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I heard a story (I don't know if it's true or not) about Fedex and Frederick Smith: supposedly at one point in the company's early history, they were going thr

I heard a story (I don't know if it's true or not) about Fedex and Frederick Smith: supposedly at one point in the company's early history, they were going through a rough time and realized by Wednesday there wouldn't be enough money to make payroll. So Frederick Smith took the $30,000 the company had, flew to Las Vegas and put it all double or nothing on one roulette bet. He won, and deposited the money Thursday night so they made payroll Friday morning. I don't know what would have happened to him if he had lost. I'm not sure whether to conclude from that story that it takes determination, or that Fedex exists today because he was lucky.

jakarta 16y ago
The black jack win was more of a confidence booster. He was going through a tough time, his investors would not raise additional funds. So he made $30K playing black jack which boosted his confidence and went on to raise another $10M or so. Sometimes, I think that when you are setting goals to get to tough places - putting up certain milestones like that are extremely helpful.