Charlie Rose and Ted Turner
The highlight of Brainstorm so far was Charlie Rose’s interview of Ted Turner last night after dinner.
Charlie did his part perfectly and Ted was in rare form. In my opinion, Ted Turner is one of the greatest entrepreneurs around. He took big risks and got big rewards. He kept envisioning things and then making them happen.
There were enough one liners from Ted last night to fill a couple pages, but my favorite was “The US invasion of Iraq was as big a screwup as Time Warner’s sale to AOL”.
Last night we saw a humbler man. His fortune is 1/10th of what it was at its height, blown up by the decline in Time Warner stock. He admited that he “sold at the bottom because he was scared”. He was candid, funny, and full of the energy and enthusiam for life that has always characterized this man.
The interview was taped and will probably broadcast on TV at some point. I don’t see it on the schedule right now though.