Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/61367
L holders in SAS—Sall owns one-third of the company, and Goodnight, two-thirds. With no other shareholders to appease, the only numbers Goodnight needs to keep his eye on are these: the company's phenomenal 98 percent customer renew- al rate, its negligible employee turnover rate of around 3 per- cent, and its global sales of $1.34 billion. SAS, headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, is the largest respond in lockstep to the price of oil or an uptick in interest rates. This attitude has led him to resist going public ever since he and partner John Sall founded the company in 1976. Today, Goodnight and Sall remain the only private stock- et the rest of the world fawn over the recent Google IPO or wait anxiously for the latest market reports on CNBC. That's simply not Jim Goodnight's style. As CEO of software company SAS (pronounced "sass"), Goodnight doesn't want to be forced to privately held software company in the world, and 14th largest overall. It boasts 4 million users of its data warehousing and data mining software, 10,000 employees, and a CEO who has turned customer loyalty and employee satisfaction into an art. For example, Goodnight requires that all customer sugges- tions for product improvements be recorded. Those suggestions are reviewed annually and placed on a survey for customers to rank. The suggestions that make the top ten usually make it into the next product upgrade. In addition, when the recent economic slowdown moved many companies to slash jobs to increase the bottom line and pump up stock prices, SAS not only resisted layoffs—it contin- ued to hire. While many companies are reporting decreased earnings, SAS has seen 27 straight years of revenue growth. And at a time when many companies are reducing health ben- efits and requiring more overtime, all SAS employees enjoy a 35-hour workweek, unlimited sick leave, free on-site health care, day care, fitness center, car detailing, and a heavily dis- counted country club membership. In addition to these larger perks, they also receive free to show employees they mattered. Now that the company has grown, it spends $45,000 annually on 22 tons of M&Ms for its employees. "M&Ms have become something of an icon representing M&Ms every Wednesday, a holdover from a time when SAS was much smaller and free candy was a fun, affordable way SAS' corporate culture, but that was just a fun tradition we hung onto over the years," says Goodnight. "It represents a mindset we have. From the earliest days of the company, we wanted to create an environment similar to the university, where you have the freedom and flexibility to be creative." Not surprisingly, that mindset has landed SAS on FORTUNE's "100