Interview Transcript
Topic: A History Lesson for Business
Robert Hormats: Well I’ve just finished a book called The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars. And in that book I went back and had the opportunity to read about and write about many of the great leaders that this country has produced.
You’ve got George Washington who was a man of enormous character and talked constantly about not just what was good for his generation, but what was good for posterity. The founding fathers talked a lot about their posterity. They were building a system not just for themselves, not just for their children and grandchildren, but for decades and decades of generations to come. And they understood that they were in the building process. They were trying to establish something that had a great degree of permanence and would benefit people for hundreds of years really. They saw this as laying the groundwork for a new country which would have enormous benefits for the future.
And I think that’s one of the things that’s a very important part of the process today. And people who think that way, I find very inspirational.
It wasn’t just Washington or Alexander Hamilton who thought that way, or Jefferson, but Lincoln felt that way. He was preserving the Union not just for the people who were alive in the 1860s. He was preserving the Union for us. He understood this. He had a sense of vision about the Union for people who were going to come 100 years after him.
More recently, people such as Franklin Roosevelt, or [Harry] Truman, or [Dwight] Eisenhower all understood they were doing something, not just for their own generation, but something that would have a permanence and strengthen our society and our country. I think those people are people of great vision.
I think Martin Luther King, largely because again he was not just establishing or leading the Civil Rights Movement because he thought it was good for people at that point. He understood this was important for the country for the next thousand years.
And there are people like that who see the world not just in narrow context of what’s good for me and what’s good for our society at the moment, but how you can build a stronger, more robust society which is more inclusive, which give people more opportunities. And almost every leader who is truly great, or can be labeled as truly great, was thinking not just about the next election or the next poll, but what kind of legacy can I leave that will be remembered 50 years, 100 years down the road? What will I be leaving to the future? And I think if you think about people in that sense, they’re the people who inspire me and I think many others as well.
Recorded On: July 25, 2007
A History Lesson for Business
Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs (International)
Hormats talks about his book, The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars.
January 6, 2008 | In Arts & Culture, Business & Economics, History, Politics & Policy
Discuss
Jen Something on January 12, 2008, 3:00 AM
Have you heard of Christopher Story?
Or Leo Wanta?
Bob Chapman on January 18, 2008, 4:44 PM
It’s tragic that this man and the institution he represents – finance – has been short sighted and selfish…even sophist. I’d rather see him and his colleagues act like the very people he praises. Of course, this would require a massive pay cut for him and his colleagues, and perhaps a Hippocratic oath similar to what physicians abide by.
No, what comes out of Mr. Hormat’s mouth is pablum and doublespeak.
Jen Something on January 21, 2008, 7:40 PM
Hear that? Nobody trusts you. Selfish greedy stealing from the poor to kill innovation cures and solutions.
www.thesanitycheck.com
www.investigatethesec.com
www.businessjive.com/nss/darkside.htm
Really, SHAME ON YOU.
Grill Factor on January 24, 2008, 4:20 PM
Don’t be mistaken about what this man is talking about. He is talking about great leaders not neccessarily great men. Who hear would call Henry Ford a great man? He is most certainly one of the greatest American leaders. Let us not forgot about the tremendous destruction and pain that led to the founding of these great United States. If this nation were a motor then greed would most certainly be the oil (pun intended)that has allowed it to run.
Jen Something on February 13, 2008, 10:43 PM
You invested in everyone BUT RON PAUL!!!
That seems very odd!
www.investigatethesec.com
www.thesanitycheck.com
ALEX HAYWOOD on March 7, 2008, 4:02 PM
It is unfortunate that the messenger and not the message is the subject of attacks and/or discussion. Debating “finance” and what if anything could have been established without it aside, and forgetting for a moment, the preceived integrity (or implied lack of) the messanger and the institution; one has to at least admire that the messenger is attempting to share and therefore add to the collective consciousness and awareness of humanity. We would be served well to realize that although actions ( and I have to add that I have no bias pro or con since I do not know the genleman although I am familiar with the institution ) speak louder than words, we collectively can not accomplish anything without ideas. Therefore, ideas that aspire to greatness, and admiration and the perpetuation of that admiration for greatness serves us all well in the long run. I, for one, would like to thank the gentleman for having the courage to share with us that he finds inspiraional.
Stone Riley on April 4, 2008, 4:44 PM
Okay, LGHTWRKR, I will give an opinion only of the message rather than the messenger.
The message strikes me as shallow and repetitious. It is obviously a good thing to look ahead and work for the future, but the gentleman reduces this virtue to a platitude. He repeats it over and over, merely attributing the thought to various famous heroes, with no effort at all to reflect upon it. Very disappointing.
shawn disney on March 24, 2009, 11:49 PM
I also admire the Founders, but we should note that by the time of Lincoln, he himself had doubts about the precedent of dictatorial powers that he was both exercizing, and perhaps reluctantly creating. How right he was! We have created the most recent incarnation of the British Empire, and Empires, even though staffed by saintly Americans, have proven to be not at all what the world of the future needs: Empires are not democratic, or representative, or responsive to minority needs, and tend to evolve into authoritarianism.
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