[oblib]

My wife's grandfather, Theodore Houser, was the CEO of Sears in the `50s. He wrote a book called "Big Business and Human Values". The last CEO had nothing close to "Human Values", and Sears didn't last long after they started ignoring his advice.

Elon Musk would do well to read that book.

[listenallyall]

Apples to apples? Mr. Houser didn't have to compete against Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart, specialty retailers (Home Depot, Best Buy), clothing discounters (TJ Maxx, Kohl's), any internet stores, or any suppliers selling Chinese-made goods.

[oblib]

Sears had pretty much the 1st crack at creating an "Amazon" and blew it. I mean, it's fair to say the "Sears Catalog" was the blueprint for that.

[listenallyall]

Huh? We were talking about the career of Mr. Houser -- not sure exactly when he ran Sears but he died in 1963, I'm pretty sure the technology needed to build "Amazon" didn't exist at that time. Anyway 25 years later Sears (and IBM) at least took a shot at it with Prodigy.

[oblib]

I was talking about "Big Business and Human Values" and how it was when Sears left those behind at their retail outlets their downfall began. And I think how the Sears catalog was a business model predecessor to Amazon is pretty clear.