“44 years ago this week, I was fired from the only full-time job I’d ever had, when Salomon Brothers merged with another company. I had started as an entry-level clerk and worked my way up to partner. It was a great firm and a place where I might have spent my entire career. But after 15 years, I was told: That’s it. The morning after my last day, I started the company that became Bloomberg.”
– Michael Bloomberg
It’s the kind of story that makes you want to toss your resignation letter in the air and wait for billions to roll in. Fired Friday. Billionaire a few years later. Cue the Hollywood soundtrack.
We eat these stories for breakfast. Musk sleeping on factory floors. Oprah fired from TV. Jobs thrown out of Apple only to waltz back in and change humanity with a phone. These tales are our modern fairy tales.
But here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud: you’re not Bloomberg, you won’t be Bloomberg, and that’s okay.
A cocktail you can’t mix twice
As a coach, I’ve had a few bright, ambitious executives tell me, “Maybe I’m one firing away from my Millionaire moment.”
Let’s break that fantasy. To pull off a Bloomberg, you need:
- IQ high enough to solve problems most of us can’t even define
- Razor-sharp rationality to avoid blowing up like a bad IPO
- Networks, capital, and education that money can buy
- Perfect timing (try launching Bloomberg Terminals out of Dhaka in 1981)
- Enough luck to make a poker champion cry
Miss even one ingredient and you don’t get Bloomberg.
And here’s the other secret: we don’t actually know these superstars.
We see the curated magazine covers and the PR-polished interviews. We don’t see the private flaws, fears, and failures. Bloomberg might have been a nightmare boss or a lousy husband. Jobs could reduce grown men to tears. Musk… well, where do we even start? These stories are incomplete at best, fairy tales at worst.
Why we can’t stop drooling
As a coach, I’ve had a few bright, ambitious executives tell me, “Maybe I’m one firing away from my Millionaire moment.”
Let’s break that fantasy. To pull off a Bloomberg, you need:
- IQ high enough to solve problems most of us can’t even define
- Razor-sharp rationality to avoid blowing up like a bad IPO
- Networks, capital, and education that money can buy
- Perfect timing (try launching Bloomberg Terminals out of Dhaka in 1981)
- Enough luck to make a poker champion cry
Miss even one ingredient and you don’t get Bloomberg.
And here’s the other secret: we don’t actually know these superstars.
We see the curated magazine covers and the PR-polished interviews. We don’t see the private flaws, fears, and failures. Bloomberg might have been a nightmare boss or a lousy husband. Jobs could reduce grown men to tears. Musk… well, where do we even start? These stories are incomplete at best, fairy tales at worst.
Why we can’t stop drooling
So why do otherwise intelligent adults fall for this fantasy?
- Hope sells: It’s easier to imagine becoming a billionaire than to admit you need self awareness and/or a coach to fix your leadership style.
- Drama clicks: “Guy fired, finds another job” doesn’t trend. “Guy fired, builds a financial empire” does.
- Cause vs. effect: Bloomberg didn’t succeed because he got fired. He succeeded despite it.
- Survivorship bias: For every Bloomberg, there are a million bright, hardworking computer engineers who never got anywhere close.
The impossible dream
Even if you copy every single move of these icons, you won’t get their results:
- Wake up at 4 am like Tim Cook, still never run Apple.
- Memorize every Buffett letter, still not Buffett.
- Tweet like Musk, still get escorted out by HR.
Because these aren’t strategies—they’re flukes. History’s strangest lottery wins.
Coaching isn’t about helping you buy lottery tickets. It’s about showing you how to build your own game with the cards you actually have.
Why these stories are still useful
If it’s all rare luck and myth-making, should we just ignore these superstars?
Not at all.
Used correctly, their stories are gold:
- Mental models: Bloomberg’s genius was turning information into a product. Musk thinks in first principles. A coach can help you steal the thinking, not the biography.
- Inspiration: These stories remind you that breaking free is possible. A coach channels that fire into rational action, not delusion.
- Principles, not steps: Jobs’s obsession with design? Transferable. His screaming fits and LSD trips? Please don’t. Coaching helps you tell the difference.
- Humility: Luck and timing play a bigger role than anyone admits. Good coaching keeps your ego and your expectations in check.
And remember, for every public superstar, there are thousands of leaders you’ve never heard of. Executives who built meaningful, profitable careers without ever becoming a brand. They lead with quiet strength, earn well, live well, and don’t need tabloids dissecting their marriages.
The real takeaway
The real message in Bloomberg’s story isn’t “get fired and wait for billions.” It’s this:
- When life knocks you down, don’t just whine. Get up swinging.
- Reinvent yourself instead of clinging to titles like a corporate security blanket.
- Stop outsourcing your career to corporate roulette and start leading your own damn story.
You don’t need a Bloomberg Terminal to do this. You might just need to quit that dead-end job, finally learn to lead people instead of managing numbers, or confront fears that have kept you small for years.
Bloomberg-level success might be a miracle, but building a career and life you actually own? That’s not a miracle. That’s a decision.
And unlike winning Bloomberg’s lottery, that decision is 100% yours to make.
