Adventures of a Serial Entrepreneur

The‌ ‌Essential‌ ‌Calouste‌ ‌Gulbenkian‌ ‌-‌ ‌Fred‌ ‌Duffy‌ ‌

Talking with a lady one evening at a reception, she asked me what I worked at. By the time I had referenced my businesses in catering, horticulture, oil and computer printing, she said:" I know what you do, you are one of those entrepreneurs".

My new book, 'Two Giants who shaped our oil world', depicts Gulbenkian in a very positive way. For some years I have lived with him and am strongly convinced that he was an archetypal entrepreneur. His 'Spirit of Enterprise' was truly sans frontiers.

In 1983 Prof Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School defined entrepreneurship as 'The pursuit of opportunity beyond reserves controlled'. The term was largely accepted but Prof Joe Schumpeter, also Harvard, may have hit the topic better with the title ' Unternehmergeist', that is 'Enterprise with Spirit'.

Both sobriquet suit Gulbenkian whose career was filled with the spirit of enterprise, pursuing opportunities and acting on them.

He started early, creating an ambitious publication on the oil industry in the Absheron Peninsula of Azerbaijan This established his credibility to the point where he was invited to undertake a survey of the oil prospects of Mesopotamia. Here again, he produced an enterprise beyond resources by using the material from other sources to deliver an acceptable document. He clearly expressed his self-confidence and spirit in his almost casual comment to his secretary David Young," they could drop us in the Sahara tomorrow and in five minutes I would find something to do"

Author's note: Having spent a lifetime considering what drives an entrepreneur, see my book, 'The Adventures of a Serial Entrepreneur', here is my take on some typical characteristics:

A self-motivated, solo, can-do achiever, opportunity spotter, a risk-taker, curious about the why impatient, excited by a new challenge, seeks project success rather than money, a networker, resilient after setbacks, flexible and determined to win......... All of which brings us to the astonishing career of a man so driven, so entrepreneurial and so complex as to be impossible to analyse but simply observe.

Born into a business family prosperous but not rich, he wasn't charismatic, charming or handsome but he was gifted with a brilliant intellect and a brain capable of great imagination and foresight. When he started business in London he made his share of mistakes as he experienced the usual learning curve, testing his skills, and learning the difference between good and bad opportunities. Using his network he soon identified the myriad opportunities local and international and set about building up his business, initially in London but with his eye on the big one.

The plan to attack the huge Standard Oil was surely 'pursuing an opportunity beyond resources controlled' but that never stopped an entrepreneur who will always try to make it happen. The resources were found by means of a giant merger of Shell and Royal Dutch. The plan succeeded as the group established themselves strongly in the American market not only in the gasoline sector but with a successful launch in the New York stock exchange.

Using all the above-listed skills he developed opportunities in Venezuela, in France in Russia and of course in Mesopotamia. He clarified any doubt about his entrepreneurship when rudely challenged by Walter C Teagle, boss of Standard Oil, he stated:

"I am a business architect. I design companies like this one." That is exactly what entrepreneurs do.

His need to win every situation was paramount. Take for example how his desire to recover a missing kitchen knife caused him to send two detectives to Moscow to recover it.

The American billionaire industrialist and collector of art Andrew Mellon had built the National Art Gallery in Washington and was assembling a suitable collection. Learning that the Imperial Russian art treasures in the Hermitage Palace, St Petersburg, were being sold he dispatched his agents with nearly $10 million only to discover that Gulbenkian had beaten him to it and had picked the best.

When Shell played dirty and beat him in an Extraordinary General Meeting, his resilience kicked in and he hit back harder in the Stock Market of which he was a master. In a maelstrom of duplicity and diplomatic subterfuge he parried broken promises and cheating, nearly always achieving his objectives.

The French statesman and diplomat Charles Talleyrand with whom Gulbenkian is often compared, had advised Napoleon to let the young American states buy the huge Louisiana territory for peanuts in a stratagem to obstruct the British who were trying to occupy it. In a curiously similar artifice Gulbenkian contrived to have the US and France secure equity in his Turkish Oil Company which stymied the British foreign office in their plans to weaken his position.

As the European and Middle Eastern industry developed he was present in every theatre negotiating with the skill and precision that slowly shaped the framework of the oil world into a form that lasted for 20 years. Attacked and betrayed by erstwhile partners, governments and competitors he was in his element. He so confounded them by his web of intrigue and restrictive conditions that obliged them all to attend at his lair at the time of his choosing as they sought agreements on his terms.

That he was a historically unique genius is beyond question. On the issue of entrepreneurship, one might justifiably conclude that he defined the very practice but at a level that others might only aspire to.

It was surely a masterstroke of diplomacy when he duped and inveigled the US State Department and the American oil group's ambitions and France's need for oil using them as pawns in his game to control the oil industry in Europe.