Beyond Tallulah

Beyond Tallulah, the illustrated biography of Sam Wyly, the most versatile big-company entrepreneur in American history, tells one of the most compelling untold business stories of our time. Wyly has built 10 companies in nine different industries with 500 million- or billion-dollar valuations. He's the reason that Bonanza Steakhouse, Michaels Arts & Crafts and Green Mountain Energy are household names today. And his achievements serve as a valuable point of reference for today's generation of recession-fighting Start-up Whiz Kids. After a mercurial rise through the early computer industry in Texas, Wyly founded a data transmission company (DATRAN) with the dream of building a network of microwave towers that would enable computers to talk to each other wirelessly--20 years before the World Wide Web existed. What happened next is a case study of high-wire business dealings that speaks to the core values of American enterprise. Wyly's dealings with entrenched interests foreshadow the tough questions faced by today's readership about the proper roles of government and business in rebuilding the country. As Wyly struggled to recover from disastrous setbacks, he never stopped asking, "What's next?" With exclusive access to Wyly and original interviews of more than one hundred of his colleagues and family members, biographer Dennis Hamilton draws an energetic and fast-paced portrait of a business career that soared high, courted disaster and carved a memorable path through five decades. In the end, this story of an American titan of industry is made distinctive--and memorable--through the details readers learn about Wyly's deft, sure-handed approach to deal making and a seeming sixth sense for the ebbs and flows of the financial market. In Beyond Tallulah, we watch Wyly journey from small-town high school football in the South to IBM in its Information Age heyday, from the takeover wars of the 1980s to adventures in big-scale national retailing, from the Alaska pipeline to a new generation of clean energy. Wyly's life promises to fascinate and inspire readers, while also serving as a blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs. Illustrated with more than two hundred color and black-and-white photos, Beyond Tallulah preserves Wyly's wholly original American journey--from his dirt poor Great Depression childhood in rural Louisiana to his triumph as a self-made billionaire ...six times. Born in 1934, Sam Wyly was raised...