Tony James

That's where I grew up, yeah.

Where Jeff had been the number two, sorry, Jim had been the number two there.

And Jeff recruited him to come start Costco and open the same thing in the Pacific Northwest.

Um, there was a research report from a Goldman analyst named Joe Ellis that sort of laid out the business model and it was very, very powerful and elegant.

Um, and so, and it was proven in one case and, and the Pacific Northwest was a very good market, very affluent, very good market.

Jim was one of the best executives I've ever met.

Maybe the best.

He's not, he's driven.

He's excellent on the smallest details of execution, but also the biggest principles.

He knows exactly, you know, he never compromises.

He never does something that's expedient.

It's always about serving the customer and driving the competitive advantage to where no one else can go.

Just relentless about that.

And incredible standards of excellence.

And focus, focus, focus.

And, you know, the guy traveled 225 days a year.

So, you know, as a CEO.

And was at every opening, knew the price of every item in the store.

And so you can't meet a guy like that who's a total force of nature and not be blown away.

At the same time, he was coupled with Jeff Brotman, who was a clever lawyer, real estate lawyer, and also owned some retailers up in Seattle.