Thank you so much for being here. So, let's start with you then, Harvey. Why partner with Laurent and with the folks over at the team? Why did you want to even get involved with F1 to begin with?
Yeah. So, for us it was, I mean, you could boil it down really to a three-part decision-making process. Firstly, we could be involved in a lot of sports, but F1 first and foremost was a natural fit. It's global, the demographics, the young audience, it's more than 40% female, and it's global. And we're a global firm, we manage $500 billion on behalf of people really of all ages. We're one of the largest in the world at doing it. That was one. Two, we wanted to be attached to an extraordinary brand, extraordinary people, that were focused on excellence. That clearly was Oracle Red Bull Racing. And then I think the most important part of all these things, because you can see here on this incredible venue, this is a people business. And even in a day and age where technology drives everything, this is a people business, it requires connection. And as soon as we connected with Laurent and the rest of the team, it was quite natural. And it's been quite natural. You know, he and I text over the holidays, and I ask how his family's doing, and it was just a very, very natural instantaneously. I don't think we felt the personal connection and the focus on excellence was a prerequisite, but the personal connection made it special for us. And we've learned a lot along the way. I mean, I think David walked out, but I mean, who knew that David was born to race, because he told me last time we talked about that he was actually born in the back of a Mercedes because his parents didn't make it to the hospital. I was like, 'Wow, that's really fascinating.' And Laurent was with me, he goes, 'You were really born in the back of a Mercedes?' He goes, 'No, it's true. Born in the back of a Mercedes.' That's not a preferred vehicle, but where the Ford is, so not Ford, obviously. But it's the people connection part, I think, on top of all the other parts that make it truly special for us.
And Laurent, Harvey spoke at such length about your chemistry. Did you feel that when you met Harvey as well?
Straight away. Also because...
It's a love story over here.
You know what? I think we met about three or four days after I joined. And he said, 'If you don't win the next race, we don't make the deal.'
Yeah, and then he guaranteed to win the balance of the season, which he pretty much did. And that was, you know, part of the contract, so that was fulfilled. So we felt quite good about it.
So, but Dr. Marko said he's actually true. We met only a few days after I actually had joined Oracle Red Bull Racing. I think what resonates specifically with what Harvey said is we choose one by one our partners in order to create a competitive advantage. That's the only thing we do. We are here to win races. That's the only brief we get from our shareholders. And in order to win races in such a competitive environment against all the other giants of the industry, you need to make sure you surround yourself with the right people. Harvey said it's fundamentally a people business. You get the right people, you win the races. You don't get the right people, you don't win the races. And that's...
People see the people in the paddock, but how many people are working on the car?
So, you know, Oracle Red Bull Racing today is 2,000 people to look to invent, design, produce these two cars. And since this year the Red Bull Ford powertrain, our own power unit. So, it shows that we tend to take things a bit too seriously, but I know you guys do as well at Carlyle. And you know, that's really the other point of connections. We, as soon as we engaged the conversations with Harvey and his teams, we realized that we were actually in an incredibly similar business. We live and die with our performance. We need to have obviously the visions for our team, our company to get to the right place, but we get the shockwaves of the race weekends. The emotions about the short-term wins, the short-term losses, and it's very, very similar to what Harvey is doing with his teams. And fundamentally, we are a data business with an incredibly crucial layer of human intelligence on top. And every time we are opening a small box together, we were realizing how much, in a similar way, we had to build our companies in order to excel.
Another synergy I see between the two companies is that you're both focused on democratizing access. So, from the Carlyle POV, to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it feels as though you're trying to democratize access to the private markets. From the Red Bull perspective, it's democratizing access to this. I mean, only so many people can actually come to Monaco, but there are F1 fans around the world. Harvey, is that the way that you see the synergy in the missions? Is there something I'm missing?
Maybe. I mean, our industry, David Rubenstein and Bill Conway and Daniel founded Carlyle in 1987. Very young initially, we were really the pioneers. They were the venture capitalists of this industry. We're one of the largest, the most successful, the most iconic, we're global. This has been around a long time. You know, Monaco, I think the first Grand Prix was 1929, and it became part of the Formula 1 Constructors' Championship in 1950, if I'm getting my history correct. Is that correct?
It's incredibly accurate.
So, they've been doing this for a long time. I'd say the trajectory, you heard David talking about it, the trajectory of Formula 1 now is explosive. And I think our industry, Carlyle being part of it, has also continued to grow. So, it went from what was considered private equity to different parts of the asset class. Along the way, we lost half the public companies in America. They went from 2,000, there were twice as many public companies as today. So, private capital plays a big role. So, it's sort of a natural evolution. I think it's coincidental. I don't think there's any correlation that, you know, this sport is exploding globally with over 800 million fans and the movie Formula 1 and everything having with Drive to Survive. But, because of that it fits. It fits quite well because of all the things I said before. All the viewer attention and really just being able to be in this room with everybody. It's pretty special.
And Laurent, from your point of view, Oracle Red Bull is doing so much to democratize the sport thinking about fan engagement outside of this. I know this is critical and this room, this partnership is critical. But, can you just walk us through some of the things you're thinking about to help others experience the F1 race if they can't be here?
Of course, it's very much at the heart of the DNA of the involvement of Red Bull in Formula 1. You know, of course there is these 24 races that you see all over the world, fine. But, as you say, many, many people, even though the reach is incredible right now, we still think that many, many people will not see a Grand Prix weekend if we only stick to being at the race weekend and putting it on air. So, we do pretty much the same number of Grand Prix in the city center all over the world as road shows in the heart of the biggest city in the world. And obviously, we take the other sport to an audience that would probably not come to the race. Will learn about the sport by seeing David, for example, was there earlier, by seeing one of our drivers running a Formula 1 car in the city center. And we get, you know, 50, 60, 70,000 people coming to attend this road show. You don't need a Formula 1 ticket to do that. And this is how we engage with the next generation of fans. This is how we engage a wider reach for the sport and we think it's very much our target to make sure we contribute to the growth of the sport in that way.
For you as a leader, how important is it to make sure that you're perceived as being accessible? Well, they you win, of course.
Okay, well, you can answer that. How important is it that they win? I think we all know. But also, how important is it that people know and understand the role that you're playing to help democratize the sport as a leader?
You know, at first I go back to Alistair's comments. It is true. The only thing that matters is doing. If we win, everything else gets sorted. So, you know, that's the way we look at it at the factory. You win, everything else gets sorted. Your global audience is reached. You democratize the sport. You do more and more road shows, etc. So, we don't care too much about leadership style. We only care about building the right cultures, the right environment, the right connection and this is where Carlyle is helping us immensely. As the right connections in order to have our people in a position where they can express their talent at best and fundamentally brings performance to our business. And that's really how much focus we are on that single aspect.
