Malcolm Gladwell's The Sure Thing

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In his article, “The Sure Thing”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that the conventional thought of entrepreneurs as ‘hot-headed risk takers’ is absolutely wrong. From Ted Turner to Sam Walton and John Paulson, Mr. Gladwell arrives at the conclusion that many successful entrepreneurs are not high-risk risk takers, but are instead merciless, careful thinking attackers. Many of them are not even taking risks- they simply see an opportunity presented to them that most others do not consider. They all consistently minimize chances for failure along the way, and always see what they do through until the end. In 1969, Ted Turner had the bright idea to buy a television station, and no amount of displeasure or arguments would make him abandon the idea. The thirty …show more content…

However, a young and rich man had found that to be boring. And television was an exciting though to him. One of Mr. Turner’s many biographers, Christian Williams, wrote that “He knew absolutely nothing about it.” in his book “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way”, published 1981, “It would be fun to risk everything he had built, and scare the hell out of everybody- Then get back in the front seat of the roller coaster.” The station Mr. Turner decided to buy WJRJ, channel 17, based in Atlanta. The chanel was an independent station on the UHF band, a part of the television spectrum that required a special antenna to locate. The origin of the channel was housed in a run-down cinder-block building, located near a funeral home. All of the equipment was falling to pieces, the staff weren’t the brightest, there was no decent programming on the show, and every year the station lost half a million dollars. Both Turner’s lawyer, Tench Coxe, and his accountant, Irwin Mazo, firmly

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