Last Updated: May 29, 2008: 11:54 AM EDT
Email | Print    Type Size  -  +

Lessons of the fall (cont.)

By Patricia Sellers, editor at large

Donald: I offered to go to work for David. [Laughter.] Founders have a way of being engaged in the business, being emotionally connected to that brand or to that product that you don't see anywhere else. So would I work for a founder? Yes, absolutely.

Zander: I worked for a founder - Scott McNealy at Sun (JAVA, Fortune 500). That was a phenomenal experience. The other side of the house is Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500). The founding family was gone before I got there, but trying to change a culture of 80 years is very, very tough.

Neeleman: I can't even imagine working for a company. I need to create something. When I get to the point where I can't run it anymore, I just need to give it to somebody who can run it.

David, you're the only one in this group who knows what he's doing next. Tell us.

Neeleman: More insanity. When I left JetBlue (JBLU), I thought there were two things I didn't want to do: start another airline and run a public company. But the stars aligned in Brazil. Brazil is the country of my birth. I hold dual citizenship. The investors all came together. They gave me the $150 million.

That's $150 million to build a new airline you've just named Azul. How much money have you put in personally?

Neeleman: Ten million.

I started with 25% of the company, with 80% of the voting control - in a country I absolutely love and that is just exploding. The economy is just vibrant. There are about 42 million people a year traveling by air. I have a friend who has a bus company, and he has 25,000 employees. He told me that two years ago, nobody in the whole company had a credit card, and now everyone has a credit card. Everybody has a cell phone.

What's the biggest difference between building Azul and building JetBlue?

Zander: It doesn't snow down there.

Neeleman: Yes, we're not going to be deicing airplanes. No ice.  To top of page

Company Price Change % Change
Ford Motor Co 8.29 0.05 0.61%
Advanced Micro Devic... 54.59 0.70 1.30%
Cisco Systems Inc 47.49 -2.44 -4.89%
General Electric Co 13.00 -0.16 -1.22%
Kraft Heinz Co 27.84 -2.20 -7.32%
Data as of 2:44pm ET
Index Last Change % Change
Dow 32,627.97 -234.33 -0.71%
Nasdaq 13,215.24 99.07 0.76%
S&P 500 3,913.10 -2.36 -0.06%
Treasuries 1.73 0.00 0.12%
Data as of 6:29am ET
Sponsors

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.