The greatest entrepreneurs and businesspeople in American history: A replication of the 2001 ranking

Abstract

This paper replicates a 2001 ranking of the greatest entrepreneurs and businesspeople in American business history. In 2011, we surveyed forty-one experts who collectively ranked Henry Ford at the top of the poll with Apple’s Steve Jobs landing in the top ten as a new entry. This replication study presents the survey methodology for the 2011 expert pool for the first time in hopes that other researchers might consider extensions of this study in other countries. We also surveyed participants about the greatest minority and greatest female entrepreneur as well as most underrated entrepreneur. We plan to conduct a third ranking in 2021 to continue this conversation into future decades.

Keywords

• henry ford
• steve jobs
• oprah winfrey