← Good Bad Billionaire
Good Bad Billionaire
Sam Walton: Walmart’s founder
00:44:29
Sam Walton’s discount store Walmart is the largest retailer on Earth
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- [00:00]
Narrator
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Over the past 25 years, technology has transformed our world in amazing ways. We've gone from dial up modems to 5G connectivity and bulky PC towers to AI powered microchips. Every day, innovators are redefining what's possible. Through it all, Invesco QQQ ETF has connected investors to the forefront of innovation. Access the Future today with Invesco QQQ, let's rethink possibility. There are risks when investing in ETFs, including possible loss of money. ETFs risks are similar to those of stocks. Investments in the tech sector are subject to greater risk and more volatility than more diversified investments. Before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Visit Invesco.com for a prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully before investing.
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Sing Sing
Invesco Distributors, Inc. Hey, let's talk about your expense report.
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Simon Jack
I didn't submit an expense report.
- [00:48]
Sing Sing
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Simon Jack
What are you talking about?
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Sing Sing
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Ryan Seacrest
These are my future expenses?
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Sing Sing
Yes. And self defense classes are out of policy.
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Simon Jack
I'll need self defense classes.
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Sing Sing
You will?
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Simon Jack
For what?
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Ryan Reynolds
It's a big dog.
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Simon Jack
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Sing Sing
We'Re in a small plane, flying low over the golden wheat fields and green pastures of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Lakes glint in the sunlight, but our pilot isn't taking in the view. He's keeping an eye on business. Literally. He's he likes to drop in unannounced on his stores. As we glide over a vast supermarket, something catches his eye. The parking lot, usually full at this time of day, is nearly empty. Frowning, he pulls the plane into a sudden nosedive. Stomachs in our mouths as we plunge down, landing on what's barely more than a driveway. The pilot strides straight into the store, looking for the manager. What's going on? Turns out there's a school festival in town. The lot will be full again soon. Relieved, the pilot smiles. For a moment there, he says, I thought we were doing something wrong. And who exactly is this hands on store owner dropping out of the sky to check in? None other than Sam Walton, founder of the Walmart empire.
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Simon Jack
Welcome to Good, Bad, Dead Billionaire from the BBC World Service. In each episode of this mini season, we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money and we.
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Sing Sing
Take them from zero to their first million, then from a million onto a billion.
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Simon Jack
I'm Simon Jack, I'm the BBC's business editor.
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Sing Sing
And I'm Sing Sing. I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
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Simon Jack
And this episode's dead billionaire is Sam Walton, founder of the world's biggest private employer, Walmart. Have you ever been to Walmart?
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Sing Sing
I remember so clearly going into my first Walmart in San Francisco when I was on holiday sometime in the 2000s and I was astounded and appalled.
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Simon Jack
Why?
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Sing Sing
It was huge. It was like a temple of shopping of all the random things you could ever want in your entire life.
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Simon Jack
I remember going into a Walmart in Tennessee and I don't think any British person will ever get over the sight of walking into a supermarket and being able to buy crossbows, guns, knives, et cetera.
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Sing Sing
Oh, I mean, I don't think the Walmart in San Francisco had that, but it did have what I can only describe as a mile long aisle of just chewing gum. And I was like, wow, this is the American consumerism I read about in books.
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Simon Jack
Interesting fact. Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world and it still has more sales than Amazon, which basically we think of as having destroyed all other retailers before it. Walmart still sells more stuff than Amazon.
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Sing Sing
Well, let's find out more about how Sam Walton made a supermarket chain that continues to endure to this day.
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Simon Jack
And of course it made Sam Walton very rich. For Most of the 1980s, Sam Walton was the richest man in America. He hit billionaire status in 1988 with $2.8 billion to his name. And he built that fortune, of course, founding Walmart, which is still the largest retailer on Earth with $611 billion in revenue, 10,500 stores across 19 countries and 255 million. That's quarter of a billion customers every week.
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Sing Sing
Wow, talk about big numbers. It's also the world's biggest private employer with over 2 million workers. So this is actually more than the population of Estonia and Malta put together. And Sam, known as Mr. Sam to, was famously frugal and ruthless. He would stay in budget motels, he would get $5 haircuts, he even borrowed lunch money from his employees.
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Simon Jack
But that penny pinching attitude shaped Walmart's culture from cutting wages to reusing paper. Sam even acknowledged in his autobiography, Sam Walton Made in America by Sam Walton and John Huey. In the beginning I was so chintzy, I really didn't pay my employees very well. I was so obsessed with turning in a profit margin of 6% or higher that I ignored some of the basic needs of our people. And I feel more about that a bit later. He died in 1992, yet a 2002 article said that the majority of Walmart employees with children still live below the poverty line.
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Sing Sing
Amazon's Jeff Bezos, by the way, is actually a fan of Sam Walton. He's actually handed out underlined copies of this autobiography to his team.
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Simon Jack
But not everyone's a fan, right?
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Sing Sing
No. Walmart actually faces 15 to 20 lawsuits a day, often from former employees or customers. There are so many lawsuits and so many complaints that they have their own Wikipedia page today.
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Simon Jack
The Walton family still owns 45% of the shares of Walmart and with $267 billion, they're the richest family in America.
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Sing Sing
But let's trace Sam's fortune from zero to a million.
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Simon Jack
So let's start in rural Oklahoma. Rolling wheat fields, cattle ranches, tornado alley, fiddling hoedowns, pecan pie a plenty. And it's here, near Kingfisher that Samuel Moore Walton was born on March 29, 1918.
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Sing Sing
Sam's family as farmers, but his dad Thomas moved into farm financing and insurance. And they lived a comfortable middle class life until the Great Depression hit. Thomas had to give up his business and work for his brother's mortgage company, repossessing farms. Not very fun work to do if you're a former farmer yourself.
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Simon Jack
Awful. What a soul destroying thing to witness that was. It really left an impression. Sam later said it was tragic. Really hard on dad too. But he tried to do it in a way that left those farmers with as much of their self respect as he could. But he added, I don't ever remember saying anything to myself like, I'll never be poor.
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Sing Sing
But like many future billionaires, Sam picked up a work ethic really early on. He helped his mother sell milk, raised rabbits and pigeons, sold magazine subscriptions when he was 8 years old. He had a paper route by 12 actually.
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Simon Jack
It's interesting how many of our billionaires had a paper route at a young age. They wanted their own money. His dad drilled in this work ethic. The secret is work, work, work. I taught the boys how to do it and Sam agreed. I've been over blessed with drive and ambition from the time I hit the ground, he said.
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Sing Sing
Over blessed is a really lovely word to use in this. He didn't actually think of himself as gifted though. But he did work hard. He made the honour roll. He played quarterback in the high school football team despite being too small for the position. And he was competitive.
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Simon Jack
His brother Bud put it simply, Sam could excel at anything he set his mind to. Well, maybe not everything. In his autobiography, Sam said he didn't inherit his dad's gift for negotiating, which is interesting. This Sam said he'd embarrassed me with how low his offers were. I just don't have that ability to squeeze the last dollar. I feel that. I feel very squeamish about negotiating.
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Sing Sing
Well, I mean, he can't have been that bad about it, considering, given what.
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Simon Jack
Walmart was built on, low prices. That's an astonishing admission.
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Sing Sing
Exactly. Well, in 1936, Sam headed off to the University of Missouri to study economics.
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Simon Jack
To pay his way, he juggled jobs. He waited tables, lifeguarding, ramping up his paper round. He claimed he was making the equivalent of $90,000 a year when adjusted for inflation today, which seems like a pretty high number.
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Sing Sing
He must have inflated that.
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Simon Jack
You think so? The paper he delivered called him their chief salesman.
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Sing Sing
And after he graduated, he landed a job as a management trainee at JCPenney, which is a department store chain. And he loved it. So he worked 6:30am To 8pm Six days a week, inspired by his workaholic boss there. He says he also got a huge bonus, which must have helped.
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Simon Jack
Yeah. In 1942, with the war on, though, Sam left pennies to join the army, though a heart condition kept him in the United States, probably a relief to his new wife, Helen. Her father, L.S. robson, was a powerhouse banker, lawyer, rancher, and became a very key person in Sam's life.
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Sing Sing
Sam once said, listening to her father, Ellis Robson, was an education in itself. I saw his success and I admired it. I said to myself, maybe I'll be as successful as he is someday.
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Simon Jack
But even in the Army, Sam was planning big. He was posted in Salt Lake City. He devised every book on retail in the local library and spent his days off studying how the Mormon department stores ran things in Salt Lake City, which of course is the home of Mormonism.
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Sing Sing
So when the war ended in 1945, Sam was 27. He had a baby son and also big retail dreams. He wanted to buy what's known as a franchise.
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Simon Jack
So a franchise is when you rent, if you like the brand name, the stock, the store, but you run it as a private business. So you might open, for example, McDonald's and KFC. Companies like that run on franchise basis that I can go in, I will rent from them all the stuff, the product, the brand name, the whatever, the uniform, golden arches, all the golden arches, what have you pay them A royalty for that, but basically run it as my own business. And it's been very instrumental in spreading chains far and wide because it means that, you know, the corporate entity itself doesn't have to spend all the money on hiring and doing all these things. People will do it for it. You can proliferate the store footprint without having to do it all yourself. You have independent people doing it for you, but paying you a royalty.
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Sing Sing
And this must be why you get McDonald's and KFCs everywhere.
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Simon Jack
Exactly so because, you know, they probably wouldn't themselves bother to find some small town somewhere and put it there. But somebody might say, I think it would work here. I will rent all the stuff, the franchise, the branding, all that kind of stuff from there and do it myself.
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Sing Sing
But the startup money you must need to rent that franchise in the first place has to be pretty big.
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Simon Jack
Actually. It's quite an interesting way of getting started in the business in the sense that you don't have to have all that startup capital. They will provide a lot of that for you and you will pay them basically rent a royalty for that. So it's actually quite an interesting way. A lot of people who became very successful in retail and other areas started life as franchisees and then they basically went into their own thing. So it's quite an interesting way of getting into the business world.
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Sing Sing
But Sam didn't quite have the money to go at it alone quite yet.
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Simon Jack
No, he wanted to partner with a friend. But Helen, his wife, wasn't having it. She'd seen friendships fall apart over these kind of business deals. So she convinced her dad to chip in $20,000. Sam added his $5,000 in savings and they boug a Ben Franklin five and dime franchise, basically a shop selling inexpensive household personal goods. And it was in a small town, not the big city, just like Helen wanted. And they chose Newport, Arkansas.
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Sing Sing
So this kind of store is actually perfect for small towns. So big department stores, they don't bother with rural areas. So Sam smelled opportunity and he aimed to be the most successful store in the state within five years.
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Simon Jack
But it didn't start that well. His rent was high and a competitor across the street had pulled in double the sales the year before. He'd made a bad deal, but Sam.
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Sing Sing
Found ways to innovate. At first he followed the franchise ruse, which meant that you had to buy 80% of your stock from Ben Franklin. But Sam found he could buy cheaper directly from suppliers. Some said no because they obviously didn't want to upset Ben Franklin, but a few did. Say yes.
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Simon Jack
That's considered a bit of a no no in franchise worlds. I can imagine it cutting out the person who's given you the franchise. But what this meant was for the few people who did say yes to him, it meant that Sam could sell more for less. So say he bought underwear at $2 for a dozen pairs instead of Ben Franklin's $2.50. Instead of selling three pairs for a dollar, he could sell four. Half the profit for item, he said. But because I was selling three times as many, the overall profit is much higher. Basically. Smaller profit margin, but more volume equals bigger profit.
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Sing Sing
It's about scale.
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Simon Jack
Yes, exactly.
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Sing Sing
He also got creative and I love this. He brought in a popcorn machine, an ice cream store, anything to just get people through the door. And it actually worked. So year one he made $105,000 in sales. And within two years he paid off Helen's dad, which must have felt good.
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Simon Jack
Yeah. By year five, $250,000 in sales and up to $40,000 in profit. And it was the top performing Ben Franklin in six states.
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Sing Sing
But then came the gut punch. His landlord refused to renew the lease. He actually wanted the franchise for his son. Sam had missed the clause in the contract about the five year renewal. But the landlord offered $50,000 for the stock and fixtures, which was a fair price. And Sam, however, was devastated. He said it was the low point of my business life. I felt sick to my stomach. I blamed myself for ever getting suckered into an awful lease and I was furious at the landlord. I'm sure there are quite a few people in the world who are still furious with landlords today.
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Simon Jack
Yes, exactly. Read the small print. Always an important lesson in business life. But in 1950, with the $50,000 he got from selling that first store, Sam started searching for his next move.
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Sing Sing
Him and his father in law landed on another Ben Franklin franchise, this time in Bentonville, Arkansas. It was close to Helen's and near four states with different quail hunting seasons. Which means Sam could hunt quail year round. He was so quite the keen hunter.
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Simon Jack
Quail hunting, he's got to have the quail hunting. And he learned from his past mistakes. This time he bought the building outright and locked in a 99 year lease next door so he could expand in the future. There are already three five and dimes in town, but Sam said he liked the challenge.
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Sing Sing
Always looking for an edge, Sam rode the overnight bus to Minnesota to check out two new style Ben Franklin stores. Self service, no clerks at every counter, just registers at the front. He Brought that idea back to Bentonville, making his third self service five and dime in the country.
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Simon Jack
And that's pretty unusual for the US where basically there's a huge premium on service. So the idea of self service to do it cheaper, it's quite a big cultural shift, I think. Yeah, but customers loved it. And Sam's friendly attitude. One time he brought flip flops back from New York 1. Clark laughed. No way those things will sell. They'll blister your toes. But at 19 cents a pair, they flew off the shelves.
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Sing Sing
He introduced flip flops to Arkansas.
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Simon Jack
There we go.
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Sing Sing
So two years later, Sam opened a second store in Fayetteville. He recruited a manager from a rival chain with a bold pitch. Work half days for free until we open, but once we're up and running, you'll get a cut of the profits. The manager even ended up sleeping on a cot in the storeroom. The approach worked. That year, Bentonville pulled in $95,000 and Fayetteville did 90,000. So from then on, all store managers got a share of the Prof.
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Simon Jack
Which again, was very unusual at that time. But in 1953, on his father in law's advice, Sam created a family partnership, Walton Enterprises. So Sam, Helen, and their four young kids were all listed as partners. And boy, was that smart. The early transfer of assets before they were mega rich meant no gift or inheritance tax, plus protection from hostile takeovers, so no one can come in and buy the shares. But Helen said the best part was how it brought the family closer together. It developed their sense of responsibility towards one another. She said, you just can't beat that.
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Sing Sing
So you can't exactly go around tearing the family apart. Basically, yeah. So that same year, Sam got his pilot's license so he could scout locations mainly from the sky. He often flew with his younger brother Bud, on the lookout for new opportunities. So just gliding across America looking for.
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Simon Jack
Empty lots, that sounds kind of fun, doesn't it? By 1960, Sam had 15 stores, but the profits actually were pretty underwhelming. Sales total 1.4 million. So it was time for a pivot, an important one.
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Sing Sing
Now, he'd been watching a new wave in retail discount stores. Up until now, retail was about service. You know, like you said, salespeople, delivery services, credit accounts. In New England, a chain called Ann and Hope had been upending this. There were no fancy displays, that buildings were cheap, and the cheapest products were sourced directly from suppliers. A kind of power them high, sell them cheap approach.
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Simon Jack
And in 1959, Arkansas got its first discount store. Sam was curious, of course, he took notice. He hit the road. He visited. He visited discount chains across the country. He scribbled endless notes on his yellow legal pad, which became a bit of a signature thing of his founders were bombarded with questions, and he later said, I guess I've stolen. Actually, I prefer the word borrowed. As many ideas from Sol Price as from anybody else in the business. Sol Price was pioneering discount stores. Sam knew or sensed this was the future.
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Sing Sing
Sam pitched the idea to Ben Franklin, hoping they'd back him, but they said no. Discounting, ignored manufacturer recommended retail prices. And that ruffled feathers with suppliers, which was too risky for Ben Franklin.
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Simon Jack
Just a quick word on franchises, because I think people don't realize just how much money there is in America. I was in Portugal and I went to play golf and this American couple rocked up and I asked them where they were from. They said they were from Tennessee, but they had a house in the Bahamas and they come here by private jet and they were on a tour of the world playing all the golf courses. And they looked at very, very rich and sounded very rich indeed. And I said, do you mind me asking what you do for a living? And the guy said, oh, yeah, I sell party hats. And I went, what? He said, oh, yeah, I've got a party store. You know, you buy paper plates, hats, whatever, little costumes for Halloween. But I've got 15 franchises all around the southern United States. That's enough to get you private jets.
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Sing Sing
That's enough to get you a place in the Bahamas and a place in.
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Simon Jack
The Bahamas and sort of basically retired at like 52. Like in America, you only need to be the third most successful Toyota dealer in the state and you are a multi, multi millionaire. And so, you know, when people talk about five and dime franchises, whatever, there's big money in these stores.
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Sing Sing
No wonder they call America the land of opportunity.
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Simon Jack
So in 1962, at 44 years old, Sam was ready to open his first discount store. Even his own brother, Bud was unsure. He only chipped in 3%. Another store manager put in 2%. That left Sam and Helen to cover the rest of the 95%. And they put their home up as collateral.
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Sing Sing
But Sam had faith, right? He believed that rural towns were wide open, the big chains ignored them, and that was the opportunity. He kept the first store close to home, just 15 minutes from Bentonville. Years later, an analyst said one of the key elements in Walmart's success has been a lack of competition in its small rural markets.
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Simon Jack
Yeah, people like J.C. penney were not interested in Bentonville and places like that. So there was an opportunity for someone to come in there. On July 2, 1962, the very first, first Walmart opens in Rogers, Arkansas. The name itself was suggested by a manager. It kept Walton in the name, of course, but was shorter and cheaper to put on a sign than Ben Franklin.
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Sing Sing
Now opening day drew a crowd. 500 people lined up to see this new 16,000 square foot store. It wasn't an instant hit. They only did a million in sales a year, while other discount stores were doing twice that. But still, they opened two more.
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Simon Jack
And the early Walmart stores were pretty chaotic at best. When future chief executive David Glass visited the third one, he was a Paul picture. Concrete floors, cluttered stock piled high, exploding watermelons by the door, donkeys defecating in the parking lot, we're told. Yep, donkeys. They were giving rides in the parking lot. For a promotion, Glass called it the worst retail store he'd ever seen.
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Sing Sing
But and this was crucial, customers just didn't care. Sam's low prices kept them coming. One manager explained the philosophy. If they bought something for 50 cents, Sam would say, Mark it up 30% and that's it. No matter what you pay for it, if we get a great deal, pass it on to the customer.
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Simon Jack
That's interesting. Customers get the sense that Walmart, even at this stage, is using its buying power to fight for you to get you a better deal rather than take the money themselves. That's Keith the ethos, and that's a.
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Sing Sing
Very intoxicating thing to feel as a consumer.
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Simon Jack
So by 1968, Sam had 24 stores pulling in $12.7 million in sales and only half a million in profit. About half were still the old school five and dime stores. The rest were Walmarts. And by 1970, sales had jumped to $31 million, profits over 1.2 million. So by 1970, we can officially call Sam Walton a millionaire.
- [20:56]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [21:26]
Narrator
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Simon Jack
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Sing Sing
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- [24:07]
Sing Sing
Now let's Take Sam Walton from a million to a billion. We are kicking off this next chapter with a classic business milestone. The IPO. On October 1, 1970, Walmart went public.
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Simon Jack
Regular listeners to this podcast will know that the ipo, the initial public offering, is the bit when you basically start selling shares in your business to the public. It gives you a bit of a cash windfall. It gives you a currency in the future to do other things like invest or expand or even take over other companies.
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Sing Sing
And it gives you a good reason to pop the champagne.
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Simon Jack
Exactly. IPAs. When you see people ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, that's what they're doing. This is an early version of that. Helen, his wife, though, wasn't thrilled. Sam still had personal debt. Cash flow was tight. She worried that once the securities and Exchange Commission saw the books, once you're public, there's a lot more transparency and prying eyes. They could lose control of the company.
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Sing Sing
But still they went for it. The family swapped their stakes of 69% for shares with relatives and managers holding another 8%. That left 23% available to the public to buy.
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Simon Jack
And it turned out that Helen needn't have worried. Barely anyone noticed. Walmart was still just a regional player with 32 stores. It was Kmart who was dominating the discount account space at this time.
- [25:18]
Sing Sing
But still, The IPO raised $4.6 million. And Sam never had to take out personal debt again. And just a year later, Walmart expanded their profit sharing plan. So it wasn't just for managers anymore. Now, employees had been there a year and worked a thousand hours were also included.
- [25:34]
Simon Jack
What that IPO cash windfall does is it means you can make some big investment decisions. And what Sam did was invest it in distribution. About time, really, some would say. His own son had been delivering goods the moment he got his driver's license.
- [25:47]
Sing Sing
Now, as new Walmart stores opened across the country, Sam brought in Ron Mayer, a finance and tech guy, to help modernize operations. Now, Sam thought computers were mostly a waste of money. Remember, this is 1970. But he trusted Mayer's instincts. They upgraded to better cash registers. They built a computer system to track sales. By 1973, they could monitor inventory across 22 stores, which helped warm up, cut costs and reorder stock quickly.
- [26:13]
Simon Jack
This is absolutely the turning point for this company because Mayer also pushed for a proper warehouse. He even got the city of Bentonville to support it, opening with some tax free bonds. But Sam, true to form, was tight with money. The distribution manager, Bob Thornton, said they needed 100,000 square feet. Sam told the architect, no, make it 60,000. He only relented when Bob threatened to quit. Now, this is interesting. That is precisely the opposite kind of instinct to what you would have today. Facebook or with Amazon. Get big quickly, so, you know, use your money that people are giving you from IPO to expand as fast as you can. Build the big warehouses, well, houses.
- [26:51]
Sing Sing
Well, as Bob put it, Sam never did anything big until he absolutely had to. He always played it close to the.
- [26:57]
Simon Jack
Belt, for now, at least. By 1974, Walmart had 78 stores. It was pulling in 168 million in sales. Sam, now 56, handed the chief executive reigns to Ron Mayer, or at least he tried to.
- [27:09]
Sing Sing
But Sam never really stepped back. So Mayer struggled to get big changes through. He clashed with another exec, and within a couple of years he was out and Sam was back in the hot seat.
- [27:18]
Simon Jack
And remember, Mayer had been pushing for a bigger, better computer system. Sam. Sam hadn't wanted to spend that money. But then along came David Glass, sharp new executive, and when he made the same case that Mayer had been making, Sam finally gave in.
- [27:31]
Sing Sing
Sam later said, I was really surrounding myself with guys who were good at all the stuff. I tended to slough off, like actually organising the company to handle the growth explosion.
- [27:40]
Simon Jack
And it was the next few years, from 1977 to 1983, that Walmart went through this technology revolution. It put $500 million and vast amount of money in those days into a system that connected every store, every warehouse and distrib center to two IBM mainframes, Bentonville. And what that meant was that real time sales data, faster restocking, big cost savings. The 1979 annual report even said the savings in hours saved by the computer center are incalculable even by the computer.
- [28:11]
Sing Sing
It's funny because we often think of the PC revolution of this era as being something that was for personal use, right? Personal computers, you know, playing pong on your family's first PC. But actually it really revolutionized business as well.
- [28:23]
Simon Jack
Well, this was a slightly different thing. These were kind of mainframe computers, the revolution that was to come, which has spawned all the billionaires that we've talked about since, like, for example, Bill Gates. That was when IBM almost did an experiment, say, can we turn these big mainframes which power things like Walmart's distribution system, and put it on a desktop for people to use. But at this point, it was still these big computers, big machines, big machines.
- [28:44]
Sing Sing
By 1980, barcode scanners arrived and they boosted checkout productivity by 50% caches even got badges if they could scan 500 items an hour. And it's kind of impossible to think about supermarkets now without barcode scanners.
- [28:58]
Simon Jack
I know I still do remember. I'm old enough to remember there were some fast fingered checkout people who were just type it out. That was before the beep beep beep years. So basically you get a badge if you scan 500 items an hour. I think that gives us a hint that Sam was a tough boss. Long hours were expected and if it came down to it, he wanted managers to sleep at the store. Back in 1955 when one manager tried to raise Clark's wages from 50 cents to 75, Sam pushed back. But by the 1970s and 80s things had started to shift.
- [29:29]
Sing Sing
In 1971 he brought employees or associates in Sam speak into Walmart's profit sharing scheme. Eventually he admitted the more you share profits with your associates, whether it's in salaries or incentives or bonuses or stock discounts, the more profit will accrue to the company. And happy staff meant happy customers.
- [29:47]
Simon Jack
As we'll see. Happy staff is not always the story about Walmart. But Sam had some unique ideas about workplace place joy.
- [29:54]
Sing Sing
Oh yeah. On a 1975 trip to Japan and Korea, Sam and Helen visited a tennis ball factory.
- [30:00]
Simon Jack
As you do in on holiday as.
- [30:01]
Sing Sing
You do, you know, not any of the cultural stuff or the great food tennis balls. And Helen remembers this visit very clearly. It was the first place Sam ever saw a group of workers have a company cheer. And he liked the idea of everybody doing calisthenics together at the beginning of the day. He couldn't wait to go home and try those ideas out in the store. You know calisthenics come of exercise or fitness routine. I don't know how I feel about this.
- [30:26]
Simon Jack
You've seen well it was very common in Japanese store if you go to Nissan in Sunderland in the northeast there's a little bit of this stretching that goes on spent to sort of relax everyone, warming them up, imbue people with the company's values and identity.
- [30:38]
Sing Sing
How about the BBC newsroom starting every day with a little bit of jumping jacks?
- [30:42]
Simon Jack
I'm just trying to imagine Fiona Bruce and Clive Myre doing this in the BBC newsroom. For those people who don't know they're some of our lead can't quite see it. But Sam though was all in. He loved the idea.
- [30:55]
Sing Sing
Oh yeah. So from then on, every Saturday 7:30am sharp Walmart stores would kick off with the now legendary Walmart cheer. And lucky for you, I've got the script. Okay, ready? Let's bring the A game.
- [31:07]
Simon Jack
Oh, God.
- [31:08]
Sing Sing
Give me a W. W. Give me an a A Give me an L. L. Give me a Squiggly. What? Okay, it's a. Apparently a hip wiggler.
- [31:17]
Simon Jack
Okay, I'm wiggling my hips.
- [31:18]
Sing Sing
Give me an M. M. Give me an A A Give me an A. Give me a T. T. And what does that spell?
- [31:25]
Simon Jack
Walmart.
- [31:26]
Sing Sing
Who's number one?
- [31:27]
Simon Jack
The customer.
- [31:28]
Sing Sing
Do you feel motivated yet?
- [31:30]
Simon Jack
I'm ready to go. I'm really ready.
- [31:31]
Sing Sing
I feel like we should begin every podcast recording with that. Give me a P. Give me an O.
- [31:36]
Simon Jack
It's a bit corny, isn't it?
- [31:37]
Sing Sing
Oh, yeah. I mean, he knew it. But Sam believed that culture was key to the whole enterprise. He said, if you're committed to the Walmart partnership and its core values, the culture encourages you to think up of all sorts of ideas that break the mold and fight monotony.
- [31:50]
Simon Jack
But Walmart was scaling up fast, and some trouble was brewing. In 1979, they opened a new distribution center in Searcy, Arkansas.
- [31:58]
Sing Sing
It was their first remote mechanized center, powered by sales data from stores. And, you know, it sounds high tech, but not so much once you got inside. Staff were moving in before the roof was even finished. The computer systems were buggy because there were too many new stores too fast. Conditions were rough. David Glass said flat out, the working conditions were terrible. And the next thing you know, down there, the union was organizing.
- [32:20]
Simon Jack
Yeah, warehouse workers were pulling crazy hours, sometimes sleeping in their cars between shifts. Accidents were happening. Burnout was building.
- [32:28]
Sing Sing
In 1980, Walmart reached a billion in annual sales, had 276 stores, and employed 21,000 associates.
- [32:35]
Simon Jack
Yeah, but under the hood of the company, by 1982, the trouble at the distribution center came to a head. With a union vote looming, Sam and his brother Bud flew to Searcy. Sam made it clear, vote for the union and you lose your profit sharing. Benefit. Benefit. Well, guess what? The union lost. Walmart fixed the tech, expanded the center, and Searcy became their top performing warehouse.
- [32:56]
Sing Sing
It wasn't just about fixing that center. It also changed their whole approach. So instead of building stores first and scrambling to catch up, they flipped it. Sam said each store had to be within a day's drive of a distribution center.
- [33:08]
Simon Jack
So they build this warehouse basically, and then spread the stores out from there. I think in management terms, they call this hub and spoke kind of approach. You've got the hub there, the spoke goes out to all the stores Interesting.
- [33:19]
Sing Sing
And it's a smart logistics move that paid off because While competitors took five days to deliver, Walmart could do it in two. And most stores were within 350 miles of a center. So faster restocks, lower costs, happy customers.
- [33:31]
Simon Jack
And Sam didn't stop there. He wanted to grow Walmart's dominance beyond the Mississippi and deeper into the south. So in 1981, they bought Coons, which is a chain of 105 Southern District discount stores, for $13 million. And he folded them into the Walmart family.
- [33:46]
Sing Sing
And then in 1983, Sam launched something new, Sam's Club. It was a membership warehouse offering bulk goods, low prices and a limited selection inspired by Soul Price's Price Club. So basically a cash and carry wholesale warehouse, which eventually ended up merging with Costco. By 1984, just a year later, 11 Sam's Clubs were pulling in $225 million.
- [34:09]
Simon Jack
And Herb Fisher, who was from a rival chain called Jamesway, once said, Sam has always been clear about his attitude. Meet them head on, competition will make us a better company.
- [34:18]
Sing Sing
And interestingly, one of the criticisms of Walmart is that it has killed small town America. All these kind of small mom and pop business stores and things like that were just absolutely destroyed. When Walmart moves into town, I think.
- [34:30]
Simon Jack
There'S something to be said for that. I mean, if you think about these rural towns with their main streets, their independent little department stores, their, as you say, mom and pop pop firms, which have been there for years and it's definitely true, Walmart moves into town and a lot of them do die. But he said, look, you know, this is just life. Some tried to turn this into save the small town merchants deal, said Sam, like they were whales or something. They have a right to be protected. What happened was as inevitable as the replacement of the buggy by the car, which sets up a very interesting contest for Walmart itself with the, you know, you know what I'm going to say next with the arrival of Amazon and we're going to see how that duel plays out.
- [35:08]
Sing Sing
Yeah, I wonder who's humpback whale in that equation. Well, let's take it to 1984 and cameras are crowding Wall street for quite a bizarre scene, which is a bolding silver haired man in a yellow lei and a grass skirt awkwardly swaying to Hawaiian music, hands swimming through the air. Yep, this is Sam Walton, Walmart's founder, dancing the hula on Wall Street. He's in a usual business suit, but someone's crammed a Hawaiian shirt over it and his trademark baseball cap has been swapped for more yellow flowers.
- [35:37]
Simon Jack
It's the grass skirt that really does it for me though. It's well worth a look if you see it on YouTube.
- [35:40]
Sing Sing
Oh y.
- [35:42]
Simon Jack
There's a few Hawaiian dancers showing him how it's done, but he says I think that's enough. I think that's enough, he says, gathering them together for the Walmart cheer.
- [35:48]
Sing Sing
And you know there was real reason to celebrate because the year before, Sam had made a bet with his executives. If Walmart hit 8% pre tax profits, he'd hula in public. And well they did. So here he is, keeping his word.
- [36:01]
Simon Jack
And in 1985 Forbes made it official. Sam Walton was the richest man in America, worth $2.8 billion. Up until then, Sam was mostly unknown outside of Walmart. But that announce set reporters flooding into Bentonville only to find him wearing a Walmart cap driving a beat up pickup. And Sam quit. What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in a Rolls Royce? So not quite the high flying image that they had in mind. Certainly not like Howard Hughes anyway.
- [36:27]
Sing Sing
Oh, definitely not. Sam brushed all of this off further. Saying all that hullabaloo about somebody's net worth is just stupid. It's made my life a lot more complex and difficult.
- [36:36]
Simon Jack
But we're making hullabaloo because like it or not, Sam Walton is now a billionaire, is therefore on a our list.
- [36:42]
Sing Sing
Grass baseball cap and all.
- [36:56]
Simon Jack
So let's go beyond a billion. Just three years later, at 70, Sam stepped down as chief executive and David Glass took over the reins. And David said, I can count on one hand the people I've known who got up every morning and really tried to improve something either in their business or in their lives. And Sam worked at it seven days ago.
- [37:14]
Sing Sing
By 1990, Walmart had become the number one retailer in America by revenue. But behind the scenes, Sam's health was declining. He'd battled leukemia in the early 80s and in 1990 he was diagnosed with bone cancer. On April 5, 1992, just a week after his 74th birthday and three months before Walmart's 30th anniversary, Sam Walton died in a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas.
- [37:36]
Simon Jack
And it was that same year that Walmart overtook Kmart in both sales and size with nearly 2,000 stores and closed clubs. And it didn't stop there. Throughout the 90s, Walmart expanded around the world and now has stores in 19 countries.
- [37:49]
Sing Sing
Now remember that family partnership that Sam's father in law suggested all those years ago? That came through big time because when Sam Passed away. His shares went straight to his wife and kids and the state got hardly any inheritance tax, but they kept in the family.
- [38:03]
Simon Jack
His oldest son, Rob Walton stepped in as chairman in 1992, stayed on until 2015. So that's a 23 year stint. David Glass remained chief executive until 2000. Today still very much a family affair. Greg Penner, the current chairman, is married to Sam's granddaughter, Carrie Walton Penner.
- [38:20]
Sing Sing
Now, as we reflect on Sam's story, it's important to note that not everyone buys into this folksy image because after his death in 1992, Dateline NBC aired a report that raised some really tough questions about Walmart practices. It showed footage from a factory in Bangladesh where kids as young as 11 were sewing Walmart labels into clothing.
- [38:39]
Simon Jack
Yeah. The report also took aim at Sam's Buy America campaign launched back in 1985 to promote U.S. jobs. It turns out that while that campaign was running, Walmart had quietly become the largest importer of Chinese goods in any American industry. That resonates very much today.
- [38:55]
Sing Sing
In fact, David Glass, Walmart CEO at the time, pushed back. He said parts of the report were inaccurate and misleading, but even he admitted that the company had made some mistakes.
- [39:04]
Simon Jack
And we'll look at this in more detail. But you know, if you are the biggest retailer in the world, and this is not to excuse any of these things, but if you've got more stores and more sales than any person on the planet planet, it stands to reason there are going to be more incidents. So we'll look at whether there is, you know, a problem with culture within the business. But now it's time to judge him. This is where we go through a bunch of categories. So we're going to start with wealth.
- [39:32]
Sing Sing
So, you know, one time the richest man in America came from relatively humble origins. You know, his family were middle class, but they lost quite a bit in the Great Depression.
- [39:40]
Simon Jack
Yeah. If you look at the list of richest people in America to this day day, the Walton kids are something like 6, 7, 8 and 9 or they used to be as well.
- [39:49]
Sing Sing
So basically family partnership, family.
- [39:51]
Simon Jack
It is amazing. The Walton kids are all, you know, it's probably be changed now because of all the tech bros who are at the top of the list. But there was definitely a time when all four Walton children were in the top 10 of richest people in America.
- [40:04]
Sing Sing
Well, I don't know how the Walton children spend their money now, but Sam Walton seems to have had quite a modest life. You know, that pickup truck, the baseball.
- [40:12]
Simon Jack
Truck, it was like the Waltons the old TV said, good night, John Boy. Good night, Marianne. You're too young for that.
- [40:17]
Sing Sing
I don't. I have no idea what you're talking about.
- [40:19]
Simon Jack
Oh, my God. Okay, There used to be this famous TV series called the Waltons which looked at life on the prairie back in the good old days.
- [40:27]
Sing Sing
I wonder if that was inspired by Sam Walton's family.
- [40:30]
Simon Jack
Yeah, well, anyway, so wealth. He was the richest man in America at one time. I would give him a solid nine. And the fact that his kids were in the top 10. So basically each, you know, even each of them as well, his wealth divided by four was still enough to get his kids in the top 10. I'm going to give him a solid eight.
- [40:47]
Sing Sing
Well, actually, maybe I'm going to knock off a point because he didn't seem to like to spend the money very much except on flying around looking for new parking lots to set up Walmarts in. So maybe a seven out of ten for me.
- [40:57]
Simon Jack
Eight for me. Seven for me. Controversy. Well, there's plenty of this. Let's unpack a little bit of it. Because Walmart began to face more and more lawsuits from the 90s onwards. As the company expanded, it had one of the highest employee turnover rates in the country. That's how many people start and then leave. 70%. Churn in that a torrent of cases dealing with the employment practices, failure to pay overtime, poor working conditions. Most of these has to be said after Sam's death. On the flip side, what I would say is that Walmart sometimes is many people's first experience with the workplace. If you rise to manager of a big Walmart store, you get pretty well paid for that. Hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars progression. Some would argue that Walmart has helped a lot of people into the world of work. So on controversy. I'm gonna give it a. I'm gonna give it a six. Just, you know, because, you know, you can come down on either side. But there's clearly a debate to be had.
- [41:56]
Sing Sing
Yeah, I would agree. A six out of ten.
- [41:58]
Simon Jack
Okay, what about giving back? This is philanthropy. What is Sam Walton's record on this?
- [42:03]
Sing Sing
So Walmart founded its charitable foundation in 1982. In the 2024 fiscal year, the Walmart and the Walmart foundation collectively gave out $1.7 billion.
- [42:13]
Simon Jack
It's odd because Sam's own opinion of charity was not that good. He said, we believe very strongly that Walmart really is not and should not be in the charity business. We don't believe in taking a lot of money out of Walmart's cash registers and giving it to charity for the simple reason that any debit has to be passed along to somebody, either our shareholders or our customers. I would say that no one's expecting Walmart, the entity, to.
- [42:34]
Sing Sing
Right. To literally take money out of the cash machine.
- [42:36]
Simon Jack
But you, as the richest man in America, maybe out of your personal fortune, you could give money. So we really don't know what Sam Walton would have made of a foundation in his name giving money to charity 30 years after his death. So I'm going to say, given his opinions of charity, I'm going to give him a two.
- [42:56]
Sing Sing
Yeah, I mean, he doesn't exactly sound like the kind of guy who was giving it away while he was alive.
- [43:00]
Simon Jack
No, he's not the founder of Patagonia, is he?
- [43:04]
Sing Sing
No, he really isn't.
- [43:05]
Simon Jack
Okay, so I'm gonna two. What do you. What are you giving? I'm giving two.
- [43:08]
Sing Sing
I think two out of ten is fair enough. He did set up the foundation while he was alive.
- [43:13]
Simon Jack
That's true. Let's give him some credit for that. So the other category we've got is power and legacy. Now, one of the reasons Walmart is able to crush a lot of its competitors whenever it used to move into small towns is because of its enormous scale, the economy. Its buying power is vast. Yeah, you give it a 10 for buying power. It's the biggest retailer on, on earth. So in terms of retail power, and that gives it quite a lot of power over, over suppliers. One example, for example, was deodorants. Up until 1990, deodorants came in little cardboard boxes, little square kind of rectangular boxes, which takes up more shelf space. It increased shipping costs, costs money to produce. So Walmart pushed suppliers to eliminate the cardboard straight away. The suppliers eliminated packaging for Walmart, Walmart, and when they did that, they did it for all other stores. So the face of deodorants on your shelf was changed forever. Pretty powerful stuff because of Walmart.
- [44:08]
Sing Sing
And that's just for one thing, that's for one product. So, you know, I feel like you could say this. Its influence can be pretty positive because, you know, save cardboard, you save costs. But, you know, I also think you can't ignore the fact that it also had a huge impact on the towns that it moved into. Walmarts could be springboards for people to get into their first jobs. But there was an article in 2024 in the Atlantic that actually discusses new research that challenges this belief that Walmart's low prices benefit the communities. It moves into. So it argues that Walmart's presence often leads to lower wages, higher unemployment and a net negative economic impact on local economies which outweigh the consumer savings it provides.
- [44:50]
Simon Jack
He would say that was a natural evolution and the same way that Amazon is doing similar things to, to bricks and mortar stores across America.
- [44:58]
Sing Sing
And I think, you know, I have sympathy for both sides of this mom and pop store debate. Right. Because on one hand, yeah, the high street of any kind of small town is probably one that should be protected because it's employing local people and it's important to protect local businesses. But at the same time, if you grow up in a small town and you only have those three shops to shop from and in comes a shiny Walmart carrying goods that you have only ever seen in magazines, you know, as a consumer. That is incredible.
- [45:24]
Simon Jack
Yeah. So economic comic debate right there. I think that in terms of legacy, Walmart has completely changed the face of bricks and mortar retail in the US and in other countries and sort of invented, if you like, the kind of highly organized, distributed, technologically savvy. In fact, no one does it better than their new competitor, which is of course Amazon. And right now this could be the year where Amazon sales actually eclipse those of Walmart worldwide. Because at the moment, believe not it or, or not, Walmart still sells more stuff every year than Amazon does. But I think those, those league table positions from 1 and 2 are about to switch this year.
- [46:02]
Sing Sing
So watch this. Space Astoria is developing.
- [46:05]
Simon Jack
Given that though, Amazon is worth several multiples in terms of actual market value of the company than Walmart because it does lots of other things like cloud computing, all that kind of stuff, which is considered super, super valuable. So Amazon, much more than a retailer, but will overtake probably Walmart as a retail.
- [46:22]
Sing Sing
But I think in terms of power and legacy right now, I mean, it must be a 9 out of 10 for some.
- [46:27]
Simon Jack
Yeah, I think so. If you're the biggest private sector employer in the world, that's a pretty powerful position to be in.
- [46:33]
Sing Sing
Oh yeah, and also I think what's interesting about this story is that, you know, there are those kind of billionaires who've gotten rich through doing sexy tech, innovation and things like that. We don't often think about the humble supermarket as being the place where you could literally change the world. But that's exactly what Sam Walton did.
- [46:48]
Simon Jack
To go from one five and dime friend franchise to employing over 2 million people. Pretty incredible story.
- [46:55]
Sing Sing
Yeah. So for me, I think it's a nine out of ten.
- [46:57]
Simon Jack
Okay, nine for me too.
- [46:58]
Sing Sing
So Is he good, bad, or just another billionaire? We would love to hear from you. So let us know. You can let us know what you think of him or of any billionaire we've covered on the show by emailing goodbadbillionairebc.com or dropping us a text or voice note to 001-917-686117. We've already been getting some emails in. We've had some great ones.
- [47:20]
Simon Jack
Well, Peter Varley in Washington D.C. uSA got in touch to say that he discovered the show the weekend before last and listened to 19 episodes that day as I worked around the house. I've now listened to 56 episodes. Thank you Peter. He also shared some great tips for future billionaires that we'll be looking into and especially appreciate our Gina Rinehart episode. As an Aussie living in the U.S. he says that episode greatly expanded my understanding. We love getting these messages. So please send some more to goodbadbillionairebc.com.
- [47:49]
Sing Sing
That'S goodbadbillionairebc.com or you can send us a voice note or a text on 001 917-686-1176 so who do we have on the next episode?
- [48:01]
Simon Jack
Well, we're bending the rules slightly for the next episode, but it's worth it. It is worth it because we are talking about what some people call the Witch of Wall street. Other people say was the Queen of.
- [48:12]
Sing Sing
Wall street, the famously frugal and very, very rich Hetty Green.
- [48:18]
Simon Jack
And she accumulated that money before women were allowed the vote in the United States and she personally bailed out New York City a number of times.
- [48:26]
Sing Sing
It is quite the story. So join us to listen to the tale of Hetty Green on the last episode of Good Bad Dead Billionaire.
- [48:34]
Simon Jack
Good Bad Billionaire is a BB BBC World Service podcast. It's produced by Louise Morris with additional production by Tamsin Curry. Paul Smith is the editor and it's a BBC Studios Audio production for the BBC World Service.
- [48:45]
Sing Sing
The Senior Podcast Producer is Kat Collins and the Commissioning Editor is John Minnell. And if you enjoyed it, do tell a friend.
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Ryan Reynolds
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Narrator
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Ryan Reynolds
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