35 SUCCESSFUL AND FAMOUS ENTREPRENEURS - JOB - 2024

Today I come with a list of the most successful and famous entrepreneurs in history, examples to follow due to their effort and sacrifice. They never gave up on their dreams, something we should all learn from.

The world moves thanks to companies, whether they are large multinational chains or small and humble local stores. And these would not be possible without its founders, visionaries who risked their time and money to create a dream that added value to society.

The stories of the most successful entrepreneurs

1- Bill Gates

One of the richest men in the world. Bill Gates is the computer scientist co-founder of Microsoft, one of the largest software companies in the world. Currently his fortune is close to 80,000 million dollars according to Forbes magazine.

Gates studied in a private school in Seattle, something that opened the doors to him to go to Harvard, where he would create Microsoft with his partner Paul Allen.

In 1980 he managed to sell his new operating system to IBM, something that would lead him, over the years, to create Microsoft Windows, the operating system that, today, is used in the vast majority of computers in the world.

His fortune has earned him to carry out various charitable works and create, together with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with which he dedicates himself to investing in health and education in less favored places.

2- Paul Allen

Paul Allen is the founder, along with Bill Gates of Microsoft. This American entrepreneur and visionary ignored the brand when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.

When he returned, Gates had already obtained all the power, and he had no choice but to seek new paths. It would create Vulcan Ventures, and participate in companies such as Priceline, Dreamworks, GoNet or Oxygen.

3- Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is one of the best-known entrepreneurs in history. His tireless and innovative character led him to create a before and after in both mobile and computer technology.

Creator and co-founder of Apple, Jobs started in the garage of his house what would become one of the most cutting-edge companies in the world. With effort and work, he managed to boost and modernize personal computers.

The Macintosh 128K would be the first great invention of a series that still continues with Ipod and Iphone.

Unfortunately, and due to pancreatic cancer, he died in 2011 at 56 years of age.

4- Stephen Wozniak

Stephen Wozniak was alongside Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. His aspirations as an entrepreneur were the same as Jobs': They both had initiative and both started the project in the garage to develop their ideas.

Wozniak left Apple in February 1985 to create a company called Cloud that focused on the development of remote controls.

5- Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is neither more nor less than the fifth richest man in the world and founder and CEO of the well-known online shopping website Amazon.com.

His career as an electrical engineer sparked his interest in computing. In 1994 he created an online bookstore called Cadabra.com, something that was transformed over time into what we know today as Amazon.

His idea was to be able to function as a catalog of books in which the user entered and could buy the one he wanted to have it at home in a few days.

Something that began with 2,000 daily visitors has grown into millions over the years.

6- Larry Page

Larry Page is co-founder, together with Sergei Brin, of the well-known search engine Google.

Page met Seguéi at Stanford University, with whom he founded Google in 1998. His impact was such that they now control the most used search engine in the world, far above their competitors.

Today he is the CEO of Alphabet, a company that controls both Google and other types of technology companies.

7- Sergei Brin

Brin was a fellow student of Larry Page and a co-founder of Google. In the middle of his doctorate at Stanford University, he would create Google.

The famous search engine made them drop their studies and go to work on google technology. After almost 20 years working at Google, Sergei is the current president of Alphabet Inc.

Along with Page, he also makes various presentations in academic and business forums around the globe.

8- Mark Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg, the billionaire creator of the social network Facebook had to deal with a multitude of problems before reaching success. He has been denounced on several occasions for plagiarism and problems with his collaborators.

Despite this, his story begins in 2003, at Harvard, when he decides to take some small "tests" such as Facemash.com, a website that allowed him to rate the students of his university.

Its impact was such that a year later it would create Facebook, today, it is the social network with the most users in the world.

He is currently the youngest billionaire personality in the world with $ 34.2 billion.

9- Walt Disney

Disney is the person with the most Oscars in the history of cinema had a long way to reach the top.

It all started with his passion for drawing and comics, something that led him to work in an art studio. But it would not be until years later when he created Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc., a company dedicated to making short films for children, where he would create Alice in Wonderland.

Years later, a Hollywood production company became interested in his film and hired him to make more films.

His success came with the creation of Mickey Mouse, which made the entire press fall at his feet. The character came to be awarded by the League of Nations as an International Symbol of Goodwill.

As a result of that moment, new characters such as Goofy or Donald Duck would be born, and with them, films and the international recognition that it enjoys today.

10- Henry Ford

Henry Ford was the founder of Fotd Motor Company. His initiative and revolutionary ideas led him to found one of the most famous car brands in the world.

His childhood as a machinist's apprentice led him to be hired by a steam engine company and later as an engineer at the Edison Company.

After accumulating a great experience in the world of machines, he would create Ford Motor Company. Their cars would go down in history thanks to their revolutionary designs (like putting the steering wheel on the left).

Also, the well-known word fordism is attributed to him after having created a method of low-cost chain production.

11- Carlos Slim

Located in the top 3 richest men in the world, Carlos Slim has always been an investor who has wanted more and more. With only 25 years he began to create the foundations of the Carso real estate group.

In the 80s, I took advantage of a strong crisis that Mexico was going through to invest and take risks by buying shares of several companies. Thanks to these movements, he consolidated his fortune.

During the following years, he would invest in companies like Apple, or more recently the New York Times.

12- Amancio Ortega

Along with Carlos Slim and Bill Gates, Ortega occupies the first positions of the Forber list of richest men in the world.

Amancio Ortega founded Inditex together with his former wife. Although his career began when he was only 14 years old when he worked as a clerk in various clothing stores. Years later he would create the company Confecciones GOA, SA, where he would manufacture bathrobes.

Already in 1975 Zara would open, its first store that would take place in the center of La Coruña. During the following decade, it would manage to expand nationally and found what is today Inditex.

13- Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a South African physicist who began his life trying to create something of importance and make a mark on the world.

Tireless since childhood, this South African decided to move to the United States to launch his career. The creation of the Zip2 company would lead him to manage more than 200 websites to found years later X.com, a financial security company that would lead to Paypal.

Today Elon Musk controls the companies Paypal, Tesla Motros, SpaceX, SolarCity, Hyperloop and OpenAl.

14- Richard Branson

Branson is the creator of the Virgin brand, which encompasses more than 360 Virgin Group companies.

Her story as an entrepreneur begins at the age of 16, when she published a magazine called Student. At 20, I created a mail order business record, and just two years later opened the Virgin Records chain.

15- Warren Buffett

Buffett was included by Time magazine in 2007 among the 100 most influential people in the world. During his time at the University, he already glimpsed character: he tried several failed businesses part-time while combining it with his studies.

Warren Buffet has accomplished different feats, including the creation of Buffett Associated LTD or becoming the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Ray Kroc is neither more nor less than the founder of the well-known McDonal's food chain.

Ray bought the first restaurant from brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1955 to turn it into a chain. Its success made its expansion worldwide.

Before his success in the fast food chain, Ray had already tried other types of businesses such as the marketing of Multimixer, a machine that could make up to five shakes at a time.

18- Sam Walton

Sam Walton is the 20th century American entrepreneur who went on to found the two largest retail stores in the country.

The first one was Walmart, a multinational that operates discount department store chains as well as warehouse clubs. It is the third public corporation in the world.

The other store is Sam's Club, a chain that sells wholesale. It reaches nothing more and nothing less than 47 million customers between the United States and Puerto Rico, while operating in a total of 612 stores.

19- Soichiro Honda

The history of Soichiro Honda, is at least, curious. Just graduated, he attended a job interview to work at Toyota. After doing it, they told him that his characteristics did not match the company, and that therefore, he was not going to access the job.

This stick was a before and after for his life. He decided to create on his own the company that today is known as Honda, one of the largest motorcycle and car manufacturers in the world.

20- Lawrence J. Ellison

Lawrence J. Ellison is the main visible head of Oracle, a grassroots company dedicated to developing databases, being its founder and CEO (a position he left just a year ago).

In 1977 he decided to found Oracle together with two partners, a project for which they put 1,400 dollars out of their own pockets.

Currently, Oracle is the number one company in relational database management system with a market share of +47.

21- Jawed Karim

Together with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen they founded Youtube. He was the first to upload a video to the same page, known for being the most important video platform that exists today. After founding Youtube, Jawed founded his own company called Youniversity Venture.

He has served as an advisor to websites such as Eventbrite and Milo.com. In addition, it has investments in technology companies such as Google, Apple and Cisco.

22- Andrés Moreno

Entrepreneur recognized for being one of the founders of Open English, an online language school aimed at Spanish speakers.

Together with his former university partner, Wilmer Sarmiento, they developed a business and commercial strategy that has served as an example for entrepreneurs.

23- Marcos Galperín

Known for being one of the founders of Mercado Libre, one of the largest online retail companies in Latin America.

While he was studying at Stanford University, he managed to get the necessary capital to start Mercado Libre and carry it out successfully.

24- Alec Oxenford

Co-founder of OLX, one of the largest online ad and classifieds companies. For his career he has received awards that have recognized his great influence as a leader and entrepreneur.

He is an art lover, with a great interest in Latin American artists. It has a collection of more than 200 pieces.

25- Jan Koum

Jan Koum is an entrepreneur and co-founder of WhatsApp. With the help of his friend Alex Fishman and his extensive career as a programmer they managed to develop and implement the idea of ​​creating an application to send messages.

WhatsApp soon became popular, sparking great interest from Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who acquired the app in 2014 for $ 19 billion.

26- Reinhard Mohn

Great-grandson of Carl Bertelsmann, he took the reins of the famous German publishing house at its most critical moment due to the bombings that its buildings suffered in World War II.

Bertelsmann was founded in 1835 and the philosophy of the company has always been to undertake and expand. In this regard, its most notable leader was Reinhard Mohn, who turned a medium-sized company on the verge of disappearing into an international media conglomerate.

27- Shigeru Miyamoto

This Japanese video game designer is the creator of franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pikmin or Star Fox. Without him, the Nintendo company would not be the giant it is today.

He began by painting arcade machines, but his tenacity, creativity and desire to innovate led him to be considered "the father of modern video games."

28- Dr Dre

Andre Romelle Young, as this American rapper is really called, is a clear example of success based on effort, fighting for what you believe in and following your intuition.

After getting a good heritage with his records, he decided to start as a music producer. His greatest and riskiest achievement was giving the opportunity to Eminem, the most famous white rapper in a sector more typical of the African American community.

In addition to his successes in the music industry, Dr Dre was able to develop a headphone company (Beats), which were acquired by Apple, which resulted in millions in profits for the American rapper.

28- John D. Rockefeller

One of the greatest icons of wealth, he came to monopolize the oil industry through his company Standard Oil and was able to wipe out any competition that lay ahead of him. He was also a founder of the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University and one of the greatest philanthropists in history.

All this would not have been achieved without his entrepreneurial sense from a young age. Despite growing up in a middle-class family, without a suitable paternal reference, since he was a child he already sold stones to his classmates or even worked as a moneylender for his father's friends.

29- Andrew Carnegie

Carnegie was born into a British family that emigrated to the United States in search of a better life. Little Andrew worked from a young age in factories, although he took time to train himself.

His efforts allowed him to climb positions in a telegraph office, amassing money to later found his own companies or buy many others. His perseverance led him to be considered one of the richest men in history. Upon passing away, he donated 90% of his fortune to various charities.

30- Reed Hasting

Hasting is the clear example of how to adapt to circumstances and seek solutions to problems. Co-founder of Netflix in 1998, the company in its beginnings was dedicated to renting movies through messaging services.

When DVD movie rentals stopped being in demand, he began creating entertainment content to broadcast over the internet. This generated a lot of controversy and shareholders demanded that he resign.

Always following his entrepreneurial style, Netflix later became one of the most important audiovisual entertainment platforms in the world.

31- Oprah Winfrey

The richest African American in the world. Her talent directing shows has allowed her to generate a fortune based not only on her talent as a communicator, but also as a manager of various businesses.

Although she was born in the lowest depths of poverty and with a childhood marked by various traumas, Winfrey knew how to make herself and climb little by little thanks to her oratorical skills, efforts and sacrifices.

32- Pierre Omidyar

Known for being the founder of eBay, the largest auction portal in the world. Curiously, he created it to help his girlfriend sell candy dispensers online. Years later, almost unwittingly, he came across an empire valued at more than $ 3 billion.

33- Juan Manuel Lara Hernández

One of the most prominent businessmen in the history of Spain. A self-made man, he was born in a remote town in Seville from which he had to emigrate to Barcelona.

He began buying and selling books, until he created Planeta, the most important Spanish-speaking publishing group, with offices in Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Chile or Mexico. With hardly any studies, he always admitted that he did not like reading too much.

34- Jimmy Wales

Creator of wikipedia.org with Larry Sanger, this online encyclopedia is available in almost 300 languages ​​with just one click.

Although in the case of Wikipedia the success is evident, Wales has failed in multiple projects, never ceasing to persist in creating tools that help the world. WT: Social or WikiTribune are two examples of this.

35- Hans Christian Andersen

Intuitive and enterprising man, in his adolescence he emigrated to Copenhagen because he believed that this place would make him famous. Although initially his idea was to be a singer or an actor, he was unlucky and was treated quite badly by the locals.

The change occurred when he began to publish his stories about elves and fairies, becoming very popular with children and being a source of inspiration for Walt Disney.