Here’s a great read that I have only started: Ken Langone’s I Love Capitalism.
He, of HomeDepot fame, has much to say about capitalism and why it has become the solution to so much suffering, and why Margaret Thatcher’s words from the 1980s have never been truer:
Socialism is a wonderful thing until you run out of someone else’s money.
Anyway, here are some pearls of wisdom from Ken’s wonderful book:
- Take your religious faith seriously. His Catholicism gave him safe harbor in storms and left him “sensitive to the plight and needs of others.”
- Marry for the long run. He and Elaine have been wed 63 years. When things were good she cheered him on; when they weren’t she let him know “she would always be there for me—win, lose or draw.”
- You teach values by living them. Don’t say—do. People absorb eloquent action.
- “Pray at the feet of hard work.” Be ravenous in reading about your field, whichever you wind up in and for however long. Russo would say, “Be a professional to your chosen profession.” 🙂
- Money solves the problems money can solve. Don’t ask more of it, and don’t be ashamed of wanting it. “A kid once said to me, ‘Money doesn’t buy everything.’ I said, ‘Well, kid, I was poor, and I can tell you right now poverty doesn’t do a very good job either.’”
- Stay excited. Don’t be sated. (Steve Jobs put it this way: Stay hungry.)
- Admit the reality around you, then change it. When Mr. Langone couldn’t get an entry level job at Goldman Sachs, Kidder Peabody, or the firm of White Weld, an executive took him aside and said, “Let me tell you the lay of the land. We have Jewish firms for Jewish kids and we have WASP firms for WASP kids. The Irish we make clerks and put them on the floor of the stock exchange, and Italian kids kinda like you, we put in the back office.” When Mr. Langone began to succeed, he started to hire—and brought in the sons of cops who went to St. John’s. This contributed to “the democratization of Wall Street.”
- When you’re successful you’ll put noses out of joint, even among colleagues who benefit from your work. Be careful about jealousy but in the end roll with it, it’s human nature. When you “piss off the old guard,” become the old guard—and help the clever rise.
- “There’s no defeat except in giving up.” You’re going to fail. So what? Keep going, something will work. Russo says, “Go forth and fail!
As Peggy Noonan has said.
“Billionaire tech gods* should read it, emulate it, and start celebrating the system that made them mighty.”
* Here’s what we’re up against: During last month’s Senate hearing about Facebook’s antics, Sen. Dan Sullivan referred to Jeff Zuckerberg’s dorm-room invention (Facebook) and said:
“Only in America, would you agree with that?”
Mr. Zuckerberg seemed taken aback, mumbled around, and didn’t answer.
“You’re supposed to answer ‘yes’ to this question,” Mr. Sullivan explained.
