HOME DEPOT FOUNDER BERNIE MARCUS WHO LED HOME DEPOT TO BE A PRO-HOMOSEXUAL STORE NOW COMPLAINS AND MOANS THAT “WOKE PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN OVER”

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus in 2007. PHOTO BY LOUIE FAVORITE/POOL VIA BLOOMBERG NEWS

 

HOME DEPOT FOUNDER BERNIE MARCUS WHO LED HOME DEPOT TO BE A PRO-HOMOSEXUAL STORE NOW COMPLAINS AND MOANS THAT “WOKE PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN OVER” 

 

The list of potential obstacles to entrepreneurial success in the United States today is long, according to Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot Inc.: human resources executives, government bureaucrats, regulators, socialists, Harvard graduates, MBAs, Harvard MBAs, lawyers, accountants, Joe Biden, the media and “the woke people.”

The 93-year-old retailer and billionaire is adamant. If he and co-founder Arthur Blank tried to launch Home Depot today, “we would end up with 15, 16 stores. I don’t know that we could go further.” As it is, the company’s unmistakable orange branding is found on 2,300 warehouse-sized do-it-yourself stores across North America, and the group has a market capitalization of US$300 billion and annual revenue of more than US$150 billion.

“I’m worried about capitalism,” Marcus says, in a video interview from his home in Boca Raton, Florida. “Capitalism is the basis of Home Depot (and) millions of people have earned this success and had success. I’m talking manufacturers, vendors and distributors and people that work for us (who have been) able to enrich themselves by the journey of Home Depot. That’s the success. That’s why capitalism works.”

Modern counterparts of Marcus and Blank are still out there, the veteran retailer believes. But there is no longer as much incentive to take the risks they took when they opened two stores in Atlanta, Ga., in 1979, a year after they were abruptly but fortuitously sacked by the home improvement chain they headed. Thanks to “socialism,” he says, “nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.’”

A Home Depot store sign in Los Angeles. PHOTO BY LUCY NICHOLSON/REUTERS

“We used to have free speech here. We don’t have it. The woke people have taken over the world.” — BERNIE MARCUS

Marcus knows his views are unpopular in some quarters of the increasingly polarized U.S. In 2016, and again In 2019, he triggered social media calls for a boycott of Home Depot after publicly backing Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns. (Trump tweeted in 2019: “Fight for Bernie Marcus and Home Depot!,” even as the company distanced itself from its co-founder’s remarks.)

“We used to have free speech here. We don’t have it,” Marcus says. “The woke people have taken over the world. You know, I imagine today they can’t attack me. I’m 93. Who gives a crap about Bernie Marcus?”

Here, Catherine Lewis, a history professor and co-author with Marcus of his new book, unmutes herself and gently steps in. “I think a lot of people care about Bernie Marcus,” she says, “because you’re saving their life every day.”

She is right. While one group of irate Americans threatens to cut up their Home Depot store cards in protest at his politics, another group is lining up to hug him and thank him for what he has given back.

Marcus embodies the version of American capitalism modeled by the likes of Andrew Carnegie. The industrialist spent the last two decades of his life giving away the fortune he had accumulated in half a century of hard-headed dedication to his business. Similarly, Marcus and his wife, Billi, were among the first signatories to the Giving Pledge, set up by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, under which billionaires promise to donate at least half their fortunes to good causes before they die. Over 30 years, they have donated more than US$2 billion to more than 500 organizations through their Marcus Foundation.

Source: FinancialPost, Andrew Hill

To read more, click here: https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/high-net-worth/bernie-marcus-worried-about-capitalism