{
  "id": 9747221,
  "title": "Billionaire David Rubenstein told us why he paid $1.7 billion for a baseball team, and shared his 2 biggest investing mistakes",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/25/billionaire-david-rubenstein-told-us-why-he-paid-1-7-billion-for-a",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-25T09:45:15.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Business Insider",
    "slug": "business-insider",
    "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/david-rubenstein-sports-teams-investing-amazon-facebook-ai-stocks-billionaires-2026-9"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "David Rubenstein, the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, discussed his $1.7 billion purchase of the team and his two biggest investing mistakes with Business Insider. Rubenstein, a billionaire and co-founder of the Carlyle Group, a prominent private equity firm, shared his insights in his new book, Inside the Owner's Box.\n\nThe ultrawealthy previously shied away from the scrutiny that comes with owning a sports team, but changing attitudes and soaring valuations have led them to believe that being a team owner can be both fun and profitable. Rubenstein bought the Orioles to give back to his hometown, Baltimore, after not doing much philanthropic work there.\n\nOne of his biggest investment successes was starting Carlyle with minimal capital. However, his biggest investing error was selling out of Amazon and Facebook during the dot-com bubble. He had been given a stake in Amazon at the beginning, but they sold it as the stock collapsed. Similarly, he did not invest in Facebook when Mark Zuckerberg approached him for $30,000 to launch his website. Instead, Eduardo Saverin, a classmate of Zuckerberg's, provided the initial capital for Facebook, and now has a net worth of around $40 billion.\n\nRubenstein acknowledged the high valuations of AI companies and their uncertain prospects for many of them. However, he pointed to Nvidia's recent strong results as evidence that AI investments can be successful. Despite the risks, he believes that the most valuable AI companies may continue to do well for some time. Rubenstein also warned against panic-selling during market crashes, emphasizing that markets tend to rebound after such events, and that selling everything can be a significant mistake.",
  "summary": "Billionaire investor David Rubenstein spoke to BI about buying the Baltimore Orioles, missing Amazon and Facebook, and the trajectory of AI stocks.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}