Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Best Entrepreneurship Quotes, Week 18

"My formula for success? Rise early, work late, strike oil."
J. Paul Getty, oil magnate (1892-1976)

I don't know the context of this quote, but I like its implication: that you can do all the "right things," but the only thing that really matters is that the project you're engaged in be a winner in the first place.

Can you say that about the projects you're working on? Are they all gushers waiting to be discovered?

Here, according to Wikipedia, is how JP Getty found one oil well:
Beginning in 1949, Getty paid Ibn Saud $9.5 million in cash and $1 million a year for a 60-year concession to a tract of barren land near the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. No oil had ever been discovered there, and none appeared until four years and $30 million had been spent. From 1953 onward, Getty's gamble produced 16 million barrels a year, which contributed greatly to the fortune which made him one of the richest people in the world.

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