How the Richest Business Tycoons Got Their Start

They weren’t always rich and famous, and these business moguls had pretty humble beginnings before they made their billions. From your everyday college student to a salesman, studying how to get started towards riches can often pay big dividends for the student.

How the richest self-made billionaires got their start

Bill Gates, College Student

Maybe it’s because Gates wanted to make big money fast, that he took a leave of absence from college to start what would become Microsoft. It seems to have worked out for him, as he is in his fourth year running as the richest person in the world, and has held the number one spot for most of the last 23 years.

Jeff Bezos, Hedge Fund Manager

Before starting Amazon.com Jeff Bezos was a hedge fund manager. Not all of us have what it takes to manage a hedge fund, but it is nice to know that you can move into a totally unrelated opportunity and make it a reality based on pure desire. Of course, he probably also had the capital to invest in his idea which also helps a lot.

Mark Zuckerberg, College Student

Mark Zuckerberg was a college student at Harvard before he started Facebook. In the film The Social Network it was documented how Zuckerberg borrowed the idea from the Winklevoss twins and manipulated his relationship with Eduardo Saverin in order to get things off the ground. The real story may never be known but what’s fascinating is how is such a huge corporation can be started from a dorm room.

Warren Buffett, Salesman

Warren Buffett was not always the amazing investor he is now, and he got his first start by being a salesman. Of course, these skills probably came in handy when he was starting his business and getting people to believe in his vision. He had to get people to trust him with their money so that he could prove to them he could make them even more of it.

Larry Ellison, Programmer

Sometimes it’s your profession that becomes your business, and such is the case with Larry Ellison of Oracle. One important point to consider here is that he was inspired by someone else to branch out and start his own corporation based on an idea he had to make databases better. Decades later he’s worth billions of dollars thanks to feeling inspired and taking a leap of faith.

The Google Guys, Grad Students

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were graduate students at Stanford when they met and became friends and started up a search engine that would become Google. They created something great on their own, but with the Mastermind they formed they made something truly remarkable that has made an indelible mark on the world.

If you want to become rich yourself there is always something to learn from the richest people in the world. Whether you want to emulate the success of someone you admire or avoid a path to success from someone you detest, it’s clear to see that there is more than one way to make a fortune and live your life to the fullest potential.