Elon Musk

          If you’re an aspiring businessman, especially an entrepreneur, then Elon Musk should be your number one, modern-day idol. There is one thing Musk is not afraid to do and that’s take a gamble on something he believes in. It is worth noting, Musk has failed before. Hasn’t every successful entrepreneur/business owner? The current CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX was virtually broke in 2008 after SpaceX faced three failed missions and Musk had run out of money to invest in Tesla. In an interview with Bloomberg, Musk stated, “You have these huge doubts that your life is not working, your car is not working, you’re going through a divorce and all of those things. I felt like a pile of s---. I didn’t think we would overcome it. I thought things were probably f---ing doomed.” Musk decided to reach out to a couple of his friends for loans to get both companies back on there feet. It was that or he had to choose, between the two, which company would keep its doors open. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and Bill Lee lent him $2.5 million. Soon after that, a few balls fell in the entrepreneur’s court and SpaceX had landed a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to resupply the space station with supplies the next 12 times. Musk claims that if it weren’t for that deal, he was hours away from Tesla filing for bankruptcy. Look at Tesla today! The company is worth $33.86 billion and Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, has reportedly stated that he wants 500,000 Tesla’s in his Uber fleet by 2020. Dream big kids.

“If at first you don’t succeed: try, try, try again.” – William Hickson

Dunleavy Done, Now Time for Buckets

          Screw you, Lebron. Dunleavy is staying in the greatest city on Earth. Bulls’ small forward, Mike Dunleavy, Jr., has signed a 3-year deal worth $14.4 million. While signing a 35-year old to a 3-year deal seems a little bit crazy, you have to remember that Lebron decided to open his mouth about Dun, forcing the Bulls to make his pot a little sweeter. In a quote regarding the new contract, Dunleavy stated, "I love my teammates and the organization and the fans and living in Chicago. My kids are happy here. My wife is happy. It really was a priority to come back." Like I said, the windy city is a great place to be and I am obviously not the only one that agrees.

          In similar news, Jimmy “Buckets” Butler is expected to sign a new contract with the Bulls in the next couple days. It is projected the deal will be a 3-year + a 1-year player option or a 4-year + a 1-year player option. Insiders say the max contract could be north of $90 million when it’s all said and done. Butler also has meetings set up with the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, and Dallas Mavericks. Although, it is highly unlikely any of them would be capable of matching a deal that Chicago is capable of proposing. Good news for Chicago. It’s about time someone else besides the Blackhawks does some real winning. We all know you can’t count on the Cubs.

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Saad So Sad

         Yesterday, Blackhawks’ left winger Brandon Saad was traded in a 7-person deal to the Columbus Blue Jackets.  The 22-year old was very successful in his time with the Blackhawks, getting his name engraved on the Stanley Cup twice and scoring 8 goals in this year’s playoffs. Unfortunately, with the Blackhawks current salary cap dilemma, they were unable to pay Saad the long-term, north of $5 million contract that he desired (and deserved). While we all knew there were going to be some major changes this off-season in an effort to continue the streak Chicago hockey has going, it’s sad to see such a young talent leave. The unnerving part to me is all of the reports being made that Saad was unaware that he was being traded. Jay Zawaski of Chicago’s 670 The Score tweeted that he heard from a “great source” that Saad is absolutely crushed about the trade and didn’t think he was even going to be traded in the first place. I agree with Zawaski that there must have been some sort of lack of communication with his agent. Let’s not forget that two days after they won this year’s title, Saad suggested that he would be willing to take less money in order to stay with Chicago. To me, it seems as if Saad’s agent is being too greedy and not allowing Saad to continue doing what he prefers. He has said before, “The money is going to come and go. But to win championships and play on a great team, that’s what it’s all about.” Unfortunately for us Blackhawks fans, what's done is done. I wish Saad a fantastic career in Columbus. The kid’s a stud.

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Knight Takes a Knee

          If you watch college football, you’ve seen University of Oregon’s weekly new uniforms. Many would agree that Oregon’s football team started a revolution of big schools in the NCAA upping their uniform game. This would not have been possible without the help of Oregon’s ex-track and field runner and Nike’s co-founder and chairman, Phil Knight. Knight graduated from the University of Oregon in 1959 before he founded Nike on January 25, 1964. Nike, Inc., who trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NKE, has a current market cap of $92.57 billion and it is reported that their sales have doubled over the last 9 years. Phil Knight has been known, ever since he struck it rich, to donate massive amounts of money to his alma mater. Most recently Knight donated $68 million to the university for them to build a new Football Performance Center. It is estimated that Knight has donated over $300 million in the last 20 years. As many of you have probably heard, Phil Knight announced earlier today that he is stepping down from his position of chairman at Nike. Although that no longer leaves him with a position at the company, Knight stated very firmly that he still intends to continue working with the company and contributing to its future. He recommended that when he steps down officially in 2016 current CEO, Mark Parker, will succeed him as chairman. Although it seems as if it is the end of an era for Nike, rest assured that Mr. Knight still has great plans for University of Oregon to continue pushing the envelope for uniforms.

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FitBit IPO: In Case You Missed It

          Our blog has been up and running for a while now, so if you just started reading then you may have missed some of, what I consider, my top posts. I mean that in the sense that I am just trying to toot my own horn and say “check me out”. What I am getting at though is that I think there is some good material further down my blog that I would like to bring to your attention, in hopes that you find it as interesting as I did. When I choose the topics I am going to write about, I try to choose topics that haven’t been completely beaten to death by the rest of the media. If I do choose a topic that is very mainstream at the time, then I try to take an approach that very few others are doing. One such post was the one I wrote on The FitBit IPO. At the time I wrote it, everyone was going crazy about how much the stock skyrocketed since it went public. Now, while I can say that it has done better than I thought it would after it closed the week at $32.50 (trading now at $36.56), most of the points that I made in the post are still very relevant. If you are fairly unfamiliar with IPOs or are looking for further information on FitBit’s IPO, I would suggest you give the post a read. I’d be willing to guess you will dig a little deeper into the IPO once you do.