CHAPTER ONE
STARTING AT THE BOTTOM
Unless your last name is famous—like Rockefeller, Kennedy, Vanderbilt, or Bush—you don’t start life with a boost up the ladder. The rest of us start closer to the bottom. When I was young, during the Great Depression and World War II, I delivered ice, sandwiches, and newspapers; sold magazines; mowed lawns; and worked as a construction worker, a janitor, and a rug cleaner to make money. Xerox’s Ursula Burns, the first African American female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, started out at the company as a summer intern. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was an intern and driver for Pete Rozell. Jim Skinner, McDonald’s CEO, began as a restaurant manager trainee. Jack Welch arrived at GE in 1960 as a junior engineer. ...
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