Captain of industry
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"Captain of industry" was a term originally used in the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution describing a business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributes positively to the country in some way.
This may have been through increased productivity, expansion of markets, providing more jobs, or acts of philanthropy.[1] This contrasts with robber baron, a term used to describe a business leader using political means to achieve their ends.
Some nineteenth-century industrialists who were called "captains of industry" overlap with those called "robber barons". These include people such as J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew W. Mellon, and John D. Rockefeller. The term was coined by Thomas Carlyle in his 1843 book, Past and Present.
[edit] Modern Use
In the late 1990s and early 2000s during the dot-com bubble the term began being used again in mainstream media, referring to the founders of successful multimillion dollar Internet companies, who were credited with changing the landscape of the United States through technology much in the same way 19th Century industrialists did through steel, textiles, and railroads. Later in the 2000s, after the burst of the dot-com bubble the term was used to refer to the leaders of the surviving companies. Business Insider profiled these business people in a 2011 report[2], citing multiple individuals who have recently reached a level of prominence in their technological industries. The eight profiled individuals were:
- Richard Barton, founder of Zillow (for ecommerce)
- Bill Gates, co-founder and Chairman of Windows (for software)
- Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix (for media)
- Reid Hoffman, founder of PayPal (for ecommerce)
- Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple (for personal computers)
- Joseph Marinaccio, founder and CEO of Slam Content (for media)
- Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga (for gaming)
- Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook (for social networking)
With the exception of Joseph Marinaccio (whose net worth was listed as $175 million), all are self made billionaires.
The title is also regaining popularity in India, whose billionaires have more wealth than any other country in Asia.
[edit] See also
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Look up captain of industry in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
[edit] References
- ^ Scranton, Philip. "Fine Line Between Thief and Entrepreneur." Teachinghistory.org. Accessed 12 July 2011.
- ^ http://www.businessinsider.com
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