Joseph Steven Lacob (born January 10, 1956) is an American business executive who is a partner at

Kleiner Perkins Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...

and the majority owner of the

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...

of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

(NBA).

Early life and education

Lacob grew up in a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American p ...

. The Lacob family relocated to

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

and Joe switched his allegiance to the

Los Angeles Lakers The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Lakers play their ...

and the

Los Angeles Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team h ...

. Lacob earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

in 1978, master's degree in public health (epidemiology) from

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

(UCLA) and an MBA from the

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...

Professional career

Lacob has been a partner at

, a Venture capital investing firm, since 1987. His investments have centered around firms involved in life sciences, medical technology, Internet and energy, and such enterprises as AutoTrader.com,

Align Technology Align Technology is an American manufacturer of 3D digital scanners and Invisalign clear aligners used in orthodontics. It is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. The company manufactures the aligners in Juarez, Mexico and its scanners in Israel and ...

and NuVasive. Before he joined Kleiner Perkins, Lacob held executive positions with Cetus Corporation (now Chiron), FHP International (a health maintenance organization) and the management-consulting firm of

Booz, Allen & Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., wit ...

. In interviews, he has credited his epidemiology degree for giving him a background in statistics that has fed the statistical side of his longstanding sports interest. He was a primary investor in the American Basketball League, a professional women's basketball league that eventually folded from failure to compete successfully with its rival, the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Nati ...

(WNBA). In January 2006 he became part-owner of the Celtics, where he became a co-investor with

H. Irving Grousbeck Harold Irving "Irv" Grousbeck (born July 20, 1934) is an American entrepreneur, professor at Stanford Business School, and co-owner of the National Basketball Association basketball franchise the Boston Celtics. Career Grousbeck is one of the di ...

, an entrepreneur and a professor at the

. On July 15, 2010, Lacob and the group of investors he headed agreed to buy the

of the NBA from

Chris Cohan John Christopher Cohan (born January 2, 1950) is an American entrepreneur who was founder of Sonic Communications and was owner of the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. Early life and education Cohan was born in 1950 in Hanford, California, the on ...

for $450 million, requiring him to sell his minority interest in the Celtics. The Lacob - Peter Guber group won out over a dozen other bidders for the Warriors, including

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word ...

chief executive officer

Larry Ellison Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate and investor who is the co-founder, executive chairman, chief technology officer (CTO) and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the American computer technology ...

24-Hour Fitness 24 Hour Fitness is a privately owned and operated fitness center chain headquartered in Carlsbad, California. It is the second largest fitness chain in the United States based on revenue after LA Fitness, and the fourth in number of clubs (behi ...

founder

Mark Mastrov Mark S. Mastrov is an American businessman who is the founder and former CEO of 24 Hour Fitness. He is also part of the Sacramento Kings ownership group. Career The 24 Hour Fitness began in 1983 as a one-club operation called 24 Hour Nautilus. ...

and Texas billionaire financier David Bonderman. He had been a Warriors' season-ticket-holder for about a decade. He already had extensive experience operating an NBA team as part-owner of the Boston Celtics, and also points to his friendships with two major league baseball team general managers,

Billy Beane William Lamar Beane III (born March 29, 1962) is an American former professional baseball player and current front office executive. He is the executive vice president of baseball operations and minority owner of the Oakland Athletics of M ...

of the

Oakland Athletics The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The t ...

and

Jeff Moorad Jeffrey S. Moorad is an American businessman and investor. He began his career as a sports agent, before serving as General Partner and CEO of MLB's Arizona Diamondbacks, and Vice-Chairman and CEO of MLB's San Diego Padres. Player representati ...

of the

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penn ...

, who have both proven that winning records are not solely related to the size of the team payroll. Lacob approved the acquisitions of David Lee and undrafted rookie guard

Jeremy Lin Jeremy Shu-How Lin (born August 23, 1988) is a Taiwanese-American professional basketball player who last played for the Guangzhou Loong Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). He unexpectedly led a winning turnaround with the N ...

, a hometown favorite. He also fired coach

Don Nelson Donald Arvid Nelson (born May 15, 1940) is an American former professional basketball player and head coach. Nelson is second all-time in regular season wins of any coach in NBA history, with 1,335 (he held the record for most wins for almost 12 ...

and replaced him with assistant coach Keith Smart. The sale was unanimously approved by the NBA league's board of governors on November 12, 2010. Lacob and Peter Guber are the chief owners, but Lacob is in charge of day-to-day operations. Before the 2014-15 NBA season, Lacob fired coach

Mark Jackson Mark A. Jackson (born April 1, 1965) is an American former professional basketball player. A point guard from St. John's University, he played for the New York Knicks, Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, Toronto Raptors, Utah ...

who had just led the Warriors to the playoffs in consecutive seasons. Lacob explained the decision at a conference of fellow venture capitalists: "Part of it was, he couldn't get along with anybody else in the organization. And, look, he did a great job -- and I'll always compliment him in many respects -- but you can't have 200 other people in the organization not like you." Lacob generated some controversy by calling his team "light years" ahead of everybody else in the NBA during the 2015-16 NBA season. The Warriors won championships in the 2014-15 NBA season,

2016-17 NBA season 16-17 is a band from Basel, Switzerland. Their music combines punk rock, hardcore punk, jazz and industrial music. Biography 16-17 was founded in 1983 by Alex Buess, Knut Remond and Markus Kneubühler. When the group played its first co ...

, 2017-18 NBA season, and the

2021-22 NBA season Increment or incremental may refer to: *Incrementalism, a theory (also used in politics as a synonym for gradualism) *Increment and decrement operators, the operators ++ and -- in computer programming *Incremental computing *Incremental backup, wh ...

. During his tenure with the Warriors, the team has attained the NBA records for the best regular season with 73–9 and most wins in a season (regular season and postseason combined) with 88 in 2015–16, as well as best postseason with 16–1 (.941 winning percentage) in 2016–17. As of 2022, Joe Lacob's net worth is $1.5 billion, according to

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

Personal life

Lacob is divorced Haute Living: "Joe Lacob: The Charitable Champion" by Kelley E. Carter
November 3, 2015 from his first wife, Laurie (née Kraus), with whom he has two sons and two daughters. He is currently married to Nicole Curran.The Mercury News: "Who’s that woman sitting next to Warriors owner Joe Lacob? Nicole Curran has been there the whole time and holds an important role in the franchise" By Marcus Thompson II
February 22, 2017

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lacob, Joe 1956 births Living people Golden State Warriors owners Jewish American sportspeople University of California, Irvine alumni UCLA School of Public Health alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Sportspeople from New Bedford, Massachusetts Kleiner Perkins people 21st-century Jews American billionaires