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1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire
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$ 19.46
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527815 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
The never-before-told story of how one of America's most important entrepreneurs founded and grew such diverse companies as Sterling Software, University Computing, Michaels Stores, Bonanza Steakhouse, and Green Mountain Energy--life lessons from a man ahead of his time. Sam Wyly founded and grew best-of-breed companies on the leading edge of advancements in technology, energy, retail, and investments over a career spanning 45 years. Now this fast-paced and candid memoir reveals the creative process, relationships, struggles, and financial strategies that led to him becoming one of the 1,000 wealthiest people in the world, according to Forbes magazine. From the hardships his parents faced trying to hold on to the family cotton farm during the Depression to the coaching he received on the high school football field, this self-made billionaire describes how his early days in Louisiana prepared him for what lay ahead. He recounts how his experience in sales working for IBM and Honeywell led to his idea to start a "computer utility." Needing $600,000 of start-up capital, he risked $1,000 of his savings to found University Computing in 1963, then took it public in 1965, making him a millionaire at age thirty. Later successes included:
*Creating Data Transmission Company and taking on the mammoth AT&T monopoly
*Growing a restaurant chain from 20 to 600 Bonanza Steakhouse locations
*Co-founding Sterling Software and selling it to Computer Associates for $4 billion
*Growing the arts-and-crafts chain Michaels Stores from 10 to 800 stores and selling it for $6 billion
*Co-founding hedge funds Maverick Capital & Ranger Capital
*Founding Green Mountain Energy, the largest provider of cleaner energy in America today.
Part autobiography and part inspirational business guide, 1,000 Dollars and an Idea is full of refreshing insights and homespun life lessons about what it takes to create, grow, and build successful companies.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 256
Dimensions: Length: 9" Width: 6.2" Height: 1"
Weight: 1.05 lbs.
Binding Hardcover
Release Date Sep 1, 2008
ISBN 1557048037
EAN 9781557048035
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Availability 0 units.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Not Enough Detail Jan 10, 2009 |
While Sam Wyly has certainly had a celebrated career as an entrepeneur across a wide variety of industries, his story as told in "1,000 Dollars and an Idea" leaves a lot to be desired. Part of the problem, quite frankly, is that given the breadth of his experience, it's not possible to credibly tell his story in 250 pages. He has to gloss over a lot of important details, both good and bad, and so the reader is left feeling that he or she is not being told the entire story. If Wyly wanted to write a relatively short book, it may have been a better idea for him to instead distill a series of specific lessons and insights on entrepreneurship based on his experience.
There are other problems with the book. For example, in one of the last chapters of the book, he talks about he became a "champion of the clean-air revolution" in 1997, based upon his own business experience and his reading of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (which came out in 1962), among other things. What took so long? It sounds more like a Hollywood ending, or a way of burnishing his legacy, than a legitimate market-based insight. He also fails to explore his reasoning for selling Sterling Software to "the most hated company in the software industry", Computer Associates in March of 2000 in a stock swap. While some of his shareholders may have made money, there is no discussion of the impact of this decision on his customers or employees. While in other parts of the book he talks proudly about his investment accumen (especially in the chapter on Maverick Capital), not only did he agree to exchange his company's stock for the stock of a company that was subsequently revealed to be a massive fraud, he was willing to accept this stock at the very peak of the tech bubble. Again, his failure to address these shortcomings leads one to think that there is more to his story than he is willing to share.
I understand that no business professional is perfect, myself included. However, if Wyly had taken some additional time to address some of these issues, instead of writing what amounts to little more than a victory-lap speech, his readers would have gotten a lot more value from his book: a realistic appraisal of the highs and lows of becoming a successful entrepreneur. | | |  | great read Oct 19, 2008 |
| For everyone intetested in becoming wealthy, Sam Wyly takes a grass roots approach from being born in Louisana into being one of the world's wealthiest mean. A great read for anyone with an ounce of entrepreneural spirit. | | |  | How This Book Put Me To Sleep Oct 18, 2008 |
Last night I could not sleep. This is such a turbulent time in the world that many of us share sleepless nights of worry - about the market and our future.
So at about 1 am I picked up Sam Wyly's 1,000 Dollars & an Idea. The book is a page turner and provides golden nuggets of wisdom and useful advise on how to deal with difficult financial times in a positive, proactive way. The words jumped off of the page...
"...Focus on spirituality, on mental power as opposed to material power."
"I knew there was nothing to fear. I stood there confident that something good would happen, even though I didn't know just what or when. Just then the phone rang."
Fear is bizarre to me. I have never really had it and when I had nothing I feared the least. It is strange how with accumulation comes also the fear of loss. Sam Wyly's reminder that there is nothing to fear when we are focused on a positive outcome is very timely for the world and America today. His story is also a great example of reaping good karma - when you do the right thing.
The concepts in this book that resonate the most with me have to do with loving your work. Sam writes:
"Without passion you will not find much personal fulfillment and are unlikely to do outstanding work...the motivation for success and passion for the work are tightly linked."
and...
"Work and Joy are not mutually exclusive" This quote is synonymous with how I have always positioned work - which is not really work at all! But I needed to be reminded of that.
Finally, Sam references a quote by Mary Baker Eddy, "Stand porter at the door of thought."
1,000 Dollars & an Idea is exactly what I needed to read last night. Fundamentally I know that every situation is really only based upon our point of view...our thoughts. Even in today's erratic economic times we can still control our thoughts and stay focused on a positive outcome.
So when Sam wrote, "I see problems and solutions as nothing more than opposite sides of the same coin," I sat with those words, let them really sink in - not only into my mind but into my heart - and I finally fell asleep!
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has concerns about their future - Sam's story provides us all with the confidence to lean into our own challenges and the promise of a successful outcome. | | | | Multipliers plus other goodies for writers ... Oct 12, 2008 |
If you read this book and got nothing from it, I'd have to say you don't know how to read between the lines.
I'm only on page 7 and have found the following thus far:
* Great description of a Multiplier in the Prologue: "When Albert Einstein attended a press conference after he won the Nobel Prize, a reporter asked him, 'What is the strongest force in the universe?' He smiled and replied, 'Compound interest.' All the journalists laughed. But as every successful investor from neophyte to hedge fund manager knows, the greatest mind of the twentieth century was only half kidding."
* Pages 1 & 2 talk about hedge funds, which finally explained to me why mainstream consumer magazines lean so heavily on subscriptions (a form of hedging for the magazines; Kindle might disappear the dependence, though).
* Page 7 provides a great short-list of specific areas for writers to focus on, although it's only for those who are hungry for success.
Cool.
SK
The Great Multipliers (Edocster)
| | | | Easy inspiring read! Oct 11, 2008 |
| Sams' book is an easy read that outlines how not only how he rode the wave into the digital era but created it. With short chapters that give a broad view of important people and events in Sams' life rather than much detail about his strategies to creating his wealth. Its a fast bedtime read that is lite but worthwhile. | | | Write your own review about 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire
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