1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition
Expanded edition with new chapters on the Great Crash of 2008 and looking ahead.
Self-made billionaire Sam Wyly is a natural storyteller. In this candid, engrossing memoir, he recounts his experiences establishing and expanding companies on the leading edge of advancements in technology, energy, retail, and investments over the last five decades. From the hardships his family faced trying to hold on to their cotton farm during the Depression to the coaching he received on the high school football field, Wyly describes how his early years in Louisiana prepared him for what lay ahead.
Risking ,000 of his savings, Wyly founded University Computing in 1963 and took it public two years later, becoming a millionaire at the age of thirty. Throughout this book, he reveals the decisions and strategies behind his many business successes, including founding Sterling Software, growing the small chains of Michaels Stores and Bonanza Steakhouses into nationwide brands, and founding Green Mountain Energy, the largest provider of cleaner energy in America today.
In this expanded edition, Wyly discusses the “Great Crash of 2008″ in historical perspective, offering insights on the causes of our current financial crisis and the path to recovery–including the importance of green energy for the future.
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(out of 22 reviews)
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5 Responses to “1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition”
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Review by Stanley Fisher for 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition
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As a psychologist I was fascinated by how this book is much more than a business memoir. It provides lessons that are extremely useful and not solely for entrepreneurs, but are psychologically potent for anyone who has a dream, or a wish to change themselves or the world they live in. Our current understanding of the concept an entrepreneur is the type of personality that is willing to take on her or himself a new venture and accept full responsibility for the outcome. Each time we choose to change some aspect of ourselves or the world we live in, we need to have the entrepreneurial attitude.
Wyly notes, “Too often, people seem willing to let other people or outside institutions place an identity on them. They don’t, or won’t simply stand up for themselves. Without passion… (they) will not find much personal fulfillment.” As a psychologist, I understand how difficult it can be for some of us to do what Wyly suggests. What is interesting about the book is Wyly also understands how difficult it is. Throughout the book he describes how he struggles to be supportive of his ideas, dreams and desires. He reports losses as well as gains.
Wyly points out that in pursuing a goal you have to expect obstacles. “Everybody faces frustration, obstacles, and failure differently … there is no one right approach.”…”When emotions creep into decisions, it is easy to confuse good decision-making with sweet dreams of being a hero, or alternately, bad dreams of being a quitter.” “The thing is winning requires hard, clear thinking, and not losing requires the same; and neither had anything to do with becoming a hero or being a quitter.
Wyly shows how personal growth comes from being your own best friend and supporter, a very powerful psychological lesson.
Review by Robert Morris for 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition
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Unlike many other memoirs published by prominent CEOs that were probably ghost-written by someone else, this book seems to have been written by Sam Wyly who duly acknowledges dozens of people who were involved in his journey to success. As he explains, he wrote this book because, while “taking stock of his life,” he was feeling “one overriding emotion: gratitude. The urge to tell my story hit me hard; more than just a distant hum on the background, it was a palpable force pulling at my concentration like a child tugging at your sleeve…I thought that my story, properly told, might inspire and help others, too. So the next day I started to write it.” Here it is.
Others will have their own reasons for admiring this book and the man who wrote it. Here are three of mine. First, Wyly had no choice but to examine the details of a number of his business successes such as founding University Computing Company (UCC) in 1963 with an initial investment of $1,000, acquiring and then substantially expanding the Bonanza Steakhouse (1967) and Michaels Stores (1982) chains, co-founding Sterling Software (19881), co-founding the Maverick Capital (1990) and Ranger Capital (2000) hedge funds, and founding Green Mountain Energy (1999) in order to document the evolution of his business career. Fair enough. However, I was much more interested, frankly, in the lessons he learned, especially from his bad decisions and their consequences. (I presume to insert African Proverb #1:”Trust but verify” and that is specially true of due diligence before hiring people, making investments, evaluating potential acquisitions or divestitures, etc.) Over a period of several decades, Wyly minces no words when recalling several mistakes he made. What were the most important lessons he learned from them? Here are three, in his own words:
“By 1966, I understood that wherever computers took us, it would not happen until computers could talk to one another quickly, efficiently, and cheaply. We were moving into a digital world and my instincts moved me to lead the charge.” (Page 96) Note that this was 30 years before the emergence of the Web.
“To grow a business by acquisition, you need to do several things. First, you need to integrate quickly and smoothly. Second, you need to find a way to keep your new employees as passionate about their work as they were before you acquired their company. Third, you need to clarify your vision, which is central to the first and third things.” (Pages 153-154) Over time, Wyly took the lead in negotiations as Sterling Software acquired 35 companies. Only one was hostile. “But that was the big one. Details are provided in the narrative that follows.
“You can’t spend your time obsessed with what others say about you. The world was littered with garbage gossip long before there were bloggers. I guess the reason the `wild man’ tag seems particularly funny in regards to Michaels is that, while we were aggressive as all get-out in expanding as fast as we could, Michaels is really a story of perseverance and patience…It’s easy now to look at Michaels’ more than 900 stores and think, `What a beautiful economic engine.’ But it took us over twenty years.” (Pages 198-199)
Also, I appreciate the extent to which Wyly discusses his personal development as well as his career in business. Much as he appreciated his associations with IBM and then with Honeywell, he realized that his restlessness, in his words, “was forcing me to face up to this single truth: I was not at heart a big company man. I didn’t want to be under anyone else’s authority. I wanted to call the shots for myself.” He was by nature and temperament an entrepreneur. For that reason, he refused to concede 51% control of what became UCC and eventually received the funding needed to launch it. “Being a maverick by spirit means that I am not a happy committee guy. Actually, I’m mostly a `conceptor’…[a style that] manifests itself through an ability to see the big picture, to see things not as they are but as they ought to be.” While reading this book, it was difficult for me to determine the extent to which Wyly’s business career revealed his personal strengths and weaknesses, and, the extent to which they confirmed what he already believed them to be. In any event, Wyly seems to have understood who he was or was determined to become…as well as who he wasn’t and had no intention to try to become.
Finally, I admire how determined Wyly was to share the rewards of his business successes with others along the way and especially in recent years. (I presume to insert African Proverb #2: “It takes a village to raise a child” and that is especially true of a start-up company such as UCC.) Repeatedly, he acknowledges that these successes could not have been achieved without others and that is especially true of his brother Charles. Once Sam had secured his funding from UCC, he contacted Charles, the man he trusted most, and invited him to join the new company. Sam asserts that it was “the best decision I ever made.” Although lacking “the natural-born entrepreneur’s restlessness for change,” Charles “answered the call at a moment’s notice, resigned his position at IBM, and moved his family to Dallas.” Over time, (Sam) Wyly added other valuable associates but never once hesitated to reassign or terminate those whose performance and/or behavior did not meet his intentionally high standards. He was exceptionally generous in terms of delegating authority as well as responsibility to others as well as when determining their compensation and benefits. Wyly’s generosity also extended beyond the business world. The variety of beneficiaries correctly indicates the range of his non-business interests. One estimate is that he has personally donated in excess of $90-million to recipients that include the founding of Jim Lehrer’s “Newsroom” program at KERA-TV (the public television channel) in Dallas, the establishment of the Sam Wyly Foundation (to support minority businesses), the Tower of Learning in the campus of Louisiana Tech with Charles (to honor their father), a $10-million gift to the University of Michigan for its Sam Wyly Hall (he earned an MBA at Michigan), and the Aspen Institute’s Writers Foundation.
Thank you, Sam Wyly, for the pleasure of your company as you share the quality of your own journey to success. Hopefully many others, especially those now enrolled in schools or colleges, will be inspired by your example of self-creation. And hopefully they will soon realize, as did you when you were a 5’7″ and 155 pound noseguard playing for Coach Raymond Richards on the Delhi football team, that almost all human limits are self-imposed.
Review by Dan Hersam for 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition
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I had never heard of Sam Wyly before so I had no preconceived notions about him or his history. From the book’s title and description I hoped to learn practical techniques for entrepreneurs. If this is what you’re looking for, I’d look elsewhere.
There are pearls of wisdom found throughout the book where he explains skills he learned while dealing with people or managing a company. The story of him playing on his high school football team as a 155lb nose guard was a great illustration of the power of pushing yourself and setting goals. He referred back to that several times when in later years he was fighting against IBM, AT&T’s monopoly or other Goliath vs. David conditions.
He recounts a roughly chronological trip through his career. He starts off in the early days at IBM and Honewell, then goes into great detail about the companies he started, bought or invested in, such as University Computing Center, Bonzanza, Sterling Software and Michaels.
Much of the information he provides in the book makes him appear clairvoyant. With impeccable timing he managed to sell two companies for $4 billion each when in the same month the stock market tanked by 80%. While impressive, the descriptions of his feats lack insights into how he managed to do them, other than unsatisfying statements like, “I read a lot.” I would imagine there are hundreds of people who read far more than he does that aren’t nearly as timely. There must be something else he’s not telling us. Perhaps he really doesn’t know what it is. Perhaps he really is clairvoyant.
The organization of the book was hard to follow. It started off chronologically, but it didn’t stay that way. It was unclear to me when he was dealing with one company or another. A timeline would have been helpful to understand when everything took place.
His grand tales of success were fun to hear about but left me with little to no understanding of how he achieved what he did. In the end, the book left me wanting.
Review by Reg Nordman for 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition
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“What I learned creating and building University Computing, Sterling Software, Maverick Capital, Bonanza Steakhouse, Michaels Stores, Green Mountain Energy.” This guy is a good writer and a thoughtful researcher. I lived through the times he is talking about and the man is audaciuos to the nth degreee. I read this almost in one sitting last nite – it reads so easily and is also so compelling. Very good coast to coast airplane ride book. There is little for every type of businessman in this book. The man has strong ethics and character and he speaks the truth – loudly. Now if only I could figure out how and why his market timing is so good as he seems to sell his companies at the top of their markets.
Review by Michael E. Strupp for 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire: Expanded Edition
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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.