Michael Bloomberg’s Meeting From Hell
“I wanted to take a swing at him!”
“BizStory is useful because it makes me sound smart at work.”
- Goldman Sachs VP
Good morning, everyone.
I’m writing this from Soho Farmhouse. After 5 years living the the Cotswolds I finally bowed down and bought a Schoffel. Tons of Cityboys in London are wearing the new Barbour pastel Icon jacket now. They’ve sold out of nearly every colour and size, with some on eBay for a 100% mark-up.
Heading to New York next week.
This week’s newsletter: Private school worries at Apollo, Ken Griffin’s $6m World Cup gamble, Michael Bloomberg’s meeting from hell and Paul Tudor Jones at the Knicks.
The Humiliation of Michael Bloomberg
Mike Bloomberg was humiliated - but before he could apologize, his colleague pulled off one of the greatest moves ever in a sales meeting…
In the early 1980s, Michael Bloomberg was starting over.
After being fired from Salomon Brothers, he took his severance and bet everything on a complex new machine he had invented: a real time information system for financial markets.
For years, the company worked in near obscurity, doing nothing but building and rebuilding the product - slowly eating into Michael’s life savings.
Finally, the machine was ready.
If early pitch meetings failed, the company would be finished before it even started. But, one meeting almost derailed everything…
An early Bloomberg employee, Glen Wolyner, was scheduled to pitch the machine to the head of a major global bank. It was a rare, high-stakes meeting that had taken months to secure.
In those days, the Bloomberg machine was a collection of large, heavy boxes that needed to be carried in, lifted into place and wired together correctly. For the demo to work, you needed a cathode ray tube, a computer, a keyboard and of course - a power supply. The senior bankers watched in silence as Glenn wired everything together. Then, Glenn stopped suddenly. He turned to Michael and said:
“Darn it - I forgot the power cord!”
Michael froze.
After years of work, they were about to lose the room - and possibly the company - because of a missing cable. Michael was fuming and started panicking, “I wanted to take a swing at him!” he later admitted.
But Glenn was relaxed.
Glenn opened his briefcase and pulled out printed copies of every single screen the Bloomberg system could produce. Page by page, he explained what it did, why it mattered and how the bank could actually use it. The room calmed, the bank executives started laughing at the forgotten power cord, and went on to order some Bloomberg terminals on the spot to try out.
Michael never forgot Glenn’s composure under pressure:
“In business, I learned that you need to hire people smarter than you – then get out of their way!”
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Finance Culture
Apollo has picked it’s new second HQ outside of New York…and the location seems to be driven by private schooling. The NYP reported that Marc Rowan and team have opted for Austin, Texas over Miami, mainly due to the scarcity of private schools in the latter. Younger Gen Z staff allegedly wanted Miami, but senior partners with families overruled their request due to a fear of not getting into elite institutions like Ransom Everglades. There is the infamous story of the large, well known investor who wanted to relocate…juniors spent 12 months with consultants on appropriate sites, budget, facilities, fire exits, toilets, private offices - everything. They presented it to the partners. Within seconds, one of the partners said none of the options worked for his commute and they needed to look at locations within a few hundred metres their existing office. Back to the drawing board!
AI ALERT: A private banker at UBS announced he was leaving by uploading an AI video of himself on Linkedin ‘half jumping’ over their entry gates. Kind of unusual, but also funny. The post is already the most engaged thing he’s posted in the past 9 years.
Ken Griffin has bought up hundreds of condo units opposite his enormous, not yet finished, new Citadel HQ in Miami. The plan isn’t to house employees though. Ken has been slowly buying all the apartments in the block - in cash - and will probably look to knock the entire building down and incorporate it into the new Citadel mega site. New York hasn’t exactly been welcoming to Ken recently.
Sticking with the Citadel founder, and in honour of the World Cup kicking off, you may not know that when the US football/soccer team needed to hire a new coach, their budget didn’t stretch to no1 choice - Premier League manager Mauricio Pochettino aka Poch. So Ken went ahead an contributed a “significant” amount to Poch’s ongoing $6m a year salary. Diameter Capital Founder & CEO Scott Goodwin also chipped in. Patriots.
On the SpaceX IPO, Elon agreed to a Greenshoe provision (15% increase in IPO allocation to underwriters if demand is strong) only if they created and wore custom green shoes to mark the occasion. Goldman and Morgan Stanley obliged.
MS CEO Ted Pick front and centre 
Goldman commissioned custom Nike Tennis Classics. They look better than the MS version IMO.
Great that the camera operator at the Knicks game thought to give some airtime to Paul Tudor Jones. Long overdue.
PTJ for the win
All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think. I’m not interested in doxxing anyone. Unless they slag off West Ham.
Recommendation
Nicolai from NBIM interviewed Mike Bloomberg about 6 months ago and it’s excellent. Click here to watch it, if you have a spare 30 mins.
The Banker Botox Trend
Someone you work with is getting botox on their lunch break. I explain what exactly is going on, and where this trend will take us…
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Joseph Cass