How I Would Start Again Today

A few Months Ago, I was interviewed by a correspondent for a European business publication. After asking a great many questions about my business career, he paused, shook his head sadly and declared, "It is a pity your countrymen of today do not enjoy the same opportunities to achieve success as were present when you started in business."

I'm afraid I reacted rather violently, for, as I told the journalist, there is more opportunity for the beginner in business today than ever before in our history. I cited individuals and companies, facts and figures that prove conclusively that the day of the remarkable business success story is still very much with us. I held forth at length, and I think I made my point; the correspondent departed visibly impressed and, I believe, convinced.

There are far too many people who labor under the same misapprehension: that our present day offers diminished opportunity for the businessman, particularly for the beginner.

Back in 1958, in a magazine article entitled "You Can Make a Million," which was directed at an audience of men in the 21-to-40 age group, I wrote: "I envy your chances. I wish I could take them for you. It would be fun to do it all over again."

My opinions have certainly not changed since. Quite the contrary -- the dizzying speed of technological progress during the intervening years has served to make me even more enthusiastic about the prospects facing anyone who starts a business career today, whether as an investor or as an employed executive.

A fabulous business landscape spreads literally into infinity before the eyes of the imaginative beginner. It is a landscape rich in opportunity -- richer by far than even those that unfolded during the golden eras of the Industrial Revolution, the American expansion and the post-War boom.

Charles Bates ("Tex") Thornton, the fireball chairman of Litton Industries -- whose personal success story, incidentally, is a classic of our present time -- dramatically stated the promise of the future when he said, "During the next ten years there should be more scientific and technological advancement than in all history, more than double that of the past twenty years. There's really no place to stop. We will never reach our destination."

Tempo -- Technical Military Planning Operation -- one of the nation's most respected scientific organizations, makes the following glowing prediction: "America and the world will change over the next dozen years at a quickening pace -- faster than that of the past two decades." And, prophesies Tempo, U. S. industrial production will practically double, the average family income will be near $10,000 annually and the gross national product will be close to a trillion dollars.

I do not think it necessary to dwell here on the fact that, in the last two decades, innumerable Americans and American companies have earned well-deserved fortunes in a variety of fields ranging from packaging to chemicals to electronics and beyond. I would presume that this fact is sufficiently familiar to Playboy readers.

The important thing, as Tex Thornton, Tempo and other knowledgeable sources predict -- and as farsighted businessmen agree -- is that the surface has barely been scratched. The biggest leaps forward -- U. S. free-enterprise style, I hasten to make clear, and not the Red Chinese variety -- and the most tempting plums lie ahead.

Since the over-all business trend is up, with burgeoning populations, enlightened economic policies and other factors pointing to continuing expansion and growth, there is a fine future for the tyro in most areas. However, the ambitious beginner is especially likely to achieve success along two different but interconnected avenues. Both are equally broad, challenging and open -- and equally liable to be paved with gold.

Which of them the beginner chooses to take is a decision he must make himself. Much depends on such elements as personal interest and aptitude. However, each offers enormous promise, and I propose to examine both in detail.

The first avenue to success for the beginner is offered by those older -- what might be called traditional -- industries that are undergoing, or that will soon undergo, revolutionary changes that will completely transform their character. An example that comes immediately to mind is the transportation industry. The revolution in (continued on page 116) How I would Start (continued from page 109) transportation has been under way for thousands of years, but since the turn of the century, its pace has been accelerated at a fantastic rate. Supertankers, jet aircraft, "ground-effect machines" -- like the "hovercraft" and "aircars" -- hydrofoil vessels and superspeed monorails are already with us. So are giant pipelines that carry petroleum products, wood pulp, coal slurry, sulphur, sugar cane and many other fluids and semi-solids.

Great submarine cargo vessels and huge plastic "sausages" that can be filled with cargo and towed under water, transcontinental pipeline networks to transport coal and perhaps other solid commodities, cross-country conveyors to carry goods and cross-town moving sidewalk conveyors to carry people -- all these and more are within sight. Such practical-minded and generally reliable prognosticators as RCA's David Sarnoff are matter-of-factly predicting the advent of pilotless, completely automated and rocket-propelled passenger transports. And then, of course, there is space travel...

But, even as his imagination boggles at the picture of the transportation industry of the near future, the imaginative young businessman can readily grasp the potentials and possibilities offered by this revolution in moving things and people. It doesn't matter how he wants to get in on the ground floor -- by offering his talents as an executive or by supplying his capital as an investor.

All these radical changes will require men with fresh, flexible minds. Naturally, engineers will be in great demand. But so will accountants, purchasing executives and sales executives -- and plain all-around managers -- whose minds and reflexes are such as to permit them to move easily into a traditional industry that will soon become unrecognizable.

The materials industries provide another example of an area of business and industrial activity that is in the process of metamorphosis. Dr. Lee DuBridge has coined the expression "molecular engineering" to describe the technology of changing the characteristics of materials. Tremendous strides have already been made in this direction. Unnumbered new synthetics, alloys and combinations of materials have appeared on the market for use in everything from children's clothing to space rockets.

Such progress will continue at an ever-increasing pace during the coming years. New materials will be developed in laboratories and produced for the world's increasingly materials-hungry markets. Nonetheless, I anticipate that the majority of traditional materials will hold their own -- or even do better than ever before. Science and technology will devise ways to improve traditional materials, combine them with other materials for better results and find new uses and applications for them. In short, the materials field is definitely one that will see radical changes -- and it is also a fertile field for the fledgling businessman who hopes to achieve an early success.

"It is hard to think of an industrial or consumer product that will not be made stronger, lighter, cheaper, more attractive or more durable by taking advantage of new materials," James R. Bright wrote in a recent Harvard Business Review article.

That statement alone should tell the whole story in a nutshell to the perceptive tyro. It reflects the basic truth that the materials field is wide open for the man of vision and ability. I fell that it will be even more so in the future, as the world embarks on vast construction projects of all kinds and continues to expand its industries to meet the spiraling demand for products of every sort.

The technologist and engineer will find much opportunity in the materials field. The same holds for the sales and sales-promotion executive. And it also holds for the man who sits in the home office and, as James Bright puts it, understands "the economics and technicalities of the customers' manufacturing processes and applications of their own products vis-à-vis competitive materials." But materials industries are no different from any other in the sense that, as they change and grow, they will need capable executives of every type -- and they will also need distributors, jobbers and dealers. All in all, the enterprising beginning businessman will find ample scope in the materials area.

There are many other traditional industries that are undergoing top-to-bottom transformations. In general, what applies to the two examples I have cited -- transportation and materials -- applies to these as well. The period of transition, in which the old is phased out and the new is phased in, is an ideal time for the beginner. Acquainted with the old, but not hidebound by it, he is also fresh and adaptable enough to grasp the new and to make the most of the changing developments around him.

• • •

Now I would like to discuss the second avenue to success that, I believe, offers particular promise to the beginner. It is represented by the completely new industries that have recently emerged -- and will continue to emerge in large numbers in the future -- as a result of major scientific and technological breakthroughs. These offer broad opportunities and, to the individual about to start his business career, they are doubtless invested with an extra glamor -- as well they might be, for it is in these areas that our economy has its most challenging frontiers.

Energy is one of the most important of these areas. At present, oil, coal, gas and hydroelectric power are still the world's principal energy sources, though the picture began to change when the development of the A-bomb opened the door to the utilization of atomic power.

The potentials of nuclear energy are fairly well known. There are already nuclear reactors producing power for peaceful purposes; there can be no doubt that we shall see a progressively wider application of this energy source in the years ahead. Only a short time ago, newspapers reported that, at least in theory, every home in the nation could one day be heated by nuclear-fueled heating systems. In 1963, the U.S. Navy requested authorization to power all its fighting craft of more than 8000 tons with nuclear energy.

David Sarnoff says: "I do not hesitate to forecast that atomic batteries will be commonplace long before 1980."

Scientists are also studying and developing means to harness other hitherto-untapped sources of energy. Solar energy is one example. Steady progress is being made in research to find more efficient and economical ways to store the free -- and theoretically limitless -- energy of the sun's rays. Efforts are also being made to harness the enormous energy expended by ocean tides.

Temperatures running into the tens of millions of degrees have already been achieved in the laboratory by physicists working in a field called magnetohydrodynamics, or plasma physics. This involves the handling of extremely hot gases in magnetic fields -- and its goal is to tap the fantastic power of hydrogen fusion.

These and other studies aimed at finding new sources of energy are proceeding apace. I'm inclined to believe there will be many startling break-throughs in this area within the next decade or so. Incidentally, although I am principally in the oil business and such developments might possibly downgrade the importance of oil as an energy source, I am not worried. Science has proven -- and experience has shown -- that oil, like coal, possesses properties that make it particularly suited for use as a raw material in organic chemical synthesis. Chemists, physicists and engineers will find endless new uses for oil, producing from it a whole spectrum of wonder products. In this respect, I feel that oil still has a very long way to go before coming of age -- but I also feel that the distant goal will be reached in a comparatively short time.

Withal, the new energy industries will offer the beginning businessman myriad opportunities for resounding success. And do not think for a moment (continued on page 232) How I Would Start (continued from page 116) that these will be limited to technicians. As just one off-the-cuff observation -- which should serve to spark the imagination -- think of what will happen when the atomic battery is perfected and placed on the market. Aside from all the investment that will be needed to produce and distribute the batteries, armies of crack executives will be needed to manage this new industry. And fortunes will be made by the individuals and companies who plan and implement the programs to convince an understandably atom-shy public that the new product will not make a Hiroshima out of Hartford or Hoboken.

Electronics -- although it has taken astounding giant steps in recent years -- is also still in its infancy. Here is another new industry that will continue renewing itself during the career span of any young man now embarking on business life. There are no bounds to the uses to which electronic equipment might be put. Computer development will make all that is familiar now seem as antiquated as the hand-operated adding machine. As far back as 1955, David Sarnoff, in his book In the Fabulous Future: America in 1980, predicted tubeless television and electronic light. Arthur C. Clarke's book Profiles of the Future predicts that "within a few years, our present [communications] facilities [will] seem as primitive as Indian smoke signals." Tex Thornton foresees the time when there will be absolutely no need for anyone to carry money or checks; a purchaser will need only to hold up his thumb before an electronic scanning device. At lightning speed, the device will check his bona fides -- and automatically subtract the amount due from his bank account.

I could go on indefinitely, listing the electronic marvels that are even now under development -- and some of which might well be on the market by the time this article sees print, such is the awesome speed of our progress. However, to extend the list would be unnecessary. The fledgling businessman worth the name will see the fantastic promise of electronics. The beginner can get his big chance in research, development, production, sales and distribution or servicing -- in any phase of the mushrooming industry.

Breadth of opportunity and open doors in virtually all departments are characteristics of the new industries. Even those that start from scratch show such immense potential that there is hardly a managerial field that will not require hosts of new men. Desalination, for instance, gives much promise of one day becoming an important industry. The population explosion and centuries of deforestation have made fresh, sweet water less available in many areas, a serious problem in others. More and more water will be needed for human and industrial use, for irrigation and for the reclamation of arid regions in an increasingly crowded world. The desalination of sea water offers a theoretically feasible answer to this problem. The main problem now, as I understand it, is to devise a process that will desalinate the requisite vast quantities of ocean water fast enough and economically enough to permit widespread use.

Science is working on this right now. The breakthrough is bound to come -- and when it does, there will be opportunities galore for the beginner. Not only will there be fine executive openings in what is certain to become a large industry virtually overnight -- but there will be golden harvests for those who understand the implications and move in to develop lands that had previously been worthless but that will be extremely valuable as the new water supplies become available. And this is only one of many by-products the economical desalination of ocean water will offer the astute businessman.

The space industries have awesome potential. True, they are now working almost exclusively on Government contracts -- and they may well continue to do so, for the capital expenditures needed seem far beyond the capacity of any private company or even any private consortium. However, the companies that produce the equipment for the space program are largely private firms, operating under the free-enterprise system, and all signs indicate they will continue to do so.

For the beginner in the space industries, the stars are the limit. The human animal being what he is, he will not rest, but will continue to move ahead, from one unknown to another. It is no more possible to reverse or halt man's exploration of space than it was to halt the global exploration that began in the 15th Century.

Space programs will expand. Those who complain about the cost might do well to remember that Queen Isabella was -- at least according to legend -- forced to give up her jewels in order to finance Columbus' expedition. History often repeats itself by offering recurrent parallels, and I believe that the eventual rewards of space exploration will be proportionately as great as those ultimately reaped from the voyage of Columbus.

The enterprising would-be businessman whose interests and aptitudes lie in that direction will not hesitate to leap aboard the space-industry band wagon. Just as in the other industries and areas that I have listed, he will find more than ample latitude to prove his abilities, whether he enters this field as an executive or as an investor.

I have not covered all the new industries. It would take far more space than I have here to mention them. Lasers, ultrasonics, pantography, thermionics, the retardation / prevention of organic deterioration (irradiation, freezing, dehydration) are only some of the many areas that space limitations prevent me from discussing. However, if I were starting out on my business career today, I would certainly make a careful assessment of the possibilities offered by each of the industries and fields I have mentioned -- as well, I might suggest, as those I have omitted.

As I have previously suggested, my final decision would be governed to no small extent by another assessment -- that of my own abilities and inclinations. There is less and less chance for the square peg to squeeze himself into the round hole under today's complex, fastmoving conditions; a man who doesn't know and cannot learn what he is doing and is not comfortable in his work hasn't much chance of getting off the ground, much less to the top.

Before a beginner can begin, his biggest job is that of appraising -- not praising -- himself. He must carefully weigh his strong points and his weak points. If he has the capital to invest in some business, then he must proceed with care -- care for himself and his money. I know that it sounds childish to say that the investor should know -- or have a very good idea of -- what he is doing. But, childish as it sounds, too many individuals invest their money subjectively, on a whim, in a burst of enthusiasm or on the advice of some fast-talking pitchman. It is necessary to learn as much as is humanly possible about any venture before investing in it. That dictum has held good through the ages; it will continue to hold good in the future. No scientific or technological advancement will change it.

As for the individual just graduating from college or completing a postgraduate course -- one who wants to work his way up the ladder or to gain experience before going into business for himself -- my advice is also, on the face of it, too simple. He should get a good job with a good company in the field of his considered choice.

It is essential to bear in mind that, in a large company, the executive tends to learn and experience only one phase, or at best only a few phases, of business operations. In a small company, on the other hand, he is much more likely to learn about the over-all operation of the business -- and thus has more chance of developing into a seasoned, all-around manager and businessman.

As for going into business for himself, the employed executive must be certain that he is ready for the big step, ready to graduate from the payroll to the position of the man who has to meet it. He must feel that he has sufficient experience -- and sufficient aptitude and acumen -- for doing business on his own profitably. Nothing is more important for him to remember than that basic business tenet that I recently saw expressed with barbed pungency in a Harvard Business Review article. "Marketing opportunities?" the author of the article asked after taking certain types of manufacturers to task. "Just come up with something that (a) works and (b) has the features customers want." In my opinion, that priceless gem should be pasted into the hat of every businessman -- be he beginner or 50-year veteran. It states the essence of what is good business, what makes a business -- and a businessman -- a success.

The man going into business for himself also needs sufficient capital, but this is the least important factor. Just as a bad workman invariably complains that he has bad tools, so the bad businessman always wails that he does not have enough capital. It is entirely possible, even in this day and age, and will remain so in the marvel-filled future, to start small and grow big. There are always individuals and legitimate lending institutions willing to provide capital for a promising business at reasonable rates of interest or in exchange for reasonable quantities of stock.

To the man who feels himself qualified to go into business for himself, I say, "Start now!" There is no time like the present to get in on the ground floor and take full advantage of the rising trend and of the new and unprecedented opportunities that present themselves in dozens of fields. Large fortunes will be made in the next two decades by men who are beginners today. The most exciting and promising golden age in the world's history lies before us.

Starting your business career now?

If you are, I repeat -- even more enthusiastically -- what I said in 1958: I envy your chances. I wish I could take them for you. It would be fun to do it all over again!