Life After AND1

Seth Berger was the first big-name speaker that I landed at the first annual Business Boot Camp, way back in 1998. Back then, AND1 was known among the teens I worked with, but by no means the business juggernaut it would soon become. But even then, as he was in the middle of doubling sales each year for three or four years in a row (!), Seth and his crew were preaching the gospel of doing well by doing right. I couldn’t have asked for a better role model for my teen participants: a young guy, running a company that everyone knew about it, and saying that the most important thing to him was running that company in a way that was sensitive to people and to the planet as well as to profits.

AND1 ended up being bought out a few years back, and Seth and others made out nicely. If you read my blog, you know that one of Seth’s partners in crime, Jay Coen Gilbert, ended up starting B Corporation, which provides certifications to businesses based on their commitment to the pursuit of the “triple bottom line.”

I had lost track of Seth until I opened the paper earlier this week. Right there on the front page of the sports section was Seth exhorting the high school basketball team he coaches in a huddle. Which made perfect sense to me, that Seth would spend his post-AND1 years involved in basketball and in shaping the lives of young men. Kudos to Seth on the unusual but logical career move.