Word: wondered
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...least bit squeamish about tough tactics. He colluded with railroads to gain preferential freight rates, secretly owned rivals, bribed state legislators and engaged in industrial espionage. From Cleveland, he rolled up one refining center after another until his control was absolute. He was still in his 30s, the boy wonder of American business. At the same time, he was a devout Baptist with a ministerial air, who professed to have no less a business expert than the Lord on his side...
...boldly took IBM--and the world--into the computer age, and in the process developed a company whose awesome sales and service savvy and dark-suited culture stood for everything good and bad about corporate America. No wonder the Justice Department sought (unsuccessfully) to break...
...companies; and his pioneering retailing concepts paved the way for a new breed of "category killer" retailer--the Home Depots, Barnes & Nobles and Blockbusters of the world. This wave of low-overhead, low-inventory selling continues to accelerate. The Internet, in fact, is its latest iteration. One can only wonder what a young cyber Sam would set out to accomplish if he were just getting started...
Theoretically, a conglomerate made sense because it could balance out the business cycle by trading in a wide array of goods and services. Somewhat perversely, both the tax code and the antitrust policy at that time encouraged the strategy. ITT bought the maker of Wonder bread...
...first glance, the business world of the 20th century would not seem a propitious breeding ground for eccentricity. Businessmen and -women, in the main, pride themselves on probity, predictability. "Sober" and "well-rounded" are considered compliments. Little wonder, then, that a hectare of executives contains fewer kooks than just about any other sampling of humanity. Compared with poets and philosophers, bankers and industrialists have been relatively late adopters of berets, ferrets and home brewing. Yet, even so, the century has hatched its share of "true originals"--some of whom won fame and fortune, others who left only a gaudy afterglow...