Because my (first) film was so popular, I contemplated dropping out of college to produce a second film, but I was terrified to make that bold decision. My parents told me, “Don’t ask our opinion. We have complete confidence in you. You’re good at school. If you want to go back to school, you can go back anytime you want. What you’re doing is something that’s unusual, and if you love doing it, just keep going. Do it.”
—Greg MacGillivray, who went on to make the
world’s most popular IMAX movies
About the secret to winning negotiations? One word: Listen. If you can keep your mouth shut and resist the natural human tendency to fill the silence, it’s amazing what people will tell you. They’ll often tell you things that are against their own financial interests. If you have a strong point of view, a command of the relevant facts and figures and an ability to listen, it’s not overly complicated. I’ve found that remaining quiet and being a good listener is a powerful skill when it comes to negotiations.
—Jeff Moorad, sports agent turned
entrepreneur/investor
In 1967, Allergan acquired a 24-acre industrial site from the Irvine Company and built a new 100,000-square-foot production facility… After going public in 1971, we built a new six-story headquarters building that included research. I put in a little park with a track, a baseball field, tennis courts and exercise areas. We were a startup company that nobody knew anything about, so we had to do some things to differentiate ourselves. We focused on good facilities because you spend most of your life at work.
—Gavin Herbert, Allergan founder
NFL football is not only the most popular sport by a two-to-one ratio but also the most heavily watched form of televised entertainment in the country. Of the 100 most-watched TV shows in America in 2024, 70 were football games. Topping that list was the Super Bowl, which attracted 130 million viewers. We’ve never had a situation like this. It’s no wonder that streaming services have joined networks to bid billions of dollars for these games.
—Leigh Steinberg, sports agent often referred to as the real-life
inspiration for the “Jerry Maguire” movie
My father never once told me that I had to join the bank. He simply said banking was a good clean job versus other industries… Ken said, “F&M has long been a Walker family tradition, and seeing my children and grandchildren rise to the helm of these organizations, bringing with them a new level of business expertise, is fulfilling on many levels for me. This is more than just a business for our family, it is part of our family culture, and we take its success personally.”
—Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach
CEO W. Henry Walker
Surfers in the early days got a reputation as beach bums. What savvy insiders soon found out was that Orange County surfers built the world’s action sports apparel into a multibillion-dollar industry. In fact, most of the major brand companies in the surf industry either launched or landed here in the coastal communities of Orange County.
—Scott Hays, co-founder of OC World
I can draw the parallels between Mats Steen’s life and my own. I also fell into video games because it was a way for me to be competitive and keep up to date with friends… “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin” reaches towards your base human emotions and brings them to the top. When I’m watching with an audience, the sniffles start early, and the river of tears opens by the time we reach the end.
—Hawken Miller, whose family started the
CureDuchenne nonprofit
Decades ago, when Disneyland was still a twinkle in Walt Disney’s eye, he hired my dad, Harrison “Buzz” Price, to recommend a site for a place soon known as “the Happiest Place on Earth.” After lots of study and number crunching, Dad proposed a site in Orange County as the future home of Disneyland, putting Anaheim on the map. Some have called my dad the “godfather of theme park feasibility.”
—Architect David Price
All Ken Tait’s oil company client base was clustered around downtown Los Angeles, and the conventional wisdom was that a consulting engineer needed to be near the client… In 1964, Orange County was somewhat of a semi-rural afterthought in the mindset of Angelenos. Sure, there were nice beaches and Disneyland, but not much else other than bean fields and orange groves… Ken saw Orange County as a land of raw and wild opportunity. Wide valleys separating the foothills and mountains from the splendor of the Pacific Ocean.
—Tom, Rich and Trevor Tait on why the patriarch of
Tait & Associates chose Anaheim
I was born in Saigon during the Vietnam War and contracted polio at age 2, leaving me paralyzed from the waist down. Not long after, I was found abandoned on the streets and taken in by an orphanage. At age 4, I was placed in one of the final Babylift flights out of Vietnam and brought to the United States, where I entered foster care before being adopted by Gregory and Judy Bean…. With their love and support… I found not only stability but a deep sense of purpose.
—Dr. Stefan Bean, Orange County
Superintendent of Schools
I hitchhiked up the road about another thousand miles to Cape St. Francis… The surf was fabulous, but nobody lived there… When I returned two years later to California, I showed my pictures to my friends, including Bruce Brown and Hobie Alter. I said, “Bruce, you’ve gotta go where I’ve surfed.” He finally followed my trip with two surfers, Robert August and Mike Hynson, to make the film “The Endless Summer.”
—Dick Metz, former owner of
Hobie Sports shops
Our dad fled China after World War II… He eventually got to Balboa Island, where he opened a Chinese restaurant, which was doing okay. A serendipitous moment ultimately influenced how we would later run Wahoo’s. In 1973, local publicist Gloria Zigner held a private party at the restaurant to celebrate her husband’s birthday. She represented John Wayne’s wife, Pilar, who attended the event. When John Wayne, who lived in Newport Beach, arrived to pick up his wife, he ended up taking a photo with our dad. Soon, word spread around Orange County that John Wayne had celebrated his birthday at his favorite restaurant. No one ever corrected the story, so the myth became the legend.
—Brothers Wing Lam, Ed Lee and Mingo Lee,
founders of Wahoo’s Fish Taco
I found myself in charge of 300 Taco Bell restaurants with no prior restaurant experience… This was my first opportunity to apply Marine Corps leadership principles to a business at scale. Taco Bell was struggling to increase same-store sales at the time. The corporate playbook was to cut field overhead costs by thinning out first-line leaders. That approach made no sense to me as restaurant managers needed more support, not less. I went against the grain… I repackaged basic Marine Corps tactics for business… It was a “bet your career” situation that fortunately worked out and ultimately led to my promotion to chief operating officer and founding executive of Yum Brands.
—Tom Davin, a well-known OC executive who
passed away in September
I developed a sales technique: create a friendship with your customers. If you create friendships and ask for a sale, a friend will help you and a stranger will not.
—Mark Chapin Johnson, founder of Chapin Medical
When I was a lonely 10-year-old, I slipped into the music room and began playing the bass line of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” A student passing by stopped to ask: “Is that ‘Billie Jean’?” He called his friends. Suddenly, I was surrounded by kids asking, “Can you play this? Can you play that?” I played every request. And in that moment, something shifted… Instead of the stigma and judgment that often shadow a child who is homeless, what I saw in their eyes was regard, unexpected, affirming and real.
—Deborah Wondercheck, founder and CEO of Arts & Learning Conservatory
To this day, higher education is still operating in a bubble because they ignore the needs of the marketplace. Currently, companies like Oracle, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon all have their own training verticals that are as large as many university programs. This trend will continue to put traditional colleges out of business.
—Fardad Fateri, former CEO of International Education Corp.
