If I died suddenly, it would scare the hell out of the shareholders, and after missing our quarterly earnings, well, we just couldn’t afford a loss in confidence from Wall Street. If I weren’t so exhausted, I’d have fought the decision, pushed on my allies to support me and maybe, just maybe, pulled out a few less-than-clean tactics to ensure my position but…they were right. It’s time to retire.”Īll it takes is one little heart attack for the wolves to come out. You’ve built this company from the ground up and we all respect you. “Charles,” they said, “you’re a great guy. Of course, the board of directors didn’t much care for that kind of talk. Fifty years was not long enough.īut what are you going to do when the doctor tells you that things aren’t looking good? That the stress of daily meetings, frequent plane trips and eighty hour workweeks was going to kill you? Personally, I’d rather die behind my desk than sit around and watch tepid police procedurals for the remainder of my life. Me? I’d much rather be sitting in my office, running one of the most successful corporations in the world.

That’s the word just about everyone my age talks about, their eyes lighting up at the prospect of sitting around and playing bingo and golf for the rest of their days. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.įifty years is a long time to be doing anything.

CivCEO 3 by Andrew Karevik