Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

by Bo Burlingham

For Fritz Maytag, that moment came as he was getting ready to take Anchor Brewing public. For Gary Erickson, the moment arrived as he was preparing to sell his $39-million-a-year company, Clif Bar, for $120 million. It was an April morning in the year 2000, and the deal was all but done. The papers were ready to be signed. The buyer’s representatives were waiting. Although Erickson will say only that the acquirer was a midwestern food conglomerate, other sources have identified it as Quaker Oats. In any case, he knew he should have been thrilled. He was getting a fantastic price, and his 50-percent share would set him up for life. Just eight years before, he had been a more or less destitute long-distance cyclist, rock climber, and musician. He’d developed the recipe for his energy bar in his mother’s kitchen and named both the product and the company after his father. Now here he was, about to walk away with $60 million. What more could a man ask for! And yet as he stood with his partner, Lisa Thomas, in the company’s offices in Berkeley, California, he felt miserable. His hands began to shake, and he had trouble breathing. Realizing he was having a panic attack, he excused himself and went outside for a walk.