Book · 2001 · Business & Economics
Built from Scratch
How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion
Why people recommend it
Built from Scratch by Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, and Bob Andelman tells the canonical entrepreneurial story of how Home Depot grew from a modest concept into a retail giant. The book was a central topic of discussion on an episode of Acquired, where hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal deeply examined its contents. Ben Gilbert cited the memoir as an awesome, canonical account that captures the unique spirit of the founders, reading excerpts to illustrate how Marcus and Arthur convinced early vendors to supply their stores and how the company navigated early operational hurdles. David Rosenthal also drew extensively from the book during the episode, using its pages to detail negotiations involving Ken Langone, document historical disputes between the founders and Ross Perot regarding management styles and Cadillac vehicles, and note instances where the founders later disputed certain claims made in their own memoir. The hosts used the book to illustrate broader business lessons about scaling a business, noting how specific cultural traits that make an enterprise special in its early days can sometimes become hurdles as it expands. Through these detailed references, the podcast highlighted the memoir as an essential, transparent, and unfiltered look at the messy realities of building a massive retail empire from the ground up.
Who recommended it
- Ben Gilbert Recommended
- David Rosenthal Discussed
Ben Gilbert — 3 mentions
“All right. So, I I looked this up, David, in the book Built from Scratch, which is the awesome book that uh is kind of the canonical Home Depot story written by Bernie and Arthur.”
“So there's a great quote in built from scratch that I think kind of addresses this point because this was a disconnect I had the whole time of in in theory you shouldn't be able to start like this and I think it addresses the uniqueness of the people.”
“The thing that made you special often holds you back at scale. And I'm going to throw out a few examples that I actually highlighted when I was first reading the Built from Scratch book.”
David Rosenthal — 3 mentions
“Bernie and Arthur dispute the claims in Built from Scratch in the memoir that they wrote. But even just the fact that the company ended up in this position shows that um corporate management was not exactly tip-top, shall we say, in this era.”
“So, this is from the book Built from Scratch. Chainan says, The stock is selling for about $8 a share. How about if we pay you 10?”
“He and Ross get into this big fight over management style and management philosophy and and ultimately the sticking point, you can't make this up. It's all in built from scratch, is the car that Bernie drives, he drives an old Cadillac”