FaZe Clan founding member and co-owner Richard ‘Banks’ Bengston has revealed his life mission with the newly publicly traded gaming organization.
Founding in 2010, FaZe Clan started as a group of teenagers making YouTube videos on Call of Duty. Now, 12 years later the organization has blossomed into a publicly traded company valued currently at over $210M on the NASDAQ exchange.
It certainly hasn’t been an easy road for FaZe to get to where they are today. From controversies and scandals to missing deadlines that almost stopped the organization from going public entirely.
However, on July 20, FaZe officially went public and co-owner FaZe Banks talked about what it meant to him and what’s in store for the future of the organization.
FaZe Banks reacts to FaZe going public
TheDailyStardust caught up with the FaZe Clan co-owner just a few days after the company went public on July 20.
“It’s really cool, a decade-plus in the making. Four kids randomly met on Xbox Live 12 years ago,” the co-owner said. “Everybody, and I really do mean everybody, family, friends, f**king people off the street, people on the internet told us we were f**king crazy,” he admitted.
“We were dumb, we were insane, this was before social media, TikTok, and YouTube was a thing. Like you told somebody you were going to make a career on YouTube videos and f**king Twitter, they’d tell you, you were f**king crazy. They were crazy, we weren’t crazy we did it.”
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When asked about what’s in store for the future of the now publicly traded FaZe Clan, Banks opened up about the ultimate goal for the organization.
“Honestly, chapter two, now’s where the real work starts. We have access to a ton more resources than we had,” the FaZe star said. “To be honest with you, we’ve kind of fell off like the traditional staple social media content sh*t over the couple few years.
“But, we’ve really like worked ourselves hard into the mainstream fold. We’ve collaborated with some of the biggest brands on earth, we’re a mainstream staple brand now. A lot of people on the planet know what FaZe is, they look at the logo, they hear the name and they know.”
He continued: “And that’s the ultimate goal. You see the Nike logo you think sports, f**king basketball, LeBron James, and f**king Michael Jordan. You see the FaZe logo, we want you to think video games. Nike sports, FaZe video games, that’s the goal, that’s my life’s mission.”
Joining a small list of gaming organizations listed publicly, $FAZE shares dropped over 25% on its first day. As of writing, the company is trading at $9.58, down from $13 at its launch. The company certainly has a long way to go until they reach their goal of being valued at $1B.