Irving

"K.C. Irving was a master of vertical integration. Why sell someone else’s gasoline when you have an automobile dealership and service stations and when you can refine it yourself? One of his grandsons explains, “One company building and buying from or selling to one another and building a base that would allow you to export or expand into new markets and new products elsewhere. It was good then, and today it’s still just as good for us.”9 Another of K.C. Irving’s firm beliefs was in work, focus, work, and"

"thing. Building one from scratch was quite another. By the time Wallace arrived, the McCain brothers had a fair idea of the challenges ahead. Yet neither Harrison nor Wallace ever lost faith. I once asked Harrison if he ever regretted leaving a secure, well-paying job with Irving. “Christ, no,” he said, “no sense looking back. We were in it and that was that. Best years of our lives, best years of our lives.”"

"So, I turned down Steve Ross’s offer of $150,000 a year and lots of perks, and Irving’s offer to run the largest cable operator in the U.S., to join Bob Magness, a down-on-his-luck cable operator whose company was running fast but deep in debt. Starting pay: $60,000 a year. I look back on that decision, and I smile at how naive I was at the time. You are unafraid of what you don’t know."

"Irving, on the other hand, invested in or acquired other peoples’ businesses, especially when the ideas that defined these companies were compelling to him. His passion wasn’t to operate the companies, but rather to bet on the quality of their senior leadership. Evaluating human potential was every bit as important to him as any business idea."