He emigrated to Melbourne in August 1899 with very little money and little knowledge of English to join his elder brother, Elcon Myer (1875–1938), who had left Russia two years earlier.

[1] Sidney and Elcon Myer both worked in Slutzkin's underclothing business in Flinders Lane, Melbourne; later they established a small drapery shop in Bendigo.

[1] In 1911 he purchased the business of Wright and Neil, Drapers, in Bourke Street, near the General Post Office, and a new building was completed and opened in 1914.

The Doveton woollen mills at Ballarat were purchased in 1918, and in 1921 a new building fronting on Post Office Place, was added at Melbourne.

The company was then employing 5,300 people with medical and nursing aid for the staff, and rest homes for them at the seaside and in the Dandenong Ranges.

Ken Myer was a philanthropist, a prime mover behind the Victorian Arts Centre; chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; and was offered and declined the governor-generalship of Australia.

[8] Myer's gravesite, a sepulchre for the reception of urns of ashes, is in Box Hill Public Cemetery in Melbourne.

[9] A violinist who enjoyed music, Sidney Myer established free, open-air concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 1929, which were always well attended by Melburnians.

During the depression of the 1930s, Myer felt a responsibility to contribute something to the community that had assisted him in achieving business success and a personal fortune.

The most famous philanthropic funding was for the construction of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in the Kings Domain, Melbourne in 1958, which is named in his honour.