Empire of Freedom

In 1959 two boyhood buddies had a "crazy idea." They decided to start a company made up not of employees, but of owners - independent men and women pursuing the limits of their own dreams. The company would benefit from the combined intelligence, energy, creativity, and fierce initiative of these owners.

Little did Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel know on that day nearly three decades ago that the company they founded in the basements of their homes, Amway, would go on to become a multibillion-dollar sensation that has reshaped the global economy and, in the process, transformed the lives of its more than 2.5 million distributors.