• LAMB: : The reason I mention that is how old were you when the Staples thing started?

• ROMNEY: Well, let’s see, the first Staples store was probably 1985. And so that was 20 years ago. So I would have been 38 instead of 58.

• LAMB: : But what did you know then about starting businesses that made a difference as the plan unfolded and how could get money for this kind of thing?

• ROMNEY: Well, what I had done through my years as a consultant is I had worked with a wide range of companies, large industrial companies, small companies, analyze their businesses, spent a lot of time looking at their history, made recommendations, some worked, some didn’t, learned a lot from that experience.

As a matter of fact, by consulting with company after company, of being tutored by people who had more experience than I, I learned a lot. And after a decade or so in that industry, when I got into the venture capital industry, I took those lessons and applied them to the same investment arena that I had in the consulting arena.

And it’s basically saying that you have some principles that you know work and that you have seen them work time and again. At the same time you know that there is value to gathering new data and analysis of data and finding new hypotheses and then acting on them and looking for strong leaders.

The most important thing in a company, of course, is its leadership. And right behind that is its vision, its strategy, where it’s going. And in the case of Staples, this new concept that came along, I saw a leader who I thought was brilliant, idiosyncratic as well, but a brilliant leader, and the concept seemed powerful.

And even though everybody I talked to said it’s a bad idea, every adviser said, look, people aren’t going to leave their office to go shop for office supplies, this is a time of convenience, people don’t want to get into a car and go get office supplies.

I still was convinced by this leader and by the study we did that this idea had real merit. And look at it today, $10 billion-plus in revenues, Staples Center in California where the L.A. Lakers play. It’s a remarkable success story.

And I’m just proud to have been a part of the very first days, the very first investors on the board of the company for a number of years. And if you want, I’m a footnote in the Staples history, but I’m proud to be even a footnote.

Questions