One Founder Bugged the Office, and Lost the Company

Employees shrank back as office trash cans went flying, Plank later wrote.

Raymond Plank, the founder of Apache, an oil and gas company that sold tax-advantaged shares in drilling projects, and his co-founder, Truman Anderson, were shouting at each other again in those early years. The arguments got louder, Plank later wrote, as the two men threw a wastebasket or smashed an ashtray.

It was not just temper. It was a fight over what kind of company Apache would be, and who would control it. Plank said his time horizon was long term. He wanted to build the business. Plank wrote that "Truman was impatient in his personal drive to become a high roller," a big spender chasing money and fame.

Plank summed up the split in his line: "Values are not created equal."

Then Anderson made the move that ended it. While trying to force Plank out of Apache, he secretly recorded their own offices and their board and conference rooms. Plank called it a Watergate-type blunder.

Anderson was kicked out. Plank took control, and he spent the next months writing his board a daily report on everything he was doing, so the directors would never be surprised. He started the reports during a rough patch and continued them after business improved, essentially overcommunicating between board meetings.

Plank wrote that "he started a car wash business that quickly fell from grace." He went broke, sold what Plank described as his fortress-like estate, and left town with his new wife for Denver, and then California. There he put together oil deals, "bringing a son into the business, and that business sank."

Plank wrote that "Truman had a heart attack and died, and I missed his funeral."

Plank put the lesson bluntly: "ego can quickly outstrip one's competence and fat heads get flattened."