The Businessman of the Century
Led by people who could take an idea and turn it into an industry, our world reached unheard-of levels of productivity and prosperity．From Henry Ford at one end of the century to Bill Gates at the other, they influenced lives far beyond the business world．American magazine FORTUNE lists four most influential businessmen of the past 100 years and selects one of them to be the Businessman of the Century．The following is how the man is chosen.
What the Business of the Century is Like?
To select one man to be the Businessman of the Century is to look back upon almost unimaginable change．Organization Man rose to challenge the robber baron (式贵族，式资本家)．The railroad and telegraph had created mass markets．New machines had made mass production possible．Business had to change to exploit these opportunities; big far-flung enterprises simply couldn't be financed or run by one tycoon(大亨), however rich or brilliant．He needed share-holders, executives, business units, and staff．'Thus came into being,' writes historian Alfred D．Chandler, 'a new economic institution, the managerial business enterprises, and a new subspecies of economic man, the salaried manager.'
The 20th century was the Century of the Manager.
Who is Better, the Manager or the Entrepreneur?
It's impossible to think of America,-without the restless entrepreneurial (企业家的) desire to go someplace new, do something new, become someone new．The peculiar gift of American capitalism seems to be its ability to keep both the manager and the entrepreneur in the ring (拳击场), fighting forever, neither gaining a permanent advantage over the other．At mid-century, the popular ideal of business might have been the manager, but at the century' s beginning -- and certainly now at its conclusion -- our heroes are builder, founders, risk takers.
What Makes the Businessman of the Century?
How to pick one to stand above the rest? He should, dearly, be someone who was well known at the time he labored and is still famous today -- that is, a person who was noticeably successful in both the short run and the long．He should have been captain of an enterprise of some scale (规模)．And we concluded that Businessman of the Century should have been part of an industry that is characteristic of his time．
Why Must the Businessman of the Century be Selected from Car and Computer Industries?
We narrowed the search to a final four．Each was the dominant businessman of a quarter of this century; each created or built a corporation that is still greatly influential today; each played a major role in automobiles or computers, the two industries that, more than any others, distinguish this century from those of the past．As it happens, the men are equally divided between entrepreneurs and managers: Two of them founded great concerns but also managers who brought enormous growth and wealth to their employers．Now, the four candidates were:
HENRY FORD (1865--1946): Founder of Ford Motor Co.
ALFR1ED P．SLOAN JR．(1876--1966): CEO of GM
THOMAS J．WATSON JR．(1914--1993): CEO．of IBM
WILLIAM H．GATES (1955--): Founder of MICROSOFT
What's the Difficulty in Choosing One Out of the Four?
How can one pick among these four men, each being extraordinary leader, each amazingly successful, each the founder of a legacy that has -- or will have -- long outlived him?
Of the four men, Watson -- businessman, pilot, sailor, diplomat -- had the most soul and probably the most fun．If size mattered most, then Sloan or Watson might win the nod -- Microsoft is no smaller, but it' s only No．109 on the FORTUNE 500．And it was Sloan who showed the world how to build a giant corporation and make it work．Sloan has the added merit of having competed directly with one of his fellow finalists, leaving Henr