A Goldman M&A Banker Helped Bring the Olympics to Los Angeles

Joe Weisenthal (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Tracy Alloway (0:18)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:21)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

Joe, we are here in lovely Huntington Beach at the Future Proof Conference.

Joe Weisenthal (0:27)

I love coming to this conference. You can't complain.

Tracy Alloway (0:30)

The beach is right there.

Joe Weisenthal (0:31)

They do such a good job. Every time I'm here, the only thought I have is they have brought heaven on earth. And the only mystery I have is why there are people, you know, you think about like the great migration west. It's like imagine stopping in Nebraska. You could have gone a little bit further and you could have been in California.

And it's like it was right there. And the question I have is, why doesn't everyone live here?

Tracy Alloway (0:56)

OK, well, we made it to California. It's our fourth year at this particular event. And we do, in fact, have the perfect guest. We recorded an episode live on stage with Gene Sykes. He is the co-head of Global M&A at Goldman Sachs, a longtime partner and also the president of the US. Olympic Committee. So take a listen.

Joe Weisenthal (1:16)

Gene, thank you so much for joining us.

Gene Sykes (1:18)

Happy to be here.

Joe Weisenthal (1:19)

Let's start really simple. We can like save the tough questions for the end, but let's start really simple. Like, you were many hats, Goldman, the Olympics. What are you up to now?

Tell us who you are, maybe. Okay.

Gene Sykes (1:32)

I'm still a Goldman Sachs partner after many, many years. I think I've been a partner at Goldman Sachs for half my life. And I work on technology and media, healthcare and other things. And because I've been around for a long time, I get to do more or less what I want, which is to give people advice who need advice and value it, and work with all of our teams and spend a lot of time mentoring people. So that's the Goldman part of my time.

Joe Weisenthal (1:58)

Yeah.

Gene Sykes (1:59)

The other half of my time or more is spending time in everything related to the Olympic and Paralympic ecosystem. So I was the head of the bid when we bid for the games for Los Angeles originally for 2024 We were awarded the 2028 games, less than two years. We'll have the Olympic and Paralympic games right here in Southern California.

But then four years ago, I became the chair of the board of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. So I spent a lot more time now thinking about how do we create Team USA so that our athletes are always the highest performing athletes in any of these Olympic or Paralympic events. And then about two and a half years ago, I became a member of the International Olympic Committee. So I sort of see the entire Olympic, Paralympic landscape.

Tracy Alloway (2:47)

When I think about the Olympics, I'm not big into sports, okay? Like I'm not, I'm not Sydney Sweeney, like sports, sports, sports, sports, right? I just see the Olympics, they're kind of interesting. What counts to you as a successful Olympic Games? Is it keeping the cost down as much as possible?

The vibes? What does it actually look like?

Gene Sykes (3:07)

Successful Olympic Games has to be a games that everyone says, I'll never forget this. This is an incredible experience and I only saw it here. This is the only way I can see all of these incredible athletes in these kinds of competitions and see them in one place at the same time.

And when you say you're not a sports fan, how many people are Elissa Lou fans with figure skating? We wouldn't call themself sports fans. The other thing about the Olympics most people don't realize is, the Olympics are the one sports experience that's skews toward women more than toward men.

Joe Weisenthal (3:40)

Really? I would not have guessed that at all.

You know, we obviously just hit the World Cup in the US., but that's like one sport. There are probably like 12 stadiums or something like that. There's one governing body. Can you give us a feel for essentially like the sprawl of the organization and how many different, maybe we call them stakeholders, have to be brought in to make an Olympic skill well?

Gene Sykes (4:09)

Sure. So in contrast to the World Cup, we had 104 matches during the World Cup between Mexico, the US and Canada. Sixteen different stadiums were host for the- It's nothing.