Learning to be like Mike Bloomberg

My First Job: Learning to Be Like Mike (Bloomberg, That Is)

November 05, 2013

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My first real job was a summer internship as a reporter for Bloomberg News in 1994 when I was still in college. Bloomberg was a much smaller company back then – their TV and radio networks had just launched; Mike Bloomberg (now mayor of New York for the last 12 years) was still CEO; Matt Winkler (the iconic editor-in-chief of Bloomberg for the last 20 years) had only recently joined; and the company was very much a disruptor of the mainstream media. Although the company has grown massively since those early days, its business model and its unique corporate culture haven’t changed at all in the ensuing 20 years.
I was immediately impressed by the passion with which employees at Bloomberg came to work every day. It was a mission-driven culture with a messianic founder, and I loved it. They gave me an irresponsibly cool amount of responsibility for someone my age. My credentials included former editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper, and not much else, but they still let me write articles which were distributed on the Bloomberg Terminals and through their wire service to The New York Times and elsewhere. (If you happen to have Bloomberg Terminal, which has since morphed into Bloomberg Professional Service, you can still find my stories online by searching by my byline.) They even let me be on Bloomberg Radio, reporting live on several breaking stories from City Hall.
Long before Silicon Valley made it the norm, Bloomberg News provided employees with accoutrements like futuristic entry badges and ample free food. They were incredibly transparent with their business results for employees, even publishing revenue and customer counts on TVs around the office. They put the “cult” in “culture” with a Hotel California rule (“you can come but you can never leave”); any employee who quits Bloomberg to head to a competitor can never return. It certainly helped employees to think twice before jumping ship.
One of my most memorable experiences from that summer was when I got into a debate with Mike (yes, that Mike: the billionaire CEO-turned-Mayor Mike). Just a few weeks on the job, I walked over to his cubicle, which was a few steps from my desk, and asked him why he was so wedded to these clunky “Terminals.” I pointed out that there was this new thing called “the World Wide Web” and that with a Web browser could just make all of Bloomberg’s myriad data and information available to anyone with a PC and a modem. Why did it have to be distributed through these expensive, big, dedicated machines? He told me that I was dead wrong – that the whole point of the closed system was the dedicated hardware. That was the beauty of the network, he explained. Once you get the terminal on a subscriber’s desk, they’ll never churn. I ended up being right, but I was about five years too early. I’m sure I also came off as a know-it-all punk at the time. But Mike was persuasive, polite and passionate in his dismissal of my heresy.
Over the years, despite my many visits to Bloomberg News, I hadn’t seen Mayor Bloomberg since that summer. That is, until last month, when I was fortunate enough to participate in an event he hosted for tech executives in New York. Over cocktails, I told him the story of our mini-debate and he was amused. When I recalled for him what an impression his company’s corporate culture left on me from 20 years ago, he was visibly kvelling (look it up – trust me, he knows what it means!); despite his many professional, political and philanthropic accomplishments, I suspect that Mike Bloomberg is perhaps most proud of the incredible corporate culture that he created at his eponymous company more than 20 years ago.
I learned a lot about journalism that summer, but I learned even more about startups and the importance of a founder-driven company culture. It made a distinct impression on me that I have tried to instill in the two companies I have helped start -- Hotwire and Zillow -- cultures as exciting and passionate as Bloomberg’s. I’m fortunate these days to have even more tools at my disposal to help gauge employee morale. One of my favorites would have to be Glassdoor, where I can see what Zillow employees think about working here and what they think about the job I’m doing (my 98 percent approval rating is something I work hard to maintain).
Twenty years after that summer, I still cherish my Bloomberg experience, and my souvenir mug. I have had a sentimental affinity for Bloomberg, and I was pleased to host Matt Winkler as part of the Zillow Speaker Series a few months ago where he spoke with our employees. I was ecstatic when Zillow data began being published on Bloomberg Professional Services. And I love visiting Bloomberg’s offices in San Francisco or New York, and going on Bloomberg television.
It was a summer to remember.
Connect with me (@SpencerRascoff) on Twitter. Follow Zillow on LinkedIn.

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Spencer Rascoff

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