Before he was a billionaire, a media mogul, or New York City's mayor for three terms, Michael Bloomberg spent fifteen years climbing the ranks at Salomon Brothers. He started as an entry-level clerk earning $9,000 a year and worked his way up to partner, the kind of career that, on Wall Street, usually ends with a corner office rather than a layoff notice.
His ended with the latter. When Salomon Brothers was acquired by Phibro Corporation in the early 1980s, Bloomberg was let go along with the rest of the old partnership structure. He walked away with a $10 million severance package, a considerable sum, but also, at the time, the end of the only career he had known as an adult.
He didn't stay unemployed long. The very next morning, Bloomberg launched a new venture called Innovative Market Solutions, teaming up with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, and Charles Zegar. The company would later be renamed Bloomberg LLC, and its founding idea was simple: Wall Street traders needed faster, more reliable access to financial data than anything on the market at the time, and a dedicated computer terminal built specifically for that purpose could fill the gap. The Bloomberg terminal became the company's foundation, with Bloomberg News following as the business expanded from raw data into media.
That bet has since turned into one of the largest privately held companies in the world. Bloomberg LP now generates close to $15 billion in annual revenue, employs more than 26,000 people across nearly 70 countries, and remains 88 percent owned by its founder.
Bloomberg himself has never framed the firing as an obstacle he simply overcame. "Getting fired from Salomon Brothers drove home a lesson," he has said. "Every setback is an opportunity." He has been direct that without that layoff, he might never have built the company that made him a billionaire, let alone gone on to run New York City.