5 ms·

How A 26-Year-Old Built A $100 Million Net Worth

58 points by AndrewWarner 17y ago

rewind 17y ago
I'm a big fan or your style and work, Andrew, and I like the attention-grabbing titles you choose, but this one is a bit over the top. Should really be "How a 26-Year-Old Built a $100 Million Net Worth In Under 10 Years". The current version reads too much like it's a 16-year-old who's worth $100 million (a bit bait-ish). It's like if you write an article about Bill Gates titled "How a 16-Year-Old Became a Billionaire in 15 Years" ;-) Love the site and love what you're trying to do with your business model (whether it works or not). Keep the interviews coming.
- AndrewWarner 17y ago
  I don't see the headline as misleading, but maybe I'm too close to it right now. I changed it on my site. I left the reference to him being 16 because that's when he got into the ad business. But I said he was 25 when his net worth hit $100 mil. By the way, including dollar signs in so many of my headlines feels out of touch with my mission. I wish I knew a better way to communicate the size and importance of my guests' achievements in 10 words or less.
mixergyNOTES 17y ago
The notes will be up tomorrow! http://mixergynotes.com/ http://mixergynotes.com/
Raphael 17y ago
Eternal youth potion? (I'd write "starting at 16".)
- Raphael 17y ago
  Cool, title changed from "How A 16-Year-Old Built A $100 Million Net Worth In Under 10 Years".
constantinople 17y ago
"And the women who love him. Today on Jerry Springer."
akc 17y ago
I used to work at Yahoo. This guy was a tool. A cursory search on Google explains all. http://images.google.com/images?oq=gurb&sourceid=chrome&q=gurbaksh+chahal&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=KqeRS8avPI3p8QaFsd32BA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCcQsAQwAw http://images.google.com/images?oq=gurb&sourceid=chrome&...
- pedalpete 17y ago
  Why are there so many photos of him without a shirt on?
  - zaidf 17y ago
    Once you've made FU money, you earn karma to drown yourself in some stupidity. Perfectly fine for me! I am sure he has moments where he looks in the mirror and laughs at himself and the shit he's doing. That in itself can be fun and fulfilling.
  - metaprinter 17y ago
    he thought it would make for good exposure...
  - bobbyi 17y ago
    You don't get to be a millionaire by throwing your money away on frivolous things like clothing for your upper body.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- philk 17y ago
  Your criticism would ring less hollow if you were the one worth $100 million.
  - rortian 17y ago
    Why would it? He doesn't seem to have a very great command of language but he's got all that money so whatever. Lot's of people made a lot of money with the internet boom, pg and Mark Cuban among them. However, they are still people that did not enter the 'you cannot comment on me unless your wealth is greater than or equal to mine' club.
quizbiz 17y ago
He knows how to make money off of making money very well. But he's no hacker.
rortian 17y ago
Short of a weird issue with is first company. Check this out: >And ValueClick in Westlake Village, Calif., which offers performance-based online advertising services, acquired Click Agents.com in Fremont, Calif., which offers those same services. As part of the deal, Click Agents shareholders will receive 5.3 million shares of ValueClick stock, valued at an estimated $20 million to $24 million. >Click Agents, which has 31 employees and revenue estimated at $14 million, will initially operate as an autonomous unit of ValueClick. Gurbaksh Chahal, 26, chairman, chief executive and president at Click Agents, continues as president. (Source: search nytimes for ClickAgents its November 8, 2000 (the url is obnoxious)). (26 in 2000? Weird) He likes to say $40 million since that was the value of the shares when the deal was announced. Sort of silly but that is true. However he asserts that he got some amount in between. He could of but not if he didn't own all of the shares (he could of but that would be weird since he was talking about sweat equity) or if he sold between 2001 and early 2003. Interestingly, if he had just held those shares until May 25, 2007 he (or the shareholders collectively) would have had $173.2 million. This didn't come up in the interview but this comes out about BlueLithium on nytimes: >It is backed by venture capital firms including WaldenVC and 3i. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/yahoo-buys-bluelithium-for-300-million http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/yahoo-buys-blue... Given that the VCs had a portion of this venture as well as the people from Belarus that got $15 million its seems likely that G could have gotten more money by selling ValueClick's stock after holding it then doing any work in that period of time.
CoachRufus87 17y ago
i'm surprised by the level of hate exhibited in these comments...sure the guy has lots of pics with no shirt & maybe he comes across as narcissistic & arrogant, but he's also a high school drop-out & the son of poor immigrants who ended up coming to our country and creating an immense amount of wealth for himself plus jobs for others... how many of us can say we've done even 10% of that? i know i can't (at least not yet)
- mortenjorck 17y ago
  Success is demanding. Extreme success is extremely demanding. I don't think any of us truly know how we deal with success until we experience it. I'm not defending Chahal's arrogance, but neither can I claim to understand his perspective.
- dwaters 17y ago
  I echo your thoughts. I thought YC new was a place where we appreciated the entrepreneurial spirit of creating something out of nothing. It was my sense that overcoming the odds was held in esteem. This guy surely seems to have done that. So, why call him a "tool" and downplay his achievements because he decided to put pictures of himself without a shirt on the net, or because he flaunts his wealth?
- rortian 17y ago
  I don't know how much hate has been conveyed in here, but you are telling this in a weird way. He dropped out of high school because he was already making a lot of cash. I personally have qualms about the guys ethics. He got his start by lying about his capabilities, which isn't the worst thing I ever heard but he got lucky on not getting caught. Then, he hired someone with money that he didn't have. I'm sure many people would be irate about this no matter the outcome in the end. I think many people would be doing much better if they had 10% of the luck this guy had.
jgilliam 17y ago
I didn't realize the Mixergy guy is the same guy who called himself "G" on the reality show, Secret Millionaire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAKwl1GW-I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAKwl1GW-I
- jackowayed 17y ago
  He's not "the Mixergy guy", he's the one the Mixergy guy, Andrew Warner, was interviewing that day. And Andrew mentioned that in passing. I think right at the beginning.
coryl 17y ago
I think his story highlights the importance of picking your markets, or being in the right place at the right time.
budu3 17y ago
I love Andrew's interview but his headlines are beginning to get monotonous.
- maxklein 17y ago
  How many different variations of headlines do you think exist? You think that it's possible to just come up with new and exciting headlines all the time? This headline is descriptive and it works. Just because you've seen other headlines like that does not mean that new people discovering the site have.
  - budu3 17y ago
    I don't think it's that hard to come up with a different headline for each interview. That said, the headlines don't take anything away from the interviews. I guess the "How a --- made a $1 billion by ----" headlines are part of Mixergy's brand.
Confusion 17y ago
Oprah showed how dramatic his transformation for internet entrepreneur, Gurbaksh Chahal As nobody has yet commented on this, I have started doubting my command of the English language, but here goes: it's hard to take a site seriously when it botches the first sentence of an article like this. No care for the language == no care for the facts.
- PostOnce 17y ago
  Welcome to the interwebs. Leave your grammar and vocabulary at the door.

58 points by AndrewWarner 17y ago

I'm a big fan or your style and work, Andrew, and I like the attention-grabbing titles you choose, but this one is a bit over the top. Should really be "How a 26-Year-Old Built a $100 Million Net Worth In Under 10 Years". The current version reads too much like it's a 16-year-old who's worth $100 million (a bit bait-ish). It's like if you write an article about Bill Gates titled "How a 16-Year-Old Became a Billionaire in 15 Years" ;-) Love the site and love what you're trying to do with your business model (whether it works or not). Keep the interviews coming.

AndrewWarner 17y ago
I don't see the headline as misleading, but maybe I'm too close to it right now. I changed it on my site. I left the reference to him being 16 because that's when he got into the ad business. But I said he was 25 when his net worth hit $100 mil. By the way, including dollar signs in so many of my headlines feels out of touch with my mission. I wish I knew a better way to communicate the size and importance of my guests' achievements in 10 words or less.

mixergyNOTES 17y ago

The notes will be up tomorrow! http://mixergynotes.com/ http://mixergynotes.com/

Raphael 17y ago

Eternal youth potion? (I'd write "starting at 16".)

Raphael 17y ago
Cool, title changed from "How A 16-Year-Old Built A $100 Million Net Worth In Under 10 Years".

constantinople 17y ago

"And the women who love him. Today on Jerry Springer."

akc 17y ago

I used to work at Yahoo. This guy was a tool. A cursory search on Google explains all. http://images.google.com/images?oq=gurb&sourceid=chrome&q=gurbaksh+chahal&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=KqeRS8avPI3p8QaFsd32BA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCcQsAQwAw http://images.google.com/images?oq=gurb&sourceid=chrome&...

pedalpete 17y ago
Why are there so many photos of him without a shirt on?
- zaidf 17y ago
  Once you've made FU money, you earn karma to drown yourself in some stupidity. Perfectly fine for me! I am sure he has moments where he looks in the mirror and laughs at himself and the shit he's doing. That in itself can be fun and fulfilling.
- metaprinter 17y ago
  he thought it would make for good exposure...
- bobbyi 17y ago
  You don't get to be a millionaire by throwing your money away on frivolous things like clothing for your upper body.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
philk 17y ago
Your criticism would ring less hollow if you were the one worth $100 million.
- rortian 17y ago
  Why would it? He doesn't seem to have a very great command of language but he's got all that money so whatever. Lot's of people made a lot of money with the internet boom, pg and Mark Cuban among them. However, they are still people that did not enter the 'you cannot comment on me unless your wealth is greater than or equal to mine' club.

quizbiz 17y ago

He knows how to make money off of making money very well. But he's no hacker.

rortian 17y ago

Short of a weird issue with is first company. Check this out: >And ValueClick in Westlake Village, Calif., which offers performance-based online advertising services, acquired Click Agents.com in Fremont, Calif., which offers those same services. As part of the deal, Click Agents shareholders will receive 5.3 million shares of ValueClick stock, valued at an estimated $20 million to $24 million. >Click Agents, which has 31 employees and revenue estimated at $14 million, will initially operate as an autonomous unit of ValueClick. Gurbaksh Chahal, 26, chairman, chief executive and president at Click Agents, continues as president. (Source: search nytimes for ClickAgents its November 8, 2000 (the url is obnoxious)). (26 in 2000? Weird) He likes to say $40 million since that was the value of the shares when the deal was announced. Sort of silly but that is true. However he asserts that he got some amount in between. He could of but not if he didn't own all of the shares (he could of but that would be weird since he was talking about sweat equity) or if he sold between 2001 and early 2003. Interestingly, if he had just held those shares until May 25, 2007 he (or the shareholders collectively) would have had $173.2 million. This didn't come up in the interview but this comes out about BlueLithium on nytimes: >It is backed by venture capital firms including WaldenVC and 3i. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/yahoo-buys-bluelithium-for-300-million http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/yahoo-buys-blue... Given that the VCs had a portion of this venture as well as the people from Belarus that got $15 million its seems likely that G could have gotten more money by selling ValueClick's stock after holding it then doing any work in that period of time.

CoachRufus87 17y ago

i'm surprised by the level of hate exhibited in these comments...sure the guy has lots of pics with no shirt & maybe he comes across as narcissistic & arrogant, but he's also a high school drop-out & the son of poor immigrants who ended up coming to our country and creating an immense amount of wealth for himself plus jobs for others... how many of us can say we've done even 10% of that? i know i can't (at least not yet)

mortenjorck 17y ago
Success is demanding. Extreme success is extremely demanding. I don't think any of us truly know how we deal with success until we experience it. I'm not defending Chahal's arrogance, but neither can I claim to understand his perspective.
dwaters 17y ago
I echo your thoughts. I thought YC new was a place where we appreciated the entrepreneurial spirit of creating something out of nothing. It was my sense that overcoming the odds was held in esteem. This guy surely seems to have done that. So, why call him a "tool" and downplay his achievements because he decided to put pictures of himself without a shirt on the net, or because he flaunts his wealth?
rortian 17y ago
I don't know how much hate has been conveyed in here, but you are telling this in a weird way. He dropped out of high school because he was already making a lot of cash. I personally have qualms about the guys ethics. He got his start by lying about his capabilities, which isn't the worst thing I ever heard but he got lucky on not getting caught. Then, he hired someone with money that he didn't have. I'm sure many people would be irate about this no matter the outcome in the end. I think many people would be doing much better if they had 10% of the luck this guy had.

jgilliam 17y ago

I didn't realize the Mixergy guy is the same guy who called himself "G" on the reality show, Secret Millionaire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAKwl1GW-I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAKwl1GW-I

jackowayed 17y ago
He's not "the Mixergy guy", he's the one the Mixergy guy, Andrew Warner, was interviewing that day. And Andrew mentioned that in passing. I think right at the beginning.

coryl 17y ago

I think his story highlights the importance of picking your markets, or being in the right place at the right time.

budu3 17y ago

I love Andrew's interview but his headlines are beginning to get monotonous.

maxklein 17y ago
How many different variations of headlines do you think exist? You think that it's possible to just come up with new and exciting headlines all the time? This headline is descriptive and it works. Just because you've seen other headlines like that does not mean that new people discovering the site have.
- budu3 17y ago
  I don't think it's that hard to come up with a different headline for each interview. That said, the headlines don't take anything away from the interviews. I guess the "How a --- made a $1 billion by ----" headlines are part of Mixergy's brand.

Confusion 17y ago

Oprah showed how dramatic his transformation for internet entrepreneur, Gurbaksh Chahal As nobody has yet commented on this, I have started doubting my command of the English language, but here goes: it's hard to take a site seriously when it botches the first sentence of an article like this. No care for the language == no care for the facts.

PostOnce 17y ago
Welcome to the interwebs. Leave your grammar and vocabulary at the door.