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

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

by Ken Fisher, Lara W. Hoffmans
November 2009
Beginner to intermediate content levelBeginner to intermediate
256 pages
10h 55m
English
Wiley
Content preview from 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
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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780470481554Purchase book