Success Quote by Lee R. Raymond

A corporate credo in the careful dialect of damage control, Lee R. Raymonds line reads like a mission statement designed to satisfy two juries at once: consumers who want cheap abundance and critics who want accountability. The opening, "We obviously want to produce things that people want", frames demand as destiny. "Obviously" is doing heavy lifting: it shuts down debate by implying the market is a neutral fact of nature, not a set of choices shaped by pricing, lobbying, and marketing. The company is merely answering the phone.

Then comes the bridge phrase every extractive industry perfected in the late 20th century: "environmentally responsible". Its vagueness is the point. Responsibility becomes a posture rather than a measurable obligation. No targets, no timelines, no mention of emissions or externalities. Just a reassuring mood.

The most revealing clause is the last: "physical, scientific, and practical issues". It sounds like realism, but it also preloads an excuse. Science is invoked not as a mandate to change course, but as a constraint that makes sweeping change inconvenient or premature. "Practical" quietly translates into profitability, infrastructure lock-in, and shareholder expectations, all without saying so.

Raymond, long associated with Exxon and an era of aggressive fossil-fuel confidence, is speaking from a moment when environmental pressure was rising but corporate strategy was often to manage perception, not transform the business model. The intent is to appear balanced: yes to growth, yes to responsibility, yes to science - with enough semantic room to keep doing what the company already does.