Kevin O'Leary Responds to Grade 12 Student's Letter | Hacker News Reader

Kevin O'Leary Responds to Grade 12 Student's Letter

theglobeandmail.com

Here's a very interesting quote:

"If you want to be rich one day, fall in love with a business that you own. Be passionate about its success and love it like you would a child. Don't worry about getting rich, that is something that happens while you are not watching."

He seems to contradict himself:

"I measure my success by answering a very simple question. Did I make money for my investors? If the answer is yes, I was successful and if it is no I failed. Every time I sell a business and I make money for my shareholders I consider that a great success. That's the thing about money, there is no grey zone. When I hear a CEO say their company lost money on an investment and then try and chalk it up to experience, it frustrates me that they don't apologize to their shareholders and admit a mistake.

Losing money always gives me great pain, I will never get used to it."

So the absolute goal is making money but you shouldn't worry about getting rich?...

Also this seems nonsensical:

"A very good friend of mine and a legendary entrepreneur, Ron Posner once said to me, "When someone wants to buy your business, sell it to them." It's a philosophy that has served me very well during my career. I have started multiple businesses over the years and I have had my share of success and failure but when approached to sell I always do."

Guess I'll buy his businesses for 1$ each. Personally I'd rather sell my business when I decide I'm "done" with it.

To be fair to him, he didn't mention anything about price. One would assume that a fair price would be a conditional concern.

Personally I'd rather sell my business when I decide I'm "done" with it.

I think this speaks exactly to his point - that because you're never "done", you never sell, and (in his mind) miss out on a good deal of the business' value. Certainly, a certain Facebook owner would have been fared better had he followed this mantra.

I don't agree with a lot of his take, but this one I thought was a great little nugget.

I'd probably think I'm done when I have no more strategies/energies/willingness to grow the company further. If you sell too early, you miss out on a good deal of the business' (future) value too.

I think what he's trying to say is that it's best to concentrate on that which brings in the money rather than on the money itself. The latter should follow from the former.

I think you are missing the point of his statement. His discussion of making money for his shareholders is in his role as a CEO. The CEO of a company has a very different set of obligations and interests than an entrepreneur starting a business. When you are the chief executive officer of a publicly traded corporation, you have a specific duty to your shareholders to act on their behalf and to benefit their interests. That is the nature of the position. As an entrepreneur if you passionate about your business, then it will likely succeed and therefore benefit your investors. If you have little passion for your business, it will likely fail therefore significantly hurting your investors. So there is no contradiction.

Furthermore, your hyperbole about buying his businesses for $1 is ridiculous. It is obvious and implied that he intends to sell the business at a profit and not at a loss.

I do agree with you when you state that you'd rather sell your business when you decide you're "done" with it. That is great in a perfect world where you are not publicly traded and have no obligations to shareholders or investors, but the bottom line is that if you are elected by the board of directors to serve as the chief executive of your corporation, you have to act in their best interests, not yours.

"Don't even think about coming into work on Sunday if you don't show up on Saturday."

That's an interesting perspective. I think it's related to the "fall in love with a business" phrase in the quote already mentioned. I just couldn't see devoting that much effort to something I didn't love.

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