Money
General Magic Had First Concept IPO Ever but Failed Despite Building iPhone Generation Early
Lewis Howes School of Greatness
The Science of Doing Less to Achieve More | David Epstein
What was said
"They were in the early '90s, they were the first so-called concept IPO ever where Goldman Sachs took them public without a product, just based on an idea because they had so much talent, so many resources. They were basically building the iPhone like a generation before it existed, before the internet even existed. They could do anything. So they did do anything."
Epstein reveals the cautionary tale of General Magic, which received the first concept IPO from Goldman Sachs in the 1990s with unlimited talent and resources to build essentially the iPhone before the internet existed. The company failed catastrophically because they pursued every idea without boundaries. Meanwhile, low-level engineer Pierre Omidyar left to create eBay after they rejected his idea as too small.
Verification status
Attributed speaker claim
Egleze verified who said this and where. The underlying claim has not been independently established by Egleze.
Source and context
Egleze verified who said this and where. The underlying claim has not been independently established by Egleze.
- Programme
- Lewis Howes School of Greatness
- Episode
- The Science of Doing Less to Achieve More | David Epstein
- Clip time
- 2:21
- Original source
- Watch the source segment →
From this episode
Lewis Howes School of Greatness