JP Morgan. Responsible for US Steel and arranged the deal that created General Electric. One of Nikolai Teslas patrons. Helped found and supplied many of the exhibits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He founded the company that owned the Titanic (White Star Lines was a subsidiary). He actually saved the US Treasury by loaning it gold in 1895. Just his role in stopping the Panic of 1906 makes a great book in itself.
I enjoyed H. W. Brands’ entertaining lecture series Masters of Enterprise, about a selection of American businessmen and -women (including some who have been mentioned in this thread), their businesses, and the influence they had on America. It’s available from Audible.com, where you can also download the pdf reference guide for free; it was also released as part of the Barnes & Noble “Portable Professor” series; and it’s apparently at least loosely based on a book of the same title (which I haven’t read).
I find it interesting how modest he and his wife live in Nebraska. They have a relatively small home and I’ve heard stories of people driving by and seeing Warren out in his bathrobe picking up his newspaper or Mrs. Buffet mowing her own lawn.
I lived in Eagle Mountain, CA in the 60s as a young boy because my mother divorced my bio-dad and took a job as a marketer/purchaser for Kaiser at the Eagle Mountain Mine. A friend of hers there at the Mine knew of a bachelor working as the chief optometrist at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana and my dated and married him in 1971 and moved to Fontana. He has been my Dad ever since then. Eagle Mountain (and Kaiser Steel) slowly declined and shut down in the 80s, but Dad started his own optometrist business in Fontana. My wife is also from Fontana (known her since 2nd grade when I moved here)…42 years now. Eagle Mountain is now a ghost town (and a very cool modern one at that), but if it wasn’t for Kaiser, my mom’s and my life would be very different now…and my brother too I guess.
He succeeded in only 1 area (well 2 if you count his charity). And how much of that was timing, had he been born 20 years earlier the technology to get his company going would not have existed. Point being I don’t know how much of his success can be traced back to talent on his part vs him being in the right field at the right time.
One of the most interesting Americans in history: H.L. Hunt
Just a quick summary but you have the discovery of the East Texas Oil Field (primary contributor to Allied victory in WW2), richest man in world, secret polygamist, son helped found the NFL and create the Super Bowl, helped elect LBJ, rumored to have been involved in JFK assassination, his wiretapping case may have inspired Nixon with Watergate, son discovered first oil in Libya before Gaddafi nationalized it, sons tried to corner the silver market ultimately owning 1/3rd of the supply, and inspiration for J.R. Ewing.
But one can say that about almost anybody. Good thing Rockefeller was born in an industrial age. Good thing Jobs was friends with Wozniak and was born in the late 1950s. Good thing Kaiser was born when he was, so he could take advantage of an expansionist government policy re: infrastructure projects and WW2. Good thing Buffet was born in the US and operated in a post-Great Depression regulated market structure. Good thing Carnegie was in steel when steel was a thing.
And on, and on, and on.
Otoh, I agree his background isn’t as interesting as Grove’s or even Rockefeller’s (born of a polygamist snake-oil salesman.)
I guess my point is that some people will be rich if they are born in the right society where their innate talents crested and matched whatever local businesses were booming (Gates loved computers and math), some people will be rich because they have the business skills to become rich no matter what assets or business cycles are going on around them.
This could be written about basically everyone being put forward in this thread. Being at the right place at the right time is a very large part of success. Talent and drive are helpful but without dumb luck you wont get to be successful enough that people want to hear your life story.
I don’t believe that this is true. All great successes of specific people involve a large amount of luck.
I don’t agree. As an example, look at Michael Dell. In the 1980s he started a company making PC clones. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were many other companies doing the same thing. I remember Zeos, Northgate, Austin Computer Systems, Gateway, etc. All of those other companies are now dead. Dell’s company is still around and he’s worth about $16 billion. Why did his company succeed when all those other clone manufacturers failed?
I’ll second Andy Grove; his life was a lesson in survival.
For just an interesting life, how about Howard Hughes?
Forget the Wright Brothers, this is the guy who invented the plane that we know today. Curtiss built and raced an V-8 engine motorcycle that set the land speed record of 136.36 miles per hour in 1907.
Utterly fascinating life story.
DataX writes:
> . . . Richard Branson - came from money, but I still think most would consider
> him self made . . .
Let’s make one thing clear. The people listed in this thread did not grow up in utter poverty. Some of them grew up in average or a little below average circumstances. Some, like Bill Gates, grew up in a family that was borderline rich.
Buffet seems normal but is in reality a very different kind of cat. He married and was totally dependent on his wife to take care of him, but when the kids grew up his wife left him to live in San Fran. He then had a friend of his wife’s move in and live with him. He never divorced and him, his wife and girlfriend got along very well. When his wife died he married his girlfried.
He never eats any vegetables other than potatoes, he drinks almost nothing but soda, he lives on steak, chicken sandwiches, and hamburgers. When a Japanese investor had a meeting with him, the investor brought thousands of dollars worth of top grade sushi and other delicacies and Buffett ate none of it.
Wendell L. Willkie
John Jacob Astor; from son of a butcher to America’s first multi-millionaire.
Harry Gordon Selfridge: rags to riches, then back to rags.