Andrew Carnegie
ulacrouAndrew Carnegie started work at an early age as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, later as a telegraph clerk and operator with the Atlantic and Ohio Company. He was noted as one of the first operators to read telegraphic signals by sound.
His ability as a worker was noted by Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who employed him as a secretary starting in 1853. In 1859, when Scott became vice-president of the company, he made Carnegie superintendent of the western division of the line. In this position, Carnegie made several improvements to the service. When the American Civil War opened in 1861, he accompanied Scott, then Assistant United States Secretary of War, to the front.
While in this position he met also George Pullman, inventor of the sleeping car. Carnegie immediately recognized the great merit of the invention and readily joined in the effort for its adoption. The first sources of the enormous wealth he subsequently attained were his introduction of sleeping cars for railways, and his purchase in 1864 of Storey Farm on Oil Creek, in Venango County, Pennsylvania, which cost $40,000, and yielded in one year over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and where the oil well s secured a large profit.
Carnegie was subsequently associated with others in establishing a steel rolling mill .
In the late 1880s Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig-iron , steel-rails and coke in the world and can produce 2,000 tons of pig-metal a day. In 1888 he bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a railway 425 miles long, and a line of lake steamships. An agglutination of the assets of him and his associates occurred in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.
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John Wanamaker
John Wanamaker was a United States businessman, considered the father of the department store and modern advertising.
He opened his first store in 1861, called "Oak Hall" at Sixth and High Streets in Philadelphia, which grew substantially based on his revolutionary new principals: "One price and goods returnable". In 1869, he opened his second store at 818 Chestnut Street. Due to his increased reputation, he renamed the company John Wanamaker & Co. In 1875 he purchased an abandoned railroad depot and converted it into a large store, called John Wanamaker & Co. "The Grand Depot". Wanamaker's is generally considered the first department store.
He opened his first New York store in New York City in 1896 and continued to expand his business abroad with the European Houses of Wanamaker in London and Paris.
A larger store in Philadelphia was then designed by famous architect Daniel H. Burnham, and the 12-story granite "Wanamaker Building" was completed in 1910 encompassing an entire block at the corner of Thirteenth and Market Streets across from Philadelphia's City Hall. The new store was dedicated by US President Howard Taft, and housed the world's largest instrument, the Wanamaker Organ, and the 2,500-pound bronze "Wanamaker Eagle" in the store's Grand Court. This became a famous meeting place for Philadelphians simply saying, "Meet me at the Eagle." The Wanamaker building and the Grand Court became a Philadelphia institution. Wanamaker was an innovator, a merchandising and advertising genius, modest and had an enduring reputation for honesty. In 1889 Wanamaker began the First Penny Savings Bank in order to encourage thrift.
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William Henry Vanderbilt ( May 8 1821 รข€“ December 8 1885 ) was a businessman and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family. He inherited nearly $100 million from his father Cornelius Vanderbilt and had increased it to about $200 million at his death less than nine years later.
His father carefully oversaw his business training, at age 18 starting him out as a clerk in a New York banking house. After joining the executive of the Staten Island railway, he was made its president in 1862 then three years later he was appointed vice-president of the Hudson River railway. In 1869, he was made vice-president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company , becoming its president in 1877. As well, he took over from his father as president of New York Central Railroad , the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway , the Canada Southern Railway , and the Michigan Central Railroad .
He had worked with his father and following his death, actively expanded the family's railroad empire. In 1883, his elder sons assumed key positions. William Henry Vanderbilt was involved in a number of philanthropic causes including the YMCA, funding to help establish the Metropolitan Opera and an endowment for the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. In 1880, he provided the money for Vanderbilt University to construct the Wesley Hall building for use as the Biblical Department and library and included 160 dormitory rooms for students and professors, lecture halls, as well as a cafeteria.
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Showing posts with label Business Leaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business Leaders. Show all posts
Title: Ms Elim Chew; Founder and President of 77 th Street (S) Pte Ltd
Ms Elim Chew founded 77 th Street in 1988. It was her first foray into the retail industry and has since revolutionized the streetwear scene in Singapore. 77th Street has grown rapidly and currently has 14 outlets in Singapore, with a new concept accessories store at the high traffic Ang Mo Kio Hub. It established a name for itself in the Singapore retail industry with its unique range of street wear fashion and accessories.
In 2004, 77th Street became the first homegrown brand to set up a shopping mall - 77 th Street Plaza , a cutting-edge underground shopping complex strategically located at Xidan Cultural Square , Beijing.
Today, 77 th Street is the trendsetter for hip street wear fashion in Singapore and Beijing and has built a loyal following among the young and trendy, typically aged between 12 and 35.
In addition to expanding her retail businesses, Ms Elim Chew lends her expertise, experience and time to various youth organisations in Singapore . Currently, she chairs or co-chairs over 20 public service, youth and community groups. She also co-founded Singapore Street Festival, a platform for local talents in the performing arts, visual art forms, fashion, entertainment, sports and lifestyle trends; The Young Entrepreneur Mastery (TYEM), an non-profit academy which supports youth entrepreneurship and inculcates an entrepreneurial mindset in out-of-school youths.
As part of Ms Elim Chew’s on-going community campaigns, she launched My Voice in 2004, a book featuring 77 earnest real life experiences written by youths from all walks of life. My Voice is supported by Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports (MCYS), South East Community Development Centre (CDC), UFM 100.3FM and Drama Box. The 2 nd edition, My Voice – Breaking Free was launched on 9 December 2006 . All proceeds from the sale of My Voice is used for funding life skills, entrepreneurial and creative skills workshops run by TYEM, which guides youths to take on life challenges with purpose and confidence.
Ms Elim Chew is also a founding member and director of the Social Innovation Park (SIP), a social enterprise incubator which provides a replicable set of integrated services and resources that help create a platform to support social entrepreneurs' business solutions that advocate societal change. Through this platform, Ms Elim Chew championed PaTH (Pop and Talent Hub) Arts Market, the first social enterprise arts market in Singapore – gathering talents from social homes, institutions and also professional artists – advocating social entrepreneurship.
Title: Sim Wong Hoo; CEO and Chairman of Creative Technology
Sim Wong Hoo is a pioneer of computer sound systems and a designer and manufacturer of products for personal computers and personal digital entertainment devices. He helped guide Creative to success with the landmark Sound Blaster line of audio card products. It was among the first dedicated audio processing card to be made widely available to the general consumer.
Monaural Sound Blaster cards were introduced in 1989, and stereo cards followed in 1992 (Sound Blaster Pro). Over the years, the Sound Blaster line has been greatly enhanced to provide 3D audio and home theater quality sound directly from a PC. It has dominated the PC audio market and remains unchallenged by a major competitor since the late 1990s.
At age of 45, Sim Wong Hoo became the youngest billionaire in Singapore. He was also the first person to be named the Businessman of the Year twice, in 1992 and 1997. In 2002, he was named Person of the Year by the Singapore Computer Society in recognition of his contribution to the IT industry. He is widely considered to be the star entrepreneur of Singapore and he currently chairs Singapore's Technopreneurship 21 Private Sector Committee. In 1999, Sim Wong Hoo released a book entitled "Chaotic Thoughts From The Old Millennium".
Title: Kwek Leng Beng; Executive Chairman of Hong Leong Group Singapore
Kwek Leng Beng is the Chairman of City Developments Limited (CDL), an international property and hotel conglomerate and the leading real estate developer in Singapore. It operates in 17 countries in Asia, Europe, North America and Australasia. The CDL Group has over 200 subsidiaries and associated companies including 8 companies listed on the stock exchanges of Singapore, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, New Zealand and Manila. CDL has a market capitalization of US$5.8 billion and ranks just outside Singapore's top 10 listed companies. It is also the second-biggest property developer in Southeast Asia.
Kwek Leng Beng also chairs Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) Hotels, which is a London-listed international hotel group of which 53% share belongs to CDL. M&C is ranked 40th among the world's top international hotel groups and has a portfolio of 88 hotels with close to 25,000 rooms in 16 countries. Kwek Leng Beng’s Hong Leong Group also owns Hong Leong Finance, which is Singapore's largest finance company, with a network of 28 branch offices. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Singapore Management University. He also holds an honorary doctorate (DUniv) from Oxford Brookes University
Ms Elim Chew founded 77 th Street in 1988. It was her first foray into the retail industry and has since revolutionized the streetwear scene in Singapore. 77th Street has grown rapidly and currently has 14 outlets in Singapore, with a new concept accessories store at the high traffic Ang Mo Kio Hub. It established a name for itself in the Singapore retail industry with its unique range of street wear fashion and accessories.
In 2004, 77th Street became the first homegrown brand to set up a shopping mall - 77 th Street Plaza , a cutting-edge underground shopping complex strategically located at Xidan Cultural Square , Beijing.
Today, 77 th Street is the trendsetter for hip street wear fashion in Singapore and Beijing and has built a loyal following among the young and trendy, typically aged between 12 and 35.
In addition to expanding her retail businesses, Ms Elim Chew lends her expertise, experience and time to various youth organisations in Singapore . Currently, she chairs or co-chairs over 20 public service, youth and community groups. She also co-founded Singapore Street Festival, a platform for local talents in the performing arts, visual art forms, fashion, entertainment, sports and lifestyle trends; The Young Entrepreneur Mastery (TYEM), an non-profit academy which supports youth entrepreneurship and inculcates an entrepreneurial mindset in out-of-school youths.
As part of Ms Elim Chew’s on-going community campaigns, she launched My Voice in 2004, a book featuring 77 earnest real life experiences written by youths from all walks of life. My Voice is supported by Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports (MCYS), South East Community Development Centre (CDC), UFM 100.3FM and Drama Box. The 2 nd edition, My Voice – Breaking Free was launched on 9 December 2006 . All proceeds from the sale of My Voice is used for funding life skills, entrepreneurial and creative skills workshops run by TYEM, which guides youths to take on life challenges with purpose and confidence.
Ms Elim Chew is also a founding member and director of the Social Innovation Park (SIP), a social enterprise incubator which provides a replicable set of integrated services and resources that help create a platform to support social entrepreneurs' business solutions that advocate societal change. Through this platform, Ms Elim Chew championed PaTH (Pop and Talent Hub) Arts Market, the first social enterprise arts market in Singapore – gathering talents from social homes, institutions and also professional artists – advocating social entrepreneurship.
Title: Sim Wong Hoo; CEO and Chairman of Creative Technology
Sim Wong Hoo is a pioneer of computer sound systems and a designer and manufacturer of products for personal computers and personal digital entertainment devices. He helped guide Creative to success with the landmark Sound Blaster line of audio card products. It was among the first dedicated audio processing card to be made widely available to the general consumer.
Monaural Sound Blaster cards were introduced in 1989, and stereo cards followed in 1992 (Sound Blaster Pro). Over the years, the Sound Blaster line has been greatly enhanced to provide 3D audio and home theater quality sound directly from a PC. It has dominated the PC audio market and remains unchallenged by a major competitor since the late 1990s.
At age of 45, Sim Wong Hoo became the youngest billionaire in Singapore. He was also the first person to be named the Businessman of the Year twice, in 1992 and 1997. In 2002, he was named Person of the Year by the Singapore Computer Society in recognition of his contribution to the IT industry. He is widely considered to be the star entrepreneur of Singapore and he currently chairs Singapore's Technopreneurship 21 Private Sector Committee. In 1999, Sim Wong Hoo released a book entitled "Chaotic Thoughts From The Old Millennium".
Title: Kwek Leng Beng; Executive Chairman of Hong Leong Group Singapore
Kwek Leng Beng is the Chairman of City Developments Limited (CDL), an international property and hotel conglomerate and the leading real estate developer in Singapore. It operates in 17 countries in Asia, Europe, North America and Australasia. The CDL Group has over 200 subsidiaries and associated companies including 8 companies listed on the stock exchanges of Singapore, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, New Zealand and Manila. CDL has a market capitalization of US$5.8 billion and ranks just outside Singapore's top 10 listed companies. It is also the second-biggest property developer in Southeast Asia.
Kwek Leng Beng also chairs Millennium & Copthorne (M&C) Hotels, which is a London-listed international hotel group of which 53% share belongs to CDL. M&C is ranked 40th among the world's top international hotel groups and has a portfolio of 88 hotels with close to 25,000 rooms in 16 countries. Kwek Leng Beng’s Hong Leong Group also owns Hong Leong Finance, which is Singapore's largest finance company, with a network of 28 branch offices. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Singapore Management University. He also holds an honorary doctorate (DUniv) from Oxford Brookes University
Michael Dell
In 1984, as a first-year college student in Austin, Texas, Michael Dell borrowed $1,000 from his parents to start a computer accessories business. He began by selling kits to help customers upgrade their personal computers, establishing a business model his company, Dell, Inc., still follows today: sell directly to consumers, eliminating the middle step of a retail store or a distributor, and hold on to far more of the profits. In just two decades, Dell's company grew to massive proportions, with more than 47,000 employees and annual revenues of more than $40 billion. Dell himself was squarely at the top of Forbes magazine's list of the ten wealthiest Americans under the age of forty. He has been praised as a visionary and an innovator, but he has also earned admiration for being a stable, consistent leader. In an industry that changes rapidly, in terms of both technology and personnel, Dell has stood out from his peers by remaining at the helm of his company from its struggling early days to its current status as a major player in the global field of information technology (IT).
Michael Saul Dell was born in 1965 in Houston, Texas. While he displayed intelligence and ingenuity from an early age, he had little interest in school. At the age of eight, he sent away for information on taking a high school equivalency exam, which, if he passed, would make him a high school graduate without having to endure the remaining years of school. His parents insisted he stay in the classroom, and Dell invested his considerable creative energy in after-school ventures. When he was twelve years old, he operated a mail-order trading business for stamps and baseball cards, earning $2,000. At the age of fourteen, Dell got his first computer, an Apple II and soon realized that he had a knack for taking computers apart and putting them back together. While in high school, Dell took a job delivering newspapers for the Houston Post. His aggressive selling strategies—which included obtaining mailing lists of newly married people, offering them free trial subscriptions, and then following up with phone calls—resulted in earnings of $18,000. Not one to hold on to his spoils, Dell spent the money on a new BMW.
In 1983, when Dell entered his freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin, his parents hoped he would become a doctor, but Dell's skills lay elsewhere. In examining the personal computer, or PC, industry, he noticed an opportunity to sell PCs for less, as he explained to Richard Murphy of Success magazine: "I saw that you'd buy a PC for about $3,000, and inside that PC was about $600 worth of parts. IBM would buy most of these parts from other companies, assemble them, and sell the computer to a dealer for $2,000. Then the dealer, who knew very little about selling or supporting computers, would sell it for $3,000, which was even more outrageous." Dell realized that he could assemble computer parts, skip the step of selling to a dealer, and go directly to the consumer. That way the consumer could buy the product for less, and Dell held on to every penny of the profits. Dell thus combined his knowledge of computers with his well-developed business sense and began his own business, assembling upgrade kits for personal computers.
In a 1999 article in Fortune, Dell recalled operating his new business out of his University of Texas dorm room on the twenty-seventh floor: "People would ride up to the 27th floor with their computers. I'd put in some memory or a disk drive, they'd pay me, and I'd send them on their way." His earnings soon reached about $25,000 a month. By the summer of 1984, after one year at the university, Dell had decided that he needed to focus all of his time on his business, and he dropped out of college. His company, then called PCs Unlimited, began building PCs, starting with parts from such established computer companies as IBM and Compaq and adding elements to make the products unique. Dell continued to sell directly to consumers, a strategy that paid off in vast sums: by the end of 1984, his company had earned $6 million. Dell was off and running, leading his company to enormous growth year after year.
On March 4, 2004, he stepped down as CEO of Dell but stayed as chairman of the board, while Kevin B. Rollins, then president and COO, became president and CEO. On January 31, 2007, Dell returned as CEO, succeeding Kevin Rollins (who resigned earlier in the day).
Michael Saul Dell was born in 1965 in Houston, Texas. While he displayed intelligence and ingenuity from an early age, he had little interest in school. At the age of eight, he sent away for information on taking a high school equivalency exam, which, if he passed, would make him a high school graduate without having to endure the remaining years of school. His parents insisted he stay in the classroom, and Dell invested his considerable creative energy in after-school ventures. When he was twelve years old, he operated a mail-order trading business for stamps and baseball cards, earning $2,000. At the age of fourteen, Dell got his first computer, an Apple II and soon realized that he had a knack for taking computers apart and putting them back together. While in high school, Dell took a job delivering newspapers for the Houston Post. His aggressive selling strategies—which included obtaining mailing lists of newly married people, offering them free trial subscriptions, and then following up with phone calls—resulted in earnings of $18,000. Not one to hold on to his spoils, Dell spent the money on a new BMW.
In 1983, when Dell entered his freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin, his parents hoped he would become a doctor, but Dell's skills lay elsewhere. In examining the personal computer, or PC, industry, he noticed an opportunity to sell PCs for less, as he explained to Richard Murphy of Success magazine: "I saw that you'd buy a PC for about $3,000, and inside that PC was about $600 worth of parts. IBM would buy most of these parts from other companies, assemble them, and sell the computer to a dealer for $2,000. Then the dealer, who knew very little about selling or supporting computers, would sell it for $3,000, which was even more outrageous." Dell realized that he could assemble computer parts, skip the step of selling to a dealer, and go directly to the consumer. That way the consumer could buy the product for less, and Dell held on to every penny of the profits. Dell thus combined his knowledge of computers with his well-developed business sense and began his own business, assembling upgrade kits for personal computers.
In a 1999 article in Fortune, Dell recalled operating his new business out of his University of Texas dorm room on the twenty-seventh floor: "People would ride up to the 27th floor with their computers. I'd put in some memory or a disk drive, they'd pay me, and I'd send them on their way." His earnings soon reached about $25,000 a month. By the summer of 1984, after one year at the university, Dell had decided that he needed to focus all of his time on his business, and he dropped out of college. His company, then called PCs Unlimited, began building PCs, starting with parts from such established computer companies as IBM and Compaq and adding elements to make the products unique. Dell continued to sell directly to consumers, a strategy that paid off in vast sums: by the end of 1984, his company had earned $6 million. Dell was off and running, leading his company to enormous growth year after year.
On March 4, 2004, he stepped down as CEO of Dell but stayed as chairman of the board, while Kevin B. Rollins, then president and COO, became president and CEO. On January 31, 2007, Dell returned as CEO, succeeding Kevin Rollins (who resigned earlier in the day).
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey came from a humble background to become one of America's most influential women. Winfrey has amassed a great fortune through her media and publishing interests and uses her fame and wealth to positively influence the lives of people in need.
Born Orpah (after a character from the Bible) Winfrey on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi - USA, but now goes by the name of Oprah. At a young age Winfrey's parents separated and sent her to live with grandparents in very poor surroundings until the age of 6 when she moved to live with her mother. She was consequently se-xually mol-ested by male relatives at a young age and endured the hardship up until she was 14 when Winfrey moved to live with her father in Nashville Tennessee.
Living with her father did not eliminate her problems even though he was loving (yet strict) towards her. Winfrey struggled with dr-ugs and rebellious behavior and lost a baby after giving birth to it prematurely. Although her wild behavior conflicted with her father's strict rules and high standards she eventually began to settle after being awarded a University Scholarship.
"I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being." Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey studied at the Tennessee State University and received a BA in Speech and Performing Arts. Her father's high standards inspired her to aim for and achieve more from life. Winfrey became involved in several groups and pursued her interests in media and journalism while at University. Even though her early years in life where filled with hardship, she was always gifted with intelligence and she graduated as an honors student.
Oprah Winfrey's career in the media industry began as a news anchor and reporter for a television station in Nashville (although she also worked in radio during high school as a newscaster). She was the first black African American woman television news anchor to work in Nashville on the WTVF-TV station at the young age of 19. Winfrey never felt comfortable in her position as a news anchor and only began to enjoy her work when she was moved to the early morning talk show "People are Talking" at WJZ-TV in Baltimore where she was able to be herself and express her own opinions and share her true feelings about topics that moved her.
Winfrey's career really began to take off after moving to Chicago in 1984 to host "AM Chicago", an early morning talk show at WLS-TV's. It went on to become the number one ranked talk show shortly after she started and it was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show" after one year.
The Oprah Winfrey Show went on to become one of the most successful and highest ranked television talk show programs in history. The program is viewed by more than 20 million Americans (USA) every week and broadcast Internationally to more than one hundred countries worldwide. Winfrey's production company "Harpo Productions, Inc" produces the program and she is the host.
The daytime talk show focuses on issues close to Winfrey's heart and she has continued to cover topics of value to her mostly female audience for more than 17 successful seasons of broadcasting. The Oprah Winfrey Show started the wildly influential "Oprah's Book Club" in 1996 where Oprah endorses what she considers to be books of value. Books that received the Oprah endorsement often suddenly went to number 1.
Winfrey's business and personal interests are wide ranging and she has managed to accomplish success in several areas. Apart from being a successful Talk show host she is also a producer, successful actress, Founder of the successful "O, the Oprah Magazine", co founder of "Oxygen Media", and a generous Philanthropist. Her entrepreneurial spirit and desire to change society for the better have brought her and her numerous companies many awards and achievements.
"What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people's lives." Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey continues to follow her dreams through her many business and media interests. She is one of the wealthiest women in the United States of America and is regularly placed high up on the Forbes magazine Rich List each year. Winfrey continues to influence and inspire people worldwide with her example of overcoming great odds to achieve great success financially, spiritually and socially.
Born Orpah (after a character from the Bible) Winfrey on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi - USA, but now goes by the name of Oprah. At a young age Winfrey's parents separated and sent her to live with grandparents in very poor surroundings until the age of 6 when she moved to live with her mother. She was consequently se-xually mol-ested by male relatives at a young age and endured the hardship up until she was 14 when Winfrey moved to live with her father in Nashville Tennessee.
Living with her father did not eliminate her problems even though he was loving (yet strict) towards her. Winfrey struggled with dr-ugs and rebellious behavior and lost a baby after giving birth to it prematurely. Although her wild behavior conflicted with her father's strict rules and high standards she eventually began to settle after being awarded a University Scholarship.
"I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being." Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey studied at the Tennessee State University and received a BA in Speech and Performing Arts. Her father's high standards inspired her to aim for and achieve more from life. Winfrey became involved in several groups and pursued her interests in media and journalism while at University. Even though her early years in life where filled with hardship, she was always gifted with intelligence and she graduated as an honors student.
Oprah Winfrey's career in the media industry began as a news anchor and reporter for a television station in Nashville (although she also worked in radio during high school as a newscaster). She was the first black African American woman television news anchor to work in Nashville on the WTVF-TV station at the young age of 19. Winfrey never felt comfortable in her position as a news anchor and only began to enjoy her work when she was moved to the early morning talk show "People are Talking" at WJZ-TV in Baltimore where she was able to be herself and express her own opinions and share her true feelings about topics that moved her.
Winfrey's career really began to take off after moving to Chicago in 1984 to host "AM Chicago", an early morning talk show at WLS-TV's. It went on to become the number one ranked talk show shortly after she started and it was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show" after one year.
The Oprah Winfrey Show went on to become one of the most successful and highest ranked television talk show programs in history. The program is viewed by more than 20 million Americans (USA) every week and broadcast Internationally to more than one hundred countries worldwide. Winfrey's production company "Harpo Productions, Inc" produces the program and she is the host.
The daytime talk show focuses on issues close to Winfrey's heart and she has continued to cover topics of value to her mostly female audience for more than 17 successful seasons of broadcasting. The Oprah Winfrey Show started the wildly influential "Oprah's Book Club" in 1996 where Oprah endorses what she considers to be books of value. Books that received the Oprah endorsement often suddenly went to number 1.
Winfrey's business and personal interests are wide ranging and she has managed to accomplish success in several areas. Apart from being a successful Talk show host she is also a producer, successful actress, Founder of the successful "O, the Oprah Magazine", co founder of "Oxygen Media", and a generous Philanthropist. Her entrepreneurial spirit and desire to change society for the better have brought her and her numerous companies many awards and achievements.
"What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people's lives." Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey continues to follow her dreams through her many business and media interests. She is one of the wealthiest women in the United States of America and is regularly placed high up on the Forbes magazine Rich List each year. Winfrey continues to influence and inspire people worldwide with her example of overcoming great odds to achieve great success financially, spiritually and socially.
Bill Gates
Bill Gates is cofounder, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft, the most successful software company in the world, renowned for making software that is powerful and innovative while still being user friendly. Microsoft now employs more than 55,000 people in 85 countries.
William H Gates III commonly known as Bill Gates was born on 28th October 1955 and raised in Seattle along with his two sisters. Bill became interested in programming at an early age while attending one of Seattle’s most exclusive schools. Gates soon befriended a student named Paul Allen and together using the schools minicomputer they practiced their skills.
They turned to a computing company, in exchange for free use of a more powerful computer they searched for bugs in the computers system while also learning new languages. Bill went on to Harvard University and while there teamed up with Paul to write a new version of Basic programming language for the first personnel computer the Altair 8800. The company was impressed with Gates and Allen’s work and licensed the software resulting in Gates and Allen forming the company Microsoft to develop software for other companies. Bill dropped out of Harvard to spend more time on the new business.
Their break came when they developed an operating system called MS-DOS for the first IBM personnel computer, and later managed to persuade other manufactures to standardize their systems to run MS-DOS. This standardization started a new computer industry boom throughout the 1980’s as MS-DOS took hold of the market and gained popularity, Microsoft also started developing applications such as word processors.
Microsoft announced Windows 1.0 in 1983, which promised a graphical user interface (GUI) better graphics and multitasking. However the final product was not released for another 2 years until 1985, with very few compatible applications Windows did not sell well.
Over the next five years Microsoft released a number of upgraded windows 2.0 versions which added many programs, versatility and features. As Microsoft grew, its share price sky rocketed, and at the age of 31 Bill Gates became the youngest self-made billionaire in American history.
In 1990 Microsoft headed by Bill Gates created a new version of Windows called Windows 3.0 with a much improved GUI and features which sold more than 10 million copies, quickly followed by Windows 3.1, 3.11 and workgroups which added networking support. Building on their success Microsoft developed Windows 95 followed by windows 98, 2000, Millennium Edition and The current version Windows XP. Each new windows release has seen Microsoft gain more market share and along with their popular applications such as Office, games etc has seen Bill Gates become the richest man in the world worth an estimated US$46 billion.
Gates also has interests in other business having many investments and positions in company’s including Corbis Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Teledesic Corporation. In 1998 Gates gave up his role as CEO to focus on development of new technology and products.
Bill Gates married Melinda French Gates in 1994 and has three children, Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe. Both Bill and Melinda are keen Philanthropist’s starting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has committed more than $3.2 billion to global health, $2 billion to improve learning opportunities to low income families, $477 million to community projects and more than $488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.
Bill Gates development of software and programs has been his contribution to the revolution of computers and computer science.
William H Gates III commonly known as Bill Gates was born on 28th October 1955 and raised in Seattle along with his two sisters. Bill became interested in programming at an early age while attending one of Seattle’s most exclusive schools. Gates soon befriended a student named Paul Allen and together using the schools minicomputer they practiced their skills.
They turned to a computing company, in exchange for free use of a more powerful computer they searched for bugs in the computers system while also learning new languages. Bill went on to Harvard University and while there teamed up with Paul to write a new version of Basic programming language for the first personnel computer the Altair 8800. The company was impressed with Gates and Allen’s work and licensed the software resulting in Gates and Allen forming the company Microsoft to develop software for other companies. Bill dropped out of Harvard to spend more time on the new business.
Their break came when they developed an operating system called MS-DOS for the first IBM personnel computer, and later managed to persuade other manufactures to standardize their systems to run MS-DOS. This standardization started a new computer industry boom throughout the 1980’s as MS-DOS took hold of the market and gained popularity, Microsoft also started developing applications such as word processors.
Microsoft announced Windows 1.0 in 1983, which promised a graphical user interface (GUI) better graphics and multitasking. However the final product was not released for another 2 years until 1985, with very few compatible applications Windows did not sell well.
Over the next five years Microsoft released a number of upgraded windows 2.0 versions which added many programs, versatility and features. As Microsoft grew, its share price sky rocketed, and at the age of 31 Bill Gates became the youngest self-made billionaire in American history.
In 1990 Microsoft headed by Bill Gates created a new version of Windows called Windows 3.0 with a much improved GUI and features which sold more than 10 million copies, quickly followed by Windows 3.1, 3.11 and workgroups which added networking support. Building on their success Microsoft developed Windows 95 followed by windows 98, 2000, Millennium Edition and The current version Windows XP. Each new windows release has seen Microsoft gain more market share and along with their popular applications such as Office, games etc has seen Bill Gates become the richest man in the world worth an estimated US$46 billion.
Gates also has interests in other business having many investments and positions in company’s including Corbis Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Teledesic Corporation. In 1998 Gates gave up his role as CEO to focus on development of new technology and products.
Bill Gates married Melinda French Gates in 1994 and has three children, Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe. Both Bill and Melinda are keen Philanthropist’s starting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has committed more than $3.2 billion to global health, $2 billion to improve learning opportunities to low income families, $477 million to community projects and more than $488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.
Bill Gates development of software and programs has been his contribution to the revolution of computers and computer science.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is an example for a successful business man in America. Not only is he a business man, he is also an investor and a philanthropist. He is also the the primary shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Buffet, with his wealth worth US$40 billion, was identified to be the second richest man in the United States in the year 2009 after donating billions of dollars to charity. He was previously (in 2008) ranked, by Forbes, as the richest man in the United States with a net worth of US$62 billion.
Childhood: Buffett was already an entrepreneur from his childhood days. At the tender age of six, Buffett bought 6-packs of Coca Cola from his grandfather’s grocery store for twenty-five cents and sold them at a Nickel each, making a five cent profit from each sale. He earned money while other children were playing and having fun.
At eleven, Buffett and his sister purchased three shares of Cities Service at $38 per share. It soon fell to about $27 per share. Being persistent, Buffett held on to his shares until they rose to $40 per share, where he was hasty in selling them. Unfortunately, Cities Service soon peaked at $200 per share. He soon learnt the importance of patience.
In 1962, Buffett became a millionaire, because of his partnerships, which in January 1962 had an excess of $7,178,500, of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett. Buffett merged all partnerships into one partnership. Buffett discovered a textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett's partnerships began purchasing shares at $7.60 per share. In 1965, when Buffett's partnerships aggressively began purchasing Berkshire, they paid $14.86 per share while the company had working capital of $19 per share. This did not include the value of fixed assets (factory and equipment). Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway at the board meeting and named a new president, Ken Chace, to run the company. In 1966, Buffett closed the partnership to new money.
Steve Wynn
Steve Wynn was raised in New York, and graduated from The Manlius School, a private boys' school east of Syracuse, New York, in 1959. He studied cultural anthropology and English literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
Steve Wynn took over running the family's bingo operation in Maryland. He did well enough at it to accumulate the money to buy a small stake in the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where he and his wife Elaine moved in 1967. Between 1968 and 1972 Wynn also owned a wine and liquor importing company. He managed to parlay his profits from a land deal in 1971 (the deal involved Howard Hughes and Caesars Palace) into a controlling interest in the landmark downtown casino, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas (he also owned The Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, New Jersey). Wynn renovated, revamped and expanded the Golden Nugget from a gambling hall to a resort hotel and casino with enormous success, in the process attracting a new upscale clientele to downtown Las Vegas.
The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio
Wynn had previously acquired interests in various existing casinos. His first major Strip casino, The Mirage, which opened in 1989, set a new standard for size and lavishness, with construction costs to match. The Mirage featured an indoor forest and an outdoor "volcano", and with high-quality room appointments and an emphasis on service, The Mirage was another great success. The Mirage was the first project in which he was involved in the design and construction of a casino. The $630 million cost to build The Mirage was financed largely with junk bonds issued by Michael Milken. The Mirage was considered a risky venture by the standards then prevailing in Las Vegas because of its high cost and emphasis on luxury. However, it proved to be enormously successful and made Wynn a major part of Las Vegas history.
Wynn's next project was Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. It opened in 1993 at a cost of $450 million. With its live pirate show and location next to the Mirage, Treasure Island was another success for Wynn. The Cirque du Soleil show at the Treasure Island was the first permanent Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas.
Wynn expanded further on his concept of the luxury casino with Bellagio, a $1.6 billion resort, including an artificial lake, indoor conservatory, a museum-quality art gallery and branches of high-end boutiques and restaurants from Paris, San Francisco and New York City. The architect was the famous American Jon Jerde of The Jerde Partnerships. When built, Bellagio was the most expensive hotel in the world. The Bellagio is credited with starting a new spree of luxurious developments in Las Vegas. Among these developments include The Venetian, Mandalay Bay, and Paris Las Vegas.
Beau Rivage
He also designed and built a luxury resort, the Beau Rivage, in Biloxi. Beau Rivage was originally the name he wanted to give to the Bellagio. He then went to Italy on vacation and decided Bellagio was a better name for the hotel.
Ratan Tata the Chairman of Tata group
Ratan Tata became the Chairman of the Tata Group in 1981 after serving as Chairman in charge of the Nelco division of the group. Tata is India's largest conglomerate and includes the brands Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Power, Indian Hotels, as well as other brands labeled under the Tata name.
Ratan Tata was born in 1937 in Mumbai, India in one of the richest families in the country. His great grandfather, Jamsedji Tata, was the founder of the Tata group and passed the power and inheritance down to his family. Ratan Tata grew up in a broken household, however, after his parents split in the mid-1940s and he and his brother were raised by their grandmother, Lady Navajbai.
Tata was a good student and studied hard at the Campion School in Mumbai followed by studies in architecture and structural engineering at Cornell University. He graduated with his bachelors degree in 1962 and joined the Tata Group in December of that same year. Tata's first job with the Group involved working with the Tata Steel division where he worked with the blue-collar employees shoveling stone and working with the furnaces.
Although this original job was physically difficult, it allowed Ratan Tata to gain a better understanding and appreciation for the business and he gradually began taking on more responsibility. In 1971, Tata became Director-in-Charge of the National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (Nelco) in order to help its struggling finances. Ratan Tata helped build a better consumer electronics division but the economic recession and union strikes prevented his vision from taking hold.
Tata was eventually moved to Empress Mills in 1977, a struggling textile mill within the Tata Group. He renewed the vision for the mill but the larger Tata Group was not in agreement with his advice. Instead, the mill was shut down and liquidated in 1986, to Tata's disappointment, and he was moved to the Tata Industries, another holding company.
In 1991, he took over as group chairman from J.R.D. Tata, pushing out the old guard and ushering in younger managers. Since then, he has been instrumental in reshaping the fortunes of the Tata Group. Today the Tata group has the largest market capitalization of any business house on the Indian Stock Market.
Under Ratan's guidance, Tata Consultancy Services went public. In 1998, Tata Motors introduced his brainchild, the Tata Indica. The renewed financial success helped bring the Tata Group to the New York Stock Exchange and gave the company even more international power and prestige. Ratan Tata continued to acquire different industries for the Tata Group, eventually purchasing the steel an aluminum producer, Corus Group as well as Jaguar and Land Rover brands from the Ford Company.
He was listed among the 25 most powerful people in business named by Fortune magazine in November 2007. Later on, he made it to the Time magazine's 2008 list of the World's 100 most influential people.
In 2008, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian decoration in India and another award by the UK India Business Council for his significant contribution to Indo-British business partnership. He has contributed to the UK economy by employing 50,000 people since he acquired the Corus Group, an Anglo-Dutch steel and aluminum producer and the Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor company. Singapore Government conferred its honorary citizenship on Ratan Tata in recognition of his abiding business relationship with the island nation and his contribution to the growth of high-tech sectors in Singapore.
Ray Kroc, the man who made McDonald's worldwide
Ray Kroc was the mastermind behind the worldwide McDonald's fast food franchise. He was an American businessman who took over the small-scale McDonald's Corporation franchise in 1954 and built it into the largest, most influential fast food chain in the world.
Ray Kroc was born in 1902 to Czech-Americans in
During the late 1950s, Kroc tried his hand at selling paper cups. He even worked as a pianist for a short period of time before settling into a position as a milkshake machine salesman. He travelled around the country and sold milkshake machines to various different cafes and restaurants. He had been observing the layout and management of the industry and was convinced that many restaurants suffered from poor management. They were not living up to their potential. It was during this time that he ran across a small hamburger restaurant in
The restaurant, owned by the McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, ran eight of the same milkshake machines sold by the fifty-two year old Kroc. Since each machine could spin five milkshakes at once, Kroc was intrigued by the idea of a restaurant that needed the ability to make forty milkshakes at a time. He traveled to
Kroc approached the brothers with a business plan and eventually settled on a deal. As a result of the partnership, Kroc would receive only 1.4% of the franchisees' profit, giving 0.5% to the brothers. After some time, Kroc realized that his profit would be too minimal. So, in order to gain access to more of his investment, Ray Kroc convinced the brothers to sell him the rights to the McDonald's name.
Kroc envisioned a restaurant that ran like a factory and produced hot food, fast service, with consistent quality regardless of where the restaurant was situated in. He saw food preparation as a process and broke it down into steps that could be duplicated in any of his restaurants. This way, he could keep the product the same no matter where the McDonald's was located.
Low franchise fees made it easy to open new stores but cut into any potential profits for Kroc. As a result, Kroc decided to purchase the land on which McDonald's would open and ultimately serve as a landlord. He set up the Franchise Realty Corporation in 1956 and was able to purchase tracts of land in order to help him produce a profit for his company. By 1960 there were over 200 McDonald's around the
Kroc saw his franchise as a way to sell as service, not food. After all, Big Boy, Dairy Queen, and A&W were already established restaurant chains. Ray Kroc needed McDonald's to stand out. Consistency was the key and he made sure that every McDonald's ran the same. He established national advertising campaigns to support his restaurants and took the brand international in 1971 to
Kroc established various foundations for alcoholics, and also started the Ronald McDonald House foundation to help the families of children stricken with cancer.
The Hong Kong billionaire Li Kar Shing
Li Kar Shing is the wealthiest man in Hong Kong and East Asia. The
Li Ka Shing was born in Chaozhou in the Guangdong Province, Republic of China in 1928. In 1940 the Li family fled to Hong Kong and stayed at the home of his wealthy uncle to avoid the turmoil in China. The arrogance of Li's uncle with his immense wealth ignited Li's determination to make a place for himself in the world.
When his father died, Li was forced to leave school before the age of 15 to take up the responsibility of looking after the livelihood of the family. He found a job in a plastics trading company where he laboured 16 hours a day.
In 1950, after learning how to operate a plant, Li founded a plastics manufacturing company in Hong Kong with funds borrowed from family and friends and contacts he cultivated as a salesman. Li avidly read trade publications and business news before deciding to supply the world with high quality plastic flowers at low prices. Li learned the technique of mixing colour with plastics that resemble real flowers. After retooling his shop and hiring the best technicians he could find, he prepared for weeks for the plant visit of a large foreign buyer. Impressed by the quality of Li's plant, the buyer placed a huge order. A few years later, Li grew to be the largest supplier of plastic flowers in Asia. He made a fortune selling those plastic flowers.
In 1958 his interests moved to real estate and by 1971, he had founded Cheung Kong Real Estate Company. The company grew rapidly, and eventually being listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972. Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited continued to grow through acquiring major companies like "Hutchison Whampoa Limited" and "Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited".
Li’s business holdings span more than forty countries and have interests in providing electricity, real estate development, retailing, shipping container terminals, and large investments. Li's businesses (including Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa) account for more than 10% of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
He is also the widowed father of two sons, Richard and Victor. Both of them play important roles in Li’s business. Victor is the Managing Director and Deputy Chairman of "Cheung Kong" and the Deputy Chairman of "Hutchison Whampoa" while Richard is the Chairman of the information technology company "PCCW", one of the leading IT and telecommunications companies in Asia.
Being a billionaire has allowed Li to be a generous philanthropist, setting up the "Li Kar Shing Foundation" in 1980 to create "a culture of giving", he was named /
Examples of Business Leaders and their Contributions
Lakshmi Narayan Mittal
Lakshmi Narayan Mittal began his career working in the family’s steelmaking business in India, and has over 30 years of experience working in steel and related industries. Mittal founded the company Mittal Steel in 1976 and has been responsible for the development of its businesses ever since. Mittal Steel is a global steel producer with operations in 14 countries.
Mittal pioneered the development of integrated mini-mills and the use of Direct Reduced Iron or “DRI” as a scrap substitute for steelmaking and led the consolidation process of the global steel industry. Mittal Steel is the largest steelmaker in the world, with shipments of 42.1 million tons of steel and profits of over $22 billion in 2004.
Mittal was awarded Fortune magazines “European Businessman of the Year 2004” and also “Steelmaker of the Year” in 1996 by New Steel, and the “Willy Korf Steel Vision Award” in 1998, for outstanding vision, entrepreneurship, leadership and success in global steel development from American Metal Market and PaineWeber’s World Steel Dynamics.
Mittal is an active philanthropist. Mittal is a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the International Investment Council in South Africa, the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council and the International Iron and Steel Institute’s Executive Committee. He is a member in the Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management.
Mr. Mittal began his career working in the family's steelmaking business in India, and in 1976, when the family founded its own steel business, he set out to establish its international division, beginning with the buying of a run-down plant in Indonesia. Shortly afterwards he married Usha, the daughter of a well-to-do moneylender. In 1994, due to differences with his father, mother and brothers, he branched out on his own, taking over the international operations of the Mittal steel business (representing approximately 22- 23% of the whole group), which was already owned by the family. Mittal's family never spoke publicly about the reasons for the split.
On November 6th, 2009 it was announced that the Mittal Family Trust agreed to purchase Germany’s insolvent fashion group, Escada, including Escada’s main business, brand rights, production facilities and distribution network. Megha Mittal, the 33 year old daughter-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal, was reported by journalists at Bloomberg News to be the main instigator of the deal. The purchase price was not disclosed.
In 2009, Forbes Magazine listed Mittal the world's 8th richest person with personal wealth of US$19.3 billion.In 2008, Mittal was reported to be the 4th wealthiest person in the world, and the wealthiest in Asia by Forbes Magazine (up from 61st richest in 2004) up one place since a year before. The Mittal family owns a controlling majority stake in ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel company.
Sergey Brin
In 1979, when Brin was six, his family immigrated to the United States. In an interview with Mark Malseed, author of The Google Story, Sergey's father explains how he was "forced to abandon his dream of becoming an astronomer even before he reached college. Officially, anti-Semitism didn't exist in the U.S.S.R. but, in reality, Communist Party heads barred Jews from upper professional ranks by denying them entry to universities. The Brin family lived in a small, three-room, 350 square foot apartment in central Moscow, which they also shared with Sergey's paternal grandmother. Sergey told Malseed, "I've known for a long time that my father wasn't able to pursue the career he wanted," but Sergey only picked up the details years later after they had settled in America. He learned how, in 1977, after his father returned from a mathematics conference in Warsaw, Poland, he announced that it was time for the family to emigrate.. At the conference, he was able to "mingle freely with colleagues from the United States, France, England and Germany, and discovered that his intellectual brethren in the West were 'not monsters.'" He added, "I was the only one in the family who decided it was really important to leave.
Sergey's mother was less willing to leave their home in Moscow, where they had spent their entire lives. While her husband admits he was thinking as much about his own future as his son's, for her, 'it was 80/20' about Sergey." They formally applied for their exit visa in September 1978, and as a result his father "was promptly fired." For related reasons, his mother also had to leave her job. For the next eight months, without any steady income, they were forced to take on temporary jobs as they waited, not knowing whether their application would be granted. During this time his parents shared responsibility for looking after him and his father taught himself computer programming. In May 1979, they were granted their official exit visas and were allowed to leave the country.
During an orientation for new students at Stanford, he met Larry Page. In a recent interview for The Economist, Brin jokingly said "We're both kind of obnoxious." They seemed to disagree on most subjects. But after spending time together, they "became intellectual soul-mates and close friends." Brin's focus was on developing data mining systems while Page's was in extending "the concept of inferring the importance of a research paper from it in other papers." Together, the pair authored what is widely considered their seminal contribution, a paper entitled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine."
Combining their ideas, they "crammed their dormitory room with cheap computers" and tested their new search engine designs on the web. Their project grew quickly enough "to cause problems for Stanford's computing infrastructure." But they realized they had succeeded in creating a superior engine for searching the web and suspended their PhD studies to work more on their system.
As Larry Malseed wrote, "Soliciting funds from faculty members, family and friends, Sergey and Larry scraped together enough to buy some servers and rent that famous garage in Menlo Park.
[soon after], Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 check to “Google, Inc.” The only problem was, “Google, Inc.” did not yet exist—the company hadn’t yet been incorporated. For two weeks, as they handled the paperwork, the young men had nowhere to deposit the money."
In 2003, both Brin and Page received an honorary MIA from IE Business School "for embodying the entrepreneurial spirit and lending momentum to the creation of new businesses...". And in 2004, they received the Marconi Foundation Prize, the "Highest Award in Engineering," and were elected Fellows of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University. "In announcing their selection, John Jay Iselin, the Foundation's president, congratulated the two men for their invention that has fundamentally changed the way information is retrieved today." They joined a "select cadre of 32 of the world's most influential communications technology pioneers..."
Jeff Bezos
Bezos' maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations had acquired a 25,000 acre (101 km² or 39 miles²) ranch in Cotulla. Bezos' maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to the ranch, where Bezos spent most summers of his youth, working with his grandfather at the enormously varied tasks essential to the operation. At an early age, he displayed a striking mechanical aptitude. When a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.
Bezos was born when his mother, Jackie Bezos, was still in her teens. Her marriage to his father lasted little more than a year. She remarried when Bezos was five. Bezos' stepfather, Miguel Bezos, born in Cuba, emigrated to the United States alone at age 15 and worked his way through the University of Albuquerque. When he married Bezos' mother, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel Bezos became an engineer for Exxon. Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary in Houston from 4th to 6th grade.
Bezos showed intense and varied scientific interests at an early age. He rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room and maintain his privacy. He converted his parents' garage into a laboratory for his science projects. The family moved to Miami, Florida, where Bezos attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School. While in high school, he attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida; which helped him receive a Silver Knight Award in 1982. He entered Princeton University, planning to study physics, but soon returned to his love of computers and graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Bezos was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science and Technology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
After graduating from Princeton, Bezos worked on Wall Street in the computer science field. Then he worked on building a network for international trade for a company known as Fitel. Then Bezos worked for Bankers Trust, becoming a vice-president. Later on he also worked in computer science for D. E. Shaw & Co. Bezos founded in 1994 after making a cross country drive from New York to Seattle, writing up the Amazon business plan on the way and setting up the original company in his garage. His work with Amazon eventually led him to become one of the most prominent dot-com entrepreneurs. In 2004, he founded a human spaceflight startup company called Blue Origin.
Lakshmi Narayan Mittal began his career working in the family’s steelmaking business in India, and has over 30 years of experience working in steel and related industries. Mittal founded the company Mittal Steel in 1976 and has been responsible for the development of its businesses ever since. Mittal Steel is a global steel producer with operations in 14 countries.
Mittal pioneered the development of integrated mini-mills and the use of Direct Reduced Iron or “DRI” as a scrap substitute for steelmaking and led the consolidation process of the global steel industry. Mittal Steel is the largest steelmaker in the world, with shipments of 42.1 million tons of steel and profits of over $22 billion in 2004.
Mittal was awarded Fortune magazines “European Businessman of the Year 2004” and also “Steelmaker of the Year” in 1996 by New Steel, and the “Willy Korf Steel Vision Award” in 1998, for outstanding vision, entrepreneurship, leadership and success in global steel development from American Metal Market and PaineWeber’s World Steel Dynamics.
Mittal is an active philanthropist. Mittal is a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the International Investment Council in South Africa, the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council and the International Iron and Steel Institute’s Executive Committee. He is a member in the Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management.
Mr. Mittal began his career working in the family's steelmaking business in India, and in 1976, when the family founded its own steel business, he set out to establish its international division, beginning with the buying of a run-down plant in Indonesia. Shortly afterwards he married Usha, the daughter of a well-to-do moneylender. In 1994, due to differences with his father, mother and brothers, he branched out on his own, taking over the international operations of the Mittal steel business (representing approximately 22- 23% of the whole group), which was already owned by the family. Mittal's family never spoke publicly about the reasons for the split.
On November 6th, 2009 it was announced that the Mittal Family Trust agreed to purchase Germany’s insolvent fashion group, Escada, including Escada’s main business, brand rights, production facilities and distribution network. Megha Mittal, the 33 year old daughter-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal, was reported by journalists at Bloomberg News to be the main instigator of the deal. The purchase price was not disclosed.
In 2009, Forbes Magazine listed Mittal the world's 8th richest person with personal wealth of US$19.3 billion.In 2008, Mittal was reported to be the 4th wealthiest person in the world, and the wealthiest in Asia by Forbes Magazine (up from 61st richest in 2004) up one place since a year before. The Mittal family owns a controlling majority stake in ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel company.
Sergey Brin
In 1979, when Brin was six, his family immigrated to the United States. In an interview with Mark Malseed, author of The Google Story, Sergey's father explains how he was "forced to abandon his dream of becoming an astronomer even before he reached college. Officially, anti-Semitism didn't exist in the U.S.S.R. but, in reality, Communist Party heads barred Jews from upper professional ranks by denying them entry to universities. The Brin family lived in a small, three-room, 350 square foot apartment in central Moscow, which they also shared with Sergey's paternal grandmother. Sergey told Malseed, "I've known for a long time that my father wasn't able to pursue the career he wanted," but Sergey only picked up the details years later after they had settled in America. He learned how, in 1977, after his father returned from a mathematics conference in Warsaw, Poland, he announced that it was time for the family to emigrate.. At the conference, he was able to "mingle freely with colleagues from the United States, France, England and Germany, and discovered that his intellectual brethren in the West were 'not monsters.'" He added, "I was the only one in the family who decided it was really important to leave.
Sergey's mother was less willing to leave their home in Moscow, where they had spent their entire lives. While her husband admits he was thinking as much about his own future as his son's, for her, 'it was 80/20' about Sergey." They formally applied for their exit visa in September 1978, and as a result his father "was promptly fired." For related reasons, his mother also had to leave her job. For the next eight months, without any steady income, they were forced to take on temporary jobs as they waited, not knowing whether their application would be granted. During this time his parents shared responsibility for looking after him and his father taught himself computer programming. In May 1979, they were granted their official exit visas and were allowed to leave the country.
During an orientation for new students at Stanford, he met Larry Page. In a recent interview for The Economist, Brin jokingly said "We're both kind of obnoxious." They seemed to disagree on most subjects. But after spending time together, they "became intellectual soul-mates and close friends." Brin's focus was on developing data mining systems while Page's was in extending "the concept of inferring the importance of a research paper from it in other papers." Together, the pair authored what is widely considered their seminal contribution, a paper entitled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine."
Combining their ideas, they "crammed their dormitory room with cheap computers" and tested their new search engine designs on the web. Their project grew quickly enough "to cause problems for Stanford's computing infrastructure." But they realized they had succeeded in creating a superior engine for searching the web and suspended their PhD studies to work more on their system.
As Larry Malseed wrote, "Soliciting funds from faculty members, family and friends, Sergey and Larry scraped together enough to buy some servers and rent that famous garage in Menlo Park.
[soon after], Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 check to “Google, Inc.” The only problem was, “Google, Inc.” did not yet exist—the company hadn’t yet been incorporated. For two weeks, as they handled the paperwork, the young men had nowhere to deposit the money."
In 2003, both Brin and Page received an honorary MIA from IE Business School "for embodying the entrepreneurial spirit and lending momentum to the creation of new businesses...". And in 2004, they received the Marconi Foundation Prize, the "Highest Award in Engineering," and were elected Fellows of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University. "In announcing their selection, John Jay Iselin, the Foundation's president, congratulated the two men for their invention that has fundamentally changed the way information is retrieved today." They joined a "select cadre of 32 of the world's most influential communications technology pioneers..."
Jeff Bezos
Bezos' maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations had acquired a 25,000 acre (101 km² or 39 miles²) ranch in Cotulla. Bezos' maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to the ranch, where Bezos spent most summers of his youth, working with his grandfather at the enormously varied tasks essential to the operation. At an early age, he displayed a striking mechanical aptitude. When a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.
Bezos was born when his mother, Jackie Bezos, was still in her teens. Her marriage to his father lasted little more than a year. She remarried when Bezos was five. Bezos' stepfather, Miguel Bezos, born in Cuba, emigrated to the United States alone at age 15 and worked his way through the University of Albuquerque. When he married Bezos' mother, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel Bezos became an engineer for Exxon. Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary in Houston from 4th to 6th grade.
Bezos showed intense and varied scientific interests at an early age. He rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room and maintain his privacy. He converted his parents' garage into a laboratory for his science projects. The family moved to Miami, Florida, where Bezos attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School. While in high school, he attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida; which helped him receive a Silver Knight Award in 1982. He entered Princeton University, planning to study physics, but soon returned to his love of computers and graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Bezos was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science and Technology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
After graduating from Princeton, Bezos worked on Wall Street in the computer science field. Then he worked on building a network for international trade for a company known as Fitel. Then Bezos worked for Bankers Trust, becoming a vice-president. Later on he also worked in computer science for D. E. Shaw & Co. Bezos founded in 1994 after making a cross country drive from New York to Seattle, writing up the Amazon business plan on the way and setting up the original company in his garage. His work with Amazon eventually led him to become one of the most prominent dot-com entrepreneurs. In 2004, he founded a human spaceflight startup company called Blue Origin.
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