He turned 94 last May, but Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus still has a lot of fight left in him. He's not merely one of America's all-time great entrepreneurs—he's also one of the great defenders of free enterprise and small business in American history.
In an interview with Charlie Gasparino on Fox Business the week before last, his fighting spirit was on display, talking about Biden administration policies that are affecting working-class Americans. "He cut back drilling, he caused inflation, the inflation caused every other problem for every businessman, for every American," Marcus said. "The poor, the middle class—they're getting killed today."
Marcus has been fighting for the poor and the middle class—and the American dream itself—because his life story embodies it. His mother and father were born in Russia in the late 19th century but fled to America because of an outbreak of religious pogroms. If you don't know what a pogrom is, they were organized massacres of Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Eastern Europe and Russia. They were savage mass murders not much different than the one the world witnessed at the music festival in Israel's Negev Desert on October 7.
His mom and dad left Russia not speaking a word of English and met halfway around the world in, of all places, Newark, New Jersey. Like millions of immigrants before and after, his parents didn't come here to change America. They came here to have America change them.
They lived in a fourth-floor walk-up tenement on Rose Street, and Marcus, the fourth child, was born in 1929, just a few months before the Great Depression. Marcus would often say that the city later tore down that building to build a slum. His dad made his living as a cabinetmaker. "He was strong as an ox, and a great craftsman, but a terrible businessman," Marcus wrote in his recent memoir, Kick Up Some Dust. One might assume that his father's trade played a part in the founding of Home Depot, but his dad never taught Marcus any of his skills.
It was his mother, Sarah, who inspired Marcus' "do it yourself" attitude. Despite suffering from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, she infused in him her relentless optimism. She inspired him to be a doer.
Marcus' love of country came from his mom too. The day she got her citizenship, she cried like a baby," Marcus told the Atlanta Jewish Times recently. "And she taught me to love this country and to take advantage of all the benefits that this country offered me."
It was from his mom that he learned about generosity as well. He had no money growing up—5 cents was a big deal—and occasionally that nickel would be spent on ice cream. But just as often, his mother would say, "We can't have the ice cream today, we're planting a tree in Israel instead," and the nickel would be sent off, if not to Israel then to one charitable cause or another. The Jewish obligation to give, called tzedakah, was the source of her compassion.
Marcus also credits his Jewish heritage for much of his success. "Over the years, 2,000 or more, Jews have been oppressed in every society that we have belonged," he told a reporter last year. "And Jews were able to, through our wits, through our intelligence, through our brightness, succeed in almost every single instance, no matter what civilization it was."
Marcus would have his share of adversity. By the time he was 15, he'd held more than a dozen jobs, including a short time as a hypnotist in the Catskills. After graduating from Rutgers with a pharmacy degree, he worked in various retail companies, eventually taking the helm at Handy Dan Home Improvement in California, where, in 1978, he was fired at the age of 49.
It was terrible news at the time, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. He was free to start a new venture with his partners, Arthur Blank and Ken Langone. The Home Depot's first days sound like a bad, old ethnic joke: "Two Jews and an Italian decide to build a new kind of hardware store," Marcus says in his book. Those three men—together—did what entrepreneurs and capitalism itself do best: solve problems.
Before Home Depot, weekend warrior home improvement types spent a lot of time shuffling between hardware stores, lumberyards and garden centers. It wasn't just inconvenient; it was expensive because many of those stores worked through middlemen and drove costs up for everyone. Why not put everything under one roof, make the stores bigger, cut out the middlemen and go direct to the manufacturers?
That's how Home Depot was born: one big idea that made home improvement easier, better and cheaper. It's something only the free enterprise system can do. We certainly don't associate the government with the words easier, better and cheaper.
But Home Depot did more than that. The company demystified the mechanics of plumbing, electrical wiring and construction, staffing stores with knowledgeable salespeople who could answer shoppers' questions and guide them to the proper equipment. It also offered free clinics on all aspects of home remodeling and repair. My own mother—a stay-at-home mom married to a public school teacher and administrator—remodeled our family basement thanks to the free clinics at the Paramus, New Jersey, store.
Indeed, Home Depot helped drive the DIY home improvement revolution that's now ingrained in our culture, with HGTV and stars like Chip and Joanna Gaines helping millions of us build our own American dreams.
But there's more. Go to any Home Depot store at 6 a.m. and you'll see small contractors lining up for lumber and supplies of all kinds. The store serves as their local warehouse. Home Depot allows those little guys to compete with the big builders by leveling the supply chain playing field.
But there's even more. Home Depot helped its vendors and suppliers—its business partners—grow into big companies too. Home Depot made their American dream happen.
And then there are the billions in taxes generated from Home Depot, from corporate taxes to sales taxes and all of the jobs—in the company and downstream—that are a part of the tax base in communities across America.
It's a heck of a story. The first two stores opened in Atlanta in 1979, and by the end of 2022, there were 2,322 stores in North America, with 490,000 employees and sales of $157 billion. And Home Depot is considered one of the best places to work in the country.
But there's more. Marcus, the first CEO, and his co-founders created wealth for anyone who owned shares in the company, including many, many employees. Since its 1981 initial public offering, an investment in the stock symbol HD—including dividends—is up a staggering 1,153 percent, a 27 percent annualized return.
And it isn't just the rich who own HD shares. It's one of the most widely owned stocks in America. Pension funds of teachers, firemen, autoworkers, steelworkers, truckers, pilots and nurses, as well as the 401(k)'s of hardworking Americans across the country, all include HD stock in retirement savings. And they're all rooting for Home Depot to continue its outstanding track record of serving customers. Because serving customers is what drives profits, wealth and shareholder value in America, not theft and appropriation, as progressive educators and activists would have us believe. And as our schools are tragically teaching our kids.
Since he retired from Home Depot in 2002, Marcus and his bride, Billi, have worked tirelessly to give their wealth away, almost $2 billion so far. It's gone to everything from building the world's greatest aquarium (in Atlanta) to Alzheimer's and autism research, from helping veterans to the family's deep concern for Israel.
It's a hard story not to admire. A man starts out with nothing. He faces adversity and setbacks, but through ingenuity, risk-taking and hard work, he builds great wealth. He then spends the rest of his life sharing that wealth with organizations doing good in the world. I would ask any professor on any campus in America teaching young people to hate businessmen and women—or any screenwriter or entertainer—a simple question: What part of Bernie Marcus' story don't you like?
The truth is, the story of Home Depot is a rebuttal to the notion that running a profitable business is evil. It's a rebuttal to Balzac's famous quote, repeated in The Godfather, that behind every great fortune is a great crime. Marcus's life story, and his recent book, are proof that anyone in America can do anything.
It starts with the right upbringing, the right attitude and the desire to make a difference in one's life. And, as his memoir's title implores, to kick up some dust along the way.
"I'm 93," Marcus told The Western Journal late last year. "And I'm not stopping until the good Lord strikes me down."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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