Q Now, that deal, I think, was, based on my research, what October, mid-October, 1990, and it was about, you bought it for about two hundred million bucks. How did you value the business? What were the assets? How'd you get to that valuation?
A That's a funny story. I was the 12th bidder for the company. I came into the company with 11 other bidders, and I said to you, I said, So what's it going to take to buy this company? And they gave me a number and I said, okay, I'll do it. And I, I bought the company out ahead of those other, um, 12, 12 bidders because I was willing to pay asking price, knowing that I could leverage the company substantially more than other people realize. The other thing importantly I did was I made every single employee in a sixty-year-old company about 4000 employees. Every single employee became a shareholder. And when they went from being an employee to being a shareholder, They switched almost overnight their attitude from being an employee to being an owner, and I think that made the difference.
AI assessment note: “I bought the company... because I was willing to pay asking price”