This guy bought a hotel nobody wanted and turned it into a $13 billion empire! Barry Sternlicht grows up in Connecticut, the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor who built a flashlight business from nothing then lost it all overnight. Barry earns a Harvard MBA, becomes a star dealmaker at a top Chicago real estate firm, and then gets cut when the savings-and-loan crisis hits. So he raises $20 million, drives to government auctions in open fields, and buys the distressed properties everyone else is walking away from, tripling his investors' money in 18 months. Then he quietly buys stock in a near-bankrupt hotel company, along with over half its debt. While every chain races to look the same, beige walls and a mint on the pillow, Barry does the opposite. ✓ Takes a rundown Doral Inn on Lexington Avenue and turns the lobby into something closer to a nightclub ✓ Puts staff in black T-shirts and velvet ropes at the entrance ✓ Fills the place with loud music you'd actually want to hear, and calls it W Hotels ✓ Scales it to 60 locations in under a decade Dad loses everything → star dealmaker gets cut → buys distressed property in open fields → bets on a bankrupt hotel chain → builds a hotel that feels like a nightclub → Marriott pays $13.6 billion → manages $130 billion today. Sometimes you win by making yours the one place that refuses to look like everyone else's. #Business #WHotels #Hospitality #Success #Entrepreneur @W Hotels @1 Hotels - @theventure