We’ve all heard about the American Dream. In the United States, many believe that any American can achieve wealth, fame and success. You don’t need start-up capital for this, you just need to be hardworking and devote all your energy to the implementation of your plan.
There are people who have confirmed that the American Dream is not just a ready-made plot for a life-affirming film. It is feasible, and the life stories of prominent personalities prove it.
List
- 10. Francois Pinault
- 9. David Murdock
- 8. Yang Kum
- 7. Howard Schultz
- 6. Oprah Winfrey
- 5. Kevin Planck
- 4. Shahid Khan
- 3. John Paul DeJoria
- 2. Walt Disney
- 1. J.K. Rowling
Table of Contents
10. Francois Pinault
The future billionaire was born into the family of the owner of a small forest farm. He enrolled at Saint-Marin College but quickly dropped out due to the ridicule of classmates who made fun of his old clothes and accent
From the age of 15 he worked with his father, never having received a higher education, then he was interrupted by odd jobs.
Realizing that he would not get rich here, in 1956 he went to Algeria. From there he returned with money. Nobody knows how he earned them. But they were enough to create their own company, which was engaged in timber trade.
François never hid the fact that he listens to his intuition. So, in 1973, he decided to sell his company to the British for 30 million francs, and then bought it out for ridiculous money.
He never missed a single opportunity to get rich. He profitably invested his profits, earning more and more, absorbing one company after another.
When he got money, she began to collect art objects, although he himself admitted that he had not been in a museum until he was 30. He collected 2 thousand different works of artists.
His fortune for 2018 is about 27 billion.
9. David Murdock
He now owns a company that is one of the largest exporters of vegetables and fruits.
His fortune is about $ 3.1 billion.
And once Murdoch had nothing. After dropping out of school, he worked part-time at a gas station, and in 1943 he went to war. After it ended, young David returned to Ohio. At that time he had neither money nor housing.
Friends lent him money. He bought his first diner with them. This was the first step towards obtaining a billionaire state.
8. Yang Kum
His fortune is estimated at $ 6.6 billion.
He is relatively young, only 43 years old. He was born in Ukraine, in an ordinary family.
At the age of 16, he moved with his mother to the United States. It was not easy for them in the new place, sometimes they survived only due to the social benefits of their mother, who, moreover, was sick with cancer.
To provide himself with the essentials, Qom had to work as a cleaner. But he was able to go to university and get a job at Yahoo, where Yang worked until 2007.
Qom got rich when he came up with the WhatsApp mobile application in 2009, the same one that is now in almost every phone.
Mark Zuckerberg offered Ian to purchase his app for $ 19 billion in 2014, making him a billionaire. He, according to the terms of the deal, was a member of the directors of Facebook, but in the spring of 2018 announced his departure from the company.
7. Howard Schultz
He was born into a poor family. He was 7 years old when his father broke his leg and the family was left without money. These financial difficulties will forever remain in his memory. At 12, the boy was already selling newspapers.
Howard graduated from university and started working. Once, having tasted Starbucks coffee, he realized what a unique taste it has. Schultz decided to get a job in this campaign, and soon he succeeded, he was hired as a marketing director.
At that time, almost no one knew about real coffee, and Howard understood that the company had great prospects. He got the idea to create a caffeine network where people could gather to hang out with friends. But the director refused him. Then Schultz quit his job, raised the required amount and opened his first coffee shop.
A year later, he was able to buy out Starbucks stores for 4 million, and as he developed, he opened more and more outlets throughout the country, inspiring Americans to drink real coffee.
In 2016, his fortune was estimated at $ 2.9 billion.
6. Oprah Winfrey
Her mother worked as a maid and her father as a miner. Her childhood was spent next to her grandmother, who often whipped her with a cane for disobedience. At the age of 6, her mother took her, but Oprah’s life did not improve from this. Her uncles and brothers molested her, and at 9 she was raped.
Mother sent Oprah to live with her father. He paid great attention to her education. She graduated from the university. In 1986 she had her own program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which made her one of the most famous and wealthy women in the United States.
Now her fortune is about $ 3 billion.
5. Kevin Planck
The annual income of his company is about 2 billion a year, and it employs almost 6 thousand people.
And he was born in a large family without much income. Kevin was able to enter college only because of his success in American football. During his university studies, he also spent a lot of time in the field.
He moved and sweated a lot, and the T-shirts, which were then made from cotton, quickly got wet and prevented him from moving. Plank picked a different fabric for his shirt, with lycra and polyester.
After making sure that such a T-shirt was comfortable and light, he decided to start his own production, making an office in his grandmother’s basement. He distributed his first T-shirts among familiar players, gradually expanding his business.
4. Shahid Khan
He was born in Pakistan but went to the United States at 16 to study. The family raised $ 500 for him, but this would not be enough for a normal living. The boy worked as a dishwasher and at the same time studied, dreaming of getting rich.
In 1970, he got a job at a car parts company, gradually climbing the career ladder. There he was able to come up with a new type of bumper, but the management of his company was in no hurry to introduce something new into production.
Khan realized that his idea would help him get rich, and started his own company, taking out a loan and adding his own savings. Its bumpers have attracted the attention of major automakers.
Developing, buying up new companies, he managed to save $ 8.4 billion, and he is now one of the richest Pakistanis.
3. John Paul DeJoria
In 2016, his fortune was estimated at $ 3 billion.
He went to this all his life, full of difficulties and failures. John grew up in a poor family, they did not have enough money for even the most basic things. At the age of 9, he began to earn money by delivering newspapers, but his mother still could not support him and his brother, giving them to an orphanage.
Growing up, he got married, a child was born in the family. When the baby was 2 years old, his wife left him. The man was left without money and with a child in his arms found himself on the street, where he lived for several days until he was sheltered by a familiar biker.
Over the next 10 years, John went through many professions until he founded his company. He was then 36 years old. She and a partner sold shampoos and hair conditioners.
It was not easy for John: he lived in a car, learned to subsist on $ 2 a day. And only 2 years later, the first profit appeared. The company gradually grew, and its products were already sold in 30 countries around the world.
2. Walt Disney
Walt was born into a large family, so poor that they could not buy pencils and paper for his son, and he drew on resin with a stick. From the age of 8 he helped his father by delivering letters and advertisements. After graduating from the Institute of Arts, he got a job in a restaurant company, where he worked for a pittance.
In 1923, having become interested in animation, Disney went to Hollywood, and realizing that he would not be hired, he created his own company. Walt took his uncle’s garage, borrowed money from his brother to buy paints and spotlights, and started working. Brother Roy supported him in everything.
For the first cartoon, the brothers who became companions made a small profit, after which the campaign began to develop.
Now the Disney company is worth about $ 163 billion, but Walt Disney himself died in 1966 from lung cancer, he was 65 years old.
1. J.K. Rowling
The writer led an unremarkable life: a happy childhood surrounded by loving relatives, studies, a passion for books.
In adolescence, she faced the first problems: her grandmother died, her relationship with her father went wrong, her mother fell ill, whose disease progressed every year (multiple sclerosis).
But Joan was able to enter the University of Exeter, became a bachelor of arts and started working. She soon began writing her novel. The girl’s mother died. This was a big blow to her.
Rowling left for Portugal, worked at the institute, and wrote a book in her free time. There she got married, gave birth to a child. But a couple of months after her daughter was born, her husband beat Joanne and kicked her out of the house.
She had no family, no money, no job, only a daughter and ready 3 chapters of the book. Then a beggarly existence began, together with her daughter they lived on an allowance of 70 pounds.
Only the book helped her not to go crazy, she devoted all her free time to her. She rewrote her first novel 15 times. After sending the book to publishers, Rowling received only rejections. Only a year later they agreed to publish it, and “Harry Potter” was a resounding success.
In 2007, she became the only English woman to make the Forbes billionaire list. She was able to earn over $ 1 billion from her books.
In 2018, they calculated her income for the year, and they amounted to about $ 6.2 million.