Joe Lacob

Joseph Steven Lacob (born January 10, 1956) is an American business executive who was a partner at Kleiner Perkins and is the principal owner of the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Golden State Valkyries of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).

Early life and education Lacob grew up in a working-class Jewish family in New Bedford, Massachusetts. His father, Sidney, worked at a paper plant and his mother, Marlene, worked nights as a cashier at a supermarket. When Lacob was 13, the family relocated to Anaheim, California, and Joe switched his allegiance to the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Angels.

Lacob earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from University of California, Irvine, in 1978, master's degree in public health (epidemiology) from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Professional career Lacob has been a partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital investing firm, since 1987. In interviews, he has credited his epidemiology degree for giving him a background in statistics that has fed the statistical side of his longstanding sports interest.

He was a primary investor in the American Basketball League, a professional women's basketball league that eventually folded from failure to compete successfully with its rival, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).

On July 15, 2010, Lacob and the group of investors he headed agreed to buy the Golden State Warriors of the NBA from Chris Cohan for $450 million, requiring him to sell his minority interest in the Celtics. The Lacob - Peter Guber group won out over a dozen other bidders for the Warriors, including Oracle chief executive officer Larry Ellison, 24-Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov and Texas billionaire financier David Bonderman. He had been a Warriors' season-ticket-holder for about a decade. Lacob approved the acquisitions of David Lee and undrafted rookie guard Jeremy Lin, a hometown favorite. He also fired coach Don Nelson and replaced him with assistant coach Keith Smart. The sale was unanimously approved by the NBA league's board of governors on November 12, 2010. Lacob and Peter Guber are the chief owners, but Lacob is in charge of day-to-day operations.

Before the 2014-15 NBA season, Lacob fired coach Mark Jackson who had just led the Warriors to the playoffs in consecutive seasons. Lacob explained the decision at a conference of fellow venture capitalists: "Part of it was, he couldn't get along with anybody else in the organization. And, look, he did a great job -- and I'll always compliment him in many respects -- but you can't have 200 other people in the organization not like you."

Lacob generated some controversy by calling his team "light years" ahead of everybody else in the NBA during the 2015–16 NBA season. The Warriors won championships in the 2014–15 NBA season, 2016–17 NBA season, 2017–18 NBA season, and the 2021–22 NBA season. During his tenure with the Warriors, the team has attained the NBA records for the best regular season with 73–9 and most wins in a season (regular season and postseason combined) with 88 in 2015–16, as well as best postseason with 16–1 (.941 winning percentage) in 2016–17.

As of 2026, Joe Lacob's net worth is $2.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Personal life Lacob married his first wife, Laurie (née Krauss), after meeting her in college. They had four children together, Kirk, Kelly, Kent, and Kayci. They filed for divorce in 2006, which was finalized in 2009. Laurie died of cancer in 2023. They got engaged in 2009.

His daughter Kelly lives in San Francisco, with her younger sister, Kayci, the writer-director-producer of the semi-autobiographical Everything to Me, which had the original title of The Book of Jobs.