Which Billionaires Could Pull Off A Repeat

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Which Billionaires Could Pull Off A Repeat?

By: Nathan Weinberg
2006-08-21

A discussion at Niniane Wang's blog particularly interested me. The gist: If we took their money away, which billionaires...

...would be able to pull off a repeat and earn their money all over again?

Link: discussion

Give your opinions in the comments, but here are mine:

* Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page - Tough call. Google hasn't pulled off anything since their initial success that is worth over a billion dollars, yet there is a good chance that if Sergey and Larry weren't "stuck" running Google, they'd have created something amazing in their spare time.

* Bill Gates - Absolutely not. Microsoft has lost so much market share, and started only one billion dollar product in recent years (Xbox), and it loses billions! Now, if this were Bill Gates, circa 1995, I'd believe he could not only do it again, he'd beat Microsoft doing so.

* Mark Cuban - Not likely. Cuban has made smart moves since his big windfall, but they've all been smart investments of his sizable fortune. I would like to see if he could launch a new product/service at this point without funding, grow it, popularize it, and then get VC backing, but I think he's had the big money for too long to go back to the startup mindset.

* NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg - Yes. Even though he used his money to get there, Bloomberg completely reinvented himself in his years as mayor of the toughest city to manage in the country. Keep in mind: He didn't use one dime of his own in the city's budget.

* Steve Jobs - Of course. Didn't he already do it?

* Warren Buffet - Just give him one red paperclip and watch him go.

* Paul Allen - No. He's rested on that Microsoft stock for far too long

* Michael Dell - Maybe not. His company has failed to move quickly as the industry around it changed, and Dell built the company originally on its speed and efficiency. This suggests he may have slowed too much to pull it off again.

* Larry Ellison - Ha ha. Ha. No.

* Steve Ballmer - Toughest call. Has as much energy today as ever, so maybe.

* Carl Icahn - No way.

* Eric Schmidt - Yes. He'd find another successful young company to babysit.

* Jeff Bezos - No idea. Amazon sure has some good ideas as it evolves, and he might find a way to hit it big again.

* George Lucas - He'd find a way to make millions within a year, and many millions after a few, but not billions.

* Donald Trump - I'm not even trying that one :-)

View All Articles by Nathan Weinberg

About the Author:
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.


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