Scan the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and you'll find moguls from startlingly humble origins
Take John Paul DeJoria--owner of Paul Mitchell Systems, a hair products company, and Partron Spritis, a high-end tequila brand--who started out as a door-to-door salesman in Los Angeles at age 9. First he sold Christmas cards but soon moved to newspapers and other subscriptions. After a short stint in the navy, he returned to his salesman roots, selling encyclopedias.
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I haven't been recognized yet (but I'm hopeful). Rowling and Carnegie both came from near where my mother was born. Carnegie at least gave up a large amount of his wealth so others could benefit from....
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In 1980, with just $700 and an iron will, DeJoria and friend Paul Mitchell, a hairdresser, decided to launch a new line of shampoo and other hair care products, based on a new formula Mitchell had developed. In the early months, when he wasn't pounding on salon doors and told to bug off, DeJorira bought supplies on credit and lived in his car. "Having sold other products door-to-door, I understood that rejection was just part of the process," says DeJoria, 65.
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Without ever borrowing a dime, Paul Mitchell Systems became the largest salon-only hair care company in the U.S., with products in 10% of salons across the country. Then came his (and partner Martin Crowley's) agave assault with Patron. DeJoria currently owns a 51% stake in Paul Mitchell Systems and 70% of Patron. At last count, DeJoria's net worth was $2.5 billion.
Gift for gab helped Jeffrey Katzenberg, a high school-educated Manhattanite, climb to the top of the entertainment game. While he didn't launch a business on a shoestring, Katzenberg did spend decades building a network that would eventually help him launch one of the most storied movie studios of all time.
Katzenberg began honing his skills at age 15 as a volunteer in John Lindsay's campaign for mayor of New York in 1965; Lindsay won, and Katzenberg stayed on, foregoing college for the snap and crackle of politics. Through a connection at Lindsay' office, he later met Barry Diller, then president of Paramount, who invited him to Los Angeles to work as his assistant. "No one did more for my career than Barry," says Katzenberg, 58. "He taught me the entertainment business--not just the fun parts, but the not so fun parts that you need to learn in order to be successful."
During his 11 years at Paramount, Katzenberg also befriended Michael Eisner, then chief executive of the movie studio. When Eisner left Paramount for Disney ( DIS - news - people ) in 1984, he took Katzenberg with him, and there they pumped out hits like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. After a falling out with Eisner in 1994, Katzenberg left to launch his own studio, DreamWorks SKG, with the likes of Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. With partners like that, little wonder this guy is worth $750 million.
Old-fashioned bartering helped put Kirk Kerkorian, farmer's son and future Wall Street titan, on the map. In the late 1930s, Kerkorian, who is 91, offered to look after famous female aviator Pancho Barnes' cattle in return for flying lessons. During World War II, he took a job with the Royal Air Force transporting planes from their Canadian factory to England for $1,000 per month--an especially treacherous journey, as the planes weren't designed to withstand the long trip or the harsh weather over the North Atlantic.
With savings from his wartime job, Kerkorian purchased Trans International Airlines for $60,000 in 1947. (It is unclear whether he needed additional financing.) He later sold it to Transamerica for $104 million in stock, used to fuel further investments. His private investment firm, Tracinda, now owns 39% of MGM Mirage ( MGM - news - people ), down from 53% in May.
Billionaire financier George Soros, 78, socked away a few pennies to jump-start his entrepreneurial career. Born in Hungary in 1930, Soros and his parents fled the Nazis and landed in England. After putting himself through the London School of Economics while working as a railway porter and waiter, Soros moved to the U.S. in 1956 and found work at several investment firms, including Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, where he worked his way up to vice president. After running several offshore investment funds, he launched his own investment firm with colleague Jim Rogers. Their Soros Fund began with just $12 million under management (it's unclear how much of that was their own capital); it has since grown into the multibillion-dollar Quantum Fund. Soros' current net worth: about $11 billion
Sometimes sheer talent and persistence is enough. As a single mother on welfare in Scotland, J.K. Rowling, 43, began writing the first Harry Potter novel in Edinburgh cafés whenever she could get her infant daughter to sleep. After being rejected by 12 publishing houses, Bloomsbury, a small publisher in London, offered an advance of 1,500 pounds (about $2,400)--even while one its editors, Barry Cunningham, advised Rowling to get a day job.
Good thing she didn't listen: The following year, U.S. publishing rights to the first Potter book sold for $105,000. Rowling, who is now worth around $1 billion, has since moved nearly 400 million copies worldwide, and is the only author on our list.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Interview: Mark Cuban
Published on May 27, 2009
by Peter Kafka
mark-cuban
Mark Cuban was lucky enough to make billions on Internet video during the Web 1.0 bubble and smart enough to cash out before it burst. He’s spent a bunch of that money on high-profile purchases like a basketball team and a Gulfstream. But much of his investment and energy since then has been directed… away from Web video and toward conventional video, in the form of movies and television.
Cuban’s portfolio companies make movies and television shows and distribute them to movie theaters and television sets. And he’s been loudly skeptical about the possibilities of Web video outlets like YouTube–around the time that Google plunked down $1.6 billion on the site, he declared that “only a moron” would want to invest in it. Time to see if he still feels the same way.
* Everyone says video on the Internet is great, but we spend 99 percent of our time watching TV, and that’s in large part because of HD TV.
* Walt: 99 percent?
* Mark: Well, I don’t know. But it’s a lot.
* Kara: Talk about Internet video. How do you look at it? Mark: It’s a real disappointment to see how far Internet video has come. We were working on hotspots, advertising standards, multicasting 10 years ago. Nothing happened. You can go on and on and on.
* Walt: Why is that? Mark: I have no idea. If you say one thing, it’s that when Google (GOOG) bought YouTube, they didn’t think about making money right away; the focus was on ubiquity, and because no one paid attention, that’s what happened. Now you can’t fight them; it’s like Microsoft (MSFT). You can’t do anything on video these days unless you work with YouTube.
* There are no hits on the Web. So the only way it works is if you can create a platform like YouTube. Hulu could do that, but they have big pockets to appease.
* Kara: No hits? Mark: There are hits. But they’re one-off hits. On TV, there’re hits, but they’re wrong 95 percent of the time, and there are 300-plus competitors. On the Internet, there are unlimited competitors, and YouTube subsidizes bandwidth. So the real cost is marketing. How do you stand out?
* Mark: Video for the Web has become a testing ground for mediums that actually have revenue.
* Kara: So what would the model have been had you bought YouTube? Mark: Like I said, I wouldn’t have bought it. They hid behind the DMCA, and they have huge copyright problems, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. We still don’t know what’s going to happen with the Viacom (VIA) suit. And they’re paying for all that bandwidth.
* Mark: And by the way, if anything happens to Google, what happens to the whole video space? Everything gets flipped on its head. If you have to pay for it, maybe your kids stop posting videos of their bands.
* Discussion of bandwidth that I’m not catching entirely. But essentially, Mark is saying that the cable companies will have new bandwidth to play with, but they’re not going to necessarily hand it over to the Internet. So everyone in this room is trying to create all these apps and services to shove through one pipe, and the cable guys aren’t going to give them more room.
* Kara: Where do you see TV going? Mark: Television means different things now. Broadcast is one thing. Cable is another, and that’s healthy, because of that subscription business, and they’re never going to give up those subscription dollars for Internet nickels. We need to remember that the Internet is a staid platform. There has been very little innovation. It’s like the ’80s, when we were fighting between different word processing software. There’s only evolution, not revolution. But TV… you could have real innovation there.
* Kara: We’ve been hearing promises of innovation and interactivity for a long time. Mark: There’s been a problem with standards, and that needs to get fixed.
* Walt still wants to watch “Star Trek” on demand. When will that happen? Mark correctly points out that this is partly a programming issue, partly a technology issue. Tech is “easy.” Programming and windows are another story.
* Kara: OK. What do you think about the Internet? Yahoo?
* Mark: Yahoo (YHOO), Google, MySpace, Facebook, they’re all the same: “One hit and a lot of decent products that are second, third, fourth place, and living off the gravy train.” That’s been the tradition since Microsoft and Windows. They’re all the same.
* Kara: Twitter? Mark: The problem with them isn’t a business model. They have 10,000 ways to make money, and everyone in this room can come up with one. They’re just having fun and teasing you guys. I told Facebook, via Jim Breyer, that all those real names they provide via Facebook Connect and that they should charge for it. I think Twitter has similar possibilities.
* Walt points out that people do pay for some Web video, like baseball. Mark: Yup. I’m not saying you can’t have some number of Web users having a great experience. But there’s a limit to the number of people that can be there because there’s limited space, too congested. It’s like having a nice car on the 405. At a certain point it doesn’t matter how nice the car is, because there’s too much traffic. It’s like what Warren Buffet says: First come the innovators, then the imitators, then the idiots. Also: “There’s always going to be someone trying to rush the fat kid to the buffet.”
* Discussion of tiered pricing. Going to have it on mobile, and we should have the same thing on the Internet. What about content? Yes, we have that already.
* Kara and Walt: Tell us about your fight with the SEC? Mark: No. [Pause] “When someone in the government wants you, it’s not a good place to be. You don’t want to be someone’s skin on the wall.” Kara: “Do you know how it’s going to turn out”? Mark: “Yes.”
* Mark walks through how he inverts/breaks/changes traditional windows when it comes to movies, VOD, etc. Very interesting. Will have to come back to it, unfortunately.
* Walt: Does Internet help you run your basketball team? Mark: Yup: We watch video of prospects on YouTube. I follow free agent prospects on Twitter. I can accumulate information on searches, the real-time net is very helpful for the Mavericks. My Icerocket engine helps me track down info.
* Q&A: What do you think of 3-D? Mark: I think it has a great future. Cost is coming down, it’s a differentiated experience. We can put a huge digital screen in American Airlines Center and do 3-D with glasses. Screens are getting so big and prices are falling so quickly that people are changing the way they consume entertainment, and 3-D is a big part of that.
* Gary Shapiro from CEA has a confusing question. Ah. What should we do with the broadcast TV spectrum since 90 percent of people have cable? Mark: We should sell it.
* Kara wants investment tips. Mark talks about various start-ups he’s in, like some sort of mobile/SMS play. But I tell people who are in college today or 10 years from now that are going to look at the Internet and laugh. I think where it’s at is technology geared toward personal health. Walt: Are you investing? Mark: Looking. The problem is I don’t understand any of this stuff.
*
Mark Cuban is back at D7.Mark Cuban is back at D7.
*
Walt and Kara know that Mark Cuban is not a man of few words.Walt and Kara know that Mark Cuban is not a man of few words.
by Peter Kafka
mark-cuban
Mark Cuban was lucky enough to make billions on Internet video during the Web 1.0 bubble and smart enough to cash out before it burst. He’s spent a bunch of that money on high-profile purchases like a basketball team and a Gulfstream. But much of his investment and energy since then has been directed… away from Web video and toward conventional video, in the form of movies and television.
Cuban’s portfolio companies make movies and television shows and distribute them to movie theaters and television sets. And he’s been loudly skeptical about the possibilities of Web video outlets like YouTube–around the time that Google plunked down $1.6 billion on the site, he declared that “only a moron” would want to invest in it. Time to see if he still feels the same way.
* Everyone says video on the Internet is great, but we spend 99 percent of our time watching TV, and that’s in large part because of HD TV.
* Walt: 99 percent?
* Mark: Well, I don’t know. But it’s a lot.
* Kara: Talk about Internet video. How do you look at it? Mark: It’s a real disappointment to see how far Internet video has come. We were working on hotspots, advertising standards, multicasting 10 years ago. Nothing happened. You can go on and on and on.
* Walt: Why is that? Mark: I have no idea. If you say one thing, it’s that when Google (GOOG) bought YouTube, they didn’t think about making money right away; the focus was on ubiquity, and because no one paid attention, that’s what happened. Now you can’t fight them; it’s like Microsoft (MSFT). You can’t do anything on video these days unless you work with YouTube.
* There are no hits on the Web. So the only way it works is if you can create a platform like YouTube. Hulu could do that, but they have big pockets to appease.
* Kara: No hits? Mark: There are hits. But they’re one-off hits. On TV, there’re hits, but they’re wrong 95 percent of the time, and there are 300-plus competitors. On the Internet, there are unlimited competitors, and YouTube subsidizes bandwidth. So the real cost is marketing. How do you stand out?
* Mark: Video for the Web has become a testing ground for mediums that actually have revenue.
* Kara: So what would the model have been had you bought YouTube? Mark: Like I said, I wouldn’t have bought it. They hid behind the DMCA, and they have huge copyright problems, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. We still don’t know what’s going to happen with the Viacom (VIA) suit. And they’re paying for all that bandwidth.
* Mark: And by the way, if anything happens to Google, what happens to the whole video space? Everything gets flipped on its head. If you have to pay for it, maybe your kids stop posting videos of their bands.
* Discussion of bandwidth that I’m not catching entirely. But essentially, Mark is saying that the cable companies will have new bandwidth to play with, but they’re not going to necessarily hand it over to the Internet. So everyone in this room is trying to create all these apps and services to shove through one pipe, and the cable guys aren’t going to give them more room.
* Kara: Where do you see TV going? Mark: Television means different things now. Broadcast is one thing. Cable is another, and that’s healthy, because of that subscription business, and they’re never going to give up those subscription dollars for Internet nickels. We need to remember that the Internet is a staid platform. There has been very little innovation. It’s like the ’80s, when we were fighting between different word processing software. There’s only evolution, not revolution. But TV… you could have real innovation there.
* Kara: We’ve been hearing promises of innovation and interactivity for a long time. Mark: There’s been a problem with standards, and that needs to get fixed.
* Walt still wants to watch “Star Trek” on demand. When will that happen? Mark correctly points out that this is partly a programming issue, partly a technology issue. Tech is “easy.” Programming and windows are another story.
* Kara: OK. What do you think about the Internet? Yahoo?
* Mark: Yahoo (YHOO), Google, MySpace, Facebook, they’re all the same: “One hit and a lot of decent products that are second, third, fourth place, and living off the gravy train.” That’s been the tradition since Microsoft and Windows. They’re all the same.
* Kara: Twitter? Mark: The problem with them isn’t a business model. They have 10,000 ways to make money, and everyone in this room can come up with one. They’re just having fun and teasing you guys. I told Facebook, via Jim Breyer, that all those real names they provide via Facebook Connect and that they should charge for it. I think Twitter has similar possibilities.
* Walt points out that people do pay for some Web video, like baseball. Mark: Yup. I’m not saying you can’t have some number of Web users having a great experience. But there’s a limit to the number of people that can be there because there’s limited space, too congested. It’s like having a nice car on the 405. At a certain point it doesn’t matter how nice the car is, because there’s too much traffic. It’s like what Warren Buffet says: First come the innovators, then the imitators, then the idiots. Also: “There’s always going to be someone trying to rush the fat kid to the buffet.”
* Discussion of tiered pricing. Going to have it on mobile, and we should have the same thing on the Internet. What about content? Yes, we have that already.
* Kara and Walt: Tell us about your fight with the SEC? Mark: No. [Pause] “When someone in the government wants you, it’s not a good place to be. You don’t want to be someone’s skin on the wall.” Kara: “Do you know how it’s going to turn out”? Mark: “Yes.”
* Mark walks through how he inverts/breaks/changes traditional windows when it comes to movies, VOD, etc. Very interesting. Will have to come back to it, unfortunately.
* Walt: Does Internet help you run your basketball team? Mark: Yup: We watch video of prospects on YouTube. I follow free agent prospects on Twitter. I can accumulate information on searches, the real-time net is very helpful for the Mavericks. My Icerocket engine helps me track down info.
* Q&A: What do you think of 3-D? Mark: I think it has a great future. Cost is coming down, it’s a differentiated experience. We can put a huge digital screen in American Airlines Center and do 3-D with glasses. Screens are getting so big and prices are falling so quickly that people are changing the way they consume entertainment, and 3-D is a big part of that.
* Gary Shapiro from CEA has a confusing question. Ah. What should we do with the broadcast TV spectrum since 90 percent of people have cable? Mark: We should sell it.
* Kara wants investment tips. Mark talks about various start-ups he’s in, like some sort of mobile/SMS play. But I tell people who are in college today or 10 years from now that are going to look at the Internet and laugh. I think where it’s at is technology geared toward personal health. Walt: Are you investing? Mark: Looking. The problem is I don’t understand any of this stuff.
*
Mark Cuban is back at D7.Mark Cuban is back at D7.
*
Walt and Kara know that Mark Cuban is not a man of few words.Walt and Kara know that Mark Cuban is not a man of few words.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Malls: R.I.P.
This same spasm in American society that's killing tract homes and reduced car consumption is hollowing out another infamous eyesore of the land: the shopping mall.
It has profound consequences both on a cultural level and an economic level
WSJ has the grim story:
On the low-income east side of Charlotte, N.C., the 1.1-million-square-foot Eastland Mall recently lost a slew of key tenants, including a Dillard's and, next month, a Sears. Sales per square foot at the venue fell to $210 in 2008 from $288 in 2001.
...
But the long recession is helping to empty out the promenades. Some analysts estimate that the number of so-called "dead malls" -- centers debilitated by anemic sales and high vacancy rates -- will swell to more than 100 by the end of this year.
In the 12 months ended March 31, U.S. malls collectively posted a 6.5% decline in tenants' same-store sales, according to Green Street Advisors Inc., a real-estate consulting firm. The recent slump was led by an average 7.3% sales drop at Simon Property Group Inc., the operator with the largest number of mall locations.
At the moment, most malls are healthy. As it says, only 100 malls are really considered to be dead (sales per square foot of $250 is the cutoff). But the trends are against malls, even if the economy stabilizes, due to the internet, higher gas prices, social networking (a substitute for the malls food court, which means goodbye mall movies), and the permanent reduction in household credit.
It has profound consequences both on a cultural level and an economic level
WSJ has the grim story:
On the low-income east side of Charlotte, N.C., the 1.1-million-square-foot Eastland Mall recently lost a slew of key tenants, including a Dillard's and, next month, a Sears. Sales per square foot at the venue fell to $210 in 2008 from $288 in 2001.
...
But the long recession is helping to empty out the promenades. Some analysts estimate that the number of so-called "dead malls" -- centers debilitated by anemic sales and high vacancy rates -- will swell to more than 100 by the end of this year.
In the 12 months ended March 31, U.S. malls collectively posted a 6.5% decline in tenants' same-store sales, according to Green Street Advisors Inc., a real-estate consulting firm. The recent slump was led by an average 7.3% sales drop at Simon Property Group Inc., the operator with the largest number of mall locations.
At the moment, most malls are healthy. As it says, only 100 malls are really considered to be dead (sales per square foot of $250 is the cutoff). But the trends are against malls, even if the economy stabilizes, due to the internet, higher gas prices, social networking (a substitute for the malls food court, which means goodbye mall movies), and the permanent reduction in household credit.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Authors@Google: Peter Schiff
The Authors@Google program welcomed Peter Schiff to Google's NY office to discuss his book, "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse".
"Peter Schiff is an American economic commentator, author and licensed stock broker who currently serves as president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a fully accredited brokerage firm based in Darien, Connecticut."
This event took place on April 2, 2009.
Ray Anderson on the business logic of sustainability
http://www.ted.com At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional "take / make / waste" industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Buffett Restructures Derivatives Bet To Take On More Risk
By RICHARD WILNER
May 17, 2009
WHEN Berkshire Hathaway shareholders descended on Omaha earlier this month for their annual meeting -- the value investor's equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca -- one of the hottest topics of conversation was the $37.1 billion bet that the company had made on options tied to global stock prices two years ago.
Although Warren Buffett is famous for his portrayal of derivatives as "weapons of mass destruction," that didn't stop him from selling one type of derivative -- "put" options on the S&P 500 and other major indices -- an investment that is now heavily underwater after the dramatic downturn in the stock market since mid-2007.
During the conference, Berkshire executives let it be known that the firm had recently restructured its option positions, making new bets that would, in essence, pay off if stocks rebounded about 15 percent over the next decade -- instead of the original contracts, which would have required the S&P to climb over 70 percent in the next 18 years to break even.
In recent weeks the chatter along the derivatives "rat line" has been full of rumors about the new Berkshire trades. According to traders active in the options pit, when Berkshire sought to restructure its bets (essentially buying back the multi-decade options it was short and selling new, shorter-duration options that are closer to current stock price levels) it could do so only by paying a heavy cost, since the original positions were so deep in the red.
According to these sources, this restructuring was accomplished on a "dollar neutral" basis, meaning that Berkshire didn't have to pony up cash to do the trade.
Like a gambler doubling down on credit, Berkshire instead purportedly sold a significantly larger number of short-dated contracts than the original transaction -- meaning that the potential risk of loss to Buffet and his shareholders over the next 10 years has actually increased, but only if the markets were to decline from current levels and remain there.
Sources also say that Berkshire was squeezed more on the pricing this time around since the company's credit is not quite as pristine as it was two years ago.
Berkshire Hathaway didn't respond to two e-mails seeking comment.
If the rumors are true, the trades will be detailed in the company's next SEC filing -- but we will have to wait until 2020 to see if the bets pay off.
May 17, 2009
WHEN Berkshire Hathaway shareholders descended on Omaha earlier this month for their annual meeting -- the value investor's equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca -- one of the hottest topics of conversation was the $37.1 billion bet that the company had made on options tied to global stock prices two years ago.
Although Warren Buffett is famous for his portrayal of derivatives as "weapons of mass destruction," that didn't stop him from selling one type of derivative -- "put" options on the S&P 500 and other major indices -- an investment that is now heavily underwater after the dramatic downturn in the stock market since mid-2007.
During the conference, Berkshire executives let it be known that the firm had recently restructured its option positions, making new bets that would, in essence, pay off if stocks rebounded about 15 percent over the next decade -- instead of the original contracts, which would have required the S&P to climb over 70 percent in the next 18 years to break even.
In recent weeks the chatter along the derivatives "rat line" has been full of rumors about the new Berkshire trades. According to traders active in the options pit, when Berkshire sought to restructure its bets (essentially buying back the multi-decade options it was short and selling new, shorter-duration options that are closer to current stock price levels) it could do so only by paying a heavy cost, since the original positions were so deep in the red.
According to these sources, this restructuring was accomplished on a "dollar neutral" basis, meaning that Berkshire didn't have to pony up cash to do the trade.
Like a gambler doubling down on credit, Berkshire instead purportedly sold a significantly larger number of short-dated contracts than the original transaction -- meaning that the potential risk of loss to Buffet and his shareholders over the next 10 years has actually increased, but only if the markets were to decline from current levels and remain there.
Sources also say that Berkshire was squeezed more on the pricing this time around since the company's credit is not quite as pristine as it was two years ago.
Berkshire Hathaway didn't respond to two e-mails seeking comment.
If the rumors are true, the trades will be detailed in the company's next SEC filing -- but we will have to wait until 2020 to see if the bets pay off.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Beware of the fire drill!!
A fire alarm rang at 4 PM in a large office campus when almost all employees were present ( approx 5,000 people ).
As per past fire-drill practices, the entire office was quickly evacuated within 3 minutes, and all employees gathered outside the complex in designated areas waiting for further announcement.
Before long, the fire drill officer in-charge made the following broadcast over their loud-speakers system :
" My dear colleagues : With sincere regret, I have been asked to announce that for many of you, this will be your last evacuation drill with us. Due to the on-going recession and bad business climate, the company is laying off almost 50% of its staff. So when this announcement finishes, I ask all of you to move back into the building. And if your swipe-card does not work, then it means that you have been laid off, in which case you will not be allowed inside, and all your personal belongings will be couriered to you by tomorrow.
The company is using this innovative, never-before approach as we do not want to choke our email system with lay-off notices and farewell messages going by the thousands, and we also wish to avoid any fighting inside the office and the consequent security issues for all staff.
We hope you have had a rewarding career with us. Now please move back in... and good luck ! "
As per past fire-drill practices, the entire office was quickly evacuated within 3 minutes, and all employees gathered outside the complex in designated areas waiting for further announcement.
Before long, the fire drill officer in-charge made the following broadcast over their loud-speakers system :
" My dear colleagues : With sincere regret, I have been asked to announce that for many of you, this will be your last evacuation drill with us. Due to the on-going recession and bad business climate, the company is laying off almost 50% of its staff. So when this announcement finishes, I ask all of you to move back into the building. And if your swipe-card does not work, then it means that you have been laid off, in which case you will not be allowed inside, and all your personal belongings will be couriered to you by tomorrow.
The company is using this innovative, never-before approach as we do not want to choke our email system with lay-off notices and farewell messages going by the thousands, and we also wish to avoid any fighting inside the office and the consequent security issues for all staff.
We hope you have had a rewarding career with us. Now please move back in... and good luck ! "
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