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How a 34 year old convinces Blackstone to hand him billions to buy a Poker Site


siddharth18

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Was going through some old Forbes magazines and came across this article on David Baazov.

 

How does a 30 something old guy with nothing, convince Blackstone and other banks to lend him $5 billion to buy the biggest online poker site?

 

It blows my mind what can be accomplished when you don't up. Seems like the way to get anything is to just try it a few more times.

 

Read it here - http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2014/12/01/the-king-of-online-gambling-is-34/

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Watched a TED talk by the guy who started Benzinga, Jason Raznick.  The video is here:

 

Jason had a few stories that were powerful.  The first was he was written off by a teacher who told his parents he'd probably never be able to read.  His parents determined they wouldn't let that happen.  He said he had to work harder than other kids, but was able to do well in school.

 

But he spends a lot of the talk discussing how much power there is in just asking for things and being persistent.  He went to college and decided he wanted to work at a hedge fund.  He had zero experience and had no idea how to get a job but decided he wanted to work for Daniel Loeb.  He said he created a newsletter The Daniel Loeb letter and emailed it to him weekly.  It consisted of investment ideas and commentary on trades.  Jason said he didn't hear anything for a while, then suddenly out of the blue Loeb started to respond to the newsletters.  Eventually he sent him one "give me a call" and the door was opened.

 

Jason had another story like this about Roger Goodell.  Apparently Goodell got his start in the NFL in a similar manner.

 

It's amazing what both asking and persistence can do.

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