Billionaire Fireside Chat: Grant Cardone on Raising Capital, Real Estate & Bitcoin

In this exclusive billionaire fireside chat, Richard C. Wilson sits down with Grant Cardone to talk about cash, scale, real estate, and why he’s now blending apartment cash flow with Bitcoin liquidity.

From taking a $350M Boca Raton asset out of bankruptcy from Blackstone, to raising $1.8B+ in equity directly from investors instead of Wall Street, Grant walks through how he thinks about capital, risk, and building a portfolio designed to last decades.

Recorded live at the Family Office Club Super Summit, this conversation is aimed at CEOs, founders, family offices, and serious operators who want to think bigger about capital, distribution, and durable wealth.

Interview: Richard C. Wilson with Grant Cardone

Richard C. Wilson:
All right. Next up, we’re going to have the one and only Grant Cardone on stage. He probably doesn’t need much of an introduction, but Grant owns and operates multiple companies, including Cardone Capital, a private equity real estate firm with a multifamily portfolio of over $5.3 billion. He’s raised over $1.8 billion in equity while expanding into Bitcoin lately as part of his wealth strategy. He’s an 11-time New York Times bestselling author, leads the global 10X movement, hosts major business and wealth-building events with over 10,000 people, many times filling arenas, and he gives back to the Grant Cardone Foundation. So let’s welcome up to the stage. Thank you, Grant. Thank you for being here.

Grant, what did I leave out in the introduction that you’d like everybody to know?

Grant Cardone:
You know, my most important achievement is my kids. So we homeschool our kids, and not only do we homeschool them, but they actually like me, so that’s a big deal. We talk, and I spend time with them every day. If it’s not here in town, I’m on the phone with them and checking in with them.

Richard C. Wilson:
Awesome. Great. You’re a relatively polarized individual. I don’t think on accident. You’re not afraid to have an opinion and a sense of humor, which I appreciate. But what do people misunderstand about you? If they only see little clips on Instagram, they don’t really know you.

Grant Cardone:
Well social media is a platform that I’m competing with. I’m not competing with other real estate people on social media. I’m competing with billions of people who are dropping content.

I’m a 67-year-old white guy so a lot of competition out there. You got 19-year-old kids. I’m trying to get that audience out of TikTok. I’m trying to get the plumber, the chiropractor, the HVAC. How do you get people’s attention on a social media platform? Many of you aren’t even on it.

So then I have to come off that platform and come to something like this. Then I need to go to some other event.

We raise.

The reason I use social is that I don’t want to go to J.P. Morgan and get money from J.P. Morgan. And the reason I don’t want to get money from J.P. Morgan, if the terms were different, I’d take the money. But the problem with the terms, particularly if you’re buying real estate, is that it’s going to be a three, four or five-year fund.

It’s probably going to be a three plus two one year extensions. And I don’t want a gun to my head.

And if you have a gun to your head in a real estate deal, you can’t buy great real estate because nobody, nobody in this room, nobody outside this room can predict in five years whether that piece of real estate is going to be up in the cycle down in the cycle due to interest rates. So, because I can’t predict that I won’t take that money.

And I use social platforms to basically say here’s my deal.

I don’t know if they have a picture of that deal we’re doing in Boca right now. Here’s a deal we’re doing in Boca. It was $235 million. We took it out of bankruptcy from Blackstone. It was $350 million. We stole the asset. Blackstone wanted the asset back. They were the debt. I went in 10 days. I put it on my balance sheet, closed the deal for $235 million. It’s in the Boca papers the Miami papers. We did that this year.

Ten days later finished it out and then went to my audience and said hey would you guys like to be part of this deal? Because I’m trying to expand my portfolio. I can’t. No one can buy everything off their own balance sheet.

And so that’s why I use social media.

Now, the reason the reason I get involved in things like the Trump campaign or boycott J.P. Morgan, which I did this week, the reason I get involved in some of this radical stuff is because it has noise.

And it’s not always because I’m just interested in that topic. It has noise. It has interest. People are looking at it, and I can ride that wave.

Richard C. Wilson:
I would guess from what I’ve seen that Instagram has been the most productive social media platform for bringing in investors and attention, or is that not right?

Grant Cardone:
Probably not. YouTube has probably been our best platform. We have about 3 million people who follow YouTube, so we do educational stuff there. We don’t do entertainment stuff there. All the platforms are different.

And like this is a very traditional way to raise money, right? Family offices come together. They talk about money together. You guys all have the same little language. It’s a small room, folks. I mean no offense. He did a great job of getting you here. Give him a big hand for putting you in the room.

If I go do a Zoom call this morning and say hey on Instagram or YouTube, I’ll have 30,000 people on it from all over the world. If 1% of those people are interested in anything I’m doing, that’s 300 buyers, 300 investors. I get to pick.

When you’re doing a room of 500 people, you’re not all qualified to invest today because maybe you’re qualified, but you don’t have the money. You’re not liquid. You’re not ready. You’re looking at something else. You got your mind on other projects. You’re closed out for the year, whatever.

When I open my audience to 8 billion people, it just becomes a massive opportunity. And I get to set the terms. I get to say, hey guys, we’re doing 10 years. All real estate syndications should be done for a minimum of 10 years.

I would never put my money in anything any real estate deal where a guy said hey you can get out in three years. No offense to anybody in the room if that’s your fund. I would never do that to the investor. I would never put money with you because I know you can’t tell me what the marketplace is going to be in three years when Trump’s out. You can’t tell me that.

Ten years from now if you’re buying this apartment building right here in this neighborhood and you’re telling me we’re going to exit in 10 years in 2035, I know you have an exit between now and then that’s going to be profitable because rents will carry that building over a decade.

Richard C. Wilson:
So what are your top one or two mental models for massively scaling, while others think and stay small, usually?

Grant Cardone:
You know my first one is I have to get away from people that are doing what I do…

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Richard C. Wilson:
Right. Awesome. Great. Let’s give Grant a big round of applause.

Grant Cardone:
Thank you. Thank you, Richard.

Grant Cardone – Billionaire Keynote at Family Office Club’s Super Summit