NYC Mayor Bloomberg on Steve Jobs, Entrepreneurship, and NYC

Entrepreneurship is increasingly becoming a popular field of study at top MBA programs across the country. My alma mater (Stanford) is most well known for its entrepreneurial spirit, but other programs including Wharton and MIT Sloan have solid programs in the study of entrepreneurship as well.

Last, GMATPill had the luxury of listening to Mayor Bloomberg give a speech about entrepreneurship at NY Tech Meetup. For those of you who don’t know, Mayor Bloomberg used to work on wall street–in the back office way back in the early 70s. He actually got FIRED and rumor has it that he “cried like a baby.”

Getting fired can’t be fun so I’m sure a lot of us would be pretty desperate in his shoes as well.

But Bloomberg didn’t give up. He figured with all the work that he did at the investment bank, he could just independently start his own business and sell that same stuff to clients. It wasn’t easy but he mustered through.

As he says in the speech, the first year is easy because you’ve got all your hopes up and your motivation is there. The third year is easy as well because you see the light at the end of the tunnel and you know you’re results are about to come.

But it’s the middle year that is the toughest – when you’ve gone a long way but haven’t gotten any results yet. Motivation isn’t quite as strong as it was in the beginning and you don’t know if you’re on the right track.

This is the risk in entrepreneurship. But Bloomberg adapted with things like the rise of the PC at the time and other trends in the market. He started selling terminals to all the banks in NY – and today it’s one of the most well-established brands in data services for all of finance.

Oh, right to top all of that, he’s also the MAYOR OF NEW YORK – the epicenter of all business in the western hemisphere and possibly the entire world.

So listen up to Bloomberg’s speech. He talks about Steve Jobs – similarities they both have (both got fired from their company and rebounded to the point where the former company worked for them) and both believe in listening to your customers — but not TOO much.

He also talks about his vision for driving NYC to be the a hub of entrepreneurship and innovation at the same level as Silicon Valley.

If you want to start your own business one day, you’ll learn a thing or two! Take a listen!

Table of Contents | See Pricing

Verbal Videos: Sentence Correction | Critical Reasoning | Reading Comprehension
Quant Videos: Problem Solving | Data Sufficiency

Question from Reader – Sentence Correction | GMAT Prep

[quote="sungoal"]India, like Italy and China, has no single dominant cuisine: Indian food comprises many different styles of cooking, [u]with each a product of their[/u] regional influences, from the fiery vegetarian dishes of the south to the Portuguese-influenced Goan cooking of the west, to the more familiar Mogul food of the north.

a) with each a product of their
b) with each as a product of its
c) each products of their
d) each a product of
e) each products of

Source: Official GMAT Paper Test Question

Experts please explain, why option B is wrong? Why is it wrong “with each as a product” to modify “styles of cooking” ?

Why the pronoun “its” is incorrect in option B. Isn’t this pronoun referring to “each” ?

Experts please help, I am really confused. [/quote]

I surprisingly arrived at (D) in less than 10 seconds. Here’s how:

Step 1) I recognize this sentence structure–they’re trying to describe the many different styles – but you want to describe them individually in a certain way. So I knew you have to use the word “each” in the beginning. That narrows it to (C), (D), and (E).

Step 2) When you say “each” – it’s singular so whatever follows must be the SINGULAR form – even though the overall context of what we’re talking about is plural (styles). Recognizing this potential trap and knowing what the answer should be, I was able to identify (D) as the only answer choice that as the SINGULAR form of “product”

Step 3) Choose (D) confidently and move on.

Hope that helps.

For more GMAT Prep help, sign up for GMAT Pill course to increase your GMAT score.

Table of Contents | See Pricing

Verbal Videos: Sentence Correction | Critical Reasoning | Reading Comprehension
Quant Videos: Problem Solving | Data Sufficiency

Quick Math Question

Hi GMATPill,

I am a few days away from my exam and I wanted to reach out and ask you a question that I saw on my recent practice test. The question is as follows:

A certain city with a population of 132,000 is to be divided into 11 voting districts, and no district is to have a population that is more than 10 percent greater than the population of any other district What is the minimum possible population that the least populated district could have?

A. 10,700
B. 10,800
C. 10,900
D. 11,000
E. 11,100

When I saw this I completely froze. Even after looking at this question with some time on my side, I don’t even know where to begin. Can you walk me through how you would attack this problem?
Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

James

——————–

Hi James,

If you want to minimize the possible population for 1 specific district, then the other 10 must be at the maximum–which is 10% more than that single minimum.

Let x = that 1 district. The other districts must be 10% greater.

So
x + (1.1)*10*x = 132,000

x+11x = 132,000
12x=132,000
x=11,000

So the answer would be D.
Hope that helps.

GMAT Pill Support Team

Table of Contents | See Pricing

Verbal Videos: Sentence Correction | Critical Reasoning | Reading Comprehension
Quant Videos: Problem Solving | Data Sufficiency