Ted Turner Built Wealth Before CNN

Sam tells the story of Ted Turner's entrepreneurial journey and the extreme lengths he went to make CNN successful.

"Ted Turner is in his 40s and at this point he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars because of a bunch of stuff that he's done. He starts CNN and invests almost all of his money into it, and no one would watch it.

So he does just ridiculous stuff. For example, late night they allow one of their newscasters to be a dog and they interview the dog. Another time it's actually Ted being interviewed but he puts a bag over his head so you don't know who he is and he plays this secret character.

What's interesting is guys like you or me or some people who have some amount of success, you think 'I can't stoop that low' or 'I can't do this stuff.' Then I read this stuff and I'm like, look what this guy did who's supposed to be this successful, permanent person.

There was another time where he had to get stitches on his forehead because when he first bought the Braves, no one would go. He did this seventh inning stretch game where it was who could push the ball to first base the fastest with their nose, and he was like 'screw it, I'll do it.'

I just think if he's willing to literally get on his hands and knees, there's nothing beneath me.

Also, his father owned a billboard company. His father died when Ted was only 22 or 24 years old and Ted inherited the business. But in order to inherit it, he actually had to raise money and debt to buy back a bunch of the assets because his dad was mentally ill and sold a bunch of parts of the company in bad deals. He had to raise money to buy back the business.

He goes from billboard company to buying radio stations to buying TV stations to ultimately buying the Braves and then starting CNN in his 40s."