Word: oilman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...stayed around mostly because two of its founders, Lamar Hunt and Phil Anschutz, kept it afloat (unlike the women's professional league, which disappeared last year). Hunt, an oilman who also owns the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, and Anschutz, an oil and technology entrepreneur who owns too many things to count, have had a burning passion for the game that has consumed better than $100 million of their money. Hunt owns three and Anschutz four of MLS's 12 teams. The original idea was to unload all but one each as the franchise values increased. That was 10 years...
...promote its search engine, MSN announced a "Search and Win" contest, hoping to entice users with the prospect of a prize in every search. Inspired geeks like OILMAN cracked the source code to learn that the contest works by linking specific terms to prizes--a "Starbucks locations" search might yield a Starbucks gift card; he posted all 1,165 terms. MAKE YOU GO HMM dubbed the contest "Sit and Spin," scolding, "This is not how to get more people to use your search." Determined, THREADWATCH.ORG wrote a program that sent a keyword through the system 4,122 times. The booty...
...slept in whorehouses." He had no capital to invest in drilling, so he put the farmers and the oil companies together, typing the contracts on a portable typewriter on the hood of his rental car. His strength was making a deal look good, or as friend and fellow oilman Denny Bartell says, he had an ability to "powder the pig." Van Dyke would often keep a small percentage interest, but he was usually out of the operation before drilling began. "The first year, I made about $40,000, and that was 1952," he says. "I didn't find a barrel...
When West Texas got played out, Van Dyke took that dealmaking skill to the Gulf of Mexico. His finds were modest but rich enough to allow him to play the role of Texas oilman to the hilt. In 1969, when a man might pay $25,000 for a nice house in a decent neighborhood, Van Dyke spent $1 million for a house that he later embellished with a 1-acre man-made "lake...
...getting out. "People say, Van Dyke, why in the hell don't you retire?" he says. "Well, hell, I don't hunt and fish. I don't play golf. My wife won't let me chase girls, so what else is there?" And like any other great oilman, he's still got big dreams. "I'm taking all the properties we have in West Africa, going to make a great big sale, probably to the Chinese, the Indians, going to keep about a 15% interest." A deal like that could make him a billionaire and, of course...