, Columnist
‘Hidden Champions’ Are the Engine of Germany’s Economic Machine
The Mittelstand, a group of niche companies making products you never really think about, could thrive in the post-globalization era.
A crown jewel.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
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In college I met someone whose father was a professional book indexer. I remember thinking … wait, that’s a career? And of course it is: Indexes are integral to any type of textbook, cookbook or coffee table book. We just never pay mind to the person behind it. A character in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” memorably said, “indexing was a thing that only the most amateurish author undertook to do for his own book.”