As with any megafortune, John Richard (J.R.) Simplot's wealth was built from a few simple but revolutionary ideas, much sweat, and a generous glossing of luck. The details of his experience, however, are singular in the extreme.
To begin with, Simplot is really the last man to have hewed a great fortune from the preindustrial West: Starting in the 1920s in southern Idaho's Snake River basin, he built a potato-based agricultural empire that, among other things, supplies McDonald's with more than 50% of its French fries.