For the first time since we met, he looked genuinely afraid of what I might think.

PART 6

He did not start with the money.

He started with his grandfather, a mill mechanic who had worked six decades in the North Carolina mountains and died worried about whether a small manufacturing town would survive the next recession.

“My family built Rowe Holdings from a machine-parts distributor,” Silas said.

“My father expanded it.

I inherited a controlling interest after he died.

I also spent years trying to convince our board not every useful company must be sold to the highest bidder.”