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1,000 Dollars And An Idea
Sam Wyly
Entrepreneur To Billionaire
Newmarket
September 2008
On Sale: September 1, 2008
256 pages
ISBN: 1557048037
EAN: 9781557048035
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Memoir
The rags-to-riches story of an amazing business
wizard—from the Louisiana cotton fields to the worlds of
computers, retailing, fast food, high finance, and green
energy—life lessons from a man ahead of the pack and ahead
of his time.
"My work is to create companies and
build them," says the billionaire whom Fortune
magazine, over thirty years ago, characterized as "one of
the most, if not the most, important entrepreneurs" of the
century. This was even before Wyly contributed to nearly
every great technological, service industry, and investment
business breakthrough in the second half of the twentieth
century.
Now, in his fast-paced, fascinating, and
candid memoir, Wyly reveals the thought processes,
relationships, and financial machinations behind the
building of his diverse businesses over the last four
decades.
Here's the story of how he worked his way
through Louisiana Tech selling class rings and why, after
his first job in which he broke sales records for IBM (along
with Ross Perot, a fellow IBM salesman) and a brief stint at
Honeywell, he decided to risk $1,000 of his savings to found
the first "computer utility" company in the business world.
This was in 1963. Two years later, he took his University
Computing Company public and became an instant
millionaire.
Never losing his entrepreneurial spirit,
Wyly undertook one challenge after another, such as:
•
Waging a successful anti-monopoly battle against AT&T,
enabling him to build a "telephone highway" for
computers
• Growing the modest Bonanza Steak House chain,
which he "inherited" as the result of a bad debt, to a total
of 600 outlets before selling it for a huge profit
•
Creating a new systems software company, Sterling Software,
which he eventually sold for $4 billion
• Dividending
Sterling Commerce to public shareholders and selling to
AT&T for $4 billion in 2000
• Expanding the small
arts-and-crafts chain Michaels Stores from 10 to 1,000
stores before selling it for $6 billion in 2006
•
Founding Green Mountain Energy, which has become the largest
and most profitable green business in the
country.
Part autobiography and part inspirational
self-help business guide, Wyly not only provides his
homespun life lessons in the practice of starting and
building businesses, but he also delivers refreshing new
insights into how many American businesses operated from the
1950s to the present.
No awards found for this book.
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