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by huffpopo 3067 days ago
If you mean Samuel Brannan, then you make money by diverting church funds to pay violent gangs to establish and maintain a shovel monopoly. Then you lose it all to a real estate crash and a divorce.

So the real lesson is be immoral, break the law, diversify and don't get married.

It's not like he is the only one who thought of selling shovels with huge markups.