My Time at Bain
I was not one of the original investors of Bain Financial when it was founded in 1984. In fact, that year I was still an undergrad at Notre Dame. However, I did well enough for myself and the company that when Mitt Romney left the company in 2002, he retroactively made me CEO beginning in 1999.What people forget is just what a different time those heady days were. America was attacked. At that time, we were worried that al-Qaeda could attack anywhere at anytime. In fact, one of our greatest fears was that they would target a large mall in the middle of the heartland. That was exactly the type of place where many of our investments like Sealy and Burlington Coat Factory were located.
It soon occurred to me that the best chance we had to protect our businesses from terrorists were to move them out of this country to safety. We took the same approach in moving our money overseas as well because we