Small Town Billionaire: How John Bragg Built 3 Empires [Outliers]

Picture this. It's June nineteen sixty eight, and overnight a killing frost wipes out nearly every wild blueberry. At the time, John Bragg is twenty eight years old. He's just borrowed everything he could. To build a processing plant for those blueberries.

And now he's standing in this brand new factory with no crops to process. Bills are coming due, workers are showing for ships, the whole thing is the disaster. Most people in that situation they'd call the bank and work out some kind of bankruptcy deal. But John Bragg picks up the phone. But he doesn't call the bank. He calls McCain Foods, and he asks them one question that would change everything. Hello? Hi, John Bragg.

Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parish. In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. Today we're exploring one of the greatest untold stories in business, John Bragg. John Bragg's story reads like fiction, except it's real. He's founded three companies in three entirely different industries from blueberries to telecommunications to aviation.

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