APPENDIX

PEOPLE WHO HAVE INSPIRED ME TO BE ADVENTUROUS

“Never say no to adventures, always say yes.
Otherwise, you’ll lead a very dull life.”

—Ian Fleming

FRED GLUCK came from humble beginnings like I did. He was basically a charity case as a boy in Catholic schools in New York. With his great intelligence, he became an electrical engineer at the famed Bell Labs. Rather than choose an ordinary life, he joined a new technology initiative by McKinsey & Co., where he rose to be the first non-MBA managing partner. Under his direction, McKinsey doubled in size. With no interest in stopping, he founded CytomX, a biotech therapeutics company, which would go on to be listed on NASDAQ.

WICKHAM SKINNER was my professor of manufacturing. His unwillingness to accept the status quo inspired me. He pioneered a production strategy fitting global plants into a total business strategy, rather than replicating home country facilities. Letting passion, not logic, set the course for his life, he made a real sacrifice, leaving a successful business career to teach, then he retired at a young age to make room for others to follow in his footsteps.

JOHN McARTHUR too started out with disadvantages as a poor boy in Canada, but he didn’t allow his beginning to be his fate. He rose to become a giant in strategic advice. As dean of Harvard Business School, he courageously challenged popular issues, improving the tenure process, updating pedagogical methods, and strengthening student admissions standards. John once told me, “I’ve started having dinners with the students. Our mission is to create leaders. These aren’t leaders!” He made it his mission to ensure that students did more than just test well in order to be admitted to HBS.

Undaunted Adventurers

“Everybody dies. But not everybody lives.”—Alan Sachs

PETE SILAS rose to the top in most everything he did: Phillips Petroleum, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the Georgia Tech Foundation, American Petroleum Institute, and the US Chamber of Commerce. In the 1970s, Pete ran the Europe-Africa division of Phillips, developing one of the largest offshore oil and gas complexes in the world at the Ekofisk operations in the Norwegian North Sea. His excellence gained him the respect of government and industry leaders across Europe. His quiet but firm leadership was a great example to me. When he passed away on December 16, 2014, just before 5:00 p.m., the timing made sense to his wife. He had simply stopped, as usual, she said, at the end of the workday.

ROXANNE SPILLETT broke the mold as the first female president of Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA). Newsweek listed her among “15 People Who Make America Great.” Under her leadership, BGCA more than doubled in size and tripled its revenues. Devoted to the cause, she sacrificed her own pension money when we were attacked by publicity-hungry politicians. After sixteen years, she oversaw a successful executive transition, then launched a $450 million fundraising campaign as president emeritus. She won the hearts of BGCA staff and volunteers with her tireless efforts to build a huge movement into an effective force for needy kids.

DAVID SKORTON led Cornell through a financial crisis and then became the thirteenth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, where he is shaking things up. Bringing together thought leaders, scientists, conservationists, and students, he has launched an annual Earth Optimism Summit to find sustainability solutions that can work on a planetary scale. David is fearless, yet open to other people’s ideas.

FRANK BAXTER took over Jefferies & Co. just as its namesake founder went off to prison. We all thought that company was finished. Frank not only saved it, but built it into a regional powerhouse. He retired from business to devote himself full-time to philanthropy, which includes being chairman of the board of trustees of the University of California, Berkeley, the leading charter school system in Los Angeles, and of the Los Angeles Opera. He also served as the US ambassador to Uruguay. His quiet demeanor conceals steely determination.

RICK GOINGS led Tupperware to remarkable growth with a global workforce numbered in the millions. Yet he still found time for his family, friends, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He served as chairman of BGCA for an unprecedented two terms and traveled widely to support those of us in the regions who were helping build it into one of the most admired charities in the world.

ARTHUR ROCK may be soft-spoken, but he is driven by a profound desire: to help talented people build great companies. “That’s how I get my kicks!” He helped launch Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Apple, Teledyne, and Scientific Data Systems, earning him the title “the Father of Modern Venture Capital.” “Having money is nice,” he said. “Being able to travel and do the things I want to do is all very nice. But I would give up some of that for the feeling of success, of having created jobs. I helped create jobs. I helped create companies. I helped create wealth for a lot of people. That gives me a great deal of satisfaction.” I met Arthur when the dean of Harvard Business School put us in charge of a project to assess the HBS doctoral program, which was the most expensive program per student due to a very low faculty-to-student ratio. It was intended to train teachers, but as soon as Wall Street realized the value of quantitative methods, the graduates starting taking their new PhDs to Wall Street. We suggested changes!

ELI BROAD started out as an accountant in Detroit and rose to become a philanthropist worth $7.3 billion. At age twenty, he borrowed $25,000 from his in-laws to buy his first property and launch Kaufman & Broad, which would become one of the country’s biggest affordable home builders. Both his business strategy and his philanthropy have been imaginative and large scale. The title of his autobiography is Unreasonable. I told him that book enabled me to understand our twenty-five-year-long relationship.

Adventurers of Every Kind

“The adrenaline and stress of an adventure are better than one thousand peaceful days.” —Paulo Coelho

JOHN WHITEHEAD led three landing crafts during the Normandy invasion, when he was a young ensign, then served as deputy secretary of state during the 1985–1989 diplomacy triumphs under President Ronald Reagan. He rose to the top of Goldman Sachs through the investment banking department and helped build it into a global powerhouse. His other chairmanships included the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, United Nations Association, Harvard Board of Overseers, and the Brookings Institute. His gentlemanly demeanor was breathtaking. One just would follow him anywhere.

PRESIDENT GERALD & BETTY FORD were a pair of admirable leaders. Accepting the challenge of the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, Gerry helped heal a nation in turmoil by firmly following a principled path, despite enduring constant rude criticisms. (He was ridiculed as clumsy, yet he played center on the University of Michigan football team—a really tough job!) Betty courageously went public about her pain medication addiction when the stigma of drug addiction was at its peak. Her famed Betty Ford Clinics changed attitudes toward addiction.

JOSÉ CARRION III took on the thankless task of being chairman of Promesa, which is charged with doing what’s right for Puerto Rico, even though it’s unpopular. His work in Puerto Rico subjects his family and his business to unprincipled assaults, while he bravely helps secure for the Commonwealth a future that it deserves.

Raising the Bar for Adventure

“The man who says it can’t be done is often interrupted by somebody else doing it.”—Washington Post (1924)4

RICHARD B. FISHER, the son of a railroad conductor, grew up to be a Wall Street revolutionary. Morgan Stanley’s capital was $5 million when he joined them. They primarily did investment banking via relationships. Fisher fearlessly upended that old model by leading the way into sales and trading. It saved the firm. As chairman, he negotiated their $10.9 billion merger with Dean Witter.

KENT KRESA might have been satisfied with his job as an engineer in advanced research at the Pentagon, but he was willing to take far bigger risks. Joining Northrop Grumman, he led a series of mergers, building their revenue from $5 billion to $28 billion. Crises allowed him to excel, drawing on his innate adventurous spirit. He was chairman of MIT, CalTech, the Los Angeles Music Center (during a major fiscal crisis), and General Motors (during its bankruptcy).

RON SUGAR, Kent’s chosen successor at Northrop Grumman, retired to facilitate the radical changes his successors made. Dr. Sugar is a senior adviser to some of the largest companies in the world, including Apple, Chevron, and Air Lease Corporation.

RICK WAGONER led General Motors into China in a quiet but energetic way, which I think helped save the company. Then he became CEO during its greatest difficulties. When he took the reins at age forty-seven in June 2000, he became the youngest CEO in General Motors’ history.

Automotive Industries named him its Executive of the Year in 2001, after interviewing a selection of widely respected auto industry experts who applauded Rick “for his willingness to hire from outside in order to put together the best possible team.”

Rick is a genuinely nice, decent human being, who devoted himself to GM and then (pun intended) got shafted. He inherited a nightmare from his predecessors—disastrous labor agreements, among many other things. He worked hard to modify them.

When we had breakfast together in October 2008, he told me sadly that times were so bad that car buyers couldn’t borrow money for cars anymore. In March 2009, the Obama administration made a deal to bail out GM with short-term financing, provided the CEO was ousted. Because of Rick’s graciousness and sense of duty, he was earning only a dollar a year. When he was forced out of the company, his termination benefits were unfairly low.

ATHLETES

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”—Babe Ruth

JACK KRAMER was an athlete who gave up big money in order to compete as a great amateur tennis player, and then he went on to help lead the tennis profession with wisdom and grace. Ranked number one in the world in tennis in 1946, Jack introduced the hard-driving serve to tennis. A tireless advocate of Open Tennis, he was the key influence in bringing top tennis players to join the Association of Tennis Professionals in 1972. After retiring from tennis himself, he became a highly regarded tennis commentator for the BBC.

BILLY KIDD was the first American man to win an Olympic medal in alpine skiing, winning a silver medal in the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck. In 1970, he was the first American male skier to win both amateur and professional world championships in the same year. He finally won the gold medal at Val Gardena in 1970, becoming the first American man to be a world champion skier. Kidd is truly an American skiing legend. He raced for more than nine years on the US ski team. After he retired from racing, he went on to advance his profession with skill and great warmth.

FRANZ WEBER was the fastest ski racer in the world for five years. Remarkably, Weber won over 80 percent of the races he entered, then he took over the management of Franz Klammer, the ski racing legend. In 1985, he retired, but he returned for the 1992 Winter Olympics in France to clock his fastest personal time ever (138.112 mph). Having done what he set out to do, he retired again.

THOMAS WEISEL is a legend in Silicon Valley and high finance. The banker behind Yahoo’s IPO, he sold Montgomery Securities for $1.2 billion.

He created three new investment firms, all specializing in financing technology businesses. But business success still wasn’t enough of an outlet for his adventurous urges. That he considers himself a “frustrated athlete…always pursuing excellence but never reaching the pinnacle” shows how high he sets the bar. Tom is a bronze medalist in the US masters’ skiing, a five-time national masters’ cycling champion, and a three-time world masters’ cycling champion, as well as being chairman of the United States Ski Team Foundation.

“Beyond business, I always keep in mind that we’re only on this earth for a short period of time… That’s exactly why I decided to move to the West Coast right after I graduated from Harvard, rather than going to Wall Street like all my other classmates.” In the years since, his priorities have slightly shifted: “My objective is to be a great parent first, to make an impact on the world second, and then to focus on a few activities at which I can really excel.”

Explorers

“Through endurance we conquer.”—Ernest Shackleton

STEVE FOSSETT was the most successful explorer in modern times. It was my great privilege to call him my friend. Not only did he make a fortune in the financial industry, but he also broke numerous world records. He made the first solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, and he broke twenty-three world records in sailing. But he also set new records for the fastest airship flight in 2004, for the first nonstop fixed-wing aircraft flight around the world, and for cross-country skiing in Colorado. None of that stopped him from climbing six of the Seven Summits, competing in endurance sports events such as the Iditarod sled dog race, and cross-country ski marathons. Even in death, he broke records. His disappearance in a single-engine aircraft in California triggered the largest, most complicated peacetime search for an individual in US history. His body was never found.

TEDDY ROOSEVELT took big risks for a person of his station. Although I didn’t know him personally, I know that he was, in many ways, the embodiment of boldness and adventure. Investing the fortune he’d inherited in a ranch in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory, he drove cattle there for years, also becoming a passionate big game hunter. In the Cuban War of 1898, he led a notorious regiment known as the Rough Riders. After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Roosevelt succeeded him as president, and he was later re-elected to a full term. When William Taft, his own party’s candidate for president, proved to be a disappointment, Roosevelt left the Republican Party to run against him. A historian, statesman, hunter, naturalist, and orator, Roosevelt also wrote more than twenty-six books. In 1906, in recognition of his work to end the Russo-Japanese War, he became the first American to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his acceptance speech, he called for “a league of peace with international power.”

ERNEST SHACKLETON, another adventurer I know only through the public record, was a key figure in the nineteenth century’s heroic age of Antarctic exploration, a man known for courageous exploits that captured the public imagination. On an expedition to the Antarctic in 1914, his ship the Endurance was tragically stuck in the ice for ten months, forcing his men to camp out on ice floes for another six months in hope of reaching land. With five of his men, Shackleton crossed 1,300 kilometers of the Southern Ocean in a lifeboat to seek help, then climbed mountains to get help in rescuing the men he’d left on Elephant Island. The mission to reach the South Pole failed, but Shackleton is renowned for ensuring the safe return of all of his men against unimaginable odds.