Steve Young Is an Athlete Who’s Actually Good at Finance
The next time you see him on ESPN, remember: He’s probably thinking about private equity.
Before a Monday Night Football game in Minneapolis in October, Steve Young seems to be doing the typical work of an ex-quarterback. Still fit and even boyish-looking at 55, Young is roaming a patch of sideline, chatting and taking pictures with a group of men, all of whom look thrilled to be near the San Francisco 49ers legend. Then Young ducks over to a nearby ESPN set, where he talks about the Vikings’ offense for an audience of several million viewers. Then back to the same gaggle of men. The process repeats: glad-handing, TV hit, glad-handing.
Soon enough, though, it’s clear that Young is paying a lot more attention to one of these tasks than the other. The moment the ESPN cameras are off, he bolts to the group on the sideline. And once he’s there, talk rarely turns to football. Young is schmoozing people connected to the private equity firm, HGGC, that he co-founded a decade ago. The firm has a niche within a niche—it specializes in acquiring majority stakes of enterprise software companies worth $300 million to $500 million—and it uses Monday Night Football games as marketing events. When the season begins, Young and his partners buy a luxury suite for virtually every Monday matchup. Young, HGGC Chief Executive Officer Rich Lawson, and a handful of others from the firm travel from NFL city to NFL city, meeting with portfolio companies, acquisition targets, and customers.