Word: khashoggi
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...Khashoggi has no real consolidated corporate power base. He is a master broker but a precarious builder. Instead of constructing institutions, he has created a cult of personality. He is the product of the Middle East, where loyalty is to individuals, not institutions; he understands the psychology of one-on-one haggling, not the culture of corporations. "I am a trader," he says. "If I can make a decent profit, I prefer to take it and get out. There are others who hang on to an investment in the hope of realizing profits several times the money invested. They...
Born in Mecca, Khashoggi grew up with the confidence that comes from being the firstborn son in a country where the eldest boy is the prince of the family. His father, Dr. Mohammad Khashoggi, was the chief physician to King Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. From his father, Khashoggi says, he learned the difference between compassion and realism, as well as the value of giving as a prelude to receiving. Khashoggi recalls that one oppressive summer afternoon when he was eight, he discovered a beggar asleep on the front steps. Knowing of Islam's emphasis on charity...
Saudi Arabia was then a poor and barren desert kingdom, lagging far behind the West in development. But Dr. Khashoggi was determined to give his son a modern education. Through a timely investment, he was able to send Adnan to Victoria College, a British-run school in Egypt that was the cradle of leadership for the elite of the Middle East. Khashoggi's classmates included two princes who would become Kings, Faisal II of Iraq and Hussein of Jordan. There Khashoggi learned the rudiments of dealmaking. He found out that a Libyan schoolmate's father wanted to buy sheets...
...Khashoggi wanted to become a petroleum engineer and enrolled in the Colorado School of Mines. But Colorado was too cold for his desert blood, so his father arranged for him to go to the California State University at Chico, a school of 2,000. Set in a conservative rural town, it was an oasis for wealthy Middle Eastern students seeking an American education. When his father sent him $10,000 to buy a car and rent a better apartment, Khashoggi purchased two trucks that he leased to the owner of a small construction company for $125 a month. "I used...
...Khashoggi left Chico after only three semesters; wheeling and dealing would provide the rest of his education. In 1956 Khashoggi garnered a contract to supply trucks for the Saudi army. The pattern was set: the deal, the commission, the party, more contacts and contracts. By 1962 Khashoggi was the sales agent in Saudi Arabia for Chrysler, Fiat, Westland Helicopters Ltd. and Rolls-Royce. "One association," he says, "led to another, one business to another." For Western companies, Khashoggi was the man to know in Saudi Arabia...