Brad Jacobs

Everything is one, one, one, one, one.

Because you have visibility into the business and you can manage it better.

You have clear understanding of what's going on in real time.

You have your finger right on the pulse of what's going on.

And it's really important when you're leading a company, particularly when it's growing so fast,

you have the controls in place, you have the oversight, you have the governance in place.

When I was younger, I used to be concerned about the inevitable fallout when you do integration, because people whine and scream, oh, I like this, I've been using this.

And there's some temporary discomfort, but it's worth doing that.

You've got to do it really fast.

The other types of mistakes I made earlier in my career in acquisitions were sizing up the people.

I think I've gotten better at that.

You start seeing patterns

different types of personality types, different character traits and so forth.

And that's the most important thing you can do is make sure you get fantastic talent.

First of all, I never buy a company if I don't really like the seller.

Because I've seen a correlation between how I feel about that seller and how that deal turns out one, two, three years later.

The integrity of the seller is really important to me because the company that seller has created reflects the integrity or lack thereof of the owner or of the CEO of the senior leadership team.

It reflects the work ethic.

It reflects integrity.

The amount that they are collegial and respectful and collaborative or not, I really need to like the seller.