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Podcast: HBR On Strategy
Episode: How 8 Successful CEOs Allocated Capital to Build Durable Businesses
Description: Think of CEOs who have made strong rates of return for investors and built durable businesses. What strategies do you associate with their success?
Investor and author William Thorndike studied eight CEOs who outperformed the market and their peers. The group included big names, like Warren Buffet and Katharine Graham, but also other leaders who are virtually unknown today. One example is Henry Singleton, an MIT-educated electrical engineer who led Teledyne Technologies from 1960 to 1986.
Thorndike noticed that these eight iconoclastic leaders all took a similar approach to capital allocation. They focused on investing their companies’ pr...