Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Ken Langone
[00:00:00] S1: Oh, God. I've got so many kind things done for me. I can't count them. I'll give you a for instance. Here's one thing. I worked in a butcher shop as a kid among my many jobs. I had two or three jobs at one time. So I worked in the butcher shop, and the guy that ran the butcher shop didn't know I worked for the supermarket down the street, down packing, fixing the shelves up when the store closed, nine o'clock at night. He had a fight with the owner. He was his competitor. Anyway, next to the butcher shop was a liquor store. And the Ormon family ran it, maybe we had five Jewish families in town, Roslyn. Lenny Ormon, good man, came to me, said to me, "Hey, kid, do you want to make a couple of bucks?" I said, sure. A couple of bucks, I'd kill you for a couple of dollars. What do you want me to do? He said, "I want you to just -- I got cardboard boxes that the liquor comes in. I put them out there." He had a little porch out the back the store. He says, the garbage company will come and take them. You've got to take them down 150 yards to where there's a spot where they pick them up. What you gotta do is take the boxes from there to there, and he says, "I'll give you $1 a week, do it two nights a week, 50 cents." You got it, Lenny. About three weeks after I'm doing it, one day, I'm carrying the boxes. The guy on the garbage truck stood there, putting the boxes. But I noticed he's breaking the boxes up. What are you doing with the boxes? They're worth a lot of money. Well, yeah, he says, I break them up and I tie them up. And I take them to the junkyard, and they buy the scrap paper. How much do you get? And he says, "Oh, probably get three bucks a day." You're kidding! "Yes." So I go back to Lenny. I said Lenny, we got a deal. I said, if you let me break the boxes up, stack them in a pile cause when the box is broke, you got a lot of space. I'm going to tie them up with twine, and you don't have to pay me for it. "Why not?" That's because I'd be able to sell it. "Okay." True to form, making $3, $4, $5 a week selling the boxes. About a year after that, I'm walking past the liquor store. He said, "Hey, come here." He said, "Hey, I hear you're going to college? I said, yes. Come on in. Takes me in. He had a counter, and he had a little opening to the back. At the back, he had a shelf at the back of the counter. Here's the counter.
· Ken Langone, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
He'res the little shelf. At the back of that shelf, he had a little desk where he did his bookkeeping. Takes out an envelope. He said, "I hear you're going to college." He said, "You might need this." He put $1 a week in the envelope. Through all those weeks, I was selling his stuff. If you talk about kindness, there have been so many people who have been so kind to me, I can't count them all. People are good. Talk about kindness, if you gave me a month, I couldn't have enough time to list to all the people that have been good to me and kind to me. This is one of the reasons I believe in God. I really do. That's me. [00:00:00] S0: Your story, your book, all your ideas, they're wonderful. [00:00:00] S1: Remember this. The most important thing, on that book cover, An American Story. That only happened in America. This is the genius of America, that a poor kid, rough around the edges like me could do okay. That whole premise, not cause of how I'm born, not with a silver spoon in my mouth, just the chance to live in this great country was all I needed. [00:00:00] S0: I've so enjoyed our time together. Thanks for doing this with me. Cheers.