Alex Rodriguez on Business, Mentorship and Life After Baseball

Harry Stebbings speaks with former baseball player and A-Rod Corp chairman and CEO Alex Rodriguez about business, family and lessons from sport. Rodriguez discusses his own investments and the Minnesota Timberwolves, in which he has a financial interest. His investment results and forecasts are his account, not independent financial advice.

Asked what he is running from, Rodriguez recalls his father leaving when he was ten and his mother raising three children. He says that experience had a major impact, although he did not fully examine it until years later.

Rodriguez describes his 2014 Major League Baseball suspension for performance-enhancing drug use as a turning point. During that period he began extensive therapy with a doctor he credits with helping him unpack the loss and change his perspective. The reflection is his personal account.

Before the suspension, he says, he defined success through championships, contracts, possessions and relationships. Afterward, he came to emphasize gratitude, collaboration, the success of people around him and being a present father. He says this change took sustained work rather than happening automatically.

Rodriguez tells his team to identify two or three priorities and go narrow and deep instead of trying to master everything. In his view, slowing down and concentrating effort makes it more likely that a person can excel at a small number of things.

On hiring, he says years in professional sport helped him recognize talent and determination, while his partner Marc Lore taught him about evaluating résumés. He thinks obviously excellent and clearly unsuitable candidates are easier to identify than the middle group who interview persuasively.

His rule of thumb is to hire slowly and address a poor fit quickly, concentrating the search on the strongest candidates and then assessing cultural fit. This is his management approach, not a claim that résumés or interviews can rank people perfectly.

Rodriguez considers empathy and listening essential to negotiation. He wants to understand the other party's three most important needs and find a structure that works for both sides. Sometimes price is fixed but terms can move; elsewhere the reverse is true. He says trust in the other party also matters.

He says that earlier in life he relied more on emotion in decisions; now he aims for a combination of analysis, feeling and common sense. Asked about a successful transaction, he points to an investment in Petros PACE, a real-estate financing business in which his firm bought a one-third interest.

Rodriguez says the company offered green financing as an alternative to more expensive mezzanine debt and that the stake was sold to Apollo at nearly 12 times the investment. Those financing comparisons and the return are his recollections; they are not independently verified or a projection for similar investments.

His difficult deal was a portfolio of roughly 1,000 apartments bought around the 2008 financial crisis. He recalls paying about $60,000 per unit and then seeing estimated values fall to around $40,000 while debt was about $42,000 per unit. His firm negotiated with lenders and sold years later, he says, for around $75,000 per unit.

Magic Johnson was a role model because Rodriguez saw a successful athlete of color build a business career. A planned short dinner became a three-hour conversation. Rodriguez recalls Johnson later saying that the notes and preparation Rodriguez brought showed sincere interest.

He summarizes Johnson's advice in three parts: work with exceptional people, build on the athlete's own strengths and stay connected through media and conversations with business leaders. Rodriguez says he wrote down the framework and tried to apply it over many years.

Rodriguez also recalls Warren Buffett reviewing his real-estate books and giving feedback. He cites three lessons: stay within one's circle of competence, prefer a great business at a fair price to a merely fair business at a great price, and keep emotion in check when investing.

Early in his business career, Rodriguez says he made small investments in a range of companies to learn about industries and teams as well as seek returns. Over time he narrowed A-Rod Corp's focus to sports and real estate, areas where he believes the team has experience, passion and something useful to contribute.

His interest in real estate began when his family rented and his mother worked two jobs; as a child he imagined changing places with the landlord. Sport was the other constant in his life. His present portfolio and stated focus reflect his business interests and are not recommendations to readers.

Stebbings asks how money relates to happiness. Rodriguez says money provides necessities and can buy time, which he values spending with family and colleagues. He increasingly concentrates on process—building a strong team, collaborating and maintaining discipline—rather than treating short-term results as the only goal.

The difficult part of process, he says, is discipline when work becomes repetitive. He applies lessons from sport to coaching young talent, arguing that attention, compassion and development can pay off over time. His claim about the return on that investment is a leadership belief, not a measured result.

When things go badly, Rodriguez says he tries to slow down, recognize what he is grateful for and invest in sleep, hydration and exercise. These are personal routines he finds helpful when facing challenges, not a guarantee of performance.

He believes in work-life balance but distinguishes periods that require a sprint from longer stretches where the team can recover and enjoy success. He describes an office culture with music, accountability and an opportunity to learn collectively when people make mistakes.

Stebbings asks how to make it safe to fail without accepting persistent poor performance. Rodriguez says the leader must take responsibility and build trust. He compares managers who showed they cared about him as a player with those whose motives he doubted; trust changed how he responded to their coaching.

On sports ownership, Rodriguez sees both advantages and risks in institutional investment. He admires owners who combine business resources with a personal connection to their teams and fans, and suggests capital can be useful if that commitment remains. His view comes from a co-owner of a professional franchise.

He says he cannot confidently predict every change in sports over five years, noting the rapid evolution of media and regional television. He expects more direct relationships between franchises and consumers in viewing, player interaction and merchandise. That is a 2023 forecast, not a settled outcome.

Affordability is a concern in both sports and housing. Rodriguez invokes his mother as a reminder of fans and renters with limited means, arguing that teams and property owners should not lose sight of people who cannot easily afford tickets or rent. His comments reflect his own roles in both businesses.

Stebbings raises the unequal effects of higher interest rates. Rodriguez describes households facing much larger mortgage payments when fixed terms end and says leaders and governments should consider people with limited savings. His numerical examples illustrate his concern rather than establish a universal household outcome.

Fatherhood became a priority partly because of his father's absence. Rodriguez says he promised himself to be present for his two daughters and values ordinary moments such as conversation at dinner without phones. He regards parenting as a central responsibility.

He urges parents to ask children what they enjoyed and whether they prepared or worked hard, rather than making every trip home from practice about results. He connects his own less pressured upbringing with his long baseball career, while acknowledging that this is his interpretation of his experience.

Asked how to encourage ambition in children with different financial circumstances from his own, he emphasizes example and honest feedback. He appreciates adults who are fair but demanding with his daughters and thinks learning from setbacks can help them grow.

In quick-fire questions, Rodriguez chooses Jackie Robinson as a dinner guest, wanting to understand the courage required to play at a high level while confronting racism. He then says he had paused new real-estate purchases because of interest rates and a gap between buyers' and sellers' expectations.

His hypothetical negotiation has sellers gradually lowering asking prices until they meet the buyer's valuation. The example expresses his cautious stance in 2023, not a prediction that every asset will decline or a recommendation to time the market.

Rodriguez names his PED suspension as a painful lesson and says therapy and accountability helped him rebuild. Asked why he used performance-enhancing drugs, he calls the decision foolish and says he has forgiven himself while accepting responsibility for the consequences.

He describes his early and late playing seasons as evidence, in his own account, that he did not need those substances. His claims about those seasons and being clean are personal statements; the interview does not independently verify them. He hopes discussing his mistake will help younger people avoid it.

Rodriguez says he would like to be remembered as a collaborator, a loving and fair person and a good father. Looking toward 2028, he hopes to remain with his team and see the Minnesota Timberwolves win a championship. This is an aspiration, and Stebbings closes by thanking him.