1. Jan Koum
In 2009, Jan Koum, a Ukrainian immigrant to the United States, created the communication app. Koum began studying computers when he was born into poverty. He possessed high-level talents at the age of 18, and in 1997, he started working for Yahoo! as an infrastructure engineer. After purchasing his first smartphone and coming up with the idea for the application, which allows individuals to transmit messages between mobile phones over the web regardless of where they are in the world, he launched WhatsApp to tremendous acclaim. The app was recently purchased by Facebook for an astounding $19 billion.
2. Howard Schultz
Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, is known for his entrepreneurial prowess, but things weren’t always that bright for him. He grew raised on a housing estate because his family didn’t have much money. He financed education using a combination of government loans and earnings from part-time work. In addition, he was the first in his family to attend college. Schultz initially came into contact with the Starbucks brand while working for a coffee firm. He paid a visit to the new company’s Seattle location. He was hired as the company’s marketing director soon after.
Schultz quit Starbucks in 1985 and chose to start his coffee shop. He raised the $500,000 he needed to build his first store and got his company up and running. Starbucks, as we know it today, was formed two years after the original Starbucks management chose to sell its retail operation to Schultz. Schultz’s net worth has risen to $2.9 billion.
3. Oprah Winfrey
She was born into poverty in rural Mississippi and reared in inner-city Milwaukee to become the formidable woman we know today as a talk-show presenter, writer, advocate, Golden Globe winner, and global icon. She didn’t, however, let her past dictate her future. Winfrey earned a career in radio while still in high school after a difficult childhood. She was a co-anchor for the local evening news at the age of 19. She went on to anchor a daytime chat program and then start her own production business. Winfrey was a billionaire by the age of 32. By the year 2000, Winfrey had amassed a net worth of $800 million, making her the wealthiest African American of the twentieth century. Her annual income has risen to $275 million by 2008.
According to Forbes, Winfrey had a net worth of more than 2.9 billion dollars by 2014.
4. Do Won Chang
Won Chang may not be well-known, but his Forever 21 clothing store surely is. When Won Chang initially immigrated to America from South Korea, he worked as a janitor, at a gas station, and in a coffee shop before founding the retail business in 1984. His first store, in Los Angeles, was 900 square feet, and he and his wife established it with barely $11,000 in funds, putting everything into the business. The store was once known as Fashion 21, and the majority of its clients were Korean Americans. However, the consumer base grew quickly, and the business took off with a name change to Forever 21. Do Won Chang is currently a $3.2 billion multinational empire with 790 locations.
5. Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren, a household brand and fashion industry behemoth graduated from high school in the Bronx, New York, but went on to join the US Army after dropping out of college. He was working as a sales assistant at Brooks Brothers in the United States when he began to question if men were ready for more colorful ties, particularly in the case of ties. He started selling ties in 1967 after deciding to try his hand at operating his own business. He sold $500,000 worth of items in his first year in business. The next year, he began playing polo. Lauren is a household name, with A-list models and actresses among his close pals, and the Ralph Lauren Corporation is now a global multibillion-dollar corporation. Ralph Lauren is the 91st richest person in America, according to Forbes, with a net worth of $7.2 billion.
