I asked Claudia if she would still love me in 40 years. I don’t know why I asked. Maybe because she was making me coffee. If every morning someone asks you to make coffee, how can you love him? Maybe she would get tired of it. To be blunt: I would not like making her… Continue Reading

Louis CK turned down $500,000 a year from Conan in the early 90s so he could go broke instead. Conan wanted to hire him as head writer of his show. Every step of the way in the 20 years since he put a challenge in front of himself that seemed impossible and it was until… Continue Reading

The woman had tattoos etched beautifully over her arms and told me the story of each one. Her husband owned the rights to 14,000 songs and told me the 20 year roller coaster ride of how he had acquired them. He owned the rights to almost all my favorite songs. I learned an immense amount… Continue Reading

I’ve given up right before the finish line. It’s not as bad as people say really. It even has a nice ring to it. French. “I’m a self-saboteur”. Maybe I’m a spy. Like, right when you are about to make a lot of money, or finish a book, or get a job, or whatever, you… Continue Reading

The best negotiator I knew always acted like an idiot. He acted so well that I thought he was really stupid. I also thought at the time that he was my best friend. That was probably an act also. Just two years later he stopped talking to me forever. I ran into him in the… Continue Reading

“You interrupt too much,” people email me. “Let your guests finish talking.” But I can’t help it. I get curious. I want to know! Now! Over the past year I interviewed about 80 guests for my podcast. My only criteria: I was fascinated by some aspect of each person. I didn’t limit myself by saying… Continue Reading

Robbie Abed wanted to have coffee with me in 2011. Then in 2012 and 2013 and this year. I kept saying No. Robbie told me he has 250 coffee meetings a year. So in one way of thinking about it, I’m one in 250. And over a period of four years, I’m one in a… Continue Reading

I lost $15mm cash in one summer. It was about a million a week and then it picked up speed. Ugh, I’m like reading the newspaper twice. I know I’ve written about this before. But bear with me. I bought a house. I invested in bad companies. I started worse companies. I bought art. I… Continue Reading

When I met with Bernie Madoff to see if he would put money into my hedge fund I had no idea he had a scheme. Everyone said later, “We always knew”. But on the way to the meeting, those same people were calling me and saying, “ask him if we could invest.” They would deny… Continue Reading

Yoshiro Nakamatso would suffocate himself underwater in order to come up with ideas. He invented the floppy disk when he was within 1/2 second of his death, about to drown. He has 4000 patents. He also has photographed every meal he’s ever taken for the past 34 years. He claims he’s the most prolific inventor… Continue Reading

Claudia is a little upset at me. She doesn’t like when I give out my phone number. “You’re going to get too many calls,” she said. Ok, but I want people to text me with questions for our “Ask Altucher” podcasts. But sometimes I pick up the call. Last night I got a call from… Continue Reading

“OH, HOW BLESSED YOUNG MEN ARE WHO HAVE TO STRUGGLE FOR A FOUNDATION AND BEGINNING IN LIFE.” John D. Rockefeller “HE SAYS THE BEST WAY OUT IS THROUGH AND I AGREE TO THAT, OR IN SO FAR AS I CAN SEE NO WAY OUT BUT THROUGH.” Robert Frost “WHAT STANDS IN THE WAY BECOMES THE WAY.” Marcus Aurelius Source

Name one valuable commodity of which both you and Bill Gates have the same amount. Or Warren Buffett. Or Carlos Slim.

“Everyday we have an opportunity to create a living masterpiece.” – Michael Gervais “That’s what I’m f%&*ing talking about!” was not the typical conclusion of the presentations at San Francisco’s Wisdom 2.0 conference — where Zen teachers, such as Eckhart Tolle or Jon Kabat-Zinn, spoke on the role of mindfulness in the tech community —… Continue Reading

Some are better at allocating the pie than others I am not personally a fan of most “How CEOs Succeed” books because: a) I’m not one and; b) most are pretentious self-serving ghost written cookie cutter full of tired clichés. However, to do CEO.CA justice, I thought it would be worthwhile to sing the praises of… Continue Reading