I found out exactly how big Wal-mart is the other day.
Wal-mart employs
940,000 people. Wow. That's a heck of a lot of people. As a point of
reference, that's more people than in
Delaware (740K),
Montana (880K),
Vermont (590K),
North Dakota (630K), or
South Dakota (738K). It's about as many people that live in
Rhode Island.
Imagine having that kind of
workforce. Imagine the wealth. In his time,
Sam Walton wasn't doing so bad (he was the
richest man in the world). His kids aren't doing so bad either:
Keep in mind they are all in the top 12 richest people in the
world. That's downright amazing. In his first job as a retail clerk in
J.C. Penney's, his manager said to
Sam Walton that he was not cut out for
retail (and the only reason why he was kept was because he sold so much). That was perhaps one of the most wrong things ever said. Sam Walton made a name for himself by
undercutting the competition; selling more at a lower price to turn a bigger profit. He was
famous for it.
Even though his
company is criticized for its
business practices, it remains one of the largest commercial successes of the
twentieth century.
Sources: US 2000 census, Forbes magazine