Steve: Our talents and passions are complementary in many ways. My passion is
running businesses successfully. In the board meetings, I speak to Dennis and
Bruce from a third-party perspective. Bruce’s passion has always been the
vineyards and making wine. Dennis’ is the outbound marketing and communications.
Three siblings compromising isn’t the easiest thing in life, but we learned how
to share and meld visions. We’re trying to transition our parents’ vision and
passion to a next generation, and yet still enable future generations to bring
on modified visions and passions and carry on the success of the business.Bruce: Dennis has a big responsibility working with sales and marketing—we
thought that was important. Steve was involved in a business not related to the
winey [Salesforce.com]. I had a successor for my role in the assistant
winemaker. That allowed me to move, and so that’s how it worked out. Jack: They came back to me after the three meetings and said, “OK, we’ve got it
figured out. You’re going to stay on as CEO for six or seven more years, because
we picked Bruce, the youngest, and the only one without an MBA.” He had to get
some additional training. But, my God, it’s been three years, and we haven’t
lost any family members. I won’t say that everything is perfect—no family is.
But we have a 10-year plan, and a strategic plan that evolves through our board
of directors. All three sons sit on the board. But we have more independent
directors than family members. Steve: Our outside and independent board of directors operates not within the
strict standards of public company governance, but certainly they are there to
ensure that the family doesn’t take advantage of the business and, if there are
opportunities to make significant strategic changes, to talk those through with
full awareness of the family pact and the direction that we’re trying to
take. Bruce: As the three of us get older, we’ll probably reexamine our pact to see
what has changed. A family business transitioning from first to second
generation is one issue. The percentage of failures is huge at that stage of a
business. It’s our obligation to make sure we don’t join that statistic. But a
family business that goes from multiple brothers to a third generation with
cousins, is a whole different matter.
Illustration by Jonathan Barkat.
 Back to main Aritcle: Wrestling for Control of the Business
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Beating
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 Wine
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