Sean Combs: very smart or the luckiest guy worth 350m on the planet?

[fish2plus2]

I saw one of the 30 minute mini biographies on an airplane about Sean Combs. He had a pretty interesting life. This was a recap of what I remember being on the show:

-His father was shot dead when he was a baby.

-He gets a job as in intern out of college. He discovers some new talent and quickly climbs the ladder to Vice President of the company at like 21 years old.

-He acts like a [censored] and gets himself fired, his girl friend has a baby. He moves into her Mother's house and starts his own company.

-He signs some talent and organizes a charity concert inwhich people end up getting killed from over crowding. He is still like 21 or something.

-He discovers Notorious Biggies Smalls and some other very popular stars and pretty much blows up from hear.

-Notorious BIG gets killed somewhere along the way.

-He tries to kill someone and gets off on the trial while another dude gets 10 years.

-He sticks it in j-Lo's loose pooper.

-He starts a clothing line and makes tens of millions more.

-He releases a bunch of albums which are widely successful.

NetWorth $350 million, surpassing Tiger Woods, Micheal Jordan and everyone else in entertainment business as of 2004.

Thoughts, opinions? My general feeling is that you guys probably hate his guts and think he latched onto BIG and would be working in Kmart otherwise.

[mbillie1]

I think he's a bit of a d-bag, but I don't think it can all be luck, especially after screwing that many things up. He's got to have some sort of sense for the business I would think. Either way I'd like to have 1/350th of his net worth.

[quinn]

[ QUOTE ]
He discovers Notorious Biggies Smalls and some other very popular stars and pretty much blows up from hear

[/ QUOTE ]
can we do a little better than this?

[donkeylove]

He obviously has an eye for talent which can be very profitable. His success is a combination of smarts,timing, and having a talent pool that is not business savvy which creates situations that he can exploit very heavily to his benefit. You have to give him credit. Kids go to Wharton to learn what he learned on the streets, and does business better than 99.9% of them. I just hope he never puts his own stuff out ever again because it sucks bad.

[fish2plus2]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He discovers Notorious Biggies Smalls and some other very popular stars and pretty much blows up from hear

[/ QUOTE ]
can we do a little better than this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, if you want to expand that'd be great.

[Artdogg]

he's a [censored] and buys his own records, but probably not any luckier than anyone else who makes it in that business

[J.C. Gloves]

He finds a way to continuously remain relevent. That to me is what makes him special. Love em or hate em the guy is a money-maker and always has his hands on all of the things that keep his name/face in the public to generate that huge figure he's worth.

Smart? Debatable...
Effective? Certainly

[Blarg]

Wasn't Oprah way ahead of him moneywise? I thought she was worth substantially more than 350 mil even then. Spielberg and Lucas I wonder about, too. Maybe McCartney.

[wisehandpoker]

Strikes me as incredibly driven and focused on the goal.

[fish2plus2]

He is the richest entertainer under 40 as of 2004, my mistake.