People • 9 min read
She promised Motorola a screen nobody knew how to make yet.
Zhou Qunfei built Lens Technology, the company behind the glass on Apple's iPhones.
The Ascent.
How ambition becomes altitude.
People • 8 min read
Choosing the summit over the sale
For Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, pitons were 70% of his revenue, but his 1972 catalog told climbers to stop buying them.
People • 9 min read
Turning down 100,000 radios to protect a name nobody knew
Akio Morita set out to make Sony a word people everywhere would recognize.
People • 9 min read
A falling-out, a failing shop, and a better way to share
John Spedan Lewis inherited a London department store and turned it into the John Lewis Partnership.
People • 9 min read
He fired his father's managers, then let the workers run the company.
Ricardo Semler turned Semco, his family's Brazilian manufacturer, into a famous experiment in workplace democracy.
People • 8 min read
After two failures, he sold his one success to start over.
Milton Hershey built Hershey Chocolate into a household name and left control of it to a school.
People • 8 min read
She learned kitesurfing to get a seat at the investors' table.
Melanie Perkins turned a school yearbook business into Canva, the design tool for people who aren't designers.