Rocky Aoki

Rocky Aoki: Benihana founder, powerboat racer, balloonist, SEC target

Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, father of DJ Steve Aoki, was an Olympic-level wrestler from Japan who started with an ice cream truck in New York, took Benihana public, raced powerboats, set a hot-air balloon distance record and got in trouble with the SEC for insider trading. Shaan calls his motto, 'Money's not everything, just 99%,' a tagline for the podcast.

“And then he eventually starts Benihana's, which goes public. And while he's doing this, he does all these weird competitions. Like, I think he was a professional powerboat racer at one point. He like set a record for like flying a fly, like a hot air balloon, like across some distance. And he even got in trouble by the SEC for insider trading because I think he was trying to like buy back Benihana and he like thought like, like a, a bad report was going to come out, something crazy like that.”