Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion [Paperback]

One of the greatest entrepreneurial success stories of the past twenty years

When a friend told Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank that “you’ve just been hit in the ass by a golden horseshoe,” they thought he was crazy. After all, both had just been fired. What the friend, Ken Langone, meant was that they now had the opportunity to create the kind of wide-open warehouse store that would help spark a consumer revolution through low prices, excellent customer service, and wide availability of products.

Built from Scratch is the story of how two incredibly determined and creative people—and their associates—built a business from nothing to 761 stores and $30 billion in sales in a mere twenty years.

Built from Scratch tells many colorful stories associated with The Home Depot’s founding and meteoric rise; shows that a company can be a tough, growth-oriented competitor and still maintain a high sense of responsibility to the community; and provides great lessons useful to people in any business, from start-ups to the Fortune 500.Bernie Marcu is a cofounder of The Home Depot and currently serves as chairman of the board. From the company's inception until 1997, he served as CEO. With his wife, Billi Marcus, he founded the Marcus Foundation and the Marcus Developmental Resource Center, which provides support services for mentally impaired children and their parents. He is chairman of the Centers for Disease Control Foundation. He sits on many boards of directors, including the New York Stock Exchange, and participates in many civic organizations, including the City of Hope, a cancer research center, and the Shepherd Spinal Center.

Arthur Blank is a cofounder of The Home Depot and is the company's president and CEO. He serves on the board of trusteelÓ8