Wealth: Grow It and Protect It, Updated and Revised

Foreword to the Second Edition

I joined my family’s controlled public company in 1996, as a wine salesman in New York City. I was 27 and newly married. The team there taught me a lot of things about our company, industry, and much more. There are stories from those days that I’ll never forget. At the top of the list was a chat with a colleague, while we were stuck in traffic on the Pulaski Skyway, between Newark and Jersey City, trying to get to a sales call. It was ice cold, and, after too much time watching exhaust float into the steel ribs of the bridge, he eventually took me through the ups and downs of his own family’s business before it was sold. Turning the corners of his mouth down, he advised calmly, “Never mix family and business.” ...