Sublime

Charlie detests placer mining, the process of sifting through piles of sand for specks of gold. Instead, he applies his “big ideas from the big disciplines” to find the large, unrecognized nuggets of gold that sometimes lie in plain sight on the ground.

As Harrison said, his basic view didn’t change during the decades he ran railroads—service customers, control costs, utilize assets, don’t get anybody hurt, and recognize and develop people—and over time, he gained more confidence.

While Sir Richard Branson advised executives to focus on employees first, customers second, and investors third, Harrison reversed the priorities: investors came first. For him the game was capitalism, pure and simple. You either played it or you didn’t.

Hill even plowed $25,000 into the faltering New York Times. All across the GN empire, Jim Hill’s private car became a landmark, frequently only a mythical landmark, pulled up on sidings from Fargo to Olympia, Washington—there to dictate policy regarding rail regulation and other pressing issues. He was becoming a legend in his own time, an ogre to

So strongly did I feel about the situation that, when someone proposed making changes in Buick’s management, where Harry Bassett was successfully carrying on Walter Chrysler’s old policy, I wrote to Mr. du Pont: “It is far better that the rest of General Motors be scrapped than any chances taken with Buick’s earning power.”