The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!)

Learningto lead is

easy.

Just show up and

try.

30

The Ten Roads to Riches

Making

Material

Progress

Th

e company was called

Mat

erial Progress

Corpor

ation (MPC)

and was funded with mostly East Coa st venture money and some

Bay Area rich individual money. It had leading-edge scientists and

was to grow an

arr

ay of exotic garnet crystals used in electronics.

It

had proprietary technology in crystal growing and polishing.

It

got

funded, yet wasn't going well.

Eventually the board demanded a new

CEO

.

The

y still loved

the concept and technology so th ey ran a search for a top-tier

CE

O

and

put

up more mon ey to expand. M eanwhil e,

MPC

was rudder-

less and bleeding money. To stanch that, I

got

to play part-time,

interim

CEO

. My charter was simple. I was to cut costs as much as

possible to reduce losses without losing the key scientific or oper-

ational people.

It

was 1982.

Thing

s were tou gh everywhere.

Th

e

world was in recession. Poco was starving and pretty recessed him-

self. I needed income.

Thi

s was it.

On Mondays I worked from my n

orm

al office doing my work

and theirs. Tuesdays at 3:00 AM I'd drive two h

our

s to Santa Rosa

where

MPC

was located.

I'd

stay through

Thur

sday evening, drive

home, and work Friday in my office again. I got paid by

MPC

by the

day, like a consultant.

There

were about 30 employees in one facil-

ity. I'd never managed anyone.

Now

I had to. And I did ok- much,

much better than I expected. And do you know what I learned