business growth
Carlos Slim: How Great Fortunes Are Made
If you study the history of how great fortunes have been made over the past 160 years or so [1], you come to understand that there are just a few growth strategies or “tycoon plays.” One way is to focus on building up a single company to a colossal size. Think of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and the Google Guys as examples. However, the more common way is through a combination of building a single company with sales growth and wheeling & dealing in acquisitions. A third way is to be a deal-maker exclusively who just wheels & deals in companies.
It’s important to understand that even the single company builders have to eventually resort to acquisitions because it’s the only proven way to maintain high growth over a prolonged period of time. Do you want to shoot for billionaire or tycoon status? If you do, you will need to sustain a hyper rate of growth over many years.
Frankly, I can’t think of any company off the top of my head that grew to a large size without acquisitions. If you know of one, let me know.
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