Oct

5

On October 4th at the Junta, Gary Hoover, Entrepreneur and Explorer, Learner and Teacher, gave an excellent talk.

Let it be said at the outset that Gary is a many of great respect. Jim Lorie, the Mendeleev of our field, my thesis adviser told me on his death bed that Gary was one of the most admirable entrepreneurs and students he ever met, and that the money he made from investing with Gary was some of the happiest money he ever made, and the Santa Fe opera and University of Chicago were just two of the beneficiaries. I have always felt that I should be supportive to a friend such as this and was happy to provide a forum. Here are 10 things I learned from him.

1. He keeps Rhodia pocket notebooks with ideas for starting business. So far he has more than 200 pocket notebooks filled up and 225 new business ideas that he thinks interesting. Richard Branson has more than 2,000 such pocket notebooks filled up.

2. He has 65,000 books in his home museum, a renovated school in Texas,and he consults them all the time for ideas. His favorite business books are those by Peter Drucker and Hidden Champions by Norman Wolff. He's in 24-7 email contact with all his former students.

3. Gary lists 8 essentials for being a successful entrepreneur. Be curious. Study History. Study Geography. Be clear. Be consistent. Above all else, serve others. Be unique. Be passionate. A good guide for those in any business or pursuit of excellence.

4. He believes the greatest 3 businessmen were Albert Sloane who went door to door to make sure all his dealers were making profits, Alexander Johnston Cassatt who built Penn station when the Penn Railroad was the biggest company in the world comprising 10% of the NYSE in market value, and John D. Rockefeller who brought the price of oil down by 90% and enabled Americans to be able to afford to read.

5. The archetypical business, the start of almost all others is a person cooking for another for mutual benefit and profit. The restaurant business now has a total volume higher than home meals. He believe the food service industry is the most exemplary business and the banking business the worst.

6. When he goes to a trade show, he can tell the dynamism of the industry by looking at whether they have swim suited models pointing to a product or interactive displays.

7. You can learn something from any person you meet, and he tries to do so by engaging in conversations. He often gets business ideas by listening to what others are saying at restaurants.

8. He considers himself most fortunate in his riches in that he has started thousands on the way to entrepreneurialism.

9. He believe the greatest areas for increases in wealth and opportunities to start successful businesses are in Medelin, Columbia which is one of 42 countries he has visited to talk about entrepreneuralism and Mexico.

10. He points out that reputations lag the facts by about 10 years. People still remember the drug lords of Medelin but they have been dead for 20 years, and it's now one of safest cities in world.


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4 Comments so far

  1. Ed on October 5, 2012 3:57 pm

    That sounds like a great talk. Did anyone get it on video?

  2. Andre Wallin on October 5, 2012 10:27 pm

    Bernanke reminds me of a stock operator in the late 1800s who is trying to corner a stock, or in this case, the stock market without market conditions being conducive. On top of this, he is a pure academic and has never traded in his life. It’s absurd. The whole thing is f***ing ridiculous.

  3. David Lilienfeld on October 6, 2012 12:59 pm

    I hope that there is a video. I agree with Ed. (Hearing from a fellow Druckerphile is itself neat; I wonder if he has both of Drucker’s novels.) I’d include John Edgar Thomson, who built the Pennsylvania RR into that largest business (and gave Andrew Carnegie the seed money for Carnegie Steel), and Pierre Dupont, who provided the organization for the modern corporation as we know it (Sloan borrowed freely from his boss, who was Dupont, after GM went broke in the early 1920s. Sloan also directed the enterprise better than Dupont did–or could have–with his chemical company, partly because of the family politics within the Dupont family.)

  4. Susan Strausberg on November 3, 2012 12:57 pm

    I’m proud to include Gary among my small group of wonderful friends in Austin. Another Austin transplant is Bob Metcalfe who, like Gary, is making tremendous contributions to the entrepreneurial culture both in Austin and around the globe.

    Gary is an endless source of positive energy. His interests are broad and deep. Vic - you were lucky to meet him and I know (because he told me so) that he had been eager to know you for a long time.

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