My Dad Gave Me a Knife When I Was 11 to Help Him Work. That Knife Opened My World. Pop couldn't pass on much, but what he did teach was priceless.
By Jeff Walsh •
This story appears in the June 2021 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
The box arrived from India and contained my future. Inside was the first prototype of my company's first product. But to open the box, I used something from my past. It was a knife given to me by my father when he taught me the greatest lesson of my life.
Pop dropped out of school in the ninth grade to work in a tomato-canning factory. He worked many jobs after that but never earned much. I grew up as the youngest of seven children and decided early that I'd go to college — which would require paying for it myself. I started doing odd jobs whenever I could, including joining my dad at work.
Related: Why the President of Microsoft Signed My Air Jordans
