Michael
Diaz.
The Duke-educated ex-banker running the diversified lifestyle-and-live-events company Kygo started in his kitchen.
The banker who runs the beach club.
Michael Diaz spent the first stretch of his career doing what Duke undergraduates with quantitative inclinations often do, which is model discounted cash flows at UBS Investment Bank and then, upon graduating from that phase, move to LionTree LLC - the boutique merchant bank that has spent a decade quietly advising almost every major deal in music, media, and telecom. He made Managing Director. Then he did something unusual for a person at that station of that career, which is quit to run the operating business of a Norwegian house-music DJ.
The DJ is Kygo. The company is Palm Tree Crew Holdings. In September 2025 it closed a $20 million Series B led by the WME Group, valuing the whole thing at $215 million, which is the kind of number that makes former bankers and current bankers agree that the trade worked. Diaz is the CEO. He did not found the company - that was Kygo, his manager Myles Shear, and Austin Criden, back in 2020 - but he is the person on the receiving end of the term sheet, and he is the one making the case that a global lifestyle brand can be built around one artist and, eventually, around a global community.
The pitch, if you want it stripped to a single reference, is Margaritaville. Diaz has said this in interviews and he has said it more than once. He does not mean it ironically. Jimmy Buffett spent forty years turning a song about a lost shaker of salt into casinos, restaurants, retirement communities, a licensing empire, and a category of American leisure. Diaz thinks the same operating template can be pointed at a different demographic - younger, coastal, house-adjacent, hospitality-inclined - with a similar patience and a similar willingness to blur the line between an artist and a lifestyle.
By the numbers & the map.
The 2025 Hospitality Sprint
Under Diaz, Palm Tree Crew opened four brick-and-mortar venues in under a year. The plan Diaz has described in interviews is to run a "365-day" experience across music, culture, hospitality, and entertainment - which is banker-adjacent phrasing for: the festival is the marketing budget, and the year-round venue is the P&L.
- Vegas Palm Tree Beach Club - Resorts World-adjacent day-club footprint.
- Miami Palm Tree Club & Hotel - the first vertically integrated venue.
- Kansas City Palm Tree Club - the counter-programming pick.
- Orlando Palm Tree Club - the fourth in the sequence.
Festival Footprint
A global slate that in 2025 added European debuts in Saint-Tropez and Sardinia, plus new U.S. destinations in Montecito and Napa, alongside the mainstays in Oahu and West Palm Beach.
One of the original inspirations and North Stars for Palm Tree Crew was Margaritaville and what Jimmy Buffett built.- Michael Diaz to Revenue Brew, March 2026
Career, chronologically.
- 2008 - 2012Duke University. BA, Public Policy Studies and Markets and Management Studies.
- Post-DukeInvestment Banker, UBS Investment Bank. The standard-issue analyst crucible.
- 2010sManaging Director, LionTree LLC. The boutique merchant bank Aryeh Bourkoff founded, which sits at the center of most media and telecom deal flow.
- 2020Palm Tree Crew is founded by Kygo, Myles Shear, and Austin Criden. Diaz is not yet involved.
- 2024 - JanPalm Tree Crew raises at a $150M valuation. A $32M venture fund launches. Brick-and-mortar plans announced.
- 2024 - AugPalm Tree Club concept unveiled.
- 2025Four hospitality venues open. European festival debut.
- 2025 - Sep$20M Series B, led by WME Group. $215M valuation. Diaz publicly frames it as fuel for diversification into "synergistic verticals."
Skill Stack
Financial modeling. LBO structuring. Media-and-entertainment M&A. Merchant banking. Consumer platform operating.
Sitting Below Him
A ~30-person operating team spanning festival ops, hospitality, apparel (via a joint venture with Centric Brands), and a portfolio arm that has written checks into Poppi, Gopuff, and Crown Affair.
The strategy, as he describes it.
Pick great markets.
Diaz's stated rule for picking a festival city is that it should already be a high-end lifestyle destination. Aspen. St. Barths. Saint-Tropez. Sardinia. The festival is not the reason people fly in. It's a reason to fly in twice.
Be an economy booster.
The pitch to a mayor or tourism board is not "we will draw a new crowd." It's "we will inject a compressed week of high-spend visitors into your existing calendar." That framing has opened doors that a straight promoter's pitch would not.
Then deliver it 365 days.
Festivals are a marketing budget with a P&L attached. Brick-and-mortar clubs are the mechanism to keep the audience engaged, and the balance sheet productive, across the other fifty-one weeks.
The investment arm.
Palm Tree Crew Holdings runs a portfolio arm that Diaz describes as "another lever to grow the pie" - a phrase that only sounds like corporate boilerplate if you have not spent time on a banking desk, where it is closer to a job description. The mandate is consumer, entertainment, technology, and, per company materials, crypto and Web3. It is meant to be complementary to the operating business: if the festival is the audience and the club is the frequency, the portfolio is the shelf.
The publicly disclosed holdings include the prebiotic-soda brand Poppi, the delivery service Gopuff, and the hair-care company Crown Affair. This is a portfolio that would look at home inside a specialist consumer fund. That is the point.
Portfolio, selected
- POPPI - prebiotic soda
- GOPUFF - delivery infrastructure
- CROWN AFFAIR - hair care
- CENTRIC JV - apparel & lifestyle
A lifestyle brand initially around an artist and then over time around a global community.- Michael Diaz, on the long-term arc
Quirks & small facts.
He talks like a banker.
Diaz's public quotes contain "levers," "PNLs," "synergistic verticals," and the phrase "grow the pie." This is not a founder cosplaying at business school. This is somebody who ran the model.
His reference is not Ibiza.
The obvious comparable would be Pacha or a Live Nation-adjacent festival brand. Diaz names Jimmy Buffett. That tells you about time horizon.
He does not do the DJ set.
Kygo is the artist. Shear was the manager. Diaz is the operator. It is a functional division of labor that most artist-led brands do not manage to sustain past year three.
Frequently asked.
Did Michael Diaz found Palm Tree Crew?
No. It was founded in 2020 by Kygo and Myles Shear, with Austin Criden also involved. Diaz arrived to run the operating business.
What did he do before Palm Tree Crew?
Investment banking at UBS, then Managing Director at LionTree LLC, the media-and-entertainment merchant bank founded by Aryeh Bourkoff.
Where did he study?
Duke University. Public Policy Studies and Markets and Management Studies. 2008 to 2012.
What is Palm Tree Crew Holdings worth today?
$215 million as of the September 2025 Series B, which was led by WME Group at $20 million.
What is the actual business?
Three lines: a global festival platform, a brick-and-mortar Palm Tree Club hospitality footprint, and a consumer investment arm. Apparel runs as a joint venture with Centric Brands.