My top 10 highlights from the book: 

1.  Ortega has created a business model that is studied in universities he could not access.

2.  “One afternoon, after school, I went with my mother to a store to buy food.  The store we walked into was one of those old-time grocery stores, with a counter so high that I couldn't see who my mother was talking to, but I heard something that, despite the time that has passed, I have never forgotten: 'I'm very sorry, but I can't lend you any more money.' That left me shattered. I was only twelve”.  After reacting with shock to the words he had just heard, he made an irrevocable decision: “This will never happen to my mother again. I saw it very clearly: from that day onwards, I would start working to earn money and help at home. I quit school, left my books, and got a job as an assistant in a shirt store.”

 

3.  We gave it every day. My priority has always been the company, and I have committed myself to it, with full dedication, from day one.

4.  There are no mature sectors where everything is already discovered, but rather companies or managers with closed minds who resist innovation.

5.  Simplicity is the heritage of geniuses.

6.  We are a chain of stores with a company attached. We live so that the store is focused on selling. All the rest of us are at their service.

7.  He has never liked praise. More than once I've told him: What a beautiful collection. And he always interrupts me and asks me: Now tell me what's wrong.

8.  I remembered a comment that the bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín made to me years ago, when he was at the peak of his glory and his son, still a child, played in the garden of his house. "This child will never be a bullfighter. To face a bull you have to go hungry.”

9.  He is a man with a lot of personal charm because he is not false. He does not have ulterior motives. He can be very tough, impulsive, very sure of himself, but very truthful.

10.  When asked for his advice for future generations of entrepreneurs: “The first thing is that you like what you are doing, that you are passionate about your work. I insist on this idea because it is very important. It has to be something that you would almost pay to do.”

Listen to #372: Amancio Ortega: The Genius Behind the Inditex Group on Apple, Spotify, or the web.