Building a Half Billion Dollar Business Without Losing Control

The Playbook With David Meltzer

David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com

Careers, Entrepreneurship, Business

4.9 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, I sit down with entrepreneur David Royce, Founder and Chairman of Aptive, to talk about building scale without losing control. We go back to his broke college days, the early lessons around equity, and the first year when rapid growth nearly put his business under. We break down how he built four companies over two decades, why cash flow can be more dangerous than failure, and the people strategies that matter when you want to keep ownership. We also get into hiring and firing, emotional expense, why passion is overrated, and how getting good at something can create its own momentum.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Entrepreneurs the Playbook. I'm David Meltzer here at the greatest stadium ever built.
0:05.3	It's amazing what $5.5 billion will buy you. That's not a green screen. That is actually a
0:11.7	billion dollar screen. One billion dollars has an elevator and go up and down. I've been blessed to be
0:16.5	in it. Speaking of blessed here at Soapai Stadium, we are blessed to have a true entrepreneur.
0:21.4	Ran over a half a billion dollar company himself.
0:24.8	CEO founder of Aptiv, his name, David Royce.
0:28.5	Welcome to the Playbook.
0:29.7	Thanks.
0:30.1	Appreciate the opportunity.
0:31.0	I love having extraordinary entrepreneurs, meaning guys who have gotten into the half billion,
0:36.1	the billion range, because the air gets very thin
0:39.2	when you're making that kind of money, whether it's for the company or for yourself.
0:44.0	Hopefully, they're somehow equiliberated together.
0:48.4	Sometimes I meet guys who are companies make a lot and they didn't make shit.
0:51.8	I feel bad for them.
0:53.6	But I'm sure your journey was like mine. Things happen very slowly. And then all of a sudden, I'll take you back to college. Did you have any idea that you would be an entrepreneur who was running over half a billion dollar company.
1:11.4	No, it was the last thing on my mind.
1:13.6	What was on your mind?
1:15.7	I'm a broke college student. How do I make money?
1:18.4	You want to make money? Me too. And how did you think you were going to make it?
1:22.6	So I was setting finance. I thought I was going to go and invest in banking and go up to New York.
1:27.8	And what inspired you at that time? Was it just the money to be an investment banker?
	...

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