Legends of the felt

Dear Fans, friends, and poker players who only run it once. Poker is the secret sauce of life. It’s the $500 you slipped the bouncer to get in behind the ropes. And it’s always a surprise to see who’s going to walk through the doors at Table 1 and grab a seat.

We’ve met so many cool and interesting people playing poker. Today let’s learn about one of them. He’s a business man you’ve never heard of. He’s special because he:

• Sold his company for millions (twice)

• Has a planet named after him (Seriously)

• Once called a 4 way all-in preflop for a big pot with T♠️7♠️ (and won)

Fellow degenerates, meet John Diebel.

At the age of 26, after becoming an engineer at Hughes aircraft in 1972, he decided to become his own boss. He took out a loan for $2,500 and spent it all on telescopes wholesale from Japan. Why telescopes? He knows them well. He freaking built one in 8th grade just for fun at a school science fair!

He named his company “Mead Instruments” because he loves Las Vegas and Lake Mead. He later changed it to Meade. I’m not exactly sure why. Probably because it sounds fancy. He threw an ad into a local astronomy magazine and started mailing out telescopes. An incredible operator, Meade eventually became the leader in telescope sales in America.

After about 15 years, in 1986 John sold his stake in the company for a reported $6.5 million. Just a few years later, in 1991, the company almost went bankrupt. John re-purchased the entire company for less than $1,000 and took on the company’s $2,000,000 in debt.

The first thing he did? gave a big chunk of the stock to his employees. Aligned incentives righted the ship. Meade went public in 1997. Peaking at a valuation of over $200 million during the dotcom bubble.

John left the company in 2003. And it faltered again without him at the helm. Meade Instruments sold for just $4 million or so to another company in 2021.

A legend in the world of astronomy, on April 14, 1991, a minor planet was discovered by 2 astronomers (Shoemaker and Levy). They named it 15276 Diebel in honor of John.

So what’s John spend all his time doing now? Playing poker of course. He can be found playing anything from $1/$3 to $100/$200 because he just enjoys the game. Occasionally he graces us with his presence on Table 1.

A tough opponent and a funny guy, I’m happy to call John a friend.

Cheers!

-Art and Justin

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