"Entrepreneurs, even more than inventors, are essential to American business. While inventors produce ideas, entrepreneurs get things done, build the markets, and make the ideas a reality. For over a century, we have lionized and demonized them: the robber barons, the industrial statesmen, the tech revolutionaries. But what creative talents do the legendary American entrepreneurs share, and what can you learn from them about business success?" "Maury Klein analyzes how innovators from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates triumphed over perennial challenges in planning and strategy, production, operations, staffing, and sales - and transformed entire industries. Klein reveals the artistry and archetype of successful entrepreneurialism, comparing the retailing acumen of J. C. Penney and Wal-Mart's Sam Walton, the organizational ingenuity of Standard Oil's John D. Rockefeller and Intel's Robert Noyce, the imaginative marketing of General Motors' Alfred Sloan and McDonald's Ray Kroc. He explores the products and the markets that inspired them, the rivalries and the mentorships that pushed them, and the talents and the tempers that fueled them, culminating in an insightful examination of the birth of American industry, the growth of the corporation, and the revival of entrepreneurialism at the beginning of the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.