Peter
The Eccentric Billionaire: John D. MacArthur — Empire Builder, Reluctant Philanthropist, Relentless Adversary by Nancy Kriplen
The following mini-review is from Barnes & Noble:
“He was hated, feared, and admired. The country’s second-richest man at the time of his death, John D. MacArthur (1897-1978) also became one of its great benefactors. Every year, some two dozen American writers, artists, intellectuals, and scientists receive as much as a half million dollars in grants known as the “genius awards” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. But MacArthur was not the benevolent figure you might expect. Stingier than J. Paul Getty, as money-obsessed as Howard Hughes, and as ruthless as Cornelius Vanderbilt, MacArthur was one of the most multi-layered men in business history. Now, in this first full biography of John D. MacArthur as he really was, Nancy Kriplen reveals the man behind the myth — the often vulgar, sometimes unethical, always ambitious rogue who would become one of America’s wealthiest men.
Just stumbled across a book review by one of my favorite business writers, Michael Lewis, on the Warren Buffett biography: The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. If you don’t have the time for a 960 page tome, check out the review. It makes for an interesting read.
Hell on Wheels Season 3 Begins
The only television tycoon I can think of off hand is Colm Meaney’s Thomas “Doc” Durant in Hell on Wheels. Durant was in charge of building the eastern half of the first transcontinental railroad right after the Civil War ended.
As always, Colm does a marvelous job in this role. It’s rated 8.1 over at IMDB.
If you haven’t seen the show do give it a try if you like westerns. It’s packed with likeable characters, scoundrels, downright villains and offers a pretty unvarnished view of the period.
The Profit’s Marcus Lemonis explains how he makes his money by acquiring and fixing up troubled businesses.
Marcus drills down into the details here. Listen carefully as he uses shorthand.
By the way, he’s a true rags-to-riches story having started life in an orphanage in Lebanon. He moved to the USA at age 12.
This is what this site is all about.
Click for video:
Here are a few additional articles on Marcus Lemonis
From the NY Times: A Savior Taking the Reins
On ‘The Profit,’ Marcus Lemonis Rescues Small Businesses
What Gordon Ramsay is to floundering restaurants, what Tabatha Coffey is to hair salons on the fritz — that’s what Marcus Lemonis aspires to be for any number of small businesses. Mr. Lemonis is the chairman and chief executive of Camping World, but also a jack-of-all-enterprises, spotting and stomping out inefficiencies in pursuit of profit.
Profit that Mr. Lemonis shares, naturally. “The Profit” is an extension of reality television’s long-running charitable impulse, but like the cheery moguls on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” Mr. Lemonis has skin in the game. He writes checks and takes temporary control, makes significant changes, then hopes his new partners can make him money.
His practices are politely predatory, feasting on small businesses that don’t have the resources to advance or to save themselves from eventual collapse. In the first two episodes, there’s an additional twist: the companies are run by the founders’ children, who are finding it hard to continue their parents’ legacies. These are enterprises ripe for takeover, and owners looking to fill an authority vacuum. (source)
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