Thomas W. Jones on From Willard Straight to Wallstreet and What Happened at Citigroup

In this interview, Thomas W. Jones talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his book, From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir.



“Give yourself a personal gift of 100% effort to achieve your highest potential.” ~Thomas W. Jones

Citigroup had entered a contract related to mutual funds, and the Securities and Exchange Commission had claimed that the contract concerned wasn’t fully properly disclosed to the mutual fund board. The Citigroup legal department had vetted the contract in all details, and while Citigroup settled the complaint, they didn’t include the otherwise usual provision that the senior management group concerned was also included in the terms of settlement. The SEC took this to mean that Citigroup had investigated the matter and concluded that the senior managers were at fault, hence the lack of inclusion of the senior managers in the terms of settlement - something which Tom remarked was “cynical” of then-CEO Charles Prince. This resulted in the full force of the federal government, through the SEC bringing charges against him, being brought on Thomas, and Thomas, rather than settle, spent eight years clearing his name. This process cost “millions” of dollars, and Thomas pointed out that the cost of his defense will not be recovered. He noted that, while the case against him was ongoing, he wouldn’t be able to hold a senior job in a regulated industry if one was in a fight against the regulating body, and that he chose to fight the charges because he was right and because he didn’t want those whom he worked with to think that there was anything shady about him. As he wasn’t employable, he thus needed to find a way to generate the funds needed for his legal defense as well as to support his family.

Thomas has noted that the way corporate America has changed since the 1970s, when he began working. As an example of this, Thomas notes that the CEO of General Electric, in the 1970s, retired with a package worth $10 million (around $50 million in today’s money); today, that CEO will retire with a retirement package worth $1 billion, and this cascades down the line, with the second in line getting a half billion dollar retirement package, the third in line getting a quarter billion dollar retirement package, and so on. He notes that this means that most of a company’s wealth is tied up with the top executives, and recalls that, in the 1970s, people viewed joining a major company to be a lifetime career move, with generous retirement and medical benefits. Thomas remarks that, in the 1970s, during a time which he called a period of “benevolent capitalism,” companies structured their guaranteed retirement packages so that retirees got around 65% of their working salary. All this changed, he notes, in the 1980s, when corporate raiders would buy and then control companies and then increase the companies’ cash flow by stripping out the costs (which included medical and retirement benefits and jobs) and then reselling those companies at a higher value, thanks to the apparent increased profitability of the company due to its increased cash flow. This led to later CEOs getting a mentality of wanting to cut costs wherever possible, and this shows itself in today’s environment, where retirement benefits are no longer fully funded by a company and medical benefits are greatly reduced. According to Thomas, this has resulted in a fear of people are able to keep up, and is a source for millennial thinking that capitalism isn’t the way to go, and perhaps socialism is. (In some comments made after the interview, Thomas remarked that the era of benevolent capitalism began after the Great Depression, when those in power realized that the common people had lost faith in the capitalist system and were likely to turn to socialism and communism.) He also notes that this has led to the transactional nature of work at present, which then breeds insecurity and which creates to tone of politics and the angry discourse that is prevalent today.

Where racism is concerned, Thomas notes that, at the present, the amount of progress that has been made isn’t front and center, whereas the issues that still need to be addressed are. He notes that there is still discrimination and believes that racist crimes, while these still do occur, are far less frequent now compared to fifty or a hundred years ago, as well as notes that the police back then weren’t punished for their actions. “It’s not perfect,” he notes, “but it’s moved in the right direction,” pointing out that people from non-white groups are now members of the middle class, thanks to this progress. Thomas also adds that the quality of education also plays a role in opportunities for everybody, but that, under the present system, as education is funded by local property taxes, those communities which collect a lesser amount of property tax will have fewer resources available for education that those which can collect more from their property taxes. This would explain why wealthier people, who cluster into higher-income communities, can afford good public education systems for their children, while those from lower-income communities cannot; and this means that children from the latter communities aren’t as prepared as those who come from the former communities.

Thomas has an investment fund which invests in startup businesses, and he enjoys being involved in this because of the energy and creativity of the people who are starting up new businesses. “This entrepreneurial energy is the secret sauce that makes America more successful than any other country around the world,” he notes. His fund identifies if a would-be business has a product that can solve a particular problem, as well as any added value when this product is applied and the size of the market. The revenue that can be generated is also considered, and the startup company is thus set up in a way where it can make the most impact.

Thomas emphasizes that the United States has come so far, as a country, from where it used to be, and while it should recognize that there is still some issues that need to be resolved, all should be proud of what has come out. On a personal level, he notes that the discipline of doing one’s best, of giving 100% every day, enables self-actualization, where one achieves one’s full potential. “You’re the only person who can do that,” he remarks.


Purchase from Amazon: 
From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir by Thomas W. Jones

Thomas Jones’ first interview on AuthorStory can be found here:

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xwa3xSBYczM

AuthorStory Blog Link: https://authorstoryinterviews.blogspot.com/2019/10/thomas-w-jones-on-his-journey-from.html

AuthorStory Video Blog Link: https://authorstory-videos.blogspot.com/2019/10/thomas-w-jones-tells-his-story-of.html

Thomas W. Jones on His Journey From Willard to Wall Street

In this interview, Thomas W. Jones talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his/her book, From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir.


“Every person can control those things: that you did your best, you kept the faith and you went as far as you could.” ~Thomas W. Jones

In this interview, Thomas W. Jones talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about his/her book, From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir. “Every person can control those things: that you did your best, you kept the faith and you went as far as you could.” ~Thomas W. Jones Tom, by his own admission, had “an unusual childhood” for an African-American child, as his father got a Master’s degree in Physics, after which he was employed in the defense industry, becoming a senior engineer on the Atlas guided intercontinental ballistic missile project. He acknowledges that he and his family experienced the harshness of racial segregation as well as overcame the barriers associated with this, courtesy of education. Tom’s father’s keys to success were: commitment to God, education and hard work, which he passed on to Tom and his family, with Tom noting that personal morality and moral discipline are critical to elevating one’s life.

Tom notes that, when he was admitted to Cornell University, there were 35 African-Americans in his freshman class, whereas there were only 23 African-Americans who were ever admitted to that date - and Cornell University had a student body of around 12,000. He also notes that, in a five-year span in the 1960s, four prominent people had been assassinated and riots raged across cities in the United States, particularly during the summer. It thus appeared that a violent uprising from the black population was likely, and it was against this background that the Straight Hall siege took place. It was during his college days that Tom came in contact with African-Americans who came from backgrounds which were more challenging than his, which made him realize the degree of oppression inflicted upon African-Americans in centuries. He and his peers felt that it was their generation’s responsibility to “draw the line” and end their oppression, and while he was well-accepted in Cornell, he identified with that particular cause.

Tom and his fellow African-Americans had been working for a black studies curriculum in the university, to bring into the fore the effects of slavery in the United States, and in the process of such agitation, several African-American students had been sanctioned, which led to the takeover of Willard Straight Hall. Those who took over initially didn’t carry weapons, but after the Delta Epsilon fraternity members - all of whom were white - broke in and attempted to push these out. Tom notes that this was viewed by him and his fellows as white vigilatism, and it was after this attempt was rebuffed that guns were brought into the building. The university administration quickly realized that the siege could spin out of control, which was why the takeover was quickly settled. Tom remarks that the symbolism given by the siege was that African-Americans were no longer intimidated by white vigilantism and were willing to fight to support the cause of educational truth and opportunity about American history, rather than being subjugated as previous generations had been.

Tom notes that American history is full of contradictions, pointing out that, while many white Americans engaged in racism, there have also been white Americans of conscience who worked with slaves and former slaves. He noted that, at the time of the Willard Straight Hall siege, the United States was at a “fork in the road,” where they could have gone the road of oppression or moving on a path of liberty, and Tom wanted to be part of the liberalizing path that the United States then took. He also wanted to go into business because he realized that the greatest resistance to integration would be where the money was, and so acted accordingly. When he began his road into a business career in the 1970s, he figured his chances to be low, and he realized that he could only focus on what he could control, which were his attitude, how hard he could work and his commitment to excel in that which he did. “You can do these things and not succeed,” Tom notes, “but you will know, in your heart, that you have done all that you can possibly do, and that’s all that any person can do.”

It was during his climb up the corporate ladder that he realized that there was a gap between giving 100% of one’s effort and the culturally-conditioned 95%, in that, while that difference was small, the cumulative results eventually add up, where achievement and results were concerned. It was this which attracted the attention of his bosses in senior management, who, Tom notes, are like coaches in sports teams who are always scouting for good talent, as the executive with the best team would be the one who would deliver the best results. His subsequent bosses offered promotions, protection and opportunities, while Tom reciprocated by making them look good, thanks to his own performance. “All affirmative action does,” Tom notes, “is get you in the door. It is rare, in corporate America, to determine the winner in those high-level positions that everybody is striving for.” He also noted that, throughout his career, his white peers didn’t see him as competition, which made him greatly underestimated - a huge advantage.

Tom shared that his lesson of giving 100% commitment to being the best one can be is something that individuals don’t know what that really is until an individual gives in everything that he or she has and realizes what he can be, and this enables people to achieve their highest potential. He also shared that, at the beginning of every year, he would note down three overarching goals, some of which could be technical, others of which could be physical or spiritual objectives. He gave the example of his setting down, in 1982, of reading the entire Bible from cover to cover, noting that, given his background, it was “foolish” for him to come to the end of his life without reading what, for him, was the most important book ever written, particularly as it was the basis of several of his own life’s concepts.

When asked about the collapse of Citigroup’s stock price in the 2000s (the company’s stock price in August, 2002 was in the $300 per share range, with a high of around $368 per share, declared insolvency in November 2008, and its share price dropped to 97 cents per share in early April, 2009), Tom explained that the Citigroup general counsel Charles Prince was chosen by the then-retiring CEO Sandy Weill over Citigroup’s President, Robert Willemstad, who was well-regarded by a lot of the senior managers, as well as the other business leaders. Tom remarks that, within two years, all of the senior business leaders at Citigroup were out of the company, with Tom himself being fired in 2004. Charles Prince then placed his own people in the vacated senior leadership positions, a move which Tom notes that was due to Charles’ own insecurities. This resulted in a senior management which told Charles what the latter wanted to hear, rather than factually based on what was actually going on, and all this came to a head in 2008, when Citigroup ran into a lot of trouble when the mortgage security crisis occurred.

Were Tom to meet God, he would like Him to say: “Thomas, you have fought the good fight, you have kept the faith and you have finished the race.”

Purchase from Amazon: From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir by Thomas W. Jones