I spent a good portion of my first job at Bloomberg working in my underwear.

Here’s the backstory.

I was the 15th person hired by Matt Winkler after he launched Bloomberg News in 1990. My job was to arrive at the office at 4 a.m. and summarize newspaper articles.

A three-man crew reviewed half a dozen major publications, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and wrote short summaries of key articles.

We aimed to write three pieces an hour and post the big ones before 7 a.m. when The Wall Street Journal published on its financial platform, Telerate.

Bloomberg effectively scooped the Journal with its own news because traders in Tokyo and London could profit from summaries posted on Bloomberg.

Bloomberg went on to displace Telerate, a financial debacle for parent company Dow Jones.

Our summaries weren’t the main cause, of course, but the project illustrated a culture laser focused on providing accurate information as fast as possible to clients.

Summarizing the media in such a deliberate, systematic way was unusual and disruptive at the time. Winkler said it was a customer service akin to what Reader’s Digest did for books.

The logistical question was how to do it. There was no internet, of course, and the newspapers weren’t dropped off at newsstands until about 7 a.m.

One member of the team, David Kleinbard, came up with the idea of buying the papers at a wholesaler on the Upper East Side. He picked up copies of the NYT, Journal, New York Post, Daily News, Investor’s Business Daily and Women’s Wear Daily every weekday.

David would bring the papers to the office on 59th Street where myself and Ken Kohn, the third member of the group, would scramble to check articles Bloomberg had missed.

Since Bloomberg News was so small, we had missed most everything.

The real challenge we faced was that the air conditioning systems in the building were turned off overnight. At 4 a.m., the air in the office was stuffy and the temperature sweltering.

The only option we came up with was to take off our clothes. We stripped down to our T-shirts and boxers, taking care to get dressed again before others arrived.

That first job taught me not to take competition for granted. There’s always someone out there who will get up earlier than you and go to greater lengths.

Last year, I left Bloomberg to start my own company, Principals Media. We do ghostwriting for executives and content strategy for organizations.

Ironically, I find myself encouraging media clients to summarize stories from other publishers.

I tell them it’s a solid way to cover a lot of ground.

That’s especially true when you have a small staff, many of whom are probably working from home in their underwear.

(Part of a series of life and business lessons I learned during three decades at Bloomberg LP)