Why Did K.C. Irving Start Irving Oil?

Shane Parrish says K.C. Irving started Irving Oil after Henry Ford's factory shutdown left him a car dealer with no cars, and he never wanted to be that exposed again.

In 1927 Ford stopped making the Model T and shut the factories to retool for the Model A. Spring came with no Model A, then summer, and still nothing. For month after month Irving had a showroom of pictures and salesmen with brochures, but no cars. He scraped together leftover Chryslers to stay alive. The Model A arrived in the fall and sold well, but he had spent the better part of a year paying for another company's mistakes. He did not quit Ford. He would sell Fords for another 25 years. From that year on, the dealerships were the side business, and he turned back to gasoline.

In 1929, the year he turned 30, he incorporated Irving Oil Company Limited. He raised $300,000 by selling shares and kept the right to buy them back. As the profits came in, he bought the shares back, and the company was his alone. The lesson he repeated for the rest of his life was that the minute you make money, people spend their waking hours trying to get it out of you. He never again sold the public a share of his companies.