Henry Singleton: The Greatest Capital Allocator in History [Outliers]
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Henry Singleton has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business. If one took the top 100 business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, the record would not be as good as Singleton's. That's a quote by Charlie Munger. On today's outlier. Welcome to the Knowledge Podcast. I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. If you want to take your learning to the next level, consider joining our membership program at FS.blog slash membership. As a member, you'll get early access to episodes, no ads, including this, exclusive content, hand edited transcripts. Access to the repository, which has highlights from all my favorite books. Check out the link in the show notes for more. when the stock market crashed in the nineteen seventies most s panicked Henry Singleton saw opportunity.
While other business leaders were caught out of position and desperately trying to save their companies, Singleton quietly executed a strategy so unconventional that Warren Buffett later admitted. I wish I had had the courage to do it myself. That single decision created the most successful conglomerate in American history. Singleton is the greatest businessman you've never heard of. The chess prodigy turned mathematician, turned CEO, generated a twenty point four percent annual return over nearly three decades at Teledyne. Even Warren Buffett was in awe, calling it the best operating and capital deployment record in American business, bar none.
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