Arthur Blank, founder of Home Depot, once returned to my alma mater (Babson) and reminded his classmates that he had offered any of them stock in the company. He asked the crowd to raise his hand if they bought any, and indeed none of them had. Then he proceeded to tell them how much it would have been worth. Jerk.

My friend Mike told me the story of his grandfather who owned a spa invented a soup that floats so he could save money. Ivory bought it without royalties for about $10K. Bummer.

And now we read this post by Philadelphia entrepreneur Josh Kopelman who was in communication with YouTube back in August 2005. He passed on it, and his post is titled “Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda.” Ouch.

Ironically, I interviewed with Josh back in 1998 when he was working on a “secret” project. For some reason the interviews went nowhere. I later learned that Josh had started Half.com, which he eventuall sold with YouTube-like speed to eBay.

When things like this happen, you say to yourself…

It was meant to happen. Because it did.

And if you chant that enough times you might start believing it.