Full Name
Joe Lacob
Job Title
Co-Executive Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Company
Golden State Warriors; Golden State Valkyries
Speaker Bio
Golden State Co-Executive & CEO Joe Lacob begins his 16th year at the helm of the corporate entity that includes the Golden State Warriors (NBA), Golden State Valkyries (WNBA), Santa Cruz Warriors (NBA G League), Thrive City, Chase Center and other assets. Lacob serves on the NBA Board of Governors and is a member of the league’s Planning Committee and Labor Committee.
Under Lacob’s guidance, the Warriors have achieved numerous milestones, established many NBA records and enjoyed one of the most successful decades in the history of the sport. The Warriors won four NBA championships (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022) in an eight-year span, joining the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers as the only teams to accomplish this feat, while making six appearances in the NBA Finals over that period. With five consecutive Finals appearances from 2015-19, the Warriors joined the Celtics of the 1950s and 1960s as the only teams ever to do so. The Warriors matched the Celtics for the best-ever record over a six-season span in league history (373-119, .758) and, with three titles in four years, joined the Celtics, Bulls and Lakers as the only NBA franchises to win three championships in four seasons. Overall, the Warriors have advanced to the NBA Finals in six of Lacob’s 15 seasons.
In Lacob’s fifth season as owner in 2014-15, the Warriors ended a 40-year championship drought (dating back to 1975) and followed that title-winning campaign by posting the best single-season record in NBA history in 2015-16 (73-9). From 2012-13 to 2018-19, the Warriors made seven consecutive playoff appearances, the longest postseason streak in franchise history. In fact, prior to those seven seasons, the club had only made the playoffs once in the previous 18 years.
The franchise’s success in recent years has also extended to the business side. In December of 2019, the Warriors were named professional sports’ “Franchise of the Decade” by the Sports Business Journal (SBJ), an award that encompasses all 123 teams in the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. The award-winning sports business publication also bestowed “Sports Team of the Year” honors to the Warriors in 2014 and 2016 in recognition of the organization’s innovative and successful business practices. This marked the first time that any professional team had won this prestigious award more than once (the organization was also a finalist for the award in 2017 and 2018).
Additionally, under Lacob’s leadership, the Warriors were named the winner of the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year (ENCORE) Award in 2016 by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, recognizing the organization’s entrepreneurial spirit in redefining sports management, pioneering the use of sports analytics in the NBA and adopting new technologies that have transformed the fan experience. The Warriors became the first sports organization to win the ENCORE Award, which has been presented annually since 1982 and recognizes companies from around the world, including such recent winners as Google (2004), Apple (2005) and Amazon (2010).
In addition to the Warriors’ organization-wide honors, Lacob was named the 2016 recipient of the Sports Executive of the Year award by Sports Business Journal. He was also named one of the Bay Area’s Most Admired CEOs by the San Francisco Business Times in November of 2015.
Since making a then-record-setting $450-million bid to purchase his hometown NBA club and assuming control of the team on November 12, 2010, Lacob has been the driving force behind many of the creative changes that have transpired with the organization, including several major announcements, prominent personnel additions and an emphasis on transparency. Additionally, since its inception in 2012, the revamped Warriors Community Foundation has awarded over $43 million in impact to the Bay Area, including $23.8 million in yearly educational grants to various Bay Area organizations.
In October 2015, the Warriors completed the purchase of 12 acres of land in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood and, in January 2017, broke ground on Chase Center, the team’s 100% privately-financed, state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue. Less than three years later, Chase Center celebrated its ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 3, 2019, and Lacob’s vision of opening the doors to the first-ever arena in San Francisco became a reality. The dynamic 18,064-seat arena hosts Warriors basketball, concerts, cultural events, family shows, conventions and other activities, totaling over 150 events a year. Located in the heart of Mission Bay, the 11-acre district features two office buildings, 100,000 square feet of retail, close to 30 unique retail spaces and over three acres of publicly accessible plazas and open space. In September of 2020, after one year of operation, Chase Center was named “Sports Facility of the Year” by the Sports Business Journal. Celebrating its fifth anniversary in September 2024, Chase Center has generated an estimated $4.2 billion for the San Francisco economy since opening in 2019, according to an economic impact report. In February 2025, Chase Center will host the NBA All-Star Game and NBA All-Star Weekend events.
In addition to the Warriors, Lacob has engineered the arrival of the expansion Valkyries, the 13th WNBA franchise. In 2025, the Valkyries became the first WNBA expansion team to reach the playoffs in their inaugural season. Their 23 regular season wins set a new league record for the most wins by an expansion team in its first season, surpassing the previous record of 17. Additionally, the Valkyries set an all-time WNBA record for average (18,064) and total home attendance (397,408), selling out all 22 regular season home games.
During his first full off-season with the organization (summer of 2011), Lacob recruited two of the most experienced, successful and respected individuals in NBA circles to join the franchise, landing Hall of Famer and basketball icon Jerry West as an executive board member, and hiring longtime league and team executive—and 2018 Hall of Fame inductee—Rick Welts as president and chief operating officer. Additionally, Lacob played a significant role in the hiring of Bob Myers and Steve Kerr. A successful sports agent before joining the Warriors, Myers worked in the front office for 12 seasons, his last seven as the club’s president of basketball operations/general manager. Former NBA player, TV color analyst, and Phoenix Suns General Manager, Kerr was hired as head coach in May 2014. Myers was named NBA Executive of the Year following the Warriors championship seasons of 2014-15 and 2016-17; Kerr was named NBA Coach of the Year following the 2015-16 season.
Lacob’s NBA and professional sports experience dates back over two decades, including a five-year tenure as minority investor of the Boston Celtics, where he served on the basketball committee. He earned his first NBA championship ring in 2008 with the Celtics before selling his minority stake to purchase the Warriors.
In 1987, Lacob began his career at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, based in Menlo Park, Calif. Though still a strategic advisor to the firm, he relinquished his managing partner role in order to pursue his lifelong goal of owning and operating an NBA franchise. In his role as a venture capitalist, he led investments in over 50 start-up companies across multiple fields in life sciences and medical technologies, the internet and energy.
Lacob earned a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California-Irvine, a master’s degree in public health (epidemiology) from UCLA and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He credits his master’s degree in epidemiology (biostatistics) with providing him a background in statistics that helped drive his passion for sports. It also played a role in his decision to invest in Sportsline—one of the first sports internet sites—and one of Lacob’s earliest sports success stories. He was also a primary investor and pioneer of the American Basketball League, a professional women’s basketball league that eventually succumbed to the WNBA. Lacob continues as one of the original partners in the Pebble Beach Company, an effort formed to bring the historic Pebble Beach resort and golf course back to long-term American ownership. Additionally, Lacob has been involved with Stanford basketball for over 30 years and is a fixture in his courtside seats at Maples Pavilion. Lacob currently serves on the Board of Directors of two public companies, Align Technology and NeuroPace, as well as several other privately-held companies.
In recent years, Lacob has been involved in industry organizations including the American Heart Association and the AHA Roundtable. He has also been very active at Stanford University, serving on advisory boards at the medical center, business school and athletic department. Lacob’s philanthropic interests focus on education, both in the community and with universities. In 2014, he gifted $1 million to Washington University in St. Louis to establish a new sports management program at the Olin Business School. He has also provided scholarships to a number of high potential academic and athletic high school and college students in need, and has funded both a GSB professorship and the building of the Lacob Sports Medicine Center at Stanford.
An avid golfer, Lacob has been a longtime participant in the AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. He plays in regular pick-up basketball games at least twice weekly at Stanford, doing so for the last 30-plus years.
Under Lacob’s guidance, the Warriors have achieved numerous milestones, established many NBA records and enjoyed one of the most successful decades in the history of the sport. The Warriors won four NBA championships (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022) in an eight-year span, joining the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers as the only teams to accomplish this feat, while making six appearances in the NBA Finals over that period. With five consecutive Finals appearances from 2015-19, the Warriors joined the Celtics of the 1950s and 1960s as the only teams ever to do so. The Warriors matched the Celtics for the best-ever record over a six-season span in league history (373-119, .758) and, with three titles in four years, joined the Celtics, Bulls and Lakers as the only NBA franchises to win three championships in four seasons. Overall, the Warriors have advanced to the NBA Finals in six of Lacob’s 15 seasons.
In Lacob’s fifth season as owner in 2014-15, the Warriors ended a 40-year championship drought (dating back to 1975) and followed that title-winning campaign by posting the best single-season record in NBA history in 2015-16 (73-9). From 2012-13 to 2018-19, the Warriors made seven consecutive playoff appearances, the longest postseason streak in franchise history. In fact, prior to those seven seasons, the club had only made the playoffs once in the previous 18 years.
The franchise’s success in recent years has also extended to the business side. In December of 2019, the Warriors were named professional sports’ “Franchise of the Decade” by the Sports Business Journal (SBJ), an award that encompasses all 123 teams in the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. The award-winning sports business publication also bestowed “Sports Team of the Year” honors to the Warriors in 2014 and 2016 in recognition of the organization’s innovative and successful business practices. This marked the first time that any professional team had won this prestigious award more than once (the organization was also a finalist for the award in 2017 and 2018).
Additionally, under Lacob’s leadership, the Warriors were named the winner of the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year (ENCORE) Award in 2016 by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, recognizing the organization’s entrepreneurial spirit in redefining sports management, pioneering the use of sports analytics in the NBA and adopting new technologies that have transformed the fan experience. The Warriors became the first sports organization to win the ENCORE Award, which has been presented annually since 1982 and recognizes companies from around the world, including such recent winners as Google (2004), Apple (2005) and Amazon (2010).
In addition to the Warriors’ organization-wide honors, Lacob was named the 2016 recipient of the Sports Executive of the Year award by Sports Business Journal. He was also named one of the Bay Area’s Most Admired CEOs by the San Francisco Business Times in November of 2015.
Since making a then-record-setting $450-million bid to purchase his hometown NBA club and assuming control of the team on November 12, 2010, Lacob has been the driving force behind many of the creative changes that have transpired with the organization, including several major announcements, prominent personnel additions and an emphasis on transparency. Additionally, since its inception in 2012, the revamped Warriors Community Foundation has awarded over $43 million in impact to the Bay Area, including $23.8 million in yearly educational grants to various Bay Area organizations.
In October 2015, the Warriors completed the purchase of 12 acres of land in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood and, in January 2017, broke ground on Chase Center, the team’s 100% privately-financed, state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue. Less than three years later, Chase Center celebrated its ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 3, 2019, and Lacob’s vision of opening the doors to the first-ever arena in San Francisco became a reality. The dynamic 18,064-seat arena hosts Warriors basketball, concerts, cultural events, family shows, conventions and other activities, totaling over 150 events a year. Located in the heart of Mission Bay, the 11-acre district features two office buildings, 100,000 square feet of retail, close to 30 unique retail spaces and over three acres of publicly accessible plazas and open space. In September of 2020, after one year of operation, Chase Center was named “Sports Facility of the Year” by the Sports Business Journal. Celebrating its fifth anniversary in September 2024, Chase Center has generated an estimated $4.2 billion for the San Francisco economy since opening in 2019, according to an economic impact report. In February 2025, Chase Center will host the NBA All-Star Game and NBA All-Star Weekend events.
In addition to the Warriors, Lacob has engineered the arrival of the expansion Valkyries, the 13th WNBA franchise. In 2025, the Valkyries became the first WNBA expansion team to reach the playoffs in their inaugural season. Their 23 regular season wins set a new league record for the most wins by an expansion team in its first season, surpassing the previous record of 17. Additionally, the Valkyries set an all-time WNBA record for average (18,064) and total home attendance (397,408), selling out all 22 regular season home games.
During his first full off-season with the organization (summer of 2011), Lacob recruited two of the most experienced, successful and respected individuals in NBA circles to join the franchise, landing Hall of Famer and basketball icon Jerry West as an executive board member, and hiring longtime league and team executive—and 2018 Hall of Fame inductee—Rick Welts as president and chief operating officer. Additionally, Lacob played a significant role in the hiring of Bob Myers and Steve Kerr. A successful sports agent before joining the Warriors, Myers worked in the front office for 12 seasons, his last seven as the club’s president of basketball operations/general manager. Former NBA player, TV color analyst, and Phoenix Suns General Manager, Kerr was hired as head coach in May 2014. Myers was named NBA Executive of the Year following the Warriors championship seasons of 2014-15 and 2016-17; Kerr was named NBA Coach of the Year following the 2015-16 season.
Lacob’s NBA and professional sports experience dates back over two decades, including a five-year tenure as minority investor of the Boston Celtics, where he served on the basketball committee. He earned his first NBA championship ring in 2008 with the Celtics before selling his minority stake to purchase the Warriors.
In 1987, Lacob began his career at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, based in Menlo Park, Calif. Though still a strategic advisor to the firm, he relinquished his managing partner role in order to pursue his lifelong goal of owning and operating an NBA franchise. In his role as a venture capitalist, he led investments in over 50 start-up companies across multiple fields in life sciences and medical technologies, the internet and energy.
Lacob earned a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California-Irvine, a master’s degree in public health (epidemiology) from UCLA and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He credits his master’s degree in epidemiology (biostatistics) with providing him a background in statistics that helped drive his passion for sports. It also played a role in his decision to invest in Sportsline—one of the first sports internet sites—and one of Lacob’s earliest sports success stories. He was also a primary investor and pioneer of the American Basketball League, a professional women’s basketball league that eventually succumbed to the WNBA. Lacob continues as one of the original partners in the Pebble Beach Company, an effort formed to bring the historic Pebble Beach resort and golf course back to long-term American ownership. Additionally, Lacob has been involved with Stanford basketball for over 30 years and is a fixture in his courtside seats at Maples Pavilion. Lacob currently serves on the Board of Directors of two public companies, Align Technology and NeuroPace, as well as several other privately-held companies.
In recent years, Lacob has been involved in industry organizations including the American Heart Association and the AHA Roundtable. He has also been very active at Stanford University, serving on advisory boards at the medical center, business school and athletic department. Lacob’s philanthropic interests focus on education, both in the community and with universities. In 2014, he gifted $1 million to Washington University in St. Louis to establish a new sports management program at the Olin Business School. He has also provided scholarships to a number of high potential academic and athletic high school and college students in need, and has funded both a GSB professorship and the building of the Lacob Sports Medicine Center at Stanford.
An avid golfer, Lacob has been a longtime participant in the AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. He plays in regular pick-up basketball games at least twice weekly at Stanford, doing so for the last 30-plus years.