The co-owner of the National Basketball League’s Minnesota Timberwolves Marc Lore will be speaking at Eastern Thursday night.

At 5:30 p.m., Lore will join a video call in the Doudna Fine Arts Center’s The Theatre. 

The talk was organized by Evan Kubicek, a professor in the Lumpkin college of business.

According to Kubicek, Eastern got an email last year from Lore about speaking, who sent out emails to schools with an entrepreneurship program. Eastern tried to get Lore to speak last spring, but the he was already booked, Kubicek said. 

Lore, alongside former Major League Baseball player Alex Rodriguez, purchased the Timberwolves in 2021 for $1.5 billion, according to NBC news. He and Rodriguez wouldn’t become controlling owners until February 2025 when the pair settled a dispute with the team’s former owner Glen Taylor. 

Before NBA ownership, Lore developed and sold companies. He founded Jet.com, an online shipping site that competed with Amazon, which he sold to Walmart for $3.3 billion in 2016.  

In 2005, he co-founded Diapers.com, an online baby products site. Diapers.com would change its name to Quidsi and be sold to Amazon for $550 million in 2011. 

Aside from traditional investments, Lore conceived a plan to build a utopian city dubbed Telosa somewhere in America. He aims for the city to have 5 million residents by 2050. Ground has not yet been broken as the city plan has seen no development since 2021.

“I’m definitely looking forward to getting the chance to talk to and meet him,” Kubicek said. “He’s not atypical for an entrepreneur, in that he has a very strong focus on vision, cultural alignment, you know it’s not about money it’s not about quarterly earnings like you’d see in a corporate environment.” 

Kubicek also mentioned how getting someone like Lore to speak at Eastern might affect the community. 

“We’ve become so accustomed to contracting, not growing. like losing population, businesses leaving,” Kubicek said. “That’s the storyline that our region is used to hearing, so that’s what we expect to happen.” 

Aidan Cusack can be reached at 581-2812 or at atcusack@eiu.edu.