You Only Have to Be Right Once: The Rise of the Instant Billionaires Behind Spotify, Airbnb, WhatsApp, and 13 Other Amazing Startups - Paperback

by Randall Lane (Author)

THE ULTIMATE INSIDER LOOK AT THE NEWEST TITANS OF TECH--
AND WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM THEIR SUCCESS.

Silicon Valley's newest billionaires represent a unique and unconventional breed of entrepreneur: young, bold, and taking the world by storm with their extreme speed, insatiable hunger, and progressive leadership. They are all turning just one brilliant insight or hook into money at a rate never before seen in human history--creating companies that, even with no revenue, garner insane valuations.

With unique insider access to the world's most influential and wealthy entrepreneurs, Forbes has dug in to find what these superentrepreneurs say about their own success. This book, introduced, edited, and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, is the first comprehensive look at who these instant tech billion­aires are and how they achieved their quick wins. With sixteen illuminating pieces, we get behind-the-scenes examinations of the founders of Tesla, Spotify, Airbnb, Tumblr, Twitter, and more, including:

-ELON MUSK: The billionaire founder of Paypal, electric carmaker Tesla, and private space company SpaceX. His extreme ambition is matched by his preternatural engineering mind; no wonder he was the model for Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Iron Man.

-EVAN SPIEGEL: In 2013, the twenty-three year-old founder of Snapchat declined a $3 billion cash offer from Mark Zuckerberg. Today, Snapchat is valued at $16 billion. The story of Snapchat's origin is even wilder than Facebook's, but Spiegel's ability to parlay infamy and popularity into revenue is still up in the air.

-ALEX KARP: An eccentric philosopher with almost no tech background turned a Peter Thiel-backed venture, Palantir, into a data-mining champion, with clients like the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA. Amid heated privacy concerns, Karp continues to grow Palantir like crazy, to over $1.5 billion in funding and an estimated $1 billion in contracts in 2014.

You Only Have to Be Right Once is the definitive collection of everything we can learn from these incredible game changers and what their next moves spell for the future of business.

Author Biography

RANDALL LANE is the editor of Forbes and the author of The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane.

Since 1917, FORBES has provided leaders with strategic insight and information. The largest business magazine in the world, Forbes has 6.1 million readers in the United States and more than thirty international editions.