by Patricia Sellers
If you're old enough to remember the investor Sandy Sigoloff, you were probably surprised to read that he died at 80. 80! Time has flown since the slick, black-maned Ming the Merciless, as he called himself, was storming into down-and-out retailers, slashing operations, and saving some (like Wickes) while flubbing others (like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman).
While Sigoloff's obits attached those retail names to his legacy, it is little known that without him, we might never have seen the creation of Home Depot (HD). In 1995, Home Depot's founders, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, told me about their fateful run-in with Sigoloff, their onetime boss. I wrote about this in a Fortune cover story, "So you fail. Now bounce back!" about how superstar business-people recover from failure.
You can't always control your environment. Such is the business philosophy of Bernie Marcus and his business partner, Arthur Blank...
It was an April Friday in 1978 at Handy Dan's Los Angeles headquarters when Blank and Marcus got canned by Sanford Sigoloff, the retailer's new owner. The official reason was "unauthorized and unacceptable business practices," which related to employment of non-union workers. But personality clashes with Sigoloff were the real reason. The next day Ken Langone, an investor friend, told Marcus and Blank, "You've just been hit in the ass by a golden horseshoe. Let's go into business." Says Marcus: "Once I stopped stewing in my misery, I saw that Kenny wasn't crazy."
With $2 million in capital, Marcus and Blank began opening the kinds of stores they had dreaded competing against: hangar-size, no-frills outlets with high-grade service and a huge selection of products. Today, Home Depot (1994 revenues: $12.4 billion) tops the fast-growing home-improvement industry and hammers rivals on innovation. Says Marcus: "We're always looking for someone to crawl over our backs, to destroy us."
While Marcus and Blank have moved on from retailing (focusing on philanthropy and in Blank's case, owning the Atlanta Falcons), Home Depot has grown quite nicely. This week Home Depot reported 2010 net income of $3.3 billion on revenue of $68 billion.
by Patricia Sellers
Don't plan on buying Nathan Myhrvold's 2,400-page Modernist Cuisine for your beloved this Christmas.
The six-volume tome by Microsoft's (MSFT) former chief technology officer was due out in December and is currently listed for $451.25 on Amazon.com. But Myhrvold told me yesterday that a glitch waylaid the on-time delivery of his years-in-the-making labor of love.
Modernist Cuisine flunked Amazon's package durability tests. Not once but three times.
Most Amazon (AMZN) customers MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 15, 2010 10:57 AM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Yahoo (YHOO) has reportedly begun the layoffs that I wrote about on Postcards last week.
Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley company that's dominating the news is Netflix (NFLX). Founder-CEO Reed Hastings is Fortune's Businessperson of the Year. In the past three weeks since we put him on the cover, the war of words over his power -- and his level of threat to the media giants' steady profit streams -- MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 13, 2010 1:19 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
I have to admit that even among Fortune staffers, most of us predicted that Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs or Ford's (F) turnaround chief, Alan Mulally, would be selected as the magazine's Businessperson of the Year.
What a surprise that No. 1 on the list is Reed Hastings, the founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix.
Hastings is a great choice, actually. The 50-person ranking is about 2010's top movers and MORE
Patricia Sellers - Nov 19, 2010 12:37 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Today's best CEOs know that a dose of social responsibility helps attract and keep customers and employees.
Most companies give around 1% of their pre-tax profits to philanthropic causes. One that stands above the crowd: Target (TGT). The big-box retailer gives more than 5% of its pre-tax income to support communities. The 5% pledge, which Target proudly promotes, translates to more than $3 million in giving each week.
MORE
Patricia Sellers - Nov 17, 2010 12:31 PM ET
By Patricia Sellers
Building a startup can be a 24/7 assignment. Building a high-flying startup can be, well, more consuming than that.
Which is why Susan Lyne, the CEO of fast-growing online retailer Gilt Groupe, is switching jobs with Chairman Kevin Ryan.
Gilt announced the new set-up yesterday, and by the time Lyne called me at 6 p.m. to explain, she had finished a full day in her new role. "We were talking MORE
Patricia Sellers - Sep 28, 2010 2:30 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
So much optimism in the air....and yet, so many people seeing black clouds.
Last week, I told you about the gloomy economic view of Meredith Whitney, the influential financial-services industry analyst.
This morning I had breakfast with Cheryl Bachelder, the CEO of AFC Enterprises (AFCE) and president of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. That's right, the chicken chain. Like Whitney, Bachelder sees more pain than gain in the year ahead.
"Now we have MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 12, 2010 1:02 PM ET
Ever since I met Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google's (GOOG) former President of Asia-Pacific and Latin American Operations, a couple of years ago, I've been fascinated by her far-flung career path. Singh Cassidy worked at Merrill Lynch (BAC) out of college, then went to Amazon.com (AMZN), and then OpenTV and News Corp.'s (NWS) BSkyB. Eventually tapping her inner entrepreneur, she co-founded Yodlee, a financial-services Internet startup, and then landed at Google, where she MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 25, 2010 12:04 PM ET
I've never been big on New Year's resolutions, but a year ago, 15 minutes before 2009, I resolved to friend--a Charlie Rose fan--at a party in D.C.: "I'm going to DVR Charlie Rose every night."
Three weeks later, I found myself sitting next to the TV interviewer at a dinner in New York. I told Rose about my New Year's resolution. "So, are you doing it?" he asked.
"Uh, no, I MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 4, 2010 1:38 PM ET
"I guess I've stolen--I actually prefer the word 'borrowed'-- as many ideas from Sol Price as from anybody else in the business."
--Wal-Mart (WMT) founder Sam Walton about Sol Price, who started Fed-Mart and Price Club and launched a whole new style of U.S. retailing--club stores. Price, who sold Price Club to Costco (COST) in 1993, died this week at age 93.
Made in America, Sam Walton's memoir, sits here on my MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 16, 2009 6:37 PM ET
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Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
