Paul Bilzerian

Paul Alec Bilzerian (, born 1950) is an American businessman and corporate takeover specialist. Education and family Bilzerian was born in Miami, Florida but grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts in an Armenian American family. His father, a civil servant, and his mother later divorced, leading to troubled teenage years for Bilzerian; he would later describe himself as a "juvenile delinquent". Called into the principal's office of his high school one day in 1968 for violating the dress code by wearing blue jeans, Bilzerian responded by dropping out of school. However, after serving in the Vietnam War and earning a Vietnamese Gallantry Cross, Bronze Star Medal, and Army Commendation Medal, he went to college and earned a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Political Science and graduated With Distinction from Stanford University in 1975. Bilzerian entered Harvard Business School that same year. He was unsure about his choice to attend, having passed on offers of admissions to several law schools to enroll at HBS. After his graduation, Bilzerian married Stanford classmate Terri L. Steffen in 1978, and moved with her to St. Petersburg, Florida. Bilzerian has two sons, Adam and Dan Bilzerian. Both Adam and Dan went on to careers as professional poker players.