Who
John Taylor, principal at John H. Taylor Consulting, reporting for the Vail Daily. Email John at jhtconsulting@comcast.net
Date Recorded
Nov. 5, 2026
About Vail Resorts
About the Epic Pass
Why I interviewed him
Vail Resorts (stock ticker MTN), is in the midst of a proxy battle, which is Finance Bro speak for when individuals whom the company doesn’t want on their board of directors are nominated to be on their board of directors. Professional Finance Bro James Early joined me on the pod yesterday to help us understand Vail’s stock journey, and why all these unwelcome folks (Vail refers to them as “dissident” candidates) might be disappointed enough with MTN’s financial performance to try joining the board of a company that doesn’t want them on its board.
It was an awesome conversation, but it was just part one of my blockbuster serial: Proxy Bros 2026. For part two, I reached out to John Taylor, a former business reporter who retired to Vail a decade ago but is not retired enough to not absolutely crush a series on MTN’s drama for the Vail Daily:
Oct. 30: Florida financier Meyer lays out detailed plan for Vail Resorts if named to board
Oct. 31: Baron, Prince duke it out as Vail Resorts proxy battle heats up in flurry of filings
Nov. 3: Oasis unloads on Vail Resorts in proxy fight, citing long lines, overcrowding, rising food prices
Nov. 4: Halftime in Vail Resorts proxy battle is prime time for assessing all the players
Taylor describes proxy fights as an “arcane” world, but he does a nice job of making it legible for McBrosephs like me. I’ve been working on a longer written overview of everything that’s been going down, but - again - the new pod format gives me more latitude to bring in smart people to talk about complicated things while I write 8,000-word stories that should be eight one-thousand word stories.
Transcripts
There are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.
Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don’t know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.
Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.
Zoom
Stuart Winchester: Okay. My guest today has been reporting on Vail Resort’s proxy fight for the Vail Daily. He is the principal for John H. Taylor Consulting and a former Forbes bureau chief and business reporter for the St. Pete Times, Florida Trend, and Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money Magazine.
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Stuart Winchester: He eventually pivoted doing research for money managers and built a team of researchers at the Duane Kniff firm, where they managed roughly $11 billion in assets. He retired to Vail in 2017. He is also a member of the board of advisors to the Rogel Foundation.
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Stuart Winchester: Cancer Center. John Taylor is my guest. John, welcome to The Storm. How is life in Vail, Colorado today?
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John Taylor: Well, there’s a little bit of snow up there at the top, but alas, it’s supposed to be mid-50s next week, so not sure that they’re gonna have much open other than the usual two runs and one lift.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that’s a fine bull elk behind you. Is that… is that a trophy of yours?
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John Taylor: No, it is not. I bought this house furnished.
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John Taylor: And we originally thought we would get rid of that, but the owners told me that it cost them $30,000.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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John Taylor: So that was one factor in keeping it, and the second was I couldn’t figure out how the hell we were going to get it out of here. And so, it’s interesting, because little kids will come in and look at it, and they’ll point and go, oh my god, look how big that is. I say, go upstairs and look at the back.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh!
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Stuart Winchester: 30 grand, man, I should become a taxidermist. I didn’t realize it was that lucrative.
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John Taylor: Well, just to give you an idea how dumb I am, Stuart, I had a bear…
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John Taylor: And on the other wall And somebody asked me if they could have it. And I went, oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead, take it. And then the owners told me that was $3,000. I said.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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Stuart Winchester: Oh my gosh.
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Stuart Winchester: Well, there you go. All right, John, so let’s get into this Vale proxy fight.
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Stuart Winchester: I have a pretty educated audience, but why don’t you start us off with a little proxy fight 101. You’ve called it a very arcane world. So what is a proxy fight and who are the players in Vale’s proxy fight right now?
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John Taylor: Okay, a proxy fight is pretty simple, because it all comes down to anyone who owns stock in Vail Resorts can vote.
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John Taylor: Uh, and X percent probably never do in any of these elections, but, uh, so.
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John Taylor: They’re entitled to vote.
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John Taylor: Management will put up, in this case, nine incumbent directors for re-election.
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John Taylor: And you can elect, if you are a shareholder, to nominate your own board candidates. In this case, there is a group based in Hong Kong called Oasis Management that owns about 9.6% of the stock.
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John Taylor: And they originally put up four, uh, board candidates, including Peekaboo Street, um, and I guess the other well-known name was, uh, Bob Chapek, who was the former CEO of Disney.
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John Taylor: And…
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John Taylor: Another sort of weird sidelight to this is one investor who owns almost no stock nominated himself for a board seat. And so.
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John Taylor: Technically, there… so what happens is…
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John Taylor: Both of these sides are soliciting. They get a list of every shareholder. So it’s equal. Everybody has access to this. It goes out.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: You have…
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John Taylor: pretty much an endless stream of what they call proxy solicitations, because I could get one from Vail Resorts, read it, and go, oh, this makes great sense, I’m gonna vote for all of their nine guys. Then two days later, I get one from Oasis, and it’s attacking Vail Resorts and criticizing it for this, that, and the other thing, and go.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: oh, you know, I sort of believe that, so I’m gonna not, you know, vote for their guys. So, in the end, um…
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John Taylor: it’s basically a simple election. Now, where this becomes much more complicated, or perhaps simple, depending on your point of view, is…
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John Taylor: Vail Resorts, and probably most large companies, public companies.
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John Taylor: Their shares are overwhelmingly in a very few hands. So you have the largest shareholder for Vail Resorts today and probably for the last 10 years is Ron Barron of Barron Capital. He owns 18.3% of the stock and has already said he’s gonna vote for management.
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John Taylor: Um…
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John Taylor: Where this becomes extremely difficult for Oasis to win is that you have funds like State Street, BlackRock, Vanguard that are index funds. And those guys do not generally get involved in these kind of management fights.
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John Taylor: Because they just own X%, depending on what index they’re tracking. So…
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John Taylor: it doesn’t really matter to them who wins or who loses, because tomorrow, if Vail Resorts stock falls in half as a percentage of the index, they sell that half. That’s just the way index funds work. So, anyway, you have all of these players.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: what’s probably happening behind the scenes is both Vail Resorts and Oasis is meeting with every large shareholder and trying to convince them to cast their ballots for them.
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Stuart Winchester: So the… the annual meeting is on December 15th.
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John Taylor: 14.
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John Taylor: 14th.
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Stuart Winchester: You have written… I’m sorry?
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Stuart Winchester: 14th. Thank you. Uh, you’ve written that you do not think…
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Stuart Winchester: That this vote will actually…
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Stuart Winchester: happen? Why is that? What?
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Stuart Winchester: what of all these machinations going on, what are the possible outcomes here, and why don’t you think that Oasis will get to the point of having their members voted on?
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John Taylor: Um, the reason I say I don’t think it will is, if you believe that I’m right, that the indexers are gonna vote for Vail Resorts, and I think Vanguard owns, like, 10.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: BlackRock’s 10. There’s Capital Research in LA that is not. That’s an actively managed fund. They own 11%. But if Ron Barron’s going to vote for Vail Resorts and you assume those other two indexers and State Street as well.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: that’s probably 45% of the stock already in the hands of Vail Resorts. So, if you’re them.
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John Taylor: And you’re getting pilloried in the press.
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John Taylor: basically every day by Oasis, and…
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John Taylor: You know, Vail Resorts employees, Vail Resorts ex-employees, the skiers.
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John Taylor: Why would you not…
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John Taylor: Cut a deal.
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John Taylor: with Oasis, where you might seat their two board members.
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John Taylor: You know, it’s not going to give them control of the company, just give them a little influence.
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John Taylor: You get this whole thing out of the news.
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John Taylor: Uh, if you’re Ron Barron, you’re probably happy to get this out of the news, because it’s…
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John Taylor: The stock has actually gone up appreciably since this started, which is not atypical for a proxy fight, but it’s not because the fundamentals of the company have changed at all. So, uh, I kind of think that they will settle.
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John Taylor: Because I don’t think there’s anything gained by fighting any longer. I read the other day Oasis said it’s spending $6 million or expects to spend up to $6 million on this. You know, that’s not chump change. And one assumes Fiat Resorts is spending.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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John Taylor: Probably more than that. And it’s been vicious going back and forth. I don’t see where that.
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John Taylor: benefits anyone, and if this stuff is in the papers every day, as my stories are, and you read it, I get bombed with emails from ex-employees, current employees. One of the amazing things about vet resorts is you almost never meet anybody who likes them, including their own employees. That’s not… that’s not easy to do.
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John Taylor: Uh, you know, I’ve covered companies in the investment world for 20 years, and, you know.
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John Taylor: Always somebody had something good to say, because they’re getting paid to work there. In this case, that’s not really true. It’s amazing.
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Stuart Winchester: John, has that always been the case? I mean, you’ve lived in Vail since 2017. I’m not sure what your ski experience is, or if you’ve been a long-time Epic Pass holder before that. Do you feel that…
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Stuart Winchester: the sentiment has always been that way, or has it gotten worse over time? And if so, was there an inflection point?
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John Taylor: I think it’s gotten more negative.
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John Taylor: in any company town, there’s gonna be a certain amount of resentment to the, you know, the major employer, whether it’s Walmart, or the DuPont company, or Dow Chemical, or whatever. Um…
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John Taylor: And there’s also this thing in Vail, and in any of these ski towns, an inherent tension between the old liners who…
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John Taylor: oh, it was never better than we were out there in the minus 20 degrees, and we had crappy apparel, and our skis didn’t work, but oh, those were the good old days. And they all want to go back to, sort of, the George Gillette era, um, which they remember. So finally, because George was a very affable and customer.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: Uh, service-oriented guy.
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John Taylor: What they forget is that George’s financial recklessness is what brought Apollo in here in the first place. So there’s always this kind of inherent tension about.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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John Taylor: How good or how bad? My theory is that.
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John Taylor: I’ve been skiing here for 30 years.
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John Taylor: And I still think the ski experience is actually pretty darn good. You know, they do a good job with the mountain in many ways.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: What I think has happened, particularly…
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John Taylor: for employees there was when they started buying all of these other mountains.
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John Taylor: I don’t think there was much growth anymore in the ski industry, inherently. Or organically is really the right word. So what I think happened was…
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John Taylor: Katz and management realized that and said, okay, you know, stocks trade on earnings growth. How do we create earnings growth if in fact it’s a declining ski population and or the people with money like me are gonna age out of the sport.
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John Taylor: you know, my niece lives down in Denver, it’s a family of four, her husband teaches at the college, she teaches at a high school, they can barely ski here. And they stay here for free at my house. So, I think what happened was.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
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Stuart Winchester: Yes.
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John Taylor: they were very smart, and when they bought these things, you eliminate legal, you eliminate accounting, you eliminate HR, you eliminate IT, and you consolidate all of that in Broomfield.
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John Taylor: Great. That created earnings growth because you were layering those new skiers on top of a fixed asset base.
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John Taylor: Margins went up. Okay, except that I think.
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John Taylor: Two things happened. One, they ran out of mountains to buy, uh, at attractive prices, and the other is they stretched.
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John Taylor: those costs so far that sort of the rubber band eventually broke. And I’ve been on the lifts talking to people who run the cats at night, and talk to the lifties, and talk to the instructors, and…
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John Taylor: there’s just this level of animosity towards the company, and the belief that they don’t care about their employees. I always laugh because people say, oh, they run this thing totally for the shareholders.
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John Taylor: And I said, the stock’s down 60% in 5 years. I said, if that’s the case, they’re doing a pretty crappy job.
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Stuart Winchester: So, John, it…
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Stuart Winchester: The general consensus when I talk to institutional investors is that they like Rob and they respect him. You’ve had a different take and you basically say, I don’t understand what their strategy is. And your article yesterday gave him credit for.
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Stuart Winchester: The Epic Pass, and then the consolidation that you just talked about.
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Stuart Winchester: What… what is your view of Rob Katz, who’s been on this podcast a couple times? I find him very nice and very smart and articulate, but…
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Stuart Winchester: you know.
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Stuart Winchester: clearly the strategy that he’s laying out is not resonating with you, and it seems like if he had some magic in the past, it’s been lost to you. So lay this out for us. How do you feel about Rob and his current strategy? Do you think he’s…
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Stuart Winchester: not the right leader for Vale anymore.
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John Taylor: I think that the ski industry, in general.
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John Taylor: Is it a very difficult part in its hit point in its history?
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: And the contrast between what Rob Katz has to say and, say, the Aspen One guys is pretty stark about where the industry is and where it’s going. And…
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John Taylor: to me, the issue, more than anything, that he would have to address, and I… I’ve never talked to Rob Katz. You know, I’ve called them numerous times, but uh… haven’t had the opportunity for them to return the call. Anyway.
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Stuart Winchester: Okay.
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John Taylor: as I was saying, Stuart, I’m aging out of the sport, and there’s a lot of people that I know that I ski with who are my age, and they’re…
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:01.000
John Taylor: You know, math is math in terms of actuarial calculation.
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John Taylor: I think the biggest problem with the sport is it’s too expensive. And I don’t understand…
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Stuart Winchester: Yum.
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John Taylor: They talk about bifurcating, and now it’s gonna be a K-shaped strategy.
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John Taylor: But they don’t say a lot about what that means. It always seems to be, like, the epic experience.
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John Taylor: Everything seems to be geared to the higher end customer.
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John Taylor: My argument would be, look, my generation’s the one with money, but we’re dying, kiddo, and you’ve got…
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John Taylor: How do you replace them? If I were them.
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John Taylor: And I don’t think they… this would take a great deal of courage and leadership. But if I were them, I’d say, okay.
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John Taylor: Long term, this is not a tenable strategy. We have to repopulate the sport. How are we gonna do that? We’re gonna lower prices. We’re gonna make it possible so a family of four in Denver can buy a pass for $1,000 for the season.
00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:14.000
John Taylor: And we’re gonna make kids’ lessons available that you could come up here anytime during the season for 500 hours and get into a lesson if you’re, say, under 12.
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John Taylor: That’s a pretty good deal.
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John Taylor: Um…
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John Taylor: And it… it…
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John Taylor: allows them to get over what I think is the biggest hump of the sport, which is getting people into the sport, uh, who can’t afford it today.
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Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
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John Taylor: Um, and that’s been interesting about the reaction to these stories that I’ve written.
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John Taylor: even wealthy people, like, the texts and emails that come in, and people who call, they go… the price issue is the number one thing that they hit. The others, the old-time locals are mad because, you know, oh my god, they put up a 4-speed, you know, 5-seat lift instead of the great 2-seater that took 2 hours and 20 minutes.
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John Taylor: But I don’t worry about them because they’re still not wearing helmets.
00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
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John Taylor: I do, and I talk to people on the list that are out here as tourists all the time, and, you know, I’ll go 20… they’ll tell me $20,000 for a week.
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:21.000
John Taylor: Well, you also run into a problem of if the snow, if climate change.
00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:17.000
Stuart Winchester: My goodness.
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John Taylor: is as negative… I’m not gonna say as bad as last year, but I’m looking outside, it’s 70 degrees, and there’s no… there’s no snow up there. Um, and they’re gonna open, what, next Friday here.
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:46.000
John Taylor: Uh… I say you have to think really seriously, and what would that mean? If you announced a strategy like that, the stock would go down 15-20% tomorrow.
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:51.000
John Taylor: Okay? If I’m Rob Katz, I’m willing to do that, and say.
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John Taylor: Yes, we’re resetting expectations, but they’re realistic, and we are going to follow through with this strategy over the next 5 and 10 years. And guess what? It doesn’t just mean that we’re lowering the prices on Lyft tickets, it means we’re all in this together.
00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:19.000
John Taylor: And you who have these restaurants, you who have these hotels, you have to make accommodations as well. You know, if you’re running a ski shop here, um…
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John Taylor: you know, do you run programs for, you know, you have them in Denver anyway, for kids for the season to rent skis and gear? But…
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:32.000
John Taylor: He’s talking about, you know, making it more…
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:50.000
John Taylor: simple and easy for wealthy people to have concierge services. It’s always the wealthy people, you know? And I’m going like… somebody said to me, well, they charge too much for individual lessons. I said, I’m not opposed to gouging rich people. You know, they could charge $5,000 for all I care.
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
00:41:50.000 --> 00:42:00.000
John Taylor: You know, half of them are like me, go, it’s Saturday, I want to dodge lift lines. Okay, that’s all right with me, but when young kids.
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
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John Taylor: And, I mean, think about it, you know, you want to come up here for the weekend from Denver, first of all, you’ve got a Brave Eye 70.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:19.000
John Taylor: Uh, going both ways. And then, you come up here, you’re spending a ton for your Lyft ticket, and you’re standing in Lyft lines, you know, half the time.
00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:27.000
John Taylor: I was there a couple of years ago at Christmas. I went up just to see what it was like, and I estimated I was in line for 40 minutes for…
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:38.000
John Taylor: It’s a scan. Now, I have an Epic Pass. Boom. Off I go. We just froze for a second.
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Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:49.000
John Taylor: But I was saying that, you know, I went up and 40 minutes in line, 20 minutes. Well, that’s not a big deal for me, because I got the season pass. But if I’m out here at Christmas at $20,000 or $30,000 for my family.
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:51.000
John Taylor: I’m not real happy.
00:42:51.000 --> 00:43:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, absolutely. So of the players here, you seemed to think that Mr. Gregory S. Meyer, the independent financier from Florida who owns 0.000, he owns like 3000 shares, not a lot of the company, but you seem to think that his proxy was quite good. And I read through it myself.
00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:53.000
John Taylor: And so…
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:06.000
John Taylor: Yeah.
00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:18.000
Stuart Winchester: And I agree with you. What did you like about his ideas and how Vale could realistically apply them to.
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Maybe not turn back to company growth, but maybe pivot back toward, uh, making a better name for itself, at least?
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:27.000
John Taylor: Yeah, I think…
00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:30.000
John Taylor: What’s interesting about him?
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:40.000
John Taylor: as I’m sure you read, is he’s had this epic pass for 10 consecutive years. He says he skied millions of vertical feet, and I believe that’s true.
00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:48.000
John Taylor: And I think he had some insight into what the customer feels like.
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:55.000
John Taylor: One of the things I’ve never understood is that they talk about, like, a bifurcated customer skiing experience.
00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:11.000
John Taylor: I don’t understand what that means. I mean, we all go on the same left. When they break down, we’re all on the left. It’s like the subway in New York City. It’s the great egalitarian system, because no one can… you know, there is no primo spot. Um…
00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:11.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:16.000
John Taylor: what I liked about it is he had thought about it, it wasn’t…
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:23.000
John Taylor: He wasn’t staunchly advocating and criticizing so much as…
00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:31.000
John Taylor: I think he’d seriously considered this and said, have you considered this? Have you considered that?
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:36.000
John Taylor: he talked about making the sport more affordable. Um…
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:52.000
John Taylor: And at least that was forward thinking. My problem with Vail Resources, I can’t understand what their strategy is. I read it. It’s — I said in one of the stories, it’s like sticking your hand in mist. You know, you don’t quite — your hand goes in, it disappears.
00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:44.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:57.000
John Taylor: And you come back out and you go, I don’t know what I just did.
00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:06.000
John Taylor: And… I think people… I made a point in one of my stories, one of my best friends is a guy named Larry Kolp, who’s the CEO of…
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:10.000
John Taylor: GE, now GE Aerospace. That company…
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:12.000
John Taylor: You know, as an American icon.
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:16.000
John Taylor: It was on the cusp of bankruptcy when he got there.
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:20.000
John Taylor: And just to make things a little more difficult.
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:23.000
John Taylor: big… their biggest customer, of course, is Boeing.
00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:25.000
John Taylor: Two max planes crash.
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:31.000
John Taylor: And production of that, that, that, their engines for that plane.
00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:35.000
John Taylor: dry up. Meantime, COVID happens.
00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:36.000
John Taylor: Okay.
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:39.000
John Taylor: That’s pretty rough. What did Larry do?
00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:55.000
John Taylor: Larry lived on the airplane, going out to every factory all the time, and being with the employees. Didn’t travel with an armada of people. He went out dressed like you and I are dressed today, in a pair of jeans, and he talked to people, and he let them know, look.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.000
John Taylor: We will get this, we will get this under control.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:04.000
John Taylor: You know, I said, hurry, but don’t be quick. That’s leadership.
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:14.000
John Taylor: I don’t know anybody that’s seen Rob Katz, you know, out here talking to people, um, or even skiers. Uh, I’m sure he does it, but…
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:16.000
John Taylor: You know…
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:20.000
John Taylor: I said, I’ve never met anybody that actually seems to like the place.
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:33.000
John Taylor: that speaks to a lack of leadership. You know, I had a friend that, uh, his… I got his help in… his son, who’s a really smart guy, had a summer internship at GE in Cincinnati, where they make.
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.000
John Taylor: The commercial airplane engines.
00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:37.000
John Taylor: And…
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:48.000
John Taylor: There was an extremely rigorous process to get the thing. On his last day, Larry had called him and said, I want to spend 15 minutes with you.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:49.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:54.000
John Taylor: This is an intern in a company with $50,000 or 50,000 employees.
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Thank goodness.
00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:10.000
John Taylor: You know what happened? They hired him for the next, you know, in a two year finance program and then they’re gonna hire new interns for next summer. They called Spencer’s son Jack and said, hey, do you know anybody? You know, our experience with, that’s management.
00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:01.000
Stuart Winchester: Yep.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:23.000
John Taylor: Management is about people, and motivating them, and letting them know exactly where you stand. This is what we’re gonna do. Here’s how we’re gonna do it. Here’s how we’re gonna measure you.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:36.000
John Taylor: And here’s how we’re gonna have course corrections. And I am here with you. And if you have ideas for me, here is my cell number. You know, you call me. I will take this seriously. Larry always says.
00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:48.000
John Taylor: the two companies he’s run, which have been hugely successful, we are a bad news first company. The good news will take care of itself, the bad news is something that we need to address.
00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:51.000
John Taylor: Is that your sense of Hale Resorts?
00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I feel like Vail has a big, big perception problem, which…
00:47:56.000 --> 00:48:11.000
Stuart Winchester: The other companies, like Boeing and Altera, even though Altera is just as guilty of the lift ticket price expenses, and the Icon Pass is much more expensive than the Epic Pass, they somehow get mostly a free pass. So, Vail gets hit from all sides.
00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:04.000
John Taylor: Yeah.
00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:27.000
Stuart Winchester: And now, it’s just bigger and bigger players, you know, it’s been kind of a social media narrative for years. So tell us, Matthew Prince was recently on this podcast. I think there’s a lot of confusion among the general public about where Mr. Prince fits in, uh, and…
00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:37.000
Stuart Winchester: if he’s entangled with Oasis or not. So break this down for us. Where do you see Matthew Prince fitting into all this in his…
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.000
Stuart Winchester: Bid to buy Park City Mountain from Vail.
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:50.000
John Taylor: I’ll answer that in a second, Stuart. But one point I want to make, there’s a huge difference between a public company and a private company.
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. Okay.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:53.000
John Taylor: You know, happened on Altera.
00:48:53.000 --> 00:48:59.000
John Taylor: And so I do think it’s true that when you’re a public company and your stock’s not done well.
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:05.000
John Taylor: You become a punching bag for everyone, and in a much more public way than…
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:17.000
John Taylor: you know, say, George Gillette was when he was running this, or any of the private ones, you never read… not never, but you don’t read the same kind of vitriol. But…
00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:32.000
John Taylor: part of it is you’re getting it from your shareholders, and you have earnings calls, and they beat you up then. You have an investor day, and they beat you up then, and you’re criticized in the paper, uh, because you’re a public company. So there is a difference.
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:44.000
John Taylor: Matthew Prince is an interesting story, as you know well. Uh, a very colorful character. He’s, what, worth $8 billion or something, depending on what Cloud said.
00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Depending on Cloudflare stock price.
00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:46.000
John Taylor: Yeah, I’ll…
00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:50.000
John Taylor: We won’t be seeing him as a lefty soon, we know that.
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:52.000
John Taylor: Um…
00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:59.000
John Taylor: Matthew, who I believe was a, you know, lifetime skier over there in Park City.
00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:01.000
John Taylor: Uh, has…
00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:05.000
John Taylor: enormous disdain for Vail Resorts.
00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:15.000
John Taylor: And as you know from having him on there, he has said he would invest $500 million or up to $500 million in modernizing.
00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:18.000
John Taylor: Uh, the resort…
00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:20.000
John Taylor: And just…
00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:25.000
John Taylor: has lacerated Bell Resorts time and time again.
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:26.000
John Taylor: Um…
00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:42.000
John Taylor: And I think a lot of the skiers go, oh, great, you know, we could get him, he’s gonna put that money in. And again, he’s… yeah, he is a CEO of a public company, but he’s not, in this regard, he’s not quite as visible.
00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:46.000
John Taylor: as if you were running a public company. But anyway…
00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:51.000
John Taylor: There are a lot of problems from Vail Resorts perspective.
00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:53.000
John Taylor: Because…
00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:00.000
John Taylor: Think about the Epic Pass. That’s one of the more attractive mountains.
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:10.000
John Taylor: and you got 42 mountains, and I have never looked at… one of the things I would like them to do is break down the P&L of each of these mountains, but the smaller ones.
00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:17.000
John Taylor: in theory are feeders to the more expensive, more prestigious ones. And Park City’s one of that. Well, if they were…
00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:19.000
John Taylor: If they were to sell it.
00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:32.000
John Taylor: that would probably diminish the value of the Epic Pass, and it would certainly diminish the number of people buying the Epic Pass, because all of those people who live in that area are not… probably not going to buy it, just as…
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.000
John Taylor: If they sold Vail, well, we’d still have Breck and Copper, but…
00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:40.000
John Taylor: I have a condo that’s 100 yards!
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:43.000
Stuart Winchester: You froze again there, John.
00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:47.000
John Taylor: Problem, and that… they don’t own that property.
00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:51.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m sorry, John, you froze again there once you said Bracken. I think you meant to say Keystone.
00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:53.000
John Taylor: Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, Keystone.
00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:55.000
John Taylor: And, um…
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:55.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:07.000
John Taylor: So… but as I understand the story, Vail Resorts really… it’s not like they own the property. They have a lease on the land with the Forest Service, I assume?
00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:05.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:13.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s not the Forest Service, no, it’s all, uh, it’s mostly old mining leases, and uh.
00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:10.000
John Taylor: I don’t…
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:21.000
Stuart Winchester: an entity that controls a lot of them, but Park City and Deer Valley are some of the few resorts that aren’t on Forest Service lands, it’s private. But yes.
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:19.000
John Taylor: Okay.
00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:25.000
John Taylor: And that, according to Vale Resorts, creates some problems of, you know.
00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:31.000
John Taylor: If they were — what are they actually selling and how that would work?
00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:36.000
John Taylor: And I’ve never dug into that enough. Um, so anyway…
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:44.000
John Taylor: oddly, well, not so oddly, Vail Resorts when there were four nominees from Oasis.
00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:48.000
John Taylor: Now, keep in mind, Oasis is based in Hong Kong.
00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:58.000
John Taylor: So they have these four nominees, and one on Ms. Peekaboo Street, and the other is another guy, uh, over there in Salt Lake City.
00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:08.000
John Taylor: So, I mean, immediately there were suspicions of, hmm, Matthew Prince, Prince Park City, trying to buy Park City, and suddenly these two…
00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.000
John Taylor: Two of the four nominees have these ties to Park City.
00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:27.000
John Taylor: And there was certain suspicion that Oasis and Matthew were working together. And those suspicions were raised more than suspicions by Vail Resorts. They accused them of working together and said that.
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:41.000
John Taylor: Matthew had introduced Peekaboo Street, and I think the other guy’s name’s Bryce Roberts, and so two of the four, like, right before Oasis starts this fight, have been introduced by Matthew. The…
00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:52.000
John Taylor: inference was that it was quid pro quo, that if they got their four people on there, they would hammer Dale Resorts to sell Matthew, uh…
00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:53.000
John Taylor: Park City.
00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:03.000
John Taylor: Since then, in the ever and never ending saga of this proxy fight, Oasis has dropped.
00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:08.000
John Taylor: Uh, Peekaboo and Bryce Roberts, who were the two that it had.
00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:22.000
John Taylor: uh, did… it admitted it had introduced Oasis to, and the other two, it says, have never spoken with him. And when you talk to Matthew, he says, no, I just helped them out. Um, you can believe who you want to believe, but…
00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:27.000
John Taylor: There’s no shortage of mudslinging in this one.
00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:35.000
Stuart Winchester: So publicly, though, Oasis, from my understanding, has been clear that they view the portfolio as a…
00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.000
Stuart Winchester: Vail’s greatest asset, and they do not want to sell any mountains, is that right?
00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:46.000
John Taylor: That’s what they have said in their — they did another filing on Monday in which they made that very clear.
00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:45.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:52.000
John Taylor: And they said they were not working with, in any way, with Matthew. Um…
00:54:52.000 --> 00:55:05.000
John Taylor: Now, one of the interesting things is they’re activist shareholders, which means that they’re saber-rattlers, you know, all over the world. You can go on their website, and they’ve conducted these dissonant shareholder fights.
00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:08.000
John Taylor: You know, throughout Asia, but mostly in Japan.
00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:18.000
John Taylor: those types of investors are not necessarily known for sticking around. What they’re known for is.
00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:28.000
John Taylor: making enough noise and creating enough controversy that the stock goes up, and then they exit the scene. It used to be known as greenmail. Uh, it’s…
00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:34.000
John Taylor: It’s harder to do that, because there are actually laws about this now, but, um…
00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.000
John Taylor: That’s a really interesting question of they.
00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:49.000
John Taylor: And they’re sensitive to that, because I was just… they have a website now called Lifting the Veil, and in big, bold letters, it says, we are long-term investors.
00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:01.000
John Taylor: I don’t know about you, but when people put in big, bold letters, we’re long-term investors, I think, hmm, they must be short-term investors, or they wouldn’t be saying that. But I think they’re perceived as short-term.
00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:10.000
John Taylor: Now, you know, an interesting question is, okay, say Chapek wins, and this other guy who nobody knows anything about.
00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.000
John Taylor: Vail Resorts has attacked him because…
00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:20.000
John Taylor: Well, you know, he was controversial because he had a short tenure as Disney CEO.
00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:25.000
John Taylor: And I don’t know him. I don’t know anybody that does.
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:31.000
John Taylor: But I have a hard time believing if this guy was a sincere.
00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:32.000
John Taylor: Board member.
00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:34.000
John Taylor: That he wouldn’t have…
00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:49.000
John Taylor: the ability to make a meaningful contribution. You don’t run the theme parks at Disney and never gain any insight into consumer behavior or how you sell the tickets or what you know. I think you would add a level of sophistication that frankly they don’t have.
00:56:49.000 --> 00:56:50.000
John Taylor: Now…
00:56:51.000 --> 00:57:05.000
John Taylor: The flip side of this is he’s getting paid $100,000 a month just to run, and if he wins, they’re gonna… they say they’re giving him a $500,000 forgivable loan to buy Vail Resorts stock. He doesn’t own a share, currently.
00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:13.000
John Taylor: Um, that’s very weird, I’ve never seen that before. I’m sure people have been paid a little bit, but… so he…
00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:29.000
John Taylor: He’s made — and that started in July. So by the time this vote comes up, assuming it does, he’d have bucketed $500,000 and another $500,000 in stock if he wins. So it’s almost like no one in this whole fight.
00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:33.000
John Taylor: Has clean hands, exactly. It’s weird.
00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Yah.
00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:49.000
Stuart Winchester: I’m having a hard time understanding what’s motivating Oasis, because the way you outlined it earlier, and I’ve had this conversation with many people and written about it, is the growth was really in the acquisition of resorts and the epic pass, and they sort of.
00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:51.000
Stuart Winchester: Hit a ceiling, so most…
00:57:51.000 --> 00:58:07.000
Stuart Winchester: People theorize, uh, that a, an activist investor want to break up the company and sell off the assets for parts and profit. That way, uh, that doesn’t seem to be their strategy. It doesn’t mean it, it won’t be, but right now they, they seem to be in a.
00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:11.000
Stuart Winchester: a position where they only have two potential board members, I guess they could nominate more.
00:58:11.000 --> 00:58:24.000
Stuart Winchester: But… and you said it’s costing them a lot of money, you know, $6 million or something to stay in this. What could they possibly get out of this? I don’t know how much juice you can squeeze from this orange that’s Vail Resorts.
00:58:23.000 --> 00:58:26.000
John Taylor: I don’t understand it either, Stuart, really.
00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:30.000
John Taylor: It seems to me that there’s only two.
00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:34.000
John Taylor: Possibilities. Well, three. One is.
00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:34.000
Stuart Winchester: No.
00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:37.000
John Taylor: As I just said, you make enough noise.
00:58:39.000 --> 00:58:43.000
John Taylor: You know, let’s say they settle and Chapek gets on the board.
00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:59.000
John Taylor: You know, the stock settles, you know, goes up 20% or something, you can walk away. Now, if you’re fail resorts, you don’t want that to happen. What you would do if you let them on the seats, get them two seats, is you sign them to a standstill agreement.
00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:14.000
John Taylor: So they don’t, they can’t buy more, they can’t sell over a specified amount of time. That keeps them there for a while, which is probably a good thing. Um, okay, then absent that, you either believe that they can.
00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:10.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:21.000
John Taylor: Create far more value in the company than has been created.
00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:26.000
John Taylor: let’s say organically where you just run the business better.
00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:28.000
John Taylor: What I would ask is.
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:34.000
John Taylor: Uh, you guys do a lot of skiing in Hong Kong? You know?
00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:45.000
John Taylor: I’m not saying this is the most efficient organization on the planet, but these are not people who don’t know anything about skiing. And Oasis, by contrast.
00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:52.000
John Taylor: I don’t even know how they got involved in this in the first place, other than the stock lift sheet. Okay, so that’s… that’s…
00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:57.000
John Taylor: Second strategy, change the long-term strategy and it works.
00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:02.000
John Taylor: The third is what you just alluded to. You sell off some of these resorts, um…
01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:09.000
John Taylor: That’s a tough game. I mean.
01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:19.000
John Taylor: Running a ski resort’s a tough business. And, you know, Matthew Prince at $7.8 billion can do it because it’s rounding error.
01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:31.000
John Taylor: I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $7.8 billion, uh, sitting around. And one of the things was people say, when Chapin first showed up, oh, Disney’s gonna buy them.
01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:47.000
John Taylor: Who would buy that company? It’s labor intensive. It’s capital intensive. It’s weather exposure. It’s beyond just normal weather. You’ve got climate change. You have your subject, the whims of the economy.
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
01:00:47.000 --> 01:01:05.000
John Taylor: Just looking at the stock market today, I’m going, oh, this is interesting. I mean, people are a lot… have a lot… from one day to the next, they have a lot more, a lot less money than they thought they had. And, you know, this is discretionary income for a lot of people who come out here. So, I don’t understand what they’re thinking. I’d love to know.
01:00:55.000 --> 01:00:56.000
Stuart Winchester: Ooh.
01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:10.000
John Taylor: The two questions I’d love to know the answers to are, one, what…
01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:22.000
John Taylor: what they are thinking, and the other is what Greg Meyer was thinking, to go to all that trouble and put together such a nice, interesting, well-thought-out presentation.
01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:26.000
John Taylor: For what? I mean, he can’t… he can’t win. Um…
01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:27.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.
01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:32.000
John Taylor: And I kind of admire him the most of anybody involved because I think his heart’s pure.
01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:34.000
Stuart Winchester: Do you know him?
01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:34.000
John Taylor: No.
01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:37.000
John Taylor: And I’ve called it 6 or 7 times.
01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:38.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay. Alright, John, that… that…
01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:53.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay. John, that was a really good orientation to the proxy battle, the players, what’s going on. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you about before we talk about the Lilly Fund? Anything else to add to this very interesting drama going on?
01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:55.000
John Taylor: Yeah, there is one thing.
01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:59.000
John Taylor: that I’m very curious about. I’ve lived here for 20 years.
01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:05.000
John Taylor: And I hear people, you know, it’s not hard to find people to complain about bear resorts.
01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:12.000
John Taylor: Uh, you almost have to be, you know, you’re so happy if you get all lifted with somebody who does it, but.
01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:16.000
John Taylor: What I asked one of the stories.
01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:20.000
John Taylor: that I most would like to know from anybody is.
01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:23.000
John Taylor: If you were running this, what would you do differently?
01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:33.000
John Taylor: You know, we all beat on Robcats, and we all beat on Vail Resorts, but okay, you kind of asked that question of me as well, what would you do differently? Well…
01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:25.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.
01:02:33.000 --> 01:02:39.000
John Taylor: My thing is price. I think you have to make the sport much more affordable, and focus on that, and not…
01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:56.000
John Taylor: New ways to gouge even rich people more. But if anybody does have ideas, forward them to either The Veil Daily at Dave Williams or send it to me at jhtconsulting@comcast.net.
01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:46.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I’m.
01:02:56.000 --> 01:03:00.000
John Taylor: And, you know, we’ve got a lot of these, but…
01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:04.000
John Taylor: Most of it is kind of moaning and groaning about the…
01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:09.000
John Taylor: fact that the past is over, that’s not going to get us anywhere, you know?
01:03:09.000 --> 01:03:24.000
John Taylor: But if people… some of the people who have called obviously had a lot of experience in the ski industry, and I’m trying to arrange to talk to them. And it’s not for a story. I want to talk to them off the record and see what ideas they have, because I think there are good ideas out there.
01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:26.000
John Taylor: Um…
01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:29.000
John Taylor: And I’d like to figure out how to tap into that a little better.
01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:37.000
Stuart Winchester: John, I’m curious to hear your opinion on one thing that I harp on a lot, and maybe it’s not fair.
01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:39.000
Stuart Winchester: So…
01:03:39.000 --> 01:03:47.000
Stuart Winchester: One of the reasons that I think Vail has struggled in its public image is the constant carousel of top leaders.
01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:47.000
John Taylor: Mm-hmm.
01:03:47.000 --> 01:04:02.000
Stuart Winchester: And they’ve had dozens of leadership changes over the past several years. And you look at that in contrast to something like Boyne Resorts, almost all of their general managers or presidents have been in place for decades, or they worked at the resort for decades and then were promoted to that position.
01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:14.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, you take important mountains such as Mount Snow, which Vail has owned since 2019, and it’s had 4 general managers since then. Uh, Snow has had 3 or 4, and…
01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:10.000
John Taylor: Yeah.
01:04:12.000 --> 01:04:14.000
John Taylor: Don’t go tubing there.
01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:16.000
Stuart Winchester: Yes.
01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:37.000
Stuart Winchester: You know, even… gosh, uh, you know, I’ve had… I’ve hosted the leaders of Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Breckenridge on this podcast, all within the past 4 years, and none of them are in those positions anymore. How much do you think that that constant leadership shuffle… and I know inside Vail, the folks seem to like it, they like that call, because they know they can advance.
01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:49.000
Stuart Winchester: But am I putting too much weight on that, or what’s your opinion of these leaders constantly moving in? I know Beth Howard just moved out, and Shadar came over after just a year or two at Heavenly.
01:04:49.000 --> 01:04:52.000
Stuart Winchester: to Leadvale Mountain.
01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:58.000
John Taylor: It’s always a horrific sign when you have turnover like that. And I don’t mean just Vail Resorts.
01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:06.000
John Taylor: you know, I see analyzed companies for a living, and when we saw that kind of turnover, and we were long-term investors, we ran. We ran.
01:05:01.000 --> 01:05:02.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:08.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:13.000
John Taylor: You know, that was the end of the story. We didn’t even have to do any more research. If you can’t motivate.
01:05:13.000 --> 01:05:15.000
John Taylor: And retain…
01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:30.000
John Taylor: people, and make them feel… this is the Gillette magic, is Gillette made everyone feel that they were important. And that meant went to lifties, ski instructors, you know, guys running the cats, everything.
01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:35.000
John Taylor: One of the things I learned in in the investment world was.
01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:39.000
John Taylor: If you’re gonna be the CEO.
01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:45.000
John Taylor: You can never, ever ask of your employees something that you yourself wouldn’t do.
01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:47.000
John Taylor: And that meant…
01:05:48.000 --> 01:05:53.000
John Taylor: I’ve given… I guess I could give you other examples, but we’ll do a ski one. Admin if…
01:05:53.000 --> 01:06:05.000
John Taylor: you know, the lifts were down, and there was, you know, a problem, and you were in the area, you’d be out there with your people till it was solved. And if it was a…
01:06:02.000 --> 01:06:03.000
Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.
01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:11.000
John Taylor: Generator going down where it might be 2 or 3 days. You stayed and you.
01:06:11.000 --> 01:06:24.000
John Taylor: Absolutely made sure that everyone understood that this was your responsibility And I will lead this and I will take responsibility for the problem. It’s not you.
01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:30.000
John Taylor: You know, Larry Culp told me a story one time. He said… I asked him, I said, okay.
01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:37.000
John Taylor: What if I hire you to my investment firm, and your sole job is to go out and analyze CEOs?
01:06:37.000 --> 01:06:41.000
John Taylor: Knowing what you know about this job, what do you ask?
01:06:41.000 --> 01:06:43.000
John Taylor: And he said.
01:06:43.000 --> 01:06:48.000
John Taylor: He said, if you, he said, you’re good at this, you’re a con man. He said.
01:06:49.000 --> 01:06:56.000
John Taylor: Once you get them talking, ask them just sort of as you tend to do. Oh, you know, just out of curiosity.
01:06:56.000 --> 01:07:03.000
John Taylor: what’s a typical week like for you? And he said, what you’re really after is, you hope they traveled.
01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:05.000
John Taylor: And I said, what do you mean? And he goes.
01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:09.000
John Taylor: I’ll give you an example, John. I was in Phoenix last week for something.
01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:21.000
John Taylor: And so, let’s say the guy says he was in Phoenix for a meeting. Well, how did that meeting go? Who organized that? And, you know, when something like that, who speaks? And what he said was.
01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:29.000
John Taylor: If you get up and make the remarks, and this person who’s in charge of the factory makes remarks.
01:07:29.000 --> 01:07:34.000
John Taylor: And you take 4 questions, and you get back on the company plane and go home. That’s a flyby.
01:07:34.000 --> 01:07:36.000
John Taylor: You see, when I go.
01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:38.000
John Taylor: I want…
01:07:38.000 --> 01:07:47.000
John Taylor: First of all, I want to organize it so that I get to see as many people as possible. I want to spend as much time listening to the people.
01:07:47.000 --> 01:08:05.000
John Taylor: And he said, why do I do that? One is I want to see if our message is resonating. But secondly, it gives you a great view of where the talent is. Who do we have to develop and move from this point to this thing and keep an eye on them? It’s a little like what I just told you about. Here’s my friend’s got a kid who’s an intern.
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:18.000
John Taylor: And Larry’s already marking him down in a company with 50,000 employees. Do I think Rob Katz does that? No. I do not think he does that. But that’s leadership. That is…
01:08:19.000 --> 01:08:31.000
John Taylor: when you work there, you feel a pride in working there, and a recognition that you will never be asked for something that the people in charge would not ask. Or you do.
01:08:31.000 --> 01:08:36.000
John Taylor: And when you have turnover, I remember I worked in a newspaper where we.
01:08:36.000 --> 01:08:50.000
John Taylor: amazing turnover of our staff in the business department, and a friend of mine who is the PR guy at one of the big banks, he says to me, John, you guys have a lot of turnover, why is that? And I said, why is it at any company?
01:08:51.000 --> 01:09:01.000
John Taylor: It’s lousy leadership. You know, you’re not thinking about how to motivate your people, how to compensate them, you’re not listening to their problems, you’re not making them feel important.
01:09:01.000 --> 01:09:03.000
John Taylor: They leave.
01:09:02.000 --> 01:09:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, the one… so Vail…
01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:18.000
Stuart Winchester: is doing this intentionally. They shuffle their leaders around, they move them to different mountains. So it’s… a lot of them are still with the company, they’re just in different positions, and I just feel that when they’re not…
01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:33.000
Stuart Winchester: There, you know, every year when someone new, because you have to deal with so many things in the community, you know, the governments and the utility companies and the skiers and the police and everything, and when you’re constantly just getting to know, it’s hard to.
01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:49.000
Stuart Winchester: establish that community trust, which seems to be to be at the core of why Vail, for example, has had problems putting in lifts at Park City, uh, was overruled on the housing they wanted to build in Vail when the town condemned that parcel for sheep a few years ago. So, uh.
01:09:49.000 --> 01:09:50.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s…
01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:53.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s interesting because…
01:09:53.000 --> 01:10:05.000
Stuart Winchester: what you’re describing is when people aren’t happy, and the company can keep them around, but Vail’s doing this on purpose. I think that’s a big reason why they don’t have a good relationship with the public.
01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:08.000
John Taylor: I agree. What you just said, um…
01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:12.000
John Taylor: being…
01:10:13.000 --> 01:10:17.000
John Taylor: The head of the mountain in each resort.
01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:20.000
John Taylor: It’s not just a P&L statement.
01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:24.000
John Taylor: You hit the nail on the head when you said.
01:10:24.000 --> 01:10:29.000
John Taylor: You want a per… first of all, this takes a while to do, but if you’re the person in charge.
01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:35.000
John Taylor: You’re the liaison to the local governments?
01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:40.000
John Taylor: You’re the liaison to the newspaper, you’re the liaison to the skiers.
01:10:40.000 --> 01:10:42.000
John Taylor: The ski shops?
01:10:42.000 --> 01:10:47.000
John Taylor: And that takes time. If you’re gonna roll them over every 2 years.
01:10:47.000 --> 01:10:51.000
John Taylor: I think it’s a disservice, because…
01:10:51.000 --> 01:10:55.000
John Taylor: If there’s a problem, and you’ve been there 10 years.
01:10:55.000 --> 01:10:56.000
John Taylor: Um…
01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:00.000
John Taylor: And I’m just thinking of, you know…
01:11:00.000 --> 01:11:12.000
John Taylor: we could both name some people who are really respected in the industry. Everybody knows they’re in charge, and everybody knows that there’s a problem. Now, I’m not gonna call them about every little thing, but… I mean…
01:11:13.000 --> 01:11:14.000
John Taylor: You know.
01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:19.000
John Taylor: Even little things like, you know, crappy, uh…
01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:31.000
John Taylor: um, the snow being bad and, you know, that the cats didn’t hit this quite right. Just knowing who you could call and say, hey, you know, you got a problem up there, you know, somebody’s gonna get hurt.
01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:30.000
Stuart Winchester: Damn.
01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000
John Taylor: And, uh…
01:11:34.000 --> 01:11:38.000
John Taylor: Again, leadership is it’s not.
01:11:38.000 --> 01:11:48.000
John Taylor: you want to move people around and challenge them. You know, I’ve managed people when we would have, you know, I’d have a path for them to make it increasingly.
01:11:48.000 --> 01:11:51.000
John Taylor: give them increasing responsibility.
01:11:51.000 --> 01:11:59.000
John Taylor: But this job is a little freakier than that, funkier maybe, because you are the community liaison.
01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:07.000
John Taylor: You know, I think that was part of the Gillette magic, is everybody knew who was in charge, and…
01:12:07.000 --> 01:12:10.000
John Taylor: Probably half of them had his phone number.
01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:20.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and we see his son Jordy running Grand Targhee in that same spirit, and I talk to Jordy quite a lot, and it’s…
01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Comforting to see a big mountain still being run in that style. So, all right, listen, John, I don’t want to take up too much of your time today. Let’s shift and talk about DIPG and the Lilly Fund. And, you know, I hate to end on a downer, but I think it’s…
01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:37.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s…
01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:47.000
Stuart Winchester: a really great cause where you’re making some really positive progress, but… but lay this out for us. What is the Lilly Fund, and… and what is DIPG, and… and, uh…
01:12:48.000 --> 01:12:49.000
Stuart Winchester: It tells us…
01:12:48.000 --> 01:12:53.000
John Taylor: Okay, I’m happy to do it, and I appreciate you giving me the time for that. Um…
01:12:51.000 --> 01:12:52.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:12:54.000 --> 01:13:04.000
John Taylor: A good many of people who live in Vail probably know the name Rich Rogel. Rich and his wife, Susan, have lived in Vail.
01:13:04.000 --> 01:13:06.000
John Taylor: About 20, 30 years.
01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:11.000
John Taylor: And Rich is the largest donor.
01:13:11.000 --> 01:13:21.000
John Taylor: to the cancer center at the University of Michigan, uh, which is now called the Rogel Cancer Center. I think he’s given them, like, $250 million.
01:13:21.000 --> 01:13:31.000
John Taylor: Yeah, this is a remarkable man. And, uh, so Rich and I are friends, and he called me up one day, and he said, I would like you.
01:13:24.000 --> 01:13:26.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah.
01:13:31.000 --> 01:13:35.000
John Taylor: to consider going on the Board of Advisors to the Rocal Cancer Center.
01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:44.000
John Taylor: And because it was rich, I said, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. And then I went, I wonder what I could possibly add value.
01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:51.000
John Taylor: Went to a few meetings and happened to be at lunch one day with a doctor named Sriram Veneti.
01:13:51.000 --> 01:13:56.000
John Taylor: And we started talking, and Sriram was…
01:13:56.000 --> 01:13:57.000
John Taylor: The co-head…
01:13:57.000 --> 01:14:03.000
John Taylor: of research into a class of cancers called DIPG that you just alluded to.
01:14:03.000 --> 01:14:05.000
John Taylor: And…
01:14:05.000 --> 01:14:10.000
John Taylor: Basically, that’s a class of cancers. They’re pediatric brain tumors.
01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:22.000
John Taylor: They are the single most lethal form of cancer in existence. Pancreatic is second. They’re they’re most. It strikes kids between the age three and 11.
01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:25.000
John Taylor: 95% of them are dead 11 months later.
01:14:26.000 --> 01:14:28.000
John Taylor: It’s being treated…
01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:33.000
John Taylor: The same way it’s been treated since 1961, radiation.
01:14:33.000 --> 01:14:38.000
John Taylor: It doesn’t work, but it may slow it down, but it’s not going to stop it.
01:14:38.000 --> 01:14:44.000
John Taylor: And so Sriram and I were talking about this, and I was very interested in why you would choose to devote your life.
01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:51.000
John Taylor: to a cancer where the outcome almost invariably was catastrophic.
01:14:51.000 --> 01:14:55.000
John Taylor: But I happen to know one of my best friends.
01:14:55.000 --> 01:15:01.000
John Taylor: Her daughter was diagnosed with DIPG at age four.
01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:05.000
John Taylor: And dead 13 months later.
01:15:06.000 --> 01:15:08.000
John Taylor: There’s no way…
01:15:08.000 --> 01:15:10.000
John Taylor: That you watch that.
01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:12.000
John Taylor: And you’re ever the same.
01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:16.000
John Taylor: That child I held in my arms when she was two weeks old.
01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:22.000
John Taylor: You know, the parents are beaming. It’s their first child. All the expectations, all destroyed.
01:15:23.000 --> 01:15:27.000
John Taylor: And so we talked about this.
01:15:28.000 --> 01:15:32.000
John Taylor: Sort of there was this immediate kinship experience.
01:15:32.000 --> 01:15:36.000
John Taylor: And then Treon was telling me that the problem with this.
01:15:37.000 --> 01:15:46.000
John Taylor: type of research is there’s no money for it. I said, why? And he goes, well, because there’s only 3 or 5, you know, 3 to 500 cases a year.
01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:54.000
John Taylor: Big Pharma won’t touch it. There’s no money in it. There’s not enough. Even if they, you know, develop a drug for all 500.
01:15:55.000 --> 01:15:58.000
John Taylor: It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to move the needle for them.
01:15:58.000 --> 01:16:03.000
John Taylor: The NIH, which is the principal funding for most early stage research.
01:16:03.000 --> 01:16:04.000
John Taylor: Um…
01:16:05.000 --> 01:16:11.000
John Taylor: It also kind of shortchanges them and kind of for a good reason.
01:16:11.000 --> 01:16:19.000
John Taylor: They have to allocate money based on demand. And there’s just a lot more people with pediatric lung cancer, you know, breast cancer, all of that.
01:16:19.000 --> 01:16:23.000
John Taylor: Bottom line is there’s very little money for this.
01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:26.000
John Taylor: So, I was doing some estate planning.
01:16:26.000 --> 01:16:38.000
John Taylor: and wanted to leave some money for that type of cancer research, I happened to mention this to a friend of mine who had worked with my friend Felicia, who had lost her child. And he said, I’ll give you $50,000.
01:16:39.000 --> 01:16:49.000
John Taylor: I went, oh, well, they were supposed to get the money when I died. While there are many people who look forward to that very much, I wasn’t planning to write the check today.
01:16:48.000 --> 01:16:50.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, man.
01:16:49.000 --> 01:16:58.000
John Taylor: So, I said, okay, let’s see what we can raise, you know? And we raised a little under a million dollars. This all came from a friend of mine.
01:16:58.000 --> 01:17:00.000
John Taylor: And…
01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:05.000
John Taylor: The amount of money that they need at the Redwood Cancer Center.
01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:13.000
John Taylor: for this kind of research to keep going forward is maybe 3 to 5 million a year, which doesn’t seem that much to me.
01:17:13.000 --> 01:17:28.000
John Taylor: And so the challenge has been, how do we get that? Since we’re not going to get it from pharma, we probably won’t get it from the NIH. And so we started this fund, which is named after my friend’s daughter. It’s called the Lily Hannah Taubman Fund.
01:17:29.000 --> 01:17:30.000
John Taylor: And…
01:17:31.000 --> 01:17:45.000
John Taylor: people go, well, you know, the same question I asked Sriram, why do you get involved with something where the outcome is so bad? Well, the outcome’s getting better because of the research that Michigan is doing. We developed the first drug ever.
01:17:45.000 --> 01:18:01.000
John Taylor: approved by the FDA for treatment for this. It’s not a cure. I need to be clear about that. But what it has done is it will extend the life expectancy in the clinical trials. For a third of the patients, it extended it, doubled it.
01:18:01.000 --> 01:18:05.000
John Taylor: to about 25 months. And for two-thirds, it didn’t work.
01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:13.000
John Taylor: So there’s two really interesting scientific questions there. Why did it not work for this subset of the population? Why did it work for the others?
01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:16.000
John Taylor: The real value, though, is…
01:18:16.000 --> 01:18:31.000
John Taylor: One of the problems in trying to develop science to treat these kids is they’re so sick and they die so fast. You don’t really have time to experiment with it. But if you can extend the life expectancy, double it, triple it, whatever, we’ve had kids live 4 years on this stuff.
01:18:31.000 --> 01:18:48.000
John Taylor: And there’s all sorts of things going on now, whether it’s CAR T cells, there’s a woman who’s in Israel that’s doing research with biomarkers, there’s focused ultrasounds, a lot of exciting things, but we need money, and that’s kind of what I got involved with.
01:18:48.000 --> 01:18:50.000
John Taylor: Um…
01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:52.000
John Taylor: Just because…
01:18:52.000 --> 01:18:56.000
John Taylor: If you’ve ever seen these families, and…
01:18:57.000 --> 01:19:07.000
John Taylor: I mean, I hate to say this, but almost all of them, after this, their marriages collapse, you know, the family becomes estranged, it’s just something…
01:19:07.000 --> 01:19:10.000
John Taylor: And Sriram would say when you treat.
01:19:10.000 --> 01:19:15.000
John Taylor: These patients, you’re really treating the whole family because they’re all.
01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:21.000
John Taylor: going through this. I was thinking one day, because the weather was so beautiful as fall.
01:19:21.000 --> 01:19:34.000
John Taylor: And I rode past, like, a soccer field. And all these kids are out there chirping, and the parents are yelling for them from the sidelines, and the windows are down in the car, and everything, you know, the air feels lighter, and the world feels more full of possibility.
01:19:34.000 --> 01:19:36.000
John Taylor: And I said.
01:19:36.000 --> 01:19:48.000
John Taylor: God, I wonder what someone who’s lost their child 4 or 5 or 6 must think. It almost must haunt them. Totally different. I said, we got to change that. We got to change that.
01:19:48.000 --> 01:19:51.000
John Taylor: And so, yeah, it’s a huge…
01:19:51.000 --> 01:20:04.000
John Taylor: hurdle to clear, but… and people go, oh, John, you’re doing such a great job. I say, I’m not the hero here. Those doctors, those families, they’re the heroes. Let’s not, you know…
01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:17.000
John Taylor: forget where the real tragedy is. And these doctors, they inspire me. I get up there, and they get all worked up, and, oh, John, you’re raising money! I go, oh my god, this is nothing compared to what you guys are doing.
01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:22.000
Stuart Winchester: So, it’s an amazing cause, and…
01:20:22.000 --> 01:20:27.000
Stuart Winchester: you shared with me a piece that will run in the Veil Daily, I believe, around the holidays.
01:20:27.000 --> 01:20:32.000
Stuart Winchester: And it was really hard to read. You know, I have a 9-year-old, and I have an 18-year-old daughter.
01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:34.000
Stuart Winchester: And, uh, it…
01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:40.000
Stuart Winchester: It’s the worst thing, literally, that I could imagine. And for anybody to have to go through that.
01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:43.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, if we can prevent that…
01:20:43.000 --> 01:20:50.000
Stuart Winchester: in the future, that would be incredible. So, do you, John, have… is it a constant fundraising? Do you have a big…
01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:57.000
Stuart Winchester: you know, event every year where you try? How can people donate to this cause if they would like to?
01:20:55.000 --> 01:20:58.000
John Taylor: Um, the easiest way…
01:20:58.000 --> 01:21:02.000
John Taylor: Don’t go on the Michigan website.
01:21:02.000 --> 01:21:04.000
Stuart Winchester: Why not?
01:21:02.000 --> 01:21:11.000
John Taylor: It’s so complicated, I’ve never had one person find the fund. They all call me. And so I would say…
01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:07.000
Stuart Winchester: Okay.
01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:21.000
Stuart Winchester: Well, I have to say, as a football season ticket holder, their website sucks. Like, I have to get in there and do all these things, it transfers, it’s a mess.
01:21:13.000 --> 01:21:14.000
John Taylor: Yeah.
01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:16.000
John Taylor: Yeah.
01:21:19.000 --> 01:21:33.000
John Taylor: maddening. I mean, I had people trying to give us $50,000 who were getting frustrated, like, they’re not getting… I can’t find it, they won’t call me back. I said, yeah, welcome to Michigan. Um, we’ll… we’ll cash your check, though. Um…
01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:23.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, sure.
01:21:34.000 --> 01:21:50.000
John Taylor: There’s kind of a couple. The easiest way would be just email me what I just said, jhdconsulting@comcast.net, and I will forward you the link to the fund so you can do it directly. The other thing that we’re doing.
01:21:51.000 --> 01:22:09.000
John Taylor: You know, I’ve been at this for two years and originally we were trying to do fundraisers in people’s homes and we would think, oh, we need people with Michigan ties and this becomes very complicated. What I realized was, you know, this story really.
01:22:09.000 --> 01:22:12.000
John Taylor: resonates with anyone.
01:22:12.000 --> 01:22:14.000
John Taylor: With any heart, any soul.
01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:17.000
John Taylor: Someone, anyone who’s raised children?
01:22:17.000 --> 01:22:22.000
John Taylor: Um, and so we’re gonna do 3 of them in March in Florida.
01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:29.000
John Taylor: Um… I’m willing to go wherever anybody will let me in their house. Um…
01:22:29.000 --> 01:22:32.000
John Taylor: And, um…
01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:36.000
John Taylor: You know, I know that the story seems depressing. It’s…
01:22:36.000 --> 01:22:44.000
John Taylor: It’s not depressing to me, because I see hope. I see it… a class of cancers for which there was no hope.
01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:51.000
John Taylor: And now, for the first time, the door… there’s a sliver of light that you can see.
01:22:51.000 --> 01:22:53.000
John Taylor: And there’s Hope.
01:22:53.000 --> 01:22:55.000
John Taylor: And there’s potential…
01:22:56.000 --> 01:23:03.000
John Taylor: And there’s passion for the research. The question is, can we get the money to keep it going? I mean, this is not…
01:23:04.000 --> 01:23:09.000
John Taylor: a great time for funding medical research.
01:23:09.000 --> 01:23:14.000
John Taylor: Will that change after Tuesday’s results?
01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:17.000
John Taylor: Probably it will. Um…
01:23:17.000 --> 01:23:19.000
John Taylor: You know, there’s a lot of bipartisan.
01:23:19.000 --> 01:23:28.000
John Taylor: Uh, support for medical research, and there should be. And places like Michigan are so important for.
01:23:28.000 --> 01:23:45.000
John Taylor: Diseases that affect very small numbers of people because it’s the same story. Pharma won’t touch them. And so normally we’re doing a lot of early stage stuff. It gets past the first clinical trial. Pharma gets in, funds it all, and, you know, we retain a piece of the action.
01:23:45.000 --> 01:24:02.000
John Taylor: It’s not the case here. It’s not the case for a lot of really exotic diseases. I was reading this story the other day about the girl in the New York Marathon. I’d never heard of that disease, you know, or not disease, but I’m not even sure what it’s classified, where your body just basically.
01:24:02.000 --> 01:24:09.000
John Taylor: You know, your kidneys develop poison and you’re dead. You know, once you die at mile 24, um.
01:24:09.000 --> 01:24:12.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh, I missed the story. So, yeah.
01:24:10.000 --> 01:24:18.000
John Taylor: Oh, yeah. I mean, this kid’s running great, she’s in great shape, and drops dead. Uh, and it was, uh…
01:24:17.000 --> 01:24:18.000
Stuart Winchester: Oh my gosh.
01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:21.000
John Taylor: You know, there’s stories about it, and…
01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:26.000
John Taylor: I never heard of the disease. But anyway, you know.
01:24:27.000 --> 01:24:42.000
John Taylor: As I say, if you want to, I would say the best way is to contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the link and show you some research and share the story. If you want to do more, you feel inclined.
01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:52.000
John Taylor: you know, talk to me, and we’ll work with you. You know, the docs… the docs are willing to travel. I’ve been with them, and uh…
01:24:52.000 --> 01:25:05.000
John Taylor: Their story is amazing. Sriram, who I mentioned, told me a great story that he’s a pathologist, was on a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:06.000
John Taylor: And…
01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:11.000
John Taylor: A young kid had died, brain tumor. I think it was four or five.
01:25:11.000 --> 01:25:14.000
John Taylor: He hit so he has to do the autopsy.
01:25:14.000 --> 01:25:19.000
John Taylor: He said, I had never seen a brain that small. And it traumatized him.
01:25:19.000 --> 01:25:26.000
John Taylor: And he went home, and he’s crying, and he’s sort of rethinking of what he wants to do with his life, and…
01:25:27.000 --> 01:25:34.000
John Taylor: He seeks counseling and stuff, and ultimately decides he wants to devote his life to this kind of research.
01:25:34.000 --> 01:25:42.000
John Taylor: He goes and he tells his advisor and she looks at him and says, that’s career suicide. There’s no money in it.
01:25:42.000 --> 01:25:45.000
John Taylor: And he didn’t listen to her, thank God, but…
01:25:45.000 --> 01:25:52.000
John Taylor: that’s kind of the attitude. And one of the interesting things about this, I don’t want to belabor it too much, Stuart, but, um…
01:25:52.000 --> 01:26:00.000
John Taylor: Because there are so few researchers doing this work, everything is shared all over the world.
01:26:00.000 --> 01:26:19.000
John Taylor: And once a year, all of these doctors come to Ann Arbor for a conference that goes on for 4 or 5 days. And they share every idea that they have, and all of the research that they’ve done, including things that didn’t work, so that they’re all on the same team. I was in New York with Sriram.
01:26:19.000 --> 01:26:32.000
John Taylor: And a couple of things got canceled, and I’m thinking, oh my god, I’m wasting this guy’s time in New York City. No, he’s at Sloan Kettering, he’s at Columbia, he’s at NYU. And I said, oh, good, good, good. So…
01:26:28.000 --> 01:26:29.000
Stuart Winchester: Right.
01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:35.000
John Taylor: Anyway, that’s my story, and…
01:26:36.000 --> 01:26:41.000
John Taylor: As I say, one of the interesting, the other interesting thing, Lilly died in 2009.
01:26:41.000 --> 01:26:52.000
John Taylor: And we got involved in this like two years ago. And her mom’s very involved with me. And she just says, you know, I now realize that my child’s life has taken on greater meaning.
01:26:52.000 --> 01:26:56.000
John Taylor: And I said, well, let’s keep that going.
01:26:57.000 --> 01:27:09.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, we’ll definitely keep it going, John. I will include your contact information in the article that accompanies this podcast on stormskiing.com. I agree.
01:27:09.000 --> 01:27:24.000
Stuart Winchester: Michigan Hospital is a special place, you know, growing up with it, anytime someone had anything that was somewhat complicated, rather than going to the local hospitals, which were quite good, they’d go down to U of M, and that still is the case. And, you know.
01:27:15.000 --> 01:27:16.000
John Taylor: Perfect.
01:27:24.000 --> 01:27:27.000
Stuart Winchester: being alumni there, I know that the biggest…
01:27:27.000 --> 01:27:39.000
Stuart Winchester: the two biggest deals of people they have to hire, and they’ve had to do both of these recently, besides the university president, are the athletic director and the head of the medical center. And the medical center is considered, you know.
01:27:31.000 --> 01:27:33.000
John Taylor: Mm-hmm.
01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:36.000
John Taylor: Oh, yeah.
01:27:39.000 --> 01:27:43.000
Stuart Winchester: the crown jewel of U of M, as far as my understanding.
01:27:41.000 --> 01:27:43.000
John Taylor: That job’s open, too, right now.
01:27:44.000 --> 01:27:47.000
Stuart Winchester: Didn’t they just fill it? I thought they just filled it.
01:27:45.000 --> 01:27:47.000
John Taylor: One year and the guy left.
01:27:47.000 --> 01:27:53.000
John Taylor: Hey, wait a minute. Let’s go back to the Vail Resorts story. How come you couldn’t keep these guys?
01:27:53.000 --> 01:27:56.000
Stuart Winchester: I know it. I know it.
01:27:53.000 --> 01:28:01.000
John Taylor: You know, the other one had been there like 50 years and then one guy’s there a year. It’s managing.
01:27:58.000 --> 01:28:00.000
Stuart Winchester: Yah.
01:28:01.000 --> 01:28:14.000
John Taylor: I would… I said to Rich one time when we were first flying up there, and I said, you know, Rich, the two things that I could think of that are the most bureaucratic would be a hospital and a university, and you’ve got both.
01:28:14.000 --> 01:28:36.000
Stuart Winchester: Yeah, the athletic department’s no, uh, no cakewalk either, so, um, yeah, so, anyway, alright, John, listen, I really appreciate the time, you’ve been crushing it at Vail Daily, and, and I’m looking forward to your coverage as this is ongoing. I might ask you on again to get an update as this thing unfolds, but…
01:28:18.000 --> 01:28:20.000
John Taylor: Exactly.
01:28:36.000 --> 01:28:41.000
Stuart Winchester: Uh, really appreciate you, really appreciate your time and your insight and perspective, so thank you very much.
01:28:39.000 --> 01:28:42.000
John Taylor: Loved it. Thank you. Bye-bye.
