Successful startups struggle to cope with growth. Bloomberg LP was no exception.

Stuart Bell, the company’s first salesperson, shared with me a story that captures a sense of that drama and urgency and helps explain Mike Bloomberg’s success. 

The tale starts in April 1985 when Stuart was hired. Mike had just renegotiated a key provision in a contract with Merrill Lynch, which had provided venture capital and owned a 30% stake. 

Before that date, Bloomberg was basically an in-house trading system for Merrill Lynch that could be purchased by the firm’s buyside clients. Mike got Merrill to agree to let him sell terminals to other sellside firms (except the 15 largest competitors). Sales took off. 

“It was shooting fish in a barrel,” Stuart said. 

The company hired a score of sales reps including Ellen O’Dwyer, Dana Neuman, Glen Wolyner, Mark S. Dailey, and Curtis McCool. They were led by the first sales manager, Russ Lake. 

Everyone was crammed into a bullpen-like setup. 

“It was really tight,” Stuart said. “You had to get up to let anyone move. As more were hired, there was nowhere to sit.”

The set up led to a memorable incident that defined that chaotic year. It also illustrates Mike Bloomberg’s unique approach to problem solving.

One Monday morning, employees arrived and sensed something different.

It was hard to identify immediately, but upon closer inspection they realized that more desks had been added into the same already crowded space. 

Without telling anyone, Mike had hired carpenters to come in over the weekend. They removed the side panels on each desk, sawed off about 12 inches and reinstalled the panels, putting everything back as it had been.

That squeezed in another four desks so everyone had a chair.

Every problem has a solution. 

Successful companies win by coming up with creative alternatives. 

One of Mike’s strengths in the early days was his ability to solve problems without adding headcount or much expense. It required thinking differently. 

It’s fair to say most CEOs would assume desk size was unalterable, a kind of immutable law of the corporate universe that you couldn’t get around. 

Usually the answer would be to lease more space. But that would take time and cost money, both things that tend to be in short supply for startups. 

Stuart went on to a successful career that included opening Bloomberg’s first international office in London. He hired 200 sales reps and oversaw an office that grew to 450 within a decade.

Yesterday, Mike Bloomberg posted on social media that it was the 44th anniversary of his getting fired from Salomon Brothers. He started his company the next day.

I spent three decades at Bloomberg, first in News and later as a product manager and saw first hand the challenge of keeping up with growth. 

Managers resorted to a myriad of solutions, including adding desks to a row.

But as far as I know, they only cut off the desks once.