4 ms·

I love how the founder sold her company to Warren Buffet, and then opened up pretty much the same store right across the street, forcing Buffet to buy that one

I love how the founder sold her company to Warren Buffet, and then opened up pretty much the same store right across the street, forcing Buffet to buy that one as well(with an added non-compete clause)

rileytg 7y ago
the story is more of business drive than competition (imo): > She bitterly ''retired'' in 1989 at the age of 95, but after three months returned with characteristic combativeness, setting up a rival store called Mrs. B's Clearance and Factory Outlet across the street from the Furniture Mart. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/13/business/rose-blumkin-retail-queen-dies-at-104.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/13/business/rose-blumkin-ret... my understanding from primary sources is she started the second to carry on her ideals when the original iced her out
YourGrace 7y ago
I think it's important to state that one of the reasons she opened another store was because her family forced her to retire.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  She was also notoriously abusive towards staff and her family. That was the reason why her family forced her to retire initially (iirc, and I may be misremembering this, she only has one biological son...the other two married her daughters and they were, perhaps understandably, not keen to carry on after the sale because of the abuse).
  - 609venezia 7y ago
    Do you have a source for her abuse? A quick search didn’t turn up anything—your comment is the top google result :)
    - zaroth 7y ago
      Seriously, the ranking of HN comments in organic Google results is a little bit off-putting in some cases. Someone dialed up the weights on HN comments way past where IMO a potentially throwaway remark should be scored. And I say this as someone who tries to make substantive and significant HN posts on the regular.
    - tim333 7y ago
      Here's something from http://www.quoteswise.com/rose-blumkin-quotes.html http://www.quoteswise.com/rose-blumkin-quotes.html : >[To Warren Buffett when she had lined up a group of her grandsons and sons-in-law and nephews against a wall and was lecturing them.] See all these guys next to me? If I sell it to you, you can fire them. These people are a bunch of bums, and they are all related to me and I can’t fire them. But you can fire them. They’re bums, bums, bums. [‘She went on like this for an hour, literally. The word ‘bums’ recurred many, many times. Then she dismissed me. I had served my purpose.’ – ###Warren Buffett The other quotes are quite an interesting read also.
    - hogFeast 7y ago
      As I said somewhere else, you should check out Alice Schroder's chapter on NFM in her Buffett bio for a source.

rileytg 7y ago

the story is more of business drive than competition (imo): > She bitterly ''retired'' in 1989 at the age of 95, but after three months returned with characteristic combativeness, setting up a rival store called Mrs. B's Clearance and Factory Outlet across the street from the Furniture Mart. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/13/business/rose-blumkin-retail-queen-dies-at-104.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/13/business/rose-blumkin-ret... my understanding from primary sources is she started the second to carry on her ideals when the original iced her out

YourGrace 7y ago

I think it's important to state that one of the reasons she opened another store was because her family forced her to retire.

hogFeast 7y ago
She was also notoriously abusive towards staff and her family. That was the reason why her family forced her to retire initially (iirc, and I may be misremembering this, she only has one biological son...the other two married her daughters and they were, perhaps understandably, not keen to carry on after the sale because of the abuse).
- 609venezia 7y ago
  Do you have a source for her abuse? A quick search didn’t turn up anything—your comment is the top google result :)
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Seriously, the ranking of HN comments in organic Google results is a little bit off-putting in some cases. Someone dialed up the weights on HN comments way past where IMO a potentially throwaway remark should be scored. And I say this as someone who tries to make substantive and significant HN posts on the regular.
  - tim333 7y ago
    Here's something from http://www.quoteswise.com/rose-blumkin-quotes.html http://www.quoteswise.com/rose-blumkin-quotes.html : >[To Warren Buffett when she had lined up a group of her grandsons and sons-in-law and nephews against a wall and was lecturing them.] See all these guys next to me? If I sell it to you, you can fire them. These people are a bunch of bums, and they are all related to me and I can’t fire them. But you can fire them. They’re bums, bums, bums. [‘She went on like this for an hour, literally. The word ‘bums’ recurred many, many times. Then she dismissed me. I had served my purpose.’ – ###Warren Buffett The other quotes are quite an interesting read also.
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    As I said somewhere else, you should check out Alice Schroder's chapter on NFM in her Buffett bio for a source.