David Green and Bill High
Building to Last, Not to Exit
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
David Green & Bill High — Main Street Summit 2025
A conversation between David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby, and Bill High, attorney and family-legacy advisor — recorded live at Main Street Summit 2025. Runtime ~24:51.
Opening: The Family Picture Frames
Bill High: David, you ready to go?
David Green: Let’s go.
Bill High: Most people here know David Green. How many are Hobby Lobby fans? (crowd responds) All right, we’ve got some Hobby Lobby fans. A lot of people don’t know me. I practice law — big law firm — but I’ve moved into the charitable world. David and I have been working together for about 25 years.
David Green: You know, one of the things Bill doesn’t tell people is that his mother and dad were really smart — they named him before he was born. Bill High. That’s a good name. And the thing about attorneys — their worst day is when they settle your case, because then they stop invoicing you. They never settle your case. They just keep it going and going.
Bill High: He sent me a book of retailer jokes once. I opened it up and it was a full book of retailer jokes. There’s no end. We need to move on, David — they came here for real content, not lawyer jokes. By the way, Elliot helped set us up here because we just wrote a book together, and that’s one of the reasons we’re here today.
Founding Story / The Family Picture
Bill High: David, a lot of people don’t know this about you. We have a picture here of the family you grew up in.
David Green: My father and mother were pastors. There were six children, and five of them went into ministry — my mother, my brother, my sisters. Then there was me. I was the business guy. I was the black sheep of the family.
Bill High: When you were growing up, your mom and dad were not only pastors but missionaries as well.
David Green: My mother and dad never pastored a church over 100 members. So we grew up pretty poor. (pointing at family photo) I’m the one just in front of my mother. I was the little one — mama’s boy.
Bill High: Small churches. And then you and Barbara get married. Next month — February — you’ll be married how long?
David Green: We will have been married 65 years. (applause) And look at the family now. I always say 51 and counting — about seven are adopted, and they continue to do that. My wife and I had three children, and they had a bunch of children, and they had a bunch of children. We have about 22 great-grandchildren.
Bill High: 22. We’re in an unusual time — most of us won’t get to see that many great-grandkids. Your oldest grandchild is how old?
David Green: She’s 16.
Bill High: And they all live in Oklahoma City?
David Green: We can’t get rid of them. (laughter) They’re great. It’s a great thing.
The Founding Story: $600 and 600 Square Feet
Bill High: In 1970, you were working for TG&Y. (to audience) Anybody know TG&Y? There are three people here old enough — the rest are just too young. You’re working for TG&Y, one of the biggest stores in the whole system, and you sat down with some other fellows and said, “Let’s go into business for ourselves.”
David Green: We borrowed $600. One of my partners didn’t want to risk $200 — too much risk — so he said no. We bought a chopper for $450, made a lot of frames, but my other partner never showed up. He’d send his brother instead. So I bought him out.
Bill High: So you’re making picture frames — this is 1972. You open your first store in Oklahoma City.
David Green: I think there’s a picture of it there. It was only 1,200 square feet total — the store was 600 square feet, and manufacturing was 600 square feet in the back. I shouldn’t say this, but one of the first employees was a blind guy. I didn’t think he could make the frames, but he really wanted the job, so we gave it a shot. My wife was working for free for five years — I had to keep my job at TG&Y — and our kids, seven and nine years old, were gluing the frames together. My wife shipped them.
Bill High: That’s how innovation starts — pretty messy. But you got it. How did you come up with the name “Hobby Lobby”?
David Green: We borrowed the name from somewhere else, and it cost us a lot of money later to actually own it. One of the only times we needed an attorney to clean up the mess. So we own it now, but we didn’t for a while.
The Calling & the First $30,000 Gift
Bill High: Let’s stay with the story a little further. You started in a place where your brothers and sisters were all pastors and missionaries — and you were the black sheep. Give us a little bit of that pivotal moment.
David Green: Sometimes I talk about pivotal moments in my life, and this was one of them — the moment I knew I had a calling, not as a missionary like my brothers and sisters. I went to a missionary convention where people were receiving offerings to print Bibles. I don’t know exactly what I gave at the time — maybe $5 or $10. But on the way back, I knew that I needed to give $30,000.I followed through. The day that I mailed it turned out to be the exact same day that four missionaries needed those funds, and we supplied their need. That’s when I knew I had a calling on my life.
Bill High: It’s this idea that to win, there has to be a purpose beyond yourself for your business. God can use you in a way that impacts the world around you. You don’t have to be a pastor or a missionary.
David Green: We all have different callings. Our callings may be business, may be whatever. I think God has a calling on every one of us, and it can look completely different. I know what mine is.
Purpose & Being Closed on Sundays
Bill High: In chapter one of our book, we talk about this idea that it’s easy to say legacy is what you leave behind. But in the legacy world, we try to redefine that: legacy is what you put in motion. David, talk about purpose.
David Green: For me, purpose is my family — and legacy is my family. When I bring in co-managers, I want them to understand the culture. We bring them to Oklahoma City, and I talk very little. But the one thing I want to talk to them about is that there is a purpose in their life. We’re closed on Sundays because I want them to know there is something more important than Hobby Lobby — and that’s their marriage, their children.
Bill High: What does that have to do with legacy — saying there are more important things than your business?
David Green: When Barbara and I first got married, one of our goals was to have a marriage that lasted for life. And work-wise, we were going to be the very best we could be. Whatever your hand finds to do, give it everything you’ve got. And we want to tell everybody the good news.The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. — our family was involved in opening that — because we think this is very, very important.
Legacy as What You Put in Motion
Bill High: Let’s keep pressing into this idea of legacy. We’re here at Main Street Summit, and generally in our Western world today, we talk about wealth as something to sell — build to exit. But that’s not the direction you’ve gone.
David Green: The speaker before us talked about this, and I thought he was exactly right — the time it takes is not as important as the fact that you’re building something that lasts. So we have built Hobby Lobby in such a way that we’re not “building it to sell.” There’s a scripture in Psalm 24:1 that says God owns everything. So if he owns it, I don’t. We don’t see Hobby Lobby as something we own — we see it as something we’re supposed to steward, for the second and third generations that can come on and continue what we have started.Hobby Lobby is not who and what we are. Who we are is captured in a document — one you helped us create — that says this is our mission and our values. The family has 50-some-odd members not with Hobby Lobby, but they still share a mission, a vision, and values. Hobby Lobby happens to be some of our jobs. Other family members have gone totally different directions, and we’re excited about that.
Vision, Mission, Values & Code of Conduct
Bill High: The idea here is that the family is going to think generationally and plan generationally. Research tells us: if you have a mission and values that every generation adopts — if every generation acts like the first generation — it endures. Why don’t you go ahead and read that for them.
David Green: (reads from document) …who’s left us his word. Our vision is to go on the adventure of impacting our world. Our mission is to love God intimately and live extravagant generosity. Our values are God, family… and all of them have a scripture attached.
Bill High: Part two of our book is about how you lead your family, your own life, and make a difference for generations. We talk about vision, mission, and values — but there’s another chapter about needing a code of conduct. The Kongo Gumi company, by the way, ran for 16 generations and had a code of conduct. David, you have a personal code you live by.
David Green: I do.
Bill High: What is it? (laughter)
David Green: You know, sometimes I don’t write books — I’m a good merchant though. Our code is: pray without ceasing. I think we all have to live by something. The Bible says we should pray without ceasing. How do you do that? God’s word says he’s there with us all the time. So I come alongside and I just talk to him all the time. I’m always talking to him.And the other thing Scripture says: “You have not because you ask not.” I want Hobby Lobby to be bigger so we can have a bigger ministry. Profits go to him, and we have no debt — other than a short line of credit to buy all our Christmas inventory. That’s what God has done. He’s done it sometimes when we’ve done things that are totally against what would seem profitable — we don’t want to take the life of a child, we close on Sundays, we don’t sell Halloween. It’s tens of millions of dollars. Every one of those things has cost us. Every single one.We do what we think we should do because it’s the right thing — not because it’s the profitable thing. And we end up with a company that is very strong and very profitable.
Giving 50% & Stewardship
Bill High: Give me a quick picture — why do you give?
David Green: Why not? I don’t know why not. For us, we feel like the big thing is… we want to make more to give more. That’s the purpose. Nobody in our family gets more than what they should — it’s something we are stewarding.There’s not a third-generation family member who’s going to cash out, because a high percentage of third-generation families don’t survive that. Everybody should get what they earn. The ownership is in our name, but 100% of the voice is with 1% — there are seven of us who decide what to do with the profits that God has given us.
Bill High: Why give specifically 50%?
David Green: You started by saying “why not,” but the honest answer: when we started, that was the maximum the government would let us give and still get a tax deduction. So we said we’re going to give that. Then we take the other 50% after we pay our taxes — we pay our taxes — and we open as many Hobby Lobby stores as we can. Whatever we made this year, next year we’re going to give.Our investment portfolio is actually bigger than Hobby Lobby and more profitable. So we feel like we want to make more to give more.
“Keep It Simple / Close Counts” — Retail Philosophy
Bill High: Let’s go a little further on the business side — this goes to your code of conduct: keep it simple, close counts.
David Green: In our warehouses, I have signs — two feet tall. One says “too many choices.” For instance, if you were my ribbon buyer and I gave you seven sizes of one color, do you know how many choices you have? 720 choices. I asked Siri: “If I have seven sizes of one color, how many choices?” You can buy this one, none, these two… 720. And that’s just to do ribbon. Retail is very, very difficult. There are at least 20 colors, at least 20 sizes, and at least 20 different types of a given product.When we go overseas and look for Santa Clauses, we see a thousand varieties. Now you’ve got to make a decision. Too many choices are harmful to business. Keep it simple. Close counts. How many Santa Clauses do you need — a thousand or two? You don’t need a thousand.One of the things I have on the board: ask the Lord for direction. Keep it simple. Study, study, study. We don’t have any problem continuing to change, change, change — because that’s what it takes. In our warehouse, 12 to 15 lines are dropped every year and new ones come in. Our buyers know: start over with a clean sheet of paper, because a lot of what you did yesterday was either wrong, or it was right then but needs to change now. Two out of three times, you need to change it.
Hobby Lobby Today
Bill High: Here you are, 53 years later. Give some perspective on where Hobby Lobby is — stores, employees, revenue.
David Green: We’ll do $8.3 billion this year. We have 55,000 employees. We’re in 48 states. And we have only one warehouse — we ship everything from Oklahoma City, and we’re going to keep it that way. We’re very profitable. Joann’s just closed, and Michael’s is just hanging on by their nails. So we’re good. (applause)
Bill High: 55,000 employees, still giving away 50%, and still closed on Sundays.
David Green: Right.
Final Word: Eternal Legacy
Bill High: David, give them some final word about this idea of legacy.
David Green: I know what I want for myself — there’s nothing more legacy than what’s eternal. Every one of us has two lives: one is a vapor, and one is eternal. My legacy is to tell people the good news. There’s good news out there. We do that through Chosen. We’re involved with a lot of different ministries to tell people the good news. There is good news, and we want to tell everybody about it.
Bill High: That’s a good word. Part three of our book tells stories of long-lasting families — not only in business but some out of the Bible. The idea of the thousand-year family. That is our encouragement to you: think long term. Think about the legacy life and what you’re setting in motion. We’re going to give it back to Brent. Thank you.
