My name is Theodore Blackstone III, but I go by Teddy. I am 58 years old and came from a family of inventors and engineers. My great grandfather came to America and started from nothing. He had a 5th-grade education and had begun working in the steel industry at the ripe age of 17. By the time he was 21 he led a team of over 130 men who would work tirelessly to provide the steel needed for the ever-growing demand of the American industry of the time.
When he reached 30 years of age, he was inventing new types of equipment for steel production which led him to start his own manufacturing company. Theodore the 1st had 8 kids. 6 boys and 2 girls. The firstborn, my dad, was Theodore the 2nd, or TB as he was called by the family and friends.
Theodore eventually became too old to continue the work and travel required to run a large fast-growing company. He eventually made the difficult decision to retire.
Theodore had begun to groom TB to take over the business almost at birth.
Theodore would take his firstborn everywhere and to meet everyone. By the time TB was 23 he basically ran the business like a partner of my grandfather.
When TB was asked to run the business when grandpa retired everything went on as normal, it ran very successful in every way and continued to grow.
TB loved his brothers and sisters and made sure the other siblings were able to lead a life of luxury from his and his father's hard work.
One of the kids, Samuel or Sam as he was called, became an archeologist. He had chosen to travel the world looking to discover great things. All the kids lived under the limelight of TB. Except for Sam, he had wanted to create his own fame to show he too would be important to the family name.
By the time Sam was 30, he had not married and kind of disappeared from the family. When I was young, I didn't know much about Sam. My father had always told me he made a few discoveries, but would never say what he discovered. I always assumed at the time he was just being respectful to Uncle Sam.
One thing my dad would always include when talking about Uncle Sam was that he ended up being a lady's man who went off to a life of his own. I had always understood what my dad meant, so I did not press him on it. That was normal for the time.
I went to college for electronics and mechanical engineering. I eventually graduated from Stanford and MIT. As the only son, I was always told that one day I would need to take the place of my father and lead the family business the same as he did.
8 months after I graduated, my father died. This left me in charge of the family company. I had no idea how to run a company of that size and really all I wanted to do was invent and engineer.
Because I had gone to such great schools, this had given me access to real good young talent. I had made some great friends in college. Two of them were business geniuses, graduating at the top of their class.
One thing I realized very fast was that I would need help running the day-day business. I was a very creative engineer, but was never taught how the business ran.
I began thinking two of my friends from school would be perfect to help my run this business.
Lee was Chinese descent, super-smart at operations and Chad was a master of business. I hired them both and for a while, everything worked out perfectly.
I had taken an early interest in LED lights and realized pretty quickly they were going to become a household name. I dove into the technology and created a few patents that eventually ended up being used in today's LED lights.
During that time, Lee and Chad had convinced me to make them partners. They both had worked hard, genuinely wanted the company to be a success, and wanted to grow to be a worldwide name in manufacturing, development, and engineering.
Since at the time I was young, I didn't realize that things would have changed between us over time. I had just wanted to create. Looking back now, I should have made them unequal partners, with me the largest owner. After all, it was my family who created the company.
Not long after we had filed the patents, Chad came to Lee and me and told us we had an opportunity to sell the patents for a fortune. Chad told us the money would be used to grow the company in ways we could hardly imagine.
I didn't want to sell off anything. We were doing fine and growing.
Chad had eventually convinced Lee to sell and I was the third man out. I still considered the company was mine because my family started it and worked hard to grow it. When the two of them agreed to sell after I had already said no, I then realized the mistake I had made by making them equal partners.
Chad and Lee started to take the company in a whole new direction.
The company became a technology investment company instead of an engineering company. We no longer were doing the work. We were just investing in companies. I thought this was lazy and very risky.
That change in the business model had put me on the sidelines. I had a large office and a paycheck and that is about it.
Over time, Chad had tried to sell the company many times and hounded me for years. But the one thing that I had on my side was that I needed to agree to sell.
The other two could not override this. I wanted to keep my family's company and dreamed that one day I would be able have full control over it again.
Chad and Lee tried many things to get me to sell. They would set me up with sexual assault cases by paying women in the company to say they were assaulted by me. Forged the books to make it look like I was embezzling. They tried everything. I beat every single charge and eventually set up my office to record everything that I did to protect me.
Over time Chad had opened an office in New York and Lee and I worked at our building in Chicago. Chad and Lee had turned the entire company against me. Everyone hated me. I hadn't spoken to either of them in a long time.
When I went to the office, it was in total misery.
One day out of nowhere, my secretary informed me there was a call from a Sam Blackstone on line 3. This surprised me because at the time I didn't even think my uncle was still alive. No one had heard a single peep from him for decades.
Over the years I had been curious about Uncle Sam. My dad never said much about him, except he was a "lady's man" and I had always wondered exactly what that had meant.
I took the call. "Uncle Sam, how are you?", I said trying to put on excitement in my voice.