difference. i hope the audience will take the time to read it. thank you.

>> congratulations it's a pleasure to work with you the past year and a half. we are thrilled here today to have the author. i saw that there was a pre- order for your boo buck is goino come out and i was thrilled and that is what started the process that led us here today. this is an important book and it shows an inspirational story and had a tremendous impact on many peoples lives and we are so excited for you to be here today. bill spent over 36 years as an investigative reporter and reported about the columbian drug lords for the newspaper and also his book at the doubles table and the book became an episode to let novella and he served as a story consultant for season three.

investigating a number of major stories in his career, these enter the exxon valdez spill, the regime in the philippines and also al qaeda in the years leading up to 9/11. so i think we are incredibly lucky bill chose to explore the life and i think the success shows no matter where you start in life in the united states anything is possible. thank you for all of your hard work and coordination to make today possible. [applause] the plan today bill will made a

presentation and to keep it clean ocleaner hopefully there e question cards being passed out so after the 25 minute moderated session we will ask questions of audience members put in. so for those of you that are not able to make it you have that as well. bill will be able to sign copies at the end of the presentation. thank you so much and with that we will have do come up to the stage. it's always fun to talk about and i will tell you a little bit about how this project began

because it wasn't because i knew kirk, i didn't call. he was a name in the business pages of the los angeles times as far as i was concerned, and i know every armenian knows him better than i did. when i got a call from my publisher, she had just read the obituary in "the new york times" and was flabbergasted so a veteran book publisher of new york flabbergasted to find out this incredible life she read about in the obituary was someone she never heard of. the reason she never heard of him of course is because that is the way he wanted it. he was a very private man who wanted not to be if not a

celebrity businessman, he wanted his anonymity more than anything. and if he had all the money in the world, but she came close to a few times a. he wanted it to be able to jog on the streets of beverly hills even though he worked in a secluded place he wanted to be able to have the life of an ordinary american. but a little more background, once i got the phone call from the editor asking me to look into the background of this man's life, one of the first people i contacted, well he was the first person.

kirk was 98 when he died. out with his family, most of his friends and he was private so he didn't leave a trail of public record. he didn't sit and talk about himself, so fortunately for me and the book and the readers, he invited me to come sit down with him and that was the beginning of my research. so, thank you again. [applause] what i discovered in writing that research is his background and mine had some interesting similarities.

my family came to america. i am the son of an immigrant. both of our fathers started out as farmers in the fresno and came over to this country as immigrants refugees. in my case my dad came on a ship in the 1920s and there were two babies, one was my dad and the other for anyone here that is not armenian, this family was part of the largest contingent on the boat. they were mostly arminians which because of that, i considered

myself to be something of a cousin of arminians anyway. [applause] [laughter] they didn't arrive without any skills and they were budding entrepreneurs. his father arrived as a literate and unskilled but he had big dreams of making his millions and turned to farming into a business. he went out and bought a lot of farms and got completely overextended and ended up

getting in trouble and was chasing the american dream. my dad was also an entrepreneur who chased his american dream. for both, their luck tended to be on the bad side. his experience with that was he was a mere five or 6-year-old when the family farm was up near bakersfield and that is when he was moved to the big city of los angeles and began to learn english in school and continued to move constantly because they couldn't afford the rent. they would get enough to move into the house and then they didn't have enough to pay the second month of.

they were behind in his studies and of course he had to deal with bullies and such because of being the new kid. it's a difficult beginning for him and made an impact that would be a part everyone would come to know in the future. that is the beginning of the failure and insecurity and taught him anything is.

he actually lied about his age to make himself appear older to get a job working in the depression where he had a friend of his at the national park and he dug up trails and did all the heavy labor for approximately $25 a month much of which was sent back to his family at the beginning of all of the difficulties is when they learned things were not as important as others.

so this is what matters and what was interesting is these kind of values kept showing up in business. the handshake was a contract. a man who when he made a promise to a bank if was a promise that he kept. he lured loyalty isn't something you demand. it's something that you learn. one of the ceos he hired earlier explained the loyalty that was exhibited and a key command was exhibited and a key command of his people was turned because he always took the risks and shared the credit.

for someone taking all those risks and sharing the credit it's a powerful incentive to be loyal and work harder. one of the things that's difficult life gave him also is a certain comfort with chaos and risk. one thing happened when you move a lot. i had a similar kind of background and you don't accumulate things. you are moving all the time and you learn to rely on family and friends as your treasures. so for kirk, this sort of lack

of things made him comfortable with not having things and he was a very modest man. even as a billionaire, he was driving a ford taurus and a jeep cherokee. he wasn't in the limousine and mercy is. it was a man of modest taste. some of this comfort with risk shows up in his gambling and investments. he said there were two things. the second biggest growth was ts losing a big bet. the risk was part of him and so he could actually face a big

showdown or wager and relish the uncertainty and in th then the childhood what is the worst that can happen. you're going to have nothing again. wouldn't it be nice to lose it all right now and start over because he loved what he did. now there came a time when it came close to happening, but that attitude was part of kirk. he was very competitive which goes back to the life she had to

adapt to as a young man in difficult financial situation. he took on bubble -- the bullies and one beat him up after school one day so what does he do, the next day he comes back and challenges and gets beat up again. so he challenges him and gets beat up again but each time he notices they are losing some enthusiasm for the fight, and eventually they have come to pretty much a draw and they go off and become good friends. business was a fight.

he would come away from these battles even when the negotiations were very difficult. they would be dining together and they didn't carry grudges like some other billionaires we know about the famous addresses. he didn't carry grudges or like to fire people. he was a man who never defaulted on a loan. he was shy and humble and insisted his name not be on anything. in the skyline of las vegas he completely redesigned by virtue

of his investments in building you won't find even a parking spot with his name on it. one of the things showed up when he decided to check out boxing and he became a rather talented boxer. in fact, he got a nickname after his second or third site. it was one of his greatest treasures. you may have seen some pictures.

but it's also something on the outside we could look at and see as courage and one of the most remarkable things i discovered was his record. i never heard of the royal air force ferry command which is a unit of mostly american and canadian pilots and from the north atlantic to scotland said they were taking the route before it was a rud route.

it didn't have any navigation along the way. in th school he was a smart enoh kid because he moved all the time and was learning english she hated math and geography so here he is flying over the ocean navigated by the stars with the skills of where his mathematical skills were his wife, it wasn't just a concept, it was mapped as life and death. so he had adopted very well.

the route was treacherous and had severe weather and the fighter bomber could bring it down but not without a trace. 500 of the pilots who served on the very command disappeared, died in crashes because their equipment didn't make it across the atlantic. his skill was daring and he took the most dangerous plane in fact i think the record would show he took more of a dangerous plane than anyone else. but again it's taking a gamble.

it's also part of the gambling instinct that he carried over after the war. he did play a lot of poker with the other pilot and according to legend later when he was in the casinos, his favorite gambling was on the table where people watching couldn't tell whether he was winning or losing because he had the same expression either way. for those of you too young to know how he was a very cool gambler. he came back with some cash in his pocket because he was paid well as a pilot and immediately

invested that money in his first business which was an aviation school but it didn't last very long because it wasn't as exciting so he put together a little more money and got a loan and a banker to trust him with a handshake with the beginning of a good relationship and with his sisters help put together enough money to buy a charter airline said he started flying charter services mostly to las vegas with the light is and he flew john wayne around looking for places to shoot movies in the arizona desert as he was having a good time and was also going to las vegas a lot but he turned

this little airline into a business and it lasted for about 20 years and nurtured it into making a good living but after 20 years of running a little small business, he was an overnight success so they issued stock in this business move was moving slowly until the community in fresno heard about it and the farmers up in fresno started investing in his business and all of a sudden the

stock shot up so much his first fortune was a $60 million public offering but also turned them into wealthier people because they all participated in the process but didn't consider that the connection was a source of his wealth in an emotional and financial way. then soon after that they decided they wanted to buy it outright something in the neighborhood of 150 to $200 million. being a gambler, immediately you put that money at risk and start

building the biggest hotel in the world in las vegas. there was enough to start building but once you finish it, so everyone o every one of these investments was risky but was always the case. his idea of a risk is that it be a calculated risk so he was always looking for some back door risky way of so you have to read the book and see how that all came out. but what i want you to know before we do that q-and-a is that he was very different from any of our more famous billionaires. some of that made the book more

difficult. i was trying to learn about a man who didn't talk about himself. that is a huge inconvenience for a researcher and one of the reasons why the health was so important and there were so many others who contributed to my understanding of who he is. one of the parts of him that we haven't is generosity and that happens to be apart again the armenians know most. and again, he was a major player in this.

it ended up being a source of support and made him one of the 15 official national euros. someone who was just causing of a writer, knowing who he is but the rest of us are clueless it's with a bunch of americans into couldn't be more delighted to be a vehicle for sharing and i am grateful for the armenians for

sharing him with me and i'm also grateful for those who've been buying this book like crazy. [laughter] we've only been out now for about three weeks and are already in the third printing as a best seller. [applause] we can do some q-and-a and i'm sure you have some questions and i love telling stories, go ahead. thank you. [applause] if you have questions please raise your hand and we will have someone come around and collect

them. did you go out a card. he valued that and the chief legal adviser basically said no one is going to help you. walk us through the journey. what are the highlights, the low lights and some of those things? >> in my experience whenever someone says i can't have something, it works the opposite and that was the case. case. what i didn't expect going into the process it was more like a

standard future but it turns out when you start looking for details, they are out there. she has recorded a history in las vegas that was on tape in the library and he'd done it years ago it just wasn't advertised anywhere. we found it and it was a treasure and i actually got to sit there and listen to that voice of his telling stories about his life and background and business. i wish i had been the interviewe on the other end of it. at the command was the subject

of a documentary done by pbs in boston and producer of that was the father of one of the pilots provided me the uptake of the whole interview so i was able to get more detail. then there were a lot of people who treasured his legacy and wanted to share it. his lawyer and the people in the estate just couldn't quite get out of the mold of most of the people that knew him were so devoted and grateful that they wanted to share it. it was keeping him alive and i

think that is the fact. the book and the picture on the wall, this is a way to keep his legacy alive and the lessons of humility and an equity and expand them and show them to the world so i am delighted by the success of the project but we can defeat could begin because of so many people. >> it's a quick trip to las vegas so we go there often. one of the things striking about the book i have no many ideas of the different properties. you talk about mgm grand and so many properties. when you look at skyline what do yothe skylinewhat do you think s on las vegas?

>> it is his inventio intentione one that recognized it was big enough for the giant hotels and casinos and their families and partiers. when someone asked him why are you buying casinos and hotels, he said it was what he called a part of the leisure and history. he saw that the economy was chained in, people would have more timesome of the developmenf las vegas would be part of this and would benefit from spending money flowing in people would have time to go there so that's

why when he built the biggest hotel in the world is first time out, the international hotel, therhotel,there was another biln town and kurt was not yet a billionaire. he was a hundred millionaire. the other was named howard hughes. they were the movie owners in richmond, but howard was secretly working against him and told his people las vegas isn't big enough for the two of us. he felt like the best thing that could happen is for everybody to compete again. here is this competitive boxer, tennis player and businessman who wanted competition.

he wanted the best hotel to be built across the street. he relished competition in the good fight and anyone having dealings with anyone who had good ideas. and he never changed. kirk wouldn't do it. they said they would both want across the street which they did and las vegas is a success because of big ideas but in the

case of kirk he was the real mastermind. >> you also talk about the mgm grand fire incident that was originally this bb. baby. 87 people died and it was the worst hotel fire. maybe you can talk about his reaction to that. it's something that really captures the business ethics were like. can you hear me back there? okay. the mgm fire, fire aftermath kurt didn't want to have the

insurance adjustment takes forever. he wanted to move quickly to help the victims of the family to recover as best they could and so he ended up being patient with the insurance companies and they were not paying off in settling the claim that he sent his people to settle the claims and he said these people who were victimized and these were our customers, our family. we are not their enemy, we are on their side. so he wanted them to be made whole to the extent that could be done so his lawyers and advisers went out and settled the claims faster and more generously. after that, the insurance companies refused to pay off

their claims so he sued the insurance companies, but he did this first of all by making sure the victims were all taken care of and then he assumed the risk of the litigation to the insurance companies. now she did think in a courtroom having a lawyer for the insurance companies claim that they paid too much too fast to victims and have a certain edge and he played those cards right to the end and the insurance companies folded. but it's a tribute to kirk that if he took the risk and trouble to make sure the people who needed it most were taken care of and the big bad insurance companies had to deal with them. here's one of my favorite

stories. you mentioned the book being on its third print. i think many considered him a hero and maybe the most successful businessmen of all time. maybe talk about his relationship and how he saw his heritage and that we can go from there. .. is definitely a proud armenian. what concerned him sometimes there are a lot of factions against the different groups and sometimes they don't get along as well. by stepping in and helping to set up the airlift, and this was an airlift by the way that rivals the berlin airlift and

this was done by the different groups and charities that banded together. what gave him the greatest satisfaction as they worked together and this he felt he didn't take credit for that pesky would do that. he was a catalyst. in the book as the account of the only time kirk went to armenia and it was an emotional trip for him and i recommend that chapter.

you mentioned the earthquake in 1988. was that a catalyst in the book first in the philanthropy and the latter parts of his life helhowdid that change over time because there were some shifts. >> prior to the earthquake, he was an extremely generous philanthropist, but you didn't know it because some people here are old enough to remember is he show called who wants to be a millionaire but every year in every week the secret millionaire gave the million to somebody on the condition that they never explained where the money came from. he gave generously everywhere with the caveat you can't tell

anybody i gave this to you because you will never get another dime. so even after the earthquake before the airlift began, he gave money to the causes that it was in the same caveat. then he took some heat for not stepping up and helping. that's when he formed the lindsay foundation and had to have a way to assist. the foundation ended up giving away more than a billion dollars over the next 20 years. it's like a billion 2 billion a half so now the records have

become public documents so that was different but it continued a pattern that he had always been generous. >> one of the things in the book you goinyou go into this talkint the personal relationships he does. he was very private but also around many people and cases. actor cary grant was one of his best friends and he was loyal to the agassi family. how did he view friendships and how did they develop over time in your mind? >> he valued his friends as treasurers and showed it in many ways.

to this moment, he loves kirk and they met when mike was a waiter in las vegas. they had a common interest in boxing and tennis. mike agassi who taught andrei how to play tennis gave him some early lesson, so they became good friends and some of that is monitored in the story in the book, but he was working at the mgm grand and was an employee when the fire came. when he delivered his paycheck every month they have the money to finance the monthly salary to his door so that he was taken care of until the hotel reopened

so the loyalty worked both ways. it was little knowthere was lits middle name is kirk. andrew kirk agassi is one of the most famous in the world. his middle name was not an accident. it was a symbol of love and friendship. >> we have a couple of questions in the audience about the relationship with his family. you said you didn't interview the family that maybe you can talk about the relationship between him and his kids. he was married four times, but

the second wife, they were married for almost 30 years. together they had a daughter and adopted another who grew up as sisters. by all accounts he was an old-fashioned father but they went on family trips and he went horseback riding with his daughters in palm springs and they went on cruises to alaska a couple of times so family vacations together sound pretty cool. he took care of them and to this

day when he set up quite healthy trust funds for his still living second lif wife and for the docs and yes, his complications later that it's all in the book so i won't try to explain it here. you highlight the major risks he took during his career but starting from zero what was it that made him so successful because he was also making some smart decisions. >> h >> he made calculated risks and always valued having some kind of a backup plan.

it's part of why he could be if things were not going quite right. he had a hard time losing sometimes. the chrysler deal. he wanted to take chrysler and they had the money to do it but it was resisted by the chrysler management to his surprise i might say. after fighting for that field for several us, he finally had to surrender and concede defeat. he put something like $2.7 billion in profit so this was a fact he lost.

the fact is had it worked better key probably would have been more like six or $7 million in profit, but even a setback it was a plan and i don't know what the secret is. if i knew, i wouldn't be doing it. >> you might end up on the forbes list. [laughter] so many stories that are in the book when you think about what surprised you the most for me it was pretty memorable but in your mind what did you like the most? >> i love every little anecdote. it may be just a couple of lines, but i know it.

one of my favorite stories in the book was trying to lose a million dollars at the table just to give a gift of generosity who opened up a new casino in france. she went over to lose some money because that is what th the filf casino owners do as an act of generosity, so his idea was fine going to give them a million dollars but the way he wanted to ddo that was in a bad city to ak permission because it was passed any limit, but they agreed to do it and gave him a little orange chip just for that moment it would be worth $1 million for purposes of this back and he

wanted to put it on one roll at the table. when it were lose it. they decided this table was table number three, it's in the book and. they had a big crowd of everybody's having a good time. there was a woman rolling the dice and was really hot, by that i mean the dice. so she decided he was going to put the orange chip on this role so she throws up one more time and it bounces all over the place and the fountain is spinning and when it stops, she

hit seven and he one. so again he's trying to lose a million dollars and he went the million dollars. he kept it by the way. it's just the way the dice rolls. [laughter] we also have a question, is there a screen adaptation of the book? [applause] i think the story of kirk kerkorian is very cinematic and i hope you find it that way in their writing. but the details, the adventures in business and even the adventures with women it's a

story that reveals character all the way through and it is such an inspiring story i hope it gets wider and wider sharing. maybe we will just end on this note. i highly encourage all of you to pick up a copy. you developed a type of relationship after studying for two years you spent on this book. what did you think of him at the end of this and how did that change over time versus when you start with which yostarted whicw much about it then.

>> what struck me is the rags to riches is only part of it. it's thrilling and it is an amazing story, that the way he did it by keeping his word there is another story that demonstrates and captures the work ethic in a way that mattered to me. he was selling and ended up with some of his properties. he was selling as i forgot what year this was that it was his name business associate and he was in charge of taking a page from different suitors and one

that came up with the best deal is a japanese investment group and they worked out a deal and agreed to a dollar amount and terms and they were very happy and proud of the amount. on the phone they celebrated this turn on till another day they show up all of a sudden unannounced and offers something twice as good. she wasn't sure of himself at this point since he thought he better call and let him know we got a much better deal now.

so he calls and says to you agree to the terms then why are you calling me, and he hung up on me. on behalf of our organization, thank you so much. [applause]

early on i took this picture and it'it was probably the first tii looked and she was just like everybody else. so, i have a dog, i love them and there was a lot of times we would set up for an event to cover where we went to a taping like a public service announcement or video and sometimes it was the white house tv doing that and sometimes it was someone from outside that came t to the takings at do thes time we were studying for the easter egg roll.

these seemed to be pretty predictable environments but there was always the chance something spontaneous was going to happen especially when it involved president obama so for this picture in particular he was always ready to have his picture taken that sonny was the younger dog so this is just a picture. i like taking candid shots. for me this is a picture i go to when i want to feel joy.