In 1886, Milton Hershey's candy business in New York collapsed. It was not his first. His shop in Philadelphia had already gone under, and short stints in Chicago and New Orleans had come to nothing. He was not yet 30.

He went home to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1900 he would sell a company for $1 million. In 1918 he would give almost all of his fortune away.

What happened in between is worth knowing for anyone who has ever cleaned out a desk.

The first fall

Hershey left school after the fourth grade and apprenticed with a candy maker. At 18 he opened his own shop in Philadelphia. He worked long hours and sold well, and after six years the business went under, buried in debt.

He headed west and took a job with a caramel maker in Denver. There he picked up the detail that would change his life: caramels made with fresh milk stayed soft and tasted richer. Then he tried his luck again, in Chicago, in New Orleans and finally in New York. None of it lasted.

The turn

Back in Lancaster, Hershey started over with caramels made the Denver way. The Lancaster Caramel Company grew fast. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago he watched German chocolate machines at work and bought them. In 1900 he sold the caramel business for $1 million and bet everything on milk chocolate.¹

Look at what he carried out of the wreckage. The recipe came from a job he took after failing. The stamina, we can assume, came from having fallen more than once and gotten up again. His failures were his education.

The gift

Milton and Catherine Hershey had no children. In 1909 they founded a school for orphaned boys on their land. In 1918, three years after Catherine's death, Milton transferred the bulk of his fortune, his shares in the chocolate company, to the school's trust. The Milton Hershey School still educates children from families with low incomes free of charge, and today it welcomes girls as well.²

The man who once had nothing left to sell spent his fortune making sure other children would start with something.

Talent Takeaway

  • When someone on your team fails, ask first: what did you learn that you can carry into the next attempt?
  • Name one skill that grew out of the setback, and find a place where the person can use it next.
  • Look at your own career the same way: which of your best skills came from a job you took after something went wrong?
  • Use hard-won experience to give others a better start.

¹ D'Antonio, M. (2006). Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's extraordinary life of wealth, empire, and utopian dreams. Simon & Schuster. See also Hershey Community Archives, "Hershey, Milton Snavely (1857–1945)." https://hersheyarchives.org/encyclopedia/hershey-milton-snavely-1857-1945/

² Milton Hershey School, "History." https://www.mhskids.org/about/history/