Edward Snider is CEO of Comcast-Spectacor, a company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, the Wachovia Center, a $210 million state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex, and several other sports-related businesses. He is the recipient of many achievement awards, is a noted philanthropist, and sits on the boards of several organizations, including the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, The Atlas Society, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. For this interview we met with Mr. Snider at his home in Montecito, California.

Kaizen: Before you became an entrepreneur, you were a young man in Washington, D.C., with a paying job. What was the job, and why did you quit?

Snider: Well, I went to the University of Maryland and majored in accounting. In the state of Maryland in those days—I don’t know whether it’s still that way or not—you could take the CPA exam and you were immediately a CPA. In most other states you have to work as an accountant before you can become a CPA. So everyone—friends and relatives—said, “Look, you majored in accounting, you should definitely take the CPA exam.” So I took it and, much to my amazement, I passed. So I got a job with an accountant—a one-man office. He needed a young assistant, so I went to work for him. He assigned me to an account in the suburbs of Washington called Kensington Esso. I went out and I was doing Kensington Esso’s books and wiping the grease off of the ledger and finally figuring out that the guy had made about $25,000. I was making $5,000. I went to my boss and said, “How long do you think it will be before I make $25,000?” He said, “If everything goes well, I can make you a junior partner. I’ll bet in five years you’ll be making $25,000.” This is a true story. I said, “Bernie, I’m really sorry, but this is not for me. I quit.” I realized at the time I’d rather own a gas station. I’ve been entrepreneurial all my life. I guess working as a CPA just wasn’t my thing.
(more…)

In light of the recent death of a Walmart employee, who was trampled to death by a crowd of shoppers during a Black Friday sale, and whose family has brought a wrongful-death lawsuit against the company, The Business Ethics Blog‘s Chris MacDonald discusses the use of tort law versus legislation in regulating corporate behavior.

In October’s FLOW Vision newsletter, Michael Strong gives a thoughtful response to those who claim that unfettered capitalism is to blame for the recent credit crisis.

The Rockford Register Star recently interviewed one of our Fall 2008 guest speakers, Dr. Emily Chamlee-Wright. In the interview, Dr. Chamlee-Wright discusses her current research on post-Katrina recovery in New Orleans.

At Small Business Trends, Anita Campbell comments on the emerging trend of artists acting as entrepreneurs to sell their works. We discussed the connection between art and entrepreneurship in our interview with artist Michael Newberry in the January 2008 issue of Kaizen.