How to Become a Billionaire: Business Tycoons and the Development of Western Capitalism

Undergraduate credit

Built around the lives of the richest, most influential business men and women in the history of Europe and the United States, How to Become a Billionaire examines the complicated roles played by business tycoons in developing Western capitalism - from Marcus Crassus in Ancient Rome to Mark Zuckerberg in Silicon Valley. What did "doing business" consist of, and how did it change over the course of this period? What factors led to wealth and dominance, or bankruptcy and insignificance in the business world? What was the influence of business leaders - both positive and negative - on their economy, society, and state? Attention will be paid to individual ability, ambition, and leadership, as well as larger opportunities for, constraints on, and contours of entrepreneurship, innovation, and success. By blending business history and biography and analyzing motives, strategies, activities and impacts, the course examines the subject historically as a way of contextualizing and understanding current possibilities and challenges that shape a successful business career. Sectors being highlighted include: banking, trading, retailing, manufacturing, investing and technology. The course analyzes the careers of men and women who acquired "billions" by virtue of entrepreneurial intelligence and opportunity - not by birth, marriage, or territorial conquest. Families and individuals studied include: the de Medicis, the Fuggers, the Rothschilds, Josiah Wedgwood, John Jacob Astor, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., J.P. Morgan, Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder, Sam Walton, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Johnson, Meg Whitman, Bill Gates, Elizabeth Holmes, and Mark Zuckerberg.