Patrick Bet-David (born 18 October 1978) is an Assyrian-American businessman, author and Youtuber. He is also part-owner of the New York Yankees, and hosts the entrepreneurship youtube channels Valuetainment and PBD Podcast.
Background and early life
Patrick Bet-David was born in Tehran, Iran. On July 15th 1989, when he was 10 years old, he left Iran, alongside his mother, sister and father, seeking refuge from the Iranian Revolution. Settling first in a refugee camp in Germany for two years, they subsequently relocated to Glendale, California in the United States on November 28th 1990. He enrolled directly into the United States Army upon graduating high school, serving in the 101st Airborne Division for three years. He attended Santa Monica College briefly, studying nutrition, and dropped out to pursue his career. Later in his life, he attended Harvard Business School, in their Executive Education Program.
Career
During his stint as an undergraduate at Santa Monica Community College, while majoring in nutrition, Bet-David worked as membership marketer in Bally Total Fitness. He would later drop out of the university and continue his career working for Morgan Stanley, and then Transamerica Corporation.
Entrepreneurship
He began his first company called, PHP Agency Inc., in 2009. PHP being an acronym for People Helping People. The agency serves to provide life insurance and annuity services to customers in the United States. In August 2017, PHP secured $10 million in expansion financing through Ambina Partners and Atalaya Capital Management, with additional support from Brener International Group and former boxer Oscar De La Hoya. In 2019, he had Jordan Peterson, Kobe Bryant and former US president George W. Bush as keynote speakers at the PHP annual conference.
In December 2020, he sold a 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Wayne Gretzky rookie card graded Gem Mint 10 by PSA, making it the first hockey card to surpass one million dollars in value.
In 2022, Patrick Bet-David and PHP Agency partnered with Integrity Marketing Group. The partnership involved Integrity's acquisition of PHP Agency, with the aim to use Integrity's resources and technology to help more Americans achieve financial security. Patrick Bet-David would become a Managing Partner at Integrity as part of this agreement.
In 2023, he became a part owner of the New York Yankees.
Youtube
He founded and hosts the Youtube channel, Valuetainment, since 2012. The channel has 5 million subscribers and over 850 million views. He additionally founded the channel PBD Podcast, which has 1.4 million subscribers and was founded in 2020. Both his channels feature interviews with successful people from a variety of industries, including business, sports, entertainment, and politics and his guests often share their personal stories, insights, and advice. Bet-David hosted Kobe Bryant's last interview before the basketball player's demise. It was in this interview that Bryant hinted that Shaquille O'Neal would be the greatest basketball player of all time if he had his work ethic in the Shaq–Kobe feud. He has also interviewed George W. Bush, Jordan Peterson, Kevin Hart, Ray Dalio, Michael Franzese, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, John McAfee and Andrew Tate on his channel. He has also interviewed MMA fighters Georges St-Pierre, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier. And body building legends Ronnie Coleman and Phil Heath.
He has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience. He offered former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump five million dollars for a peace talk interview.
Author
Bet-David authored the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Your Next Five Moves: Master The Art of Business Strategy. It was a book that focused on strategic decision-making for success in both business and life, using deliberate planning and making calculated choices to achieve one's goals.
He advocates for people to drop out of college, build a business and network, and then returning back to the university with an advantage. In 2017, he wrote the book Drop Out and Get Schooled: The Case for Thinking Twice about College. The book was co-authored by Thomas N. Ellsworth.
Others include The Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Pages, which describes his entrepreneurial journey experience and Doing The Impossible: The 25 Laws for Doing The Impossible, which is a motivational book.
Personal life
In June 2009, he married Jennifer Bet-David (née Hudman) and together, they have four children. They paid a "Fort Lauderdale Bay Colony record" of $20.4 million for an estate in Fort Lauderdale.