One Volunteered Talk Became 10 Years of Research and a Business Book

About 20 years ago, Will Thorndike, an investor with the firm Housatonic, raised his hand to volunteer. Every other year, Housatonic gathered its current chief executives, former chief executives, and prospective chief executives at a small resort it could take over in the western United States. There were headliner speakers for that group, including researcher Jim Collins, who once previewed his Good to Great findings, and author Michael Lewis. There were also shorter, practical talks, and Thorndike said he would give one of those.

He then had to choose a subject. He had read about Henry Singleton, the little known founder of Teledyne, a 1960s conglomerate, and decided to do a close study of what Singleton had done.

That one volunteered talk turned into about 10 years of research, done at a pace of one chief executive a year, and then into a business book with a devoted following among investors and executives.

The work started with a library problem. Thorndike said he needed material stored at Harvard, in the Baker Library, which he called "an amazing repository of primary information," and that he needed to work with a Harvard Business School student. A talented student named Ryan, who had worked at Housatonic that summer, had already committed to another project, so Ryan pointed him to his tennis doubles partner, a student named Aleem.

In the first semester, Thorndike said, the two did a deep analytical study of Teledyne and its conglomerate peers and wrote it up as a detailed presentation. In the second semester, they interviewed everyone still alive who had dealt with the company, because Singleton himself had died about five years earlier. That included George Roberts, a former president, venture capitalist Arthur Rock, and investor Charlie Munger, who were generous with their time.

That detailed presentation was the key that got executives to give time for interviews. Thorndike said Teledyne "was a famously reclusive company, like many of the companies in the book." The detailed work stood out from typical analysis, and executives found it interesting enough to give him time. Thorndike and Aleem even traveled to the West Coast to visit people in person.

As Thorndike was writing up the talk, Aleem made an offer. If Thorndike wanted to do another study the next year, he knew a talented student in the class behind him. That was John Gilligan, with whom Thorndike next studied Capital Cities, the broadcasting company. A rhythm formed, one company a year. Only after the third or fourth study did Thorndike think the work might become a book.

Thorndike, who describes himself as a practitioner and investor rather than a writer, calls himself a slow writer, and the project grew on its own. He now describes the resulting book as about resource allocation more generally, with three parts: capital allocation, talent management including decentralization, and how managers spend their time. One sign of its reach came later. After a talk, an audience member told him about a friend. The friend had read the book's brief, page and a half mention of Nick Howley and TransDigm as a modern counterpart to Capital Cities. He had done his own work, made a very large investment, never sold a share, and now lives in Bali.