🏛️ Empires 25 min read The Albrecht Brothers: How Two German Recluses Built the World's Discount Empire
They never gave interviews. They never appeared in public. One of them was kidnapped and haggled with his captors over the ransom. Karl and Theo Albrecht took a bombed-out corner store in postwar Germany and turned it into Aldi — the discount grocery empire that terrified Walmart, conquered Europe, and proved that selling less could earn you more.