LangoneKen

Home Depot Founder Kenneth Langone

New York businessman and philanthropist, Ken Langone, was born to working-class parents in Roslyn Heights, NY in the mid-1930s. Growing up 20 miles east of the financial Mecca, Manhattan, couldn’t help but influence him. In high school Langone’s principal told his parents they would be “wasting their money” if they sent the young Langone to college.

Fortunately his parents disagreed and took out a mortgage on their house to send him to Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. It took him 3 ½ years to graduate with degrees in both Political Science and Economics. He quickly found work in the investment department of the Equitable Life Assurance Company. Working full-time, Langone still found the energy to dedicate himself to earning an MBA. He attended NYU’s Graduate School of Business (now the Stern School of Business) four nights per week. By 1960 he had earned his MBA.

After a brief stint in the army, Langone’s business career began to take off. Ken Langone's first big move was taking H. Ross Perot’s Electronic Data Systems (EDS) public in 1968 at a whopping 118 times earnings and even acted as an advisor to the Texas businessman who would eventually run for President.

In 1974 the future founder of Home Depot bought his first seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the course of his future, while not firmly set, began to take a certain path that would involve measureless success. In 1978 Ken Langone used his business savvy and connections to act as a catalyst in the founding of the national chain: Home Depot. To this day Langone is highly active in business. Recently he has been the lead member of a group attempting to purchase the New York Stock Exchange.

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