Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need To Know to Get Ahead

Chapter 1

The Company of One

Glenn Hutchins talks really fast. He’s also really tall.

The combination of the two means he’s good at making a deal and he could have played basketball.

So when Glenn made his riches in private equity, he bought a stake in a basketball team, the Boston Celtics. Glenn graduated from Harvard and began his career on Wall Street as a junior analyst at Chemical Bank, working—literally—in the basement. It wasn’t long before he catapulted up the food chain and built a $13 billion private equity firm.

On the day I went to visit him in his office, he was his usual amused and amusing self, padding around the place in his socks (he said he’d just been to the dentist which, at least to him, explained why he was shoeless). In the hallway were the remnants of a buffet lunch, which made me feel as if I’d arrived at the party just a little too late. Glenn being in socks only added to that.

“We do this everyday for our associates,” Glenn said, pointing to the salmon swimming in cooling mango salsa juices.

“That’s a nice touch,” I replied, grabbing a plate of the leftovers and heading to the private dining room adjoining Glenn’s office.

For some reason, giving employees free food is an instant morale booster. Perhaps because the profit margin for a person is 100 percent. As in, this is free, so I have 100 percent gotten my value out of this product, whatever it may be. There’s a familiar saying in journalism that if you want reporters to show up at a press conference, ...