My favorite leader is George Washington. Because he came from very modest circumstances. He wasn't the son of a plantation owner. He was the son of a farmer. He had no formal education, very frustrated. He started writing a diary when he was in his teens, and he wrote things like, "When I grow up, I want to be respected. When I grow up, I want to be successful. When I grow up, I want to know things." What I find fascinating about Washington is he wanted to make something of himself.
Les WexnerI think leaders lead themselves, but leaders have ideas and maybe they're visionary ideas. Probably today, people would say Steve Jobs was a visionary because he invented this little gadget, the cell phone. But he didn't invent cell phones, and he didn't design the cell phone. He just took a couple of ideas and put them together, and no one else put those same ideas together as successfully as he did. But he had something that he was trying to do that intrigued him, and he could do it very well.
Les WexnerI think different societies, cultures, individuals, teams of people, make the world a better place. The founding fathers, they made New England, they made those 13 colonies. I don't know if they thought they were changing the world or just changing their world, but they did make the world a better place. Doctors that cure patients or cure diseases or make discoveries, they're making the world a better place. Can I make the world a better place by selling underpants? Not really. That's just the means. That gives me resources to try to make the world a better place.
Les WexnerI was single for most of my life. The best thing that happened to me is my wife. I've got four kids. All of them go to Harvard. Much better than their dad. They're really bright kids.
Les WexnerYou have to keep being curious. The notion that the present is different than the past, and the future will be different than the present, and the present is past, as we say it. I think I, by nature, am an optimist. Maybe I was driven to escape from my childhood and to be something, create my own world or career the way I wanted it to be. And I keep doing that in very interesting ways.
Les WexnerI'm unhappy with the President Trump. I don't like his behavior, and I'm a Republican, and I don't like his policies because they're almost the antithesis of the American character of generosity, of charity, of welcoming, of helping, of taking risks. You think of the lives that were expended in World War I and World War II to help others, and they say now we'll draw up the bridge and we'll protect ourselves. We won't have a broader role in humanity.
Les Wexner