$78 'rort' that's turned Blackmagic's Grant Petty into a billionaire

When Grant Petty was growing up in Shepparton in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, his family didn't have much money so he took to 'rorting' the system to fund his early education in electronics. Petty went on to start Blackmagic Design, a company that designs cameras and editing systems for the entertainment industry that turned over ¾ of a billion dollars in 2021.

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Background reading

• Grant Petty doesn't play by traditional business rules: He mocks human resources departments who love to use psychometric testing. His accountants pull their hair out because he insists on paying more tax than he should. And, people probably thought that he was “pyscho” in the early days of building Blackmagic Design, a video equipment and software company that’s become so successful it made him a billionaire this year.
• 14 lessons for success: Founders need to “stop caring about how you look or what people think of you and focus”. Also, “be a little crazy”.

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