My good friend and mentor Joel Mokyr spoke with Forbes recently about the most influential businessmen in history. The resulting article and list of people is quite interesting. To read each, click through the list on the right side of the article.

The list contains two of my favorite entrepreneurs and two of the Lunar Men, Matthew Boulton and Josiah Wedgwood. The entry on Wedgwood is quite right to remark on his invention of the celebrity endorsement, but there's so much more to him than that. Wedgwood pioneered the use of showrooms to display his wares, making them stylish and elegant. He pioneered the use of standard shapes in his product lines, and the communication of the shapes and finishes through what we would now think of as catalog advertising. And he introduced the money-back guarantee to retail.

Not to mention the beauty of his products, which continues to this day.

Knowledge Problem

Mokyr On Influential Businessmen