When he famously gained a manufacturing foothold with the plastic flowers in the 1950s, he says, he was able to engineer critical molding machinery with an injection process made using a Coca-Cola (nyse: KO - news - people ) bottle and a plastic straw, using something he saw in Modern Plastics as a guide.

FORBES: Thoughts of Chairman Li

They engineer and build plants, and make factory machinery for the automotive industry, in particular paint shops.

FORBES: How to Pick International Small Caps

Grizzled, his peculiar aviator glasses bent and smudged, Nawab tended the household machinery, the air-conditioners, water heaters, refrigerators, and pumps, like an engineer tending the boilers on a foundering steamer in an Atlantic gale.

NEWYORKER: Nawabdin Electrician