This podcast was originally recorded in 2019. We're releasing it again in 2025.

Some small details may have changed.

I've got to be honest. Until I started working on this story, I'd never even heard of Ed Evans,

the man who convinced Howard Schultz's group to sell.

Until one evening in Seattle, in January of 2019, when I was sitting in Wally Walker's office.

She is totally awful.

Yeah, you know, it's a, this is a hundred-year-old neighborhood.

And it's kind of tucked away.

You probably saw Seattle Golf Club drive over there.

We did, yeah. Wally's home office is in a small guest house.

It's back in this gated community,

deep in a thicket of forest, just north of downtown Seattle.

Driving back there feels like driving into another world.

This was our last interview of the day.

We knew it was big because Wally's been a player, a general manager, and a part owner of

the Sonics, the one guy who knew the franchise from every angle.

So the room was packed.

Wally was sitting at his desk, me on the other side.

His assistant, Jana, who we've heard from, the one who used to work for the Sonics.

She was sitting at her own desk across the room.

And then scattered around the office were three of our producers, Noah, Isaac, and Jonathan.

And we talk for hours.

...