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Sam Walton: Made in America
My Story
Made in America (1992) tells the inspirational rags-to-riches story of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, one of the biggest companies in the world. Find out how Walton used a customer-first approach to turn a small variety store into a global business empire and how a poor boy from Oklahoma went on to become one of the richest people in the world.
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Sam Walton founded Walmart, a chain of retail stores that brought in nearly $500 billion in sales in 2015. Walton passed away in 1992.
John Huey, the former editor-in-chief for Time magazine, is a writer and publishing executive.
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Sam Walton: Made in America
My Story
- Read in 13 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 8 key ideas
Synopsis
Made in America (1992) tells the inspirational rags-to-riches story of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, one of the biggest companies in the world. Find out how Walton used a customer-first approach to turn a small variety store into a global business empire and how a poor boy from Oklahoma went on to become one of the richest people in the world.
Key idea 1 of 8
Growing up during the Great Depression, Sam Walton learned the value of hard work.
Sam Walton was born in 1918, to a lower-class family in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. The Waltons didn’t have much but Sam’s parents made sure he was taken care of.
Sam’s father, Thomas, was an honest and hard-working man who took many different jobs in order to provide for his family. Due to his sense of pride, he refused to take on any loans or debt, which meant he was never able to start his own business. Sam Walton understood this, and he would later use a loan to help start his own store.
On the other hand, Sam’s mother, Nan, was quite the entrepreneur, often coming up with ideas to help the family earn extra money.
During the Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Nan started a small milk business: Sam would milk the cows, his mother would bottle it and Sam would go out and deliver the milk to neighborhood customers.
These childhood experiences made Sam Walton realize at an early age that he would have to work hard to earn his keep.
Inspired by his mother’s efforts to bring in money for the family, Walton got his first job when he was just eight years old. He started by selling magazine subscriptions around the neighborhood, and by 7th grade he was out on his bike delivering newspapers.
He continued to earn money as he worked his way toward becoming a college graduate. Walton even hired assistants, expanding his paper route into a small business that made around $5,000 a year.
All of these experiences taught the young Sam Walton an important lesson: hard work pays off.
So, by the time Walton was 27 years old and preparing to start his first business venture, he already knew that in order to be successful and get ahead in the world, one had to be willing to put in the effort.
Key ideas in this title
- Growing up during the Great Depression, Sam Walton learned the value of hard work.
- Part of Walton’s success was a result of blatantly copying the good ideas of others.
- Walton always put the customer first, but not without controversy.
- Other big retailers didn’t scare Walton; he recognized that competition only made Walmart stronger.
- Although it took time, Walton eventually began to value his employees, turning them into associates.
- Walton knew how to celebrate his successes and learn from his failures.
- Walton also recognized the importance of giving back to the community.
- Final summary
