Ken Langone

Those numbers are what you say.

I had no idea whether it was 5 million or 9 million.

Well, it turns out it was 7 million of revenues and 3 million of pre-tax profits.

It was a staggering launch and the clear prospects that it continued its ascent.

So he thought, I want to think about it.

I left about two weeks later.

What he had done was he was calling all the other firms up and said, okay, what do you think I'm worth?

They settled in around 30 times.

Now when did May call me up and he said to me, are you comfortable with what you said?

I said, Ross, I'll say it again.

that you can continue this progression.

You just do simple math.

You got to cut the multiple every year by two.

So it's not going to take long to get this thing down to 25 times earnings.

But I said, I won't be able to tell you that until I can get a better fix on the business.

So he said, well, come on now, bring some guys down.

Let's get to know each other better and talk about how we do things.

He brought in a bunch of guys, one after the other.

I swear to God, he had some kind of machine that created these guys.

It was unbelievable.