Fired after 15 years on Wall Street, Bloomberg turned $10M into $109B and gave away $25.4B

Michael Bloomberg was 39 when his 15-year career at Wall Street investment bank Salomon Brothers came to an end in 1981. A general partner at the firm, Bloomberg left as Salomon was being acquired by Phibro Corporation and received about $10 million for his stake. Rather than use the money to retire or join another Wall Street firm, he put it towards an idea shaped by his years in finance. Bloomberg believed financial professionals needed faster and more efficient access to market information, and he set out to build a company around that idea. The venture became Bloomberg LP and eventually grew into a global financial information and media company. Forbes now estimates Bloomberg's fortune at about $109.4 billion and his lifetime charitable giving at $25.4 billion.Michael Bloomberg was fired after 15 years at Salomon BrothersBloomberg joined Salomon Brothers in 1966 after graduating from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School. He began in an entry-level position and worked his way up through the investment bank, eventually becoming a general partner. He also took responsibility for the firm's information systems, giving him an early understanding of how technology cou...