entrepreneurs stories
far.14
enterprisers_hep_.rtf1
Bill Gates
was born on October 28, 1955, in the city of Seattle, Washington. His parents’ names were William H. Gates II, who was a prominent lawyer in Seattle, and his deceased mother, Mary Gates, who was a former school teacher and was very well connected. Also, Bill Gates had two sisters, Kristianne, who is the eldest and Libby. Mary played an integral role in Bill Gates’ entrepreneurial life. She was a University of Washington regent and sat in the board for United Way International. The CEO of IBM also happened to sit in this board with Mary, which later became the connection of a lifetime. Bill would often go to these volunteer meetings with his mother.
Although Gates’ parents hoped for a law career for their son, Bill showed great interest in computers at the age of only thirteen! His first encounter with a computer was at the Lakeside School. A company called the Computer Center Corporation, leased computers from Digital Equipment Corporation. The school then decided to provide their students with some computer time and this is when Bill Gates found his passion for the first time. Gates met a new friend who would later be his first business partner. His name was Paul Allen. He was two years older than Gates but they certainly shared the same passion for computers. In his teens, Gates had already built a program that allowed people to play tic-tac-toe. When these bright, young people came together they formed the Lakeside Programmers’ Group. Later on after catching some experience as well as going deeper with their passion, the group created a program that counted traffic in Seattle, called Traf-O-Data. Traf-O-Data was able to calculate how many cars were on the road at one given time, and it would give information about the best time for a stop light. The duo along with other classmates earned $20,000 for their efforts. Also, during the computer time that the school offered, Gates and Allen created a scheduling program for their school. At their young age, Gates and Allen wanted to start their own company but Gates’ parents wanted his to finish school and hoped their son would become a lawyer. This is where the history of computers started as we know it.
Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973 and went on to Harvard University to pursue a law career, like his parents wanted. After life in Lakeside School was over Gates made sure to keep in touch with his friend, Paul Allen. Allen attended Washington State University for two years but later dropped out to move out to the East Coast to work for a company called Honeywell. Bill Gates is considered the genius or the era but when he enrolled at Harvard, it can be said that his grades did not reflect his brilliant intellect. He would just get a few hours of sleep and study for test at the last possible minute. What were the consequences? He would pass his classes with a reasonable but not an excellent one. Gates still felt very passionate about computers and programming so he would spend hours and hours in the computer laboratory at the University.
In the summer of 1974, Gates decided that his passion was not law but instead he pursued his true passion for computers and programming. He went to Boston, Massachusetts, to work at Honeywell with his long-time friend, Paul Allen. This was the summer that changed everything. Allen showed Gates a magazine article about the Altair 8800 mini-computer kit. Both men were utterly fascinated and imagined a myriad of possibilities that the Altair could create for personal computing. The Altair 8800 was created by a small company located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called MITS. MITS stood for Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems.
The two young men were very excited and decided to contact MITS. They said that they were working on a basic software program that would run the new computer. The truth was Gates and Allen did not have an Altair computer to work with nor did they have a software program. They just wanted to see if the company was interested in having someone develop such software; this ‘white lie’ had the effect they had hoped for. It tuned out that that MITS was actually interested in a demonstration of the software. The president, Ed Roberts, asked the guys for such demonstration; Gates and Allen had to construct it in two months and it was done in the Harvard computer lab. Allen had to travel to New Mexico to have a test run with the new software that was built for the Altair, also keeping in mind they did not have an Altair to work with and it turned out to be just perfect. MITS decided to hire Allen and Gates followed very soon after. Needless to say his parents were at all not pleased. In 1975 Gates and Allen joined forces and created Micro-Soft. Micro-Soft stood for micro-computer software.
Microsoft is said to have started on a ‘shaky note.’ Even though the creating of their BASIC software for the Altair produced royalties it was not meeting their goals. Gates later found out that only ten percent of the people that purchased the software for the Altair had paid for it. This situation made Gates very angry because the software was easy to reproduce and many people took advantage of this. He thought it was very unfair that software that was made to be sold was just being copied and distributed for free. Gates saw this type of free distribution as stealing.
In 1977, MITS was sold by its president, Ed Roberts, leaving Gates and Allen on their own. The pair sued the new owner of the company to retain the right of the software they developed. Microsoft wrote software for various companies and by 1978 the company was moved to Bellevue, Washington. Gates was happy to be home again. The company consisted of twenty-five employees; these people were responsible for marketing, product and business development. Gates’ great software and business skills came in handy; he was a born leader. He placed himself at the top of Microsoft, which by the end of 1978 grossed about $2.5 Million; not at all bad for a 23 year-old guy.
Bill Gates was very connected to his job to the point that he would double check every line of code that the company would send out. He wanted to make sure it was perfection. When the computer industry was growing at the time, Gates took that opportunity to get on the road to promote Microsoft. It is said that in many occasions he traveled with his mother, who was a respected member in many corporate boards. Amongst those boards was Mary was on was IBM, who later on would be a very good business connection for Gates.
“In November 1980, IBM was looking for software that would operate their upcoming personal computer and approached Microsoft… Gates did look very young, but he quickly impressed IBM, convincing them that he and his company could meet their needs. The only problem was that Microsoft had not developed the basic operating system that would run IBM's new computers.” This would not stop Gates from making the business deal of a lifetime. Gates bought an operating system that was developed to run on computers similar to IBM's personal computer. He made a deal with the software's developer, making Microsoft the only licensing agent and later full owner of the software but not telling them of the deal that was made with IBM. The software developer sued Microsoft on grounds of holding vital information. At the end the lawsuit was settled for an unknown amount. Gates and his company never admitted to doing anything wrong.
Gates had to adapt the software he purchased to work for the IBM PC. He sold it for a fee of $50,000. IBM wanted to purchase the code but Gates quickly refused because he wanted to license copies of his software and, of course, profit from it. IBM accepted and agreed to pay Microsoft a fee for every copy sold. In mid- 1981, Gates was appointed president. Between 1979-81, Microsoft’s revenue went from $4 Million to $16 Million. By 1983, the company had offices in Japan and Great Britain, and had 30% of the world’s computers using its software. In November 1985, Bill Gates and Microsoft launched Windows. By 1987, Gates’ wealth had reached $101 Billion. In 1989, Microsoft created Microsoft Office, which combined office productivity applications such as Microsoft Excel and Word into one system that worked for all Microsoft products; 100,000 copies in just two weeks. This left Microsoft with a virtual monopoly on operating systems for PCs. Soon the Federal Trade Commission began to investigate Microsoft for unfair marketing practices.
So, what can be learned from Bill Gates? Personally, I find that he found his passion at a very early age, he had the money and resources to follow it. He does have a brilliant mind and by looking at Microsoft’s history it can be determined that he is a very ambitious business man. While doing research, I felt that he indeed was unfair about wanting to monopolize the industry but that is the kind of ambition that gets a business to the top of its industry.
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Elon Musk’s Background
Elon Musk was born in the year 1971 in South Africa by a South African father and a Canadian mother. The father was an engineer while the mother was a nutritionist. Elon interest was in computers at a younger age which led him develop his own code for a video game which later he sold for $500 at his tender age of 12 years. Therefore, it is clear that Elon musk was born an entrepreneur.
He attended Pretoria Boys High school in South Africa for his secondary education but later transferred to Canada where he studied at Queen’s university, Ontario in Canada and later went to Pennsylvania University, Wharton School where he earned degrees in Economics and Physics respectively. His life as a scholar took a twist of event when he was admitted in Stanford University where he was supposed to study PhD in energy Physics.
Elon Musk Entrepreneurial History
Elon Musk developed an entrepreneurial culture at a younger age but made a real mark at the age of 24 years. In the year 1995, he started his first company called Zip2 Corporation Company. This was after dropping out of Stanford University where he happened to attend only 2 classes. The corporation he started was a city guide transacting its business via online through provision of material s and content to online versions which then comprises of the Chicago tribune and the New York Times. The business though profitable, had its own challenges. Competition was fierce but Elon struggled to maintain it relevant in the market. Due to challenges, he sold majority of the shares of his corporation to capitalist ventures in an exchange of $3.6 million so that he could re-invest. Musk later sold out Zip2 Corporation to Compaq computer at a price of $307 million in 1999 and where his share at the company could worth $22 million.
After selling out Zip2, Elon Musk entrepreneurial skills had advanced and at the same year he sold the corporation, he started an online banking business. He started a company called X.com with a capital of $10million accrued from the sale of Zip2 Corporation. This is where his innovativeness and creativity was realized. He invented a secure money transfer method using the email address of the recipient.
In the year 2000, Elon musk started his third company called PayPal. This was immediately after soliciting the purchase of Confinity Company using X.com. This company had already invented in the money transfer process which was almost similar to the transaction carried out by his second company. Therefore, Musk merged the two companies and adopted PayPal as the company name. PayPal became a global payment and money transfer financial institution. After 2 years of service, Elon Musk sold PayPal to e Bay Company at a cost of $1.5 billion where he managed to secure stock worth of $165 million at eBay from the sale of PayPal.
His entrepreneurial venture was not to end yet. In the year 2002, Musk started Space Exploration Technologies commonly known as SpaceX. The company is one of its kind and is the largest space exploration company to be owned by a private individual. He established this company with an interest in exploration of Mars. Musk himself is a bona fide member of an organization known as Mars society. This society was formed by individuals who was interested in the exploration of the planet Mars. With this society, his entrepreneurial culture and ambitions has not been left out. Musk aims at launching man to Mars and probably starting an artificial green house in that planet. Therefore, his agitation for Mars exploration is to enable him push through his plan and project.
In the year 2004, Elon using his architectural skills, founded Tesla Motors. This is the company tasked with the production of Electric vehicles. It has specialized in the production of electric sports vehicles and other models of vehicles such as economic four door electric sedan, Tesla Roadster and Model S.
Elon Musk with his cousin co-founded photovoltaic services and products which were later named SolarCity to provide affordable solar energy to the public.
Unveiling of Subsonic air travel Machine (Hyperloop) on August 2013 was his current and latest venture. This id is to offer a new form of transportation between Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay.
Important turning points of Elon Musk
The most notable turning point of Musk as an entrepreneur was when he started the software company, Zip2.Although it was unpopular decision considering the fact that he had dropped out of school, his entrepreneurial prowess started at this point.
When Elon Musk sold the majority of his share control to venture capitalists, it was a risk move but turned out to be a boost to him because, this was the time he became a recognized millionaire at his late 20’s. This was because the company was purchased by Compaq where Musk was given shares worth $22 million in the company. In addition, it was the same time when he started the online banking company X.com.
Another important turning point in the entrepreneurial career of Musk was when he initiated the merger of the online companies of Confinity and X.com and named it PayPal. This marked his entry into global business. Nevertheless, the sale of PayPal catapulted Musk from a millionaire to a billionaire. This enabled him venture into the space exploration technologies, SolarCity and the Tesla motors where he has been the Chief Executive Officer and the Chairman.
Successes and failures of Elon Musk
Elon is known for his inspirational quote, “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” which is actually the force behind his success. He has changed the way things are operating in the current world. The success of his companies is his success. He holds a philanthropic statute being the head and the brain behind all the companies he holds interest in them. His first and major success was the successful launch of the Zip2 Corporation. PayPal is his second success where users on the global platform can sell and buy online. Thirdly, the SolarCity project he initiated ensured for affordable solar energy to the general public. Finally, his project of Affordable electric car by Tesla motors and the SpaceX technologies are the major success made so far in the two industries which gives a promising future in the two fields.
However, Musk’s failures have mostly been attributed to financial crises. The three major companies he owns were on the prink of financial collapse. As a result, staff was laid of duties to salvage the situation, especially the Tesla branch in Detroit. His financiers pulled out of some deals it had entered in the SolarCity project forcing Musk to bail it out using his own pocket money.
Important Learning points
The success of Elon Musk as an entrepreneur teaches the current generation on how to think about greater things going beyond this world just like how he innovated on the auto industry.
One can learn on how to utilize emerging technologies to create opportunities. Nevertheless, one can learn about importance of pivoting in business. Musk, stated one company after the other without losing grip on the previous.
Failure in business is not an option. One has to embrace failure especially in thinking and making great business decisions.
Working hard is another important learning lesson drawn from Musk’s work spirit. He is able to manage and coordinate all activities of the various companies he holds interest.
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An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and takes risks in order to pursue their dreams. Estee Lauder was an entrepreneur who became one of the wealthiest women in business. Lauder, like most entrepreneurs had a rough beginning before she became a common household name.
Estee Lauder
was born to Rose and Max Mentzer on July 1, 1906, in New York City. Lauder’s birth name was Josephine Esther Mentzer. The name Estee evolved from a nickname Esty, which sounded more like Estee when her father spoke it in his Hungarian accent. Estee grew up with eight siblings, all of who helped in their father’s hardware store below their living space. The hardware store was where Estee got her first experience with sales and customer service. Once her uncle, John Schotz, came to live with the family was when she was introduced to the cosmetic world. Schotz was a chemist who was constantly whipping up creams and oils for beauty purposes. Lauder become incredibly interested in his products and continued to watch and learn his processes. During high school Lauder gave demonstrations and makeovers to her friends and sold her uncle’s products to them. As her sales began to grow Estee realized this was her passion and she would do anything to see it succeed. In 1935 the Estee Lauder Company was established. Lauder began selling her products on counter spaces, which she begged department stores to let her use. In 1944 Estee joined forces with her husband, Joseph Lauder, and the two opened the first Estee Lauder store in New York City. Estee sold her beauty products during the day and by night she was cooking up replenishments in a converted restaurant located in Manhattan.
A unique aspect of the Estee Lauder Company is the fact that it is the company who began a now widely used practice of giving a free gift with purchase. Lauder would give customers a sample of another product similar to their purchase in hopes they would be coming back for more. One of her quotes “Tell-A-Phone, Tell-A-Graph, Tell-A-Woman,” was her way of explaining that once a woman tried the product she would like it and immediately share with her friends. Word of mouth is always a great way to advertise freely so the cost of sampling simply paid for itself.
The first turning point for the Estee Lauder name was when an order placed by Saks Fifth Avenue stocked out after only two days of being in the store. After this Estee realized her products could compete with the bigger names such as Revlon and Elizabeth Arden. From that point on Lauder pursued the fine department store market in an effort to sell her products in luxurious stores. The next huge success for Lauder was the introduction of Youth Dew. Youth Dew is bath oil that doubles as a perfume and was sold at only eight dollars and fifty cents per bottle. This product helped sales explode and made the company a multimillion-dollar business.
With the many successes Lauder had there also came some challenges. As the company began to expand into different product lines, a line named Clinique was formed. Clinique was the first line of facial creams and cleansers that was allergy tested. The line did not do very well at first and it lost Estee Lauder Companies around three million dollars within two years. Lauder was not ready to give up on the line and continued to stick with it. Clinique is now a full line of makeup products and skin care treatments.
Estee Lauder started out as a young woman selling her uncle’s cosmetic products to close friends and schoolmates. What started as a small venture turned into a company with a net worth estimated to be five billion dollars according to Fortune magazine. Although Estee herself is no longer with us (she passed away in 2004 of a cardiopulmonary arrest) she is still the spirit behind the vision of the company. Estee once said “If you have a goal, if you want to be successful, if you really want to do it and become another Estee Lauder, you've got to work hard, you've got to stick to it and you've got to believe in what you're doing,” and that is a piece of advice every future entrepreneur should keep in mind.
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Jay Z created his own destiny, and took the necessary risks to succeed. Shawn Carter (Jay Z) was born in the Marcy Projects of Brooklyn, New York in December of 1969. He and his three siblings were raised by their single mother, after their father walked out on the family. The Marcy Projects were a dangerous place to live, as described by Carter in some of his song lyrics, and Carter turned to selling crack on the streets of Brooklyn as a teenager to make money (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z). To sum up the dangers of crack in his neighborhood, Carter says “It was either you’re doin’ it or you was movin’ it” (The King Of Rap, Kohn). He attended two different high schools in Brooklyn and one in Trenton, New Jersey. Although he did not graduate high school, he did attend these different high schools with influential people, including rappers Anthony Cruz (AZ), Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.), and Trevor Smith, Jr. (Busta Rhymes). Being around other people interested in music sparked Shawn Carter to start rapping (Entrepreneur, Eha).
As previously stated, at an early age Shawn Carter was introduced to the music business from his peers. He started off by freestyling on the streets and was known on the streets as “Jazzy.” In 1989, Carter started off his major successes with fellow rapper-friend Jonathan Burks (Jaz-O). Jaz-O recorded a song and featured Jazzy on the track. Later in 1989, Carter evolved “Jazzy” into a new street name, “Jay-Z” (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z). Carter says that his name, Jay-Z, is a tribute to his friend Jaz-O as well as the J/Z subway line that stopped near the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn (Entrepreneur, Eha). Even from his early freestyles and street reputation, Jay-Z was destined for success. The only thing that could not be predicted was his success in different fields other than the rap game.
In 1995, Jay-Z began his own record label company with friends Damon Dash and Kareem Burke, known as Roc-A-Fella Records. In 1996 at the age of 26, an old age as compared to most rappers when their debut album drops, Jay-Z released his first rap album, Reasonable Doubt, which reached number 23 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Albums (Entrepreneur, Eha). Being older than most rappers helped because Jay-Z was more mature and had the mind of an entrepreneur, meaning that he knew he should not become complacent and always strive for greatness. In the next few years, Jay-Z’s name would start to grow and be known all over the world. Next, in 1999 Jay-Z and Damon Dash started a clothing line called Rocawear. Just like an entrepreneur would do, Jay-Z developed the clothing lines to reflect his personality and passions (Entrepreneur, Eha). In 2003, Jay-Z continued to build upon his success and opened The 40/40 Club in Brooklyn, New York. The 40/40 club is upscale sports bar and lounge (Black Entrepreneur Profile). In 2005, Jay-Z became the CEO of Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella Records after a distribution agreement, but he left his CEO position in 2007.
In addition, in 2005 Jay-Z became an investor in Carol’s Daughter, a line of beauty products. In 2008, Jay-Z created Roc Nation, LLC, as an American entertainment company with the help of Live Nation and Sony Music Entertainment. Roc Nation is partnered with artists such as: J.Cole, Calvin Harris, Shakira, Rihanna and Wale (Black Entrepreneur Profile). Jay-Z had no reason to stop now. In 2010, he became a minority owner of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and helped with the Nets’ move from New Jersey to Brooklyn, Jay-Z’s hometown. Jay-Z also has performed eight times at the Nets home arena, The Barclays Center (Black Entrepreneur Profile). Like many entrepreneurs, most business ventures require a risk, and in 2013 Jay-Z took that risk. He founded Roc Nation Sports, which is also a division of Roc Nation. Roc Nation Sports is a sports management company that signs and manages high profile athletes (Black Entrepreneur Profile). This was something very similar to what Jay-Z had done at Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella Records, so naturally Jay-Z would be destined to succeed. Jay-Z became certified as a sports agent, and he had to make moves fast in the competitive sports agent environment. Roc Nation Sports has signed high profile athletes such as Robinson Cano, Kevin Durant, Victor Cruz and Geno Smith (Black Entrepreneur Profile). Overall, from the time he debuted his first album in 1996 to creating a sports agency in 2013, Jay-Z has broadened his portfolio of interests to include a wide variety of opportunities.
The first thing that comes to mind when Jay-Z is mentioned, is that he is arguably one of the greatest rappers in history. But what many people do not know about Jay-Z are his many ventures outside of rapping that has made him worth an estimated $500 million (Forbes). To continue, Jay-Z’s main success came from his rapping. 1997 was his breakout year, by releasing his second album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, which reached number 3 on the Billboard Top 200. Also in 1997, Jay-Z was featured on a track on the album Life After Death by The Notorious B.I.G., who was one of the most famous rappers in the 1990s (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z). Jay-Z took off from here and began his entrepreneurial success. In 2004, Jay Z sold his remaining stakes of Roc-A-Fella Records to Def Jam for $10 million. Jay Z ended up selling his Rocawear company for $204 million in 2007 (Entrepreneur, Eha). He has sold over 50 million records worldwide, has 11 platinum albums and has 17 Grammy Awards (Forbes). Jay Z’s successes were never limited to one area of his career.
Looking at famous people, it is hard to believe they ever had any failures in their life. A more fitting term for Jay-Z instead of failures is ‘hard times’ which seems fitting because Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life is the name of Jay-Z’s third studio album, and one of his most famous songs is Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem). With that being said, Jay-Z has faced many hard times in his life. Growing up with 3 siblings with a single mother in the projects of Brooklyn was far from a middle class life. Before creating Roc-A-Fella Records in 1995, Jay-Z was selling CD’s out of his car (The King Of Rap, Kohn). No record label wanted to sign Jay-Z. Determined to make it on his own instead, he created his own record label; Jay-Z would not be silenced by the critics. Another setback came in 1999 when Jay-Z was involved in a nightclub incident in New York City in which he stabbed record label executive Lance Rivera for allegedly bootlegging his CD, Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter (The King Of Rap, Kohn). The incident resulted in three years of probation for Jay-Z and was a problem of Jay-Z slipping back into his hustler days on the streets of Brooklyn and he used it as a turning point (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z).
Jay-Z learned from the hard times in his life and moved on from them, continuing to lead a healthy and successful life. The nightclub incident played a significant role in Jay-Z’s successful career, as it served as a wake-up call to remind Jay-Z of the life he used to live. At this point, he could either fall back into the life of a hustler on the streets selling drugs and getting involved in fights or turn his back to the dangerous life and stay on the path to success.
In conclusion, Jay Z has proved his worth to the world not only with his musical and entrepreneurial talent, but the lessons that can be learned along with his personal story: from the streets of Brooklyn to being listed on Forbes’ as worth over 500 million dollars. One of the main points that I can take away after learning about the life and times of Jay Z is that you should control your destiny. I have learned about this before in management class about being an introvert. I believe that I am responsible for my outcomes in life, just as Jay Z did in his life. When no record company would sign Jay Z, he started his own. Jay Z created his own destiny just as I will create mine. Another important lesson I learned from Jay Z’s story is his risk taking. At some times, Jay Z had to make risky decisions regarding his future. For example, many of his investments were risky at the time that he invested. However, he believed that they would turn out successful with the work that he put into them. Therefore, I believe that if I truly want something to happen in my future, I need to make the necessary decisions to make sure that it happens. Finally, I have also learned the entrepreneurial importance of combining all of my interests into a portfolio. Just as Jay Z did with his love of music, clothing, sports, and entertainment, I will combine what interests me into a personal folder of passions to follow as an entrepreneur. Overall, Jay Z’s entrepreneurial story is a unique one that gives hope to all young entrepreneurs with dreams of succeeding in the passions they have.
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Jerry Yang the Taiwanese-born American internet mogul is most famed as the co-founder of the Yahoo! navigational guide and the former Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo! Inc. He was listed in the “25 Most Influential men on the Web” by time magazine in 2008 and the 360th on Forbes “400 richest people in America” list in 2013.
"This company isn't really about technology; it's about solving people's basic needs for efficiency, effectiveness and simplicity." Jerry Yang once said about Yahoo!
The story of David Filo (the other co-found of Yahoo!) and Jerry Yang's success begins at Stanford University, where the two doctoral candidates found they both enjoyed time surfing the Web, in search of new and exciting sites to explore. There was only one problem. Even though there were plenty of interesting sites, due to the Internet's lack of formal organization, finding them was akin to searching for a book in a library without the aid of a card catalog.
Time and again, Filo and Yang would find a site that interested them, then would be unable to locate it the next time they logged on. Frustrated at their inability to keep track of the good places they'd visited, Filo and Yang came up with the idea to provide a kind of road map for online users. They put together a list of their favorite sites, organized them into topics, then designed a search engine that made finding the right site as simple as typing in the right keywords.
In early 1994, they began posting their list online as "David and Jerry's Guide to the Web" so their friends could access the informal guide to "cool" sites. As the list of sites grew, Filo and Yang began dividing them into categories, then subcategories to provide more structure and easier searching. Later that summer they re-dubbed the system Yahoo!
As Yahoo!'s list of sites expanded, so did its number of users. By November 1994, 170,000 people a day were visiting the site. By 1998, Web surfers were dropping into Yahoo! at the rate of more than a million a day. Internet access service giant AOL offered a buyout. Microsoft and Prodigy approached them with partnership deals. But Filo and Yang refused them all. They weren't in it for the money. They were doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it.
At the end of 1994, Yang recruited Tim Brady, a college friend who was then attending Harvard Business School, to devise a prospectus for Yahoo! that he and Filo could use to lure in potential venture capitalists. It didn't take long for someone to take the bait, Moritz staked $1 million on the fledgling Web directory. Armed with Moritz's money, Filo and Yang took a leave of absence from Stanford, printed business cards identifying themselves as Chief Yahoos, and hired a staff of graduate school friends and interns. Realizing that neither of them had any real business experience, the Chief Yahoos hired former Motorola Inc. executive Tim Koogle as company president and CEO.
In 1995, in return for a graphical link on Yahoo!'s homepage, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen lent David Filo and Jerry Yang the computer equipment and phone lines they needed to get Yahoo! up and running. Andreessen also added a "Directory" button on Netscape's Navigator Web browser, which linked users directly to Yahoo! Both companies profited from this synergy until late 1995, when Netscape ditched Yahoo! for a competitor who paid them a handsome sum to direct users to their search engine instead. Industry experts predicted that Yahoo! would soon drown in the sea of other directories, many of which had corporate backing. Though Netscape's back-out did result in a temporary drop in Yahoo!'s Web traffic, Yahoo! Survived-perhaps because of its unique appeal-and continues to reign as the Internet's number-one search engine. Yahoo! began selling advertising on their page. Initially, the move prompted a hail of criticism from Web purists who accused them of "selling out." But the criticism quickly died down as advertising became a regular feature on the Web. In a second groundbreaking move, Yahoo! teamed up with London-based Reuters news service so users could access news wire stories online with the click of a mouse.
Over the next two years, Filo and Yang added new enhancements that further increased Yahoo!'s popularity. Their innovations included links to weather, stock quotes, phone listings, sports scores, interactive maps, flight schedules, "My Yahoo " (a feature which enables users to create their own customized Yahoo! page with the particular information and links that interest them), and "Yahooligans"--a special version of the directory tailored to children ages 8 through 14.
When Yahoo! made its first public offering on April 12, 1996, shares originally priced at $13 rose as high as $43 before closing at $33. At the end of the day, Yahoo! was valued at $850 million. By 1999, Yahoo! was making money not only by charging for ad space on its pages, but also through special co-op deals with online retailers. The arrangement entitled Yahoo! to a flat fee and a commission on any sale made to a customer Yahoo! directed to their site. Yahoo! also established a partnership with MCI and became an Internet service provider as well as an information provider.
Jerry Yang was CEO of the company from 2007 till 2009 though throughout this time he was very much criticized by several investors as the stock prices and revenues did not rise. The situation worsened when he refused Microsoft’s offer of buying Yahoo! for 47 billion dollars. Consequently Yang was replaced as CEO by Carol Bartz with Yang assuming his previous role of ‘Chief Yahoo’ and member of Board of Directors. In 2012 it was announced that he would leave the company along with all his responsibilities.
By 2008 the company’s shares had dropped to only 14 dollars per share. BusinessWeek listed Yang as the ‘Worst Managers of 2008’. At the time of Yang’s resignation from the board Yahoo! market capitalization was only 20 billion dollars. Despite the company’s bleak situation, Yang did play a key role in managing and developing the company’s business policies, international ventures and improving its vision. His business career and contribution to the internet media industry proves his talent as a business magnate.
In fact, Jerry Yang never really disappeared from the Silicon Valley scene, the former Chief Yahoo has moved onto the next stage of his career, which perhaps could be called Jerry 2.0. Still, in many ways, Yang has launched a new digital life by focusing on what made him interested in tech in the first place: Entrepreneurs. “I feel like the thing I missed the most is what really early entrepreneurs were doing,” Yang said his latest efforts, which have been well known among techies, even if Yang has never been one to toot his own horn much in general. “I’m not sure at all that I’m any good at this mentoring/investing business — that’s why I’m using my own money, and that’s why it’s not a career.” what informs his investment choices centers on the activity around mobility, sensors, cloud and big data that is enabling the next generation of computing.
“The main investing premise is the idea that devices are more and more network connected,” said Yang, who noted that data that is being collected is now at another order of magnitude than ever before. “The cloud has become the next-generation supercomputer, and the smartphone has provided the revolution to spur its use.”
To select from the companies he sees, Yang has only one young associate, Nick Adams, who codes, helps on deal mechanics, interacts with entrepreneurs and also has had extensive experience in Asia.
“I might not have better ideas, but I think my experience is unique and helpful [to entrepreneurs] and there is a value to my network,” said Yang. “I think what I have to contribute, besides money and a network, is that I am very candid about the experience I have had.”
“I’m truly humbled by the talent that’s out there, and at the same time recognize it’s a very crowded space,” said Yang. “It is not a career yet, but I’m having a lot of fun, and we’ll see.”
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Biography of Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales, also known as “Jimbo”, is an American internet entrepreneur who changed the way we seek information online like nobody else did before by co-founding the gigantic website Wikipedia. Jimmy was born August 7th in 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama in the United States of America. Jimmy’s father worked at a grocery store as a manager, and Jimmy’s mother and his grandmother who ran a small private school called the House of Learning where Jimmy received his early education there with his three siblings.
Ever since Jimmy was young, he always put a lot of time on reading books which eventually a sense of intellectual curiosity became nothing but a habit to him. Jimmy Wales spent a do many hours reading from the Britannicas and World Book Encyclopedias during his childhood, and when he became an adult, he became very upset of how the government is treating schools and education facilities.
With such young age and that much of enthusiasm, Jimmy Wales always wanted to change something about education in general, especially in term of cost. Wales went to the university preparatory school in Huntsville called Randolph after graduating from high school at the age of sixteen. Then Wales went to the Auburn University where he received his bachelor degree. Wales then entered the PhD finance program at the University of Alabama before leaving with only a master’s degree to enter a PhD finance program at Indiana University where he taught postgraduate studies. He left the PhD program before writing the doctoral dissertation required for a PhD.
So in term of education he only holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in finance. However, in term of career he worked at Chicago Options Associates in 1994, a future and option trading firm in Chicago, Illinois. After having accumulated capital through speculating on interest-rates and foreign-currencies fluctuation, he felt like it is time to get back to his old dream and kick start an online business and become an internet entrepreneur. It all started in 1996 when Jimmy Wales and two other partners kick started a new company called Bomis, it is basically a male oriented web portal featuring entertainment and adult content. Bomis provided the required desired fun to kick start Jimmy Wales’s online encyclopedia dream called Nupedia. Nupedia was launched in 2000 and it only operated for three years straight. Nupedia was a web-based encyclopedia; the articles were written by experts, PhD holders, respected scholars and licensed as a free content. Jimmy had Larry Sanger as chief editor of Nupedia, Nupedia’s functionality was basically a peer-reviewed scientific articles posted online for free. The website was designed by expert professionals to evaluate and approve articles before posting them online; it only approved 21 articles in its first year. Nupedia’s approval process takes some time; the system was designed to make sure that the types of articles posted online are high quality. Due to Nupedia’s slow operation, Nupedia stopped operating in 2003, the website only published 25 articles throughout its life. Jimmy Wales attempted to increase the process of authenticated articles and post them in Nupedia faster, so he Launched Wikipedia to allow the general public to post editable articles in Wikipedia to help them increase the amount of information that can be taking into account while processing new articles in Nupedia. Wales noticed a huge difference between the official website Nupedia and the public article gathering type of website Wikipedia. During the first year of Nupedia’s life in 2000, Nupedia only approved and posted 21 articles compared to Wikipedia posting 200 articles in the first moth, and 18,000 articles in the first year. Surprised by the popularity and success of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales decided to abandoned Nupedia peer-review model and decided to start encouraging and investing more in Wikipedia new model of anyone can share, comment and edit. Jimmy Wales watched Wikipedia it grow and treat it as a vacuum that hosts all type of information from around the world. Larry Sanger did not like the idea of public editable information and left Jimmy Wales to open Citizendium. Both Wikipedia and Nupedia were dependent on volunteers, but they differ on who edit the articles and what are their credentials. One more difference is that Nupedia is for profit, and Wikipedia is non-profit company. Jimmy Wales’s current positions are as follows: Board member of Wikipedia Foundation, Creative Commons, Sunlight Foundation, MIT center for collective intelligence and Civilination.
What is Wikipedia? Wiki is a Hawaiian word for “Quick”, and pedia comes from Encyclopedia basically. So Wikipedia is an online free encyclopedia and it is the largest and most popular general reference. The goal behind is to create a vacuum were people from all over the world post, share, correct information and raise it a step closer towards an error free encyclopedia. Reaching that stage can be interpreted that ideas are being unified globally. Although some may deem Wikipedia as untrustworthy and bias, but the fact is Wikipedia is trying to eliminate bias by trying to unify a global opinion on so many different topics. An investigation by Nature magazine in 2005 showed that the since articles they compared in Wikipedia came so close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia is also a mean to find the correct information as well, it helps gather the right sources that people editors post with the articles.
Wikipedia is also a multilingual; it has 285 language versions, which no other online website can ever get close to this number. Wikipedia is also the host of over 30 million articles, 4.3 Million English articles were written by volunteers from all over the world. According to the latest online data collected by Alex, Wikipedia is occupying number six in the whole world in term of visited websites daily and page views. Wikipedia has 365 million readers worldwide and over 77,000 current active editors online. Wikipedia allows users to create, edit and discuss the content on Wikipedia. Whether we love it or we hate it, Wikipedia has drastically changed the way we look at information in the internet.
Some academic professors do not approve of Wikipedia as legitimate source of information, or approve of submitted citation of Wikipedia by students. However, the general public treats Wikipedia like they treat Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, they do not use these platforms to establish new unprecedented science, but rather as a station of discussion and sharing information with everybody around the globe. A couple lessons I have learned from Jimmy Wales is that Partnership cannot last long forever if partners do not share the same vision and follow the same mission. Sometimes we have to conduct businesses other than what we desire just for the purpose of funding and supporting our dream in the future.
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7
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is a bold entrepreneur that is not afraid to invest in a risk that he believes in. Most of these risks have paid off for him and have helped turn him into the celebrity that he is today. He continues to challenge the status quo in the media and technology worlds, but who would have thought that he started from such humble beginnings.
Mark Cuban was born on July 31st, 1958 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. His father, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, was an auto upholster. At age 12, Mark started his first enterprise, selling garbage bags door-to-door. It went pretty well since he was the only kid selling garbage bags. When he was older, Cuban sold powdered milk door-to-door, and after Pittsburgh Press employees went on strike, he and a friend drove to Cleveland, Ohio to collect the Plain Dealer Newspaper for resale in Pittsburgh. He said “It was easy when I realized [selling] wasn’t about taking something from somebody, but about helping. If I can help you, you’ll buy from me. I’ve always been the best salesman everywhere I’ve been. Whatever I was selling, I believed in” (Thompson 98)
Cuban attended Indiana University for college because it was the cheapest top 10 business school in the country. Since he was too young to drink alcohol during his freshman year at Indiana, he took the hardest courses, predicting that when he came of age, he would want to party. As a freshman he attended graduate-level business classes, but during his sophomore year he had to drop them after the dean of the business school discovered that Cuban was in effect an MBA student. After turning 21, Cuban earned money by promoting parties at the Bloomington National Guard Armory, running an extremely successful off-campus bar, and giving disco lessons. He also swept floors at a computer store, but found that he enjoyed computers so much that he couldn’t resist trying to sell them. This attempt to sell led to his firing (Thompson 99).
Cuban graduated from Indiana University in 1981 with a B.S. degree in business. He then moved to Dallas, Texas to sell software. He lived with five other men in a three-room apartment. During that period, without ever having taken a computer class or even owning a computer, he founded MicroSolutions, a computer consulting business. Thanks to his strong work ethic, the computer company grew and was included in Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies four years in a row. In 1990, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6 million ("Mark Cuban"). Almost immediately after he sold MicroSolutions, he formed Radical Computing, a venture-capital and investment firm that specialized in high-technology companies (Thompson 99).
In 1994, Cuban returned to Dallas after a few years in Los Angeles. During that year he and a friend from Indiana, attorney Todd Wagner, discussed their desire to listen to the Indiana Hoosiers basketball games being played hundreds of miles away. Realizing that this could be accomplished over the Internet and that it would also be a good business venture, the two immediately went to work. “I think to get started we spent 3,000 dollars on a computer, 40 dollars on a radio, and sixty dollars a month for an ISDN line [which uses digital connections to transmit data worldwide], and just worked out of my house for a long time. And after a while, as good things started to happen, Todd and I had friends that started to threaten us if we didn’t let them put in money” (Thompson 100.) Cuban and Wagner persuaded a local Dallas radio station to feed its broadcasts over the internet, and soon the two made similar deals with more stations; local programming, sports games, and speeches became available online. Cuban and Wagner called their new, Web-based radio business AudioNet. They later changed the name to Broadcast.com when they began to move into video broadcasting. The company soon became one of the few Internet sites to attract significant advertising while also earning money by setting up on-line video broadcasts for corporations. In 1998, the company went public, enjoying the most successful day in the history of IPOs at the time when the stock price went from $18.00 to $62.75 a share. By 1999, users could access more than 425 radio, TV, and cable networks through Broadcast.com (Thompson 100).
In 1999 Yahoo! acquired Broadcast.com for more than $6 billion worth of Yahoo! stock. Cuban stayed on as the head of the Broadcast.com division and emerged from the deal with a paper worth of $1.7 billion. In 2000, with his new riches, Cuban bought his favorite NBA franchise, the Dallas Mavericks, for $285 million from Ross Perot (“Mark Cuban”). The deal was ridiculed in many circles because the team had been valued at only $125 million in 1996. The team had not made the play-offs in 10 years and had compiled a terrible win-loss record over its past few seasons. His first major move as owner was to sign the outspoken and flamboyant basketball star Dennis Rodman to a contract (Thompson 100).
Dennis Rodman’s signing was only the beginning as Cuban quickly became the NBA’s most famous owner. He upgraded his players’ luggage and hotel accommodations, sent limos to their houses to pick them up during an ice storm, and bought them each a special side chair for use as games, as well as a personal stereo, flat-screen monitor, DVD player, and Song PlayStation. He also flew with the team on his Gulf Stream 5 jet. “When you treat your employees well, they don’t have any excuses but to work hard,” Cuban said. “I want every employee to know that I care about them, that I want them to succeed, and that I’m going to expect 100 percent from them. It doesn’t matter if they are a player, a receptionist, or a sales person.” Cuban also defied convention by working out with his players and making trades himself, a practice usually reserved for a team’s general manager (Thompson 101).
After Cuban bought the team in the middle of the 1999-2000 season, the Mavericks surprised everyone by winning 16 of their last 21 games and narrowly missing the playoffs. They finished the season with a 40-42 record. In the off-season, Cuban was at the center of the first trade in the history of the NBA to involve four teams. He then went against tradition again, by hiring an extra assistant coach, giving his team a total of four assistant coaches. Ticket sales went up for the 2000-01 season, which the Mavericks finished with a record of 53-29 and made the playoffs for the first time since 1990. The team beat Utah in the first round of the playoffs, three games to two, before falling to San Antonio, four games to one. Cuban’s passion for the game and his team got him into trouble with NBA officials that season, however. He was fined five times in amounts totaling $395,000, incurring the first four fines by criticizing officials and the fifth by sitting on the baseline of the basketball court, where owners are not allowed (Thompson 101).
After the 2000-2001 season, Cuban launched a high-definition television network "HDNet" in September of 2001 with Philip Garvin. HDNet provided the highest level of digital broadcast quality available. After that, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner established a media company named "2929" that had holdings in film production companies HDNet Films and 2929 Productions, movie distributor Magnolia Pictures, home video distributor Magnolia Home Entertainment, the Landmark Theatres chain, and a Lions Gate Entertainment. In September 2002, Cuban married Tiffany Stewart, an advertising executive, in Barbados with an extravagant wedding reception at American Airlines Center (Hand).
Since his acquisition of the Dallas Mavericks in 2000, Cuban has overseen the team competing in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history in 2006, and becoming NBA World Champions in 2011. They are currently listed as one of Forbes' most valuable franchises in sports (“Mark’s Bio”).
In addition to the Mavericks, Mark is chairman and CEO of AXS tv, one of ABC's "Sharks" on the hit show Shark Tank, and an investor in an ever-growing portfolio of businesses (“Mark’s Bio”). He was awarded as "Man of the Year" in 2006 by GQ. He also attained acknowledgment outside of the boardroom in 2007 as one of the celebrity participators on the reality series Dancing with the Stars. He lives in Dallas with wife Tiffany, daughters Alexis and Alyssa, and son Jake (“Mark Cuban”).
I learned a lot from researching and learning about Mark Cuban. I learned that hard work and determination really do pay off. I learned that if one follows what they believe, and does not listen to critics, then they can get pretty far in life. I learned that where there is a will, there is a way, one just has to work hard to find that way and do not let anything stop them. I am happy that I had this opportunity to research Mark Cuban, and I hope I use what I learned from him to be successfusl myself.
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8
Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc was an American Entrepreneur born in Oak Park, Illinois on October 5, 1902. Early on in his life, Kroc participated in World War I as a Red Cross ambulance driver. He joined the forces at the age of 15 by lying about his age on the application to serve. During his training he served with famous names such as Walt Disney and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom he kept a close relationship with throughout the rest of his life.
After the war, Kroc experimented with different career choices from paper cup salesman, pianist, a DJ on a local radio station, and a milkshake salesman. It was working with a milk shake company called Prince Castle Multimixers that Kroc spent his middle aged years. After working in sales for 17 years, Kroc noticed a smaller restaurant called McDonald’s that ordered eight of his machines. The machines made five milkshakes at a time, so Kroc went to McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, CA to see why they would need to make 40 milkshakes at once.
When Kroc went to McDonald’s, he noticed a burger and fries joint that made high quality food at an extremely efficient pace. McDonalds was owned by the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac. Kroc noticed the simplicity of the menu (only 9 original items) and the efficiency that the items were cooked. The McDonald brothers had a system that cut down serving time of a burger from 20 minutes to only 30 seconds. Kroc, seeing the potential for expansion of this restaurant, offered to work as a franchising agent for a cut of the profits from each new McDonald’s opened. The McDonald’s brothers agreed and Ray started officially working for McDonalds in 1954.
After a year of work, Ray was named president of the McDonald’s Corporation, and six years later he bought out the McDonald brother to become the sole owner for $2.7 million. Once Kroc become the sole owner, he was free to rapidly expand the corporation as he wanted to do for so long. He began opening McDonald’s all over the world and by 1958 McDonald’s had sold its 100 millionth hamburger.
Kroc’s system of having a systematic assembly line to produce cookie cutter burgers every time was so efficient that he was able to provide the burgers at a cost much lower than his competitors. He standardized these operations so that a burger made in New York would taste the same as a burger made in Tokyo. He also rejected any cost cutting measures such as using soybean filler in the hamburger patties. This type of practice would go against Kroc’s philosophy of high quality burgers. Other rules such as refunds to customers whose orders were wrong or for those who had to wait longer than 5 minutes were also put into place. The business was so well run that hundreds of new McDonalds were popping up over the country every month.
Kroc continued to work for McDonald’s corporation right up until the day he died. Even while in a wheelchair, he worked in a McDonald’s office in San Diego. At the time of Kroc’s death on January 14, 1984, McDonald’s had 7,500 locations in 31 countries and was worth $8 billion. Kroc’s personal fortune was worth an estimated $500 million at the time, but Kroc was never really in it for the money. A quote by Kroc in his final years tells it best. “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will follow.”
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9
Reed Hastings
was born in October 8th, 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts. He came from a middle class family where his father was a lawyer ("Reed hastings revealed:," 2013). Mr. Hastings grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Boston (Copeland, 2012). He graduated from high school, which is Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in 1978 located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Hastings was selling vacuums door to door as a first job. He was doing this job for a year before entering Bowdoin College ("Reed hastings profile," 2013). Mr. Hasting’s father was a lawyer who once served in the Nixon administration. After high school, Mr. Hastings took a year off between high school and college. During that time, he was selling Rainbow vacuum cleaners door to door. As a summer job, he started it, and then he found that he liked it. As a sales pitch, He cleaned the carpet with the old vacuum that the customer had and then cleaned it with the Rainbow (Zipkin, 2006).
According to Zipkin, he wanted to go to a small liberal arts school, but he went to Bowdoin College. Therefore, Mr. Hastings earned his bachelor degree in Mathematics from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1983 (Hamilton, 2006). During his college years, he won the mathematics department's Smyth Prize in 1981, and its Hammond Prize in 1983 ("Reed hastings,"). After that, he found it very interesting to serve his country, so he joined the Marine Corps in their Platoon Leader Class, which is a sort of officers’ candidate school. In the Marines, he spent summers and between sophomore and junior year he was in Quantico in Virginia in boot camp. However, Then "I found myself questioning how we packed our backpacks and how we made our beds. My questioning wasn’t particularly encouraged, and I realized I might be better off in the Peace Corps" (Zipkin, 2006). Therefore, he left the Marine and went to Peace Corps.
Peace Corps
By joining the Peace Corps after dropping out of Marine "out of a combination of service and adventure says Hastings," Mr. Hastings went to teach high school to teach math in Swaziland from 1983 to 1985. He credits portion of his entrepreneurial spirit to the time spent in the Peace Corps". It was an extremely satisfying experience" (Patrick, 2010). As describing the whole experience that he spent with the Peace Corps, the process of the application to get into the Peace Corps was almost a yearlong. When he got into the Peace Corps, as a volunteer, he was assigned to teach 800 students in northwest Swaziland in a high school. Mr. Hastings taught geometry, algebra and differential equations. In addition, he was in a rural part of the country where there was no electricity and cooked with propane and wood. Furthermore, he lived in a thatch hut and slept on a cot. I think that one of Mr. Hastings turning points is the experience that he had in Africa, because" once you have hitchhiked across Africa with ten bucks in your pocket, starting a business doesn't seem too intimidating"(Matthew, 2007).
Stanford University
In the late 1980s, after returning from the Peace Corps, Mr. Hastings decided to go to graduate school in computer science, so he went on to attend Stanford University. Mr. Hastings didn’t achieve his first choice, which was MIT, which is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he got accepted to Stanford. "I had never been to California and arrived in late summer. Driving up to the campus I saw palm trees. It was dry and brown. I asked myself, “Where’s the ivy?” Within a week I had fallen in love with California" (Zipkin, 2006). In 1988, Mr. Hastings graduated with a master's degree in computer science. During his Masters, he got his first look at high-tech entrepreneurs. The founders of Sun Microsystems and other start-ups were the examples set it. Also, the willingness of Stanford to teach engineers both the business and the science of their field, “was like having a license to dream,” Hastings recalls (Hamilton, 2006).
First Job
Mr. Hastings's first job after graduating from Stanford was working at Adaptive Technology, which is a networking switch company that is owned by Audrey MacLean. She was also the founder and CEO. Ms. MacLean now is an angel investor who also teaches in the School of Engineering’s Technology Ventures Program. In this organization, Mr. Hastings invented a tool for debugging software, which he could see would be snapped up by expanding software industry very rapidly (Hamilton, 2006). Additionally, what Mr. Hastings learnt from working in this company is that doing one product well is better than doing two products in mediocre way. Also, he learned the value of focus (Matthew, 2007).
Pure Atria
In 1991, Mr. Hastings left his job with MacLean’s blessing. She also supported him with some of her personal investment money, so he launched Pure Software (later Pure Atria), which was the first company that he owned when he was 31. By the time the company grew from 10 to 40 to 120 to 320 to 640 employees, Mr. Hastings found that he was definitely underwater and over his head, and it was challenging as he lacked managerial experience (Zipkin, 2006). Mr. Hastings was an engineer himself, so he was able to double the revenue every year. However, his transformation from engineer to CEO was when Morgan Stanley took the company public in 1995. "We went from one great niche item to a broad portfolio of products, significantly improving the quality of software. We were then acquired by Rational Software in 1997 for $750 million, which gave me the means to start Netflix" (Sauer, 2010). When Rational Software bought it out in 1997 for $750 million, Pure was one of the nation’s 50 largest public software companies (Hamilton, 2006). I believe that the next turning point for Mr. Hastings is when he sold the Pure Atria, which is the biggest one.
Netflix
In the same year, 1997, Mr. Hastings with Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix, and in 1998 Mr. Hastings was named as the CEO of it ("Reed hastings profile," 2013). After his company was acquired, he got the idea for Netflix. Mr. Hastings had a big late fee for “Apollo 13, which was six weeks late, and he owed the video store $40. The reason was that he had misplaced the cassette, so it was all his fault. Mr. Hastings did not want to inform his wife about the late fee, but then he said to himself, “I’m going to compromise the integrity of my marriage over a late fee?” After that, on his way to the gym, he noticed that he had a much better business model that customer could pay $30 or $40 a month and work out as little or as much as they want (Zipkin, 2006). According to the Netflix web page, Netflix started in 1997 with offering flat rate film rental-by-mail to customers in the United States. When coming to the timeline of the company, in 1999, Netflix launched the subscription service, which offers unlimited rentals for one low monthly subscription. In 2000, Netflix launched new feature, which is the personalized movie recommendation system using Netflix members’ ratings to accurately predict choices for all Netflix members.
While Netflix was struggling to become profitable due to the competition with Blockbuster in 2000, Gray Davis appointed Mr. Hastings to the State Board of Education because he was interested in education ("Reed hastings revealed", 2013). In 2001, he was the president of it (Hamilton, 2006). Mr. Hastings spent three years as a president of the State Board of Education in California (Sauer, 2010). In May 22nd, 2002,Netflix made its initial public offering (IPO) at $15.00 per share of 5,500,000 shares. From 2002, the number of Netflix members has been increasing. For example, in 2003, Netflix ends the year with 1,487,000 members, which is an increase of 74 percent from 2002. In general, the number of the member kept increasing to present in huge percentage ("Company timeline,").
On Netflix Web page, it is mentioned that the current number of members is around 40 million member around the world. Since 2000, Netflix has been launching new features that have enhanced the service that they provide to the customer. For example, in 2007, Netflix introduces streaming allowing members on their personal computers to instantly watch television shows and movies. In addition, in 2008, Netflix partnered with consumer electronics companies to stream on Blu-ray disc players, Xbox 360, TV set-top boxes and the Apple Macintosh computer. Also, it started to launch it service in other countries. For instance, in 2010, Netflix launched it service in Canada, Latin America, Caribbean, United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Nordics.
When talking about Mr. Hastings timeline career life, he, as I mentioned, had several positions. According to his Linked In profile, he was a board member at Microsoft from April 2007 until November 2012. Additionally, he has been a board member at California Charter Schools Association from 2008 until present. From 2010 until present, he has been serving as a board member at Dreambox. Also, from 2007 until now, he has been a board member at KIPP Foundation. The last one is that Mr. Hastings has been a board member at Facebook from June 2011 until now, and of course he is the Chairman / CEO of Nexflix from 1997 until now. In term of the lessons I leant from this entrepreneur, long term planning is very effective when doing business. Further, there always will be risks in any business, so a good entrepreneur should be a risk taker. Not being afraid from failure is another lesson that I learnt from him. Another interesting lesson is focusing on one thing is a key for success. The last lesson is the education. Being aware of how business works is important key for success.
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10
Ralph Lifshitz was born on October 14, 1939 in Bronx, NY to a middle class family of Orthodox Jewish parents and three older brothers. Both parents being Jewish immigrants from Belarus, Ralph grew up attending Jewish day schools in New York. He then attended DeWitt Clinton High School as a teen, which was when he decided to change his last name to Lauren at the age of sixteen. Throughout his high school career, Lauren worked in retail at Brooks Brothers and spent summers in the Catskills. There he was exposed to the wealthy American lifestyle, which soon became his inspiration for design. Through his part time work, Lauren was able to afford top of the line clothing and became the best dressed in his class at the age of twelve. It was during high school that he began crafting his own neckties and selling them to his classmates (Eurbanista). After completing high school, he went on to attend Baruch College and studied business. After two years, he quit and was drafted into the army. After serving in the army from 1962-1964 he married Ricky Anne Low-Beer with whom he has three sons. After marriage he continued his selling his neckties out of a drawer at his retail jobs (Vogue). While working for A. Rivetz & Co, he approached the manager with his necktie designs, but was turned down repetitively. Once even being told, “the world is not ready for Ralph Lauren” (Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation History). After getting refused multiple times, Lauren took his design to Beau Brummell Ties in 1967 and convinced them to hire him as a designer. He even stated that he knew nothing about fabric, nothing about measurements, and nothing about making a tie. All that he knew was that he was a salesman and was able to sell his idea to Beau Brummell Ties. Lauren’s focus was on quality, and he got his inspiration from yearbooks of Princeton, Harvard, and Yale graduates. His tie platform consisted of a wider design with bolder colors than other ties on the market. The reason for his different design was simple; he states, “A tie was the way a man expressed himself. I believed that men were ready for something new and different. They didn’t want to look as if they worked for IBM” (Eurbanista).
From his time as a designer at Beau Brummell Ties, Lauren decided within a year that he would be better off on his own. With a $50,000 loan from Norman Hilton and help from his brother, Jerry, he started Polo Fashions, Inc. in late 1967. Throughout the first year of his business he began a men’s clothing line and sold to large department stores including Bloomingdales. After a couple years of exposure to the fashion industry, Lauren received a Coty Award for his men’s line in 1970. This was a big achievement for Lauren which gave him the confidence that he could grow his company even more. Within the next year, Lauren attempted to begin a women’s clothing line by tailoring his men’s dress shirts and cutting them for women. This gave Polo Fashions great success with sales topping at $10 million in 1971 (Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation History). Also during the same year, Polo Fashions opened their first stand alone store in Beverly Hills. 1972 was when he developed the Polo signature look of a mesh t-shirt that comes in 24 colors with the company emblem on it. This shirt is still a preppy classic to this day. As the years went on Lauren took many efforts to better establish his brand throughout the public eye. In 1974 the company released their first advertisements in a New York magazine, had Cher appear in Vogue wearing the brand, and was the first designer to model for his own advertisement. Additionally in 1974, Lauren was chosen to design the wardrobe for the cast of the movie, the Great Gatsby. From 1978-1983 Polo Fashions Inc. developed a boys’ and girls’ clothing line, cologne, luggage, eyeglasses, and home furnishings (Vogue). The array of products that Polo offered to its consumers set Lauren up for future success, and by 1997 investors were begging Lauren to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. Lauren also went on to open a restaurant in Chicago and become the designer of Wimbledon uniforms. Lauren is also known for his outstanding antique and rare car collection, which is now exhibited in a museum in Paris.
Lauren’s success continued even after shocking the fashion world with undergoing surgery for a benign brain tumor. After successful recovery, he began his long term commitment to philanthropy. With this he started the Polo Ralph Lauren Foundation which funded education and healthcare in underprivileged communities. He also started the Pink Pony Collection in 2000, which helped support programs dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. In addition to breast cancer, the designer also established the Ralph Lauren Centre for Cancer Care and Prevention in 2003. This charitable organization provides screening for a number of different cancers. Additionally, he launched the American Heroes Fund that provides scholarships to children whose parents were victims of 9/11 (Ralph Lauren Biography).
Throughout Lauren’s career he came across many turning points that led to success. From the beginning, Lauren was denied multiple times about producing his necktie design being told that it was not what men were looking for. Because Rivetz refused to support his design, Lauren took his efforts elsewhere, which ended in him developing one of the most successful fashion companies in the world. Additionally, because his wife was so eager to wear Lauren’s designs, he attempted a women’s clothing line. Because the design was just cut down men’s professional apparel, Lauren was weary after releasing the line. Although he had his doubts, the women’s clothing line ended with great success leading to $10 million in sales in 1971. Finally, by pursing his dream of giving consumers everything they need, the 1980s became the “decade of Ralph Lauren”. With his release of fragrances, eyewear, shoes, accessories, and house ware, his brand image grew rapidly and the company became more secure. Although these success stories seemed to put Lauren at great heights with his company, they did come across a few halts in the business.
In 1972, Polo Fashions Inc was almost bankrupt because of poor financial management and high expansion expenses. The company was not shipping its products on time and having delivery issues. In turn, Lauren had to invest $100,000 of his personal savings back into the company. He also reached out to Peter Storm, a friend from Norman Hilton, to become his partner in Polo Fashions. With this partnership, they split the company at 90% for Lauren and 10% for Storm. Storm stated that he let Lauren deal with the design and advertising, while he took care of the business that Lauren did not want to do. Additionally, because of high costs towards production and distribution, the partners decided to switch to a primarily design focus. In turn, they licensed their manufacturing to Stuart Kreisler, which helped with overall expenses. In continuance, they also licensed their fragrance and home collection line to Cosmair Inc. and J.P. Stevens Company respectively. Polo’s fragrance line was not successful in sales until the mid-1980s once they gave their operations over to Cosmair Inc. Alternatively, as a licensee, J.P. Stevens Company failed to provide proper operations when it came to Polo’s Home Collection. In 1983, J.P Stevens Company ran into serious trouble getting the products to retail outlets on time and maintaining quality control. Additionally, they demanded stores to have a certain standard when displaying their products, but when it came to the price of such, stores refused and laughed at the price tag. It took years for Polo to get the collection back on track (Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation History).
Because of Lauren’s personal drive and taste, he was able to build a foundation for himself and his style that will last throughout the future. One lesson learnt from Lauren’s success is to strive to be different. The designer’s original neck ties were not the same as what was in style at the time, which was why he kept getting turned down. He knew deep down that his ideas were the next best thing, so he kept acting on it until success was shown. In continuance, an entrepreneur must be excited to be remembered. Lauren took chances with his designs and that gave customers an experience they would not forget through his clothing. Another lesson learnt was to ask for help if need be. During Polo’s financial struggles, Lauren reached out to a member of Norman Hilton to partner with him in the company. In turn, he was able to turn over all of the financial aspects to someone who had better experience. Because he asked for help, the partners were able to build Polo back up from the ground. The final lesson learnt from Lauren was to have grit. Although he disappointed his mother by not becoming a rabbi and was rejected by Bloomingdales from the beginning, he still pushed forward and ended in success.
Overall, Ralph Lauren built himself to be the 122nd richest person in the world with an estimated worth of $6.5 billion. Currently there are 116 Polo-Ralph Lauren stores in the United States and around 1,300 boutiques across the nation. He built clothing traits that will last a lifetime, and his first polo design is still in stores today. He states, “what matters the most to me are clothes that are consistent and accessible” (Carmichael). Because he kept a consistent, simple nature to his designs, he was able to have product lines that can last forever. Even at 70 years old, he still believes he is just getting started in the fashion empire.
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Matthew Bernoc
Howard Mark Schultz
“Risk more than others think safe”, this quote by Howard Mark Schultz represents the mentality needed to make it as an entrepreneur. Schultz was so determined to make Starbucks work that eventually he knew it would be a success. Everyone may not know who Howard Mark Schultz is, but everyone has heard of Starbucks.
Howard Schultz was born into a Jewish family on July 19, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. His family was poor, so his way out was through sports. He received a football scholarship to Northern Michigan University. He was the first of his family to go to college and received his bachelor’s degree in communications. Schultz started out as an appliance salesman after college for Hammarplast, a European coffee maker in United States. Schultz noticed that he sold a lot of his coffee makers to a company in Seattle called the Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spice Company, more so than Macy’s. Fascinated by this he went to go see them in Seattle to see why. He kept in contact with them and after a year he was working for Starbucks as the director of marketing. On a buying trip to Italy is where Schultz really got his idea to change the coffee industry. Looking at as more than just getting a coffee, but more of a place to meet.
Once Schultz found what he wanted to do he was dedicated to making Starbucks successful. Coming back from Italy he wanted to change Starbucks from just selling beans to selling coffee drinks. The current owners of Starbucks Jerry Baldwin, Gordan Bowker, and Zev Siegl were not as excited about the idea as Schultz was. Staying persistent they allowed him to have a coffee bar in the new store. This brought in hundreds of people a day and was very successful. For some reason the owners did not like this and, did not want to get into the restaurant business. Schultz left to start his own business, called Giornale. Two years later in 1987 Starbucks sells the company to Schultz for 3.8 million. Thrilled about this, he renames Giornale to Starbucks.
“Starbucks represents something beyond a cup of coffee”, Schultz preached the vision that people would take time out of their increasingly busy days to stop and relax. He knew what he wanted to do; he just needed to figure out how to get there. Important turning point for Schultz was his trip to Italy. This is where he really found his passion for his industry. Realizing the untapped industry in the United States, where it has proven so successful oversees. Trying to convince the current Starbucks owners to take a risk, they would not leave what they were comfortable with. So inspired by his trip to Italy and changing the coffee experience that he would bring his ideas to his own startup company.
The success and failures that Schultz had, were similar to those of other entrepreneurs, coming from nothing he had to sometimes sell his own blood for money. His failures were not being able to get Starbucks to do what he wanted, so he went off on his own. His success comes with his gut feeling, even after consultants wouldn’t think it’s a good idea to open in Tokyo he felt that they should and it was a huge success. This goes to taking and risk and believing in yourself. He plans to open 40,000. Another success was how he focused on his employees. He wanted to give them security and satisfaction. Giving them benefits, and working on management employee relationship. Focused on a happy environment knowing that sales will come with it.
The lessons learnt from Howard Schultz were his passion for the company and the “partners”, in it. He tried to build a company that he always wanted to work for. All the employees are called, “Partners”, because he wants them to take pride and empower them in working there. Starbucks spends more money on healthcare then on coffee beans, which shows the dedication to its workers. Starbucks pays more to farmers for the beans than anyone else, they feel environmentally responsible, so pays more to farmers for sustainable product. The number one complaint is that there’s not enough locations, even with the rapid expansion people are still wanting more. Tokyo was first stop, consultant said not Tokyo, he followed his gut as always and went to Tokyo. Now Starbucks is in 39 countries. Each Starbucks is a little different, Spain is a spot to go, Britain is a little dirtier, the thing that stays the same is that all the drinks are identical. They plan to open 40,000 stores.
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Warren Buffett Biography
Background
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business mogul, investor, and philanthropist. He has been recognized as the top investor of today. Other names that are used to refer to him are “Wizard of Omaha” and “Sage of Omaha”. Buffett was born in Omaha in August 30th, 1930. He was the only son of Howard Buffett, a U.S. Representative, and Leila Buffett. He joined Rose Hill Elementary and later transferred to a school in Washington because his family moved; his father was voted in the United States Congress; hence, they had to move. He later went to Alice Deal Junior High School as well as Woodrow Wilson High School in the year 1947. Between 1947 and 1949, Buffett attended the Wharton School. His education did not stop there, in 1951; he proceeded to acquire masters in economics degree at the Columbia University. It was during this time that he met Benjamin Graham, his mentor, and started to come up with his investment strategy. He also studied at New York Institute of Finance. In 2012, he underwent prostate cancer treatment after being diagnosed with the disease in the same year (Lowenstein, 2012).
As a philanthropist, Buffett has donated money to many charitable organizations. He largely contributes to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation whose main objective is to improve healthcare and reduce poverty levels across the globe. He has pledged to donate 83% of his fortune to charity upon his death (Hagstrom, 2008).
Entrepreneurial History
His entrepreneurial skills were evident from a tender age; at the tender age of six, he bought 6 Coca Cola packs from his grandfather’s business and sold them at a profit of five cents. He was to become the largest shareholder of Coca Cola as of 2012. He was good as making and saving money from a tender age. He was an extraordinary child since he developed a business mind from a tender age. He became interested in the stock market started to develop at a tender age. When he was 10 years old, he made a visit to the New York Stock Exchange and bought three shares. After buying the stock, the price fell to $27, but Buffett decided to wait until the price rose to $40City Service shares were sold at $38 per share which were later sold at $40 per share. He made a grave mistake by selling them since the price shot up to $200. This taught him the value of patient as a virtue in business. As a young man, he made money through selling various goods like cookies, newspapers, barbershop, chewing gum, golf balls, stamps, among other minor things. During his sophomore year in high school, he collaborated with his friend to buy a pinball machine at $25. They placed this machine in a barbershop in their locality. After few months, they had expanded their business since they had bought several machines in various local barbershops. In 1944, he filed his first income return tax taking a $35 deduction (Kilpatrick, 2010).
In 1954, he became Graham’s partner in business. However, this partnership was dissolved two years later forcing Buffett to move to Nebraska and form Buffett Associates Ltd. As the company grew, he formed new partnerships. In 1962, all partnerships were merged, and it is at this point that Buffet began purchasing Berkshire Hathaway shares. By 1965, he had acquired enough shares to give him control of the firm. The company was worth $15 per share, and this has increased to $140,000 per share today. Since taking control of this company, Buffett has used it as both a mechanism for investment and an umbrella firm for other subsidiary companies like G.E.I.C.O. (O’Loughlin, 2011).
Important turning points
There are some things in Buffett’s life that acted as turning points; hence, shaping him into what he has become today. The experience with the Cities Service shares is one of them. After buying the shares, the price shot up by $160 per share, and this served as an important lesson for him. He learnt that patience is a very important virtue in investing. He seemed to have learnt his lesson since he seems to be doing quite well in that area. Another important turning point has to be after Graham dissolved the partnership. This made Buffett establish his own farm, which became a success. The dissolution made him realized that he also had the potential to make it on his own. While working under Graham, Buffett learnt a lot about business since he was able to see opportunities that the former ignored. It was tough working for Graham since he was a difficult man, but Buffett took advantage of this time to learn the dos’ and don’ts’ in business. This helped him make informed decisions once he formed his partnership (O’Loughlin, 2011).
Successes
Buffett’s successes can be quoted from a tender age since he managed to do well in business. Nevertheless, his significant successes are those that can be accounted for today. He is the largest shareholder of the Coca Cola Company. This is a major success given that he used to sell Coca Cola packs on a trolley; yet, he is now the biggest shareholder. Currently, he is the CEO and chairman at Berkshire Hathaway. A company he was able to purchase after merging all his partnerships at Buffett Associate Ltd. He has raised the value of this company significantly since establishing it; the value of one share has risen from $15 to $140,000. Apart from the value, the company has expanded to a great deal since it has subsidiary companies. He also owns the largest number of shares at Berkshire. In 2008, he was recognized as the wealthiest person in the world, and in 2011, he come in third. In 2012, “Time”, an American Magazine, termed Buffett as among the influential individuals on an international scale (Malkiel, 2012).).
Lesson Learnt from his Story
Buffett’s life history provides many valuable insights to aspiring entrepreneurs. One of the lessons is that success is not an overnight thing. People have to keep on pressing until they attain what they want. He ventured into several businesses until he successfully established what he has today. Another important lesson is that it is important to listen to those who have a wealth of experience. After graduating from Columbia University, Buffett wanted to take up a job at Wall Street, but Graham and his father discouraged him. These people have insight; hence, listening to them is important. Perhaps, he would not be as great as he is today had he taken that path. Finally, giving is a virtue. Philanthropic people always get more. Giving is a virtue that needs to be embraced by all.
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For my entrepreneur presentation I chose the famous Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook. Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York who was raised by his father, Edward and his Mother Karen. His father Edward owns and runs a dental practice out of to the family's home while his mother is a licensed psychiatrist. Ever since Mark was a young boy he has always had an extreme fascination with computers which was driven by an innovative spirit. By the time he was twelve years old, Mark was coding at a level of most graduate students. For example, he programmed a messaging application he called Zucknet which allowed all of the computers in his house and his father’s office to be on an intranet. This allowed them to communicate across the house and through the office without having to yell to one another by sending messages back and forth.
Marks parents hired a private tutor for him when they noticed his love for computers and that spark of ingenuity that so many entrepreneurs show early on in their life. David Newman, his tutor was shortly outlived because Mark eventually excelled so much that he surpassed his skill level and was off to bigger and better things. Mark studied at Phillips Exeter Academy which is an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire for students that are all similar in talent and drive. While attending this school he created a version of the music software similar to Pandora which was called Synapse. This application was so well developed that several companies such as AOL ad Microsoft expressed their interest in purchasing the software as well as the designer (Mark) on their teams. He declined both of these offers and after graduating from the Academy School, Mark enrolled at Harvard University. It hardly comes as a surprise that by his sophomore year he was considered a prodigy in software development and was the most sought after student for help. During this time, he developed two programs that attracted a lot of attention from both the student body and the administration. One was called CourseMatch which was an application that helped students choose their classes and base them on the selection of other users. The second was an application called Facemash which pretty much compared two pictures of student on Harvards campus and allowed users to vote on which one was “Hot or Not”. This was so popular that within a few short days they were shut down for overrunning the switches of the university. Also, it was shut down because students complained that their privacy was being invaded. It’s incredible how successful every one of Marks applications were when he was younger and goes to show you that he knows what people want to see/use.
His next project would be the one that both ignited his incredible success and brought down his biggest legal suit to date. Three students, Divya Narendra and two twin brothers, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss came to him for help in working out a way to launch a social networking site they called Harvard Connection. Mark agreed to help them in their endeavor but in reality he was working on his own social networking site with his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. This required so much of his time that Mark decided to drop out of Harvard his sophomore year to pursure his site “thefacebook.com.” This site which most people are now familiar with was created to allow users to create a profile about themselves which would let them upload pictures, post comments and communicate with each other on a virtual social setting. Although a lot of people believe that Mark stole the idea from the Harvard Connection idea, I still think that Mark saw the future different that they did. They created Harvard Connection as a dating social network and Mark saw that was way too limited and something that he did not want to be a part of. As an entrepreneur you have to be able to predict what the world wants and what direction it is going. That is what he did when he created www.facebook.com, he created something that the world didn’t exactly know they needed or wanted but the world ended up being hooked with the launch of Facebook in 2004.
In 2005, Mark’s Facebook enterprise received a massive and well accepted investment from the venture capital firm Accel Partners for $12.7 million which gave the company the capital it needed to get off the ground. Originally focused on Harvard campus only, the new found capital allowed Facebook to spread to other Universities and high schools. This exposure caught the attention of many companies looking to advertise on their social networking hub. OF course again, Mark turned down companies like Yahoo and MTV because he wanted to keep it clean and focused on the users. Mark was faced with a lot of opposition and lawsuits from the Saverin twins about his theft of their idea. Although he fought this claim with tooth and nail claiming that they were completely different social networking ideas but ended up losing and had to pay the initial settlement of $65 million. A lot of entrepreneurs would have given up faced with such a devastating set back but Mark and Facebook were doing well enough that they were able to pay for their prior mistakes while improving their characters along the way.
Another major setback to Mark was with the movie “The Social Network” which was a movie that was supposed to be based on the beginning of Facebook and all of the behind the scenes lawsuits. They did not show him in the most positive light in the movie which he found discouraging but he could not do anything about it. As an entrepreneur he blasted his way through this obstacle and made some fun out of it saying in an interview, "It's interesting what stuff they focused on getting right; like, every single shirt and fleece that I had in that movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own," I thought that shed a little light on his character because he can look at an obstacle like this and recognize that they are going to happen but realize you are not going to be able to change them just go around them. Inspite of everything he continued his success and was named Time magazines Person of the Year in 2010 and Vanity Fair put him at the top of their New Establishment list. I think most notably and one he should be most proud of is that Forbes ranked Mark at #35 on its Top “400” and provided his net worth to be $6.9 billion.
As an Entrepreneur it is very important to be socially and economically conscious of the world around you. I think that Mark is a great example of this because he followed in the footsteps of some of the greatest Philanthropists like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and committed to the “Giving Pledge”. This pledge is given by entrepreneurs of massive worth who want to give back to the world that provided for them by promising at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity of their lifetimes. Mark also donated $100 million to the failing Newark Public Schools to help them stabilize their school systems in New Jersey. "With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts," is a quote that I think really sums up what type of entrepreneur Mark would like to be.
One of the major life changes to occur for Mark came in May of 2012 when Facebook had its Initial Public Offering (IPO) it raised $16 billion which is the biggest internet IPO in history. I think this shows the success of not only Facebook but the absolute success of Mark Zuckerberg as an entrepreneur. To be an entrepreneur is something not everyone is capable of doing or something that everyone even aspires to be but Mark had the spirit and soul of an entrepreneur since he was only a small child. Passion drives success and there is no one out there that can say Mark is not passionate about computers/programing and his baby Facebook. I learned a lot from studying Mark and his history because I feel like I can relate to his passion of computers and entrepreneurship because Ive always loved computers and grew up in a family where my father started his own company. He instilled those traits in me as a young man and I hope that they have stuck with me and have matured enough to develop into something that I can one day call my own.
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Michael Dell was born in Houston, Texas in 1965, February 23rd. He demonstrated an early fascination in gadgets and technology. When he was 15 years old, Dell purchased an Apple computer to disassemble it to see and understand how it functioned. While in university, he began constructing computers and vending them directly to individuals, aiming at cheaper prices and strong client base. Dell Computer then became world's leading PC manufacturer.
Earlier Life
Michael Dell was born in Houston, Texas in 2/23/1965. He abetted in launching the revolution of personal computers during the ‘80s with the establishment of the Dell Computer Company (now recognized as Dell Inc.). Dell Computer Company was started in Dell’s dormitory room at the Texas University, and rapidly thrived into a multinational computer corporation. By 1992, merely 8 years following the creation of Dell Computer Company, Michael Dell became the youngest Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune five hundred company. Michael Dell's success was not utterly surprising. Whilst Dell’s mother, an investment analyst, and his pater, an orthodontist, pressed their son to do medicine, Michael Dell exhibited an early fascination in business and technology.
A go-getter, Dell got employed in a Chinese restaurant to do dishes when he was twelve years old to save cash for his personal stamp collection. Some years later, Dell harnessed his capability to sort through information to find novel clients for Houston Post’s newspaper subscriptions that earned him $18,000 while he was in high school. Fascinated by the growing world of gadgetry and computers, Dell bought an Apple PC when he was 15 years old for the precise purpose of disassembling it to understand how it functioned.
Dell Computer
It was during university year that Michael Dell realized the niche, which would turn out to be his success. The world of computer was still undeveloped and Michael Dell recognized that no firm had tried vending directly to consumers. Bypassing the retailers and wholesalers, as well as the markups, Dell drew off $1,000 from his savings account and began building, and vending computers for individuals he was familiar with at the university. His accent; however, was not just on high-quality machines, but powerful customer support as well as cheaper prices. Quickly, Dell had accounts separate from school, as well as it was not long afore Dell withdrew from school and dedicated all his energies on his thriving business.
The statistics proved amazing. In 1984, Michael's first-full-year in production, he had six million dollars in sales. Dell Michael was a billionaire by year 2000, and his corporation had headquarters in thirty four nations with an employee total of above thirty five thousand. In 2001, Dell Computer beat Compaq PC as the globe's largest computer maker. Generally, Dell's first twenty years attested to it being the most prosperous company on the world, startling such titans as General Electric and Wal-Mart. Dell's anecdote is so captivating that during 1999, he printed a best-selling volume concerning his accomplishment, “Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized the Industry.”
Altruism
Very much private and disreputably shy, Michael Dell has surfaced from his casing throughout the years, from those who are familiar with him, because of his spouse Susan, a Dallas aboriginal whom he wedded in 1989. Michael and Susan have 4 children. Together, Michael and Susan have displayed a readiness to share their prosperity. In 1999, they began the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, a huge private charity, which has shelled out billions to foundations and individuals like the victims of tsunami in south of Asia. During year 2006, the establishment contributed fifty million dollars to the Texas University.
By 2004, Michael Dell bowed out as Chief Executive of the corporation, but he stayed on as chairman of the panel. He worked in the World Economic Forum foundation panel and the International Business Council administrative committee. He additionally sat on the United States President's Advisory Council on Science & Technology, as well as chaired the governing panel of the School of Business in Hyderabad, India.
Controversy
In current years; however, not all has gone perfectly for Michael or his firm. Poorly manufactured computers brought about in the corporation taking a 300 million dollar charge to repair the defective machines, a colossal matter for the corporation that led to in Dell Inc. losing its best perch on the industry. Through a way to rectify things, Michael Dell went back in 2007 as Chief Executive Officer, but the outcomes had been jumbled. Poor merchandises continued to afflict the corporation, and in spite of Dell Computer's determinations to minimize the matter, documents later disclosed that workers were well alert of the problems affecting many of its PCs.
By July 2010, Dell hit headlines as soon as he complied to pay over 100 million dollars in fines to settle allegations of accounting scam, which the commission of security and exchange had filed. Rendering to the indictments, Dell Computer expanded its netting statements through counting allowances from the microchip manufacturer Intel, which were handed out to Dell Computer to urge the firm not to utilize computer chips from AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) in its servers and computers. Through padding its financial statements, investigators asserted that Dell Inc. had misled stakeholders concerning its real profits.
In a step to help reestablish the corporation he created, Dell declared in 2013 that he intends to privatize his firm again. Dell reached a deal with Silver Lake Partners, an equity firm, which is privately owned and majors in technology, as well as PC software titan Microsoft to unveil an acquisition of all Dell’s outstanding shares. This contract has been estimated between to cost 23 billion dollars to over 24 billion dollars, rendering it the largest acquisitions in current history.
Rendering to a Reuters newscast report, Dell believes that the deal will open a thrilling new episode for Dell Computer, its customers in addition to team affiliates. Many market analysts share a number of Dell's excitement, but still believe the firm is facing grave challenges. Dell Inc. has witnessed its portion of the computer market fall in latest years along with increased rivalry from smartphone and tablet makers.
Lessons Learnt
Michael Dell’s success was brought about by his interest in computers and technology. Dell followed his passion in technology in spite of the fact that his parents wanted him to study medicine. His story is a living proof that hard work and determination pays. His story also shows that it is best if people stick to their dreams and aspirations no matter how long it take them to attain them.
