Sam Wyly: 1,000 Dollars & an Idea
A Conversation With Michael Milken
November 12, 2008
Milken Institute
Sam Wyly is a rare breed: a down-to-earth billionaire.
When Wyly sat down for a conversation with Michael Milken at a recent Milken Institute Forum, he was surprisingly unassuming, even when recounting his impressive string of blockbuster deals.
Wyly is a "serial entrepreneur," observed Milken. Wyly's story began with just $1,000 of his own savings, which he used to found University Computing in 1963. When he took the company public two years later, it made him a millionaire before age 30 — not bad for the son of a Louisiana cotton farmer.
"Sam is living proof that anyone has the chance to build a successful life and change the world," said Milken.
Wyly's Midas touch has served him well for more than four decades, as he expanded Michaels Stores and Bonanza Steakhouses to more than 1,000 locations nationwide and established two major hedge funds. More recently, he founded Green Mountain Energy, America's largest provider of clean electricity from renewable sources such as wind and water.
The inspiration for this venture came from Wyly's youngest daughter, who came home from school one day demanding to know what her dad was going to do to stop air pollution. And so Green Mountain was born — though Wyly noted its original name was Green Mountain.com ("because the folks on Wall Street were giving away free money to anything that had dot-com in the name back then").
Though he has been a lifelong Republican, Wyly revealed that he is an enthusiastic supporter of President-elect Obama, whom he regards as living proof that "America is a land of opportunity for everybody." Wyly is excited by Obama's focus on alternative energy.
"He believes it can create 5 million jobs, and I think it can," Wyly predicted, noting that the nation needs to maximize the wind belt that runs from North Dakota through Texas. He acknowledged that falling oil prices will make it harder for green energy to take hold in the short term, but he believes the shift is imperative.
Wyly's own policy prescription involves adding a carbon tariff to products produced here and abroad. He believes the move would end the era of cheap goods produced in dirty factories, and proceeds in the U.S. could be earmarked for shoring up Social Security and Medicare.
The first attempt to take Green Mountain public in 1999 fizzled, but that initial setback did not deter Wyly. He was matter-of-fact about the stumbles he has made, noting that failure is simply a fact of life in the business world. Learning how to set goals, persevere, and handle those occasional failures are lessons he still attributes to his high school football coach back in Louisiana.
"I was a little guy in a big guy's game," he said. "But sometimes if you get there just a piece of a second ahead of the other guy, you can make a play."
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