Success Quote by Lee R. Raymond

A line like this works because it sounds self-evident while quietly doing a lot of reputational labor. Lee R. Raymond, longtime Exxon chief and a defining voice of late-20th-century corporate power, frames “business” not as machinery for profit but as a social actor with human stakes. The sentence is built to be unarguable: who would oppose remembering “real people”? That’s the rhetorical trick. It invites assent first, then uses that assent as a platform for whatever policy, project, or defense comes next.

The specific intent is to widen the moral lens without surrendering managerial authority. By insisting on impact, Raymond can argue for restraint (don’t regulate us too hard; jobs and pensions are on the line) or for legitimacy (our operations, even controversial ones, enable livelihoods). “All business” is doing heavy lifting: it dilutes culpability by universalizing it. If every enterprise affects people, then scrutiny of a particular company starts to feel like selective outrage.

The subtext is a soft rebuttal to activists, regulators, and critics who treat corporations as abstract villains. “Real people” re-centers the conversation on employees, consumers, and communities rather than on emissions charts, antitrust theories, or quarterly margins. It’s also a reminder to insiders: you can talk about risk, compliance, and shareholder value, but the strongest public argument is always human consequence.

Context matters: coming from an oil executive in an era of rising environmental accountability, the line reads as both empathy and insulation. It’s a moral vocabulary designed to keep the boardroom’s decisions in the realm of public virtue.