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The Outsiders
book

The Outsiders

by William N. Thorndike
October 2012
Beginner
240 pages
5h 7m
English
Harvard Business Review Press
Content preview from The Outsiders

CHAPTER 2 An Unconventional Conglomerateur Henry Singleton and Teledyne

Henry Singleton has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business . . . if one took the 100 top business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would not be as good as Singleton’s.

—Warren Buffett, 1980

I change my mind when the facts change. What do you do?

—John Maynard Keynes

In early 1987, Teledyne, a midsize conglomerate with a reputation for unconventional behavior, declared a dividend. This seemingly innocuous event attracted inordinate attention in the business press, including a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal. What did the Journal find so newsworthy?

For most of the twentieth century, public ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781422187586