Unlike the objective of far too many companies, manufacturing is not about a quick exit. It is centered on long-term value creation.

I love innovation, I love competing. I hate my competitors. You cannot be in the world of business when you don't have this consciousness of winning.

But as the business grows, you get more attention, and then you realize that the whole world is trying to get time from you. Which is amazing. But every time you give it to the world, you give less to what you’re doing.

A closed plant is like a cemetery; it really is. The walls will talk to you; the machines will talk to you if you really talk to them.

Unlike the objective of far too many companies, manufacturing is not about a quick exit. It is centered on long-term value creation.

Growing up in eastern Turkey, I was not really involved with the family business - sheep and cow farming, yogurt and cheese making. But I think I learned from my father the unspoken business language or instincts that go back thousands of years.

I started a feta cheese company, Euphrates, in upstate New York in 2002.