Aldi founder Karl Albrecht is the richest man in Europe. The German, who founded the discount supermarket chain with his brother Theo in 1961, is now believed to be worth in the region of €20 billion.
The notoriously camera-shy billionaire is the only European to make it into Forbes’ top 10 with a fortune built on providing basic household necessities cheaper than anyone else.
Albrecht is no longer as active in the business as he once was, choosing instead to divide his time between playing golf and, apparently, cultivating orchids. Anyway, he was known for being quite the font of wisdom in his day. Here are his best quotes:
“Albrecht’s Law – Intelligent people, when assembled into an organisation, will tend toward collective stupidity.â€
On the problems of group-think.
“Change your language and you change your thoughts.â€
On fresh thinking.
“The typical human life seems to be quite unplanned, undirected, unlived, and unsavored. Only those who consciously think about the adventure of living as a matter of making choices among options, which they have found for themselves, ever establish real self-control and live their lives fully.â€
On human happiness.
“If you’re not serving the customer, you’d better be serving someone who is.â€
On business focus.
“Start out with an ideal and end up with a deal.
On business negotiations.
“Customer needs have an unsettling way of not staying satisfied for very long.â€
On the evolving marketplace.
“If the frontline people do count, you couldn’t prove it by examining the reward systems in most organisations.
On incentivised employment.
Robert Carry
