Simply put, an entrepreneur is an individual who creates a business from the ground. Usually, it will be a financial gamble in the hopes of making a profit. Shaping your entrepreneurial skills takes a lot of hard graft and resilience, against the odds. There are lots of ways you can practise this craft, such as obtaining a relevant degree. This article will detail some of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs, and how they did it.
John D. Rockefeller
Rockefeller is commonly perceived as the wealthiest American to live. He is also considered the richest individual in modern history, due to his oil refining business. Rockefeller’s entrepreneurial habits showed themselves at the age of sixteen, where he began working long hours as an assistant bookkeeper. He showed huge ambition from a young age and put in the work to make it come to fruition.
Philip Esformes
Philip Esformes is a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. He has a long history of philanthropy and also made waves as an affluent healthcare executive. He is also a deeply devoted family man, showing his concern for appropriate career-family balance to be important to him.
Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey has been recognised as the first black female billionaire in the US. Thus, her gender and her race made her, of the time, a revelation and a force to be reckoned with. Still in recent years, she has not dropped off in terms of her philanthropy. She is famously known for her generous nature and warm character, supporting and founding charities and projects where 100% of the funds went directly to the charities in need.
Elon Musk
Some entrepreneurs made their own way to the top, and others used the help of those around them to get to where they are today. Musk falls into the latter category, and this is supported by how he was able to ask his father for a loan of $28,000 in order to start up his first company. Since then, Musk has certainly become a household name, mostly due to his association with car company Tesla, in which he became the CEO.
Bill Gates
Gates is another well-known entrepreneur who has ended up on the list of the world’s wealthiest people, largely due to founding the computer software company Microsoft. Interestingly, Gates’ own education did not set him up to be the success that he was, considering he dropped out of Harvard University. He used his own intuition and innovation to make himself a success through following his passion. Since 2020, Gates has tuned more into his philanthropic nature, particularly in the health, wealth, and environmental sectors.
Arianna Huffington
Huffington is a widely admired individual, so much so that she has been named in Times magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, as well as also being mentioned on Forbes most powerful women list. She is a multi-faceted woman, with her list of writing endeavours ranging from the novel authorial, right to The Huffington Post, which is a hugely popular blog and news aggregator.