On this episode of Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, cohosts Diane Brady, executive editorial director of the Fortune CEO Initiative and Fortune Live Media, and editorial director Kristin Stoller talk to Mat Ishbia, CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage and owner of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury basketball teams. They talk about the lessons Mat translates from his athletic upbringing to his role as a corporate executive, why home-owning seems out of reach for millennials and Gen Z, and how competitiveness breeds success.
Listen to the episode or read the transcript below.
Mat Ishbia: So I actually prefer where I’m at in the NBA than where I am in the mortgage business, because that’s where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve always been an underdog. I’ve always been below. I’ve always had less talent but harder work ethic, and I’ve always had to climb a mountain. Nothing comes easy. If it came easy, everyone would do it.
Diane Brady: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the people…
Kristin Stoller: … and trends…
Brady: …that are shaping the future of business. I’m Diane Brady.
Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.
Brady: Today we are speaking with Mat Ishbia, who is the CEO and chairman of United Wholesale Mortgage and known to many of our listeners, I’m sure, as the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns as well as the Phoenix Mercury, which is the WNBA team.
Stoller: Dual role. I think that’s fascinating. How does he do both? How does he have time?
Brady: Well, that’s, that’s an open question, because I’ll tell you, the Phoenix Suns must be taking a lot of his time right now. Nothing makes fans more, you know, irate than when their team is not doing incredibly well…
Stoller: …yes…
Brady: …with the amount of money and really aggressive, interesting moves that Mat has made. And, of course, the housing market. Kristin, my heart goes out to you, non-homeowner.
Stoller: Diane, I have to tell you, I don’t think I’m ever going to buy a home. I know that’s a millennial stereotype.
Brady: You will. I’m here to tell you you will.
Stoller: Thank you. Thank you for being optimistic.
Brady: Or not, who knows.
Stoller: But tell me, I want to hear about when you first bought a home and if you had a whole mortgage process how that went because I know nothing.
Brady: Well, I came from Asia. So if you come from Asia and you’re Canadian, first of all, your credit rating is about as good as a 16-year-old in high school here, because they didn’t take much account of my credit rating from overseas. So that made it difficult. I bought in [the Brooklyn neighborhood of] Park Slope when I was on my third baby.
Stoller: [I’m] so jealous.
Brady: And look, it did take a while. I thought I was paying a lot. When I sold in 2021 I thought I’d made a lot, and it turns out the people upstairs made even more. But I have seen the housing market become almost cryogenically frozen. Nobody wants to leave now because interest rates are going up.
Stoller: All [of] these boomers are sticking where they are, and I…
Brady: …and Gen Xers, like myself…
Stoller: There you go. Well, I want to tell our listeners, because you and I were at this amazing dinner in Toronto—two weeks ago?
Brady: Yep.
Stoller: And it was all CIOs, all Gen X, boomer generation, and they were just going in on millennials and what a lazy, entitled generation they are.
Brady: Not me, of course. I love millennials.
Stoller: You say to me, over some amazing, you know, Wagyu beef, you told everyone, give me a chance to speak. And I remember I said, you know, everyone’s coming after me, but I can’t own a home. So…
Brady: …so there’s that…
Stoller: …What do you have to say to that, people?
Brady: Well, I think it’s interesting. I’d love to hear Mat say, what’s going to dislodge this kind of stasis? We need more supply. It cannot be good for his business, because what does he do? He basically deals directly with brokers and agents. They say they are the largest mortgage lender in the country. So that cannot be good times for them.
Stoller: It can’t, and they and they say they are. But I do want to add that they have a giant rivalry with Rocket Mortgage.
Brady: They do.
Stoller: He’s called them out publicly. He’s made Super Bowl ads in the past calling them out. I think it’s a fascinating rivalry because he’s so vocal about it, whereas most people would just ignore it.
Brady: Yeah, no, I love—he’s a really interesting leader across many different realms. Lots to talk about with Mat Ishbia, we’ll be right back after the break.
Brady: The best business leaders today know the value and importance of empowering those around them, personally and professionally. By encouraging and enabling others to grow, take risks, and fuel innovation, business leaders are not only driving greater engagement and performance, but also future proofing their organization for years to come. I’m joined by Jason Girzadas, the CEO of Deloitte US, to talk more about this. Welcome Jason.
Jason Girzadas: Well, thank you. Diane, great to be here.
Brady: Innovation is about empowering the people around you, and that’s something that a lot of CEOs struggle with. How do they embed it into their leadership style?
Jason Girzadas: Well, I think there’s all types of CEO leadership styles, clearly, and proven that there’s maybe not one recipe for success, but it does require, I do believe, a commitment to inclusive leadership, where all are expected and invited to contribute around innovation. I think there’s also a collaboration and a collaborative culture that’s a requirement that’s also not something that maybe comes as naturally and has to be cultivated and be intentional about. And then also, I think giving leaders some autonomy to actually look at opportunities for innovation, look at opportunities for creative, new ideas to bring forth that requires a degree of trust and a degree of openness by CEOs in particular, to allow for that within an organization.
Brady: So Jason, I want to, on a personal note—I’m talking to a CEO here. What are some of the most effective strategies you think for fostering open dialogue, collaboration? A lot of what you’re talking about [are] the ingredients to innovation.
Jason Girzadas: Well, for me, it starts with being genuine and authentic as a leader, being clear that the single leader doesn’t have all the answers to every question, and certainly in my case, it’s inviting a very broad organization to participate in addressing the issues and challenges that we face. So I think that genuineness and that transparency and authentic leadership style is the key ingredient from my experience.
Brady: Good advice. Thanks for joining us, Jason.
Jason Girzadas: Thank you, Diane
Brady: Mat, thank you for joining us. I feel like you’re our first guest to have three essentially full-time hats. You’ve got United Wholesale Mortgage. [If you] Google your name, the Phoenix Suns come up. Of course, I want to say Phoenix Mercury, since you have WNBA as well, give me a sense of your identity right now. When you—how do you think of yourself as a leader? How do you divide your time?
Ishbia: Yeah, well, time management’s a big thing. You know, United Wholesale Mortgage, being the largest lender in the country, is a big focus of my time. That’s probably the major [place] that I spend my time. But then the Phoenix Suns and Mercury are full-time gigs as well. And then I have three wonderful children I spend a lot of my time with too. So balancing time as a leader of any organization, CEO, time management is the most important thing. So, having great people around you so that you can focus on things that make an impact. So every minute of my day I’m trying to make sure I’m making an impact on improving UWM, United Wholesale Mortgage, in the mortgage world, or technology—something to make our service better, to help more consumers. Or for the Phoenix Suns or Mercury talking to whether it’s the coach or the GM, or something—the CEO over there, trying to make sure things are going the right way. Or if I get out of here in time, I get to spend time with my kids, coach their sports, be involved with the details with them, and, you know, do homework with them. All those things. So balancing time is important for everybody, and so, as a CEO, that’s even more important. But I don’t know if it’s more important. I think it’s just maybe a little more difficult. You’re trying to balance a lot of different things.
Brady: Wait, before I pass it to Kristin, you coach your kids’ teams. I want you to walk me through your day a bit, because what time do you get up? Give us a little bit of a TikTok here.
Ishbia: Yeah. So well, for right now, it’s slightly different than it used to be. For my first 15 to 17 years working here at UWM I’d be in the office, suit and tie, at 4 a.m. So 4 a.m. in the morning here in the office, grinding to about 6:30 or seven. That’s really my routine, then I’d spend two, three hours with my kids, put them in bed, go to bed, sleep six hours, and come back and do it again. With the Phoenix Suns and Mercury being a West Coast team, and I’m here in Michigan, you know now I don’t get to bed until 11:30, 12, 12:30 now watching them, and so I still sleep my six hours. My day starts a little bit later. But being with the kids, when I’m with them, I’m completely all in with them, you know. No phone. I put my phone down, I do homework, I watch movies with them. We play on a trampoline, we do whatever we want to do, play together, spend time, or I’m coaching their baseball or basketball or football teams. But then separately, when I’m here at UWM, like I’m completely engaged every minute of the day. You know, once again, put my phone away, and I’m extremely focused on how it can make an impact on—we have 9000 plus people here at UWM every day. How do I impact one person, two people, 10 people, in a positive way. Whether it’s running a meeting, whether it’s following up on an email, wishing someone a happy birthday, every detail matters. And so that’s kind of my schedule. My schedule is very consistent with it. Saturdays and Sundays, I come in maybe for a couple hours, but most of the time I’m with my kids, if I can be.
Stoller: Wow. And I think your background, Mat, is so interesting because this is, you know, your family’s company, but you started in basketball, and I know you said you’ve had a lot of your basketball experience at Michigan State really shape your leadership style. Tell us about that, and what kind of lessons did you learn from the sports world that you were able to apply?
Ishbia: Yeah, so many lessons, you know, so many lessons. I played basketball growing up and got a chance to play on Michigan State’s basketball team for Coach Tom Izzo, who’s still a great coach to this day, still coaching at Michigan State. Had a great experience. I was, I always say I had to be the hardest-working player to be the worst player on the team, you know. I barely made the team, you know, but I contributed, and I learned so much about—you know, in high school, you’re the best player, and you’re scoring all the points, all the accolades. In college, obviously, you’re the worst player, and you gotta perform differently. What it taught me, though, was everybody plays a role. You know, the star player has a role. You gotta score 20 points a game. But then the 15th player, the team’s got to be positive, encouraging, make sure that they share—they be the best practice player to compete with the best starting players and do all the details. And so it really, really was a great lesson of learning that everyone plays a role, and how will you contribute? Might be different, but you still have to contribute. And now, as the CEO at UWM, when I got to UWM, I was the 12th person here. So there’s 12 people here, a small little company. Now we’ve got 9,000 people. I bought the company maybe 10, 15 years ago now, but building it up and doing it the right way. And now as a CEO, I have a different role, but it doesn’t mean my role is more important. My job is to be the best CEO at the company. Well, my underwriter has to be the best underwriter, my marketing person has to be the best marketing person. No one has to be the best CEO but me, but I don’t have to be the best marketing person. And so everyone’s got to play a role. And so I learned in basketball that team always wins, and you want to be part of a team. And no one wins alone. I’m not winning alone as a CEO. I’m never going to win alone in anything I do. It’s always a team effort. And just, you got to figure out what your role is and dominate that role.
Brady: I love basketball. To me, it’s sort of like jazz. I was shaped a little bit—I’m mid-’90s, Chicago Bulls, Scottie Pippen. You know that guy, Jordan. What was your team growing up? And I have to say you’re the same height, I think you’re five-foot-10, as my son. That in itself is—you’re not the kind of guy people look at and say, Let’s get him on our basketball team. So the fact that you played college ball itself, to me, is very impressive. But tell me a little bit about what team really shaped you?
Ishbia: Yeah, well, growing up, you know, yeah, I was always not the tallest guy, as you pointed out and I always just had—my identity was I will outwork anyone, and I do that in the mortgage business today as well. I will come in earlier, stay later. I’m willing to put more effort in. On the basketball court, watching my team was the Pistons, the bad boys, Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, those guys. They used to beat your Bulls there, Diane, back before Jordan and Pippen won the championships. But that was my team that I identified with, and that was just the gritty, tough bad boy version. But then going to Michigan State, learning from Tom Izzo, it was all about toughness, defense, grind it out, outwork everybody. It’s not always talent that wins. It’s the effort and the attitude. And so I apply that to my business career. I applied it to my personal life. You know, great attitude, great work ethic will always win. It always travels wherever you’re at. And so that’s kind of where I’ve been, and that’s kind of where my background from basketball has come from.
Stoller: Now, Mat, when I was in college—Diane and I were just talking about this, my dream was Broadway. I want to be an actress. I realized very quickly that I didn’t have the skills to get there, but it was always a dream. So I turned to journalism, which is obviously much more [unintelligible].
Brady: This is your second choice? You’re doing pretty well. Well done.
Stoller: But I’m wondering, you know, why did you switch from basketball to business? And then, two-part question, was buying the Suns for you then a way to kind of get back to that passion, without actually having to be doing it?
Ishbia: Yeah, exactly right. So, you know, basketball was all I knew for the first 22 years of my life. That’s all I did every day, and then had a chance to, you know, I almost went into coaching. So I coached one year with Tom Izzo and I was going to go into the coaching world. And my father, who’s a serial entrepreneur, wonderful man, had a small mortgage company, said, why don’t you come try and see if you like mortgages? I said, I don’t even know what a mortgage is. I’m not going to like mortgages. So, you know, he’s a lawyer. He’s still a lawyer to this day. Still goes to his law firm and practices law, does great things, but I went to the mortgage company. I’m like, I’ll do it for a year, and then go back to basketball or find what I really want to do in life. And I fell in love with it. I fell in love with it not because it’s mortgages, but because I realized I could take my competitive spirit and apply it to business. Find out, well, why do we do it that way? Is there a better way to do it? Why is that client not using us? Let me try to go sell them and explain why we’re better. Oh, we’re not better? Let me figure out the technology to make us better. And so figuring it out, it was like a puzzle, and I focused on it every single day. And I realized that, like, there’s so much out here, and we’re a small company, 12 people, right? It’s like, okay, how do we get one more loan a day? Five more loans a day? How do I—and I just kept optimizing. And I figured, gosh, if I work a little longer, I can get better. And so, yeah, I took so much basketball into business, and I really enjoyed that. But then when I was playing basketball, I realized I wasn’t good enough to play in the NBA, and so it’s like, hey, could I ever buy an NBA team? And I never—at that time, it never even crossed my mind as a realistic thing, because they’re so expensive. And you know, my first job out of college, I was making, you know, $18,000 a year. So it’s not like I was building up a lot of wealth to try to get there. However, it has come full circle where things have [gone] really well. The mortgage business—we’ve become the number one mortgage company in America. This is our third consecutive, or three straight years. Hopefully, this should be our fourth straight year, and made enough money to be able to buy a WNBA team and an NBA team, which I really enjoy, and I can take some of my business things and apply it to basketball, and it’s really come full circle and learning that business—only been about two years in the basketball business, but going to do that for the next 30, 40 years as well and continue to enjoy it.
Brady: One of my—by the way, one of the things Kristin may also never experience is homeownership, but we’ll get to that later.
Stoller: Yeah, sadly, I’m a millennial.
Brady: But you know, when you talk about being the largest—I feel we should unpack a little bit the business model of United Wholesale Mortgage. And I will point out to listeners that there, I believe, was one person who recused themselves from the vote for you to get the Suns. That was Dan Gilbert of Rocket Mortgage, your frenemy, or however we would characterize it. Let’s start with the business model, because United Wholesale Mortgage is not a brand that a lot of consumers would know given who your audience is. Talk about that, and, of course, how you became the biggest
Ishbia: Yeah. So, United Wholesale Mortgage. You know, we usually go by UWM. That’s why most people just think of it as UWM, but we don’t have to have a brand to the consumers because what we work with is independent mortgage brokers. So how are we different than Rocket Mortgage or Wells Fargo or Chase? If you want to get a mortgage, you got to find a mortgage person to help you. What we do is we work with the brokers. So a small mortgage broker in your area, ABC Mortgage, Smith Mortgage, all them. They can work with us. They can work with Rocket Mortgage. They can work with all these different lenders, but what mortgage brokers do is they are able to shop on behalf of the consumer. So I don’t go directly to the consumer. What we say is, hey, consumers, go find the right broker. They will get the best deal for you. So there’s a website called Mortgage Matchup, where all the top brokers are on there. A lot of consumers go to that website. They find the right loan officer, and then the loan officer finds the right deal. What happens is, we are the best mortgage lender in America, from faster, easie,r and cheaper. And so most mortgage brokers pick us, and they use us for their consumers. And so the difference for a consumer is they just might not know us right away, but they’ll end up paying their mortgage to us every single month. We’re the ones that approve it. We’re the ones actually lending the money. We just aren’t the ones that contact them first. And so the business model is business-to-business sales, but we are empowering our mortgage brokers to be successful. Helping them with their marketing, helping them put themselves out front. We’re really big on helping them succeed. And if our partners succeed, we’ll succeed as well. And so it’s a little different business model, because most places like, I know you mentioned Rocket, but even, you know, Wells Fargo or Loan Depot, I can name a bunch of these—they do both. They go direct to the consumer and through the brokers. We don’t do direct to the consumer because we really think it’s cheaper for it to go through the mortgage broker for the consumer. And so it’s best for the consumer, it’s going to end up being best for us. And that’s why our business model has worked. And we’ve become—we’re the largest wholesale lender, which is through brokers, for 10 straight years. But overall, including retail and wholesale, we’re the largest lender in America for three consecutive years, and this will be our fourth year as well.
Stoller: Now Diane teased at it, but I think about three or so years ago, Mat, you had a policy that was barring brokers from working with both UWM and Rocket or Fairway or others. Do you still have that? And I know you had framed it as a way to support independent brokers. Is that strategy paying off, or is it, you know, more, just anticompetitive?
Ishbia: No, it’s been great because it’s the right thing to do. So I always do the right thing. So a lot of people might not understand the business as well as we do here and understand why we do something, but we didn’t bar anyone. What we said is, “Hey, listen, we are the best lender in the country.” Mortgage broker, you know, Smith Mortgage in Minnesota. “We’re the best. We will help you with technology.” We’ll help you with service. We’ll help you with everything so you look great. But if you’re going to go ahead and send your loans to someone that’s going to steal your clients and do things on the back end that are maybe not appropriate, then that’s fine. You can do that, but I don’t want to help you anymore.” And that’s all we said. And you know what happened? Everyone said, “We understand.” They’re with us, and that’s why we’ve been the largest lender in the country for the last three years. And it’s not even close, really.
Brady: Are you referring to, is that the way Rocket and Dan Gilbert operate? I don’t, I don’t know much about them.
Ishbia: Yeah, so there’s—once again, Rocket, Dan Gilbert’s a good man, and Rocket’s a good company. They’ve done a lot of good things for a long time. They do things differently than us. They believe in things differently than I do. I believe in empowering brokers, helping consumers, offering lower rates and lower fees, and also making the process faster, easier, and cheaper. At the same time, they’ve been very successful doing it in a different way. That’s fine. I don’t have a problem with other people’s business models, and that’s what I tell everyone. I don’t have a problem, but I’m not going to work with someone that does it the wrong way.
Brady: How do they do things differently? I’m just curious.
Ishbia: Well, everything I said, just think the opposite…
Brady: Okay, them’s fighting words I think, which is—well, listen, I think you get a lot of credit, if that’s the right term, for being certainly an aggressive builder when it comes to the Suns. And I know you’ve got a lot of people who second-guess, et cetera. Give me a sense of your style. I mean passion, however you call it, your mindset when you go into something, is it: I have to win? Or what advice do you have? Seems innate somehow.
Ishbia: Yeah, so we try to win in everything we do. At UWM, with the Phoenix Suns, the Phoenix Mercury. We’re trying to win. We want to compete. I’m very competitive. We want to be the best, but we want to be the best doing it the right way. And so I’m fine finishing 38th as long as we’re doing it the right way. Now I’d want to finish first, but we always do things the right way. That’s how we built UWM, is doing it the right way all the way through. Taking care of our clients first, taking care of the consumers. Do the right thing. And you know what we found? Money follows success. That’s what we focus on: being the best. Be the best every day. Be most successful. Outwork everyone. Money will follow. I don’t do things for profit. We do things for people and dominance and winning. And you know what happens? Money usually follows. Profit always follows those things. And so that’s how we do things differently, where a lot of other CEOs of publicly traded companies will focus on every dollar. I gotta focus on the profits. I focus on winning and being the best in the country and the best in the world at what we do, and that’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s why we’ve made a lot of money. And so to your question about how we think about it, it’s just different. And it’s okay. I’m very aggressive, I’m very in the weeds. I’m not someone that’s a CEO that’s like, what’s going on in the business? I’m here every day with 9,000 people. We’re all in one building, or two buildings tied by a bridge, so we’re all in one location. And we’re getting better every day. I’m not 30,000 feet up sitting there, opining about what 2037 might look like. I want to dominate 2025 today and then again tomorrow and the next day at every detail of the business I’m involved with. And that’s how we win. And now that’s a little different than Phoenix Suns and Mercury, because quite honestly, I’m not there every day. So I have to hire people to do that stuff. And you know, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t go well, but that’s the vision. And right now, the mortgage business is where I spend all my time, because that’s where I live and that’s where I work, and that’s where I focus, and I’ve also been doing it for 23 years now.
Stoller: Well, what is the right way in sports? Because I feel like, you know, the easy answer is, of course, defined as a winning team. But you know, when your team is not winning, what do you see success as being?
Ishbia: Yeah, so there’s things when I bought the team, I talked about as an owner, there’s only so much an owner can do, and the owner’s job is first and foremost to set the right culture at the organization. We had some things—when I bought the team from the previous owner, there were some different things around that team that we had to clean up. I had to get a new CEO, get new leadership, get a new headquarters for our team members. Do all the right things to treat people with the love and care and respect they deserve so that they want to be part of the organization. That’s first. Second thing is the fan experience. We’ve got millions of fans around the world that are Phoenix Suns fans. Obviously, people in Arizona are huge Phoenix Suns fans. I got to take care of the fan experience. Part of that is, I decided to put the games on TV for free. Everyone else takes a big fee from a regional sports network. I said, give it to them for free. Everyone watches our games for free. Yeah, that costs us $35, $40 million, but you know what? It’s the right thing to do. Money will follow success, not the other way around. We also cut concession-stand prices. It [typically] costs $9 for hot dogs, $8 for waters. It’s $2 in Phoenix. That’s not because I need more fans there. [We’ve] sold out 150 straight games. I’m not trying to get more fans there. We have enough fans that are at the games, but it’s the right thing to do. You don’t need to pay $9 for a hot dog or $8 for a Coke, or $7 for popcorn for a family. We made it all $2. So, fan experience. We also let the fans come in earlier to the games, two hours before the game, so they can get autographs from our players. We tell our players to throw headbands and do those little things. Create an experience for the fans. So, fan experience. Third thing is impacting the community. How do I donate and give back to the community? Make it great things. We had the women’s All-Star game last year. We’ll have the men’s All-Star game there in two years. Creates a huge scene in Phoenix. And then the fourth thing, to your point Kristin, winning, right? You got to win games. They want to win championships, and we will win championships in Phoenix, the Mercury and the Suns. But at the same time—there’s 82 games. You’re not going to win every game. So how do you make sure that you put forth the best possible team you can and if it doesn’t work, you know what you do? You change. And I do that in the mortgage business too. And so our team has not won as many games as we like. We’re still very competitive. We lost in the playoffs last year, but guess what? We’re not as good as we want. You’ll make changes, just like in any business. That’s what our job is: to tweak. But as an owner, my job is not just winning. I’m not the coach. I’m not the players, right? My job is all four of those things I described: culture, fan experience, community, and winning, and I got to make sure I do all of them as best as I can.
Brady: It’s a much more public role. And you know where you’ve certainly saved money. One area you spend money is on players, and it’s interesting the degree to which you’ve been in the headlines, whether it’s, you know, “How could he, how could he trade four first-round picks for Kevin Durant?” How could he do A, B, and C? How has that impacted you, just becoming such a public figure?
Ishbia: Yeah, you know, it’s a little different. You know, I tell people as a public company CEO and all these things at UWM, like, on a scale of 100 people care about, like, a 10, you know, 10 out of 100 but as the owner of the Phoenix Suns, it’s a 98. Everyone cares about everything you’re doing, who you’re sitting with, what you said, what decision—and also, you got a million people that can second-guess everything after right, which is part of it, right? And so I understood what I signed up for. And you know, it’s part of the game. When you win, everyone says you’re the best thing ever. You lose, they’re going to be upset. And it’s easy to be Monday-morning quarterback on every decision. But the way I look at it is, I look at every decision we make, and obviously we have a GM, a CEO, a coach. Like, I look at every decision we make and I say: Would I do it again? And if I wouldn’t do it again, the next time that comes up, I’ll pivot. However, most decisions we feel like we’ve made the right decisions. But sometimes things don’t work out well. Sometimes someone gets hurt, sometimes players don’t play as well as they should. Sometimes things happen, right? There’s a lot of things that happen. Other teams play really well too. It’s not like you’re just trying to win by yourself. There’s 29 other teams you’re competing with. So, all of those decisions get questioned, and I’m there for it. I’m there for people who question what they want. I’m fine with it. I know I’m doing the right thing. And in the long term, I’m gonna own the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury for 40, 50 years, we’ll win many championships. I told the fans after last season, I go, guess what? If I’m going to own the team for the next 40 years, 37 of the years, you’re gonna be probably pissed off because we didn’t win a championship. That’s how it goes.
Brady: So it’s not an investment. I mean, I’m just curious. Like, I always think, you know, used to be, one way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire and buy either a newspaper or sports team. Now, I’d say, You know what? Sports teams [are] not such a bad investment. How do you look at it? Is this a realm where you’re hoping to make a lot of money, or is it a different calculus for you?
Ishbia: Oh, no. It’s not about making money. That’s not the focus. You don’t make as much money running an NBA team or a sports team. Running a mortgage business, and doing it the best in the world, you’ll make money doing that. And obviously, we’re a public company, you can see that. But I’m doing it because it’s a passion. I enjoy it. I’m competitive, and I love basketball, and I love making an impact for fans. And how do we make it a great thing for fans throughout America and specifically our Phoenix Suns fans. So I love being part of the NBA. Adam Silver is a great commissioner. The WNBA as well. I love being part of the whole thing. And so it’s not about making money. There’s a lot of ways you can make money doing different things. This is not a money-making play. This is have fun, impact winning. Enjoy, you know, enjoy being involved with basketball again. At the same time, you make money, but it’s not even close. It’s not an investment you make money in, is the way I think about it. Now, the appreciation value of the NBA teams will go up. So I bought the team for $4 billion—in 10 years, will the team be worth $8 or $9 billion? Absolutely. It’s probably worth $5 billion-plus right now, maybe five and a half billion. So the value goes up. But it’s not about the money. Money will follow. We’re focused on winning and success right now.
Stoller: Now, speaking of money, Mat, I’ve got to ask a very self-serving question, because homeownership is becoming increasingly out of reach for people like me, for millennials, for Gen Z. What role do you think lenders should play in addressing this, and how do you see it evolving over the next few years?
Ishbia: Yeah, so it’s really important. So lenders, but also the government and everyone that’s involved, from Fannie, Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, which is FHA and VA, have to be thinking about, how do we help more buyers that are qualified get in homes? Right? So there’s not enough inventory in the market. We understand that. So if you were looking to buy a house, the houses you might buy, people aren’t buying the next one. There’s not a lot of move-up buyers, because rates are so low from three years ago, and right now they’re higher. So interest rates coming down will make a big impact. Loan to value—so a lot of people also are not educated. So the one thing I’ll tell you, Kristin, is, like, people don’t understand. I talk to people, I don’t know how old you are, but younger people like you all the time, and they’re saying, hey, you know, I can’t buy a house because, you know, I talked to my parents and they said I got to save up 20% down. Like, that’s not—that’s like 1976 talking, right? Like, no disrespect.
Brady: You have 0% down, you launched one of those.
Ishbia: Yes, but you know what? You have to understand how it actually works. And so I always tell people, go to mortgagematchup.com. Find a loan officer and ask them a bunch of questions about your specific situation. What you’ll find is a lot of programs and options out there for you today that you can actually get a great loan, get a great mortgage, get in a house, so you can create that American dream. And so I think people are—the biggest issue is not interest rates, it’s not down payment, it’s not anything. It’s lack of education. People just don’t know the rules and how it works. And that’s not saying it disrespectfully. I’m just saying people don’t just like—by the way, I don’t know if I want to buy a car, I don’t know auto rules. Like, I don’t care, because I do it once every four years. Same thing with a house. People don’t know it, and that’s why I say you got to go get an expert. And that’s where mortgagematchup.com is helpful.
Brady: If I were to hand you a wand and send you to the 202 area code in Washington, where there’s a lot of discussion around housing, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac right now. What would you do to make the housing market better and really sort of create a policy environment that helps us? And I know a lot of this is not at the federal level, it’s really municipal and state. But where do you think we need a fix?
Ishbia: Well there’s two things. One, as I already mentioned, interest rates are an issue, right? So interest rates are high, and you know what, not only for new buyers, because that will make it more—if instead of six and a half percent, you get five and a half percent, it makes a big impact. You can now afford a $400,000 house instead of $300,000. There’s a big difference with interest rates. But also, you know, there’s got to be more houses built, and you can’t build houses at $300,000 anymore. So what happens? They got to build a $500,000 or $600,000. Well, most new buyers aren’t buying a five or $600,000 house. So therefore, what do they got to do? They got to buy the $300,000 house. But those people aren’t moving because the interest rate is 3% so once again, interest rates being a little lower will make it so that the move up buyers will go. And then it opens up more housing and more inventory, for the first-time homebuyers. So. On top of that, there’s also a lot of rules around, you know, around regulation, around, you know, where you can build, where you can’t build, and I think some of those things are a little antiquated, which makes it harder for people to build houses and builders to buy land to make an impact, but it’s a big issue. But the easiest, quickest fix is interest rates, which obviously isn’t controlled by everyone. It’s controlled by Jerome Powell, but also just, there’s other things they can do. And Fannie and Freddie, I think, to help.
Stoller: Well, I think inventory, I think, is a huge issue for me and all the people I talk with, because you have these people sitting in these houses, and not only that, turning them into rentals and other properties. How [does] that affect your business? During the pandemic, there was like, a ton of rentals coming on instead of, you know, houses.
Ishbia: Well, that’s a part of it. That’s part of the education part, yeah, because people are buying houses and then renting them out to people more expensive than what your mortgage payment would have been, and you’re saying, Well, I don’t have my 20% down, so therefore I couldn’t buy it. But you don’t need 20% down to buy and you have to understand, so there’s a lot of that happening. Investment properties, there’s big corporations buying homes and then just renting them out to people at, like, I said, much more expensive than actually what the interest rate and a payment would have been. Now you don’t have to fix your roof if something breaks. Like, there’s some other benefits of renting, but education. I just think people have to know it like, just like in your guys’ world like I don’t know your guys’ world, but if I sat with you guys for hours and you explained it to me, I would be so much more educated on how it actually works, and I would be much better involved with podcasts or in the media world. I would understand it, but people don’t understand mortgages because it’s so rare that you do it. So they just ask their parents, they go to a bank, and it’s just it’s the biggest issue right now.
Brady: You did unpack some of your leadership lessons in your book. I have it in front of me here, and one of the chapters that I like, this is from several years ago, is that anyone can lead. Do you really believe that?
Ishbia: Absolutely, everyone’s a leader. You don’t have to have a title. So I’m not big on, oh, you’re the vice president. You’re the assistant vice president. That’s all BS to me. You lead by your actions and by your attitude every single day. And you can control your success, and you can—so I expect, like, I don’t care if you’re the janitor, the receptionist, you are a leader. When you walk by a piece of trash on the floor do you pick it up, or do you walk by it? How do you treat someone? You treat someone with love and care and respect, or do you—are you trying to come up with ways to make us better? I don’t care if you report to someone. Give me your ideas. [Our company has] a thing called brilliant ideas. I want to find out what we can do better. Everyone can lead. Now, not everyone wants to lead, and not everyone actually does lead.
Stoller: Or should lead. There are some people we can put on pause.
Ishbia: Well, it’s a privilege to be able to lead, but you know what? You don’t need a title. That’s the big takeaway from that, Diane, is like, you don’t need a title to lead. You’re a leader every day, how you act, how you treat people, and then your title follows.
Stoller: Is there one thing that you think the mortgage industry could learn from how the NBA runs its business, that you bring over, or vice versa?
Stoller: With the NBA, you know, so I don’t want to talk about the mortgage business and the NBA. I can talk about my mortgage business. So the biggest competitive advantage we have is we make quick decisions, we act quickly. And so in the NBA, there’s 30 owners, right? I’m one of 30. And so you have to get a lot of people’s buy-in, and a lot of people are coming from different perspectives, or they don’t want to change, so I’m real big on change, and if it doesn’t work, to change back. And so I think that’s what’s helped make UWM and being nimble is really important. Now, the NBA is a dominant organization, does so many amazing things, and so I think some of the things that the mortgage business can learn from the NBA is how, how collaborative they are, right? They are very collaborative. And they have a great leader in Adam Silver, who can help dictate and make decisions, but also he gets collaboration. So I think that’s a big deal. But I think making quick decisions and moving fast, I think most people in the business world, CEOs, they like to, you know, measure 10 times and cut once. I measure once and cut, and then I fix the edges as I go, and we keep moving. If it’s wrong, we switch back. And I think that’s been a huge part of our success at UWM, is we go, we’re the first-mover status. So we always try to implement things. And I think, you know, some things in the NBA can try that stuff. Maybe they can try different rule changes. If it doesn’t work, you can change back. I think there’s some opportunity there, but it’s a little harder to move it, because there’s 30 owners, not just one.
Brady: One difference, Mat, right now you’re number one in the mortgage lending business. You’re an underdog, I would say in the NBA business. Is that mentality, are they very similar to you? Because I think being on top versus being perhaps underappreciated or falling behind, does create a different leadership challenge? Is it similar?
Ishbia: So I actually prefer where I’m at in the NBA than where I’m in the mortgage business, because that’s where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve always been an underdog. I’ve always been below. I’ve always had less talent but harder work ethic, and I’ve always had to climb a mountain. Nothing comes easy. If it came easy, everyone would do it. If I came into the NBA and we won a champion [in] the first year or two, of course we want to, but I’m going to build and build it the right way and be the most dominant NBA franchise, and not only from winning, but also fan experience and doing all the things, innovating, trying new things like, to make things better for everyone, and fans, community, our team members, and obviously on the court too. And so I’m good with where I’m at with the NBA and the WNBA world. I’m great with where I’m at in the mortgage business. Everyone’s got a target on my back in the mortgage business. And by the way, in the NBA, same thing—when you come out and you trade for Kevin Durant and you have Devin Booker, you have high expectations. People love to see people with high expectations fail. They enjoy that, you know, and that if that makes them happy, it makes me happy that it makes them happy. Because anyone that gets enjoyment out of other people’s failures or struggles is a loser, and I enjoy that those people are losers and I’m not one of them. And so I’m going to continue to try to win every single day in everything I do. With my kids, with my basketball business and mortgage business. And if people want to try to chop us down because our mortgage company has a bad day or our basketball team has a bad day. I wish them nothing but happiness, because they’re struggling in life if that’s what gives them happiness.
Brady: I’d be remiss not to mention the fact you’re wearing a suit, which is not really that common, to be honest, even with CEOs. You said you’re up at five in the morning wearing a suit and tie. Why—does that help you get in the zone? It’s just honestly, not necessarily the garb of business.
Stoller: And do other people in the office wear it?
Ishbia: Yeah. So we’re not like everybody else. I don’t try to follow what everyone else does. We wear suits here. My executive team wears suits. Most 700 salespeople wear a suit and tie every single day, and they’re in house sales, they’re not even going to visit clients. They’re here. We set a tone, right? I’m the leader. I feel like, if I’m dressed well, I act professional. I dress professional. And, you know, it doesn’t mean you have to wear a suit, or don’t have to wear a suit, but just because everyone else doesn’t do it, oh, because COVID came, everyone can just Zoom everything, not work in the office, and wear sweatpants, like that’s not who I am, like we come in prepared to work every single day at UWM to be the best. I’m not trying to be good. I’m not trying to be great. I’m trying to be the best in the world at what I do. And to be the best in the world, you have to be the best at everything you can do. And I can control the way I dress. I can control the way I act. I control what time I get up. I can control my attitude and my work ethic. I can’t control everything. I control my controllables and the way I look and the way I dress is important, and it sets the tone here at UWM, and everyone knows that he’s not coming in in sweats at 11 o’clock and golfing at three o’clock. That’s not the CEO Mat Ishbia. That’s not who I am, and it’s not who I ever will be.
Stoller: Dress for success. I love it. I have a bit of a forward-thinking question for you, Mat. So I’m wondering, if given the chance, sometime in the future, not going to put a time limit on it, would you ever acquire Rocket Mortgage and fold it under UWM?
Ishbia: You know, no, I wouldn’t. Obviously, they do good things. They just have different belief systems. Doesn’t mean that they’re right and I’m wrong or vice versa, just different than me. And so culture is important, and it’s the most important thing, how you treat your people, how you act around your people, how you treat your clients. And I have differing views on that. Doesn’t mean, like I said, that I’m the best and they’re the worst, just means we believe in what we believe, and so we’re gonna do things the way we do things here at UWM. And so I would never acquire that company. I have no desire to acquire that company. Everything we’ve done, we’re the biggest mortgage company in the country, organic. I’ve never acquired anybody. Everyone else wants to acquire. And like, we built this from the ground up, and we’re going to keep going. We’re building a skyscraper. We’re not even halfway there. We’re going to keep building. And I like doing it the way we’re doing. Not that we’d never acquire anyone, but we never have, don’t have any intentions of doing it. But Rocket Mortgage is not on the list.
Brady: So Mat, to end off, this is a podcast about leadership. What advice have you been given that’s been formative for you, or that you would give to others who really are ambitious and are looking at a very different business landscape than the one you came into or I came into earlier in my career?
Ishbia: Yeah. Well, I think two parts: one, to be a great leader. There’s one main thing I’m gonna talk about. But before I talk about being a great leader, you gotta be great first, before you can be a great leader you gotta be great. And it starts with work ethic and attitude. You control those two things every day. How hard you work? Do you get up early? Do you play on your phone while you’re at work? Are you grinding every day and do you have a good attitude? Because things aren’t always going to go straight up. It’s not always perfect. So work ethic and attitude is the most important thing. And the best part about [that] is: It’s not your degree, it’s not where you came from, it’s your work ethic and attitude [that] matters the most. So that’s first you have to be great, and that starts to work. But the most important thing as a leader is a four-letter word called care. You actually got to care. Care about your people, care about your clients, care about how you present yourself, care about every detail, and the care factor has to be at an all-time high. And if you’re not going to care about people and show them love like someone’s like, how do I make them know that I care? I’m like, you actually have to care about them. You actually have to know what their kid’s name is. You have to know what their wife’s doing for a living. You have to know where they live. You have to know that he likes the Red Wings, so let’s get him some Red Wings tickets. You have to know that this person is struggling because his father just passed away, and you go and talk, grab lunch with him. You actually have to care. And so leadership is about caring about people. And if you care about people, they’ll care about you back, and if they care about you back, you can do some amazing things. That’s what we’ve done here at UWM and so, work ethic and attitude, that’s like anti to play. But if you want to be a great leader, you care about people. You show them you care about them, you love them, and you’ll be amazing.
Brady: I can’t think of a better place to end. Yeah, Mat, thank you for joining us.
Ishbia: Thank you. Thank you. Really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks for having the time today. We’ll see you in Phoenix. See you soon.
Brady: Leadership Next is produced and edited by Ceylan Ersoy.
Stoller: Our executive producer is Adam Banicki. Our theme is by Jason Snell.
Brady: Our studio producer is Natasha Ortiz.
Stoller: Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media.
Brady: I’m Diane Brady.
Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.
Brady: See you next time.
Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.
