My father - a Lebanese-origin small businessman - had a stroke in 1997 and couldn't work anymore. I paused my career and made sure he was taken care of by overseeing the sale of his businesses, but after that, I was able to dedicate myself to politics. It's what I had always wanted.
Valuations are actually quite simple to grasp. A company is only worth what two acquirers are willing to pay for it. Don't you just need to find that one buyer? If there is only one potential company interested in buying your startup, chances are you won't be hearing the word 'billion' in the offer.
My greatest regret is selling my company.
It's a little different when you spend 30 years developing all these companies that we just ask [Donald Trump] to sell them. So I don't think that's a fair request.
I certainly have no desire to sell a good controlled business run by people I like and admire, merely to obtain a fancy price. However, specific conditions may cause the sale of one operating unit at some point.
Buying a company that is number one in its business is hard to do. When something is for sale, it's often not a leader.
There is a real sense of loss when a family sells a business they've spent generations building. I wanted to get some of that back.
Too many entrepreneurs think their valuation is the real economic price of their company. It's not. It's not a real economic price unless you are selling 100%.
You don't want to sell a business to someone that you think is a Dane, or an American, or a Greek, then find out it's Chinese money or control behind it.
After selling the business, and the Patrick Cox brand in 2007, I had a three-year non-compete, where I just spent a lot of time hanging all over the world on beaches and having fun.
I want to be very clear: if we are to sell this business, we are not a forced seller.
It used to be that you would go in to see a CEO, and you would ask them, 'Is your company for sale?' and if they said 'No, we have no interest in selling,' that was sort of the end of the conversation.
You take something like RingCentral. It doesn't need any more money or financing: it is relatively mature, recurring revenue business - not really worried - but you know, we could sell it tomorrow. We have not been in a rush to sell it. We don't care about exits as much. We care about building fundamental value.
