Michael Rubin Biography

Michael Rubin is an American businessman. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Kynetic, and a direct-of-consumer e-commerce company founded in 2011. He is the Executive Chairman of Kynetic’s three businesses: Fanatics which is the leading seller online in the marketing of licensed sports merchandise. He is the co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and the New Jersey Devils hockey team.

Michael Rubin Age

Michael Rubin was born in 1972 in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, United States. Michael Rubin is 47 years old as of 2019

Michael Rubin Family

Michael Rubin was born in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, the United States to Paulette Rubin (mother) and Ken Rubin (father). He grew up in Lafayette Hill, PA where he started a ski-tuning shop in his parents’ basement when he was 12. His family supported him in all the ways that they could.

Michael Rubin Wife

Michael Rubin married a local dancer and teacher Meegan Rubin with whom they got a daughter namely Kylie Rubin. But they divorced. He started dating CNN news anchor Nicole Lapin but their relationship did not last for long. He is dating another girlfriend, Camille Fishel, with whom they started appearing in the public together back in 2015.

Michael Rubin Businessman

Michael Rubin used the proceeds from his serendipitous overstock transaction and after selling his ski shops, he went on to found the athletic equipment closeout company of KPR sports – named after his parents’ he initially bought and sold over-stock name-brand merchandise. In 1993, Rubin turned 21 KPR reaching $1 million in annual sales; by 1995, KPR reached $50 million in sales.

In 1995, Rubin purchased 40% of the women’s athletic shoe manufacturer Ryka. In 1998, Rubin created Global Sports, which would later turn into GSI Commerce, a multibillion-dollar e-commerce company. At age 38, Rubin sold his company GSI Commerce to eBay for $2.4 billion reaping a $150 million windfall.

He just wanted to order the fulfillment of his business for large retailers so it could better compete with Amazon.com, Rubin was able to buy back the consumer businesses of GSI at a fire sale price. He repurchased: Fanatics, licensed sports merchandise; Rue La La, a flash seller, and Shop Runner, and a retailer benefiting in the program, merging in the three companies to a new entity named Kinetic. Rubin serves as executive chairman on each of his three companies’ boards.

Michael Rubin Fanatics

Michael Rubin is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Fanatics, the global leader for licensed sports merchandise. Powering multi-channel commerce for the world’s largest leagues and sports brands, Fanatics is changing the way fans purchase their favorite team apparel through an innovative, tech-infused approach to making and selling fan gear.

He is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kynetic, one of the world’s largest private technology companies focused on building consumer internet businesses that enhance the way we shop in today’s on-demand culture.

At the time the retail industry is seeing massive upheaval, Rubin has envisioned a new model for commerce which he calls Vertical Commerce. This V-Commerce approach to business allows Fanatics to see double-digit growth in each year and controlling its destiny by designing a broad range of merchandise and jerseys under the Fanatics and Majestic brands and selling it across retail channels.

V-Commerce also allows for incredible speed-to-market of fan gear, benefiting leagues, teams, and retailers looking to serve the insatiable real-time appetite of fans worldwide, fueled by explosive growth in technology, mobile and social media.

Rubin has always been on the cutting edge of commerce. He is Priority to create Kynetic, he was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GSI Commerce, a network of e-commerce, multi-channel and digital marketing businesses.

In a span of 12 years, Rubin built GSI to service 150 of the top 500 internet retailers before selling the company to eBay for $2.4 billion. He was named annually as one of Sports Business Journal’s Most Influential People in Sports Business, Rubin is also co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils.

How Michael Rubin Went From Bankrupt to Billionaire

When Michael Rubin was 16, he built a 142-foot ski ramp made out of 45,000 pounds of ice so customers at his ski shop could test their gear. In August. In 98 degree weather. “I believe there are two types of business people risky and rational,” the then 16-year-old Rubin told Small Business Chronicle in September 1988.

At the time, Rubin owned Mike’s Ski Shop in the suburban community of Conshohocken, Penn. “And since I am the risky type, a ski run in 98-degree weather sounds great to me!” For Rubin, that appetite for risk has paid off. He is now 41 years old and worth $2.7 billion.

Impressive, especially when you consider that he was once bankrupt. When Rubin was 8 years old, he was already an entrepreneur. He sold vegetable seeds door to door in his Philadelphia neighborhood, had a gaggle of kids shoveling snow out of driveways and printed stationery on an Apple II plus and sold it door to door.

By the time he was 12, Rubin had set up a ski tune-up shop in his parent’s basement and by the time he was 14, Rubin opened a retail ski shop. “That’s when people said, ‘Wow, he is really into the business.’

But for me, it always felt normal,” Rubin told Entrepreneur.com when he sat down in the New York City offices of one of his multiple e-commerce businesses, a fashion flash sale site, Rue La La. Before he was old enough to drive, Rubin bought a Porsche.

He did not tell his parents about his plans until after he had acquired the automobile. His mother, a psychiatrist, was quite alarmed to hear of Rubin’s purchase. “She was not happy, she was definitely not very happy,” says Rubin.

He graduated from high school, but he was able to leave campus at 11 a.m. each day, flexibility which allowed him to simultaneously run his retail ski shops. He enrolled himself in Villanova, where, he says, he had every intention of graduating.

It was doomed from the start. He was always bouncing back and forth between buying and selling closeout lots of ski equipment and shoes and school. Rubin dropped out of college after six weeks. His parents were a bit dismayed, but not surprised.

Michael Rubin Net worth

Michael Rubin has several businesses that generate his income at a high rate up-to where he is. He started investing in a business at an early age of 16 when he built a 142-foot ski ramp made out of 45,000 pounds of ice, and when he was 8 years old, he was already an entrepreneur. He owns a helicopter and many luxurious cars and an expensive Penthouse In The West Village which costs $43.5 M. He has an estimated net worth of $3 billion.

Michael Rubin Penthouse

“I was so anxious about advancing my business aspirations, it just was what it was. There was no stopping the freight train that was going in that direction,” says Rubin. If he could go back, Rubin says he would have stayed in school.

Perhaps even attended business school. At 41, Rubin can see that starting his career in his mid-20s would have been perfectly sufficient. And he might have learned a thing or two by staying in school. But at the time, says Rubin, his youthful, ambitious drive would pause for nothing.

He moved Online, Accidentally not knowing where his goals are set as for now is exclusively building e-commerce businesses. But it wasn’t always that way. And his move into e-commerce was against his initial instincts.

The discount ski-equipment business that Rubin built, KPR sports, merged with then publicly-traded athletic shoe company Ryka to form Global Sports Inc. (later to be known as GSI Commerce). By 1998, when Rubin was only 26, GSI was bringing in sales of more than $130 million a year.

In that year, the only analyst covering his publicly-traded company called him and asked Rubin how he was going to integrate the Internet into his business model. “‘Hey Michael, what are you doing about this Internet thing?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he says, ‘Well, there is so much interest in the Internet.’

And I am like, ‘Oh, don’t waste my time. It’s all these young kids who lose lots of money. They barely do any revenue and the only thing they are good at is losing money. Don’t waste my time with this Internet thing. I have no interest.’

And I hung up on him,” says Rubin. Michael Conn, now the CFO of Rubin’s business holding company Kynetic, called Rubin back five minutes later, prodding an already aggravated Rubin yet again to pay attention to this new phenomenon, the Internet.

“I said, ‘I have no interest in this, what are you bothering me for?’ and I hung up the phone. And I started thinking about it,” says Rubin. Rubin called the CEOs of the chain stores that he was selling to, including Modell’s and the Sports Authority, and he realized that while they all were feeling pressure from their boards to do something to bring their businesses online, but nobody was sure how exactly to do it.

This spelled opportunity for Rubin. In 1999, Rubin started to develop ways to move GSI online. The wholesale sports equipment retailer was there even before moving online, There were no physical retail stores sold directly to other retailers. eBay bought Rubin’s business in 2011 for $2.4 billion.

At the time, Rubin owned just shy of 10 percent of the company. Today, Rubin’s three e-commerce businesses within his holding company Kynetic are the sole focus of this billionaire entrepreneur. Online sports gear site Fanatics did $800 million in revenue last year and was recently valued at $3.1 billion.

Internet fashion flash sale site Rue La La had sales of nearly $400 million in 2012 and two-day shipping membership site Shop Runner has been valued at approximately $600 million. Just this fall, Shop Runner received a $200 million investment from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

The cash infusion will help Shop Runner grow, but also gives the new e-commerce platform a level of sophistication and maturity for having the backing of such a global juggernaut. Rubin is an aggressive and active businessman who wakes up a couple of hours after going to sleep to send emails about the ideas he has had.

Despite his racing thoughts, Rubin is laser-focused on growing his three businesses. And he is confident that e-commerce is a young and growing industry. For the foreseeable future, Rubin expects e-commerce to maintain double-digit growth. Part of that growth, says Rubin, is ever-increasing popularity of mobile devices.

“Mobile is going to change e-commerce as much as e-commerce has changed brick and mortar retailers,” says Rubin. Fanatics gets 45 percent of its traffic from mobile today and three years ago “virtually nothing” came from mobile, Rubin says.

His Fanatics is currently at a cost of $1 billion per year company, but he expects it to grow into from $5 to $10 billion business before the end of the decade. And that’s the fun part for Rubin the “building” part. While at 41, Rubin has already made enough money to retire for the rest of his life comfortably (and then some), retirement is not even on his mind.

“I don’t see any scenario where I am not working hard, pushing it,” says Rubin. “I am not very good at relaxing. Relaxing is not a core strength of mine. Somebody said to me a couple of days ago that they were curious if I slept. It’s not something I really enjoy doing.”

Michael Rubin Meek Mill

Meek Mill and Micheal Rubin are friends and in 2018 Michael played an important role in Meek’s quest for freedom. Meek was found guilty of violating a decade-old gun and drug case in November 2017 and faced a two- to four-year sentence. During his, a six-month stint in prison Rubin visited Meek 15 times before he was finally released on April 2018.

After his release Rubin picked up Meek in a helicopter and escorted him to the 76ers playoff game, where he rang the ceremonial bell, ushering in his newfound freedom. On 23rd January 2019, Meek Mill and Michael Rubin launched their REFORM Alliance Foundation at New York City’s John Jay College to help raise awareness for criminal justice reform.

Michael Rubin Forber

• Michael Rubin is the majority owner and CEO of Kynetic, which is the holding company for e-commerce retailers Fanatics, Rue La La and ShopRunner.
• His flash-sales site, Rue La La, acquired longtime rival Gilt Groupe for an undisclosed price in June 2018.
• In September 2017 SoftBank invested $1 billion in Fanatics, which sells sports merchandise.
• After dropping out of Villanova University, Rubin started GSI Commerce, which he sold to eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011.
• As part of the deal, he paid $500 million for majority ownership of 3 assets eBay didn’t want: Fanatics, Rue La La and ShopRunner.
• He is in the process of working with rapper Meek Mill to launch the Criminal Justice Reform Foundation

Michael Rubin Chief Executive Officer of Kynetic

Michael Rubin has served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of GSI Commerce® since July 1995 and as president since October 2006. Prior, he also served as GSI Commerce’s co-president from May 2004 through August 2005 and as GSI Commerce’s president from June 2000 through May 2004.

He directly oversees the sales, strategic planning and corporate development group, and the corporate support and governance group. He has built GSI Commerce into one of the leading e-commerce companies in the United States and has received awards and media attention for his entrepreneurial skills and various accomplishments.

Billionaire Michael Rubin is ranked  No. 791 on Forbes‘ Billionaires list, finally closed on his massive penthouse at 160 Leroy Street in Manhattan’s West Village. He went under contract for the 7,750-square-foot unit last October but the sale didn’t close until last month.

He purchased it for the full asking price of $51 million it would have been the most expensive residential sale for downtown, but at its final sales price of $43.5 million, it still counts as the most expensive sale below 14th Street, according to a few agents.

Rubin, the part owner of Philadelphia’s 76ers, the New Jersey Devils and CEO of Kynetic the company oversees its retailers such as Fanatics and Rue La La is getting much more than great views of the Hudson River.

The five-bedroom, five-plus-bath unit comes with four wood-burning fireplaces, a 4,944-square-foot roof terrace with a 27-foot private pool and outdoor kitchen, 168 linear feet of walls perfect for displaying art, a corner dining room, private screening room, library and master suite that takes up an entire wing of the unit.

The building, had the brainchild of longtime New York developer Ian Schrager, was designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron who pulled inspiration from an architect who never met a curve he didn’t like, Oscar Niemeyer.

At 160 Leroy nearly every exterior wall follows a waveform (perhaps as a nod to the ripples of the Hudson not far away) and, if the promotional materials are to be believed, is “curvaceous, sensual, free-flowing, seductive and sexy.”

Penthouse North, as it’s called, almost didn’t exist in its current incarnation. The existing plans for the building called for the entire top floor to be one grand unit measuring about 12,000 square feet (with an asking price somewhere between $75 to $80 million), but designers decided to create two units instead.

The smaller Penthouse South unit has already sold. A real peek at what it looks like inside is being kept under wraps so it’s just renderings to enjoy for now. Here is a concept of the view from across the river.

Check out the penthouse’s immense living room with views on either side of the building.

The kitchen comes with larch wood cabinets matched by sivec marble slab countertops and backsplash. On the lengthy list of appliances, the ones at the height of luxury include two Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezers, a full-height Sub-Zero wine refrigerator, a Wolf steam oven, and a Wolf coffee/espresso machine. Even though the penthouse has its own private rooftop terrace, there’s also the building’s private courtyard with landscape design by Madison Cox.

Michael Rubin Philadelphia 76ers basketball team

Rubin recently spearheaded a bid to buy the Charlotte Panthers before he dropped out of contention sights set on NFL ownership. Until then, he might dangle his A-list connections to help recruit prized free agents like, say LeBron James this summer to join Embiid and Ben Simmons.

But it’s more than hip-hop and hoops that connects Rubin and Mill these days. It’s an unwavering desire to speak out in the national spotlight for reform. Rubin said he and Mill were close to announcing a foundation with A-listers pledging to assist, of course, that would include a wish list of initiatives.

“We want to help people that are not like myself who don’t have the resources,” Mill said.  “It’s meant a lot for our friendship and brought us closer together. I just think he’s a good-hearted person being that he’s somebody worth billions of dollars and still uses his resources to stand up for people who don’t have the money to be able to fight the errors of the criminal justice system.”

But Rubin says he’ll find personal worth in the months ahead teaming with Mill to tackle thorny criminal justice issues. It could help that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf is a frequent front-row companion of Rubin and Mill’s during Philly’s run through the postseason. The trio recently appeared together to ask state lawmakers for criminal justice changes.

“This was one of my closest friends and I watched something terrible happen to him,” Rubin said at his Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, office. “It started with, how do we fix the situation with him? I said, ‘My God, this is horrific.’

What it actually showed me was, there are much bigger problems with the criminal justice system which I had no understanding of. We’re not going to let what happened to Meek Mill happen to everyday Meek Mills.” Rubin wasn’t expecting a personal awakening when he met Mill at the 2015 NBA All-Star Game in New York. Rubin, raised in an upper-middle-class Philly suburb, was simply a businessman who had been making deals since he was a kid.

He owned a ski shop as a teen, dropped out of Villanova after just six weeks and sold his first sports equipment business to eBay in 2011 for $2.4 billion. He runs Fanatics, fashion site Rue La La and shipping site Shop Runner through Kynetic.

And in 2011, he joined an ownership group led by Joshua Harris and David Blitzer that would buy the 76ers and later the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. Harris and Blitzer who have since formed Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment as they expand their sports portfolio had served as the primary faces of the sports teams since their purchases.

But over the last two years, as his wealth seemed to match his ambition, Rubin has been at the forefront of the Sixers’ rise from the 10-win early Process days into one of the best young teams in the NBA. The seats that flank Rubin Mill and his fellow rapper Lil Uzi Vert had the distinction at Game 4 against the Celtics on Monday have become must-see for fans to catch celeb sightings.

“It’s surreal to have this many people support me at one time,” Mill said. “The feeling is unexplainable.” The man who pushed Mill’s cause and helped keep the “Dreams and Nightmares” performer’s spirits high in prison with visits from a few 76ers is also getting his time in the spotlight.

“He freed Meek! He freed Meek!” one man yelled, trying to get Rubin’s attention. It’s not just rappers and actors or even Game 4 guest, CNBC news anchor Joe Kernen that flock to Rubin. Rubin and Embiid have become tight and it was the owner who arranged Embiid’s birthday party in Miami and snagged a suite for the organization to attend a World Series game in Houston at the same time the Sixers were in town.

“I’m not involved in the basketball decisions,” Rubin said. “I think it’s obvious from the outside in that I’ve got great relations with them. I’m a very player-oriented owner. I think I’m highly relatable to these guys. I’m in business.

There are things I can have a big influence on them.” Rubin, divorced with a 12-year-old daughter, has an off-the-cuff Mark Cuban vibe and wears the same blue button-down, jeans and black sneaks to Game 4 that he did hours earlier inside an office filled with photos of other celebs and his appearance on “Undercover Boss.

”He even hit up baseball’s All-Star Game last year with Kraft and Embiid. “By the way, Joel and Robert love each other. Meek and Robert love each other,” Rubin said. “I love to be able to foster those relationships.

People always say to me how lucky Meek is to have me. Actually, I think I’m so lucky to have him. He’s opened my eyes to so many things that I would have never understood had it not been for him.” Rubin is also the co-founder of 76ers.

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