My First MillionDecoding Tony Hawk’s mindset in 72 minutes
My First Million
A Four Million Dollar Check 0:00
Tony Hawk opens by recalling how a fourth video game release shot to the top 10 in sales while the first three games stayed on the charts too, and a check for 4.5 million dollars slid across the table became his first million dollars earned.
Meeting At Riverside Skatepark 0:30
The hosts share that they grew up watching Tony Hawk skate, and one of them shows footage of himself doing a 360 flip at Riverside skatepark at age 37, noting he can now only land the trick on banks rather than flat ground. Sam recalls meeting Tony years earlier on a trip to Ethiopia with the charity Charity Water, where a guide recognized Tony Hawk on the side of a remote mountain even though the group included founders of major companies nobody else recognized.
Sponsoring A Well For His Daughter 2:00
Tony explains he became a major donor to Charity Water and sponsored a well in his young daughter's name, later visiting the site where villagers thanked him on her behalf. Sam explains the organizational insight behind the charity's success: founder Scott realized donors normally have no idea where their money goes, so Charity Water gave donors a GPS tracker for their well and let big donors see the water flow for the first time, which made giving far more engaging than typical nonprofit operations.
Building Nearly A Thousand Skateparks 3:31
Tony describes starting his own foundation in 2002, which has since contributed to nearly a thousand skateparks. He explains the motivation came from his own childhood skatepark, which he calls his salvation, the place where he found his crew of fellow outcasts in an era when skating was not accepted. Seeing a lack of facilities for underserved kids, he and his siblings began giving grants, starting small at 5,000 to 10,000 dollars, which was often enough to tip a city's approval process, and he committed 10 to 20 percent of his endorsement deals to the foundation.
Not Obviously Talented At First 7:30
Asked whether anyone could have predicted his rise, Tony says he was fairly bad in his first couple of years, caring only about landing tricks rather than style. Recognition came around his third year, when Stacy Peralta signed him to the Bones Brigade after noticing not flashy tricks but Tony's frustration, determination, and tenacity, even when it risked his own safety.
Relentless Determination As A Kid 9:00
Tony describes his defining trait as relentless determination, learning through repetition and failure, something his mother's friends called being a nightmare who never gave up. He says he never cared much about accolades like magazine covers or contest wins, and would return to the ramp the day after a big win to chase a new trick, always moving to the next challenge rather than resting on success.
The Price Of Early Greatness 12:00
Asked about the price of greatness in his early years, Tony says his entire schedule as a child revolved around getting to the skatepark the moment school ended and staying until his mother could pick him up, often forgetting to eat. Unlike a sport like the NBA, skateboarding then offered no real money or fame, just a photo in a magazine and a hundred-dollar first-place prize, so his ambition was mainly free gear, and he expected to become a math teacher rather than a professional athlete.
Boom And Bust By Twenty Two 16:32
Tony recalls having 640 dollars in the bank his first year as a pro and buying a Honda scooter for independence. A skateboarding boom tied to Back to the Future's popularity ran roughly from 1986 to 1990, during which he owned two houses and earned around six figures a year, but he spent freely without saving, and by 1991 his income was halving every month, with his shoe sponsor Airwalk cutting his monthly pay from 1,500 dollars down to 300 within a year.
Odd Jobs To Pay The Mortgage 19:33
At 22, considered too old to be a featured skateboarder in commercials, Tony took work as a Hollywood consultant, once earning 500 dollars for two days building a launch ramp and performing a stunt trick that a younger skater would later be filmed doing. He also used self-taught video editing skills to land small jobs, including editing a commercial for the NEC Turbografx game system, all while continuing to skate and support his young child.
His Father Cosigning A House 20:30
At 17, Tony's father, a former Navy pilot and child of the Depression, encouraged him to buy a duplex and cosigned the loan, seeing that his son was careless with money and not saving for taxes. Tony reflects that his father's example, supporting his children's passions even when they were not clear career paths, shaped his own parenting, including accompanying his daughter to Broadway shows even though he did not choose them for himself, and she is now studying theater at USC.
Never Considering Quitting 23:00
Despite the financial downturn, Tony says he never considered quitting skating because he never started skating for money, and he told himself he needed to learn other skills to make ends meet while still finding time to skate.
Comparing Himself To Rodney Mullen 24:31
The hosts bring up Rodney Mullen, a flatground skating pioneer who invented tricks like the kickflip and the 360 flip, as someone with the same obsessive intensity as Tony. Tony says he recognizes this quality in younger skaters as an unquenchable desire and a look of intensity rather than joy, and the conversation turns toward Tony's own famous moment landing the 900 in 1999, where he appeared completely locked in rather than visibly happy in the moment before performing on live television.
Locking in before the impossible trick 27:01
Tony Hawk explains what he tells himself before attempting something enormous with everyone watching: this is the one, every time. By that point he treats the physical requirements, the right speed, the right snap, the right trajectory, as things he takes for granted, even when he knows one of them might be off. He says he does not see failure in that moment. He does not let himself consider consequence, exhaustion, or serious injury, because once those thoughts creep in, they spiral. Going into the 900 attempt, he knew the outcome was binary: either he makes the trick, or he gets carried out of the arena unconscious.
The decade-long history behind the 900 28:31
Before that night, Hawk had never landed the 900, not once, not even in practice. Every previous attempt had ended in injury, including a broken rib on a warehouse ramp back in 1994, sustained around 2 p.m. on a weekday, after which he still had to go pick up his young son from preschool, barely able to breathe. Five years later he found himself trying the same trick on live ESPN, in front of a crowd, which he says made no sense given how private and painful his earlier attempts had been. He had entered the session simply hoping to land his best trick, a varial 720, and only pushed toward the 900 after the on-site announcer, Dave Duncan, publicly dared him to try it.
Landing it, and what came after 34:02
When he finally landed the 900, his first thought was relief: he was free, he never had to attempt it again. That freedom did not last. From then on, everywhere he went, people demanded he do a 900, and even years later he could only land it occasionally, often needing several tries. He contrasts this with today's skaters, who now land 1080s and even a kickflip in the middle of a 900, describing it as skateboarding's throughline: each generation builds on what came before, the way Mike McGill's 540 and his own 720 preceded the 900 by fourteen years.
Pitching a skateboarding video game nobody wanted 35:30
Around 1997 a coder asked Hawk to help pitch a skateboarding game engine to publishers, but every meeting ended in rejection, with one executive telling him skateboarding was not even popular enough to justify a game. About a year later, Activision called, a company then still small, having previously scored its biggest hit with Pitfall. Hawk's first glimpse of what became Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was startling: a modified PlayStation demo showing Bruce Willis, tied to a licensing deal from Activision's earlier game Apocalypse, doing kickflips across the desert with a gun on his back.
From beta tests to a half-million-dollar buyout 43:30
Hawk insisted on final approval over how skateboarding was portrayed, a condition Activision agreed to. He secretly modified friends' PlayStations so they could beta test the game and give honest feedback, and word spread through the skate community that "the game" was worth buying a console for. Right before release, reviews came in near-perfect, and Activision offered him a half-million-dollar buyout of future royalties, which he accepted. By the fourth installment, four of the top ten selling games were Tony Hawk titles, and Activision handed him a check for $4.5 million.
Building an empire beyond the skateboard 50:31
Today Hawk's ventures include Birdhouse Skateboards, founded in 1992, speaking engagements, the Skate Oasis charity, Hawk shoes and clothing, and his production company 900 Films. He keeps a personal halfpipe inside his office warehouse, which he uses simply to skate. His angel investments include Nest, Blue Bottle, Liquid Death, DocuSign, and Events.com. Restaurant ventures have been riskier, including a failed investment in Counter Burger, though his Nashville hot chicken restaurant, Chicken Hawk, is thriving. He says the ventures that succeed are the ones where he can contribute more than money, driven by genuine passion and trusted people.
Bird House's Rocky Start and Rebound 55:01
The early years of Bird House were bleak, and Tony Hawk's business partner, Perry Wheeler, a fellow pro skater with a business degree, helped keep the company afloat during a stretch when they had to keep cutting their own salaries just to avoid losing money. Things turned around around 1997 to 1998 when the X Games boosted interest in skating, finally making the company profitable. When the Tony Hawk video game came along, Hawk pushed to include Bird House skateboards as options in the game, over his partner's objection that the game company should be paying them instead. Hawk saw it as the ultimate marketing tool, and once the game released, sales went, in his words, ballistic, with 1999 to 2005 marking the peak of Bird House's recognition. He has kept the brand going ever since through licensing and creative supplementing, even though he admits it is not a profitable business, because he still loves it.
Never Losing the Love of Skating 57:01
Asked whether he ever fell out of love with skating the way tennis player Novak Djokovic reportedly did, Hawk says he never lost interest, not once. What did happen was that other commitments, especially around the video game's peak, began crowding out actual skate time, forcing him to schedule it, once down to a single hour on a Thursday for a video part. He later learned to shift his priorities, mostly to spend time with family, but also to protect meaningful skating time rather than just skating for a video.
Skate Videos as Precursor to Vlogging 58:30
Skate culture once ran on magazines like Thrasher and Transworld and quarterly or monthly skate videos sold at shops, blending skate footage, music video style, and home video intimacy, a kind of vlogging before YouTube existed. Hawk mentions making his own zine in 1982 called Zen, filled with photos of friends skating at Del Mar Skate Ranch and a faked ad for Independent Trucks, sold for fifty cents at the park until he earned thirty dollars. He also recalls meeting Kevin Rose, a hardcore skater turned internet figure, who got him to his first Comic-Con and later introduced him to Blue Bottle coffee.
Aging, Grandkids, and Old Ticket Stories 1:03:01
Nearing sixty, Hawk says he has no lofty goals, just wants to keep skating and still learn new tricks, while also making time for his new grandchild, calling grandparenting the most fun thing ever. He and the host swap notes on warming up stiff hips before skating, with Hawk demonstrating a stretch on the spot. The conversation closes with stories of old skating tickets, including a 150 dollar fine for skating the Oceanside boardwalk in 1990, and a tense 1992 speeding stop in Georgia that ended with him paying cash to get out of a holding cell.
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