
at afrotech dot com video version.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
This episode will
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap
it in enjoy your black tactream money shot us to somebody,
go get your money, Peace and love,
Black Tech, Green Money, Will Luca's here with another one phone.
Weaver is the founder and CEO at Uncle Nears, the
fastest growing American whiskey brand of all time and the
most awarded American whiskey which includes the category of Bourbon
for twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So I'm gonna start here, Fu. I think you should
know this, like there are there's a five people who
have been on my list that since I've been doing
this podcast that I have dreamed about interviewing, and I'm
two down so far. You know, I had Omar from
who was the CMO of Apple a couple of weeks ago.
You know, a black man you and you are on
(00:39):
that list as well. So to be here talking to
you today is an honor. So I'm so glad to
be spending some time stream here. I appreciate you saying
that absolutely. So I want to get into this because
there when I do these interviews, I would I typically
like to take a mix of things I've heard that
person say before and a little bit questions I have.
(01:01):
But there's so much content out there. Yeah, we do
a lot of interviews and I'm like most of it,
Like every question I have is based on a quote
that I've heard you say previously. I like, and I'm like, yeah,
So I wanted to provide an opportunity to go like
a level deeper on these things. And so I've heard
you talk about the what the country was built on,
(01:24):
So I want to start here. You said before the
country was built on money and power. Yes, and we
keep trying to give it more.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yes we do.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
And so with that, how do you encourage black founders
and people who are black and trying to figure out
how to build wealth to maneuver based on all the
things that we can be upset and dismayed about today.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Think about capital when you're building. Here's here's the thing.
If we keep building and failing, our companies keep folding,
then we can't be helpful to the community anyway. People
because they see me going and visiting the troops a lot.
I spend a lot of time with our military, that
immediately jump to you got to run for office. Absolutely not.
(02:09):
I am more powerful if I stay out of office, because,
as we have seen firsthand, because our current president, this
is the first time that we're actually seeing a president
all this stuff usually goes on behind the scenes, right.
You usually have the Koch Brothers, some really major players,
writing huge checks and pushing their agendas forward unapologetically as
(02:32):
they should. It's their money and it's their beliefs. But
this is the first time we're actually seeing it play
out in real life, like in front of us, right.
But we have to understand this has been going on
behind the scenes forever. So the amount of money that
Elon put into that campaign is not new. It's just
we're seeing it out front, and he's been given unprecedented access.
(02:54):
That's the part that's new. But I say that all
to say that I understand that the larger I can
grow this company, the better it is for those who
I'm able to go back in and reach and touch.
And when I look at Nears's family, for instance, next
week and I think it is I'll go to one
of the universities where one of Mirs's descendants are graduating,
(03:17):
and you know, go cheer them on. And we've been
doing that since before we sold our first bottle. We've
been paying for them. But if the company isn't successful,
we can't do that. We're doing, you know, different things
with HBCUs and and helping, especially in this period of time,
and figuring out, Okay, how can we reach even and
even further than we have up until this point. Again,
(03:40):
I can't do that if it's not successful. And so
what I try to push our entrepreneurs of color, especially
African American, especially black entrepreneurs, is stop getting wrapped up
in the morality of other people and how they do business.
You you go your life in your business based on
(04:03):
the morals that you have, which is what I do. However,
if you spend time frustrated at someone else's lack of morals,
guess what, that's time you're not spending on your business.
That's time you're not spending on your marriage. That's time
you're not spending in the community. It is a big,
old giant waste of time.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So what happens for the people or what is your
response to to people who feel like what's going on
causes them to not have a road to success?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Why? What about what's going on causes anybody to not
have a road to success? And every single challenge I
think Winston Churchill said it, Warren Buffett's doubled down on it,
A few others have said, it has never waste a
good crisis. In every single crisis, what happens is there's
a group of people that become laser being focused. I'm
(04:53):
a part of that group. There's a group of people
that become laser being focused and say, we're not going
to focus on the problem. We're going to f because
on the solutions we can create. In this moment and
every single major challenge that this country has ever had,
there are some people that come out of it really wealthy.
That's just the nature of it. And so we do
(05:13):
a whole lot of talking, and I'm trying to help
us to do a lot less talking and a lot
more doing. I don't see a single thing happening in
this environment that prevents people from succeeding because you cannot.
And this is a quote you've heard me say a
million times, I'm sure, is that failure doesn't exist unless
(05:36):
you give up before you succeed. And so that is
in every that's in every season. When I saw the
interview that you did with Monique Rodriguez, she said something
that I actually haven't heard anyone say before, and I
loved it. She said, Listen, everyone going through life is
going to have some level of heart. That can be parenting,
(05:57):
that can be school, that can be work, that could
be a you know, you're on your feet twelve hours
a day as a nurse. It was the example she
used because that's what she was, was an rn And
she said, she tells her children, you have to choose
your level of heart, right, and so this this season
is you have to choose your level of heart. It's
(06:17):
going to be hard for everyone, but some people in
the middle of that hard is going to take advantage
of it. So why not it be you. It's the
same thing I'd sell people all the time with gentrification.
People be up in arms about gentrification. I'm like, gentrification
is not about race. Me as a black woman, can
go in and gentrify Kevin Johnson in Sacramento. When I
(06:39):
went to go see the area, I don't know what
the area is called. But his mother's got a bookstore,
they've got a theater, he's got fixing's the best soul
food on the planet. He's got you know, swimming huskies
across the street. I looked around and I looked at
the blocks heading into that area. I said, boy, you
don't gentrify this. And I am here for it, and
(07:00):
so we've got to stop looking at that stuff as
disadvantage to us. We should be the ones taking the
same opportunities.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So I want to hear, like, what is your mindset?
I mean, because I've heard you say, you know, when
you were going through it, when you were building, you
would look at your husband saying, you know, this is
just another chapter in the book.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I did that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
What do you mean when we were building? Are you
getting me? This is an everyday conversation too. I mean
literally last night. I am in four to five states
every single week and out there pounding the pavement sharing
the story. The spirits industry right now is in the
(07:42):
most turmoil it's been in at least three decades. In
at least no one in this current generation in business
has seen what we're dealing with right now in the
spirits industry. It is unprecedented. Where we're coming in, where
we're getting it from every side. Now you want to
add TIFF's on top of that of everything else going on,
and so every single day is a box of chocolates.
(08:06):
We have no idea what we're going to get, but
we look at every single challenge and we go, Okay,
how quickly can we get to the solution? And this
is going to make a great chapter. Like literally, this
is going to make a great chapter in the book.
It's going to encourage people, it's going to inspire people,
because what we won't do is die in this moment.
What we won't do is fail in this moment. We'll
get to the other side of this. And so we're
(08:27):
confident that, you know, all of these things will become
really great chapters in a book. That's how we look
at it, and it'll inspire and will encourage and it'll
challenge other people that would otherwise give up well before
it's time.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I love it. I love that. So I wonder, like,
because you are personal your persona at least on social media,
like he is he black for real?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Listen who I am on social media. You gotta understand
every social every every investor that I have follows me
on social media. Every bank that I do business with
follows me on social media. I am the same person
at all times. However, I love people of every background.
(09:14):
I love people of every race, and so I know
how to speak to them in a way that allows
me to remain authentically me. But then also allows them
to be able to create a natural connection with me.
That's the part that I think that many of us
miss is that we think, in all of our blackness,
(09:34):
that we're the only ones who can understand us. And
maybe that's true. We've got a different swagger, we've got
a different confidence, we've got a different way that we move,
different foods that we like. That may be true, but
everybody in this country is an immigrant. That means that
there is a tie that binds all of us, and
(09:56):
I choose to lean into that whenever I'm talking to
people of other races, of other background, of other socioeconomic status.
A lot of people don't understand this because of possibly
the circles they're in. But I've been in every circle,
from the hood, from Watts, from Jordan Down's. I've been
in homeless shelters, I've been in that circle. I've been
(10:18):
in exclusive, more exclusive, billionaire you know, retreats than I
can count. And the thing that is consistent in every
single one of those situations is every single person is
still longing for something. So I walk in without that longing,
(10:38):
and they want to know why they're drawn to Why
do you not have this longing I was in. I
was brought up to speak for a group in Big Sky,
Big Guy, Big Sky, Montana. I joke because all of
these these billionaire groups ISAI. I don't know what it is.
But white people when they get money, they want to
(11:00):
go where there's no air, where you need a can
and where you need motrid. Black people, we get money,
we want to be on a big sea level actect'.
That's the biggest difference. But what I have found in
every single one of those scenarios. In that particular group,
they had me come in to be a speaker. In
(11:21):
that room, there were about one hundred people. That one
hundred people represented one hundred and sixty billion dollars. You
want to know what their question was for me? How
do we find our purpose?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Wow? So what we don't understand is money doesn't. Money
doesn't give us purpose. Money doesn't give us purpose. Money doesn't.
There is a There have been so many reports that
show the point of diminishing returns. I think it's like,
after you reach seventy thousand dollars a year annually, I
have to go back up and look to see what
that number is. But the bottom line is is once
(11:58):
your needs are met. It's a point of diminishing returns
from there because no matter what you buy, no matter
how much more you have, everybody's at a level playing field.
Wants niter men.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I want to understand your mindset,
like your leadership minds. I've heard you. You know all
these gems for sure. I hear all that which I love,
And I wonder what is how does Fawn think about
leading her team? Like if we were to interview your team,
(12:32):
what would they say about how fun runs the.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Meeting way that she is That she literally stays out
of our way. She cares about one thing and one
thing only. You go after your goal and don't let
anything distract you from your goal. And I don't care
if they're doing it at two o'clock in the morning
from a pool at a biza, or if they're doing
it at two o'clock in the afternoon from our distillery.
(12:57):
It is of no consequence to me where the success happens.
And so my team will tell you they are given
a lot of freedom to do their jobs. So many
leaders are so focused on the process that they micro
manage it unintentionally and end up with a really high turnover.
Right for me, I am not micromanaging the process. I
(13:21):
am squarely focused on the end result. What is if
there's a problem, what is the solution. But one of
the things they will tell you I don't play with
is not owning mistakes. I'm not looking for an apology.
I'm not looking for you to tell me what happened.
All I need to know is a mistake was made.
(13:42):
You're owning it, you're fixing it. I don't even need
you to tell me who made the mistake. Let's just
it came out of nowhere. And what they'll tell you
is is the amount of grace that I give with
mistakes is as long as you own it and you
fix it, you'll never hear about it again from me.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I love that. What is in your E d C,
your everyday care? You know I asked this because you've seen.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I saw you, but I hadn't about it myself. Sunscreen.
I was like a black women because we just started
using sunscreen, had doctor all those years ago and had
us seek that our melanin keeps us from need to
have UH. So I so consistent with with with with
(14:32):
UH with Monique, I always have water you this like
this sucker. You gonna see this with me at all times,
and and there's you yeah exactly. There's usually ice in it.
So that's a newer thing for me over the last
few years. Premu apozzle on my body. It creates ice.
And so now I went from drinking water room temperature
(14:53):
all the time. But I always have water with me
at all times. You will always see it in my hands.
I always have snacks. Like if you are my bag,
you just find Tats, oatmeal, raisin cookies, You're going to
find Lily's chocolate cover omens, You're gonna find many peanut
butter kind bars. I always have snacks. And then the
(15:17):
other thing I always have with me, I literally have
this in every single thing. Are these because I don't
I don't use powder. They're are charcoal things to get
off the shine because I don't use powder with makeup,
so I have to like and I and my skin
can get wally. So I'd say that those are the
things that I always have with me, are those charcoal wipes,
(15:40):
my water and snacks.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It's ask. So there's again I told you I got
a bunch of qults from fall Weaver. So his is one.
It says I am not going to fail and I'm
not going to sell. Yes, say more on this please,
Well you know and this And here's why I ask
because when you go to we have investors, and investors
want to know where's the exit, where's the liquidity event? Yes,
(16:07):
and you say I'm not.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Selling secondary That's that's the piece of it that I
think a lot of people a lot of people miss.
And the only exit is not to sell or to
go public. There is a third exit that you're bringing
in new entrepreneurs that are want to be a part
of your journey from where you're beginning. Now. People always
(16:31):
assume that the investors who began with you that they're
the only investors that go throughout, But it's I mean,
right before I got on here, I've got a secondary
transaction in my emails to approve where one investor is
selling and a one investor is selling a portion of
their shares to another. Now, we've not had anybody sell
(16:53):
all their shares. I don't even think we've had anybody
sell twenty five percent of their shares. But when there
has needed to be a lidation, then I am always
out there. People ask me all the time, when are
you doing your next raise? And I tell them I'm
raising at old times. I'm not necessarily raising for the company.
I'm raising to make sure that I have investors always
interested so that when I have investors that want to
(17:16):
go out, they have the ability to do that. But
a lot of people don't understand what secondary what that
secondary market looks like. And so I would encourage our
entrepreneurs that are out there to really understand that. Is
it easier to sell to a big spirit conglomerate. Maybe
(17:40):
I'm not convinced of it. And I'll tell you why
I'm not convinced of it. I'm not convinced of it
because if you see every single entrepreneur that does these
deals with the conglomerates, and they say they have control,
and they're the ones that are out there, and they're
the ones that the faces all the rest of that stuff.
When stuff hits the fan, somehow, some way, those CEO
(18:03):
and founders somehow get replaced or pushed out. And what
do they do every single time they try to create
a new business that can recapture the passion they had
in building the first business. Even when I look at
Sarah Blakely, she didn't need to sell. Sarah took no money.
(18:25):
I mean she owned one hundred percent of the company.
She brought in strategics, all was well, all was great.
Now she's selling tennis shoes with heels. What the heck
does happen here? But do you see what I'm saying.
You see that time and time and time again, and
you can't convince me that's a coincidence. And so I
(18:49):
think that there is this thought process that if you
don't fail, then your goal is to sell. No. When
I look at one of our investors and she's an
incredible advisor to me, as a woman by the name
of Helen Johnson Leopold. You can find her on the
Forbes list, really high up. She is sc Johnson Air.
(19:10):
All of the sc Johnson Airs are good, Like whether
they work in the business or not, they are good.
Why because sc Johnson decided one goes out. You can
go through all of our greatest companies and in every
single instance, how beautiful is it when we set up
(19:32):
the next generation to not have to start from scratch.
And so many that sell a part of why they
go back into businesses. They blow through that money so fast.
So now they're trying to start again instead of just
keeping the original vision. I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with selling, Don't get me wrong. If you want to
(19:55):
build to be acquired, that's a beautiful thing and there's
nothing wrong with that. But if God has placed it
on your heart to hold for the next generation and
has told you you are the steward and this generation,
giving it up is not an option. So for me,
giving it up isn't an option. And so every week
(20:17):
I can tell you stock transfer agreements, I'm signing them,
I'm approving them. I have to approve every single share.
I've got first right of refusal on the shares in
my stock, on the shares of my company, and so
I either can match it or I can approve it.
But people bring investors in all the time that are
excited about the journey. The first seven and a half
(20:40):
years of this, the first eight years coming up on it,
we've been a single branded company, Uncle Niars, Premium Whiskey,
one brand. Moving into the future, we have a Cognac
house in France that is coming and is going to
revolutionize what we've seen in the cognac business in America.
And by the way, We're gonna do it during a
(21:01):
period of time where everybody is questioning my judgment on
this because they're looking at it and saying the category
is dead. The category is dropping faster than any other category.
African Americans, the culture has decided they no longer want cognac,
They want tequila. Only way to believe that is if
you're not a part of the culture. What the culture
(21:23):
wants is a better Kognak. And so I'm going into
a space where if you're looking at cognac as a
category in the ten k's and the ten qu's of
the big Sphere conglomerates, or if you're looking at it
on a graph, what I'm about to do is absolutely crazy.
But those who are investing at this current moment are like,
(21:46):
we saw her bet big on whiskey, on bourbon, going
into a space in which the only consumer that anyone
really knew or marketed to were all white men. And
she's coming in unapologetically as an African American woman and
telling a uniquely African American story. And yet she's marketing
(22:09):
to everyone, including the core consumer of bourbon, that had
never been done before. Whenever we had come out with
a spirit, we would market to us, and I said,
I'm going to market to everyone because I want to
pass this to the next generation. That means that I
can't be reliant on this small percentage of the thirteen
point nine percent of African Americans Black Americans in this
(22:32):
country that drink alcohol. There's a lot of us that
don't drink alcohol. There's a lot of us that are underage.
There's a lot of us that are over the age
that we would be drinking alcohol. So if I built
this whole entire company on just a fraction of the
percentage of people that drink, how do I get that
to build and scale large enough to pass to the
next generation. How do I turn that into a global brand?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, A couple things there, because I wonder what your
reaction is when you I'm sure you've seen online there
are people who, let's say, you got a company you
want to sell, and then people in the culture are like, oh,
you shouldn't sell. You sold out, and now look at
Fhon Weaver, she don't have to sell. And then there's
the entrepreneurs who are like, well, the only way to
get to that next place is to sell. Yeah, and
(23:16):
so like, how do you process that debate that we
have in our community.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Well, Number one, I don't believe that it's the only way,
and so a part of what I'm doing is showing
it's not the only way. That's the first thing. We
don't realize it's not the only way because we've not
tried it. But when you look at a company like Bakarty,
if you go and actually look through the lawsuit when
Jay sued Baccarty, what Jay was suing for was to
(23:43):
see their books. Why Because they're a public company. They've
been running it, family owned forever, and so they're able
to do things that publicly traded companies cannot do. They've
been doing this for generations. Sazarak Sasarak is one of
the biggest spirit companies in America. They own all of
(24:05):
Buffalo trees. They own almost the entire bottom shelf. It's
actually a brilliant model. What Sasara did is they decided,
if we buy all the shelf kickers, that's what we
call them, Like if you walk into a store and
you can accidentally kick the bottle shelf kickers, right, They
strategically began buying everything on that bottom tier. Fleischmann's Gin
(24:28):
like who even knew that Fleischman's was still being made.
They started Southern Comfort. They bought that from Brown Format.
They started buying all of the shelf kickers. Why because
if you own the entire space of the below ten
dollars bottles of liquor, right, you can look at that
and go, well, that's not worth as much as what
(24:49):
they're doing with their Blantons where they've got Pappy and
Blanton's and Eh Taylor and all the rest of these
high end bourbons that everybody wants to talk about. You
want to know where they make their money. Shelf kickers,
how because if you own the entire category, then you
can raise every bottle by four cents and nobody know it.
(25:10):
Oh wow, that was their model. They don't need to sell.
The gold Ring family out of out of New Orleans
has no need and no desire to sell to a
strategic Why because they built themselves into into a strategic
and so it is perfectly fine if you want to
sell to a strategic But I would challenge some of
(25:32):
us to build into a strategic to become the one
that is acquiring, to become the one that's buying. I'm
not saying one is better than the other. I'm not
saying that one is right and one is wrong. I'm
saying that we have options.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, back to your mindset, because I've seen you talk
about you know, there are entrepreneurs who say there's not
enough entrepreneurs showing the hard stuff, the difficult stuff. Everybody
wills to show the highlight reel. And what I've I
don't want to translate for you, but what I understood
was that you were, like, you know, you probably shouldn't
(26:08):
be focusing on the things that are not going well.
You should focus on the positive. Can you speak more
about why? I understand because I understand why people want
to see the hard part because people do show the
glamorous life, and it's not all glamorous. But can you
talk about your reasoning and your thought process behavior.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
First of all, who in their crazy mind would believe
that being an entrepreneur is not hard. The nature of
being an entrepreneur, the reason why so few do it
is the risk is so great. You give up so much,
You sacrifice so much, You sell your house, you sell
your cars, you sell you give up all the time
(26:46):
with your family. I show all of that, I talk
about all of that. What I don't do is focus
on it. What I don't do is dwell on it.
Because whatever you focus on grows. Whatever you give sunlight
to rose. And so when you're sitting there and all
you're talking about is how hard entrepreneurship is. I don't
(27:07):
know if you've noticed, but the people that sit around
and talk NonStop about how hard entrepreneurship is, and every
now and again they'll give you a glimmer of hope,
but the majority of their focus is on how hard
entrepreneurship is. Have you ever noticed that it gets harder
for them? And the one that focused on all that
(27:27):
is good, all that they can achieve. Instead of focusing
on the problem, they focus on how quickly can they
can I get to the solution? Instead of focusing on
the challenge, they look at how what is the lesson
from this? What is the gym from this? What can
I get from this? How quickly can I get it
and go to the next level? Those are the ones
(27:47):
that you see succeed. Those are the ones that you
see keep going even when you look at chat GPT.
Sam Altman, I've been around him a few times, right,
Sam Altman. What a lot of people don't know is
the reason why chat gbt has such a bad name
is that it was not ready to launch. Anybody like
me who used chatgbt out the gate knows the thing
(28:09):
couldn't calculate how to hell you AI and you can't calculate.
But they hadn't finished programming the math side of it.
They hadn't given it enough inputs. If you look at it,
you would think if you understood all the things that
didn't have, you would think it's crazy for it to
go to market. But the reason why it went to
(28:31):
market with so many flaws they didn't even have enough
time to bring in a branding company to come up
with a name. Chat gbt was the internal name. It's
because Sam Altman was traveling somewhere. He got a call
that there was an AI company, I want to say,
out of China that was about to debut within twenty
(28:54):
four hours. So he had a choice, perfect it there
a second or put it out with a bad name.
Kink's glore. It can add, he could add it just
had some problems with division and multiply cation, and so
(29:16):
you know, do you do that? So imagine he had
his company was valued so incredibly high. You had investors
putting in all of this money, and he was launching
it before it was ready, so it was NonStop. Kinks
that he's working at how many hours a night do
(29:36):
you think he got to sleep? But what we do
is we focus on how much money his company is worth.
That's not because all he's doing is showing you the
highlight reel. What he's not focusing on is the problems.
You solve the problems. You find solutions as quickly as
you can for the challenges, but you don't focus on
(29:59):
either one of them.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It was a quote. It wasn't joy, but there was
a quote I heard one time that said, you know,
a life worth living is worth recording. And I wonder,
how how do you if you do journal, how do
you record this life? Other than being an author? But
how do you just record this life and capture social.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Journal on social Like I don't even once I post
a video on social, I deleted off my phone, so
it doesn't I live in the moment. I don't really
capture it. I don't really journal it. But I already
know the next three books and am already simultaneously writing
that the next three books. Now my priority is building
(30:38):
Uncle nearest, and so for me, if something doesn't tie
directly to that, it's on hold. Because we are very
much so in build mode, we are very much so
in high risk mode. We're we're adding a vodka company,
or we already did acquired a vodka company. We're in
negotiations to acquire a cognac company, we had already acquire
(30:59):
the and so we're in a very high risk environment
and doing things that are enormously high risk. But every
single person that you have ever seen on the side
of the building, I don't care if it's Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon,
JP Morgan, Charles Swab, name them. If they're on the
(31:20):
side of a building, Tyler Perry, they enormous risk. And
the difference that you will notice about the mindset of
all of them, none of them focused on the problem.
None of them highlighted the problem. And I said this
to Brandy Harvey not long ago, is I think one
of the mistakes that I see us make as women
(31:42):
and as people of color is when we're dealing with
these challenges, we're talking about them in real time as
if God can't turn it around in an hour. So
it's a little bit this is the best way I
can say it. It's a little bit like if you
have a really good friend and every single time that
friend is talking to you, and whoever it is that
(32:03):
they're dating, is you know, kind of doing them and
speaking to them in a way that you don't like
because of the way it's been said to you or
something that they did, and all the rest of that.
So you're on your friend's side, but then your friend
decides to marry that person, you will never look at
that person in a favorable light because of every single
(32:25):
thing that person says. Now the two people dating, it's
no longer a big deal for them, but it stays
with you. That's what we're doing when we talk about
our problems and our challenges publicly while we're still working
through them and investors are listening. They don't have any
(32:46):
ability to solve the problem. But what it does do
is make them nervous because they don't have an ability
to solve the problem. So I stand by solve the problem,
then talk about it. I stand by it.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, I was watching this YouTube vide I was trying
to find it again. I couldn't find it, but this
was months ago. I saw it, and you were talking
about like you gotta have some you to have some swag.
But what you doing and you were talking about the bar,
and you were saying that one of the reasons you
built the largest bar in America is because you had
in the world in the world. Yeah, and you said
(33:22):
one of the reasons why is because you needed people
to know when they google where is the largest bar,
they saw a black woman had this bar, the largest
bar in the world.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So I don't know whether that someone someone else probably
said that with regard to me, because I've never positioned
in that way. The reason why, the reason why I
built the world's longest bar is because we're an hour
south of Nashville, and people don't have any reason to
leave Nashville. You walk down Broadway and every two steps
(33:54):
there's a new bar owned by a celebrity with live
music every single one. You never know when Gard's going
to be in his, Dirk's, Bentley is going to be
in his, kid Rock's going to be in his. And
so to compete with that, I had to do something
they couldn't do. Their real estate up there is way
too expensive to build out a space as large as
(34:15):
what was required for Humble bear. So the reason I
did that had nothing to do with race or color.
The reason I did that is to make money.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, I dig it, I like it. I got two
more and I'm gonna let you go. You were a
board member at Endeavor, one of the largest, if not
the largest global entertainment sports countsing company in the world,
representing all the stars and stars.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I was a board member. We just took au we
just took a private So there the board was dissolved
about a month ago because we took the company private.
Silver Lake bought.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, got it? Okay, fair enough? So what was your interest?
The question is there relevant? So what was your interest
in joining a board? Like, what is a good reason
to join a board?
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
In your perspective, So.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
There's a lot of different reasons. Most really great boards
pay you a lot of money. So when you're talking
about Endeavor, it was a great board to sit on.
But I don't go to celebrity events, celebrity driven events.
I don't go to the Oscars, I don't go to
the Emmys. I don't go to you know, I could
have had courts, I seats at games, I like don't.
(35:31):
I don't. Let's put it this way, if there is
a red carpet, there is a really good chance I
went to avoided at all costs. Like it's just not
my thing. I'm here to work, I'm here to build,
and if it is helpful to the building of the company,
I'll show up. But if you can't show me how
it's tangibly helpful to the building of my company, You're
not going to see me there. So sitting on an
(35:53):
entertainment board really isn't beneficial for me from that standpoint,
because I'm not going to the concerts, So having the
great seats doesn't matter. I'm not going to the big
sporting matches and all the rest of that stuff. And
so it really was about experience, and publicly traded boards
pay you a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, the last one you talk. You've been asked several
times about you know, stewardship of your brand, and I've
heard you call yourself a steward of this brand, not
just the founder and owner of this company, but the
steward of the brand, and that you don't think about
yourself in the process at all. It's not about you know,
farm's legacy. And so can you leave the audience with
(36:35):
something about how if this, you know, speaks to them,
how should they be thinking about building and how they
fit into that narrative.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Well, first of all, just do what God told you
to do. There there are I am very clear in
what He told me to do. I am a steward
in this generation to build this so large the next
generation can't mess it up, and to make sure that
the succession planning is in place so that it transitions. Well. Now,
(37:09):
hopefully God willing, I'm leading this thing for the next
twenty five years, and I'm going at the same breakneck
pace the entire time, because that will let me take
that back. I do want to have two days off
at some point in life, right, But my point is
is to continue to build, to continue to enjoy the
building with all of the challenges, with all of the
(37:32):
difficulties that come in doing what I'm doing. And I
mean it doesn't take a rocket science to understand there's
a reason why what I'm doing has never been done before,
is hard, and so I want to be able to
continue to do it, to continue enjoying what I am doing.
But I'm very clear in what God told me to do,
(37:54):
and it's to build it for the next generation. Now,
if God didn't tell you to build it for the
next generation, then don't do it. But here's the thing.
I don't recall a time in the Bible where God
wasn't having a person do something for the next generation.
I don't recall a time. I'm not saying that it's
not there. I can go back and study it. I've
(38:15):
never studied it, but I know the Bible pretty well,
and God spoke generationally. He spoke in everything that we
are doing in this season is for the next, and
everything that we're doing in this generation is for the
next that we hear over and over again, and his
(38:37):
word doesn't come back void. So the question becomes, if
you're building something just for you in this moment, can
you do that and it be biblical? I don't know.
Tossing it out was a question because I haven't looked
at it myself. I'm just thinking in this moment about
everything that I know about scripture, and I don't know
(38:57):
if there is a scenario in which you could have
the heart of God, in the mind of God and
only be focused on their current moment, on your own legacy.
And I've seen a lot of people work themselves into
the ground because they care about how people remember them.
And so I'm really clear in saying I don't care
(39:20):
about my obituary. That's not what I'm living for. Give
me a blank sheet of paper and sprinkle my ashes
somewhere over the water, so I don't care. I want
to enjoy what God has given me to build today
heart Side.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast network in night Hire Media.
It's produced by Morgan, Debaonne and me Well Lucas, with
the digital production support by Kate McDonald, Saarah Ergan and
Jaden McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis and Lovebeach.
Learn more about my guess other technishof as an Innovator's
at afrotech dot com video version.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
This episode will
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap
it in enjoy your black tactream money shot us to somebody,
go get your money, Peace and love,
Host
Will Lucas
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