The Ten Commandments for Business Failure - Don Keough [59]
David Blomquist, a true renaissance man, has had to suffer over these years by often taking my thoughts and ideas and helping to rationalize and organize them. David has challenged me when my thinking was vague and unclear and in the process helped shape my written and spoken words into messages appropriate for every audience.
Niall O’Dowd, the cofounder and publisher of Irish American Magazine and the Irish Voice and recognized as an important player in the Northern Ireland peace process, has been a confidant. With a typical journalist’s exploration, he has discovered a great deal about my heritage, which has found its way into this book and other publications.
This little book would certainly have remained unpublished had it not been for the courageous determination of Adrian Zackheim, founder and publisher of Portfolio. Courtney Young, my editor, raised cogent and thoughtful questions and offered suggestions that greatly improved the quality of the manuscript.
Alfred Lord Tennyson in Ulysses observed that “I am a part of all that I have met” and that is especially true in my case. My early years, obviously, were greatly influenced by my mother, Veronica, and father, Leo. My mother, who loved music and painting, instilled in me a love of the arts and literature. My father, who suffered through a series of family setbacks, was always passionate about the future, achieved his business goals, and put integrity as the number-one measure of a well-spent life.
Through the years, I have been blessed to know and work with and for an amazing collection of individuals: among them, Paul Gallagher of Paxton and Gallagher, Clarke and Gilbert Swanson, Charles Duncan, Luke Smith, Paul Austin, Roberto Goizueta, Herbert Allen, Barry Diller, Jack Welch, and Jimmy Williams.
Robert W. Woodruff, patriarch of The Coca-Cola Company, welcomed me into the Coca-Cola family and I enjoyed the great privilege of spending time with him in the later years of his life.
Warren Buffett and I first met each other in 1960, when I bought a house across the street from him in Omaha. Our long, close relationship is a book in itself. I count it a great honor to serve on the board of Berkshire Hathaway. What is there to say about Warren that the world does not know? Well, I can say he is a dear friend and a wonderful human being who is at the top of his game. He is the world’s greatest simplifier. Take complex economic theories or business problems and in a biblical way, he makes easily understood parables out of them. He is everyone’s hero, including mine.
I retired from The Coca-Cola Company on April 14, 1993. The next day Herbert Allen asked me to become nonexecutive chairman of Allen & Company. Herbert in a very real sense is the most remarkable man I ever met. He is a special combination of wit and wisdom, generous to a fault, interested in the major issues that confront our society, and a closet intellectual. When I joined Allen & Company, he probably thought I’d serve for a year or two. Fourteen years later I’m still here. He’s stuck with me. My title is grand, my responsibilities are less than modest, and I’m having the time of my life as part of this family-run firm. It’s exciting to be Herbert’s friend and business partner and to work with his sons and a cadre of remarkable associates.
Every now and then you cross paths with an individual who makes an enormous personal impact on you. For me that person is Father Ted Hesburgh, the ninety-year-old president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame. Father Ted is a multidimensional person: priest, educator, public servant, confidant to six presidents, a three-time special ambassador, thirty-five years as president of Notre Dame, the past chairman of overseers at Harvard, and an individual with the most honorary degrees in history. Time magazine