DuPont

Billy of the Month: how Saylor got DuPont to seed-fund his startup

In a Billy-of-the-Week-style riff, Shaan tells how a 24-year-old Saylor quit DuPont after they ignored his simulation results, then negotiated DuPont into giving him $250K, letting him hire 8-10 of their people, and becoming his first multimillion-dollar customer to start MicroStrategy.

“You give me a quarter million dollars and I want to hire some of my colleagues from DuPont. I want to hire 8 to 10 people from there. And I want you to be my first customer. So I want you to give me a few million dollars worth of contracts to do work for you. And I'm going to start my company, MicroStrategy”