Items13The creator’s order
  1. 1James SinegalJames SinegalBorn 1 Jan 1936Sinegal co-founded Costco and ran it until 2011, paying warehouse staff well above retail norms with health cover, and capping mark-ups at around 14 per cent even when analysts said he could charge more. Wall Street analysts openly complained that shareholders were losing out to employees and…0i
  2. 2Warren BuffettWarren BuffettBorn 30 Aug 1930Buffett never gave quarterly earnings guidance, refused to split Berkshire's A shares to attract traders, paid his managers on the results of their own businesses rather than the share price, and kept a huge cash reserve that looked lazy in boom years and decisive in crashes. The concrete test is…0i
  3. 3Jeff BezosJeff BezosBorn 12 Jan 1964Bezos told Amazon's first shareholders in 1997 that the company would make decisions for long-term market leadership rather than short-term profit, and spent years reinvesting nearly everything, reporting thin or no profits while building warehouses and Amazon Web Services. Critics called it a…0i
  4. 4Larry PageLarry PageBorn 26 Mar 1973Page and Sergey Brin's 2004 letter to prospective Google shareholders said plainly that the company would not give earnings guidance and would make long bets, and they used a dual-class share structure so outside investors could not force short-term choices. The structure is controversial because…0i
  5. 5Paul PolmanPaul PolmanBorn 11 Jul 1956On his first day as Unilever's chief executive in 2009, Polman scrapped quarterly earnings guidance and told hedge funds they were not welcome as shareholders. His Sustainable Living Plan tied the strategy to long-term goals, and in 2017 he fought off Kraft Heinz's takeover bid, which was built on…0i
  6. 6Emmanuel FaberEmmanuel FaberBorn 22 Jan 1964Faber made Danone the first listed French company to become an entreprise à mission in 2020, writing social and environmental goals into its articles with shareholder approval. Months later, with the share price lagging rivals, activist investors including Bluebell Capital and Artisan Partners…0i
  7. 7Indra NooyiIndra NooyiBorn 28 Oct 1955Nooyi's Performance with Purpose strategy shifted PepsiCo's spending towards healthier products and away from relying on sugary drinks, which cost it market share in soft drinks for a while. In 2013 and 2014 she resisted the activist investor Nelson Peltz, who wanted the snacks and drinks…0i
  8. 8Lars Rebien SørensenLars Rebien SørensenBorn 10 Oct 1954Sørensen ran Novo Nordisk from 2000 to 2016 under a structure in which the Novo Nordisk Foundation controls the company's votes, shielding it from takeovers and activist pressure. He used that room to keep investing in diabetes and obesity research through lean years, groundwork for the GLP-1 drugs…0i
  9. 9Jensen HuangJensen HuangBorn 17 Feb 1963From 2006 Huang kept Nvidia investing in CUDA, software that let its graphics chips run general scientific computing, for years before it earned much and while investors questioned the cost. When deep learning took off, researchers were already using CUDA, which is a large part of why Nvidia came…0i
  10. 10Akio ToyodaAkio ToyodaBorn 3 May 1956After the 2009 to 2010 recall crisis, Toyoda told the US Congress that Toyota had grown too fast, and slowed expansion to rebuild quality. Later he resisted investor and campaigner pressure to go all-in on battery electric cars, keeping hybrids and hydrogen alongside them; strong hybrid demand in…0i