1. Henry Ford
Drive, he said. And America listened. The father of the modern moving assembly line changed the world by selling his standard-issue Model T cheap—the price was $260 in 1924—and creating car lust. Ford also paid his employees well. In 1914, in a controversial move, he doubled most wages to $5 a day, which tamped down turnover, goosed productivity, and cornered the market for top engineers and mechanics. On the downside: He was famously anti-Semitic.
THE STAT: Ford launched his eponymous car company with just $28,000. By 1918, half the cars in the U.S. were Model Ts. Now that’s a return on investment!
2. J.P. Morgan
What do you call a man who personally bails out the U.S. Treasury twice? Brilliant? Yes. Warren Buffett? No. During the depression of 1895, John Pierpont Morgan replenished the Treasury with $65 million worth of gold in exchange for government bonds. He came to the rescue again during the panic of 1907.
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