What were some business lessons you learned growing up?

There were aunts and uncles who were always trying to start businesses of their own. And my grandfather would always be focused on profitability. He had a saying: “Any fool can lose money.” He wouldn’t care whether you were selling shirts or tomatoes or you were in the trucking business. It’s in the back of my head every time I see a business plan. I’m always focused on “When will we make money doing this?”

My grandfather also built great teams. I watched him put some of his children, aunts, uncles in positions of authority and then fire them if they didn’t perform. He didn’t care. Either you can do the work or you can’t do it.

What else?

He used to say all the time that everybody is replaceable. He used to do this thing called a bucket test. He would be arguing with one of his employees, and he’d call me in and say, “Get a bucket of water.” So I’d bring the bucket of water to the room, and he’d say, “Lloydie, put your hand in the water.” Then I’d take it out, and he’d say to his employee, “See that hole that Lloyd left in the water? That’s the hole you’re going to leave when you leave here.”

The guy was usually trying to get some big salary, trying to explain how invaluable and important he was. Once every eight months or so, my grandfather would call for the bucket of water. So I have a pretty high bar for calling someone irreplaceable. If I hear that, I’ll say, “Why? Is it Steve Jobs? Is it Einstein?” Everybody’s replaceable.

When you went to college, did you have an idea of what you wanted to do for a career?

I wanted to be a medical doctor. But when I looked at how long it would take, and how much debt I’d be in afterward, I decided to go into electrical engineering. There weren’t enough people with engineering skills at the time. I didn’t even have to interview for my first job. They just came to my school and said, “Send the kids with the four best grade-point averages. We need them to start on Monday.”