Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built

Witness seven extraordinary men doing what Americans do best: building new businesses. These entrepreneurs broke old rules and made their own, mastering the future by shaping it. They overcame seemingly impossible obstacles to achieve enormous success and, in the process, played a role in the creation of the modern world.

Masterfully combining his understanding of business and American history, Harvard Business School professor Richard S. Tedlow illuminates the professional and personal lives of these nineteenth- and twentieth-century titans, men with penetrating insight whose need to fulfill their destiny outweighed their fear of failure:

ANDREW CARNEGIEThe impoverished immigrant who rose to become therichest man In the world

GEORGE EASTMANThe personally shy but professionally assertive tycoon who created a whole new market with his Kodak Brownie camera

HENRY FORDThe gifted mechanic who put America on wheels but outlived his own usefulness

THOMAS J. WATSON SR.The founder of IBM, who knew better than anyone else how to sell

CHARLES REVSONThe founder of Revlon, who made his company domi nant through his mastery of the television revolution

SAM WALTONThe master motivator who started with a tiny shop in small-town Newport, Arkansas, and built Wal-Mart, the twentieth century's retail powerhouse

ROBERT NOYCEThe cofounder of Intel and inventor of the silicon integrated circuit, which gave Silicon Valley its name

Each of these men traveled his own special road to preeminence, a road determined by the complex interactions of his character, his company, and his times. Tedlow critically explores each visionary with compassion and wit, and in so doing sheds new light on issues of urgent importance in the business world today: How do you get a business going? How do you grow it from a one-man show to an institution? How do you develop a value proposition so compelling that your customers can't do without you? How do you maintain your perspective as you rise above your peers? What is the personal price of exceptional business achievement? When is it time to step aside?

Through its exploration of the triumphs and failures of these seven men, Giants of Enterprise provides us with an unmatched understanding of the challenges of business. These riveting stories contain innumerable lessons that make this book essential reading for anyone interested in entrepreneurial greatness.