Greenlaw Partners founder Wil Smith is a 1999 graduate of the Dollinger Master of Real Estate Development program at the USC Price School of Public Policy.
“The USC degree gave me a lot of confidence as an entrepreneur,” Smith told USC Today earlier this month.
Smith already had an entrepreneurial mind—and confidence in real estate investing—before graduating.
While putting himself through grad school and short on cash, Smith got a student loan to help pay for living expenses. But when he later landed a local job and didn’t need the money, he used the remainder of the loan to buy a home in Aliso Viejo.
A few years later, he flipped the home and used the profits to seed Greenlaw.
It was a good investment; Irvine-based Greenlaw, founded in 2003, now stands among OC’s largest real estate development investment firms, with some $10 billion in real estate transactions over the years.
This month, Smith was elected to the USC Board of Trustees, which is heavy with OC representation. Other trustees with local ties include Stephanie Argyros, Christopher Cox, Gavin Herbert and Peter Ueberroth. Notable real estate execs that serve as trustees and have homes here include Ed Roski and Rick Caruso.
Smith’s been a big supporter of the school and its sports teams over the past decade—I ran into former Trojan running back Anthony Davis, aka “the Notre Dame Killer,” at Greenlaw’s office during one visit a few years ago.
In 2020, his $10 million gift to USC Price established the USC Price Wilbur H. Smith III Department of Real Estate Development, funding student scholarships and faculty research.
CNBC recently released its 13th annual Disruptor 50 list, which ranks “the most innovative private companies” in the U.S. and this year leans heavily into firms with deep ties to AI.
No. 1 on the list: Costa Mesa-based Anduril Industries, which has zoomed to a valuation topping $30 billion since its 2017 founding. The tech-heavy defense firm earlier this month confirmed a $2.5 billion Series G funding round, which reportedly included a $1 billion investment from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, that firm’s largest-ever investment.
No. 2 on the list: Sam Altman’s OpenAI, which had been No. 1 the prior year.
“Think you can take back the crown next year?” asked Anduril’s Palmer Luckey to Altman, via social media.
OpenAI and Anduril last December announced a partnership to “focus on improving the nation’s counter-unmanned aircraft systems.”
Anaheim Ducks owner Henry Samueli has the Angels cornered.
Last year, Samueli’s H&S Ventures paid $64.5 million for an industrial building at the corner of State College Boulevard and Orangewood Avenue, which sits not far behind home plate at the baseball team’s stadium.
Now, his firm has paid $73 million for Stadium Tower, the 12-story office that sits just slightly out of the reach of a Mike Trout homer, past centerfield at Angel Stadium.
For more on OC’s largest office deal of the year, see Parimal Rohit’s front-page story. For the latest on Samueli’s OCVibe development, see our June 30 issue.