Some may argue that balance sheet numbers like these are not important for people businesses.

"Psychology was a good background for what I do now, because fundamentally real estate is a people business," she said.

"This is very much a people business and you need a team approach," she said.

"I still think we are such a people business that a live voice can respond to everyone," Lamoriello said.

"Remember that we are in the people business," he said.

It's a people business to some degree, but you have to have product knowledge.

Like all businesses, sports is, or ought to be, a people business.

It is no longer even much of a people business.

"This business is pretty much a people business," he said.

Both, he said, were "people businesses," in which the key was the ability to empathize.