In his fifth piece of advice, Bloomberg used the basketball metaphor of shooting the long ball to encourage graduates to take bold risks. He drew from his own experience of being fired from his job at Salomon Brothers, then using his severance to start Bloomberg LP, a company that would eventually make him one of the wealthiest people in the world. Bloomberg's point was reinforced by the arc of his own life: an engineering major who went to business school hoping to run a factory, got into finance, got fired, started a technology company, and then ran for mayor — none of which he could have predicted. His career was proof that not every risk works out, but the biggest risk is never taking one at all.