Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot, is worth about $5 billion.
He’s donated hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research. If you drive around New York City, you’ll see many hospitals named after Ken Langone.
I am grateful to him because these hospitals have successfully treated many friends and family members.
Well, Ken Langone told me a story once that he didn’t think was a story.
Or, at the very least, he thought he was telling me a money story — but he ended up telling me something very different.
In the late 1960s, a young man named Ross Perot was building a company that focused on selling computers — a very young company in a very young industry.
Ross Perot wanted to “go public.” Meaning, he would sell part of his company to the public and be listed on the stock exchange.
Back then, Ken Langone wanted to get the deal to take Ross Perot’s company public.
Ross Perot would become a billionaire as a result. And Ken would make his first million or so as his fee in the process.
More importantly, his network of people he could count on for his future successes now included billionaires. (Rule #1: If you help someone else make a billion, you will definitely make millions.)
But Ken’s first million didn’t come easily.
Ken Langone was not from one of the big banks like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley.
He didn’t have the pedigree. He was from a small bank, from a small town, and didn’t have the fancy degree.
He had to figure out how to differentiate himself. He spent six months figuring out what Ross Perot’s needs and agendas were. He tried to tell Perot that the big banks might not focus on Perot the way he needed. But that he, Ken Langone, would make Perot his daily priority.
Finally, after these initial six months where they had spoken almost every day, visited each other constantly — even vacationed together — Perot called Langone and said, “I don’t know. I think I want to go with one of the bigger guys. I’m sorry.”
Perot was in Dallas. It was about 7 a.m. Langone was sitting in New York City while they were having this phone conversation.
Ken said, “Wait. What are you doing for lunch?”
Perot said “Ken! I’m in Dallas and you’re in NYC.”
Ken said, “I don’t care. What are you doing for lunch?”
At 12:30 p.m. Ken was at lunch and sitting down with Perot to go over — one more time — why Perot will get the special attention he needed from Ken.
Ken got the deal and made his first million.
That was the end of the story when Ken told it to me. But it wasn’t the full story.
Ken had a wife who was super supportive of him. He knew he could jump on a plane at a moment’s notice if that’s what his work needed.
Ken had employees who were on the plane with him. All of his colleagues were just as informed about Perot’s needs as Ken was.
Ken had spent years building his reputation as an honest straight-shooter who would overpromise and overdeliver. That’s how he got in the door in the first place.
He wasn’t going to blame his inability to get the deal from Ross Perot on his lack of pedigree or higher education. That would have been the easy out.
Instead, he built a life around himself that allowed him to get on that plane.
That life started with his loyal and deep marriage — and included the network of good people around him.
This isn’t a story about the importance of hard work. This is a love story.