Russ: This is the BusinessMakers show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is that show about people that make businesses and about people that make business happen.
John: That's right, and these are people who really risk it all and create and bring to our country and society a much better standard of living than most other places around the globe-
Russ: Absolutely.
John: -that don't have the system we have here.
Russ: Absolutely. Our system works.
John: Yeah, it does.
Russ: All right. And this is episode number 300 of this show. We've reached the trifecta of hundreds now and we're going strong.
John: Trifecta of hundreds.
Russ: Yeah.
John: I've never heard 300 enunciated so eloquently.
Russ: Well thank you.
John: I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
Russ: All right, and here's our lineup for today. Our guest is a former guest that we had on the show back in 2006; that's Jerry Lasco, the founder and CEO of Lasco Enterprises. They're the company that owns and operates and continues to open more of their very successful Tasting Room and Max's Wine Dive. In fact, The Tasting Room, get this, John, they serve more wine by the glass than any other wine bar in the galaxy. Anywhere.
John: The galaxy?
Russ: The galaxy, yeah. There's no wine bar anywhere that serves more wine by the glass than The Tasting Room.
John: Okay.
Russ: And The Tasting Room just happens to be where we're going to host the BusinessMakers of the Year Awards and celebration next week, March 10th. And so if you're interested in joining us here in Houston, Texas at this event, please go to thebusinessmakers.com and you'll figure out how to register and sign up, and at the same time you can even vote.
John: You can vote. You can vote. Right. Right. Yes.
Russ: Right. Absolutely. We're running this thing with a voting piece to it, and it's going to be a happening event. But first [No audio from 0:01:57 to 0:02:07] that's right, it's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business. And this is the way we kick off the show each week, with our education component. We feel totally obligated to provide this service, even though we're not charging for it.
John: Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. It's - what more could you want?
Russ: Yeah, I mean, and we've done it - I mean we haven't done it 300 times, 'cause we didn't do it for about the first ten episodes.
John: What?
Russ: Those people - the School of Business.
John: That's right. Right. Yeah.
Russ: Those people - those poor people got screwed.
John: They did. Well, we were just starting out.
Russ: And we didn't know what we were doing.
John: That's right.
Russ: Unlike today, right?
John: Well, I don't think we know what we're doing now either.
Russ: All right, and we kick off the School of Business with the quote of the day each week.
John: Quote of the day, yes.
Russ: And today's quote is going to come from Mr. Warren Beatty.
John: Warren Beatty.
Russ: You bet. "You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play." So have you ever been there?
John: Been where?
Russ: When you don't know if your work is work or play.
John: Well some people do both.
Russ: Yeah, I know.
John: Like Warren Beatty, he worked pretty hard at his play and played a lot in his work.
Russ: That's right. Some people play at work too much probably.
John: It's like the old "business is pleasure" thing.
Russ: That's right.
John: Sometimes peoples' pleasure is business and some peoples' business is pleasure.
Russ: And sometimes it's none of your business what my pleasure is.
John: That's right. Yes.
Russ: All right. All right, so that brings us to This Week in Business History.
John: All right.
Russ: I don't know if you've noticed it, John, but what's interesting about these history lessons is that they seem to repeat themselves.
John: Well history repeats itself. How many times have you ever heard that?
Russ: And this is proof right here, right?
John: This is proof, right. Yeah. 'Cause, you know, there's only so many things that we can dig up that were business-oriented that happened on certain times.
Russ: That's right. And that's why sometimes we venture out of the category of business too, right?
John: That's right. Yeah, 'cause it's our show.
Russ: That's right.
John: We can do anything we want. It's a free country.
Russ: All right. Well what happened, though, in This Week in Business History?
John: Well the New York Stock Exchange was founded this week in business history in 1817. A bunch of people met under a Buttonwood tree and-
Russ: [Laughter] A Buttonwood tree?
John: A Buttonwood Tree in Lower Manhattan and they started this thing.
Russ: And they signed I think the Buttonwood Agreement. Right?
John: This was called the Buttonwood Agreement of 1817.
Russ: That's right.
John: Twenty-four stockbrokers.
Russ: Yeah.
John: On the head of a pin on Buttonwood - it's a Buttonwood tree.
Russ: Do you think it was always their plan to be merged and acquired by a German or a European operation?
John: No, no. I think they'd be probably spinning in their graves, assuming they're in a grave.
Russ: Yeah. I mean it's not done yet and you keep hearing these kind of rumors about the NASDAQ, thinking, "Well maybe we can put together some friends and acquire it and keep it here."
John: That's right. Yeah, you know, Bernie Madoff ran NASDAQ there for a while. Remember that?
Russ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he did.
John: He was one of the founding drivers behind that whole deal.
Russ: That's right, yeah.
John: Look where that got 'em.
Russ: Maybe they ought to bring him back.
John: Yes. This week in business history in 1849 Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent. He's the only U.S. president to ever apply for a patent. What happened was as a young man he was taking a boatload of merchandise down the Mississippi River down to New Orleans and the boat slid onto a dam and was set free. And in later years, while traveling on the Great Lakes, Lincoln's ship ran afoul of a sandbar.
Russ: Sounds like he wasn't a very good captain.
John: Well, I know; he grounded his ship, man. You can get court-martialed in the Navy for doing this.
Russ: That's right. That's right.
John: But anyway, he created a device for buoying vessels over shoals.
Russ: A device for buoying vessels over shoals, wow.
John: Yeah, patent number 6,469.
Russ: Wow. Interesting.
John: This week in business history, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, after doing some nefarious maneuvering, was awarded the patent for the telephone. We talked about this a little while ago.
Russ: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, big patent week. And it's interesting that here we are, you know, a couple of hundred years later, 135 years later, and we thought there wasn't anybody other than Alexander Graham Bell that was competing.
John: Well, that's why it's good to have our show bookmarked on your computer.
Russ: Yeah. There you go.
John: 'Cause, you know, we find out these things.
Russ: There you go. All right.
John: This week in business history, 1931, the birth date of Rupert Murdoch, the Australian publisher of the New York Post, Fox Television, the Wall Street Journal, which I think he's made into a better newspaper. Everyone's kind of, when he bought the paper everybody thought he was going to ruin it, but I think it's a much more readable paper.
Russ: So he's like 80 years old now, and-
John: Well, 31 from 2011.
Russ: And 11, yeah, he's 81.
John: That's right.
Russ: Yeah. I love what he does. I understand, I think it's his children that don't particularly care for his type of journalism. I understand they're fairly far to the left.
John: Well, you know, that's the problem with a family-owned business.
Russ: Yeah, family-owned businesses. Yeah.
John: Sometimes the founder becomes at odds with the offspring.
Russ: The offspring, yeah. Yeah.
John: Yeah, and sometimes things don't work out like they should. And we'll be talking about that in a little while.
Russ: Okay, well-
John: An example of that. Not things not working out, the way a founder of a family-owned business, you know.
Russ: Yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned a while a go Bernie Madoff, and NASDAQ, that was a family-owned business too, wasn't it?
John: That's right. Look where that guy is. One son committed suicide.
Russ: Yeah, it didn't work out good for the kids.
John: No, it did not. No, no, it didn't work out for his customers either.
Russ: That's right. So we'll see what's going to happen to Mr. Murdoch. Now Mr. Murdoch also launched the Daily Review only like two or three weeks ago, and we know the company that built it for him is the Chaotic Moon Studio guys in Austin that we had Worley on the show, and going to try to get them to come back and talk about it. But for an 80-year-old, man he's pretty progressive.
John: He is. He's a free - he's a good thinker, you know, and I think he's done a lot to help the media business.
Russ: Okay.
John: This week in business history in 1933 the game of Monopoly comes into existence. That can be traced back to 1904; a Quaker woman named Elizabeth J. Maggie Phillips creates a game which she hoped to be able to explain the single tax theory of Henry George, whoever the heck he was. The game was called The Landlord's Game and it was developed to kind of illustrate what happens when someone has a monopoly on real estate. Later on, in 1933 - she did this in 1904 - in 1933 a guy named Charles Darrow was, refined the game, and Parker Brothers, you know, took it over later on. But it's been a, you know, 750 million have played the game, making it the most played commercial board game in the world.
Russ: Well, and so like Parker Brothers kind of like has a monopoly now on the game Monopoly.
John: Monopoly. This week in business history in 1959 Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx's final TV appearance together.
Russ: Wow, that's a shame. What a loss.
John: Yeah, well, they're all dead, so nothing lasts forever.
Russ: It's going to be hard - it's going to be hard to bring 'em back now.
John: That's right. No reunion shows are scheduled here. Okay, this week in business history in 1971 Radio Hanoi broadcast Jimmy Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner".
Russ: So they were kind of making fun, they were mocking us, right?
John: Well, I don't know what they were doing, you know, but I'm sure-
Russ: They might not have even known it was the "Star Spangled Banner," right?
John: I know. I know. Jane Fonda, you know, was probably there egging 'em on.
Russ: Yeah. Yeah, she probably was. It was probably her idea.
John: It was probably her idea. Yeah, it probably was. Yep. And then she went into her workout videos. This week in business history in 1971 Rolling Stone Mick Jagger marries Bianca Morena de Macias.
Russ: Bianca, and she still goes by Bianca Jagger, even though they were only married about 20 minutes.
John: Yeah, right; it was a quickie marriage and divorce, all wrapped up into one day.
Russ: Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause if they were still married today it would be like their 40th wedding anniversary.
John: I know. How boring would that be?
Russ: [Laughter] Yeah. Right.
John: All right. This week in business history in 1981 Walter Cronkite signs off as anchorman of CBS News, succeeded - talking about a family thing, not succeeded, but succession planning, succeeded by Dan Rather.
Russ: Yeah. Was Dan his son?
John: Dan - well, no, Dan thought he was his son.
Russ: Did he?
John: Yeah.
Russ: [Laughter] He did?
John: This week in business history in 1983 IBM releases PC DOS 2.0, and then two years later IBM PC DOS 3.1, which is an update, is released.
Russ: Yeah. So a lot happened this week in the IBM DOS world in this week in business history.
John: I know. Boy, you talk about - I mean 1983's not too long ago, but what a dinosaur, a relic of that whole computer business was back then.
Russ: Well, you know, and to me what's most interesting about IBM DOS is that it was really Bill Gates' Microsoft DOS that he licensed to IBM and it enabled him to sort of take over the world. It was just such a fascinating time to watch IBM give up that world and not understand like they should've.
John: Yeah, they gave up - yeah, they gave up the design of their PC-
Russ: Operating system, yeah, completely, yeah.
John: -operating system. Right, yeah. This week in business history in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as a Soviet leader. I think Chernenko died.
Russ: Well, that was usually the way the succession plan worked over there, wasn't it?
John: That's right. Yeah, that's another advan - another, you know, the Soviet government you consider a business, and there's succession planning would be either exile, imprisonment, or ____ ______-
Russ: No, usually it's death.
John: -or death. Yeah. This week in business history in 1994 the Supreme Court of the United States rules in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that parodies of original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use. There have been a number of parodies that have come along and the Supreme Court ruled that, you know, if you do parody something that's in the public domain or, you know, wildly popular, that you can parody it.
Russ: Right. Right. And this one was a rap parody by 2 Live Crew of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman".
John: "Pretty Woman," right. Yeah. This week in business history in the year 2000 NASDAQ composite stock market peaks at 5,132.52, that's the index number, signaling the beginning, that was the high-water mark of the dot-com revolution.
Russ: Right. That was it, man. We didn't know it at the time, you know, but-
John: Yeah. Boy, I wish we had.
Russ: Yeah, I do too. And it plummeted and still hangs around the 3,000 mark, you know.
John: Yeah, it is. Yeah, and it has come back a little bit, but it's going to take a long time for it to, you know, come back to where it was.
Russ: Yeah. All right, that wraps up today's history lesson.
John: That's all I got.
Russ: Not bad at all. Had several succession plan lessons in there.
John: Yeah, we've got one coming up here in our infamous dumb moment.
Russ: All right, and then we pay-
John: This would be like a dumb era of business history.
Russ: Right. There you go. And we paid homage to the Buttonwood tree.
John: The Button - oh, where would we be without the Buttonwood tree?
Russ: Yeah, when they - if they sell the New York Stock Exchange, you know, to a foreign country, they should consummate the deal right there under that same Buttonwood tree.
John: Where the Buttonwood tree. Yeah, I don't think the same tree is still there.
Russ: Yeah, it's probably gone. Do you think it's gone? It's probably a parking lot now, right?
John: It's probably a parking meter there, where the Buttonwood tree used to be.
Russ: All right. All right, and that brings us to the Jargon Challenge Round, also known as our vocabulary lesson. I find a new word, challenge John to come up with a meaning, and that's the way we play.
John: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay.
Russ: No betting, please.
John: All right.
Russ: You ready?
John: Mm-hmm.
Russ: Today's word is a verb. Haven't had a verb in a long time. Retox.
John: Retox.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Tox is, you know, something that's toxic.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And when you retox that means you may have had something in your body that was toxic and got rid of it, then it comes back and you've been retoxed.
Russ: Boy, you're so close. I'm going to just give you a hint, but I know it will push it over the edge, you know.
John: With no hints, right or wrong? I'm-
Russ: You don't want the hints?
John: I don't want the hint.
Russ: Well, you know, I might just give you a win anyway, but the hint I was going to give you was detox versus retox.
John: Mm-hmm. Well detox is when - so Charlie Sheen-
Russ: Probably needs some detox.
John: He needs some detox.
Russ: 'Cause he keeps retoxing.
John: He keeps retoxing. That's an addictive-
Russ: Yeah, to resume the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, Oxycontin, whatever it was that you went through treatment for, you retox.
John: Yeah, right. You decide, "Hey, this wasn't so bad."
Russ: Yeah. [Laughter] You go, "I think I can handle it."
John: I felt a hell of a lot better before.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to Dumb Moments in Business. Do you have a story for us today?
John: Yeah, this is a family-owned business. Now we've been talking about succession planning, and usually what happens with family-owned businesses, the founder tends to stay on too long.
Russ: That's a common problem.
John: Common problem. You have, a lot of experts in family-owned businesses will tell you that's one of the number one problems, is the old man never wants to-
Russ: He wants to give it up to the kids, yeah.
John: -give it up to the son, and here's what's happened. You know, the Kaddafi family, you remember them in Libya they're a fairly successful family.
Russ: Yeah, right.
John: The U.S. has seized $30 billion of their investments and Canada's frozen about $2.4 billion, Austria $1.7, there's some real estate portfolios of property in the West End Theater and shopping district of London. I mean there's things all over the place.
Russ: And so you're saying the dad just hung on too long, Muammar.
John: The dad, he hung on ______ - yeah, he's being overthrown. You know, in this case his business is ruling the country, and apparently the people who are being ruled have like had enough, and you've got to feel sorry for his son, who's been, you know, waiting in line to take over.
Russ: For 40 years thought he was going to be the CEO, right?
John: That's right. Yeah, and he's turning out to be a big loser in all this.
Russ: [Laughter] Right.
John: Saif al-Islam Kaddafi-
Russ: Poor say.
John: Yeah, he's not - it looks like he may get left holding a bag of nothing here, 'cause, I mean, you know, it's - he may be lucky to get out of there with his life.
Russ: Lesson number one in family-owned business is don't hang on too long. It's kind of Bernie Madoff, he did it too, right?
John: Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, he - well, yeah, what happened to him though was he, you know, he was selling worthless securities.
Russ: Well, it's not too different from being a dictator.
John: That's right, being a dictator, right. So if you're going to be a dictator my advice to you is-
Russ: Or a Ponzi schemer.
John: Or a Ponzi schemer, you know, a couple billion - get your billion, a couple billion here and there and then get out while you can.
Russ: Get out. Let the son have his shot at it.
John: That's right. And if he gets caught and overthrown and dragged through the streets-
Russ: That's his problem. [Laughter] Hey, he had it coming.
John: He had it coming.
Russ: He just wasn't as good a manager as you were.
John: As just the old, yeah-
Russ: If there was _____ he probably went to school and got a degree in dictatorship, and was really ready, and it was getting close to taking - 'cause, you know, Muammar is up there.
John: You know, there's all these schools in entrepreneurship and business. I wonder if there's - I wonder where the dictator schools are.
Russ: We ought to - we need to do a special on that.
John: We'll have to do that, yeah. How to become a dictator and what course work you'd have to take and what the valedictorian speech would be.
Russ: Yeah, that's where people, you know, probably Hosni Mubarak is probably teaching there now.
John: Well, I don't know; he may be a guest lecturer. He may be an adjunct professor, 'cause he can't be too comfortable, you know, staying in one place too long.
Russ: That's true. We always thought that Fidel would be teaching there someday, but he just keeps hauling his-
John: He keeps hanging on. Now he's a guy who successfully has hung on.
Russ: He could teach, 'cause how you do this, Fidel? _____ that.
John: Yeah, right. You know, Kaddafi would've been well-served had he established a mentoring relationship with Fidel Castro.
Russ: But I do think Fidel did have a mentoring relationship with Hugo Chavez, and I don't think Hugo's gonna - you know, if I was Hugo's son I would be saying, "Dad, I think it's time to move on, man. This isn't working out very well."
John: That's right. Yeah, I would definitely agree. But this is a perfect example of not executing your succession plan in a timely manner.
Russ: That's right. All right, before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneurs Playbook.
John: And our succession in our show from this segment to his segment, Greg Price, has always gone smoothly.
Russ: It's a good demonstration of how you ought to do that.
John: That's right. Here we go. Here he is.
Russ: A one, and a two, and a-
