William Thorndike profiles eight chief executives whose companies dramatically outperformed both the S&P 500 and their industry peers over multi-decade tenures, and identifies the common approach to capital allocation that explains their extraordinary results. The eight — including Tom Murphy of Capital Cities, Henry Singleton of Teledyne, John Malone of TCI, and Katharine Graham of the Washington Post Company — were notably unconventional in rejecting the conventional CEO priorities of empire-building and earnings management in favor of a relentless focus on per-share value creation. Each of these executives treated capital allocation — the decision of how to deploy the cash their businesses generated — as their primary responsibility, often repurchasing massive quantities of their own stock when it was cheap, making acquisitions when assets were undervalued, selling divisions when the price was generous, and using leverage judiciously rather than reflexively. Thorndike's analysis reveals that the best CEOs are essentially portfolio managers of their own corporate assets, applying the same buy-low, sell-high logic that drives successful investing to operational and strategic decisions. Warren Buffett called this book his favorite book on management, and it has been widely credited with popularizing the concept of "capital allocation" as the lens through which to evaluate CEO quality. Essential reading for investors, board members, and anyone who wants to understand how great businesses are built.