How Did Getting Fired Lead Michael Bloomberg to Start Bloomberg?

David Senra, reading Michael Bloomberg's autobiography Bloomberg by Bloomberg, says getting fired from Salomon Brothers was one of the best things that ever happened to Bloomberg, because he would never have left on his own. At 39, after 15 years of 12-hour days and six-day weeks, he was pushed out of the only full-time job he had ever had and left with $10 million from the sale of the firm.

The managing partner of Wall Street's hottest firm told him his life at Salomon was finished. Most of the 63 partners were asked to stay as employees of the new company. Bloomberg and about half a dozen others were pushed out. He was sad on the drive home and too macho to show it. The $10 million was compensation for his hurt feelings. If they had offered another job, he would have taken it immediately, the same way he did in 1979 when he was told to give up sales and trading and supervise the computer systems. Once it was over he did not go back and did not look over his shoulder.

He took that $10 million and jumped back in as an entrepreneur. Senra pairs the turn with a Steve Jobs line: sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick, but do not lose faith.