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Jim Koch Highlight
The big risk would have been staying at a job that wasn't fulfilling and wasting my life. That's a risk. Quitting it to do something that I really loved and believed in, that's not a risk.
About Jim
- After a year of law school and a year of business school, he realized that at 24, he hadn't done anything but go to school.
- Dropped out; joined Outward Bound as an instructor; spent three-and-a-half years traveling, mountaineering, kayaking, etc.
- After his "prolonged adolescence" ended, he went back to school, got his J.D. and MBA, graduated at age 29.
- Joined a consulting firm in Boston; was making a lot of money, being flown around the country in first-class.
- Knew he didn't want to be at that job for more than 10 or 15 years; started thinking about what he really wanted.
- Loved the city of Boston, but realized that they were missing a key factor: a world-class beer.
- Calls Samuel Adams and Boston Beer Company "the one little tile that [he] added to the mosaic of Boston."
- Although he knew little about brewing, selling beer, says his "cultures and values" acted as fair substitutes for "hard resources."
