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Aristotle Onassis the Tycoon Who Bought a Country
Money won’t buy you happiness but it will get you the yacht that will allow you to pull up alongside of it and say “hello.” – David Lee Roth
Aristotle Onassis the Oil Tanker Tycoon
With few exceptions most of today’s Western billionaires aren’t the swashbuckling adventurers they once were. Most of the current crop are pretty nerdy geeks. It wasn’t always so. Back in the 1960s and and 70s, Aristotle Onassis was one of the most famous tycoons alive. He was as well known back then as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are today. Marrying widow Jackie Kennedy fueled the controversy that followed him every where he went without let up. Onassis was a Greek who grew up in Turkey and built a huge fortune in the shipping industry after starting with next to nothing. Continue reading
Growth Strategy for Achieving Critical Mass
When it comes to business it’s difficult to come up with an example of when it’s not better to be bigger.
How to Build an Empire: Glock’s Secret Path to Profits
A fascinating look inside the Glock empire and how it grew from Businessweek:
Glock’s Secret Path to Profits
It’s the largest supplier of handguns to law enforcement in the U.S. But behind its success lies a troubling tale of business intrigue.
Gaston Glock, an Austrian manufacturer of shovels and knives, had an improbable dream: He would make a fortune selling handguns in America. In the early 1980s, Glock, a self-taught firearm designer, produced an innovative pistol for the Austrian military. He then devised a plan for promoting his invention in the U.S., the world’s richest gun market. First, he’d persuade American police they needed a lightweight weapon with more ammunition than traditional revolvers. Then he’d use his law enforcement bona fides to win over private gun buyers.
Call Me Ted by Ted Turner
Ted Turner’s new autobiography, Call Me Ted, hits the book stores next week. Ted Turner is one of the most colorful members of the billionaire class by far. Not only that, he is also one of the most brilliant when it comes to value creation. While most billionaires focus on one or two industries, Turner has been successful across a broad range of industries. Not only that, but he can combine two seemingly unconnected assets from totally unrelated industries to create value.
If you want to learn about billionaires, you can’t go wrong by starting with the inimitable Ted Turner.
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