Tycoon Profiles
Business lessons and insights from billionaires and tycoons.
Russia’s Richest Man: Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov
This is the 60 Minutes interview with the 6′ 8″, jock billionaire who is currently Russia’s wealthiest man. He spends two hours every day working out no matter what is happening around him. (This is a great habit to cultivate.) Prokhorov makes an interesting point about having been one of the Oligarchs who got his start in what one historian calls “frontier capitalism.”This is when there’s no rule of law by which to conduct business. During the first decade after the collapse of the USSR there were no rules to govern business because capitalism had been illegal for roughly 70 years. “It was Wild West. It was a territory with no sheriff, no rules, you need to survive.” You had to have the courage to go out and cease opportunities and then worry about holding onto them afterwards.Oftentimes, this meant literally risking your life.
Mark Cuban gives a short talk on what the right attitude for success is.
Click to watch.
“Sir” Allen Stanford the fake billionaire gets 110 years for defrauding people of an estimated $7 billion.
Rare is the person who doesn’t enjoy a good caper flick or one about con-men. I’ve been a fan of David Mamet’s works since the early 1990s, but the Allen Stanford story is actually better than most fiction because it’s the real thing. It’s the tale of a true life con-man. Indeed it’s fascinating enough to be worthy of a book and movie. I say fascinating because while Stanford was never actually a billionaire he convinced himself in his own mind that he was. This belief enabled him to draw in both the clients and employees who then helped him to build a vast international financial services organization and allowed him to play the role of a billionaire. Talk about the power of imagination. Talk about a powerful reality distortion field.
Sadly, it was all an illusion and many innocent people lost their savings as a result of trusting him.
You can read a short BBC piece on his sentencing.
No Death, No Taxes
The libertarian futurism of a Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is one of the famous “Paypal Mafia.”
Jeffrey Skoll: Meet the Canadian billionaire who’s giving it all away
“I was living in a house with five guys, eating their leftovers when they weren’t watching. … I went from that to having $1-billion-plus on paper.” – Jeffrey Skoll
Recent Comments