All of the Elite Eight contenders in Inc’s Greatest
Living Entrepreneur Tournament are iconic leaders in their fields. But
the ones who got the most votes tended to be those with more than one
trick up their sleeve. Branson—the music/airline/mobile/space travel
magnate—beat out Martha, whose sole empire is the home. Howard Schultz,
now known for social entrepreneurship as well as $4 cappuccino,
outlasted the billion-dollar social media star Zuckerberg. This sets up a
Final Four that is a clash of true business titans.
Bill Gates Microsoft
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Jeff Bezos Amazon
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This was a competition of management
styles-Bezos with his goofy, infectious laugh, and the intellectual
Gates with his flame-mail temper-as well of business strategies. Both
brilliantly exploited their first-mover advantage, but Gates built his
edge into a virtual monopoly. Love him or hate him, that's single-minded
devotion to a goal, and voters rewarded him.
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Richard BransonVirgin Group
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Martha Stewart Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
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Martha made herself into a brand
juggernaut. But Branson became a brand, too, one that stood for
adventure and informality. In the end it was his brand that proved more
notable to brackets voters, since he has applied it with equal success
to music, airlines, cellular phones, and now space travel. Both Stewart
and Branson had brushes with the law-Stewart for insider trading and
Branson for tax evasion-but the conviction arguably was a bigger blow to
Stewart's Ms. Perfection image.
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Mark Zuckerberg Facebook
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Howard Schultz Starbucks
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Schultz created a whole new kind of place
for people to hang out in the physical world, while Zuckerberg did the
same thing online. On the merits, Zuckerberg has probably will have a
bigger global impact before he is through, but voters may have felt that
he is still too young to have compete in a contest that is, at heart, a
lifetime achievement award. Schultz has also earned managerial kudos
for making Starbucks a great place to work, no small feat in the
fast-food world.
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Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google
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Oprah WinfreyHarpo Productions
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By understanding the hearts and minds of
ordinary American women, Oprah turned herself into one of the most
powerful media brands ever. By grasping the potential of search, the
Google founders created a company that has become to the online world
what Microsoft was to the PC. In sheer business terms, Google is by far
the more successful entity, but Oprah is the better story. And in this
case, voters went for the story, preferring the mastery of air waves by
an up-from-poverty entertainer over mastery of algorithms by couple of
Stanford brainiacs.
SOURCE: www.inc.com
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