Here’s a mystery to solve: Last month, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I strolled up Broadway and bought a pound of shrimp from a fancy seafood market called Citarella. These weren’t just any shrimp.
“What year is it?” That’s what I heard when I picked up my phone yesterday. It was an old friend on the line, someone I used to work with on Wall Street.
Once or twice in every generation, a new invention will change the trajectory of entire industries – the assembly line during the industrial revolution, for example, or the Internet in the ‘90s.
Warren Buffett – renowned investor and 2nd richest man in the country after Bill Gates – once wrote an article called, “The Superinvestors of Graham & Doddsville.” With a title that sounds like a Dr.
In 1884, the folks erecting the Statue of Liberty ran out of money. Joseph Pulitzer, a big shot publisher, took to his “New York World” newspaper and encouraged Americans to donate so Lady Liberty could be completed.
Video games that can cure cancer… Computerized contact lenses… A train that travels at the speed of sound… It’s exciting to hear about far-out ideas like these when they show up in the news. But like many “big ideas,” they can be closer to science fiction than to reality.
Why the heck would Google invest $250 million into a start-up that’s basically a taxi service? Or here’s another one for you: Why would one man invest hundreds of millions of dollars trying to send ordinary citizens into space, or building a car company from scratch?