If I wasn't already a loyal Discount Tire customer I would be pretty upset that I just spent a week reading a 200 page ad for Discount Tire™. It was still mostly an ad, but I'm not very upset about it.

Bruce Halle probably isn't the absolute saint that his biographer claims, having not raised his voice since his 20s, and always putting his employees first.

I have first hand seen many of the company practices that are mentioned in the book, including free flat repair for everyone and free tires given to folks down on their luck.

At times I found the Stories of his practices of sending money to store employees who had sick family members and of the organizing team member hardship funds incredibly enduring, but then I'd think about it again and thought that if they had a union they wouldn't need hand-outs and could just get paid enough to cover stuff.

15-20 years ago when I thought "true capitalism" was the savior of us all, before capitalism ate me alive, I probably would have absolutely loved this book. Now its all-in-all something I didn't NOT enjoy, but I did see more of the "skill" of the author who frequently would say the same thing he did a chapter or two earlier "Mr. Halle continues to give $1,000 to every employee who gets married" for example.