An interview with visionary Eric Becker

“Business today loves a unicorn story: build something quickly. Exit quickly,” Eric Becker, the Founder and Co-Chairman of Cresset, an award-winning multi-family office with over $70 billion in assets under management, shared with CEOWORLD magazine.

Eric Becker has a long history of starting and nurturing companies. He knows if a company has the potential to thrive or is doomed to fail. His new book, “The Long Game: A Playbook of the World’s Most Enduring Companies,” is a curated collection of companies that have defied the odds and thrived for over a century.

Eric Becker explains the main characteristics of successful and enduring companies and offers valuable pieces of advice to CEOs and others in his interview for CEOWORLD magazine.

Q: The Long Game highlights a curated collection of companies that have defied  the odds and thrived for over a century. Why have you chosen this approach for your book?

Eric Becker: Business today loves a unicorn story: Build something quickly. Exit quickly. But the United States is home to 33 million businesses. Ten years from now, 70 percent of them will have failed, and only half of 1 percent will survive for a century.

In The Long Game, I call these survivors, Centurions. Iʼve met many of them in the course of 40 years holding key roles in more than 100 companies as an investor, board member, CEO and mentor. Coming across these legacy-oriented leaders occurred organically for me, but it wasnʼt hard to find more examples.

Writing this book was a natural outgrowth of listening to—and learning from— their stories. I want to share the invaluable lessons theyʼve shared with me. All of these companies have shown great resilience in the face of crisis; rather than hoping for the best, theyʼve sprung into action when confronted by crisis, often at great risk.

These Centurion companies shatter the notion that because of their longevity, theyʼre stodgy and resistant to change. The best of them are always looking for ways to innovate and evolve. Perhaps most significantly, they value stewardship by putting a priority on relationships, company culture, purpose, values, and impact across generations.

Playing The Long Game is the foundation of how I run my own business, Cresset. When Avy Stein and I started the company in 2017, we told our first ten employees, “Weʼre on a 100-year journey together”. Alongside that long-term vision, we introduced broad-based employee ownership to drive extreme accountability and performance, building the foundation with our first generation of employees.

We wanted to ensure the next generation of our team is serving the next generation of clients and customers with the same core values.

Q: From your research, which companies stand out among the others for their innovative and memorable approaches to remain competitive on a global stage?

Eric Becker: All of them exude innovation, and their stories are uniquely memorable: one has embraced a dark period in its history, but emerged triumphant from it; another saw its leadership roles upended by the unexpected death of its founder; while one had to pivot to an almost overnight overhaul of its product line.

But of these, two in particular stand out to me. The first is Biltmore, the Asheville, North Carolina, estate, the largest home in the nation, opened by George Vanderbilt in 1895 as a retreat to entertain his friends and family. But often overlooked is how the family was forced to continuously innovate to keep the property solvent—financial success would come later.

Vanderbiltʼs family nearly lost everything trying to maintain the home. By 1930, his daughter Cornelia and her husband, John Cecil, opened the estate to the public to boost tourism during the Great Depression, generating modest revenue at first, which helped preserve the mansion—a landmark decision that ultimately transformed it into the vacation destination it is today. Cecil and his descendants have continually reinvested in the property, serving as dedicated stewards of the land—from its gardens and livestock to the home, attractions, and remarkable antiquities within—a philosophy that remains at the heart of the companyʼs mission.

Iʼm also fascinated by the recent history of Barnes & Noble. Just a few years ago, the bookselling giant was under siege by Amazon and was closing stores in droves. But a new CEO, James Daunt, turned the company culture upside down with an everything-old-is-new-again approach: He returned authority to the hands of store employees, empowering them to curate selections and operate as local book sellers. Their mission was to rekindle the joy of the experience of book reading, making the stores more of a destination than a be-all, end-all store flooded with items other than books. The gambit worked, and today Barnes & Noble is opening new stores again. Barnes & Noble is one to watch as it continues to respond to the ebb and flow of the market and the evolving needs of their customers.

I think all of these companies provide a lesson for every business: enduring companies donʼt just extract value from the business, they care for it. They see themselves as stewards of something bigger than themselves, and that mindset allows them to adapt, innovate, and remain relevant on a global stage.

Q: What are the main characteristics of successful and enduring companies?

Eric Becker: I started my first business when I was 20 years old, and over the course of 40 years, have been involved in more than 100 companies. Iʼve also mentored young entrepreneurs who want to build their legacy, and guided leaders of Centurion companies—those who have adapted, endured, and passed their legacies forward.

They all faced the same truth: Businesses donʼt fail because they lack vision. They fail because they arenʼt fortified for the future. And sustaining and growing wealth over generations is a different game entirely. It comes down to three principles:

• They recognize MOMENTS OF TRUTH AND MOMENTS OF TRUST. Rather than hoping extreme crises will resolve on their own, Centurions are not afraid to accept a moment of truth and spring into action. They make the necessary pivots and learn who they can trust in those moments. Because these moments have the potential to be a businessʼs greatest period of growth or peril. For instance, youʼll read about a renowned 115-year-old Spanish torta business that pulled its goods from shelves when cost-cutting threatened the companyʼs reputation with customers—a move that put them on the brink of financial ruin. But by taking the time to get back to the basics and reinvest in the original quality of the product, trust was restored, and the risk ultimately paid off.
• They hold a MYTHBUSTING MINDSET, embracing resiliency, adaptability, and vision. Businesses that last hundreds of years are often looked at as slow or resistant to change. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In The Long Game, we share an example of how one of the nationʼs oldest insurance companies examined its centuries-old language surrounding their products and realized there was a disconnect with their customers. The team revamped the language to meet a more modern vernacular. It was an arduous task but one that paid huge dividends in terms of customer approval, trust and personal connection to the brand.
• They value and emphasize STEWARDSHIP & ETHICAL SUCCESSION: These owners carry their companies forward and secure safeguards with succession planning. Wealth isnʼt just about numbers; itʼs about sustaining purpose, values, and impact across generations. Itʼs about long-term value creation.

Q: If you were asked, what three key pieces of advice would you offer the CEOs reading this interview?

Eric Becker:

1. Ask yourself this question: “What am I tolerating but shouldnʼt be?ˮ This was the winning answer to my query–“What is the best question youʼve ever asked or been asked?ˮ–of 100 executives, most of them current or retired CEOs.

   When I think of the hundred or so companies Iʼve been involved with in my career, just about everything you can imagine has happened to them: bad, incompetent, or unethical leadership; people making poor decisions; people just being unlucky. But the organizations that had the strongest cultures recovered, persevered, and thrived. They confronted their challenges and made the appropriate changes. So, if somethingʼs not working, you fix it by confronting it. What am I tolerating but shouldnʼt be? That approach should apply to your culture, your business, and your life.

2. Invest in relationships. Every Centurion we studied emphasized and echoed my belief that relationships are everything — with employees, customers, communities, and successors. In a world of AI and automation, human trust is still the most valuable currency. I challenge you to find a company mentioned in this book that doesnʼt take the time to cultivate lasting and meaningful relationships.
3. Establish a bedrock foundation. This has three essential components: your relationships, your reputation, and your standards. Even if, and when, things become totally unglued in life or business, you can return to your bedrock and rebuild your life. Iʼve been there myself after the loss of our daughter, Cara. I had to redefine what success looked like and ultimately set higher standards for myself. Itʼs in that process that you discover who you can count on.

Q: What are one or two areas of growth that you think will occur next in the global economy?

Eric Becker: I believe the next areas of growth will be in infrastructure related to energy, both to meet rising global demand and, in the U.S., to upgrade our aging electrical grid. That creates an enormous opportunity—not just to upgrade for reliability, but to build smarter, more resilient systems that can carry us into the next century. Weʼll also see tremendous investment in data centers and the massive amounts of energy required to power AI. Weʼre already seeing AI transform biotech, enabling researchers to run tests faster and with deeper insight, leading to breakthroughs in therapies for such diseases as cancer. And thatʼs just the beginning. AI will drive productivity across every industry, helping businesses operate more efficiently while unlocking innovations in health, technology, and beyond.

All of this is already driving additional investment into clean and sustainable energy solutions to support the digital backbone of our economy. And to mitigate the environmental impact of these shifts, I expect to see renewed focus on nuclear energy as part of the long-term solution set.

Q: How do you balance being Founder and Co-Chairman of Cresset, and an author, along with your other endeavors?

Eric Becker: Writing The Long Game intersects beautifully with the purpose and mission of Cresset. At our best, Cresset helps clients reclaim time and freedom to launch new ventures, grow their families, and engage in philanthropy. Similarly, my writing and research aim to give leaders time-tested wisdom so they can build companies that endure and contribute meaningfully to society.

At the heart of all of this is something I learned from my mom: an “always be learningˮ mindset. Curiosity has fueled so many of the best things in my life, from the way weʼve built Cresset, to my own education, to the interviews Iʼve done with families and companies that have stood the test of time. I even tried to instill that in my kids when they were young, helping them see that curiosity isnʼt just a trait, itʼs a way of approaching life.

In that sense, there isnʼt really a tension between my roles as founder, co-chairman, and author. They reinforce each other — all part of the same long game.

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