IN A MAHOGANY AND marble conference room downstairs from Stephen Curry’s apartment near San Francisco’s Financial District, 10 executives from a constellation of businesses belonging to the NBA superstar have gathered to coordinate their efforts on various projects. It’s just before lunchtime when Tiffany Williams, the COO of Thirty Ink, the parent company of Curry’s many endeavors, announces it’s time to discuss the logistics of a series of events they’re planning in New York City this fall.
There’s an event during Fashion Week with the Japanese tech conglomerate Rakuten, tied to a deal Curry struck to support Black designers. There’s a potential visit to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s suite at the U.S. Open. There’s a KPMGsponsored golf tournament in New Jersey for Curry’s Underrated Golf business, which helps student athletes from underserved communities. And there’s a splashy media event that Curry’s PR maven wants to put on to “really shine a spotlight on every single business unit and everything that we do at Thirty Ink.”
That all needs to be accomplished ahead of a weeklong trip to China with Under Armour, after which Curry and his wife, Ayesha, need to be in Los Angeles for a four-day shoot of the HBO Max celebrity-couple reality TV show About Last Night, which they created together and co-host. Oh, and should they tack on a trip to Japan, someone asks?
For a person with so many demands on his time, it’s perhaps surprising that Curry himself isn’t present in the meeting meant to get a handle on it all. His executives have flown in from as far away as New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles, but Curry is in Salt Lake City for a game between his Golden State Warriors and the Utah Jazz, and his return has been delayed because assistant coach Dejan Milojević suffered a heart attack at a team dinner and died 24 hours later. That was yesterday. Curry, the Warriors’ captain and one of the most respected veterans in the league, stayed with his team to grieve and absorb the shock.
In fact, the Thirty Ink leaders gather every month for a similar session, and Curry rarely attends, preferring to focus on basketball during the NBA season and to lead his companies by trusting the people he’s assembled, weighing in on big-picture matters without getting too caught up in the smaller ones.
“He’s a point guard on and off the court,” says Erick Peyton, co-founder and co-CEO of Unanimous Media, Curry’s Hollywood production company. “A point guard is the captain on the floor, able to take the shots or give up the ball, and that’s exactly what Stephen’s ability is within the business.”
Professional athletes have been starting increasingly ambitious businesses for several decades, but Curry’s
