General Electric

The $500M price came from a casual kvetch with a new COO

Smith never planned an exit. Venting one morning, his GE-trained COO of one year asked if he'd ever sell; Smith said he'd sell for $500 million off the top of his head. The COO made calls and the deal happened.

“And he said, "Well, geez, you know, have you ever thought about selling this?" And I said, "You know, I tell you what, if somebody offered me $500 million, I would sell it." And he said, "Oh, okay." And I'm serious. This is the way it happened. So this guy who had worked corporately with GE for some time, he said, "Well, let's see." And he called some people and we got it going. It happened.”