01:00:04 · David Senra, Kenn Ricci
[01:00:04] S0: Yeah. [01:00:04] S1: Right? What do you have to pick? Uniform crossover day. Like, so for a while, you got two different colored pilots flying. You got the blue pilots and the brown pilots. I mean, it just was it just was very complicated, But [01:00:16] S0: even though you're going through this difficult four year period, and this makes more sense now, I've got, like, the whole history of why you hate mergers and acquisitions, and you have a couple experiences that are bad. [01:00:25] S1: Yeah. I have one. [01:00:26] S0: Are still really... You you strike me as a a supremely optimistic guy. You're just like, yeah, I'm gonna sell this contract. I'll figure out where the 600,000,000 is coming later. [01:00:33] S1: Right? Yeah. [01:00:34] S0: Do you still have a lot of faith in the fractional ownership business? Absolutely. So you're like, do you know this is what you're gonna do for, this is like your life's work. [01:00:40] S1: Yeah, not for this program. But if I showed you the economics of how a charter operator works, how a management company works and how a fractional company works and showed you top line, bottom line and margin. It's the only operationally dynamic model. It's the best model. Rich Santulli, he invented this model and it was brilliant. [01:00:59] S0: Okay. So the four year period, now we're in 2018. [01:01:02] S1: Yeah. [01:01:02] S0: Now you're on the Flexjet. You have the uniformed pilots. [01:01:05] S1: The union's gone. The union's gone. [01:01:06] S0: The time we've ever...
01:01:06 · David Senra, Kenn Ricci
[01:01:06] S0: The time we've ever... [01:01:07] S1: Only time a union's ever voted to to for self representation in the history of pilots. Oh, wow. Okay. Only time? [01:01:14] S0: Yep. Now you have the planes that you want. Yep. The kind of planes that you want. Yep. Okay. The state of the business there though, I feel from, let's say, let's say that's eight years ago. Yeah. Has the business like doubled in size? Well... Quadrupled. [01:01:27] S1: Quadrupled. Quadrupled. Okay. [01:01:29] S0: It's a private company where I'm gonna get into the fact that you almost like, took it public and... Yeah. Fuck [01:01:34] S1: shoot me, but [01:01:34] S0: go on. Yeah. And you paid, like, I think $60,000,000 to [01:01:37] S1: get out of it. Yeah. It's a $30,000,000 mistake. [01:01:40] S0: Well, first of all, why why is it so important to you? Because I'm obsessed with, like, family owned businesses, private companies. Like, it's just like, to me, like, the ideal situation, you know, I have a bunch of friends that are public company CEOs. Yeah. And they all secretly hate it, by the way. But like, why was it so important to like, in addition to... Let's take away like the reporting and how difficult it is running a public company, but like, why did you wanna keep your company private?
01:01:40 · David Senra, Kenn Ricci
[01:01:40] S0: Well, first of all, why why is it so important to you? Because I'm obsessed with, like, family owned businesses, private companies. Like, it's just like, to me, like, the ideal situation, you know, I have a bunch of friends that are public company CEOs. Yeah. And they all secretly hate it, by the way. But like, why was it so important to like, in addition to... Let's take away like the reporting and how difficult it is running a public company, but like, why did you wanna keep your company private? [01:02:00] S1: Because I believe in a higher being. I think there's a purpose we have beyond wealth accumulation. Okay. There has to be, I've always struggled and of course I went to Jesuit high school. So of course I was, of course I'd have the guilt gene, but I always struggle with the question like, why am I here? It took me till twenty eighteen to really find who I am, why I'm here to all come into alignment. And it's crystal clear in my life today. I always struggled with it. I could go back to conversations in the late 80s and late 90s when I was starting the business and I'm asking, how does this business serve others? And I think fundamentally, I always knew my life had to be about serving others, but always shied away from wealth because that didn't seem like wealth doesn't serve others. It serves me, right? You can have, there's very, you know, wealth seems to be very tempting. So it took me a long time to find my life. Before we get to 2018, you're
01:02:00 · Kenn Ricci, David Senra
[01:02:00] S1: Because I believe in a higher being. I think there's a purpose we have beyond wealth accumulation. Okay. There has to be, I've always struggled and of course I went to Jesuit high school. So of course I was, of course I'd have the guilt gene, but I always struggle with the question like, why am I here? It took me till twenty eighteen to really find who I am, why I'm here to all come into alignment. And it's crystal clear in my life today. I always struggled with it. I could go back to conversations in the late 80s and late 90s when I was starting the business and I'm asking, how does this business serve others? And I think fundamentally, I always knew my life had to be about serving others, but always shied away from wealth because that didn't seem like wealth doesn't serve others. It serves me, right? You can have, there's very, you know, wealth seems to be very tempting. So it took me a long time to find my life. Before we get to 2018, you're [01:02:55] S0: figuring this out. Take me to some of these conversations where you're like questioning this. Like what's your inner monologue? Are you sharing these thoughts with other people?
01:02:55 · David Senra, Kenn Ricci
[01:02:55] S0: figuring this out. Take me to some of these conversations where you're like questioning this. Like what's your inner monologue? Are you sharing these thoughts with other people? [01:03:01] S1: Yeah. In fact, probably, you know, if you were to ask me like some of the most influence of people in my life, one of the most influential was Father Ted Hesburgh, who led the University of Notre Dame for thirty five years. You know, he ran this amazing institution. He grew it from going broke during World War II because they had no students to becoming one of the most prominent universities in the world today, right? And he did that over his thirty five year tenure as president. And he had an amazing business sense as well as being a priest. So, you know, he was an amazing resource and had amazing insights. And I remember going to him at a time, he retired from president, so he was very available. I ran the student government when I was there, so I knew him from my days at Notre Dame. [01:03:44] S0: And so you go to him.
01:03:46 · Kenn Ricci
[01:03:46] S1: And I asked him a question. I asked him, I said, you know, I'm pretty sure that Jesus was not a capitalist. I'm pretty sure he had to be a socialist because I don't recognize anything in what I was taught about why we are here in the life of capitalism. I don't see that. I'm not finding that. And I said that to him and he looked at me and he said, have two thoughts for you. Number one, it can be if it consumes you. I actually said to him, I said, You know, I got a shitty gift. You know, if I could cure cancer, that would be a great gift. If I could like heal the poor. I mean, there's a lot of good gifts. There's a lot of very altruistic gifts. I don't have that gift. I got the gift for looking at a balance sheet and understanding how the business can translate to the balance sheet. I understand that that's my special gift. And he said to me, yeah, God thought enough of you to give you that gift. You're gonna be tempted your whole life with being selfish with this gift or thinking about how to continuously use this gift for others. But God had enough confidence in you to give you that gift. And so run with it. And number two, he told me, don't overthink this. He goes, life is really simple. We wanna it so complicated. To have a life of significance, you only have to do three things. Be true to your God, be as good as your parents, and champion the causes of underdogs. He didn't say be a Catholic. He didn't say be a Christian. He said be true to whatever you think is why you're here in existence. Be as good as your parents. Our parents are flawed in so many ways. He didn't say be the perfect parent, but parents come with a genuine acceptance that they wanna give life, right? So he said, be as good, and then champion the cause of underdogs. Always look around the room, find the underdog and go to them.