I met Bernie Marcus, the great entrepreneur, philanthropist, and free market evangelist, last week at his spacious home in Boca Raton, Florida — and, of course, he wastes no time. He let me know his true feelings without any hesitation.
“I’m feeling particularly irritated,” Marcus told me as he sat down. “I have a lot on my mind. I’m about to have an interview.”
I told him I didn’t expect anything more.
Marcus is best known as one of the founders of Home Depot, which he worked with financier Ken Langone and businessman Arthur Blank to create a company that employs nearly 500,000 people in thousands of stores across the country. I started a company from scratch.
But the basis of the Home Depot story doesn’t do justice to Marcus’ legacy. He is a millionaire and proud conservative activist who grew up in his fourth floor apartment in a row house in Newark, New Jersey.
“We were poorer than I imagined. My ambition at the time was to earn $25,000 a year and support my family.”
He did much more than that. At Home Depot, Marcus created a business that now has $150 billion in annual revenue, tens of billions in wealth, and made billions himself. He donated millions of those dollars to charities and politicians he believed could make a difference in reversing the country’s decline toward a state closer to socialism.
Marcus retired from the hardware store in 2002, but that doesn’t mean he went to the beach somewhere. He’s fighting the good fight, writing checks to elect free-market elected officials in state and federal government. A little more than a decade ago, he founded the Job Creators Network, a free market advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of entrepreneurs and small businesses.
“Charlie, I’m 94 years old. Unfortunately, my brain is 60 years old and my body is 94 years old,” he said in a wide-ranging interview, making it clear that he doesn’t have much time left to fight the good fight. I was concerned about this. “I said this to all my friends, to everyone who would listen: If this election goes like the last one, this country will become a third world country. .”
Biden is an “inferior”
He blames much of the country’s woes on President Biden, who defeated Bernie’s friend Donald Trump in the 2020 election and is likely to run against Trump in 2024. . He called Biden an “inferior” and said he was “the most divisive president I’ve ever seen.” Labeling nearly half the country as knuckle-dragging MAGA Republicans is not a smart way to heal the country, and Biden insisted this is a priority.
Perhaps worse is Biden’s lack of mental fortitude (“someone is feeding him like a puppet”), the unforced spending and policy mistakes that led to inflation and an explosion in the federal debt. says Marcus.
As bad as Biden is, Marcus says he has misgivings about Trump. “Salaries went up, too. Minorities worked. Inflation was down during the Trump era, Marcus said. “But he can’t shut up.” Good perspective. . I brought up Trump’s toxic Twitter feed and his role in the January 6th Capitol riot, both of whom are successful politicians, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nicki. -Discuss whether or not they should give Haley a shot and back off.
As bad as Biden is, Marcus says he has misgivings about Trump. “Salaries went up. Minorities were working. Inflation was down during the Trump era,” he said. “But he can’t shut up. . . . He’s worried that if he’s elected, he’ll be going after his opponents, including the Republicans first.”
good point. I brought up Trump’s toxic Twitter feed and his role in the January 6th Capitol riot, both of whom are successful politicians, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nicki. -Discuss whether or not they should give Haley a shot and back off.
“I’m struggling with it right now,” Marcus said. [Trump] He has a policy of just following the script and doing what he’s supposed to do. ”
Marcus brings me back to his story, explaining why America is worth fighting for, despite its problems. In 1978, Marcus had just been fired as CEO of a chain of hardware stores known as Handy Dan. Not knowing what to do, he was talking to Langone, a hard-nosed investor, about his future.
Rangoon advised Marcus (in a very Langone way) to pursue an entrepreneurial venture he was considering, something called Home Depot. “Kenny said, ‘I just got hit in the ass with a golden horseshoe,'” and offered to “bring investors together to get me into the business.”
Home Depot was born and grew into a company with a market capitalization of $300 billion.
Handy Dan closed over 30 years ago.
Could Marcus build Home Depot today? It wasn’t easy back then. That would be nearly impossible now, he said. “Regulations and all this woke crap” made it nearly impossible to form a public company. They must satisfy not only shareholders, but also the “stakeholders” and asset managers who force CEOs to adopt enlightened business metrics like ESG.
“I’ve been running businesses for 60 years,” Marcus said. “I never wanted to get involved in social issues outside of business. That wasn’t my job.”
However, Americans are increasingly turning against left-wing economic policies. They hate Biden’s inflation, they hate corporate wokeness, and that gives Marcus hope for the future. He cited Budweiser’s struggles with featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in its beer ads.
“They were No. 1 . . . and they became stupid overnight,” he said. “The American people remember. Their sales will remain reduced.”
And he says the American people deserve to be saved from what he believes is a very likely progressive apocalypse. “That’s why, even at 94 years old, I’m still putting a lot of money into making sure we get the right people in front of them.”
Don’t stop, Bernie, don’t stop.
