Above all, Sam Walton embodied that good ol' common sense that is not so common these days. Even when conventional wisdom was telling him not to open stores in this or that area, or not to pursue this or that model, he trusted the fundamentals (people seek value, variety, and good service) and pursued them nonetheless.

Reading between the lines, he was doing that "lean startup" nonsense decades before everyone else. He was trying things, failing and learning from them and iterating, all while continuing to keep an eye on the competition. He says so himself, he was not a genius to have come up with the model that made Walmart great, nor was it an overnight success, it was a process that he stuck to that eventually built so much momentum that made it all but inevitable.

There's some of fluff and chest-thumping, and quite a little bit of apology for the decisions they chose to take in their success (for instance, he spends some time playing down all the negative talk about Walmart's impact on small businesses on the towns they chose to open stores in, etc.), which I didn't care so much for.

His 10 rules for running a successful business are interesting, if not a bit simple. You can find them below:
1. commit to your business
2. share your profits (with all of your partners/associates)
3. motivate your partners (set high goals and seek competition)
4. communicate as much as you can (to your partners)
5. be appreciative of what your partners do for the business
6. celebrate your successes and find humor in your failures
7. listen to everyone in your company
8. exceed your customer's expectations (don't make excuses)
9. control your expenses better than your competition
10. swim upstream (ignore conventional wisdom)