April 18, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross tells the stories about the lessons in ethics that changed his life.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories and with the
story of an American classic. Stephen Ross is the largest
real estate developer in America, the owner of the Miami Dolphins,
and he shared his life story with our own Alex Cortez.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Stephen Ross is a Detroiter born and bred until his
parents dragged him against his will midway through his freshman
year of high school to Miami Beach, Florida.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I hated it down there, actually, and I kind of
rebelled against my parents and I got into little trouble.
I mean, I mean, I suppose to studying. I'd, you know,
go out playing the game like a little bit, and
you know, I mean I had a you know, everything
but study, even though my parents really try to be strict.
(01:05):
You know, my father lectured all the time, as opposed
because he was working, and then he lectured me. I
guess it didn't do any good, you know, but it
ultimately I guess it's some good. I mean, I don't know.
I wanted to get out of there. I went to
my parents, said, well, if you're going to leave, you
don't want to go to school here. You have to
(01:25):
go to military school. So it spent about four days
of military school and said, I'll go back to school,
you know, and I mean I'll talk to most of
my friends. I mean probably my background was probably different
than most because I'd never excelled early in life, and
I was you know, I got into college because they
(01:46):
had to accept me because I had a standardized test
that I scored well enough that the school had to
take you. And they flugged out two thirds of the
freshman class. They tell you look on your left and
look on your right. The person saying next you won't
be here year, and so you know, kind of it's
a wake up call. But I also knew if I
(02:07):
wanted something we didn't, I wasn't going to get anything
for my parents. I mean I wasn't left anything, and
they had nothing to give me, you know, So I
knew what it was, you know, it was either sink
or swim. And then when I got to college, that's
when I really kind of started to being able to
do well at University of Florida and then so I
could transfer to Michigan and then law school, and then
(02:29):
I got my master's in tax law, which I excelled
in and was probably the best year of school I
ever had that I really found something enjoyed. I'd always
get good marks if I liked it, you know, if
I didn't like the subject, I didn't do very well.
The confidence I mean, you know, you have to first
find your confidence that you can succeed and do something
(02:50):
well and excel to continue on me. As they say,
success breeds success. I mean, my teachers told my parents
they were wasting the time sending me a which is
really kind of funny, right when I look back at
it now. So I mean, I look at myself. I
was a late starter in life because I probably I
was probably the least likely to succeed in my high
(03:11):
school class. You know. So you tell me how much
teachers know and so the environment in which are brought up.
I mean, even with your parents, as much as my
parents emphasized that and I could see things, it was
really later that I really saw things a lot more clearly.
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
After getting his master's degree at NYU, Stephen went back
to his hometown to work at an accounting firm as
a tax attorney.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I was doing very well practicing law, and you know,
a certain life is really kind of funny. It's kind
of impulsive. I'm in my office one day. It was
in fact, I remembered I could still picture it. It
was June's I think it was June seventh or June ninth,
in nineteen sixty eight, the night before Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
(04:02):
And I'd watch it that night and that next day.
You're wondering in life, hey, you never know when it's over,
and thinking about that, you know. And he was a
multiply young guy. And the partner walks in my office
and asks me if I want to go to a
seminar in New York. I said, you know what, And
I didn't even ever thought about it. I said, I
(04:23):
want to go. I think I want to go to
New York for good. As a matter of fact, I'm quitting.
I'm moving to New York. Never entered my mind. It
never went from my mind to you know, I'm going
to think about leaving. And I hadn't even thought about leaving,
and it just came up. I mean, life is so impulsive.
Sometimes we don't even know ourselves, you know, what's really
what's going on. So he then brought in the senior
(04:46):
partner and Steve's quit, He's leaving. He was going to
New York, you know, and the guy said, what I mean, Steve,
You're doing great here. You're going to be a partner here,
and blah blah blah. But I got bored and I
could see how I was tailing off my mind, and
I was just ready for something. And that sparked it
without me even thinking about it. You know, so a
(05:06):
lot of things, you know, in life we think we're
in control of We're not necessarily in control of it.
We really don't know. It takes something, It takes a
spark for something to happen. I've told my mothers, you
don't know anybody in New York. I said, hey, you know,
I went there. I loved it and in you know
the stories. If you can make it there, you can
make it anywhere. Blah blah blah, And off I went,
(05:30):
you know. And when I went to New York, then
the firm called and made several appointments for me to
help me, you know, Bizard, Freyer, Goldman, Sachs and what
have you. And I went and I interviewed, and then
I saw a paper, this little article about Laired, which
was a new firm, startup young guys. It was backed
(05:52):
by the DuPonts. It was very waspy. There was no
Jews in the whole firm. They were doing a lot
of really creative things, and you know, the head of
the firm was like thirty seven and thirty four and
thirty one, and everybody said, you know, how can you
consider you got a job at Lazard. That's the best
deal house there is. And I took the job at Laird.
(06:15):
You know, I'm sitting around the table when I went there,
and they said to me, why do you come here?
I said, well, I really narrowed it down between Wizard
and Laird, and everybody told me to go to Lazard.
So I figured I had to come to Laird. You know,
you got it. And I was there for about a
year and a half. They didn't have any money, and
(06:35):
there was I was doing things a little different, and
they didn't quite understand what I was doing, and they
suggested maybe I wouldn't be good there. And then two
weeks after I left, nothing to do with my having left,
they had a coup and the firm kind of fell apart,
and my friend of mine got me a job at
(06:56):
who was working at bear Stearns, got me an interview
and I was working on some creative deals, but I
had the guy. I was the wrong guy I was
working for, and so I had put together this deal
when I was a laired putting together a company that
they were taking public. It was my idea to put
several things that he was doing into one company and
(07:16):
take a public I'd been at bear Stearns about two
or three weeks and that's when they had the coup
and the guy called me and said, hey, I'd love
to have bear Stearns do this deal. I have other
firms there are smaller firms and bear Stearns, but would
bear Stearns be interested. Met with this partner, guy said's great.
(07:37):
They were located in California. The partner said, I'll be
in California next week. You know, I'll meet you and
go through the stuff. Main appoyment doesn't show up. The
guy calls me. I go and to I got caught
up in this other deal. I was out there. I'll
be either there. Main an appointment doesn't show up, call
me again. I told the guy. He said, you know
(07:58):
range of time and I'll call. So twice that happened.
He never called. So a guy calls me. I said, Hey,
I would take a public you got these other firms.
I wouldn't wait. I haven't been here long enough, you know.
I've been here now what two months, And I can't
tell you what to do, you know, and a bit.
If it were me, I'd go get the deal done,
(08:19):
not wait for this guy to come out. He goes public.
It's on the front page of the Wall Street Journal
on the right column, so it's the lead article, and
blah blah blah. And it went from six to nineteen
and the opening and that day the part of all
of a sudden walks into my office for the first time. Hey,
whatever happened to that company? Blah blah. You know, Environmental
(08:40):
Systems it's called I said, he's waiting for your phone call,
you know. And he didn't take that obviously. And then
then after that he when I'd be in meetings, he
I mean, he's always putting me down and you know,
and all that. And I was doing a deal and
when he approved the deal that I had brought in
(09:01):
and had worked on, and then someone asked him, well,
who's going to work, you know, work on it for us.
When the senior guy said, well, Steve is he put
it together and he knows it. The guy's wid one
hundred commers and Steve and I said, so I got
no confidence. View next morning, I got a phone call.
You know, I was fired. Did I quit? Was I fired?
(09:22):
Stories better to say that I got fired, right, But
I knew that that night, I knew I couldn't work
here anymore. Before I had the meeting to get this
deal approved. I mean, I said, if it gets approved,
I'm thinking, and I was ready to quit. I knew
even I got approved, I had to get out of
there with this guy. I mean here, I'd left two
jobs in a really a six month period of time.
(09:44):
So with that kind of resume, who's going to hire me?
And that said, I started my company and I had
no money, and I wanted to stay in New York.
My mother lent me ten thousand dollars to live on.
And then the bootstrapped the company and never had an investor.
So for about the next thirty years, every penny I
(10:05):
ever earned I put back in the company and just
grew the company. And then all of a sudden, you know,
it's worth a lot of money, but you know, I mean,
it's a nice story, that's true, And I really believe
that you know when you're doing something and you're successful,
you should believe in yourself. Who else can you trust
more than yourself?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
And a great job by Robbie producing the piece, And
a special thanks to Alex for finding this story and
it's a beauty the story of Steve Ross, the owner
of the Miami Dolphins. Here on All American Story
And we continue with our American stories and with the
story of an American classic. Stephen Ross is the largest
real estate developer in America, the owner of the Miami Dolphins,
and he shared his life story with our own Alex Cortez.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Stephen Ross is a Detroiter born and bred until his
parents dragged him against his will midway through his freshman
year of high school to Miami Beach, Florida.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I hated it down there, actually, and I kind of
rebelled against my parents and I got into little trouble.
I mean, I mean, I suppose to studying. I'd, you know,
go out playing the game like a little bit, and
you know, I mean I had a you know, everything
but study, even though my parents really try to be strict.
(01:05):
You know, my father lectured all the time, as opposed
because he was working, and then he lectured me. I
guess it didn't do any good, you know, but it
ultimately I guess it's some good. I mean, I don't know.
I wanted to get out of there. I went to
my parents, said, well, if you're going to leave, you
don't want to go to school here. You have to
(01:25):
go to military school. So it spent about four days
of military school and said, I'll go back to school,
you know, and I mean I'll talk to most of
my friends. I mean probably my background was probably different
than most because I'd never excelled early in life, and
I was you know, I got into college because they
(01:46):
had to accept me because I had a standardized test
that I scored well enough that the school had to
take you. And they flugged out two thirds of the
freshman class. They tell you look on your left and
look on your right. The person saying next you won't
be here year, and so you know, kind of it's
a wake up call. But I also knew if I
(02:07):
wanted something we didn't, I wasn't going to get anything
for my parents. I mean I wasn't left anything, and
they had nothing to give me, you know, So I
knew what it was, you know, it was either sink
or swim. And then when I got to college, that's
when I really kind of started to being able to
do well at University of Florida and then so I
could transfer to Michigan and then law school, and then
(02:29):
I got my master's in tax law, which I excelled
in and was probably the best year of school I
ever had that I really found something enjoyed. I'd always
get good marks if I liked it, you know, if
I didn't like the subject, I didn't do very well.
The confidence I mean, you know, you have to first
find your confidence that you can succeed and do something
(02:50):
well and excel to continue on me. As they say,
success breeds success. I mean, my teachers told my parents
they were wasting the time sending me a which is
really kind of funny, right when I look back at
it now. So I mean, I look at myself. I
was a late starter in life because I probably I
was probably the least likely to succeed in my high
(03:11):
school class. You know. So you tell me how much
teachers know and so the environment in which are brought up.
I mean, even with your parents, as much as my
parents emphasized that and I could see things, it was
really later that I really saw things a lot more clearly.
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
After getting his master's degree at NYU, Stephen went back
to his hometown to work at an accounting firm as
a tax attorney.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I was doing very well practicing law, and you know,
a certain life is really kind of funny. It's kind
of impulsive. I'm in my office one day. It was
in fact, I remembered I could still picture it. It
was June's I think it was June seventh or June ninth,
in nineteen sixty eight, the night before Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
(04:02):
And I'd watch it that night and that next day.
You're wondering in life, hey, you never know when it's over,
and thinking about that, you know. And he was a
multiply young guy. And the partner walks in my office
and asks me if I want to go to a
seminar in New York. I said, you know what, And
I didn't even ever thought about it. I said, I
(04:23):
want to go. I think I want to go to
New York for good. As a matter of fact, I'm quitting.
I'm moving to New York. Never entered my mind. It
never went from my mind to you know, I'm going
to think about leaving. And I hadn't even thought about leaving,
and it just came up. I mean, life is so impulsive.
Sometimes we don't even know ourselves, you know, what's really
what's going on. So he then brought in the senior
(04:46):
partner and Steve's quit, He's leaving. He was going to
New York, you know, and the guy said, what I mean, Steve,
You're doing great here. You're going to be a partner here,
and blah blah blah. But I got bored and I
could see how I was tailing off my mind, and
I was just ready for something. And that sparked it
without me even thinking about it. You know, so a
(05:06):
lot of things, you know, in life we think we're
in control of We're not necessarily in control of it.
We really don't know. It takes something, It takes a
spark for something to happen. I've told my mothers, you
don't know anybody in New York. I said, hey, you know,
I went there. I loved it and in you know
the stories. If you can make it there, you can
make it anywhere. Blah blah blah, And off I went,
(05:30):
you know. And when I went to New York, then
the firm called and made several appointments for me to
help me, you know, Bizard, Freyer, Goldman, Sachs and what
have you. And I went and I interviewed, and then
I saw a paper, this little article about Laired, which
was a new firm, startup young guys. It was backed
(05:52):
by the DuPonts. It was very waspy. There was no
Jews in the whole firm. They were doing a lot
of really creative things, and you know, the head of
the firm was like thirty seven and thirty four and
thirty one, and everybody said, you know, how can you
consider you got a job at Lazard. That's the best
deal house there is. And I took the job at Laird.
(06:15):
You know, I'm sitting around the table when I went there,
and they said to me, why do you come here?
I said, well, I really narrowed it down between Wizard
and Laird, and everybody told me to go to Lazard.
So I figured I had to come to Laird. You know,
you got it. And I was there for about a
year and a half. They didn't have any money, and
(06:35):
there was I was doing things a little different, and
they didn't quite understand what I was doing, and they
suggested maybe I wouldn't be good there. And then two
weeks after I left, nothing to do with my having left,
they had a coup and the firm kind of fell apart,
and my friend of mine got me a job at
(06:56):
who was working at bear Stearns, got me an interview
and I was working on some creative deals, but I
had the guy. I was the wrong guy I was
working for, and so I had put together this deal
when I was a laired putting together a company that
they were taking public. It was my idea to put
several things that he was doing into one company and
(07:16):
take a public I'd been at bear Stearns about two
or three weeks and that's when they had the coup
and the guy called me and said, hey, I'd love
to have bear Stearns do this deal. I have other
firms there are smaller firms and bear Stearns, but would
bear Stearns be interested. Met with this partner, guy said's great.
(07:37):
They were located in California. The partner said, I'll be
in California next week. You know, I'll meet you and
go through the stuff. Main appoyment doesn't show up. The
guy calls me. I go and to I got caught
up in this other deal. I was out there. I'll
be either there. Main an appointment doesn't show up, call
me again. I told the guy. He said, you know
(07:58):
range of time and I'll call. So twice that happened.
He never called. So a guy calls me. I said, Hey,
I would take a public you got these other firms.
I wouldn't wait. I haven't been here long enough, you know.
I've been here now what two months, And I can't
tell you what to do, you know, and a bit.
If it were me, I'd go get the deal done,
(08:19):
not wait for this guy to come out. He goes public.
It's on the front page of the Wall Street Journal
on the right column, so it's the lead article, and
blah blah blah. And it went from six to nineteen
and the opening and that day the part of all
of a sudden walks into my office for the first time. Hey,
whatever happened to that company? Blah blah. You know, Environmental
(08:40):
Systems it's called I said, he's waiting for your phone call,
you know. And he didn't take that obviously. And then
then after that he when I'd be in meetings, he
I mean, he's always putting me down and you know,
and all that. And I was doing a deal and
when he approved the deal that I had brought in
(09:01):
and had worked on, and then someone asked him, well,
who's going to work, you know, work on it for us.
When the senior guy said, well, Steve is he put
it together and he knows it. The guy's wid one
hundred commers and Steve and I said, so I got
no confidence. View next morning, I got a phone call.
You know, I was fired. Did I quit? Was I fired?
(09:22):
Stories better to say that I got fired, right, But
I knew that that night, I knew I couldn't work
here anymore. Before I had the meeting to get this
deal approved. I mean, I said, if it gets approved,
I'm thinking, and I was ready to quit. I knew
even I got approved, I had to get out of
there with this guy. I mean here, I'd left two
jobs in a really a six month period of time.
(09:44):
So with that kind of resume, who's going to hire me?
And that said, I started my company and I had
no money, and I wanted to stay in New York.
My mother lent me ten thousand dollars to live on.
And then the bootstrapped the company and never had an investor.
So for about the next thirty years, every penny I
(10:05):
ever earned I put back in the company and just
grew the company. And then all of a sudden, you know,
it's worth a lot of money, but you know, I mean,
it's a nice story, that's true, And I really believe
that you know when you're doing something and you're successful,
you should believe in yourself. Who else can you trust
more than yourself?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
And a great job by Robbie producing the piece, And
a special thanks to Alex for finding this story and
it's a beauty the story of Steve Ross, the owner
of the Miami Dolphins. Here on All American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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