issue no. 7: Michael Farber
On celebrating ten years of community building while becoming a dad.
Michael Farber (he/him) is the Founder of Breakout — a nationwide community of changemakers that’s been around for over a decade. Breakout creates transformative experiences in cities across the US that allow people to see a city in a way they might not typically see it, with an emphasis on showcasing innovation, culture, and history. Breakout gives people space to be inspired and break out of their typical routines and silos to meet people they might not otherwise intersect with in day-to-day life. Here’s how Farber navigates building community for the long haul.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity — September 2024.
From international affairs to commercial real estate to community building:
I grew up in the Maryland area, and I was always politically interested. My mom came from Bolivia when she was 12 - my grandfather was Bolivian and my grandmother left Spain during the Franco years and Spanish Civil War - so I remember hearing stories of wars and unrest in Bolivia as well as the things our family went through in Spain. When you become an immigrant, you come to this country but what you brought with you is very top of mind, right? We were a family who always talked about issues and politics. We were not the family where politics didn't enter the dinner table. It was probably all we talked about. That was something very formative in my life, and there's a lot to unpack there, but that's what led me to go to George Washington University and study international affairs.
As an international affairs major, I did a lot of internships at various nonprofits. My junior year, I was at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Africa Bureau. It's 2004, the genocide in Darfur was happening, and I remember thinking, “This is really hard and serious work. Is this the work I want to fully dive into?” Additionally, you find out the reality that this great work that a lot of people are doing at the agency also meant that they were the lowest paid agency at the federal government and I was like, “Is this where I want to go?”
I ended up taking a bit of a 180, because I always also enjoyed business but I hadn't taken any business classes. I had been putting all my cards into this one bucket. A long story short - I ended up getting an internship in commercial real estate. I didn't even know what commercial real estate was until a few months before, but that was what all my business major friends who were from New York were going to do, so it seemed like something I should consider. I got an internship with a big firm right as I was getting out of college circa 2006-2007. Then, the economy started crashing and I was supposed to transfer to New York as I was in the DC office. That didn't happen. So, in 2009, I ended up leaving and joining this fledgling startup, which was basically an email newsletter and event business for commercial real estate that was founded by a father and son. I ended up moving to New York, and over about four and a half years, we grew it into the nation's largest commercial real estate media and events business.
During this time, myself and a couple others on the team built a private CEO retreat, which was an invite only retreat for the top investors and developers in North America. We did nothing about the industry of real estate - instead it was all macro trends with personal development, and people loved it. There was something interesting there but (1) it wasn’t my business and there were a lot of things going on behind the scenes around that, and (2) I like real estate, but I like all these other issues and topics. What could it look like if I were to build a community in a bit of a different way? Also, the community I was building with was predominantly rich old White men, which there were a lot of nice ones, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking to do.
On the origins of Breakout:
When I was 28 or 29, I started doing gatherings on the side for friends of mine from New York, and people really enjoyed how I was bringing them together. I've always been someone who's enjoyed a lot of different things — I’m a consumer of a lot of different ideas, and industries, and someone who’s been able to jump in and out of groupings. That's how Breakout started evolving into Breakout and being about breaking people out of their typical routines and silos, and trying to create this next-gen leadership community in the way that I've been building in another light, but doing it for people who were my peers to grow together.
What I knew was a lot of groups like the Aspens, the Summits, and others go on cruise ships and to the mountains - which are cool experiences where people meet great people - but I went to high school in Baltimore and no one’s doing anything in Baltimore. What could this look like if we did it in the places where we're all actually living and where so much innovation, entrepreneurship and culture is happening?
On the steps that get an entity “clicking”:
Breakout’s product market fit has always been tricky. But, what was really amazing was my last day at the other business was January 30th, 2014, and on April 25th, 2014, we had a hundred plus people on a Southwest 737 going to Miami for a two and a half day event. We moved very quickly and what we found was people wanted and were looking for something a little bit different in the community that we’re building. There was something nice about meeting people that you wouldn't typically meet, because everyone is so bucketed to industry.
Breakout started really clicking in 2016-2017 after a few years in. We were doing a lot of things in the first two years — we were trying a membership community to bring people together to give them the opportunity to have this intimate place for founders and creatives to share what they were going through. A lot of other communities have tried membership, and I’ve talked to a million other founders about it, and membership almost never works for a variety of reasons. It took about two to three years for people who worked in cities, who were running innovation teams and working on ecosystem development to start being like, “Huh, this is different.”
In 2015, about a year in, we were brought to Detroit by Dan Gilbert's team from Rocket Mortgage. They were funding tech innovation events where people sat in a hotel - whereas our event takes people all around a city, seeing it in a way they wouldn’t typically do - and they said, “Why don’t you come here and do it?” They were step number one.
Second, we had someone who was the number two person at the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta who really took a bigger step out for us in 2016 to bring us to Atlanta in 2017. We ended up having Puma, Delta, GE and all these tier one flagship sponsors who came in in a really big way that allowed us to create a really big experience that has been the blueprint for how we get funding in other markets and how we've been able to grow.
Our people love this experience, but when we get the right partners, we can bring in more people from the city that we're hosting in. We can get more voices involved. We can create community activations. We can comp or find sliding scale methods to get people who wouldn't have access to this event to be there. The diversity of thought that people know now to expect at Breakout really started to skyrocket in those moments once we could make the model work.
On why he built a “for profit” that acts as a nonprofit:
The pandemic hit, and I thought we were for sure done. We were really moving for a second there, and I thought we were going to have a fantastic year. In the beginning foundations didn't get us and they still don't kind of get us. It's funny. We're a for profit business, even though everyone assumes we're a nonprofit because of the way we do things, and in many ways we do not run a typical for profit. But, to me, it's always been really important to build a “for profit” or “for purpose” or whatever the terminology you want to say in this space, because I don't believe that doing the things that we do should be deemed as “charitable.” It's really important to just build great experiences for leaders. But, we eventually started getting some larger foundations to work with us, who got what we were doing, so thankfully when the pandemic hit, I turned to them and said, “Hey, you know our business model - how can we help you?”
The first thing that started to happen was our friends in Tulsa were getting ready to fund a new entity called Build in Tulsa, which is a wraparound ecosystem for Black small business owners and entrepreneurs. It has now been running for a few years, but we helped them get from basically zero to one from a little idea to launching at the Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre. That was a really amazing learning experience and process of just being able to build with another team and help our collective network and understanding of how ecosystems can grow up.
We started to also work with other foundations who in this unique moment in time were asking, “How are different social entrepreneurs working?” So, we started creating different events and incubators. We also have a foundation arm and started getting some funding for that to start putting grants into our community. Most of the foundations we’re working with are very large, right? They're writing big checks to established nonprofits. Our foundation is oftentimes almost like friends and family capital for impact leaders who've never raised from a foundation, so we got to be some bigger and earlier checks to organizations through that time and that kept us afloat.
Luckily, once everything started coming back in its weird way, our events business was bigger than ever — people wanted experiences more than ever because we really missed being around one another and also social media has ruined all of our minds. So we realize it's actually really nice to be around people even if I might not technically agree with everything they post, because I remember they're actually a good person when I'm in space with them.
On gaps in philanthropy:
Venture capital has all sorts of issues but the good thing about incentive - if you believe in incentive which we can have all our issues with capitalism - but, generally speaking, there is incentive to look for people that are going to perform. On the foundation side, you're not looking for people to perform quite frankly. If you stick your neck out in VC, you've got the power law, which means you make 30 investments, one or two hits it big, the rest can be zeros and it makes it all worth it. You don't have that ability in a foundation. Most of the time, foundations are investing three to five percent at most of their endowment, which means a program officer only has X amount that they can actually give. But, there's also legacy grants that the foundation is already making, so the ability to make new grants is really small.
Program officers aren't given the ability to take swings in the way that a venture capitalist can, which means that they have to play it incredibly safe and that then they're only going to usually give grants to things that have already been incredibly checked off and well-established as opposed to going a bit more all in on something that's newer to try to get it to the next level. Because, if it doesn't work, your neck’s on the line and the reality is people who are program officers usually have as well paid of a job as they're ever going to get, with as much power as they're ever going to get, with as much stability as they're ever going to get. The situation that they're in is working against them taking the bets that we actually want philanthropy to take to be more innovative.
The money side always has to hide a certain amount, right? There's always not enough money whether it's for profit or nonprofit, but I do find that the philanthropy side especially hides from meeting people and trying to be in it. It's just a bummer to me, because at least on the VC side you’ll have many VCs who have been entrepreneurs and operators and that's usually the ones I do want to get investment from, because they understand what I've been through. The philanthropy grant program officers, by and large, have never built anything — they're all academics. It's a very interesting thing when you're pitching to someone who could never possibly understand what it takes to take a risk to build something. So, you're constantly in this apples to oranges conversation.
The issue is, when you are in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Tulsa or some of these places, your only option to get funding sometimes is a foundation, whether you're for-profit or nonprofit. If you’re a high-scale tech for-profit, you can look for other funding. But, if you're a more traditional small business or a for-profit that's social impact, your only option is a foundation which means you have one to three options basically in that market — yet these are the people foundations are saying they want to celebrate. It doesn't add up to me.
On becoming a dad on October 7th, 2023:
Israel and Palestine have been a weight on me for sure. Our community is very political in their own lives and is left-leaning overall, but we at Breakout stay away from politics in our work. That said, I would never want someone who's not fully aligned to feel like they couldn't participate because we want those exchanges, right? That's something I've cared about for a very long time. Then, October 7th happened, which is also the day my son was born. For the first month or two after that, I was not really working. I was trying to be as home as much as possible, but then my socials were blowing up with friends from all different sides asking, “Are you going to make a statement?”
I was trying to consume as much information as possible and then I realized, like many things in my life, a two to four sentence ‘social post’ would never be enough. At the end of the day, my work with Breakout and focus is being a convener - to bring people together to build deep relationships and also hold nuance. I've been trying to build this thing for so long and I've been so proud of it, but it's been really tough and I was like, “Is this something that's going to impact our ability to actually want to be in space with one another?” That was a big fear I had coming into our Detroit event this past summer. We had to work on really setting the stage with norms that we wanted to have, which would be good in any situation, but it kind of pushed us to a new place.
Quite frankly, eight months ago, we weren’t getting inbounds in new cities and there was hyper division everywhere, and I thought, “Is this even worth us doing?” Then business started picking up, and we had our Detroit event. It was really amazing being reminded of what brings us together. However, I know some people might feel like we should have leaned more into the elephant in the room because that specific area of Michigan has one of the biggest Palestinian and Muslim populations. It also has a very large Jewish population. It could have been a place to hold conversations for those in our community to witness. We thought about it over and over, but we ended up not going in that direction as we didn’t see a way to do it in the spirit that what have been productive and in line with our broader ethos of showcasing people and projects making a positive difference in their community.
Since the event, we’ve been approached by more groups than we've ever been approached by. I've never felt stronger about the opportunity of what it means to bring people together, whether it's a Breakout experience, or us white labeling an experience for other groups and working with their communities. Giving people a space to be inspired and to remind them like, “Yeah, we're never going to see eye to eye on every single issue, but where can we learn and listen to one another and see where there's an opportunity for growth?”
Honestly, eight months ago, I was feeling so burnt out that I thought my time was done and Detroit would be our swan song. I wasn't telling anyone that openly, but that's really how I felt. Now, I came out on the other side being like - wait a second, there's more here to do. I'm feeling very bullish about what it means to be in these more uncomfortable and gray spaces. I'm excited at the opportunity of what this community has taught me over this past decade and really putting it forward in this next chapter.
In 2020, I was having anxiety and panic attacks and thinking about so many things happening in the world. Being able to have worked through that, the business staying afloat, and working on my own mental health, I'm just in a place where I'm like, this shit is very serious —these issues are very real, and I can scream about all these different things, but the thing that I can actually be the most influential about is continuously building a platform that gets to hire people to do work they are passionate about, to be inspired by the people we gather, and to spotlight and connect people that wouldn’t otherwise cross each others paths. That is what I do best and that is where we've been most beneficial. It's not letting you know the things I think about at two in the morning at all times.
On building a “nice to have” community and questioning doing it as a White guy:
If I wanted to just be a normal entrepreneur, there's so many better ways to have done it. I chose the hardest and worst way to build a business. Businesses that are successful are usually one of three things. You're either doing something in an already existing, very large market with a lot of customers. Even if you're not a huge company, you’re taking a small amount of a large, present need or seeing around the corner to something that will be a huge market. I definitely saw Breakout as something that would be big and would go around the corner. Where it's been tricky is when people pay for tickets to go to an event or experience, they're usually doing it because it's something that's going to help them get more money for whatever they're doing. We don't do that.
The other thing people typically pay for is for sex, dating, relational, right? (Laughs) People have probably done that but that's not the explicit reason why people go. The third I would say is identity - going to something that's for Black-only leaders, or Jewish-only leaders or whatever it is and that’s your thing. Along the way I realized we're nice to have, but if someone has to do something that's essential, we aren't going to be the number one. On the macro level, that’s where our business has been tough.
On a secondary or tertiary level - in all of humanity, White guys have always been in a great place and there's certain things I get for sure because of layers of that. But, there are instances with some of our funders, and I've been told this offline multiple times over the years, that I'm not the demo that they want to be funding at this moment, which is a very good thing. I'm all on board for it. No part of me is complaining about this. I also don't like saying this because it's such fodder for misunderstanding, and that’s not where I want this to go at all.
We have just been so on the nose for things that have been out for funding so many times where we've done bigger things and we're so much further along, and then I'll see that funding go to someone at a very early stage, which they should be funding - this isn’t a zero sum game. But, seeing someone with a napkin idea get funding and we’ve been doing all these things has been an interesting thing. I'm just trying to do something that's experiential and bring people together. But after multiple years of building Breakout, you get to a certain point where you’re like, “Should I be doing this?” Even though people always tell me they loved it, I have walked into a lot of frosty rooms over the years. When people see the actual work, they see this is real.
On navigating identity politics as a leader:
The thing I always come back to is I actually think I do need to be doing this because there's no other White dudes doing anything remotely like this. It's very easy as a White guy in America to just go into sales or tech or finance because they are lanes we’ve had forever and they make the most amount of money, and I'm just going to do it, and live my life and play some golf and take care of my family - which by the way, there’s nothing wrong with. But, we are the most bubbled away group not having to think about anything else.
I had to build an actual business that has to stay afloat, but I also knew by default of what we're doing and who I am that there is a message within the programming that we choose to do and the stories we choose to uplift. I've tried to be very cautious about not putting myself at the center of those things. I think at times I’ve overdone it, and it would have been more beneficial for the growth of the business to insert my story a little bit more because that's just how marketing works for better or worse. But, I was so concerned about being labeled in a certain way that I really wanted to go in another direction. And so, I don't think I necessarily felt too often that I was doing something wrong, but it was something impossible not to think about all the time.
I got to a point where I started not speaking up in the way I typically would because I was trying not to rub anyone wrong that I started becoming not myself within it. I’ve found more of a middle ground, and I feel confident that with 10 years of track record, people can say that I’m not out and about being like, “It's the me show.” But I also know that it is important for people to be like, “Why is Farber doing this stuff? What is he out there doing? What makes him tick?” What I'm trying to do is: There are issues I care about a lot. There are people that are doing great work in the places we are, and I want to help them continue to be successful in what they're building. That is what I want to do.
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