Tony Simmons - Part 1: "Do Not Plan Your Life On It"
For 25 years, Tony Simmons sold construction cranes. Then a phone call brought him home to Avery Island, Louisiana, and into McIlhenny Company, his family's company and the maker of Tabasco, where he became the seventh family CEO.
In part one of our three-part conversation, Tony walks me through the basics of a 158-year-old family company, from Edmund McIlhenny's start as a destitute banker after the Civil War to a family home kept for 208 years.
Then we turn to his own path: being told not to plan his life on joining the business, a board seat he never asked for, 12 years as his cousin Paul's understudy, and why he thought about the job the way a physician does: First, do no harm.
21C Links
In part one of our three-part conversation, Tony walks me through the basics of a 158-year-old family company, from Edmund McIlhenny's start as a destitute banker after the Civil War to a family home kept for 208 years.
Then we turn to his own path: being told not to plan his life on joining the business, a board seat he never asked for, 12 years as his cousin Paul's understudy, and why he thought about the job the way a physician does: First, do no harm.
21C Links
- Twenty One Clear website: https://www.21clear.com?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-15-do-not-plan-your-life-on-it&utm_content=show-notes
- Adam Hatcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhatcher
- Subscribe to the Twenty One Clear newsletter: https://21clear.substack.com/
- Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fIBHaZJ5oEk
Bumper Music
Still Hot
by Nic D, Connor Price
(c) Lossless, 2023
Episode Produced By
https://snapmarket.co
Chapter Timestamps
(00:00) Cold Open: One Red Thing, a Million Red Things
(00:15) Welcome and Introduction: Meet Tony Simmons
(02:44) McIlhenny Company by the Numbers
(04:34) Edmund McIlhenny, From Destitute Banker to Founder
(06:35) Avery Island, McIlhenny Company and Tabasco
(10:15) "Don't Plan Your Life On It"
(12:16) Twenty-Five Years in Cranes
(15:16) A Surprise Board Seat and 12 Years as an Understudy
(17:29) What an Outside Career Teaches
(19:10) The Seventh Family CEO: First, Do No Harm
(21:15) The Burlesque Opera of Tabasco
(25:34) Drift and the Long Horizon
(26:31) Coming Up in Parts Two and Three
Creators and Guests
