The lesson of Clairtone
May 31, 2010
While reading an issue of Canadian Business, I came across a story about Peter Munk, co-founder of Clairtone, that really inspired and motivated me.
Of particular interest was this excerpt near the end…
My father became a serial entrepreneur — one of Canada’s most celebrated businessmen. When Clairtone collapsed, however, not many people were betting on him. He’d lost his credibility, and they’d lost faith. An exception was Frank Sobey, the empire builder from Nova Scotia who, as president of Industrial Estates Ltd., made the grand mistake of backing my father in the first place.
In 1968, when an inquiry into the Clairtone affair was held in the Nova Scotia legislature, Sobey was called to testify. Even as he came under attack, he defended my father. “It’s a good thing we have people like Peter Munk in Canada. He’s a builder. He has the ability, he has the energy, he has the courage to go out and create industries. It’s people like Peter Munk that created all our industries in the United States and Canada…Invariably they lost most of their capital in doing it, because they went too fast and too swift.”
Sobey wasn’t finished. “It’s people like that that trigger industrial development, people like Peter Munk that have courage. The people that sit back without courage, and do a lot of talking and a lot of criticism, make no contribution to the industrial development of our country.”
Heck, yes. How’s that for a kick in the butt?
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