Reed Hastings knows what it’s like to build a small business into a huge success. In fact, he’s done it more than once. His first startup was Pure Software, which produced products that detected bugs in Unix software. The company…
Even if you aren’t familiar with his name, you are no doubt familiar with his company. His purple and orange trucks and planes are seemingly everywhere. And the quirky commercials from the 1980s featuring fast-talking Joe Moschitta made his company’s…
Elon Musk may be the most accomplished entrepreneur of his generation (some would argue of any generation). He created and sold a video game at the age of 12. At 24, he dropped out of Stanford to start Zip2, a…
Like so many other successful entrepreneurs, Evan Williams dropped out of college to pursue a career in the world of technology, working for companies like O’Reilly Media, HP, and Intel. In 1999, he co-founded his first small business—Pyra Labs—to make…
Kevin Plank, like so many successful entrepreneurs, saw a problem and began tinkering with ideas that would solve it. He hated how the cotton t-shirts he wore under his pads as a football player at the University of Maryland would…
If you haven’t heard of Tim Ferriss, it’s not for a lack of his trying. Ferriss is a successful entrepreneur who has shared his strategies for success on his blog, and in several best sellers, including The Four Hour Work…
John Mackey is best known as the college drop-out who (along with his girlfriend) cobbled together $45,000 to start a small health food store called SaferWay in Austin, Texas. Later Mackey joined his store with the Clarksville Natural Grocery and renamed…
Yvon Chouinard is well known in the worlds of rock climbing and environmentalism, but almost unknown as a savvy and successful businessman (despite being both). In the early 1970’s, Chouinard learned the art of black smithing in order to design…
Sir James Dyson is perhaps best known for his paradigm-shifting vacuum cleaners—vacuums that work using mini cyclones to suck and separate dirt, while never losing suction as it fills up. He formed his own company to make and sell his…
Phil Knight discovered he was an entrepreneur while sitting in a small business class at Stanford School of Business. “That class was an ‘aha!’ moment,” he said. “[the professor] defined the type of person who was an entrepreneur—and I realized…
