AT 82, KEN LANGONE is in a permanently reflective mood. Ask the billionaire dealmaker about his six-decade career, and he can seemingly summon up a story about anyone or anything. If he can’t remember right away, no matter. His office, on the 22nd floor of Manhattan’s Seagram Building, is crowded—from floor to ceiling, spilling across conference rooms and into the reception area—with items that spark his memory.
On the wall in a corridor nearby is a framed slip of paper: a New York Stock Exchange first-trading-day certificate from April 19, 1984. Home Depot had gone public on Nasdaq in 1981 (it later switched to the NYSE), three years after he cofounded it—and the tale of its origins is one of Langone’s favorites.
In 1978, he and his friend Bernie Marcus arrived at the Waldorf-Astoria to have breakfast at the hotel’s Peacock Alley restaurant—and to plot. Marcus had just been fired from his job running the home-improvement chain Handy Dan and was frustrated with the way the top executives of its parent company, Daylin, had treated him. “Cool it,” Langone told his friend. He had an idea he was pretty sure Marcus would like: Why not start their own home-improvement company?
Marcus drew up a plan with a third cofounder, Arthur Blank—stores as big as 75,000 square feet, with goods priced at a discount and purchased directly from manufacturers—and Langone raised the money for the venture. Only three years later, Home Depot went public at $12 a share and hit $51.5 million in sales in fiscal 1982 (some $136 million today).
“I can’t tell you how many thousands of people educated their kids, bought a home, bought a car, because they came to work with Home Depot and were with us for a long time,” Langone says. “It was a place they could live their dreams.”
Although the ink has faded on the framed certificate and the accompanying newspaper clip showing the day’s stock prices, Atlanta-based Home Depot has not. With sales over $100 billion, its stock has risen more than 1,400% since its IPO.
Langone’s Parents:
His father was a plumber, and his mother ran an elementary-school cafeteria. Neither attended college; both badly wanted to see their son do so. Langone graduated from Bucknell University in 1957 but was once nearly expelled when a fraternity stunt at a local Dine-a-Mite diner went awry (Langone and friends broke a toilet) and the cops were called.
Arthur Blank, Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone at the Olympics:
During opening night of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, all three Home Depot cofounders mugged for this photo. Home Depot was one of the Games’ local sponsors.
Framed Photo of Langone:
An editor at Leaders magazine sent him this gift. Attached to the frame are, yes, tiny suited businessmen bowing down to Langone like worshippers before an idol.
Painting of the NYSE:
Langone served on the board of the New York Stock Exchange from 1998 to 2003; in his final year, he commissioned impressionist LeRoy Neiman to capture the colonnaded edifice.
Eliot Spitzer Dartboard:
Langone holds a grudge against Eliot Spitzer. The bad blood goes back to 2004, when Spitzer, then New York’s attorney general, sued NYSE chairman Dick Grasso and Langone, alleging that Langone, as chairman of the stock exchange’s compensation committee, had overpaid Grasso. The New York State Supreme Court eventually dismissed the state’s claims.
Framed Issue of Forbes:
“Despite a net worth easily exceeding $275 million, Langone comes across as almost aggressively unpretentious. ‘I’m a peddler. It comes naturally to me,’ ” he told Forbes for a profile in our November 22, 1993, issue.
Shoe Rack:
While in the Army, Langone once served a punishment of polishing 24 pairs of paratrooper boots. Each pair took an hour to do, and afterward he swore he’d never wear unshined shoes again. A bootblack comes once a week to Langone’s office, and if a pair is set out facing backward by the window, the shiner knows to spiff them up.
NYU Langone Award:
Many New Yorkers likely know Langone’s name because one of the city’s premier hospitals bears it: NYU’s Langone Medical Center. He has donated $200 million to the facility and received this glass sculpture in 2016, when the institution’s new Kimmel Pavilion, reached its full 21-story height.
New York Yankees Baseball:
Langone has several balls signed by Yankee greats, including this one autographed by the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio.
Autobiography:
The title of Langone’s new memoir sums up his attitude nicely: I Love Capitalism! It hit bookshelves in May. “The system is not great,” Langone admits. “But it’s the only one that works. I look at America and say, ‘How wonderful!’ “
