How to get rich by following in the footsteps of people who have made the history of successful business? Advice from 5 billionaires who started from scratch.
Becoming a millionaire starting from scratch is possible and the stories of rich men who have left a mark thanks to their successful business teach it.
From Jeff Bezos to Steve Jobs passing through Ralph Lauren, the Italian Leonardo Del Vecchio up to Howard Schultz, the examples of men admired for their entrepreneurial skills and the immense wealth accumulated are many.
These characters selected from the various millionaires and billionaires in the world have not only left teachings on how to make money, but have also transmitted testimonies on how to be successful in life and not give up.
From their stories of people who have built empires of wealth from scratch come precious suggestions for making dreams come true and achieving important goals. In addition to becoming a millionaire.
1. Jeff Bezos - Work hard, have fun, make history
The second richest person in the world, behind the famous Elon Musk, has seen his life radically changed thanks to the creation of the e-commerce company Amazon, which he co-founded.
According to Jeff Bezos, choosing to work hard is essential to being successful. “We are given certain gifts in life and we want to make the most of them,” he said during a 2017 question-and-answer session at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
But working hard at what you are good at is a choice that can make a difference. For example, “you could be really good at math; it could be really easy for you. It’s kind of a gift. But practicing that math and taking it to the next level, it could be very challenging and hard, and it could take a lot of sweat,”, Bezos has often repeated.
According to the Amazon CEO, whose net worth is estimated at $246 billion, the choice of a particular job really matters.
“When you have a gift and then you work hard, you’re really going to use that gift. When you do it well, it will lead to success,” Bezos said at a 2018 gala for First, a global nonprofit.
Hard work is certainly the key to Amazon’s success, and Bezos’s most famous advice is “Work hard. Have fun. Make history”.
That’s exactly what Bezos did. The son of an immigrant, the former Amazon CEO was already wildly successful by most people’s standards in 1994.
The youngest senior vice president ever at Wall Street investment bank DE Shaw & Co., the then 30-year-old Princeton University graduate was already earning an estimated six-figure salary and was set to rise even higher in the company’s ranks. But Bezos had other plans.
Fueled by a secret passion for the nascent business of electronics retailing, Bezos dreamed of creating his own company in the then virtually unexplored wilds of the World Wide Web. It was a risky move, but it soon paid off.
Just four years after Bezos created Amazon.com, the virtual bookstore became the model for how e-commerce businesses should be run, with sales of more than $610 million and more than 13 million customers worldwide.
2. Steve Jobs - Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish
Steve Jobs’ success story is incredible. An American inventor and entrepreneur, co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Apple Computer who became the biggest name in technology, Jobs left an indelible mark on the history of technology worldwide.
Through the Mac computer, iPhone, iPod, and iPad, Jobs’s visionary efforts revolutionized the fields of computing, music, film, and wireless technology, but his personal life was a mix of euphoric highs and deep lows. His tragic death at the age of 56, on October 5, 2011, from complications from pancreatic cancer, further cemented his legend.
Along with his many ups and downs, Jobs amassed a fortune that Forbes estimates will be worth $7 billion by early 2025.
Born Abdul Lateef Jandali, Jobs was adopted shortly after birth by Paul and Clara Jobs, who lived in a working-class neighborhood in San Francisco. Jobs was a rebellious child who misbehaved and was often bullied in school, but he loved spending time with his adoptive father Paul, whom he called his father throughout his life, especially when they worked together in the family garage.
His friendship with Steve Wozniak was a turning point. In 1976, Woz designed a motherboard-based personal computer called the Apple I, and Jobs had the idea to start a company and sell them. The two sold their first batch of 50 boards to a local computer store, then raised more money by selling Woz’s beloved calculator (for $250) and Jobs’ Volkswagen bus (for $1,500).
Apple Computer’s next invention, the Apple II, had 4k of RAM and retailed for $1,298 ($6,727 in 2024 dollars). It was more expensive than other microcomputers of the time, such as the Commodore Personal Electronic Transactor (PET) and the Tandy-Radio Shack 80 (TRS-80), but thanks to its ingenious floppy disk drive, sales soared.
In 1977, 600 were sold, in 1978 7,600, and in 1979 35,000. In 1980, a spreadsheet application was added to the Apple II, which sent sales skyrocketing; by the end of 1981, Apple Computer had sold 210,000 machines, and the Apple II had become one of the first personal computers to be mass-produced.
The story from there is well-known and has come a long way. Steve Jobs has left behind many valuable lessons and maxims to draw from in order to achieve your goals in life.
“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” is one of the most explanatory of Jobs’ tenacity and creativity. The phrase was pronounced in a speech given at Stanford University on June 12, 2005: the invitation was addressed to students, so that they were always eager to know and learn, even going outside the box.
3. Ralph Lauren - Behind beautiful things hides a lot of hard work
Ralph Lauren is the executive chairman and creative director of Ralph Lauren, his all-American fashion empire. He controls 85% of the voting rights and his net worth is around 11 billion dollars according to Forbes.
Born Ralph Lipschitz, in October 1939, to Jewish immigrant parents, Frank and Frieda Lipschitz, he was the youngest of four brothers. The family was not wealthy. He changed his name to “Lauren” in his late teens, after reportedly enduring years of teasing because of his last name.
In 1962, at the age of 23, he enlisted in the United States Army and served until 1964, when he took a clerk job at Brooks Brothers, the oldest menswear brand in America.
Lauren then worked for Beau Brummell, the famous tie maker. He convinced the company’s president to let him design his own line of ties, resulting in the formation of the Ralph Lauren Corporation in 1967. His interest in sports eventually led to the launch of his own iconic brand, Polo.
Lauren then developed a classy, elegant brand, which later became known as Polo Ralph Lauren. It was a huge risk to start the company, since he had only a high school diploma and a handful of business courses, having dropped out of the City University of New York halfway through his business studies.
His next big risk was to design wide, colorful ties, at a time when plain, narrow ties were in fashion. His radical approach paid off: he took over Bloomingdale’s and sold $500,000 worth of ties in his first year.
Despite his rapid rise to the top, he didn’t stop there; he expanded his company. He then designed designs for suits that he wanted to wear himself. He imagined suits fit for movie stars.
“The things I made, you couldn’t buy. You couldn’t get them anywhere,” he once said in an interview. As he once said of his success: “Behind beautiful things is hard work.”
Now 85, the designer is reaping the rewards of his tireless work. The boy who dreamed of becoming a millionaire is a multibillionaire, with homes on Long Island, Jamaica, Bedford and Manhattan, as well as a 17,000-acre ranch in Colorado.
4. Howard Schultz - Success is Empty if You Finish Alone
Howard Schultz, the man behind one of the world’s largest coffee companies, has lived a story of success, starting from poverty to create a $3 billion fortune and more than 300,000 jobs.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he grew up in federally subsidized housing in the slum area of Canarsie. His father, Fred, never graduated from high school and worked a series of manual jobs, including truck driver, laborer and taxi driver. He never earned more than $20,000 a year, and with three children to feed, Fred was never able to afford to buy a house.
Schultz moved from New York to Seattle to join Starbucks in 1982 as the director of operations and marketing. At the time, the company only had four stores. In 1983, Schulz traveled to Italy, where he admired how the espresso bars of Milan served as a place where people met and spent time together outside of the home or office. He left Starbucks and started his own company, Il Giornale coffeehouses.
In 1987, Schultz returned to Starbucks to purchase the coffeehouse with the help of investors. He also took over as CEO. At that point, there were 17 stores.
Schultz guided the company through incredible growth while remaining socially conscious. In 1988, Schultz pledged to offer health insurance to full- and part-time workers, including all domestic partners of employees. In 1991, Starbucks began offering “Bean Stock”, or company stock, making employees partners in the company.
The success of his vision is clear to see. Schultz has expanded the number of Starbucks stores from 11 to more than 35,000 worldwide, making it a social gathering place for many Americans.
He has served three terms as CEO, stepping down for the last time in early 2023.
His approach has always been guided by a sense of community. “Success is empty if you get there alone. The best reward is getting there surrounded by winners,” he has said. And he has often emphasized that Starbucks’ success “has always been a team sport. I’ve gotten more credit than I deserved. The company has a large base of fantastic leaders.”
5. Leonardo Del Vecchio - I want to be the best at everything I do. That’s all
The Italian Leonardo Del Vecchio, creator of Luxottica, also rightfully belongs to the Olympus of the richest men in the world who have built their empire from scratch.
His career is an authentic story of Italian-style success and social revenge. The youngest of four boys, orphaned by his father and sent to an orphanage at a young age, he began working at fourteen in a small company that produced frames, while attending evening classes to learn design.
In 1958 he opened his own shop selling eyeglass frames in Agordo, in Veneto. Three years later, this shop had about ten employees and became Luxottica. Leonardo Del Vecchio was twenty-five years old.
It took the small company a full decade to start manufacturing its own products and another to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. From there, the company experienced rapid international growth, driven by the will of a founder who admits to having “always hated being dependent on others”.
Under his leadership, it acquired Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ban and Oakley and grew to produce eyewear for virtually every brand, including Bulgari and Chanel. The big twist: the alliance, finalized a month ago, with Essilor, the world’s largest corrective lens manufacturer and a pioneer in ophthalmic optical technology.
Del Vecchio, The 52nd richest man in the world according to Forbes’ billionaires, was worth about $25 billion at the time of his death.
Among his famous quotes are: “I want to be the best at everything I do. That’s all", which indicates Del Vecchio’s determination to always do the best without settling.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2025-02-13 10:52:21. Original title: Come diventare milionario? I consigli di chi è partito da zero
