THE PORTABLE BLOOMBERG

THE WIT AND WISDOM  

0F MICHAEL 

PRESS

An, Unauthorized Collectian of
Unauthorized Sayings

Illustrated by Joe Pap

This book is dedicated to:
the President of BLOOMBERG Financial Markets,
The Greatest Company in the World

 Editor's

Note:

Yes, these are all actual quotes.
No, nothing has been embellished

or

exaggerated.
And yes, some things were too outrageous to
include.
When I joined BLOOMBERG Financial Markets, I
wondered if I had inadvertantly joined a
religious sect, such was the dedication of the
employees to its founder, and their enthusiasm
for the company.
Today, I'm a convert. And when we rent Madison
Square Garden for mass nuptials, I'll be there.
The contributors and I hope this collection

reflects the myriad (a favorite Mike word)
aspects of MRB.
E.DeM.
2 /14190

 PROFILE:
Birth: Valentine's
Massachusetts
Education:
University;

Day, 1942, Medford,

B.S., Physics, Johns Hopkins
M.B.A., Harvard Business School

Favorite Color:

Amber

Favorite Restaurant:
Favorite Drink:

"21*'

Wild Turkey

Favorite Song:

"My Way"

Favorite Food:

Popcorn

Favorite Comic Strip: The Wizard of Id
Middle Name:

Rambunctious

Affiliations: Harmonie Club; Century Club;
Harvard Club; Board of Directors, Johns Hopkins,
The Jewish Museum
First Career: Salomon Brothers -- Equity
Trader, Partner Systems Development

Block

Second Career: Fearless Leader, BLOOMBERG
Financial
Markets
Fantasy Third Career: Own/Run an Airline

 0N

BUSINESS

ON SALESMANSfIIP:
"Make the customer think he's getting laid
when he's getting fucked."
"A good salesperson asks for the order. It's
like the guy who goes into a bar, and walks
up to every gorgeous girl there, and says
'Do you want to fuck?' He gets turned down
a lot -- but he gets fucked a lot, too! 11
"By definition,

a salesperson thinks
tomorrow's always going to be better. It's
the only way they can take the continuing
rejection."

ON THE BLOOMBERGSALESFORCE:
l'm always amazed by our salespeople's
acumen. Many times I'm with a salesman
in a presentation and he or she will show a
capability I never knew existed."
11

ON EMPLOYEEMOTIVATION:
"How do you motivate someone? Simple.
Are they addicted to three meals a day?"

 ON MERRILLLYNCJ-1:
"I owe .Merrill Lynch a great debt. In 1981,
when we began this company, 1 went to
every house on the Street to try to get
them to buy our system. At that time,
everyone was too busy building their own
in-house stuff to take interest. But Merrill
Lynch said 'We have our own project going,
but in case it doesn't work out, we'll take
twenty of your terminals.' It was that
initial order for twenty terminals that
started this company."
"I will help 1v1errill Lynch up until the point
it hurts this company."

On Merrill Lynch Layoffs:
1v1errill decided to invest in marble halls
instead of technology -- furthermore, they
also arranged to build enough hallways so
that no member of management ever has
to run into another one."
11

ON SALOMONBROTHERS:
"Salomon Brothers did me the two greatest
favors in my life -- they hired me and fired
me."

  

 

ON NEGOTIATIONS:
"What do I want? I want an exclusive, 10year contract, an automatic extension, and I
want you to pay me. And I want a blow job
from Jane Fonda. Have you seen Jane Fonda
lately? Not bad for fifty."

"It is axiomatic that you will deliver a
system to the successor of the person who
ordered it. 11
l!Keep your legs closed."
"Always pick a fight with someone smaller
than you."
"As Chuck Colsen put it: if you have them
by their balls, their hearts and minds will
follow. 11
"Don't get even -- get revenge."
"Use the Nancy Reagan defense -- just say
'No."'

On Being Told "NO":
"Let me tell you something, buddy boy. I
have pictures of you and they're not with
your wife."

 ON PRICING:
"I follow the trader's adage: if you can't
move something, mark it up not down."
"I never understood the concept
discounts."

of volume

ON TIMELINESSOF INFORMATION:
"Information is being delivered faster and
faster in more and more cases. Soon we'll
be able to deliver next week's prices. Of
course that's already been done once
before -- Ivan Boesky managed the
ultimate of getting quotes before they
happen."

ON THE BOND BUSINESS:
"Do you know anything about bonds? When
prices go up, yields go down. That's it."

ON EQUITIES:
"With the exception of the municipal
people, the equity people are the dumbest
in the world, especially the block traders. 11

"It's all over but the shouting.

11

 ON MUNlCIPALS:
*'Municipals will be a very big product over
the next ten years. It's a classic case: the
business can't get worse. Issues out there
now are going to rollover, and there will be
lots of new issues to rebuild all the bridges
and roads that are falling apart 50 years
after the 1930's public works programs.
The Federal Government is going to support
localities more, not less. And tax rates will
only go up. Reagan just forgot to consult me
when he put together tax reform.
11

"Unfortunately,
appointment.''

a lot of municipals trade by

"We will have a municipal product by yearend '88.n
''We will have munis by April '89."
"We're almost done with munis."

 ON LARGE ORGANIZATIONS:
Lotus Version 3 is no more complex than
Lotus Version 1 was -- except that now
Lotus has 3,000 employees instead of just
Mitch Kapor. That's why they can't get
Version 3 out the door. I don't want that to
happen to us."
11

"The culture of this company hasn't really
changed since when we were 14
employees. I think we can keep the culture
going until we reach about 2,000 -- 2,000
is when I felt the change at Salomon."
"Whenever one of my employees designs a
form or writes a memo, I walk out into the
hallway and make a big deal of tearing it
up. The last thing we need are lots of
forms and procedures and policies."

ON HOW TO DEAL WITH ANY LARGE,
INTRANSIGENT, OR BUREAUCRATIC
JND.IVIDUAL OR INSTITUTION:
''Hit the damn horse over the head with a
two-by-four."

 DEFINITION OF A BAD SALESPERSON:
"Someone who shows up and throws up."

DEFIN/110N OF MOSTCOMPET/ING
SYSTEMS:
"They show up and throw up."

CHARACTERIZATION OF A
COMPEI'ITOR:
"Cokehead, womanizing, fag."

ONTHECOMPEflI'ION:
"Most of the people in our business are
really in the newspaper business. Think
about it -- Reuters, Dow Jones, Knight
Ridder -- they're newspaper companies.
They don't believe in adding value, in
analyzing data. Do you want to do business
with a newspaper company?"
"Our competitors want to take the food out
of our mouths and I won't let them!"

 COMPETITIVE STRATEGY:
"We have a definite pricing strategy that
flies in the face of our competition. We
marketing
have a razor/razorblade
strategy, except we define the razorblade
the opposite of our competition. Quotron,
Reuters, and Telerate have long since
penetrated their respective markets, so the
only way for them to grow, to get
incremental revenue, is to charge extra for
each new service they add onto their
systems. We, on the other hand, have just
begun to penetrate our markets. We ask
our customers to pay $1000/month, and
for that price they get everything. And we
have an incentive to add more capability to
our system, because we will get
incremental revenue from placing
incremental terminals within our existing
customer base.
11

"By definition, 50% of the people don't want
a level playing field."

"I don't believe in selling against the
competition. Ya dance with the woman who
brung ya."
"We build what we think people need, and
what they tell us they need, not what our
competitors have."

 ONTHEG4
"They can't agree on how to go to the
bathroom."
"They can't agree on how to go to the
bathroom, and if they ever did they would
need an awfully wide door because no
one's going to let the other guy through
first."
"Not causing me any lost sleep.

!f

ON KINNEY/DRAKE
"'Synergies'
expenses.

have turned into extra

11

ON CAPITALISM:
"I believe in the capitalist system and free
enterprise. The only exception to capitalism
is 8th Avenue, where people pay for what
they could get for free."
"For the same reason you want to sell 200
shares of stock for twice what you paid -we are in this business to make money."

      

 

?rmw 

OVER 65,2.wa MW..


5

 

4's!

ONSYSTEM ARCHITECTURE:
"The biggest mistake IB.M made was going
open architecture. The reason Apple is
successful today is because they refused to
open their system up. It is a strategic
choice of mine to retain control over the
product and the way it is delivered."
"We have literally outlived all the facilities
managers who insisted we go through
video switches. 11

ON COMPUTERS:
"You know why computers will never take
the place of people? Because a computer
would say that the sex of the person giving
you a blow job doesn't matter!"

ON THEBLOOMBERG:
"It will do everything, including give you a
blowjob. I guess that puts a lot of you girls
out of business."

 ON THE QUALITYOF THE BLOOMBERG
DATA:
"Years ago we ran a testimonial ad in
Institutional Investor featuring quotes
from some of our customers. My favorite
came from the guy who said "I have yet to
find an error in the MARKETMASTER data,
but when I do, I'll know it's an honest
error, unlike the data I get from Salomon
or First Boston."

ON NAMING THE SYSTEM THE
BWOMBERG:
"We had been using the name
.MarketMaster, when we discovered it was
already in use. All our customers were
already referring to the product as the
Bloomberg, when they called to order more,
or for service calls or whatever. There was
some concern that officially renaming the
product the Bloomberg might leave us
vulnerable to anti-Semitism, which I
seriously considered. But I figured if
Schwartzatron was successful, the
Bloomberg could be successful. So what if
we don't sell to Syria!"

 MOST CREATIVEMISSPELLINGS OF
BLOOMBERG:
Bloobmerg
Boobmerg
Boomberg

ON THEBLOOMBERGCUSTOMERS:
"I know their middle names, and the names
of their first born children."

ON WORKINGAT BLOOMBERG:
A headhunter called an employee to ask if
it was true that there were 10 people to an
office and that Mike had all the desks cut
in half.

ON OPERATING 24-HOURSIDAY:
"I have a rule that if anyone is woken up in
the middle of the night, I must also be
called. That way, the person can say to
their spouse the President of the company
was also inconvenienced."

ON DEADllNES:
"We'll have it when (Zegar/Plotts/Ostrow)
gets back from vacation."

 ON INDUSTRY LAYOFFS:
""If anyone thinks we're going to walk
away from a 10-15% decline in the

ind us try, you 're kidding

yourself.

n

"If you lose your job, it's the end of the

world. If you don't lose your job, it's a
recession. 11

ON SUCCESS:
"Everyone I know who is successful loves
what they do. The question is: are they
successful becau~e they love what they do,
or do they love what they do because they
are successful? I don't know. I suspect it's a
combination of both."

ON BLOOMBERG'SCODEOF ETHICS:
"The first rule is 'Don't leave the toilet seat
down."' (attributed: Andy Eisen)

ON PROGRAMMING:
"Do I have to do this myself?"
"If we can't do it here, how are we going to

do it in Cleveland?"

 ON CUSTOMERSERVICE:
"Are you installing
around'?"

anythingt or just fucking

"Jesus Christ, I'll just do customer
myself!"

service

"Do I have to get on a plane and fly to
Cleveland myself'?"

MIKE BWOMBERG TIME:
"It's going over in the next set of software
we move. 11 (trans: two weeks)

lllt'll be ready next week." (trans.: two
months)
"It'll be ready in two weeks." (trans.:

8

months)

WORDSFROM THEPROLETARIET:
"Listen to Tom. Listen to .Mike. Then you
only have to go in two directions at once."
nsometimes
Mart."

I feel like I'm working at K-

 ON THE NEWS BUSINESS:
"It1s like Business Week -- some get it
Monday, some get it Friday, and for $20
some get it Thursday."

WORDSNOT FOUND IN NATURE:
Personalizable
Analytics
Selectable
Equivalence (as a verb)
Matrix (as a verb)
Functable
Commingled
Permissioning

EVERYDAY ACTS:
''7005.''
"Whatcha doin'."
"Next.

0

"The three biggest lies are: the check 1s in
the man, I'll respect you in the morning,
and I'm glad I'm Jewish."
"Sell any terminals?"
"Get it right the second time."

 . "We can't run a business like this!n
''The question is ... "
"Jesus Christ, I don ft understand .... "
"Check the big news on the AP Wire
'Charo Leaves Vegas for Waikiki."
"Who wants to talk to me? Screw
Magazine?"

ncybil Shepard."
"Total bullshit."
"Some people have to pay retail."
"NFW -- No Fucking Way."
"She'll be the first one called into the
courtroom."
''Central Casting."
"In my wildest dreams."
"If Jesus was a Jew, why does he have a
Puerto Rican first name?"

 THE
WOR LD
ACCORDING
TO A

BLOOMBERG

ON GEOGRAPHY:
"You know, there's a Federal Law that
prohibits the serving of good food west of
12th Avenue -- look it up.''
"I make it a rule never to go to Queens -and since that eliminates both airports I
don't travel a great deal."

"There are certain states you don't go to."

"I knew we'd arrived when we sold a
terminal in Kuala Lumpur."
"We live in Manhattan so we don't have to
go anyplace else."

ON MERRYOW ENGLAND:
"There's only one queen in Buckingham
Palaces -- the rest are in Trafalgar Square.''
"The Royal family -- what a bunch of
misfits -- a gay, an architect, that horsey
faced lesbian, and a kid who gave up Koo
Stark for some fat broad. 11

 ON PROFANITY
"When the Wall Street Journal article came
out saying I was profane, my dear old
mother called me to ask me if it was true.
'Ma,' I said, 'Fuck 'em!!!'

ONWOMEN:
"If women wanted to be appreciated

for

their brains, they'd go to the library
instead of to Bloomingdale's. 11
''I only look. 11
"I just like to look."
I know for a fact that any self-respecting
woman who walks past a construction site
doesn't get a whistle will turn around and
walk past again and again until she does
get one."
11

  

 

·ON MARRIAGE:
"One night at dinner my girlfriend
reminded me that I had said I wouldn't get
married until I'd dated the woman for
three years. Well~ my three years were
up .... What could I do? We got married."

"I would have married lots of my
girlfriends if they'd bothered to ask. My
wife is the only one with the guts to ask
me."

"Marriage is for better or worse, but not for
much."

"Sex with someone you love .... .is sex with
someone you love. The plusses are you
don't have to buy dinner and the only thing
you catch is callouses.''

"Whenever my wife catches me eyeing
some broad, she's very careful to tum to
me and say 'That's the most expensive
piece of ass in the world!"

 WHENEVER .HE'S TOLD AN EMPLOYEE

JS GETJ1NGMARRIED
11

Are you pregnant?"

"M.ale or Female?"

ON BEING ASKED TO NAME A SPORT
THAT DOESN'T USE BALLS:
"Lesbian Sex."

ON RESTAURANTS:
"There are three types of favorite
restaurants: Where would you go if you
had to eat there forever -- I'd say "21."
Then, where would you go for your last
meal -- Le Cygne. Then, there's where you
would take your wife for your last meal -McDonald's."

ON THE WEATHER
"Last I looked the record for precipitation
was 40 days and 40 nights."

 ON DEATJ-1AND TAXES:
"Why give tax abatements to people who
are screwing you? I never understand that.
Why give preferred treatment to people
who are trying to hold you hostage? You
should be helping the people who are
helping you by keeping their business and
employees in New York."
"I told my good friend Liz Holtzman that
she should arrange 24-hour protection for
me and my family -- because the minute
they're at risk in this city, I'm moving my
family and my 200 New York City
employees out of here."
"The only liberal I trust is a r.ich old liberal.
Why? Because they're old enough to
understand what they're saying, and ·
they're rich enough to pay for what they
say!"
"In the end, we all walk away from the
grave except for the person who's in there."
"There are two things I'd love to do -- have
more birthdays and pay more taxes. If you
have more birthdays, it's obviously because
you haven't died yet, and if you pay more
taxes, it's clearly because you're making
more money.
11

 "During the Vietnam War, I was classified
1Y because of flat feet -- not as good as
being IF because 1Y meant you were on
" standby and could be called up at any time.
I had a great agreement with the draft
board that summer -- they never called me
and I never called them. I'm trying to
make the same arrangement with Death."

ON FAMILY:
"When I was growing up in Boston we
always used sterling silver at all our meals.
All my friends' mothers used stainless steel
flatware. We weren't any better off than
my friends' families. So I asked my mother
why we did this. She told me: Use your
best for the people who matter the most."
11