Bringing you purely original financial thought.

I did not initially set out to be an entrepreneur. I graduated from college in the middle of a major recession with a mediocre GPA, having avoided taking a single business class. Then something fortunate happened: my applications for employment were declined by more than 300 companies — quite the accomplishment in 1979, when each letter had to be hand-typed and sent by regular mail.

The rejections gave me time to think. I decided to convince a commercial bank to hire me — to keep my options open while learning about business and finance. So in 1980, with a degree in history and French, $500, and a box of rejection letters, I loaded up my 1970 Volkswagen and drove from New York to Atlanta.

A regional bank hired me, and for six years I analyzed businesses and evaluated their ability to repay loans while earning my MBA at night. That sparked a lifelong interest in business models. In 1999, about to build yet another generic company model in Excel, I asked myself: how few variables can you reduce a corporate financial model to? When I'd tinkered it down to six, I was so excited I wrote an article — which went on to be named the best piece of 1999 by the Institute of Management Accountants.

That brief banking career eventually led to the opportunity to take three companies public on the New York Stock Exchange, two of which I co-founded. (No doubt the Value Equation deserves credit for why I was able to get Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway to invest with us — ultimately becoming our single largest shareholder.) And all the while, I have remained a student and observer of business.