Walmart

In the days before the hi tech billionaires we had Sam Walton. During the depression he worked on the family farm. He had a paper route and sold magazine subscriptions and graduated from high school. He went to college and graduated with a degree in economics and joined JC Penny as a management trainee. In 1942 he went into the military and while there decided he wanted is own retail business. After the war with a loan of $20,000 from his father in law and $5,000 he saved while in the army he purchased a Ben Franklin store in Arkansas. His store did so well that the landlord raised the rent so high he was forced to leave and the landlord turned the store over to his son. Walton took the $50,000 he received from his inventory and purchased a small Ben Franklin discount store in Bentonville, AR. He started using the profits from one store to buy another. The first Walton store opened in 1962 in Rodgers, AR. and was called Wal Mart Discount store. His philosophy was to offer one stop shopping and low prices and the rest is history. The interesting thing is that many people had access to the same public facilities as Walton but by working hard and working smart in a free market economy he became a huge success. There are 2.3 million people working at Walmart. He is only one of millions who have started with very little and ended up with a whole lot.