Calacanis: Wales a 'poser,' not an entrepreneur"Jimmy Wales started his search company a year ago, and he was on the cover of Fast Company saying he's going to kill Google, and then he gave up after 11 or 12 months," says provocative serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, referring to the co-founder of Wikipedia in this episode of The Deal's Behind the Money video show. "That's not being an entrepreneur. That's being a poser."
"I think you have to fight the fight for years and not give up; so I don't have a lot of respect for people who give up," Calacanis (pictured) tells The Deal. "I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who fight and fight and fight and then fail."
Calacanis is no stranger to failure. As a teenager, he watched federal marshals show up with shotguns and close his family's bar in Brooklyn after his father failed to pay taxes.
"I was 16, and I curled up in a ball and just cried," Calacanis told Silicon Alley Insider co-founder Henry Blodget at Startup 2009 on Wednesday, a few minutes before we interviewed Calacanis.
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