“You got to know the market,” Merlo said. In her own way, Merlo’s mother was someone who subscribed to this same mantra—even though, for her, “the market” was the customers at her boarding house and restaurant in Stirling CA or her dealings with local peddlers. “Mama had native intelligence that taught her to survive,” Merlo went on. “She became a capitalist because it was forced on her.” It was because of his mother’s instincts and incredibly hard work, that Merlo concluded, “Relatively speaking, that’s why she would have made a good CEO of LP.”