How 7 billionaires who started out in poverty were successful

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Many people around the world, day after day, habitually complain about the injustice of fate and regret that they do not have connections, money, or both at once. Fortunately, there are those who, instead of lamenting, simply get down to business and step by step move towards fulfilling their own dream of well-being. The heroes of our review had an extremely poor childhood, and even they did not always eat their fill. But today their names appear in the ratings of the richest people on the planet, and the accounts contain amounts with six or even nine zeros.

Moed Altrad

He does not know the date of his birth, because in no document was the fact of the birth of a boy from the Bedouin tribe recorded. He chose the year of birth himself when he arrived in the city of Montpellier in France, and the children of today's king of scaffolding simply pulled the date March 9 out of their hat to decide when they would wish their father a happy birthday. Arriving in Montpellier, Moed Altrad did not know a single word in French, and he ate, at best, once a day.

He was only 4 when his mother fell ill and died, and his father never sought to communicate with his son, born to a girl who was just a toy for the tribal leader for five minutes. Moed was raised by her grandmother, and she was against her grandson getting an education. But Altrad saw education as his only chance to start another life. Moed received his first income after his father suddenly appeared and gave him a bicycle. Renting a vehicle never seen before in the desert was a very lucrative business. Today, the Moeda Altrada Altrad Group is one of the largest manufacturers of building materials with billions of dollars in turnover.

Karl Icahn

The founder of Icahn Enterprises was born into a poor family where there was simply no money for his son's education. Parents, in order not to admit their financial insolvency and encourage their son to leave the venture with admission to the university, promised their son to pay for his studies if he enters Princeton or Yale University. They knew for sure: the son would not be able to conquer any of these peaks. School teachers advised Karl not to even waste time on admission. But Karl successfully passed the exams at both universities, and chose to study at the Philosophy Department of Princeton. Today his fortune is estimated at almost $ 25 million.

Howard Schultz

The future owner of Starbucks lived with his parents in a very poor neighborhood where he could have spent his entire life. But one day luck smiled at Schultz: winning the school American football championship gave him the opportunity to go to university. After graduation, he began his career at Xerox, and today leads a sales network that includes more than 16,000 retail outlets around the world.

Oprah Winfrey

As a child, Oprah Winfrey almost did not see her parents, and the grandmother, with whom the future star lived, preferred physical suffering to all types of punishment, so she always carried a rod with her. Later, Oprah Winfrey's father helped her pay for college, and in 1983 she went on the air for the first time with a half-hour morning program that she hosted. It was with her that the ascent to the fame and fortune of Oprah Winfrey, who today is one of the richest and most influential women in the world, began.

Francois Pinault

His father was a timber merchant, but there was always no money in the family. During his school years, François Pinault was a real outcast who was constantly ridiculed by his peers because of his poverty and school failures. In the end, Pino decided to quit school and go to work. It cannot be said that things were going well for him, but the marriage with the daughter of one of his father's suppliers turned out to be truly profitable and fateful. With the support of his father-in-law, Pino opened his own small company that traded timber, which he later sold quite profitably. And he took up investment and stock trading, where he was very successful. Today, he owns Christie’s auction house, ski resorts, wineries and a football club, and his fortune is estimated at $ 9 billion.

Ralph Lauren

He was born into a poor Jewish family, where his mother was raising children, and his father served as a simple painter. They lived in a tiny one-room apartment in the Bronx and could barely make ends meet. After serving in the army, Ralph worked as a simple salesman in a boutique, later moved to a company specializing in the production of ties, and then opened his own small workshop from which city department stores began to buy ties. Following the workshop, Ralph Lauren opened his own store, and today his name is on the list of two hundred richest people on the planet.

Yang Kum

Jan Kum's family emigrated to the United States from Kiev when the future billionaire was 16 years old. At first, they lived on welfare, and Yang himself worked as a simple cleaner in a large store. Later, Yan's mother was diagnosed with cancer and the family had even more difficulty. But in this situation, Yang did not give up. He studied programming on his own, later combined university and work at Yahoo, where he managed to build a brilliant career, and then developed one of the most popular instant messengers, WhatsApp. Today, Jan Kuma's fortune is estimated at $ 7.5 billion.

Of the nearly 2,000 billionaires registered for Forbes, eleven percent are women. And although this number is small, it has grown over the years, helping to keep them among the Forbes 100 Most Influential Billionaires.