David Stern Didn’t Hire Me — He Became My Friend and Mentor Instead
How late NBA Commissioner David Stern shaped the life of a basketball-loving VC
“As my mother would say: You’re going to pay your bills with this?”
This was one of the last things David Stern ever said to me when I was in his office pitching him a new business idea a few months ago. It seems unfathomable that I will no longer be able to text him about the latest NBA news and get a sarcastic response a minute later.
I first met David Stern in 2013 when I snuck into the NBA Tech Summit at the All-Star Weekend in Houston. He was in the buffet line ahead of me, talking to Pat Riley. I took a creepy covert photo and sent it to a bunch of my basketball buddies saying, “Holy shit, it’s David Stern!” Two years later, I would be sitting in his office telling him that I had written him a letter asking him to put me in charge of NBA India when I was a senior at Penn looking for a job. It made sense to me then, since I had grown up in India and also played college basketball. He never replied to that letter, and I went on to start my own basketball analytics company.
When I told Stern about this letter 10 years later, he simply looked at me and replied, “You’re welcome.” Then he asked his long-time assistant Linda…
