licensing. I think it’s the state of Lou-
isiana that in order to wash hair, you
have to be licensed, and you have to
have some ridiculous 200 hours of
apprentice experience. That’s ridic-
ulous. The fact that just starting a
business isn’t just one-button click.
In the city of Dallas, you want to
start a business, you go online, you
fill out a couple of forms, you hit
one button, maybe you put in your
credit card and it’s $99. Just stuff like
that, you have to remove the friction
from those things. Crazy licensing
protects people who don’t need to
be protected.Billionaire’s Luck
in my first company, the stock
market wasn’t huge for those types
of companies. My second company,
the stock market was huge for that
type of internet company. I didn’t
plan that. I didn’t predict it, but I
certainly benefited from it. Could I
become a millionaire again? Abso-
lutely. Multiple times over. I’ve done
it many times, but could I hit billion-
aire again? Only if I got lucky.Goodbye 9-to-5
i got fired because my bosses
hated me because I was too belligerentand too aggressive. That’s just the way
it was. First three jobs I had never
lasted more than nine months.... Then
I knew I had to do it on my own, and
I just didn’t have a choice. I’m living
with six guys in a three-bedroom
apartment, and this is at a time when
unemployment was above 10 percent
the year I graduated from college.
That extended for a few years and so
it wasn’t like jobs were easy to come by.How to Be an Entrepreneur
there are people who are born
to do it. I was born to do it, and I just
had it. I was just always selling and
selling and selling. And if you can sell,
you can be an entrepreneur, you just
have to start that company for what-
ever you’re good at selling. But for
everybody else, if you have a vision,
but you’re willing to do the work
to follow through, it’s more about
preparation, and it’s more about
investing the time to become knowl-
edgeable.... And most people aren’t
willing to do that. So it’s not that any-
body can’t be an entrepreneur. But if
you’re finding yourself asking “What
kind of companies should I start?”
you’re not ready. “What do you think
I should do?” You’re not ready. “Am I
ready to start this company?” You’re
not ready. If you find yourself, “I
know this so much better than this
company, this company, this com-
pany, if I can get in there and just get
one account,” then you’re ready.Made in China
you can manufacture in china,
but we still should be doing every-
thing possible to kick their ass so we
don’t have to anymore. I get all these
emails from people. “Oh, you push
people to manufacture in China.” No,
I don’t. Every single product I’ve ever
had manufactured, I’ve tried to make
it here first. But now what we’reTOP OF MIND
Top: Charging time
at the 2018 World
Robot Summit in
Tokyo. Below: New
Orleans Saints
quarterback Brees
objected to kneeling
during the National
Anthem. Left:
Demonstrators in
New York on June 14.NEWSWEEK.COM 21
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