Successful Entrepreneurs: How Michael Bloomberg Did It

Michael Bloomberg is one of New York's most successful entrepreneurs, He first achieved success as a stockbroker, then as a billionaire entrepreneur before becoming mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. In 1981, he co-founded the New York-based financial information and media company, Bloomberg LP. As of November 2024, Bloomberg's net worth was around $105 billion.

After putting down the company's seed funding from his severance package from a job from which he was fired, he has retained an 88% stake in the business, which has a yearly revenue of more than $13 billion. He's also a major philanthropist and has donated more than $17 billion to a variety of causes. He owns multiple homes from New York City to London to Bermuda.

In this article, we analyze the choices he made on the way to the top and compare that with expert opinions on achieving entrepreneurial success.

How Michael Bloomberg Got Started

Michael Bloomberg got his start on Wall Street in 1966, with an entry-level job at the successful investment bank, Salomon Brothers. At Salomon Brothers, he excelled as a trader and was made a partner. But, in 1979, he was demoted to run the information technology division of the company until the company merged with the commodity trading firm Phibro.

"In 1981, at the age of 39, I was fired from the only full-time job I’d ever had—a job I loved."

This was the company he worked for since graduating from Harvard Business School—the company he said he would never leave. While getting fired from a job you love may sound like a failure, Bloomberg's termination became one of the most important steps toward achieving success. Salomon Brothers gave Bloomberg a pat on the back and a severance check of $10 million.

“But I never let myself look back," Bloomberg said of his firing, "And the very next day I took a big risk and began my own company based on an unproven idea that nearly everyone thought would fail: making financial information available to people, right on their desktops."

Now let's take a look at some of his success strategies.

Take Risks and Don't Waste Time Trying To Avoid Failure

Bloomberg took a chunk of his $10 million and wasted no time at all to create a business that merged the two skills he developed at Salomon Brothers: knowledge of the securities and investment world and expertise about the technologies that made those deals happen. He thought that if he could build a system that took information about a mass of different investment types—stocks, bonds, and currencies—and organize it, traders could use it to see investment opportunities previously hidden by too much data.

In his book "A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs," Tren Griffin makes an important point—that entrepreneurs must take action. Most entrepreneurs will tell you that the hardest part is starting. Griffin writes that “lots of people talk a good game about wanting to leave a big company for a startup, but when the time comes, most don’t do it."

So Bloomberg was fired. Without a moment's rest, he hired four people from his old company and began creating. He then sold what eventually became the well-known Bloomberg Terminal. He identified a major problem (the inaccessibility of investment data was preventing traders from making smart investments) and thought of a solution. But he took a risk and went all-in.

Be Persistent and Make Your Own Luck

This takes us to our next lesson. So Bloomberg has an idea, and he thinks it can impact the entire financial world, but no one thinks it'll catch. This is where luck comes in, but this is a different kind of luck. Bloomberg worked tirelessly to get his name and idea out there, saying:

"Luck plays a part in success, but the harder you work, the luckier you get.... Hard work creates opportunities where your resume cannot.”

When he started his company, Bloomberg would go downtown and buy cups of coffee and take them up to Merrill Lynch, his target audience. He often walked the hallways, introducing himself, offering cups of coffee, and asking for an audience.

Bloomberg came back every day, working to build relationships with potential customers. But what did he get out of this? He learned about the audience for his terminal. And it worked: Three years after starting Bloomberg LP, he sold 20 terminals to Merrill Lynch—his first customer.

If Bloomberg wasn't persistent in talking to potential customers and understanding the market, he might not have had such great success. His coffee cup trick illustrates the importance of persistence and creating your own luck, but it also illustrates another important lesson.

Find an Audience To Serve

Behind every good idea is a hypothesis—a belief that your idea will be valuable to a target market. For Bloomberg, that hypothesis was that investors could make smarter investments if they had better access to—and understanding of—investment data. He believed that technology that simplified and organized investment data would be immeasurably valuable to the investing community. And he was right.

“At the core of any great business is an entrepreneur who creates a value hypothesis in the first place so that core product value (a real and significant solution to a valuable customer problem) can be tested and discovered,” says Bill Campbell, a businessman in Silicon Valley.

Entrepreneurs know their products inside and out. They also know the market. Most become successful because they create something that didn't already exist, or they significantly improve an existing product after experiencing frustration with the way it worked. Remaining unaware of changing market needs, competitor moves, and other external factors can cause even great products to fail. 

The last two pieces of advice may seem unrelated to the entrepreneurial endeavor, but Michael Bloomberg would beg to differ.

Never Stop Learning and Give Back

According to Bloomberg, the most powerful word in the English language is "why." He doesn't underestimate the value of an open mind and lifelong learning.

"The world is full of people who have stopped learning and who think they've got it all figured out. You've no doubt met some of them already," says Bloomberg. "Their favorite word is 'No.'" Bloomberg's advice is to simply not listen to them. And certainly, don't become one of them.

After serving as New York City's mayor, Bloomberg returned to Bloomberg LP but also devoted more time to philanthropy, which had become a top priority for him. In 2019, he launched a self-funded campaign for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Bloomberg Philanthropies uses a data-driven approach that mirrors his approach to the Bloomberg Terminal. The organization focuses on five areas: public health, environment, education, government innovation, and arts & culture. Bloomberg has given $17.4 billion to a variety of causes and organizations as of 2024. In his own words, "At the end of the day, ask yourself: 'Am I making a difference in the lives of others?'" Only if the answer is yes can you call yourself a successful entrepreneur. 

The Bottom Line

Michael Bloomberg is well-known in the financial world, thanks to his persistence and his famous Bloomberg Terminal. Although he had a rough start, he didn't let that stop him. With persistence, he got himself noticed by some of the largest financial institutions in the world, leading to the creation of Bloomberg LP. He also led one of the largest cities in the U.S., serving as mayor for more than a decade.