Arthur Blank

Chairman, AMB Group LLC · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveauthorblankfamilyofbusinesses.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Arthur Blank co-founded The Home Depot in 1978, helping build it into the world's largest home improvement retailer before retiring in 2001. Today, he oversees a portfolio including the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United FC, and PGA TOUR Superstore, and authored the 2020 book Good Company.

15statements → 7claims → 4claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.93/5average certainty → 1.73/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 7said about them ↓

2 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

7 assertions · 4 opinions · 2 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Arthur argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Blank: Handy Dan was the most successful US home improvement chain

“Well, that company, Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, was, and we operated kind of a traditional model, 40,000 square feet, 40% gross margin, 40 associates on the floor and it was by far the most successful chain of Home Improvement Center. Stores in the cou…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 9:55 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

50% certainty 4

100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Arthur Blank on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said15 What others said7 Episodes1

Everything Arthur Blank said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Blank: NFL anthem protests address social injustice, not military disrespect

“And I will tell you, there are 1750 players in the NFL, and I will tell you, these players have great respect for the military, and so it's not about the military to them. It's just that becomes an opportunity, a platform for them to speak about their concerns…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 29:19 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Opinion

Blank: NFL players should stand respectfully for national anthem

“Having said that, I mean, I think that players should stand, and should stand respectfully for the national anthem.”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 29:11 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Opinion

Blank: Staying at Home Depot under Bob Nardelli would have been miserable

“And I was sure happy I wasn't there during the six years that he was there. Ah, so, ah. That, that, that would have been the worst time in my life.”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 26:33 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Insight

Blank: Home Depot concept arose by defining an uncompetitive retail model

“Bernie had said, well, you know, if we were ever to leapfrog our own business, Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, what kind of home improvement center store could we not compete against? And so we said we could never compete against the big warehouse, no fril…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 13:24 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Blank: Early competitors believed Home Depot's business model would fail

“Every competitor came into our stores and visited us and said, I mean, these, I can't use bad words here because this is like kind of a live radio thing, but these, ah, whatever you want to call us, they're crazy. The stores are much too big. Prices are much t…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 19:36 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Disclosure

Blank: Home Depot avoided planograms so every new store improved

“Really, at HD, we had a five year plan, we had a one year budget, we had all of that, but we focused on every single store, and our plan was that each store had to be better than the last store we opened up. So we didn't have any plantograms. We didn't have an…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 22:35 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Supported

Blank: Handy Dan was the most successful US home improvement chain

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 9:55 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Blank: Home Depot raised from 144 investors backing the founders

“The investors who invested in our company, it was a 144 of them really what they were buying into was just Myself and Bernie.”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 15:24 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Blank: Nobody showed up to The Home Depot's 1979 grand opening

“So we had this grand opening, and nobody came.”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 18:14 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Insight

Blank: Young executives overworking will become strangers to their families

“Too many young executives, men or women, they, their attitude is that we gotta work now, work hard, and, you know, put my career in, on fifth gear, and go, go, go, and so when you return home in 10 years, you're not gonna recognize your kids, and your spouse i…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 24:36 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Partly supported

Blank: Mother took over family pharmaceutical business with no business background

“When he passed away, my mother was only 37 at the time, and without any business background she went in and started to run the business.”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 3:59 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Partly supported

Blank: Handy Dan and drugstore division were Daylin's only profitable units

“We were the only part of the company that was making any money, and they had a small home improvement center company in California called Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers. They were also making a little bit of money, but the rest of the company's all losing …”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 6:52 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Opinion

Blank: Bernie Marcus was a father figure, brother, and rabbi

“Bernie is he's 14 years my senior, and he's probably, you know, a combination of brother and a father figure, having lost my dad and a rabbi.”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 9:03 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Disclosure

Blank: Home Depot founders spent 75% of early time on store floor

“I probably spent 75% of my time, as did Bernie, as did really most of our associates, on the floor of the store, finding out from customers what is it they like, what didn't like, and we kept changing the mix, adding things, taking things off, changing prices,…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 19:06 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

Assertion Supported

Blank: The Atlanta Falcons never had back-to-back winning seasons before 2001

“Commissioner Tagliabue, at the closing when I bought the team, he said, you realize the team you just bought has never had back-to-back winning seasons, and I said, Paul, you know, Paul's the smartest guy in the room, not because he told you, it's because he r…”

Arthur Blank Dec 28, 2017 ▶ 27:12 Live Episode! The Home Depot: Arthur Blank

The other half of the tape: Arthur Blank's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 6 episodes on How I Built This. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Guy Raz 5 Jamie Siminoff 2