FT business books: what to read this month
‘Kick Up Some Dust: Lessons on Thinking Big, Giving Back, and Doing It Yourself’, by Bernie Marcus with Catherine Lewis
When Bernie Marcus, scrappy son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Russia, was fired at 49, it could have marked the end of his career in discount retail. Instead, his sacking was, in the words of one of his partners, like being “kicked in the ass with a golden horseshoe”.
Marcus went on to make his fortune by co-founding Home Depot, the now ubiquitous US chain of warehouse-sized do-it-yourself stores.
That, though, is only half of an extraordinary story. Now in his 90s, Marcus recalls that when he and his wife Billi learnt they were billionaires, he asked: “We can buy anything we want — or we can change the world. What do you want to do?” Billi replied, “Let’s do good things”. They created the Marcus Foundation, a wide-ranging philanthropic endeavour that has been giving away their fortune ever since.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Andrew Hill
