The current and 108th Mayor of New York City, Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg L P, a global media company that encompasses radio, television, wire services and publishing. Richard Branson calls him the man “who shook up the entire financial information industry”.

The job

With 12 weeks until graduation from his MBA at Harvard in 1966, Bloomberg confessed that he had “no plan” for how he would turn “an expensive education into a living” until a friend and classmate, Steve Fenster, told him to call the firms Salomon Brothers & Hutzler, and Goldman, Sachs & Co and say that he wanted to be an institutional salesperson or equity trader. He opted for Salomon Brothers — then considered only a “little bond-trading firm ”. He began in “the cage”, counting securities by hand. Three months in, he was promoted to the purchase and sales department, before his “big opportunity” — picked to be a “clerk” on the trading floor at the utilities desk. His final, crucial move was to the equities desk, where he would be in the “stock side of the business for good”. By 1973, he was a general partner, but was later thrown out (his own words) after 15 years ’ service.

What he said

“To say I fit into Salomon and loved the industry is an understatement. I revelled in it . . . From the moment I was hired, no question, I was ‘Salomon’. [It] was more of a meritocracy that prized go-getters, tolerated eccentricities, and treated both PhDs and high school drop-outs disinterestedly. I fit in. It was me.”

From Bloomberg by Bloomberg, by Michael Bloomberg and Matthew Winkler, John Wiley & Sons, £10.95

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