Another one I learned a lot from was Sol Price, a great operator who had started Fed-Mart out in southern California in 1955. I made friends with Sol’s son-in-law, who was running a distribution center in Houston, and talking with him helped me sort out some of my thinking on distribution—which would eventually become another key to Wal-Mart’s success. I guess I’ve stolen—I actually prefer the word “borrowed”—as many ideas from Sol Price as from anybody else in the business. For example, it’s true that Bob Bogle came up with the name Wal-Mart in the airplane that day, but the reason I went for
...more
