Former WWE CEO and head of The United States Small Business Administration, Linda McMahon, recently spoke with The Las Vegas Sun and below are some interview highlights:
On her and her husband Vince McMahon purchasing what is now the publicly traded company WWE:
“Vince and I have always said that we had a great opportunity, but great opportunities can come and go if you don’t take advantage of them and seize them. Being in this particular industry is something that he always wanted to do from the time he was a little boy. It was in his blood.”
We were able to do it. By taking over the business ongoing and paying as you go with it, we did increase revenues through that time. So then we went from the Northeast and moved it across the country, and made it into first a national business and then a global business.”
On WWE considering its talents independent contractors, and not paying them health insurance:
“It’s such a complicated issue to try to give a succinct answer. WWE went from having no insurance when Vince and I first got started — I remember when I walked into his office when we had 13 or maybe 14 employees, and I said, ‘Guess what? You now have health insurance.’ And he said, ‘Wow.’ I don’t think he realized he didn’t have it before.”
“The cost of health care has grown. We had a very young company, so there were a lot of babies being born, so we had some high expenses. Eventually, we went to self-insuring except for catastrophic. We had health savings plans. We tried different ways to make sure that our employees had really great coverage that they weren’t paying too much out of pocket to try to keep those co-pays reasonable within guidelines.”
“I do think that government can be helpful in the health care field by repealing and replacing Obamacare at this particular point. I do believe that. I think it must be better.”
“There are some aspects of it that are good. I absolutely believe children should be able to stay on their parents’ policy, that there should be no pre-conditions that would prevent you from getting health care. So there are many parts of it that I think are really good.”
“I think it has some good points. It will now get tweaked by the Senate, and I really do hope it can get pulled together because I think the tax savings that will be realized through the proposal that had been put in the House and the Senate, that does help to push our tax reform down the road.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
