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King Larry: The Life and Ruins of a Billionaire Genius Kindle Edition

by James D. Scurlock (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 84 ratings
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From Howard Hughes to Mark Zuckerberg, the public has always been fascinated by genius entrepreneurs who succumb to their eccentricities. Now, James Scurlock engages, educates, and entertains readers with the captivating story of DHL cofounder and billionaire Larry Hillblom.

King Larry begins with an early biography of Larry Lee Hillblom, a mercurial young man who grew up on a peach farm outside of Fresno, California. Hillblom cofounded DHL in 1969 (three years before FedEx), and it became the fastest-growing corporation in history. Hillblom’s expatriate life began in 1981, when he retreated to a small tax haven in the Western Pacific. There he led the resistance to American meddling in the Marianas Islands. Hillblom’s voracious appetite for underage prostitutes is another facet of his unusual story. In 1995, Hillblom’s amoral, thrill-seeking nature caught up to him when his seaplane disappeared off the coast of Anatahan, leaving behind an estate worth billions. Weeks later, five impoverished women and their attorneys came forward to challenge Hillblom’s will in a legal battle for his fortunes that continues to this day.

Meticulously researched and thoroughly engaging, King Larry will satisfy fans of such bestsellers as Confessions of an Economic Hit Manand The Accidental Billionaires .
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  1. Print length
    354 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Scribner
  5. Publication date
    January 10, 2012
  6. File size
    2547 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James D. Scurlock studied at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania before dropping out to pursue an entrepreneurial venture and later a documentary film career. His first film, Parents of the Year, won numerous awards and was an official selection of more than twenty-five film festivals. His first feature-length documentary, Maxed Out, explored our culture of debt and won the Special Jury Prize at South by Southwest. His first book, a companion to the award-winning documentary, was nominated for the National MS Society's "Books for a Better Life" Award. He has written, primarily about the impending (and now realized) financial crisis, for Slate, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, and AARP Magazine, among others. He has also appeared on numerous programs, including Nightline, The Today Show, and CNBC’s Power Lunch. Scurlock lives in Santa Monica, California.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004T4KL2A
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner; Reprint edition (January 10, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 10, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2547 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 354 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 84 ratings

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James D. Scurlock

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
84 global ratings
Entertaining
5 Stars
Entertaining
Very interesting look at dare I say, a "slightly" unbalanced entrepreneur. A real character with a bizarre temperament and method of doing business that after his untimely passing resulted in a tangled convoluted mess worth millions. He left no will to determine what should happen to his assets and money. I smile every time I see a DHL yellow & red truck now knowing what I never knew before this book.
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Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched book of a not run of the mill billionaire
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2017
Verified Purchase
Having been an employee and manager for DHL in the United States for 25 years, I had to buy and read this book. I was in from 1981 to 2006 from the days when we were still sorting packages on the floor and rushing out the door to get them to the airport. The company was growing in leaps and bounds in those days and we were kind of winging it day to day. Eventually the company hired professional CEO's and it was truely a fun and exciting company to work for. I sent many a family menber and friends on free courier trips to Europe , Asia and Australia and my wife and I would vacation twice a year in Europe with airfare covered by the company (had to travel on seperate consecutive days. Deutsch Post Worldnet purchased the company in 2001 and the company lost some of its thrill after that. I knew many of the persons mentioned in the book and was amazed at how well reseaerched and written the book was. I personally had never got a chance to meet Larry Hillbloom, but my manager when I first start there had met him and confirmed that she was shocked that he was wearing a T shirt and jeans.. In 2004 locations in the US that were union locations kept their drivers and those cities not historically union, were converted to agent run operations. The Teamster Union came into our location and I decided to part ways after that change. I do fondly remember my time working for that company as exciting and rewarding. Many of us had heard of Larry's lifestyle in the CMNI but were unaware of all the details revealed in the book. Wonderful read that I will pass on to former DHL friends. Thanks for the book!
2 people found this helpful
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NonFictionOnly
5.0 out of 5 stars I wish Amazon had 4 1/2 stars!
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2012
Verified Purchase
Seems like the other reviewers have kind of beat me to the punch, so I'll try to be pithy.

That the life of Larry Hillblom is only now being chronicled will amaze anyone who reads this book. Hillblom was both a revolting creep, and a brilliant businessman. His ability to outwit and outmaneuver virtually every adversary almost reads like the stuff of cheesy fiction until you realize it's all based on really well researched facts. Hillblom was also a pedophile who wasted much of his wealth fueling the (often underage) sex industry in SE Asia, an unfortunate and glaring footnote in this business biography. Larry's pedophilia aside, the book is indeed gripping, and almost reads like a movie just aching to be made.

Yes, the legal details were a bit much at times, but the minutiae nearly always seemed to have a purpose. And yes, the pedophilia and sex did seem to be more of a footnote than you'd expect from an enlightened, western author. But if Scurlock's purpose was to make a book that told a more complete story about Hillblom without becoming a rant on his many imperfections (which include abhorent, immoral behavior), then Scurlock succeeded. Hillblom was clearly a flawed, perverse, even depraved sex addict who also happened to be a visionary who transformed an entire industry almost single-handedly. Not many biographies (including that of Jobs) can make such a claim on their subject.

King Larry isn't perfect, but for a non-fiction biography, it's damn close. Couldn't recommend it more highly!
11 people found this helpful
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Lee B Croft
3.0 out of 5 stars King Larry is Alive, I'd say
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2013
Verified Purchase
With a biography subject as interesting as DHL mastermind Larry Hillblom, with his phenomenal amassing of wealth and sheer number of enterprises, and especially as coupled with his life of practiced pedophilia in exotic locales, it's a wonder it took so long (17 years after his disappearance) for such a book as this to be written and published. This is, after all, one impactful psychopath. But now we have this biography, KING LARRY: The Life and Ruins of a Billionaire Genius, by film-maker and prize-winning author James D. Scurlock. Other reviewers decry shortcomings in the editing by Scribner's staff, pointing to minor misspellings, confusing references to people and places, and such. I was not distracted by any such matters of editing, however, finding myself engrossed in the competently structured narrative. I only had the recurring thought as I read that Scurlock gives relatively short shrift to Hillblom's sexual perversion...his practice of paying desperately impoverished women in the Philippines and in Vietnam to allow him to deflower their pubescent virgin daughters. Also, Scurlock, clearly a committed investigator who traveled the world finding personal sources and documentation, is curiously accepting of the ostensible circumstances of Hillblom's death in the crash of his outdated seaplane in the remote Pacific. The lack of a recovered body and the instructed sanitization of his residences and even a previous crash site to prevent collection of his blood or body tissue certainly offer the possibility that Hillblom contrived his own disappearance. There is no doubt that he had all the wherewithall...manipulative personality to great wealth and nefarious personal contacts--to do this. And he had good reason to do it...avoidance of legal consequences of his perversion. So, why are we not to think that "King Larry" is hiding away under a new identity and likely even a new surgically created physicality in some place like Thailand or Vietnam or...still in control of vast wealth through other sinister "nominees" and acting through them to continue his perversion and, likely also, to confound the forces that would find and incarcerate him? If he, resident in, say, some Vietnamese outpost, were to hear reports that some author was preparing a biography of him for publication, would he not make some attempt to assure that such a biography did not so question his manufactured disappearance that a serious search for him would be initiated? I think his character is such that he would send a nominee to threaten or bribe this author into publishing only addenda to his own approved mythology. Is that what this is? Where are you, Larry?
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Top reviews from other countries

peterpan9
5.0 out of 5 stars Crazier than I expected
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2012
Verified Purchase
I myself have been working for more than 25 years for DHL. My position in Finance brought me all around the world and I had to mix with all kind of staff and management, some of them mentioned in the product. Some of the events mentioned I knew about, many are new to me. However nothing in the product is contradictory to what I know which I think means that James has been writing an objective book. I knew that Hillblom was kind of a Genius but I did not know he was so eccentric.... in good and bad.....
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