From Zara Delivery Boy to $148 Billion: Amancio Ortega's Parenting Lessons
From Zara Delivery Boy to $148 Billion: Amancio Ortega's Parenting Lessons A boy of about 13 carries parcels through the streets of A Coruña, a port city in northwest Spain. He is the son of a railway worker and has already left school to help his family. Decades later, he would be among the richest people in the world, with a fortune that has been estimated at well over $100 billion, and a figure of $148 billion has been cited at its peak. That boy is Amancio Ortega, the founder of Inditex, the company behind Zara. His business story is told often. His approach to raising a family gets far less attention, mostly because Ortega guards his privacy more than almost any billionaire alive. He rarely gives interviews, avoided photographers for decades, and is known to eat in the staff canteen at his company's headquarters. Still, his choices over the years say a lot. How he handled money, work, succession and public life shows a consistent philosophy. One caveat first: Ortega has...