YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Franzese

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2024-08-19
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2024-08-19
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  1. “Normally business disputes, and then sometimes quite honestly, you know You know, look, that's a life with serious consequences. And if somebody violated policy, made a mistake to the point where he was going to pay for it seriously, you had to sit down to decide his fate basically. You had people speaking for him, people speaking against him, and then the boss would make the final ruling. So that could be a serious sit-down, could be a business matter.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “And that's the final ruling. So you mention this, I wrote a book. It was actually a business book. I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. Harper Collins was the publisher. After they heard about that, they said, we're not having any more meetings. From now on, they're all sitting down.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Do the sit down was the way we resolved everything, everything. We sat down, they were structured. When I say structured, you had normally the boss was in control of that. If it was a serious one rather than two captains or coppos getting together, you had to bring the boss in. He was the final rule. What he says goes, like it or not. And there was rules. If you're a made guy and I'm a made guy, and we're arguing over business issue, and you're lying through your teeth, I can't call you a liar. If I call you a liar, I lose the argument automatically because I disrespected you. You have to be respectful of the meetings. So if a guy's lying, you got to figure out how to let the boss understand that without calling him a liar. And then at the end of this, you know, whatever decision the boss makes, that's it. There's no appeals, there's no nothing. Shake hands, get up and you leave.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “within the family. Now other families could say okay, we throw our support behind you, but not with manpower. It's, you know, whoever you're rooting for at that point. But no, things were solved. You know, once the commission came into place in the family, things were solved amicably usually, you know, peacefully. But there was always a lot of disagreements. There was a lot of sit-downs, you know, to straighten things out. We had a lot of that. You know, I was very active in that life and I was going to sit down every other day, you know, trying to resolve something. Either one of my crazy guys got in trouble or it was a business situation. It was a lot of that.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Prior to the forties yes, when the commission was created yes, they would go to war among each other. Once that commission was created, there was no wars among the families. Anytime there was a war, it was a civil war, and it was always a war for power. Our family, the Colombo family, we were one of the more violent warring families. We had three wars during my lifetime in the Colombos, and it was always for power, who wanted to be the boss. You don't have elections. Somebody wants to take over. It's a power struggle. And however it turns out it turns out.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “In New York we had five families, and in each of the total made guys in those families was about seven hundred and fifty guys. You know, the Gambino family had about 250 guys. And this is through my era. Genoese family, two hundred and fifty guys. Bonano family, Colombo family, Lucas. We had about 100 in Samad each. We were the smaller families. But you had total about 750 made men, guys that actually took the oath. And then we had a lot of associates, you know, hundreds. So we had a big presence, especially in New York.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Allegedly because, you know, I got to understand that the commission was like the United Nations. Sounds good, you know, and they're going to create policy, but really you can't tell a boss of his own family what to do. He has total autonomy. So it sounded good, and sometimes the commission will make a policy that people will respect, but if the boss of that family doesn't want to, they don't have to.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Yeah, it was called a family. I mean, you could have called it a group or whatever you wanted to call it, but we called it families. And no, they weren't necessarily related. And somebody emerged in that group as the top guy, and he officially appointed them as the boss. and in order to have a seat on the commission which was the ruling body of all of these families nationwide you had to be the boss or representative of your family that the boss designated, and you can then sit on the commission and the commission allegedly created policy for all of the families nationwide. And that's how it worked.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “And he said, We're not going to exist. We're not going to survive like this. We have to become an organization, a business. And he's the one that created the mafia commission and split it up into families. Actually, at that time, there were nine families nationwide. And there were bosses of each family. And that's how this whole structure came about. It was in the 40s. It was actually him, Myra Lansky, who played a significant role, even though Myrolansky was not a made guy because he was Jewish. But he was a right hand man to Lucky Luciano. And that's when the mafia really came to be here in the United States.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “It was then that the guys realized hey, people want this they want a drink. The government is banning it, but we're going to allow them to happen to have it. And so they started to create, they got into the illegal booze business, basically. And to give you the extent of that, in New York state alone, there were 36,000 speakeasies, which were illegal bars at the time. 36,000 in New York alone. And the mafia controlled all of them. And people wanted it, and they gave it to them. And it was extremely lucrative. I mean, you're talking, you know, in today's money, billions of dollars. And that's what started to create this organization. And then in the 40s, Lucky Luciano, who again came from Italy, saw that a lot of the guys were starting to war among each other. It was always power and control and money.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “And you know, I can go through all of this, but you go back to the days of Al Capone. I'm sure you know you've heard that name, who originally came from Brooklyn, then went out to Chicago. And I always say this. They were obviously involved in criminal activity, you know, loan shocking, lending money at luxurious rates, extorting some of the shop owners, you know, for protection, getting money out of them, a little bit of the gambling business. But what really happened, I always say this, it was the government, the United States government that made the mafia strong in the United States. And when did they do that with prohibition?”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Originated in Italy, obviously, Sicily. And it was originally just a group in Italy that banned together to protect their towns from marauders that were coming in and doing damage in the towns and the cities. And eventually for some reason they started becoming a little bit of a criminal, you know, body. And then they migrated many of them to New York in 1901, 1900. I think the earliest in the late 19, I think it was maybe in 1885 or something like that was when they first started coming here to the United States. Came legally, went to Ellis Island, and came in legally. They were just kind of preying on their own people in the cities that, you know, they got into.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Yeah. Yeah, that's it. This is the true rankings, and that's the, I mean, there's a Boston under boss, and the Concilieri is kind of an advisor to the boss. And then you have the competitions is the real term for it, or Capos, and they're kind of the street bosses. They're an elevated position. And then you have the soldiers, which is the first official rank. When you get made, the term is made the night that you take the oath and you become an official member of that life, your rank as a soldier. And the associates are guys that are around us but never taken the oath. They're not full fledged members. They're just associates.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Really, I would say it was those three incidents, but look, my dad was a captain in that life and then an underboss in that life. So he had a very high position, powerful position. A lot of people around him, a lot of guys that were subordinate to him. And, you know, he was big time in that life.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “And his right hand man was just standing out on the porch, kind of standing guard. And when Dad came in, hugged my mother, my mother was a little upset. She was crying. Then he came over and hugged me. I was sitting on the step in my grandmother's house. I'm saying, what is this all about? He was there for about a half an hour, and then he left. Well, what I didn't find out till later on, our family, the Columbo family, was at war at that point. And so my dad was not at home's kind of dangerous to be at home, and, you know, it lasted for a while. And I didn't know what that meant at that time. You know, you look back and you put these things together later on.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “We know the thing, and it's amazing how you can remember things sometimes at a young age, but you can't really put it together. I have to go back the first real incident that I had is I was probably four years old, and we were living in Brooklyn, but my dad had moved us out, me and my mom to Long Island where my grandparents were. We were living in their house for a while. And I didn't see my dad for a couple of days. He was gone. And then one morning he comes in, and my dad had a heavy beard. He hadn't shaved, but he was”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Experience, this was kind of funny, but in a way it wasn't. We had a carpenter that was working in our house, and he was kind of a, his name was Sal. I'll never forget a big guy, huge guy. And he would never finish anything on time, the carpentry. My dad would hire him because he probably didn't have to pay him much, right? And my mom was always on him, you know, a guy that comes, he don't finish the job and all of that and came to the house once in my tetch just went off on him and punched him like in the house and knocked the guy out in front of all of us. We were kind of surprised, but he said, don't blame me, your mother's nagging me too much. I can't take it. It was one of those things. As a young person, those were the two things that I really witnessed with him.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “And along the way he had a stop and he had to meet with somebody. And I was in the car and two of his guys that I knew very well with my dad, and they were talking to this guy and the conversation got very heated. And I see my dad really angry, never saw him like that before. And Steve, I'm not kidding. At least this was a kid's impression I was young. He just picked that guy up by like his throat and had him up against the wall, and I saw the guy was horror-stricken, and I didn't, I never saw my dad like that before, because he didn't He didn't hit us or anything as kids. You know, I had brothers and sisters. He didn't treat us that. My mom was tough. My mom forget it. She didn't spare the rob, but my dad was not. So to see him like that, I said, wow, there is really another side of him, you know, street side of him.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “You know, I'll never forget, it was really two things that happened. She was taking me up. My dad was involved in the music business, so he was taking me into Manhattan to meet with some of the people, you know, just as daily work.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “from what I read and what I witnessed So, yeah, I mean, I knew what he was about, but I thought it was a good thing. Because his friends came to the house. To me they were like Uncle Joe, Uncle this, Uncle That, good people. You know, we'd go out together. So I thought it was a good thing at that time. What was he about? My dad? Yeah. Yeah, a very charismatic guy. You know, a good father. I mean, he wanted the best for me. He didn't want me in this life originally. He wanted me to go to school, be a doctor, get an education, stay off the street. That was his initial desire for me. He was a good husband to my mother, I thought, at that time. But, you know, he had that other side of him, that once or twice, growing up I kind of witnessed, and I saw there was something else, you know, with him. What did you witness?”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “It certainly, I mean, it had an effect on me at that point in time, and I hated the police, I hated the government, I hated anything about law enforcement because I saw them as the enemy the way they, you know, harassing my dad, harassing my family, at least in my view at that point. So it did shape my worldview of those people at that time. And they were parked outside your house, I read. We had six or seven different agencies parked around our house, and every time we left there was a parade of law enforcement vehicles following us. I mean, it was that severe with my dad. I've never seen anything like that, quite honestly. You know, other people have had surveillance, but I guess because I grew up and I witnessed that I was part of it, but it was so intense with him. It really was. Did you know why they were there? And did you know what your dad was doing? You know, it was hard not to, although he never sat down with me and said to me, This is what I'm all about. It was basically from other people.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “And we had a very turbulent life because of my father's involvement in that life. My father was an extremely high profile guy at that time, major target of law enforcement. So from the time I was four or five years old my dad was in and out of jail, gone on trial, and we all had a lot of turbulence, police around us all the time, so I witnessed all that was part of that. I don't know if that contributed to the You know who I am now? I don't know. I mean”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “So I became that other guy that was able to, I was going to be a doctor. I was a pre-med student when my dad got this fifty year sentence. But then I just, I mean, I fell into that life and I thought I did a pretty good job while I was there. And I acclimated to it pretty easily. Someone thinks about Joining the mafia, they assume that your home life must have been a certain way. You must have had a really, really rough, early upbringing. Is that the case? You know, I had a very strict mother. I mean, she was sixteen when I was born.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “So he looked at me and he said, Well, how do you know who the real Michael is? The guy that stepped out or the guy that's sitting here in front of me now. That's a good question, Jordan. I said, but I've been this guy for the last almost thirty years, so hopefully this is the guy. So, you know, who am I? I mean, I'm a guy that's You know, at a point in time in my life, I was on the right track, loved my dad very much, and as a result of that I followed him into this life to try to help him out. Yet a fifty year prison sentence, and I thought the only way to help him, and he thought the same was to really get on the street and do some of the work that was necessary to try to overturn a conviction that he got. Wrongful conviction, by the way.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “That I wanted to take. I realized I got to get away from this, but you don't walk away from this life. We're not allowed to do that. When does it all come crashing down for you? Mich Who were you Was I? Interesting question. Have to start with this because you just came right off the bat and asked me a question that I don't want to say stumped me, but maybe in a way did, in the same way that Jordan Peterson did. I'll tell you why. Jordan said to me, he said, Michael, you spent twenty years in that life. Obviously you did some things that were not good. I said, yeah. Hell, how'd you do that I said, you know, Jordan, when I had to do something that I was uncomfortable with, I kind of stepped out of myself, I believe, took care of business, and then stepped back in.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “So there's two levels in that life. You're either a racketeer or you're against, and I was a racketeer, meaning I was elevating the family by making them money. I had 18 companies defrauding the government out of tax, bringing in $10 million a week, living a lifetime in a jet, playing a helicopter. What was the most cash you ever saw? $40, $50 million? In cash. In cash. Now, you can learn so much from the market. I'll give you an example. The art of negotiation. This is a tremendous technique to get what you want. I always want. So here's what you have to do. Now, you may be making all this money, but we have rules, and you don't violate the rules because the consequences are severe. There was a guy that had to kill his father and then a very dear friend of mine. If he did something that was total violation of our life, and he ended up getting killed. But the one thing that really hurt me bad, my dad had a powerful position in the market. And he betrayed me. That was rough. Steve, the thing is, I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but it's not the path.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Your time in the mafia. What did you witness? I'm going to be honest with you. We're bringing in $10 million a week. I was arrested 18 times, and I saw guys that died for the wrong reasons. But I'll tell you one thing, Steve. You're not going to want to hear this. But it's the truth.”

    2024-08-19 · The Diary of a CEO · Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT