Self-Made Billionaires - How They Started
Source:/Authors: MSN News, MSN Career, Photos
What is it that makes these individuals rare? Is it their strong conviction, ability to take risks, or self-efficacy? Here’s a look at the people who made it on their own to the billionaires’ list. All figures in U.S. dollars, as of August 2016.
Bill Gates (Co-founder, Microsoft)
Gates entered the tech world by writing a programming language called BASIC for the Altair computer system while he was still studying in Harvard. With its success during 1976, he went on to co-found Microsoft which later specialized in creating operating systems, including MS-DOS and Windows.
Larry Ellison (Co-founder, Oracle Corporation)
Growing up in a middle-class neighborhood, he dropped out from the University of Illinois as well as the University of Chicago. One of his early jobs included making database for the CIA. Soon he became interested in software development and founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with two partners. SDL was officially renamed Oracle in 1982.
Howard Schultz (CEO, Starbucks)
Coming from a humble background, Schultz earned a football scholarship in the Northern Michigan University. He started as a salesperson with Xerox Corp. He joined Starbucks as director of marketing, which he later bought in 1988 for $3.8 million.
Oprah Winfrey (Media mogul)
Winfrey won an oratory contest, which helped her secure a full scholarship in the Tennessee State University. Soon, she started working part time with WVOL, a local radio station, before anchoring news at Nashville's WLAC-TV. Oprah, a black woman in white-dominated media business, soon rose to fame with her talent to become the most popular TV presenter.
Richard Branson (Founder, Virgin Group)
Branson started his record business while running The Student magazine from the crypt of a church. The magazine used to carry interviews of famous personalities of the late 1960s as well as advertisements of popular records. Eventually, he opened a records shop at Oxford Street, London, England, and launched the label Virgin Records. Today, Virgin Group is a multinational venture capital conglomerate with interests in airlines, mobile phones, financial services, music, internet and more.
Jeff Bezos (CEO, Amazon.com)
Quitting his job as a vice president at the financial-services firm D.E. Shaw in 1994, Bezos set out to take advantage of the growing internet market by starting up Amazon. The eCommerce portal operated from a garage before settling into its current elegant headquarters in Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Elon Musk (CEO, SpaceX)
Moving to Canada at the age of 17, the South Africa-born Musk shifted to the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. as a transfer student. He made his mark by co-founding Pay Pal, and later went on to launch the electric car company Tesla and aerospace venture SpaceX.
Jan Koum (CEO, WhatsApp Inc.)
The founder of WhatsApp had a knack for computers from an early age. Before staring the widely popular mobile messaging service that was acquired by Facebook in 2014, Koum worked as a security and infrastructure engineer for nine years at Yahoo.
Mark Zuckerberg (CEO, Facebook)
Zuckerberg,
along with his several friends, started Facebook in 2004, allowing the
students of his university (Harvard) to connect with each other and
share information. In September 2006, the system was opened for
everyone.
Jack Ma (Founder, Alibaba Group)
Jack Ma convinced 17 of his friends to invest in his vision of an online marketplace called Alibaba. The company, which soon started attracting members from different parts of the world, has raised millions from various banks, including Goldman Sachs and Softbank. In 2005, Yahoo paid $1 billion for 40% stake in the company.
Warren Buffett (CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)
Owner of the multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, Buffet exhibited an entrepreneurial streak from an early age. Doing odd jobs like teaching and working as a stock broker during his formative years, Buffett invested in a loss-making textile company in 1962. Later on, he ventured into insurance.
Mark Cuban (Businessman and investor)
Cuban, who started his career as a bartender, founded his first tech company called MicroSolutions in the 1980s. He made it big by selling the video portal Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, and reinvested the money in multiple ventures, including television network AXS TV, cinema chain Landmark Theaters and movie studio Magnolia Pictures. He also owns the NBA team Dallas Mavericks.
Shahid Khan (Business tycoon)
While attending college, Khan started working part time at Flex-N-Gate, an automotive manufacturing company. He was eventually hired by them as an engineer after graduation. In 1978, he started his own company Bumper Works, which made car bumpers. Two years later, he dissolved the company and bought Flex-N-Gate from his former employer. Today, besides owning this company, Khan owns Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham Football Club.
Robin Li (Chairman and CEO, Baidu Inc.)
With a master’s degree in computer science, Li started as a consultant at a subsidiary of Dow Jones. After a brief stint with the search engine company InfoSeek in Silicon Valley, he co-founded China's No. 1 search engine Baidu in 2000. Baidu’s shares hit record high at the Nasdaq in 2015.
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