The Profile: Crypto’s new billionaire villain & the most feared dealmaker

This edition of The Profile features Barry Silbert, Michael Rubin, Palmer Luckey, Emily Weiss, and more.

Good morning, friends!

I published my interview with relationship therapist Vienna Pharaon this week.

I was excited to chat with her because I’ve long been interested in the psychology of relationships.

I’ve written deep-dives on relationship therapists including Esther Perel, John Gottman, Lori Gottlieb, and Orna Guralnik.

I’ve also interviewed my great-grandmother about her 53-year marriage, solicited marriage advice from hundreds of Profile readers, and tried to use the “Hanlon’s Razor” mental model to be a better partner.

As my husband and I were starting our marriage in 2020, quite a few couples were going in the opposite direction toward divorce. As a result of the pandemic, partners were suddenly locked in small spaces together for months on end.

I remember one joke making the rounds at the beginning of the lockdowns that went something along the lines of, “My wife’s name is Sarah. She is a nurse, and her favorite color is blue. She seems nice!”

It was a nod to the fact that many couples aren’t together all that much. They go to the office, take business trips, and attend work events — activities which are often done without their partner. So when do you have time to update each other on what’s going on in your life? In the marginal time of evenings and weekends.

But suddenly, the mandatory lockdowns forced many people to be together 24/7. They learned things about each other they never knew (like some discovering they were married to the ‘let’s circle back’ guy’).

One thing I found particularly insightful from my interview with Vienna was around the patterns she sees in healthy couples.

Here’s what she said:

“I think there's a deep understanding of each other's internal world. If I were to ask you, ‘What is your partner struggling with right now? What is your partner feeling most excited and grateful for? What's he most inspired by? Who has she felt the closest to at this point in her life right now — which friend of hers? What fear does she have right now? Where is she feeling most insecure?’

“Can you answer those questions? Or are you like, ‘Sh*t, I don't know any of those answers. Like I could take a stab, but I'm not sure because we haven't talked about it. I don't really know what's happening in your world.’”

I’ve never thought about it like that, but it’s true. Even if you and your partner work in wildly different industries, you should be able to answer those questions.

In my very unprofessional opinion, genuine curiosity can transform any relationship.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

— Polina

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PROFILES.

— The most feared dealmaker of his generation [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
—  The longstanding CEO who’s weathered dozens of crises
— The Oppenheimer in flip flops
— The billionaire who became crypto’s new villain
— The beauty founder who built a billion-dollar brand

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The most feared dealmaker of his generation: Michael Rubin, the aggressive entrepreneur and dealmaker behind sports merchandising giant Fanatics, has spent the previous two decades blowing through industries. After building and selling a small chain of ski shops in Pennsylvania by the time he was 18, Rubin turned his next company, an overstock sporting goods business, into GSI Commerce, which scored contracts to develop and operate shopping websites for traditional retailers such as Toys “R” Us. He purchased Fanatics, then a Florida sports retailer, in 2011 and merged it with GSI, selling it to eBay Inc. for $2.4 billion—only to cut a deal to buy back the Fanatics business for a meager $330 million. Here’s how he has become the most feared dealmaker of his generation. (Bloomberg; if you can’t access the article, try this link)

“We’re getting the shit kicked out of ourselves every day right now.”

The longstanding CEO who’s weathered dozens of crises: Aflac CEO Dan Amos took the reins of the insurer founded by his father in 1990. Thirty four years later, this makes him the fifth-longest-serving CEO of any Fortune 500 company. With $18.7 billion in revenue last year, Aflac’s annual sales have increased sevenfold over his tenure. Amos has outlasted many of his contemporaries and seen multiple would-be successors, including his son, retire or resign. And by now he’s used to global upheaval: “He’s been able to navigate a pandemic, a changing rate environment, and a changing product portfolio admirably well,” says John Barnidge, a Piper Sandler analyst who covers Aflac and other insurers. Now, however, Amos is facing a brand new challenge — his aging customers’ mortality and eventually his own. (FORTUNE)

“What has helped me the most in my career is staying focused. Everybody’s got an idea to get you off track.”

The Oppenheimer in flip flops: Palmer Luckey is behind Anduril Industries, a California-based defense company. Anduril has built and sold more than a dozen autonomous defense and weapons systems to the Pentagon since it was founded in 2017. In that time, Luckey’s company has become one of the largest of only a handful of startups that have infiltrated the U.S. government’s trillion-dollar war machine. As conflicts multiply overseas, Anduril’s business is accelerating: annual revenues are projected to reach $1 billion (!) by 2026. (Financial Times; if you can’t access the article, try this link.)

“The intent is to go toe to toe with the major primes and try and fight our way to an equal footing.”

The billionaire who became crypto’s new villain: The crypto world has seen its share of surreal sagas over the past few years, including the crypto-based second act of the Winklevoss brothers. Entangled with the twins’ story is that of billionaire Barry Silbert. He has lately drawn the ire of hundreds of thousands of retail investors who put their money with Gemini, the Winklevii's crypto exchange. Silbert has emerged as an unexpected villain for trying to block a legal settlement that would make those mom-and-pop investors whole again, after more than a year of seeing their savings in limbo. (New York Magazine; if you can’t access the story, try this link.)

“I’ve been in the crypto space for a long time, and I’ve always idolized Barry. After all this? I cannot stand him.”

The beauty founder who built a billion-dollar brand: Emily Weiss, the founder of beauty brand Glossier, shaped the way we see ourselves. Following allegations of racism and transphobia in the company’s stores, Weiss stepped down as CEO in 2022, becoming executive chairwoman and retaining her founder title. Glossier turns 10 this year, but Weiss says she wants it to be a 100-year brand. Here’s how she plans to make that happen. (ELLE)

“The ambition and vision was always that it was a multigenerational, psychographic, not demographic, brand.”

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