Real people, real methods, and what each of them paid for it.
30 articles
John Jacob Astor traded beaver pelts for Manhattan land, and three generations lived off the rent. Then the fortune was split and spent. Rothschild and Rockefeller had two things the Astors did not.
Koos Bekker put 32 million dollars into Tencent at the point of maximum pessimism, then held for fourteen years without selling. On the discipline of holding, capital allocation, and building a career from nothing.
Duan Yongping made hundreds of millions of dollars on GE and still files it under mistakes. A portrait of the investor behind OPPO and vivo, and of the double filter that rules a company out before valuation begins.
From 100,000 dollars and his father's instruction not to draw a salary, Fayez Sarofim built a 30 billion dollar empire on something rare: patience. A portrait of the Sphinx of Houston.