Here's why 88-year-old T. Boone Pickens says he can't ever retire
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T. Boone Pickens may be 88 years old, but he's not slowing down for anyone.
At the 2016 Concordia Summit in New York on Monday, the billionaire founder of BP Capital Management told moderator Tom Brokaw that he looks forward to every day he has left, and that those days aren't going to involve much lounging.
"I love to work," Pickens said. "And people say to me, 'Well, Boone, you're 88 years old. You really should retire.' Well, to hell with you. I'm not going to retire."
He explained that if he ever retired, he'd have to remove himself from the people he associates with — "the best people, the smartest people" — because to be in their league, he has to be productive.
Pickens told Brokaw the story of how he went to a football game with Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder, who is 12 years younger than Pickens, some time after Snyder retired in 2005. Pickens said the conversation unfolded like this:
Snyder: I wanted to sit with you today because I maybe have made a mistake.
Pickens: You retired.
Snyder: That's, right, I retired. I'm retired now. And I don't know why in the hell I did it.
Pickens: You can't find people that you want to be with, productive like you are. And you are still a factor in football coaching and you left early. As long as you're productive, you can carry your weight in the crowd that you're associating with — well, I don't see any reason to retire.
Snyder returned to the game in 2009 and is still the head coach at Kansas State.
Brokaw asked Pickens if he has slowed down from the pace he had as a young man, and Pickens replied that he was broke as a young man and doesn't see that as a peak in his life.
He's not letting up, especially because he has a trainer who shows up to his house every weekday morning at 6:30 and every weekend morning at 8. "And he's there whether I want him or not."
Pickens recently posted a photo of his row routine on Instagram:
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And here's him putting up some "grown man weight":
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