Michael Rubin1:50
You know, the most interesting thing, and you guys probably know the Meek story. Whenever someone would ask me to help with a charity before, I was the greatest person to ask because I would just want to give away money to have them not to like finish the conversation as quickly as possible. Someone said, 'Hey, Michael, I'm doing this thing. Can you come?' Let me just write you a check. No, I can't. No, you can't honor me. No, you can't do this. No, but I'm happy to write you a check. Okay? And I was always a pretty charitable person financially, but I never put my time into it. The thing with Meek that changed my life and changed his life was, as everyone knows, Meek got sent to prison for two to four years for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle for the most simple probation violation because she had a crazy judge who was power hungry who wanted to control him. And she sent him to prison for two to four years for literally getting a ticket for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle. What changed my life and what changed Meek's life is he said to me, call me on Friday. He's like, 'Yo, Rub, can you come to court with me on Monday?' I'm like, 'For what?' He's like, 'You remember I told you that probation hearing?' He's like, 'I really want you to see what happens when a black person goes to court.' I'm like, 'Do you really want me to come?' And like, he had always told me all these stories and like you hear them, but you don't fully appreciate it. To be honest, I think it's hard to believe because they seem so unbelievable. So, do you really want me to come? He was like, 'Yeah.' I'm like, 'No problem.' I live 20 minutes away. I think the court hearing was like at maybe 1:00. I get there and I watched this probation officer get up and said, 'You know, Robert Williams is a model probationer. He's done everything we've ever asked. We suggest no sentencing.' Sits down. The DA gets up and says, 'You know, we agree. We recommend no sentencing.' And the judge starts screaming at the DA and the probation officer in front of me saying, 'You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know the problem he is.' Screams at them. Then they asked me like impromptu, 'Can you get up and speak about your relationship with Meek?' Can I get up? I was really honest. I'm like, 'Look, you know, this is a guy. I've been around my kids, my mom. Like, you know, I love the guy. Is he perfect? Hell no. But I'm not perfect. Does he deserve to go to prison for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle? Nothing makes less sense. He's employing people. He's paying taxes.' And I was like giving this great impassioned speech and like, you know, when someone's paying attention when they're not. I looked at this woman and she didn't hear a word I was saying. She didn't care. She tuned me out. She sent him to jail for two to four years in front of me. That was the most powerless I ever felt in my life. I remember leaving there and I called the now governor of Pennsylvania. He was the attorney general there, Josh Shapiro. I said like, you know, how do we get him out of prison? And then I called the mayor and I called the then governor and like I didn't realize it's pretty hard to get someone out of prison, right? Like there's not just like some powerful person call says, 'Hey, can you get him out?' It doesn't work that way. So, that was a wakeup call for me. And I was so shaken that myself and Jay-Z's partner, Desiree Perez, who runs Roc Nation, the two of us kind of spent the next five and a half months working to get him out of prison. And it was like her mission and my mission. And we talked, you know, 10, 20 times a day. And by the way, there were times you just felt like giving up. You're like, 'Fuck that. I'm not giving up.' And he had a two to four year sentence and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered his release five and a half months later. It turned out that the original thing he was arrested for, which is why he was on probation, the cops had made up the story and lied and they all came forward and admitted it was like a scene out of Training Day of the movie. And so ultimately, he got out of prison five and a half months later, but the important thing was the now governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, said to me like, 'Michael, shit always happens for a reason. Like Meek is your special friend. You got to fix this for the everyday person.' And that's how we created the Reform Alliance. Myself, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft, Meek got together and started the Reform Alliance and we've done some pretty powerful work. We started in 2019, got more than a million people off of probation and parole who shouldn't have been on it. Mathematically proven that like a longer sentence actually hurts you, doesn't help you. And by the way, I'm like a really logical person. Like someone goes out and commits a bad crime, they should go to prison. But if someone like pops a wheelie on a motorcycle, they shouldn't get sent back to prison for two to four years. That doesn't make a lot of sense. So, yeah, my passion is business and that's what I love to do, but actually making a difference in this world is really freaking important.