How Did Michael Bloomberg Start Bloomberg With $300,000?

David Senra, reading Bloomberg by Bloomberg, says Michael Bloomberg started the company with $300,000 of his Salomon Brothers windfall in a corporate checking account and a one-room temporary office of about 100 square feet looking onto an alley. Fifteen years later he had a billion-dollar business.

The work started with the product. Accounting and shipping came much later. Selling was the only process that ran alongside development from the first day.

A venture capitalist showed up in those early years, said everything they were doing was wrong, called the team too unstructured to survive, and called them stupid for being unable to predict future growth with specificity. He then told his partners not to buy from Bloomberg, because the team showed little interest in his views on how to run the company. Senra quotes Bloomberg's description of the visitor: born on third base and thought he had hit a triple.