Shut Up and Listen
The digital technology that sets computers, televisions and other devices talking to one another made Henry Nicholas rich and semi-famous. How ironic that one of the executive’s dearest discoveries came while practicing the decidedly analog practice of listening.
Intense on the job and prone to partying hard at his Laguna Hills mansion, Nicholas personified the successes and excesses of the Internet age. The brash, brainy 43-year-old landed on Forbes’ list of richest Americans in 1998 when he sold Broadcom stock to the public and continued to live large well after the Internet bubble burst.
The high-profile balancing act failed in October when Stacey Nicholas, his wife of 15 years and mother of their three children, filed for divorce. Ah, you say, another executive marriage implosion for the tabloid mill. But Henry didn’t surface in Hawaii with another woman, and Stacey didn’t use divorce court to embarrass her powerful husband.
No, word of Nicholas’ marital woes surfaced only in a January conference call with industry analysts. After stating that Broadcom was poised to exit a tough financial chapter, Nicholas quietly said he was leaving the firm to try to save his troubled marriage.
Jump-start the scriptwriters and track down the ghost of Jimmy Stewart. It’s a Hollywood natural about the hard-nosed executive who takes his proboscis out of the business long enough to recall mumbling those long-ago lines about sickness, health and ‘til death do us part. And it gets better.
A man known for shouting down subordinates and ceaselessly talking up his company on Wall Street came to his epiphany after unexpectedly falling silent recently while recuperating from nasal surgery. The computer and telephone might have been chatting, but for three uncharacteristic days, Nicholas sat and listened to his wife. On the fourth day, he asked for a second chance.
Divorce stories of the rich and famous are like car wrecks -- painful for the unlucky participants and bound to draw a crowd. That an outspoken businessman learned to listen is no guarantee that a couple will repair a broken marriage. But there’s a whispered lesson for the rest of us moving about the noisy business of getting and spending -- if we know or care enough to listen.
