Rupert Murdoch
How Rupert Murdoch Built His Empire
My past consists of a series of interlocking wars. – Rupert Murdoch
Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that Rupert is one of the great disruptors and newspaper magnates of the past 65 years.
How did Murdoch get started? It’s an interesting story as all tycoon stories are.
Murdoch inherited a small newspaper after his newspaperman father died in 1952. Rupert was only 21 years old. The newspaper served as his grubstake and he took to building it with a great passion which in turn inspired his staff to give him their best. Within a few short years Murdoch was engaged in an aggressive acquisition campaign to control additional newspapers across Australia. This period included his war with the Packer family for dominance in newspapers. In 1968, he started acquiring British newspapers and in 1973 American ones. According to the book All the Money in the World:
Then he maneuvered his way around the world with a fistful of loans and a remarkable ability to seize opportunities and build major media properties from scratch. Every acquisition Murdoch made was financed by mortgaging his properties to buy new ones.
Here’s a one hour BBC documentary on his life.
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