Navigating Retail and Mergers in Business

Gary Hoover knows more about American Business History than anyone else. He collected over 70,000 books, about half of which were business related, and studied each of them. Gary is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to business history. His expertise and passion is retailing, and he was at the center of the retail universe for most his careers. He'll talk about how he started a book retail chain that got acquired by Barnes & Noble, and his careers at several other prominent retail chains.

I could have listened to these stories for 8+ hours, but you'll have to make do with a little less than 2 hours worth of content. 

Watch this interview if you are interested in business, how great companies came to be, and why others failed.

Highlights:

0:00 Introductions
9:57 Getting into the book business
23:47 Sam Walton & what makes a great CEO
29:32 Dying retail businesses 
37:41 The art of building great malls
41:12 What would Gary work on today?
46:58 History of conglomerates and holding companies
1:09:33 Antitrust and monopolies
1:27:02 Gary's 70,000 book collection (and how he lost it)

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Connect with Gary:

Website: https://americanbusinesshistory.org/


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