Although I don’t eat at Burger King more than once or twice a year, I was interested in accepting an offer to review The Burger King: A Whopper of a Story on Life and Leadership (Mango, $27.95). It’s an autobiography of Jim McLamore, the co-founder of the chain, written in a way to present a case study on entrepreneurship.
The story moves along fairly quickly. McLamore omits lots of details when jumping from one point in time to another. For example, in chapter two he recounts enlisting in the Navy in June 1944. Within a page, it’s a year later, and he’s in Officers Training Corps at Cornell University, then soon after he’s heading to Miami to spend time with a woman who would one day become his wife.
Like many other entrepreneurs, McLamore toiled and came close to losing it all several times yet always found a way to persevere. Plus, he got some fortunate breaks along the way. One anecdote recounted how McLamore’s father-in-law hosted a cocktail party in 1956 to introduce him to potential investors. That’s how he ended up landing a $65,000 investment (the equivalent of more than $600,000 today), which saved the company from going under.
McLamore also sprinkles words of wisdom throughout the book (p. 166: “It is important to acknowledge that any major decisions made in the course of business come by utilizing the information and context available at that given time”) without being too preachy about it. In fact, I never thought McLamore as being arrogant or boastful in telling his life story. You can tell by how much he credits his wife, Nancy, and his cofounder, Dave Edgerton.
Overall, I thought The Burger King was an intriguing tale of honesty, passion and learning from one’s mistakes. McLamore lets us into his life and into his thinking process behind all the decisions that led to Burger King being what it is today.
McLamore died of cancer on Aug. 8, 1996, a few months after completing his autobiography. It was originally published posthumously in 1998 as The Burger King: Jim McLamore and The Building of an Empire before being republished this year under the current title.
