How Did Henry Singleton Build Teledyne?

David Senra, reading the book's account, says Henry Singleton built Teledyne by founding it in July 1960 with George Kosmetsky, at 43, after never founding a company before. Warren Buffett said Singleton has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business, better than a composite of the hundred top business school graduates.

Singleton was born in 1916 in a tiny town in Texas and never earned an MBA. At MIT he earned a bachelor's, a master's, and a PhD in electrical engineering, programmed the first student computer there for his doctoral thesis, and in 1939 won the Putnam Medal as the country's top mathematics student. He graduated in 1950, worked at North American Aviation and Hughes Aircraft, then joined Tex Thornton at Litton Industries. He left Litton in 1960, at 43, once it was clear he would not succeed Thornton as CEO.

With Kosmetsky he acquired three small electronic companies and won a large naval contract. Teledyne went public in 1961. For most of the 1960s, conglomerates traded at lofty price-to-earnings ratios and used their high-priced stock to buy businesses. Private equity firms did not yet exist, and control of an operating company often cost a lower multiple than the buyer's own shares. Between 1961 and 1969 Singleton purchased 130 companies, from aviation electronics to specialty metals and insurance.