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Biographies or companies that ascended during depressions or recessions?

For any book discussion

AntiGuru

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Looking for books about companies that experienced high growth during hard times, or biographies of entrepreneurs, investors and businessmen who prospered during hard times.

Not looking for generic "feel good / motivation" titles or "profit from the coming collapse" type books - I mean historical accounts of those who prospered while the wider economy was in a decline.

Think and Grow Rich has a few anecdotes throughout of companies that formed during the Great Depression, I'd like to drill down into more examples.

Thanks.
 
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TonyStark

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Warren Buffet started his partnership around that time, a time when everyone (including B. Graham) was too afraid to invest in the stock market.
 

OldFaithful

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"Good to Great" by Jim Collins examines several companies that experienced exponential growth, as compared with competitors that did not. The author(s) cover roughly the last 100 years and discuss the performance during recessions as well. It's an excellent read.
 
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minirich

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"Good to Great" by Jim Collins examines several companies that experienced exponential growth, as compared with competitors that did not. The author(s) cover roughly the last 100 years and discuss the performance during recessions as well. It's an excellent read.
I second that, i read it and found several similarities with TFL, but in TFL they were more condensed and clear. Some others (Flywheel) were not so clear in TFL.
 

AntiGuru

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Thanks guys, the summary so far:

Warren Buffet started his partnership around that time, a time when everyone (including B. Graham) was too afraid to invest in the stock market.

Yes, true - he mentions this a lot in his letters to shareholders and both his biographies (Lowenstein's and Snowball) - in fact Buffet tends to scale back when everybody else is optimistic (like now, for example). This is his contrarianism at work which is a component of value investing which he is a pioneer of.

I believe Goldman Sachs may have come right before the depression...

They probably started it, lol. Just kidding, it took them near a century to ramp up to Vampyre Squid status.

"Good to Great" by Jim Collins examines several companies that experienced exponential growth, as compared with competitors that did not. The author(s) cover roughly the last 100 years and discuss the performance during recessions as well. It's an excellent read.

Yes, all three books - actually four if you count "How the Mighty Fall" are great books.

The takeaway from all this - the macro climate doesn't matter - what matters is what you do within that macro climate.

Thank you all, keep them coming - what I'm looking for are more of who they were and what those behaviours, actions and key insights in those times were.

Example: John Templeton - "Buy at the point of maximum pessimism". In his case, borrowing $40,000 from his boss in 1933 and buying 1000 shares of every stock trading under $1/share on the stock market.

(Although I'm more in interested books about the building of successful businesses against a background of economic gloom than I am in successful contrarian investing)
 

letter9

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Highly recommend the John D. Rockefeller biography. Learnt a lot from it.
Here is small "quote" from the book about depression and possibilities :
In 1873, the mad dash for riches that followed the Civil War ended in a prolonged slump that ground on for six interminable years. On Black Thursday— September 18, 1873—the august banking house of Jay Cooke and Company failed because of problems in financing the Northern Pacific Railway. This event ignited a panic, leading to a stock-exchange shutdown, a string of bank failures, and widespread railroad bankruptcies. During the next few years, deflated by massive unemployment, daily wages plunged 25 percent, exposing many Americans to the horror of downward mobility. The six lean years accelerated the process of consolidation that had gathered force in many economic sectors. This depression especially exacerbated the problems of the oil industry. Soon after Black Thursday,
crude prices touched a shocking low of eighty cents a barrel; within a year, prices had tumbled to forty-eight cents—cheaper than the cost of hauling water in some towns. Just as Carnegie expanded his steel operations after the 1873 panic, so Rockefeller saw the slump as a chance to translate his master blueprint into reality.
To capitalize on rival companies selling at distress-sale prices, he slashed Standard Oil’s dividend to increase its cash reserves. Standard Oil weathered the six-year depression magnificently, a fact Rockefeller attributed to its conservative financial policy and
unparalleled access to bank credit and investor cash.
 
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Ninjakid

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I recommend reading about W. Clement Stone. He was someone who prospered through the Great Depression. He was also an early advocate for the law of attraction, and power of a positive mental attitude.
 

letter9

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AntiGuru

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I recommend reading about W. Clement Stone. He was someone who prospered through the Great Depression. He was also an early advocate for the law of attraction, and power of a positive mental attitude.

Thanks, I have The Success System That Never Fails. Interesting that nobody seems to have written a biography of the guy. He lived to be 100!
 

AntiGuru

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The Elon Musk biography, by Ashlee Vance. Most of the book was written about his two companies that somehow made it out of the 2008/09 recession.

Not too interested in Musk. Raising capital for money losing unicorns in the manic post-GFC tech bubble isn't really what I'm after here.
 
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gurnays

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I would also highly recommend "Sam Walton Made in America" by Sam Walton.

My favorite chapter is 17 which list Sam Walton's 10 rules for running a successful company.

Below are the 10

1. Commit
2. Share
3. Motivate
4. Communicate
5. Appreciate
6. Celebrate
7. Listen
8. Exceed
9. Control
10. Swim upstream

Sam explains them more in depth, but if you buy the book you'll understand.

After reading this I had a whole new perspective of Wal-Mart.
 

AntiGuru

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I would also highly recommend "Sam Walton Made in America" by Sam Walton.

My favorite chapter is 17 which list Sam Walton's 10 rules for running a successful company.

[snip]

Sam explains them more in depth, but if you buy the book you'll understand.

After reading this I had a whole new perspective of Wal-Mart.

Cool, I have this book but I am not that far in yet. Although I avoid setting foot in any Wal-Mart I appreciate what he built. What intrigued me about Walton is (as I've heard the story) that something like 15 or 20 years elapsed from the time opened the first Wal-Mart to the time he opened the second. Everything went into overdrive after that. But that's a heck of a long runway.
 
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ZF Lee

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Richard Branson's Losing my Virginity (literal title!)
I may be hasty in saying that he is a pure-blood Fastlaner, because he started out by making a student magazine, then eventually the Virgin Records and his big airline hit. He's an adventurous fellow, and his story is breathtaking. To him, entrepreneurship is a journey, and what a fantastic journey it was for him!

And some of us still depend on one-trick pony tactics like get-rich-quick schemes and 'earn money from home'. :(

The Unauthorised biography of George Soros. He's not strictly Fastlane, but he did managed other people's money. And money is literally his weaponry. Sold short based on the weakness of the British pound to net him billions. This read is good if you want to learn about taking the shot when others won't. That bet which made him infamous could have been a disaster if things went the other way round.

I read these books in my college library while others were desperately hammering through their academics. Damn, so many untouched gems! No wonder MJ became such a dangerous Fastlaner by equipping and applying knowledge that most wouldn't touch in a lifetime!
 

PoGOOD

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Richard Branson's Losing my Virginity (literal title!)
I may be hasty in saying that he is a pure-blood Fastlaner, because he started out by making a student magazine, then eventually the Virgin Records and his big airline hit. He's an adventurous fellow, and his story is breathtaking. To him, entrepreneurship is a journey, and what a fantastic journey it was for him!

And some of us still depend on one-trick pony tactics like get-rich-quick schemes and 'earn money from home'. :(

The Unauthorised biography of George Soros. He's not strictly Fastlane, but he did managed other people's money. And money is literally his weaponry. Sold short based on the weakness of the British pound to net him billions. This read is good if you want to learn about taking the shot when others won't. That bet which made him infamous could have been a disaster if things went the other way round.

I read these books in my college library while others were desperately hammering through their academics. Damn, so many untouched gems! No wonder MJ became such a dangerous Fastlaner by equipping and applying knowledge that most wouldn't touch in a lifetime!

It is especially great as an audiobook. The tempo and optimistic attitude flows to your ears. I liked it a lot.


Wysłane z iPhone za pomocą Tapatalk Pro
 

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