Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2018. Its figures are from 2018: Langone aged 82, married 61 years, a fortune of about 3.5 billion dollars, and Home Depot with more than 2,200 stores. The lunch with Jeff Bezos “last year” means 2017.
Kenneth Langone is 82, a billionaire, works every day, has been married for 61 years and is happy. So his lessons deserve careful attention. James Altucher interviewed him.
The co-founder of Home Depot has more than 2,200 stores and a fortune of roughly 3.5 billion dollars. In these lessons he talks about building wealth, success and courage, and also about honesty and keeping your word.
Ken Langone’s 5 lessons on life, success and business
1. Invest in good people
Ken is clear that his company and his success are the result of the hard work of many people who have got involved with him. Of good people, above all.
We all lean on people, so we need to be very clear about which kind of people we can lean on. Think of them as stools you are going to sit on. If you invest in broken or faulty stools, you are going to fall.
“…But I don’t like being fake. There are people I don’t like and I don’t want to be around them. I’ll be kind to them, but I’m not going to go out to dinner or lunch with them,” Ken admits.
As we have said on several occasions, no entrepreneur succeeds on their own. We owe it to the people who travel the road with us. So you have to choose your circle of friends, your employees, your managers and so on very carefully. That is why, while you should give your best for the people who are worth it, you should not hesitate to fire a bad apple in your company or to tell the people who add nothing to your life to get lost.
See also: He founded a company at 19 with only 1,000 dollars: 15 lessons from billionaire Michael Dell
See also: 3 ways to accelerate success
2. Achieve what you want
He makes this lesson very clear. Achieve what you want, but… “It should never be about the money,” says Ken. “It should always be about the achievement.”
Here’s Ken Langone:
“I’m 82 and I go to work every day. If it weren’t for the fact that I need sleep, I’d like to work 24 hours a day. If they didn’t pay me a cent, I’d still want to work this hard, because I love what I’m doing.”
See also: 4 differences between how the rich and the poor think
3. Be curious
Altucher asked Ken what he thinks of Amazon and the way it is taking over the market.
Ken says he had lunch with Jeff Bezos last year. He was so impressed that he told people:
“Watch out for Bezos. He’s smart and he’s humble. That’s a winning combination. He’s an incredibly smart and talented guy, and on top of that he knows how to reach and connect with people who aren’t as gifted. He’s a winner.”
Another trait behind Jeff Bezos’s success is his incurably curious mind. And curiosity is one of the traits most often associated with success. In fact, as we explained before, curiosity was one of the keys to Leonardo da Vinci’s genius.
But as a business lesson about competition, Ken says:
“I think a great competitor will make you a better competitor if you have the guts, if you have the stamina and determination. If you have hunger and fire in your belly.”
4. Invest in good people (part 2)
This is Ken Langone’s favourite lesson.
“My secret weapon always was, and always will be, those young people who put on the uniform every morning and understand that the goal of the company is not to sell something to someone. Those young people who understand that the goal of the company is to make someone happy and leave them satisfied with what they bought in the store.
Don’t sell someone a €40 item if a €2 item can meet their need.”
If you fill the company with people who understand this message, they will grow as people and as workers. In turn, they will help others grow. And so my company will grow.
5. Integrity
Contrary to what many people think, real millionaires are not what people imagine. Ken admits that his old idea of a millionaire (before he became one) was to picture those men as selfish, greedy monsters.
Instead, every billionaire he has met tends to be kind; they smile, they laugh, they have feelings and a desire to improve society and people’s lives.
They are all individuals with different personalities, but they usually have a strong moral compass and total dedication to their business and their work.
Maybe money helped them relax. And maybe success helped them stay humble.
In fact, in the book Ken Langone wrote, I Love Capitalism!: An American Story, he tells the story of his father, a New York plumber during the Second World War. There you can see the beginnings of this man and his son: a drive to get ahead in life and the start of the road to success for a very humble man.
Featured image: Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
