How Michael Bloomberg Works

0:00So there I was, 39 years old and essentially hearing, here's $10 million and your history.

0:04John Gutfried, managing partner at Wall Street's hottest firm, told me that my life at Solomon Brothers was finished.

0:10It's time for you to leave, he said.

0:13I was terminated from the only full-time job I'd ever known and from the high-pressure life that I loved.

0:19This, after 15 years of 12-hour days and six-day weeks.

0:23Out.

0:24Fired.

0:26Most of the 63 partners were asked to stay on as employees of the new company.

0:30Not me though, and a half a dozen other guys were pushed out at that time as well.

0:34Was I sad on the drive home?

0:36You bet.

0:37But as usual, I was much too macho to show it.

0:40And I did have $10 million as compensation for my hurt feelings.

0:45If they had said, we had another job for you, I'd have done it in a second.

0:49Just as I did at an earlier career turning point in 1979, when Billy and John told me to give up my sales and trading responsibilities and supervise the computer systems area.