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00:00The motor racing great Bruce McLaren once said,
00:04whatever we do, we must do it better than anyone else.
00:08And long before Zach Brown ran the famed papaya-colored racing team,
00:12that McLaren spirit was alive and well.
00:16I read in the TV Guide that Mickey Mantle played golf at Preston Trails Country Club.
00:22I'm 12, 13 years old, and I'm calling the country club every day.
00:26It's Mickey Mantle in, it's Mickey Mantle in.
00:28And one day they go, hold on.
00:30And I'm like, oh my God, I might talk to Mickey Mantle.
00:3415 minutes go by, they've called him in off the golf course.
00:37I can see why he was a bit upset being a golfer now.
00:40And so he picks up the phone, he's like, hello.
00:42And I'm like, is this Mickey Mantle?
00:44And he chewed me out like there was no tomorrow.
00:47I was in my room crying my eyes out.
00:49And my mom came in and went, what's going on?
00:52I told her the story, she disappeared.
00:54Got him back on the phone, he thought it was a prank.
00:57Didn't know it was a 12, 13-year-old kid.
01:00My mom came in and said, you and your brother, pack your bags.
01:02We're going to Dallas tomorrow.
01:04We're going to meet with Mickey Mantle.
01:06And we spent half a day with Mickey Mantle.
01:08It was the most unbelievable experience.
01:11Whether it's meeting his heroes or chasing Formula One championships, Brown is a hustler.
01:17I love the art of the deal.
01:19You know, there's an adrenaline to that.
01:24And a winner.
01:26I'm definitely motivated by the fear of defeat.
01:29I think it's the unhealthier, more stressful version.
01:32But that's how I've, back when I was racing, like, I just didn't want to lose as opposed to, I really want to win.
01:40That's what gets you out of bed every day.
01:42My first collecting criteria is the car had to have won a racing period.
01:48We met the McLaren Racing CEO at the Classic Car Club of Manhattan, ahead of the launch of his new book, Seven Tenths of a Second.
01:57Brown is one of the highest paid executives in Formula One, taking home $50 million last year, a reward for an executive who has returned one of motorsports' most storied teams to the top of Formula One.
02:10It almost feels harder because now we're at the top of the mountain.
02:15There's only one way to go, and this is sport, right?
02:18That terrifies me.
02:19And that's why I get up every day.
02:21It's like, I know the storm is coming, but I want to kind of keep pushing it back as much as possible and just keep doing what we're doing.
02:28Zach Brown wasn't born into this world.
02:31And growing up in California, he might not have seemed like the type who would go on to run a multibillion-dollar Formula One team.
02:38I was a bit of the troublemaker, was a bit of the class clown.
02:42I did get an A in baseball and in work experience, which were my two loves.
02:48Had there been a racing class, I'm sure I would have done well with history, science, math.
02:54Just not that exciting for me.
02:57Brown's path to racing wasn't the usual one, if there is such a thing.
03:01It all started on a 1984 appearance on Wheel of Fortune.
03:07Zach, $3,050.
03:10Identify this person.
03:11Wild Bill Hickok.
03:13Yeah, that's it.
03:15Yeah.
03:16And the deal-making followed.
03:19So I asked Mario Andretti, how do you get started in racing?
03:22He said, karting.
03:23And there happened to be an ad in the race program for Jim Hall Kart Racing School.
03:27I had previously been on Wheel of Fortune Teen Week when I was 13 years old.
03:32I won.
03:33That was back in the day where you won prizes.
03:34So I had this stash of his and her watches.
03:37What am I going to do with these things?
03:38So I went and sold them at a pawn shop in Van Nuys, took that money, bought a go-kart, and got started racing in karting.
03:47And then it was kind of school of hard knocks.
03:49I didn't know, how do you advance?
03:51My mom being a travel agent, she found someone at TWA Airlines who was passionate about racing.
03:56They gave me some airline tickets.
03:58I'd go sell those airline tickets to pay for racing.
04:00And that's kind of how the racing career got started.
04:02If you're really going to go to motor racing, you need some financial support from someplace.
04:07Now, some people have wealthy parents or wealthy backers and things like that.
04:11You didn't necessarily have that.
04:13Your parents were much more middle class.
04:14So how did you afford it?
04:16So I started to learn how to do sponsorship.
04:18I remember my mom and dad kind of talking about how they could help me.
04:23And so my mom gave me her salary for a year, which is about $30,000, $40,000.
04:30A lot of money, but in the big scheme of things from racing,
04:34you know, there's families that have spent millions and tens of millions.
04:38So it was kind of enough to get me started, but not even for a full season.
04:43So I then, I didn't know anything about sponsorship,
04:46but I got fully immersed in how does sponsorship work.
04:49And really it trained me to this day,
04:51which was I needed to understand what companies wanted to do with their business
04:55and how I could use motor racing to help them achieve their goals.
04:59Something that I still have with me to this day.
05:01So I just started calling everyone, Mickey Mantle style.
05:0595 out of a hundred people wouldn't even take your phone call,
05:08but I was so desperate to be in racing.
05:10Just keep calling, keep calling, keep calling.
05:13And started kind of knocking down doors,
05:15building relationships and figuring it out as I went along.
05:19And then ended up getting pretty good at a sponsorship
05:23by understanding what companies needed
05:26and how motor racing can help them achieve their goals.
05:30Brown was a good racer, but never made it to F1.
05:35He did, however, have a knack for deal-making.
05:38And so in 2001, he founded a motorsport marketing firm, JMI,
05:43which helped establish Brown as a major force
05:46at the intersection of racing and business.
05:48He sold it in 2013 and joined McLaren three years later.
05:53What he came into was a mess.
05:57We were not competitive on track.
05:58We were ninth in the championship.
06:00I know I can't design a better race car.
06:02We were at rock bottom as far as sponsorship.
06:05That I knew I could make a difference on.
06:08And then morale, which was really our biggest challenge,
06:13was people weren't working well together
06:15and it was a bit of a rudderless ship
06:17because there were so many things going on at the board
06:19and there was, I don't know, three, four bosses that were in and out.
06:23So I think any company, forget about whether it's a racing team,
06:26just any company, if you've got a lack of overall leadership
06:30because of what was going on,
06:33then it's going to be hard to kind of build momentum.
06:35So first thing I worked on was trying to fix the economics
06:39because I felt that was my sweet spot.
06:42Trying to get everyone to kind of believe
06:44and then ultimately if I could get everyone to believe in the economics in,
06:47then the massively talented people that could design a faster race car,
06:52I could get them the tools that they need.
06:53And then drivers are something that I'm very comfortable with.
06:57And so bringing in Lando Norris and then of course Oscar,
07:00but we had great drivers in Oscar and we had a great driver lineup.
07:03So tackled trying to kind of build momentum
07:07and we got that momentum going and then it just accelerated.
07:12When Brown joined McLaren in 2016,
07:14the team was recording steady losses
07:16and languished at the foot of the F1 table.
07:19But it reversed that under Brown,
07:21raising its annual revenue and climbing the standings,
07:25culminating in winning the title in 2024.
07:29Brown says changing the team's culture
07:31was a big part of the turnaround.
07:34I'm sure there are people that wouldn't fit in our culture,
07:38but I think that's what makes McLaren so special
07:40is we've created a culture that we all buy into.
07:44We're all like-minded.
07:45I have no yes people on the team.
07:48You know, everyone can speak up.
07:51I get upset if they don't and they know they can.
07:54I get upset if they don't challenge me.
07:57My job is to, you know, sometimes put the puck on the ice
08:00and I'll come in with a view,
08:02sometimes an even very strong view,
08:04and I'll do a 180 if, you know, I hear from my team,
08:07actually, Zach, I don't think you're thinking about that the right way.
08:10And it takes some time for people to get comfortable
08:13kind of challenging the CEO,
08:15but I get upset if they don't,
08:18so they know they're not allowed to hold back.
08:20I'll get very grumpy if it's like,
08:22well, I thought this, I just didn't say anything.
08:24So everyone in our team speaks up,
08:27but then once we align around what we're going to do,
08:29we all hold hands and we're in this together,
08:31and you'll never be able to tell if everyone,
08:35if it was a unanimous vote or a majority,
08:37and it's okay to have a difference of opinion.
08:40That's welcomed.
08:41It's kind of, you know, coming back to racing,
08:44I've learned so much about being a driver
08:46that I think is relevant to being a CEO.
08:49So you need to be able to listen well to your engineers.
08:53You need to be able to communicate well.
08:55You need to have a lot of trust in your team.
08:57It's life or death.
08:58You need to be very data-driven,
09:01and you need to chase perfection,
09:03but know that you're actually never going to be perfect.
09:07There's no such thing as a perfect lap,
09:08a perfect race car.
09:09So you need to have a group of people
09:11that are kind of happy always being like,
09:15well, that's just not good enough.
09:16We're fortunate in our careers
09:18if we find a person, two persons, three people
09:21that we can look up to and borrow from
09:24and learn from, carry with us.
09:26You already mentioned Mickey Mantle
09:27and Marion Andretti, pretty big names.
09:29Are there other people that you really treasure
09:32your experience with?
09:34Oh, yeah.
09:34Roger Penske would have to be right at the top
09:38while he's been massively more successful.
09:43But I'm still going.
09:44Well, so is he, which is what's amazing.
09:46He'll never stop.
09:48You know, he started off as a racer,
09:50built a great team, built a great business,
09:53understood how to use his racing to build his business,
09:56knows how to build his racing team off his business.
09:59So I kind of was in the business of racing.
10:02So a lot of similarities.
10:04He's a racer.
10:05He's been in Formula One, in IndyCar.
10:09You know, the only thing he hasn't won
10:10is the 24 Hours Le Mans.
10:12And he's 80 plus years old, staying up 24 hours,
10:15still trying to win the 24 Hours Le Mans.
10:17So surrounded himself with great people.
10:20He was, to me, growing up in America,
10:25he was the McLaren of North America
10:28because they even shared the same sponsorship.
10:31So the Penske IndyCar looked like the McLaren Formula One car
10:34from the 80s and 90s.
10:36So I think Roger Penske is someone
10:38that's right at the top of the list
10:40of someone that I've got huge admiration for.
10:42Roger Penske owns IndyCar,
10:46as well as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
10:49And his team has won more Indianapolis 500 races
10:52than any other in history.
10:54I've known Zach when he was from Indianapolis
10:56and he had a company that really managed sponsors
11:01for different race teams.
11:02And I remember sitting down with him
11:05at the airport in Indianapolis
11:06and he told me he had two choices.
11:10He could either potentially put his hand up
11:12to run IndyCar or number two,
11:15he'd have a chance to maybe become the CEO of McLaren.
11:18Well, he went one direction, we've gone another.
11:21He's done a terrific job.
11:22When you look at what he's brought to McLaren
11:25from a corporate perspective,
11:28he's a great guy on talent.
11:30He knows how to go get the best.
11:31And he's a tough guy to deal with
11:33when the standpoint or compete with.
11:35And he's really done it on his own.
11:37I mean, he's got good people,
11:39but the McLaren name has been terrific.
11:41I remember racing with Bruce McLaren
11:43and he's taken that to the top
11:45and with his two young drivers this year,
11:47actually racing each other
11:49for the world championship is amazing.
11:51But he's a leader.
11:53I think he's a tough competitor.
11:56And I can tell you one thing,
11:57he doesn't like to lose.
12:00That fear of failure has driven Brown
12:02from a self-described punk
12:04to the very top of Formula One.
12:07What would you today say to Zac Brown
12:11when you were in high school?
12:12If he could walk into the room,
12:14what would you say to him?
12:15I'd probably get in a fight with him.
12:17I don't know who'd win.
12:20Brown might not know who'd win,
12:22but you can guarantee
12:23neither would be happy losing.
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