Billionaire Thinking Strategies

I came across the book BOLD How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World. It provides an absolutely great view of the world. The first part of the book talks about the “six Ds of exponentials:” digitalization, deception, disruption, demonetization, dematerialization, and democratization. Excellent take on our world and how to create exponential growth.

I am going to talk about some of the Billionaire thinking strategies mentioned. We all know what is required but a reminder does help 

Billionaire Thinking Strategy 1: Have Passion and Purpose

Peter Diamandis says passion can be ignited with two mechanisms

1. If I gave you a billion dollars how would you make the world a better place?
2. When you were a kid what did you want to be? Tap back to childhood purpose.

 Example provided is Elon Musk and here are some quotes that I like from him

1. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
2. “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” 
3. “The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.” 
4. “You want to be extra rigorous about making the best possible thing you can. Find everything that’s wrong with it and fix it. Seek negative feedback, particularly from friends.”
5. “It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.” 
6. “People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.”  

Billionaire Thinking Strategy 2: Experimentation

Basically all great entrepreneurs tried many things, iterated many times, failed many times before being crowned with glory. Example provided is Jeff Bezos and here are some of his quotes

1. "If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness." 

2. "If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table." 

3. "You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate."

 Billionaire Thinking Strategy 3: Risk taking and Risk Mitigation

Entrepreneurs take risks but it is important to note that they always make sure they have protected their downside. An example provided is Richard Branson and here are some of his quotes I like

1. “The brave may not live forever – But the cautious do not live at all”  

2. “Business opportunities are like buses; there’s always another one coming.”  

3. “You get the idea. Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it's because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over. It's the greatest thrill in the world and it runs away screaming at the first sight of bullet points.”  

4. “It is only by being bold that you get anywhere. If you are a risk-taker, then the art is to protect the downside.”  

5. “Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin's success. I am aware that the ideas of business as being fun and creative goes right against the grain of convention, and it's certainly not how the they teach it at some of those business schools, where business means hard grind and lots of 'discounted cash flows' and net' present values'.”  

Billionaire Thinking Strategy 4: Long term thinking

All billionaires are in it for the long haul and not for the short quick hit. If you want to win in your marketplace for a lifetime then plan for the long term and you can meet short term failures with ease. Example provided is Jeff Bezos who said “Our first shareholder letter, in 1997, was entitled, “It’s all about the long term.” If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

In some cases, things are inevitable. The hard part is that you don’t know how long it might take, but you know it will happen if you’re patient enough. Ebooks had to happen. Infrastructure web services had to happen. So you can do these things with conviction if you are long-term-oriented and patient.”

 Billionaire Thinking Strategy 5: Optimistic View

All billionaire entrepreneurs are optimistic about their world and have what is called moon shot thinking. They think how they can grow 10 times. They believe the best way to predict the future is to create it. Example provided is Larry Page and some of his quotes mentioned below

1. "What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!" 

2. "Invention is not enough. Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people. 

3. "We're at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we're still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity... Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That's boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don't exist." 

4. "Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future. I try to focus on that: What is the future really going to be? And how do we create it? And how do we power our organization to really focus on that and really drive it at a high rate?" 

5. "My job as a leader is to make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, and that they feel they're having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of society. As a world, we're doing a better job of that. My goal is for Google to lead, not follow that." 

6. "I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, 'You guys are doing too much stuff.' He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We'd like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things." 

I hope you are really inspired after reading these strategies.

The views expressed in this article are my own and do not represent my organization.