You don't have all the answers. I promise you, you don't have all this. But there's somebody out there that has a bunch of the answers and you should start listening. Well, everybody, the Super Bowl is this week and my guest today is going to take you inside the huddle of Super Bowl 23, where the 49ers are down by three points with three minutes to go. And they're about to drive 92 yards down the field to win it all. And you won't believe what they talk about. My guest today is Harris Barton, the founder and managing director of H Barton Asset Management. He was an all pro left tackle on the offense for the 49ers, winning three Super Bowls with Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Steve Young. Today, he runs a thriving investment fund where he has about a billion dollars of assets under management. Harris is a textbook definition of what I call an active learner. With any person, any situation, any opportunity in his life, Harris is listening for the lesson in it. In this conversation, he's sharing those lessons with you. And he's going to remind you that the answers you need are probably already around you. It's just a question of whether you're listening for them. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. Harris Barton. Harris, it's great to have you on the show. Well, it's been a long time. I mean, I've been I've been asking to get on this show forever and you've never let me on. So now here I am. You know, that's not true. I've been trying to get your butt on his show for a long time. I know. You sure have. It is Super Bowl week and you won three Super Bowls with the four 49ers. Which one meant the most to you and why? Well, she's first off, I didn't win three Super Bowls. Joe Montana and Steve Young won three Super Bowls. I just happened to be on the team. But the answer to your question, you know, obviously the first one is to me, the most that was one that really inspired me the most. And it really, once you win the Super Bowl, it gets a taste in your mouth and you got to get back to that thing. I mean, I eat Tom Brady, you know, just you spend your whole career trying to get to a Super Bowl and trying to win it. And then the rest of your career, you try and say, hey, I got to do that again, because it's kind of like a bad drug, you know, you got to have it. And so we're in the first Super Bowl against Cincinnati in 1988 was a thrill. Both my parents were there. My whole family was there. You know, my high school coaches were there. I mean, it's just an inspiring moment. And we won it last second. John Taylor caught up touchdown pass with Montana. We won it with 23 seconds ago and a clock and there we were. It's a Super Bowl champion. And, you know, when you think about, you know, you think about Patrick Mahomes now, you know, he's getting ready for that potentially winning three in a row. I mean, what do you think about that, Harrison? How much pressure does the Chiefs have on him? Well, I think the Chiefs don't have as much pressure as we did back back in the day when we were trying to win three in a row. I just remember that last year was just incredibly, you know, just. It was just crazy because, you know, trying to win it three in a row was had never been done before. It still hasn't been done. And now the Chiefs got a chance to do it. I think they've had a tough season just because they've won a lot of close games. So there's been a lot of ups and downs for that team. I think they're ready. I think they'll beat me at Philadelphia. I just think Mahomes is ready. I think the team is geared toward this. And, you know, I don't like the Kansas City Chiefs. I'd rather the Eagles win. What's the preparation like for Super Bowl? And how did you, how have you brought that kind of learning and preparation to your business? Well, you know, the preparation really starts all year. And obviously teams that have great success, have great leaders. And those great leaders do the same thing business leaders do. They work harder than everybody else. And so when you could walk into a 49er locker room back in the 80s and 90s and see guys like Jerry Rice and guys like Joe Montana, and guys like Steve Young and Ronnie Lott getting there early, watching extra film, running extra sprints, lifting weights after practice. You know what, as a rookie, you come in and you say, well, gosh, if I'm going to win a Super Bowl, I've got to work harder than those guys. And that really perpetuates the team, how the team operates. And so, you know, leaders lead, right? And that's the same thing in business, right? If I'm working for a car dealership and I'm watching my boss and he's not coming to work on time and he's not selling cars like he should be , and hey, I'm going to low-fall so. But if he's out there working hard and making extra phone calls and doing all the things that lead organizations, then I'm going to try and follow. And so that's kind of how I've taken my football career and moved it into the business career. It's just really trying to find great leaders, trying to follow what they do and trying to mimic their behavior on the business side. Yeah, that makes so much sense. And one of the things that you said earlier that really hit me was that, once you get one win, you want that next win, and it's kind of intoxicating the same's true in business, right? It's so true. You know, when I walk into, you know, into young companies, I tell them the same story. I say, listen, you know, this is how it happens in football. In August, you sit in a room with 100 guys and Bill Walsh, the coach or the head coach of the 49ers will stand up and say, hey, listen, the 56 guys are going to make this team. And our only goal is to win the Super Bowl. Anything other than that is a failure. And along the way, you know, guys are going to lose their job. Somebody's going to get divorced. Somebody's going to lose a sale. We're going to miss code on a certain project. But hey, our goal is to win the Super Bowl. And that means, you know, kind of an IPO, right, on the business side. So there's a lot of parallels to it. And again, once you get into a Super Bowl, you want to have it again. And again, it's the same thing on businesses. Once you have great success in business, you want to keep doing it. You want to, you know, you want to start a new company. You want to, you know, sell your company. You want to make all the people around you, you know, happy and wealthy. And it's, there's, there's similar both the pro football and in business. Harris, how much do you miss this week itself? When it's Super Bowl week, I mean, what does it bring back the glory days? Or how do you feel about it? No, you know what? I just feel blessed that I played in three Super Bowls. And I had great quarterbacks and great people around me and great coaches. And you know what? This week makes me so nervous because I'm just glad I'm not out there because to lose a Super Bowl would be devastating. And I never had a chance to do that, luckily. And I'm just thankful that I had three. It is a such a nerve-wracking thing now. It was nerve-wracking when I played, but now 30 years later, it's, it's everywhere, right? And if, if you go out there and you have a bad game or you, you know, drop a ball or you fumble, I mean, it, it carries on with you for the rest of your career. And you know what? It's a shame actually, but that's just the way it is. That's the way the media is. And so I, I dread that. And I'm glad I'm not having to do that this weekend. I want to take you back to your favorite Super Bowl, you know, Super Bowl 23. You're down by three to the bingles with three and a half minutes left in the game, but the balls in the hands of the great Joe Montana and your offense, you know, take me inside the huddle. Well, what, what had happened? We were heavily favored, favored against the bingles. And all of a sudden, two minutes ago in the game, they're up by three points, right? They, they kicked the field goal and, and went by three. We had a guy that, they took the opening kickoff and he took it, he caught it seven yards deep in the end zone. And he comes running out of the end zone and he gets tackled on the seven-yard line. So now we, the offense comes running out on the field in Montana, the quarterback and it's a long TV timeout. And I'm standing in the huddle and I am yelling. I am screaming at the huddle. It's my second year in the league. I'm a young player and I'm like, what in the hell? What's he doing? Why did he, you know, why did he just take a knee and we get the ball in the 20 ? We got to go 93 yards for a touchdown here. And I'm yelling and screaming and I'm distracting everybody. And all of a sudden Montana comes in the huddle and he looks at me and he goes, Hey, H, I go what? And he goes, Hey, look down there in the other end zone. I go, okay. And I go, what? And he goes, there's John Candy. And sure enough, everybody in the huddle, Jerry Rives, John Frank, Tom Rathman, all turn around. And there's John Candy down there eating popcorn in the end zone. He's actually standing next to a moderate shot. And then all of a sudden, we all look around. And then there's John Candy and all of a sudden the referee blows a whistle and off the work we go. And you know, on reflection of that, Joe realizes, Hey, I was a distraction. You know, I was being a distraction in the huddle. We had the biggest drive of our lives coming up. And I was distracting everybody and he wanted to shut me up. Right. So that's what he did. And that's just that's a great leader. You know, I mean, that was an amazing, that was an amazing drive that we had. But it all started with his leadership and the way, you know, the way he was carrying himself. So, you know, it was, it was, that was my favorite moment Super Bowl. Did you always, did you always look at the celebrities yourself? But what was it that made him say, Hey, go check out, I can't get him. I like people. Oh, the people follow her. And I knew that, you know, the Super Bowl is the biggest back then. And is now is the biggest stage in the world. And everybody wants to come out and, you know, and see the Super Bowl. And there was one of my favorite actors, John Candy. You know, I never really liked the San Francisco 49ers. I hate to admit this, but, you know, I was a Kansas City cheese fan. So I never really liked Joe Montana until he came to Kansas City and did great things at Kansas City. You know, what, what would be the, you know, top one or two leadership lessons you picked up just watching him in action? I, again, I think the guy, the guy was amazing. One of the leadership actions that he always had, you know, he was a, he was a big superstar before even I got there. I got there in 1987. He had one, he had won a couple of Super Bowls before that, you know, in '81 and '84 with the 49ers. And he was a legend, you know, in the sporting world. But you know what, you come in and you go with Joe and you know what, he was always the first one at the facility, always, okay, watching film. He'd had the game plan Xerox home to him, you know, or faxed home to him when they had fax machines back in the day. He'd studied that game plan. He'd show up early on Monday morning, getting ready for the next game. And the thing I also think about Joe was, Joe was always a guy that, you know what, if they were serving a buffet lined for lunch or buffet lined for dinner. Joe was always the last guy in line. He wasn't the first guy in line. He was always the last guy. He never, you know, he always, you know, took the worst seat on the bus, always, you know, always, you know, made sure that everybody else was taken care of. He, you know , he had dinners for teammates. He led like that. He was a humble type of leader. He, you know, he led, he led from behind, which is, which was the thing that I learned from Joe is that, you know, your actions speak louder than your words do. And his actions were certainly leadership actions. And you also played alongside Jerry Rice, arguably the best receiver of all time. What did you pick up watching him in action? Well, Jerry Rice was a guy that he played with a big chip on his shoulder. Jerry, you know, he came from a small school in Mississippi. He really was never given anything his whole life. And he came in and he wanted, he was determined to be the best. And Jerry, again, was, was nonstop and catching footballs. I mean, he was amazing work addict. I mean, he'd sprint in the off seasons. He'd catch balls in the off season. You know, he, when, when Steve Young became the quarterback of the 49ers, Jerry was got so, Steve Young got so tired of throwing left handed to Jerry that they recruited a guy by the name of Ted Walsh, who was our left-handed equipment manager. And Ted would stay out there for hours and hours throwing balls that Jerry Rice left handed just so Jerry could adjust to see how the spin was coming off of the left-hander versus the right-hander who he'd had been with for Joe, with Joe Montana for so long. So Jerry was just a work addict. And you know what? He was quiet in the huddle. He was, he was, he was a hard worker. I mean, he was an unbelievable blocker downfield. He was so unselfish. I mean, he was just, he was just a pleasure. He was a pleasure to work with for all those years. So it's pretty clear that the best players, they, they really set the tone in terms of their overall work ethic, right? And, and you know, that, that had to be something was huge. But they also seem to play with great character, you know, talk about the character part of, of what makes up the great leader. Well, again, going back to Montana, right? So I, I played a little bit of s inner in college. I put a little sinner in the pros. And typically you see, you know, a young s inner comes out there in a, in a bad snap would happen in a game. And always, always Joe would come to the sideline after a bad snap and he'd go, that was my fault. You know, I take ownership of that. It wasn't, it wasn't Harris's fault. It was my fault or what Randy Cross's fault. It was a sinner. It was my fault. And so anytime he threw an interception, it was his fault. You know, he thought he saw the safety doing the wrong thing. He never, ever, you know, gotten somebody's face and said, Hey, you know, what? That's your fault. You should take the blame for that. So that's, that's, you know, that's the type of leadership that that teams need to be successful. And a guy like my home shows that, right? And a guy like Tom Brady shows that, you know, they, they're always, they're outworking everybody. They're, they're out hustling everybody, but they're also being humble and they're being, you know, they're, they're, they're taking the blame when things , when things go wrong. Hey, everyone. It's Kula. We'll get back to the interview in just a second. Before we do, though, I have a question for you. Have you downloaded the How Leaders Lead app on your iPhone? If you haven't, take 20 seconds right now, go to the App Store, search for How Leaders Lead, and download the How Leaders Lead app. In the app, every day, you'll get a two- minute video that'll give you a leadership insight from one of our amazing guests for our podcast to inspire you and to really get your mind in the right place before you start your work day. So go to the App Store, search How Leaders Lead, download the How Leaders Lead app and start your day every day with two minutes of leadership wisdom. It'll take 20 seconds. Go to the App Store, download the app, and you'll be able to watch every day, just like me, the leadership insight from How Leaders Lead. So, you know, now, you know, you found Barton Asset Management and you have to create your own work environment, your own culture for your people. Have you articulated what you think is most important to your team and built that into how you grow the business? Well, you know, my business is a little bit different. You know, again, a lot of things you learn in football, you take to the business world, and certainly in football, you fall down a lot and, you know, somebody's going to run over you, you're going to get beat. And same thing happens in business. And the first, you know, four or five years of my business were growing great. They were growing great and I got out of football in 1999 and started a business along with Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott, and hey, things were going great. But then when things started, when we started hiring a bunch of people, you know, I probably wasn't doing the right thing and wasn't hiring the right type of people. And things started going poorly. And then in 2008, when the financial crisis happened, a lot of things happened poorly. And really kind of lost the business, to be honest with you. So when I started again in 2011 with this new book, Harris Barton Asset Management, I was determined to do a little bit differently. Number one, I was going to not hire a lot of people. I was going to do, it was all on my back, so I was going to try and do it by myself. And I was going to try and, you know , and do things correctly this time. And so I started the business by, you know, going out to a lot of individuals who had been super helpful to me during the course of my football career and of course my business career and asked them advice, you know, how should I do it this time? You know, I made these the mistakes I made last time and how should I do it this time? And I went to, I went to quality people, quality people in the Bay Area, quality people in New York that, you know, that understand asset management businesses and asked them the questions. And that's kind of how I, that's kind of what I took from football, right? Because, you know, in football, you got to watch what works for other people. So I would always study what right tackles did around the league. You know, I'd watched the great right tackles at Pittsburgh, I watched the great right tackles for the Rams, I'd watched the great right tackles for the Chiefs, and see how they how they played and try to emulate the way that they played. And the same thing I did when I started my second business. Hey, how does George Roberts do it at KKAR? You know, how does Jimmy Dunn do it at Sandler O'Neill? You know, how does Stan Druckenmiller do it at Duquesne Asset Management Business? How does a guy like Sam Reeves, you know, do it, you know, for so long be such a such a great consultant for so long to so many business leaders? And I try to weave all that in together with a lot of adventure capital guys I knew out here, guys like Jeff Yang, guys like Doug McKinsey, guys like Jim Breyer, you know, it guys like John W ileschka. All these are good friends of mine. And I just tried to take all the lessons that they taught me and try to weave it into it into a kind of really a third career with Harris, Portland Asset Management. That's great that you, you sought out the best practices and learned from the very best. And, you know, one of the things I've always admired you about you, Harris, is how grounded you are. And, you know, that comes from, you know, I'm sure from your upbringing. Can you share with us a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today? Yeah, well, you know, my dad was a, he sold uniforms, ladies apparel in Atlanta, Georgia for a long time. And my mother was from Atlanta, Georgia as well. And, you know, my dad always had, you know, always had great words of wisdom to say. But one of the things that always struck me was that when they sat me down, when I was probably about 17 or 18, he said, "Hey, he said, Harris, you know what? People pay me thousands of dollars an hour for advice. And you're getting it for free. You better start listening." And so that kind of struck me. And so as I went through my whole career, when people would, you know, guys that were smart people that I really respected, you got to sit down and listen. You got to listen to what they say. And, you know, because they're getting paid thousands of dollars an hour, but you're getting it for free. And you might not agree with everything they say, but you should, you better listen. And so that's kind of the one business advice I try and tell young people is, "Hey, you know what? You don't have all the answers. I promise you don't have all this. But there's somebody out there that has a bunch of the answers, and you should start listening." I understand your dad wanted you to work for IBM coming out of college. You know, tell us that story. Well, my dad wasn't, he wasn't a very big football fan. Actually, he was a terrible football fan. And it was my high school coach that kind of got me into football. Got me into Ken Pettis. He got me into football, and I got a scholarship to the University of North Carolina. And things were going great. And, you know, at the end of my college career, I went to my dad, and I said, "Hey, dad, you know, I think I'm going to play in the NFL." And he said, "He said, Harris, I don't want you to play in the NFL. I want you to go to work for IBM." And I said, "Dad, the 49ers just drafted me in the first round of the 1987 draft, and they're going to pay me $500,000 a year to play football. And IBM's only going to pay me $75,000." And he goes, "Well, I think you should go work for the 49ers." Without missing a beat, there I was. So sure enough, I was out there. It was just my dad. He was just a great lover of kids. You know, he just, I had a brother and a sister, both living in Atlanta still. And we had just a great upbringing. And you know what? He just, he didn 't want, he didn't coach us. He just wanted us to have a good time. And, you know, again, another thing he told us about youth sports is he'd say, "Harris, you know what? Don't ever complain about the coach. I don't care. You're seven years old. Don't complain about the coach because you know what? That coach is out there working for free. He's out there doing something. I'm not. So, hey, you know, you got to complain. You keep it to yourself because don't complain to me because he's doing something. I'm not. So you got to respect that." I love that. I love that. And so you go to UNC. So I got to ask you, you know, if you could spend a day with Bill Belichick, what would you do to get that program to the next level? What advice would you give him? And how do you feel about Bill Belichick being a UNC? Well, you know, when they first started talking about Bill Belichick, I was like, "There's no way he's going to do that." And sure enough, the university pulled us together. Now that I've looked at it, now it's been a couple of months now. I think it's brilliant. Now I don't know, I know Bill, I play golf at Bill once. I don't know really well. I certainly played against some of his giant teams when he was coaching for the Giants. But what he's brought to the university in the three months has just been tremendous. I mean, every day you pick up the paper and they're talking about, "Hey, this coach is going to the Tar Heels. Hey, this player, you know, dropped his recruitment and he's going to go to the Tar Heels. Hey, this is what Bill Belichick is doing, you know, around town. It's just every day they're focusing in and they haven't even had a practice yet. Now I think the one thing Bill did great was that he brought Michael bombardi. Now college football is changing and if you don't think it is, you've got your head in the hole. And Bill and Mike have understand that, "Hey, this is becoming a professional league." And eventually all these teams are going to have to have a general manager and they 're going to have to have a head coach like Bill Belichick. And so they're the frontrunners of this. And so Bill came in and said, "Hey, listen, I'm bringing Mike in. Mike's going to do all the recruiting. He's going to do all the portal. He's going to do all the NIL stuff. And I'm just going to coach. You know, I don't need to talk to alumni. Now I will talk to alumni, but I don't have to do that type of stuff. I just want to coach. And that's the way this is going to work. And players are going to come here and the attitude that Bill's brought in to say, "Listen, these kids are going to come here. They're going to get ready for the NFL. And if they're not ready for the NFL, they're going to get a great education." And that's perfect, right? You know, not everybody's going to come here. It's going to play in the NFL. But if they are good enough to play in the NFL, they'll be ready. And if they're not good enough to play in the NFL, hey, they're going to have a great, they're going to have a great education and they're going to go on with their lives. You know, you mentioned you were drafted out of North Carolina. And in my research, I learned that Ronnie Lott has to have his locker right next to yours at training camp. You know, this is an incredible defense player. You know, talk more about that. Well, yeah, Ronnie, we used to practice up in Rockland, California, at a place called Sierra Junior College. And it was a dump of a place to practice. But that was preseason back then in the '80s. And Ronnie had been drafted in the first round . Actually, one of the early picks in the 19, I think it was 1981 draft. And they went on to have a great success. And Ronnie was kind of a legend by the time I got there in 1987. And Ronnie, every year, would always go back to his roots and say, he'd tell the equipment manager, hey , I want to dress next to, you know, the number one pick that's coming in this year. And so that happened to me me in 1987. And so I showed up at Sierra College. And sure enough, I had my locker right next to Ronnie. And Ronnie sat me down the first day and said, hey, listen, you know, I 've been there. It's going to be ups and downs. It's going to be tough. And we struck up a friendship and we went out to dinner. And you know what? We just became fast friends. And sure enough, you know, when my career ended, Ronnie was the first guy to kind of reach out to me and say, hey, let's get a business started together. And so that just goes back from like 15 years of togetherness and bonded. And Ronnie is just an amazing leader. And he was really, he was the leader of those teams in the '80s and '90s. Now Joe was a great player and Jerry was there. But when things needed to be led, it was Ronnie L ott that was leading that. And the team rallied around Ronnie. Like I did, you know, as a first round pick , you know, he was super unselfish, giving me his time. And you know, it was amazingly valuable. So you have this guy who's way up in his career so established and he wants to spend time with you. How is that, how is that carried what you do going forward with how you view others? And I just, you know, Ronnie has taught me more about business, more about leadership than anybody else. But the one thing Ronnie does and a lot of people don't know, Ronnie has raised millions. I'm talking $50 million for charity. Ronnie is unselfish in that. I keep using that word unselfish. That's what Ronnie is. You got a golf tournament and you're trying to raise $15 to, you know, to go to some calls in North Carolina, Ronnie is going to fly in to be at that golf tournament. You're going to do a charity event in New York City and you need Ronnie to come in and say five words. Ronnie is going to show up and do it. Now, and so he was so good. He actually helped me get started, helped me and Ronnie started a charity, you know, 20, 25 years ago, that Ronnie, that Ronnie started in, it's called Champion Charities. Ronnie is my partner in the business. And every year, we go out, we buy out a theater in New York City and we buy out a theater in San Francisco and we have a Broadway show at those performances and we invite 2,000 kids in New York and 2,000 kids in San Francisco to come see a Broadway show, Hamilton, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, back to the future. You name it, we've done it. And, you know, our charity has raised, you know, about $20 million over the last 20 years. And that's all because of Ronnie, Ronnie, that's, that's all about how I learned that from Ronnie, that's fantastic. And, you know, you, you, you played 12 years in the NFL. When during your playing career, did you start thinking about life after football? 1994, I'll never forget. We had won the Super Bowl. I had, we had a short off season. And I went upstairs to the San Francisco 49ers and I stole stationary from the San Francisco 49ers. And, you know, that was the way before email and, and, and, you know, so I, I just in the stationery had, you know, five Super Bowl trophies on it and it looked good. And, and I wrote a letter to, you know, five of the businesses that surrounded the 49er practice field, guys like Cisco and Sun Microsystems and Yahoo and a couple of venture capitalists. I wrote a letter to guys like John Chambers. I wrote a letter to Doug McKenzie. He was at Kleine Perkins at the time. I wrote a letter to Jerry Yang. I wrote a letter to Scott McNeely who was, who happened to be at Sun Microsystems. I said, Hey, listen, my day off is Tuesday. And you know what, I'm, you know, three times Super Bowl champion over here at San Francisco 49ers . Just look at the logos on the, on the paper. And I'd like to come in and, you know, I see you're building a big campus over here at down here in Santa Clara. I'd like to come in and meet with you. And sure enough, you know, they got the letter and they say, Hey, here's a young kid trying to, trying to get ahead and kind of get ahead and realize he can't play football for the rest of his life. Hey, I'll take a meeting with him. So I'd, I'd do a little bit of research on the company and I'd go in and I'd bring my three Super Bowl rings. And you know, they take pictures of the Super Bowl rings and they put them all and they try them on. Their secretary would come in and she'd bring her kids and you signed some autographs. And then all of a sudden they become your friends for life. And so when my career ended, I went back to those guys and said, Hey, listen, you know , remember when I came into your, into your office in 1994, and you told me to hate to give you a call when my career was over, my career is over. And so now they all looked at me and said, well, you know what, you've been, you were great in the community. We like you a lot. Come on in and let's, let's talk about a little bit, a little bit about business. And so that's kind of how I got started in the business world. And what I realized when starting in 1994 is I loved technology. I loved, I loved the venture capital business. I thought, I thought it was just a tremendous way to see everything, just to understand what was happening out there in the world. And you know what, I was an old football, I was an ex, you know, I was an offensive lineman, you know, so I don't know about writing code or building clouds or, but I do know about kind of how teamwork works. And so I would go to all these, I was so interested in technology. And so when my career ended, I went back to those guys and they said, Hey, listen, you're fantastic in this business and venture capital is the way you should go, not, you know, not because you're going to be a great investor, but because you know so many people and the venture capital community out here is impossible for anybody to get into. Nobody gets into the top funds out here, the Sequoias, the gray locks, the NEAs , the excels, the client of Perkins is in. But if you can use your football and your relationships to kind of gain access to those guys, Hey, that's a good business model. And so that's kind of how I got started in the end of asset management business was directly starting from those relationships I established in 1994. And so you go out, you start this business 2008 comes, you know, it goes in the tank and then you have to rethink about where you want to go next. Looking back to that first chapter of your post playing career, you know, you know, what do you think it was that, what was the single biggest thing you would do over? Oh, the senior's biggest thing I would do over is what was happening was, you know, we grew too fast. We're basically a fund of funds. And what a fund of funds is for those viewers, those listeners that don't know, is, you know, you just you allocate capital to a variety of different types of venture fund of funds and venture funds. So first off, nobody gets into these funds, like I said, and so if I had access to these funds and what you do is you deploy some capital to Sequoia, you deploy some capital to Great Lock, you deploy some capital to excel Kleiner Perkins, same way. And hey , that was great. We, the first fund we raised was a $40 million fund. We allocated off to these great managers, things were going fantastic. And then all of a sudden, you know what, we decided, hey, we got to get bigger. We had so much success in venture capital, let's go into private equity, let's try and do it in the private equity business. And so when you go into KKR, you go into Apollo, you go into Blackstone, you go into firms like that, and then all of a sudden we said, okay, well, hey, this is going great. We now have venture, we now have private equity. Let 's do a real estate fund of funds. Okay, well, so then you go into Shore and Steen and you go into Berry Sternleke's fund and you go into, you know, a bunch of different funds out in the New York area and in the real estate fund. And then hey, let's do a hedge fund of funds, right? And all the way, we're hiring people, we got offices all over the place. And then the one biggest mistake we made was some of our employees went to Silicon Valley Bank, which was, you know, was operating back then. And they borrowed money to kind of front-run kind of some of our commitments into these into these great funds. Well, that all works great until, you know, the train stops and in the fundraising stops and you can't pay back those loans. And so that was the mistake we made was taking debt. And that was a big mistake. And I'll just never forget, you know, trying to sell the business and we had this big debt load. It's just impossible to do. And so, now I learned a valuable lesson back then is, hey, don't take debt. If you're going to run an asset management business, don't take any debt. And that was our downfall. And that's kind of, you know, kind of why my new business is kind of working so well is because I don't have any debt. You know, they're just not going to. Well, you learned your lesson. And it seems like you 're like an incredible learner though. It seems like you, that's a big part of what makes you you. It was something that really kind of, it still haunts me, you know, because, you know, the one thing about being an ex-athlete and being on star teams is, hey, you got a microscope stare at you. You know, it's a little bit different than, you know, the guy that graduates out of Harvard Business School and he takes a lot of debt and, you know, they crater his business. But when it happens to, you know, three athletes, you know, one day you're on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the next day you're on the cover, you know, The Wall Street Journal, because, you know, people want to see you fail. There's a lot of guys out there that, you know, put us up on a pedestal and hey, when things went bad, man, they kicked that pedestal out so quickly, and you feel like you get your teeth kicked in. And one thing again, you learn from sports is, hey, man, you got to get back up again. You got to get up. It's all about the next play. And again, a lot of this I learned from Ronnie Lott, because when bad shit was happening, Ronnie Lott was right there. You know, Ronnie Lott was the guy that introduced me to George Roberts. Ronnie Lott was the guy that kind of got the sync back on track, right? And so those are lessons that were well learned and probably lessons that I'll never forget. And lessons that I mean, I try and tell athletes all the time, man, hey, be super careful, man, because if you're out there, you know, like George Roberts always told me, hey, the breaching whale gets harpooned. And you know what? So I kind of try and lay under the radar screen. Hopefully only six people listen to this podcast. More than that, I would say. I hope anyway. I think so. But you know, Paris, you get your teeth knocked in. You do get back up. And now you've got Barton asset management. You 're not going to out of the park from everything I've been able to tell. Give us a snapshot of the business that you lead today. So the business I lead today was a business that started in 2011. I did a little bit differently this time. Instead of borrowing money from the bank to get the business started, I went to 30 guys here in the valley, 30 guys around the country. And I said, hey, listen, I want you to buy part of my part of my business to get started. You're going to own one and a half percent of my business, put a little bit of money into the management company. But what I need from you is I need deal flow. I need good people. And I need people that are going to give me a second chance. And I went to guys like George Roberts. And I went to guys like Jeff Yang. And I went to guys like John will let you. I went to guys like Wes Edens in New York. I went to guys like a Neil Buschree. You know, a bunch of business leaders that a lot of your listeners will know. And each of them put a little bit of money into the management company. Each of them owns a little bit of the of the carry in the business. And off we went. And each of them made a commitment into a what I call a co-investment fund that I managed. And that was a $30 million co- investment fund. And so what I would do with their with their money is I've called down 10% of their capital, $3 million. And I'd go to a company like Pure Storage. Pure Storage is a company that was started in the early 2000s. Not not early 2000s, but probably mid 2010, 2011. And I'd go to that company and I'd say, listen, I think I can help your sales guys. I think I can help you drive sales. I think I can help you recruit. I think I can help motivate. And in return, just let me put a little bit of this $30 million I raised from all these individuals into your into your series B. And you know what? And they would go back and they go, gosh, I remember when Harris, you know, came in and challenged our team to to do 12 million in sales. And when we did it, he sent four of our guys to the Super Bowl. And hey, I remember when Harris came in and he took all our sales guys golf and down at Pebble Beach. And I remember when Harris did that Monday Night Football party for all our sales guys and all our customers. And hey, you know what? We should give him, you know, a million dollars in our series C when we go out and raise it. And sure enough, you get involved in these companies and you're meeting sales guys and you're meeting the CEOs and all of a sudden, pure storage goes public on the New York Stock Exchange and you're out there ringing the bell and you're having a great time. And you see the same thing that I felt when I won the Super Bowl was, I mean, you just see the joy. You see the you see reaching Mount Everest. You know, you see you know, people climbing to the top. And that's kind of the drug that you want when you win Super Bowls and the kind of drug you want when you when you start companies. And so that's kind of how I started the business. And then when my non-compete expired with the Silicon Valley Bank in 2012, I started a new fund of funds because I knew that I needed to look inside each one of these venture capital funds to find their new great deals. And so I started a fund of funds with the same manager that I invested in in the 80s now that were good buddies of mine and still were good buddies of mine. And we're willing to give me a second chance and they let me start a fund of funds. So I started in 2011 with the Harris-Bardne asset management with a 30 million dollar co-investment fund and a 90 million dollar fund of funds. And that was my first vintage. And now I'm operating out on my fifth vintage in each one of those. I have co-investment five and I have a fund of funds five and I have about a billion dollars of assets under management. And guess what? I operate really by myself. I have a secretary that's super helpful and I outsourced my back office to a great group out of San Francisco. And all my compliance and all my stuff is outsourced. And so, you know, lesson learned, you don't need a lot of people in this business. You just need great relationships and you need great people that are going to help you out and you don't need debt. And so that's kind of how I'm taking the business from 2008 to 2000, you know, at 25 now. Well, congratulations for getting back on your feet and building something that you know how to build and something that you know how to run and you're continuing to grow. So that's fantastic. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Harris -Bardne in just a moment. As you've heard us talk about, one of the many people Harris has learned from is Jeff Yang, the co-founder of Red Point Ventures and one of America's most respected venture capitalists. In our episode on how leaders lead, Jeff talks about the importance of having a healthy paranoia about your competition. I find that the best entrepreneurs and the converse is the worst entrepreneurs. The worst entrepreneurs have no respect for the competition. And they feel like I don't have to worry about it. And you want to have courage of your own convictions and you want to believe in what you're doing, but you have to have paranoid. Andy Grove had this great quote about only the paranoid survive, right? What you want is healthy paranoia . You want to respect the competition. You should never feel like the competition is stupid or they 're lazy or they're just not going to do it. And I've seen great entrepreneurs get lapped because they just have no respect for the competition. And so it's that nice blend between worrying about what other people see and trying to understand what's in their head and having the paranoia that they may have a better idea. But as long as I stick to what I understand and you try to learn from your competition, and that's one of the biggest flaws in big companies, they're not paranoid enough. They dismiss the competition or they dismiss young upstarts. At the end of the day, that's what gets them in trouble. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Jeff, episode 103 here on How Leaders Lead. And you get all kinds of accolades, Harris, because you're a phenomenal guy, but you've been phenomenal at whatever you've ever chosen to do. Obviously, you're great in football. And I understand that you were inducted in the college football hall of fame a few years ago. How did that honor impact you? You're a humble guy, but that's a pretty big thing to have happen. Well, growing up as a kid, I was a huge Archie Manifan. I lived in Atlanta, and the Falcons would play New Orleans, and there was Archie Manif, just getting the crap beat out of him. But man, he came back all the time. And I'll never forget Mac Brown, who was a coach at North Carolina at the time, who was a college football hall of fame, approached me and said, "Hey, listen, I'm now the coach at North Carolina, and you need to be in the college football hall of fame." I go, "Well, I don't really know how to do that. I've been out of football for 30 years now. I have no clue who to call." So Mac said, "Hey, I'm gonna call my good buddy Archie Manif." And so sure enough, Mac called Archie Manifan. I don't know if Archie did it or not, but somehow somebody pulled some strings, and there I was getting inducted into the college football hall of fame. But the most impactful moment of that was I was sitting in Hawaii on Christmas Day with my family in my phone rings, and it's Archie Manifan. It's like I looked down on my phone and says, "Archie Manifan." I'm like, "Oh my God, it's Archie Manifan calling." And he calls me up and he says, "Harris, you know what? In about 25 minutes, they're gonna deliver a ball to you in Hawaii. It's gonna say you've been inducted into the college football hall of fame. I just want to let you know, congratulations. It's well deserved." I'm like, "Archie, oh my God, this is the greatest moment of my life." Not because I got into the college football thing, because you're calling me on Christmas Day, right? That's a good man, Archie Manifan. Now you've got kids that go to UNC, and the three of them play lacrosse? Yeah, so I have four children. My oldest daughter, Anna, came here and she's now in graduate school here, but she played on the Jenny Levy's 2022 national championship team for Women's Lacrosse, had a great career here. My son Paul is a senior here at North Carolina. He's a defenseman, long stick, midi, kind of all-American kind of player for lacrosse. He's here now. He's a senior. They're getting ready to start their season in about two weeks. My daughter Ellie was a great athlete in high school, but she chose to come to North Carolina, and she 's just loving school, which is, honestly, she's kind of the happiest in all of our kids. She don't have to worry about what the coach says, or you know, going to practice. She just, okay, joined a great sorority, having a great time, and doing great in school. And then my son Jack, who is a senior in high school, is here. I'm actually in North Carolina right now. He's doing his official visit. He's going to come to North Carolina next year and play for Joe Breshey and Dave Petromala as a defenseman at for the University of North Carolina at Tar Heels Lacrosse, Minnes Lacrosse team. So that's all four. So I'm all in North Carolina. I've seen you play golf, so it must be your wife that has the great hand-eye coordination. She's amazing. She was an amazing swimmer growing up. And you know what, I think the reason my kids play lacrosse is I just didn't want to play football at the time, and they never did. So my wife loved lacrosse. She thought it was a great sport for kids. You know, it's really a great sport for families, right? Raising families on a lacrosse field, you know, whether or not they go to college or not. I mean, you just meet some of the some of the greatest families and those become your kind of friends, you know, through your, you know, your elementary school years and your high school, your kids' high school years, and it does become friends for life. And that's kind of why we love the sport of lacrosse. What's more stressful, you know, being on the field as a player or watching your kids play lacrosse? I should have kids playing lacrosse. It is super stressful. It is super stressful. You know, I mean, again, another lesson, you know, that I learned from Ronnie L ott, you know, I remember sitting at a dinner table once and somebody asked Ronnie, "Hey, Ronnie, what's the what's the most valuable thing you learned about kids?" And he said, "You know what, the thing I learned about kids is that kids don't want to hear my story. You know, they want me to hear their story." So that's kind of something I took with me in raising these kids. It's like, I don't want, I don't want to tell my stories to my kids. My kids don't want to hear how I block against this guy or how many Super Bowls I want or, you know, or what's going on. They want me to hear their stories. And so you got as a parent, I try and listen. I try and listen to what they're doing. I'm not, I'm not out there critiquing. Hey, you know, you got to slide better. Hey, you got to catch the ball. You got to do this. You got to do that. I just say, "Hey, are you having fun? Are you working hard? You know, what's your coach telling you to try and do?" That, those are the, I want to tell me your stories. I don't want to hear, do you don't want to hear my stories? I love that. And Harrison's been so much fun. I want to have some more of my lightning round of questions. So you ready for this? I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's go. The three words that best describe you. Humble, great father, great husband. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? George Roberts. Your biggest pet peeve. Probably superstitions is my biggest pet peeve. Who would play you in a movie? Oh gosh, I hate to say it, but Rodney Dangerfield. You have two front row tickets to anything you want. Where are you going and who are you taking with you? Two front row seats to see an opening of Hamilton in New York City. And I would take my wife with me. As a North Carolina alum, what's the first phrase that comes to mind when I say blue devils? Oh, hey, there's a shirt they sell out here. It says, breathe if you hate Duke, right? So that's your favorite golf course in Northern California. You got Cypress Point. The most holes you've played and golf in a single day. 36. I've never been able to do that 72 holes with golf, but 36 of those millions I can do. What's the one thing you do just for you, Harris? Probably nothing. Maybe less alone. I should do something for me. Your most prized possession. My kids. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You probably hear a little bit of ACDCs, but you probably hear. What's something about you few people would know? I actually won an Emmy award a long time ago. So that's a lot of people don't know that. What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you never miss? Something I never miss? I try and exercise daily. Great. That's the end of the line. You're a good job. Now, I got to ask you, what do you win the Emmy for? I won an Emmy. I did a local television show that with a guy by the name of Mark Aponius, we'd analyze the 49ers. We won an Emmy. Me, him, and a guy by the name of Ralph Barbieri won an Emmy for the show. And there it is. It's sitting in my living room. Like, you know, all extra. You know, the Emmy is like, yeah, all right. It's an Emmy. You know, you can look back. You know, you have all these great memories. And, you know, I always talk about the importance of creating new memories. You know, how do you think about that? No, I think you got to just keep growing. You know, again, trying to learn from people that have done this a long time. A guy like Sam Reeves, I know Sam's been on this show before. I actually listened to it. And it was great. But Sam's taught me so much about, hey, just you got to be curious. You know what? He's 90 years old. You know, a guy's still can shooting in the 80s in golf. I mean, he gets out there. And when you play golf with Sam, you know, he never talks about himself. He always is asking you questions. He's curious about what's going on. What do you think about the world? What do you think about the politics? What do you think about the situation in the Middle East? What do you think about business? Never . Never. And so, that's the thing that I want to keep doing is I want to keep having those type of things. I want to keep learning. And you know, I understand that in your house, and you've got , I'm sure, you got sports illustrated covers, you got all this stuff, all these pictures that you could put on the walls. But you don't have one picture of you playing football or a football team or anything. Not one. Not one. And again, it's one of those things. Hey, kids don 't want to hear my stories. They want me to hear their stories. And so, my wife, you know what, when football was over, football's over, you know, you got to move on, you got to, you know, you got to take from what you learned from football and move it, move forward. And that's kind of what I 've tried to do. I try. And I really wanted to get as far away from football as I possibly could. You know, I could have coached. I could have done some broadcasting, maybe. But I didn't want to do any of that. I wanted to get as far away from football as I possibly could. All right, last question here, Harris. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? Listen, listen to smarter people than you. And that goes with anything in sports. It goes in business. It goes in life really is that, you know, you think you might have all the answers, but you probably don't. And there's somebody out there that that can help you along. And you need as a leader, as a football player, as a basketball player, as a student, you just, you need to listen. You know, Harris, I want to thank you so much for taking time to be on this show. You know, you are humble. And I think that's one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to get you to talk about yourself for an hour. But you ended up talking about everybody else. You didn't talk much about yourself. But I appreciate you for being the person that you are, being a person that gives back. And it's great to see guys like you who've worked so hard to learn from others, be so successful, make a difference in the world. Well, David, David, you know, I learned that from you. And I've done you for a long time. And you've never been anything but kind . When you're, when you're leading young brands, you're, you're amazing. Your advice you gave on business, on, on business and on life. And hey, I'm, I'm humbled that you asked me to be on this show because I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm walking with greatness here. So I appreciate the opportunity. It's been an hour. Well, thank you, buddy. I appreciate it. You know, I said at the top that you're going to learn a lot from Harris. And I 'm sure that you did. But you also learn from Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott, Sam Reeves, and so many more great leaders. And that's because Harris is a sponge. He's curious. He's humble. And he's always learning from the people and situations around him. The truth is we're always surrounded by insights and answers. We're just not always tuned into him. So keep your antenna up, as I like to say . And you'll uncover those insights all the time, just like Harris does. This week, I want you to consider a problem or issue that you've been stuck on. Then ask yourself, are you really stuck or do you just need to consider who you already know that may already have the answer for you? If you 're willing to learn and listen, you can get it from that person. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders know that to learn from others, you 've got to listen to them and you've got to seek them out. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Alan Teagason, the CEO of DocuSign. And I have to tell you, this is a really fun interview. And I know you're going to love it. Because you can't be successful in any organization unless you're selling to others. And particularly early on in your career where you don't have any authority, it comes from your persuasive ability. So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each and every episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader that you can be.