As the Khosla family takes over the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, the approach of the franchise's new controlling owners will be to not mess with a good thing.
According to ESPN, that was a clear theme as Vinod Khosla, his wife, Neeru, and their son Neal spoke during an introductory news conference Wednesday at Lumen Field ahead of the Seahawks' season opener against the New England Patriots.
Vinod Khosla said, "We do have great management. They got us to the Super Bowl. By the way, how often do you get to buy a team that just won the Super Bowl? So the best thing we can do is not mess with a lot. But we will be working closely with management. I don't think our approach is going to be telling them what to do.”
“Our approach will be lots of discussions, then leave it to management to decide, whether they agree with us or not. I'm very much a fan of handing them the baton and let them to do their thing and take responsibility for the results, which hopefully is another Super Bowl very soon, this year," he added.
The Khoslas spoke to reporters in Atlanta on Aug. 26 after NFL owners unanimously approved their group's purchase of the Seahawks from Paul Allen's estate.
The $9.612 billion sale, a record price for an NFL team, closed last Thursday.
But Wednesday marked the first comments to the local media at large from the Kholsas, and it offered the first indications of how they plan to work in conjunction with general manager John Schneider, head coach Mike Macdonald and the rest of the organizational brass.
"You always want to have lots of discussions, lots of ideas, lots of debate," Vinod Khosla said. "But then the people in charge of executing should have the baton to make the decision, because if they haven't made the decision, they won't be as committed to it. That's a very important management philosophy. The person responsible for executing should buy into the decision, make the decision after plenty of debate and ideas and interaction."
Vinod Khosla, 71, sat in the middle of the trio and answered the majority of the questions. The co-founder of Sun Microsystems and founder of venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, Vinod Khosla has the title of chair.
Neal Khosla, 33, is vice chair. Neeru Khosla's title is controlling owner and president of the Seahawks Charitable Foundation.
