Ken Lagne Tells PTJ About HD's Early Days And Its Competitive Advantage

RobinHood Conference 2017 coverage continues with this FIRESIDE CHAT WITH KEN LANGONE. There will still be much more so stay tuned but you can get up to date. Our landing page for all the notes can be found here, also sign up for our free newsletter
Speaker: Ken Langone (BoD of Robin Hood: Co-founder of Home Depot), Paul Tudor James (Founder of Tudor Investment)
Scariest day in the investment career of Ken Langone?

[klarman]

The day JFK was assassinated.
When the relationship with Cuba was unstable.
When a question arose on how we were going to behave like human beings.
When International Revenues were at 10%.
Opinion on a commitment to owning equities?
Ensure you own something if you want to be rich.
People who get into finance for the money are in it for the wrong reasons.
You need to be enthusiastic, passionate and love what you do.
What did you see in Marcus/Bernie to make you want to partner with them for HD?
If you go to bed with dogs, you will wake up with fleas.
I saw that Bernie was a real merchant with high values.
Also, handy Dan was 81% owned by the public and the person running it was not doing a good job.
Arthur Blank?
He is excellent at understanding margins and how everything impacts them.
He never paid minimum wage since he viewed employees as their best weapons.
He wanted employees to feel like they owned the business.
The founders believed that by dispersing ownership, people would be motivated to work since they have a stake in it.
3K people who started by pushing carts at HD are now worth millions.
What is the center of every lucky business person?