Mafia Boss: I Was Making $1.4 Million A Day! - Michael Franzese
Steven Bartlett (host), Michael Franzese (guest), Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of The Diary of a CEO, featuring Steven Bartlett and Michael Franzese, Mafia Boss: I Was Making $1.4 Million A Day! - Michael Franzese explores from Mafia Millions To Moral Reckoning: Michael Franzese Reborn Former Colombo crime family captain Michael Franzese reflects on his journey from being a top-earning Mafia racketeer, making up to $10 million a week, to a Christian speaker and legitimate businessman. He explains the inner workings of the American Mafia: its structure, rules, sit-down culture, and the brutal consequences for breaking its code. Franzese shares how his father’s influence drew him into organized crime, how betrayal and family devastation shattered his loyalty, and how love for his wife and faith pushed him to walk away despite a death contract on his life. Throughout, he extracts business, leadership, and negotiation lessons from his criminal past while insisting people are not permanently defined by their worst chapters.
From Mafia Millions To Moral Reckoning: Michael Franzese Reborn
Former Colombo crime family captain Michael Franzese reflects on his journey from being a top-earning Mafia racketeer, making up to $10 million a week, to a Christian speaker and legitimate businessman. He explains the inner workings of the American Mafia: its structure, rules, sit-down culture, and the brutal consequences for breaking its code. Franzese shares how his father’s influence drew him into organized crime, how betrayal and family devastation shattered his loyalty, and how love for his wife and faith pushed him to walk away despite a death contract on his life. Throughout, he extracts business, leadership, and negotiation lessons from his criminal past while insisting people are not permanently defined by their worst chapters.
Key Takeaways
Understand power structures and incentives before you enter any 'system.'
Franzese explains the Mafia’s hierarchy—boss, underboss, consigliere, capos, soldiers, associates—and how real power and autonomy functioned in practice. ...
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Use 'sit-down' style conflict resolution: structured, final, and respectful.
Mafia disputes—from business conflicts to life-or-death decisions—were handled via formal sit-downs with clear rules: hierarchy chaired the meeting; disrespect (like calling someone a liar) could cost you the case; the boss’s decision was final and unappealable. ...
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Silence is a negotiation weapon: talk last, learn first.
Franzese says he 'always won' sit-downs by letting others talk while he stayed quiet, reading personalities and extracting information. ...
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You can’t micromanage and still do what you do best.
Reflecting on leadership, Franzese says his motto became: 'Do what you do best, delegate the rest,' then motivate people so you get the most out of them. ...
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Rules and culture are enforced by real consequences—or they’re meaningless.
In the Mafia, breaking rules about drugs, infidelity with another member’s family, or disrespecting hierarchy could mean death. ...
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People are capable of violence; context and triggers matter more than self-image.
Franzese rejects the idea that humans are naturally non-violent; he argues everyone has the capacity to 'do damage' under the right circumstances, citing soldiers trained to kill and Mafia killers like Roy DeMeo, who he believes would have been a serial killer with or without the mob. ...
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You are not forever defined by your past; you can rewrite your story.
Despite being arrested 18 times, facing multiple racketeering cases, and spending nearly 30 months in solitary, Franzese insists people are not permanently bound to their worst identity. ...
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Notable Quotes
“There’s two levels in that life; you’re either a racketeer or you’re a gangster.”
— Michael Franzese
“We had rules and you don’t violate the rules, because the consequences are severe.”
— Michael Franzese
“The government is never allowed to break the law to uphold the law.”
— Michael Franzese
“When I got straightened out, I was exhilarated. I wasn’t afraid; I thought, ‘Finally.’”
— Michael Franzese
“You’re not defined by your past all the time. You can make changes in your life.”
— Michael Franzese
Questions Answered in This Episode
You draw a sharp line between 'racketeers' and 'gangsters' in the Mafia. If you had stayed in the life, do you think you would have inevitably evolved more toward gangster than racketeer, or was your temperament fixed?
Former Colombo crime family captain Michael Franzese reflects on his journey from being a top-earning Mafia racketeer, making up to $10 million a week, to a Christian speaker and legitimate businessman. ...
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In the gas-tax scam, you spotted and exploited a regulatory weakness years before the government did. If you were running a completely legitimate business today, how would you ethically apply that same 'systems-hacking' mindset without crossing legal or moral lines?
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You justified some Mafia killings as enforcing rules the members themselves agreed to, while condemning other murders as unjust or greedy. Looking back with your current faith, do you see any moral gray area there, or do you now view all those internal 'rule-based' killings as equally wrong?
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You’ve said betrayal by your father was a key trigger for your exit. If that betrayal had never happened and your family hadn’t been so devastated, do you honestly think love and faith alone would have pulled you out of the Mafia, or would you still be in it—or dead?
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You argue that humans have the capacity to kill under certain circumstances. What practical habits or safeguards do you think ordinary people should build into their lives—around anger, loyalty, alcohol, weapons, group identity—to ensure that capacity is never activated in destructive ways?
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Transcript Preview
In your time in the mafia, what did you witness?
I'm gonna be honest with you. We were bringing in 9, $10 million a week. I was arrested 18 times and I saw guys that died for the wrong reasons. But I'll tell you one thing, Steve, you're not gonna want to hear this, but it's the truth.
Michael Franzese, one of the highest earning mafia members turned motivational speaker, who is sharing the ruthless lessons he learned about business, leadership, and resilience.
So there's two levels in that life; you're either a racketeer or you're a gangster. And I was a racketeer, meaning I was elevating the family by making good money. I had 18 companies, defrauding the government outta tax, bringing in $10 million a week, just living the lifestyle, man, a jet plane, a helicopter.
What was the most cash you ever saw?
40, 50 million.
In cash?
In cash. Now, you can learn so much from the mafia. You know, I'll give you an example, the art of negotiation. This is a tremendous technique to get what you want, and I always won. So here's what you have to do. Now, you may be making all this money, but we have rules and you don't violate the rules, because the consequences are severe. There was a guy that had to kill his father. And then a very dear friend of mine, he did something that was total violation of our life, and he ended up getting killed. But the one thing that really hurt me bad, my dad had a powerful position in the mafia and he betrayed me. That was rough. Steve, the thing is, I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but it's not the path that I wanted to take. I realized then, "I gotta get away from this." But you don't walk away from this life, we're not allowed to do that.
When does it all come crashing down for you? This is a sentence I never thought I'd say in my life. Um, we've just hit seven million subscribers on YouTube and I wanna say a huge thank you to all of you that show up here every Monday and Thursday to watch our conversations. Um, from the bottom of my heart, but also on behalf of my team who you don't always get to meet, there's almost 50 people now behind the Diary of a CEO that worked to put this together. So, from all of us, thank you so much. Um, we did a raffle last month and we gave away prizes for people that subscribed to the show up until seven million subscribers. And you guys loved that raffle so much that we're gonna continue it. So every single month, we're giving away money can't buy prizes, including meetings with me, invites to our events, and £1,000 gift vouchers to anyone that subscribes to the Diary of a CEO. There's now more than seven million of you, so if you make the decision to subscribe today, you can be one of those lucky people. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Let's get to the conversation. Michael, who were you?
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