Business Advice From Mr. Wonderful

One of my favorite TV shows over the past few years is ABC's Shark Tank.  It's a group of self-made millionaires/billionaires who are now venture capitalists (i.e. "sharks") looking for new businesses in which to invest.  Entrepreneurs come into the "shark tank" to pitch their business or product in the hopes of enticing one or more of the sharks to invest in exchange for a percentage of ownership of the business.  They're real investigations, with real people, and real money at stake.

It's fascinating.

One of the sharks is Kevin O'Leary.  Known for being brutally honest and using phrases such as, "You're dead to me" or "I give you permission to kill your business," O'Leary has justly developed the ironic nickname Mr. Wonderful.  Despite his prickly demeanor, he knows a whole lot about starting, building, and running businesses.  He was recently interviewed on CNN about the current state of the American economy, and he knocked it out of the park:

He's business-ed his way into a net worth in the billions; he knows what he's talking about.  He's exactly right on this.