You wouldn’t have hired Alec E. Gores when he got out of college — and he’s OK with that.
“I had a lot of things people didn’t see because they were worried about my grade point and all the other things,” Gores says.
Though Gores, the founder, chairman and CEO of The Gores Group LLC, ended up getting a job at General Motors, even the executives there didn’t see what his strengths were right away.
“My strength was I was tenacious, aggressive, and I was willing to learn,” he says.
Today, Gores, a self-made billionaire, doesn’t want to forget that tenacity. He knows that passion is the lifeblood for TheGores Group, a private equity firm that focuses on acquiring controlling interests in mature and growing businesses, so he refuses to let himself get complacent.
“It starts at the top, so I’m open-minded, especially when hiring new people,” he says. “You also have to continue to be nimble, even though you’re big, you have to be willing to make mistakes and keep challenging your people because if it becomes about running everything by committee, you’ve lost it.”
So Gores has made a career out of risks, hiring passionate people who may not have found a home elsewhere and buying companies that weren’t making it alone.
By keeping himself challenged, keeping employees challenged by letting them take risks and make mistakes, and bringing in young talent for a fresh perspective, Gores has been able to shake the complacency out of The Gores Group on a regular basis. As a result, it has continued to grow, acquiring 70 companies since its inception in 1987 while expanding to include offices in Colorado and London. Currently, it controls more than a dozen firms with billions in combined annual revenue.