Tony Simmons - Part 1: "Do Not Plan Your Life On It"

The Twenty One Clear Podcast · Oct 2, 2026 · 28m · transcript

For 25 years, Tony Simmons sold construction cranes. Then a phone call brought him home to Avery Island, Louisiana, and into McIlhenny Company, his family's company and the maker of Tabasco, where he became the seventh family CEO.

In part one of our three-part conversation, Tony walks me through the basics of a 158-year-old family company, from Edmund McIlhenny's start as a destitute banker after the Civil War to a family home kept for 208 years.

Then we turn to his own path: being told not to plan his life on joining the business, a board seat he never asked for, 12 years as his cousin…