King Larry
The Life and Ruins of a Billionaire Genius
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From Howard Hughes to Mark Zuckerberg, the public has always been fascinated by genius entrepreneurs who succumb to their eccentricities. Now, James Scurlock engages, educates, and entertains readers with the captivating story of DHL cofounder and billionaire Larry Hillblom.
King Larry begins with an early biography of Larry Lee Hillblom, a mercurial young man who grew up on a peach farm outside of Fresno, California. Hillblom cofounded DHL in 1969 (three years before FedEx), and it became the fastest-growing corporation in history. Hillblom’s expatriate life began in 1981, when he retreated to a small tax haven in the Western Pacific. There he led the resistance to American meddling in the Marianas Islands. Hillblom’s voracious appetite for underage prostitutes is another facet of his unusual story. In 1995, Hillblom’s amoral, thrill-seeking nature caught up to him when his seaplane disappeared off the coast of Anatahan, leaving behind an estate worth billions. Weeks later, five impoverished women and their attorneys came forward to challenge Hillblom’s will in a legal battle for his fortunes that continues to this day.
Meticulously researched and thoroughly engaging, King Larry will satisfy fans of such bestsellers as Confessions of an Economic Hit Manand The Accidental Billionaires .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Larry Lee Hilblom (1943 1995) does not have the immediate name recognition of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Howard Hughes, but the enigmatic founder of DHL has a story that is just as fascinating and more mysterious than any of these genius entrepreneurs. In his biography of the eccentric businessman, Scurlock (Maxed Out) traces Hilblom's rise from humble beginnings on a Northern California peach farm through the founding of DHL and its meteoric rise to domination in the airfreight industry to the mysterious disappearance of his seaplane in the western Pacific in 1995. The chronology, twists, and turns of DHL alone are riveting, with one complex, legal battle after another threatening to derail the company, but the allegations that Hilblom fathered several children with underage girls in various Southeast Asian countries lend the book a darker, more sensational tone. While the dense accounts of DHL's unending litigation battles may prove impenetrable for some, Scurlock sprinkles in enough of Hilblom's eccentric personal life to keep the narrative lively and flowing. He meticulously researches both the business and personal fact and folklore of the entrepreneur's life and weaves them into a gripping account of the mercurial, visionary, complicated billionaire's life.
