Patrick M. Byrne is the chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, Inc., a publicly-traded Utah Internet retailer since 2002. Under Byrne’s leadership, the company’s revenue has increased from 1.8 million dollars in 1999 to $760.2 million in 2007. Before Overstock.com was founded, Byrne served as the President and CEO of Centricut, LLC, and a manufacturer of industrial torch consumables. He then held three previous positions at Fechheimer Brothers, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company and a police, fire-fighters, and military uniforms manufacturer.
What are the tips for the success of Patrick M. Byrne?
In 2001, he started Worldstock.com, which is a socially responsible market of Overstock.com for handcrafted products created by craftsmen from developing countries and disadvantaged craftsmen in the United States. Overstock’s margins on these items are low so that a larger percentage of the sale goes directly to the supplier. On average, Craftsmen earn about 60% of the profits.
Byrne believes that along with economic freedom and education are the foundations of a healthy society. Byrne has founded 19 schools around the world and is an advocate of educational freedom in the United States. In that regard, he is very active in the Friedman Foundation for educational options. His systematic personal education includes a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in Philosophy and Asian Studies and a PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University. He encouraged Americans to pay off their credit card debt and has actively advocated for greater SEC oversight and federal enforcement efforts to regulate forms of securities manipulation performed by participants in the major stock exchanges; the position provoked the fury of Wall Street.
How was Byrne’s life before Overstock.Com?
In 1994, he helped the investors buy industrial torch maker Centricut LLC. Bu the CEO of this company had to resign immediately, which caused Patrick to step up. Then Byrne entered the world of entrepreneurship with the intention of staying still for more than six months. In 1997, his good teacher, Warren Buffett, and an old family friend, he entered the world of entrepreneurship have asked him to work for him to operate the apparel group Fechheimer Brothers Inc. This Berkshire Hathaway company manufactures of military uniforms. This became a two-month assignment, and he decided to quit the business and returns to teaching. He took a group of students to China for a semester from the Dartmouth.
What are the additional activities of Byrne?
Patrick M. Byrne has a black belt in Taekwondo and has been in professional boxing and he has cycled across the country four times. His last trip in the summer of 2000 was to raise awareness and funding for cancer research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Overstock also started a division under its current working model called Worldstock, where the company used to search for Craftsmen or manufacturers in villages around the world, but mostly in developing countries, especially for companies. As Patrick likes to say, these products are then sold directly on the website. He was one of those people who were part of a small business while they were still working full time.
