Gear -- 6 days ago
Words: Charlie Gardiner-Hill
We feel like we know the world’s billionaire’s pretty well but in reality it’s only their relatively recent business successes that we’re aware of. Most of them started doing business long before they made their first million and the stories of their earlier ventures, some before they could even walk, hold lessons for us all.
Carlos Slim Helu // Telecoms // £44bn
Slim and his siblings were taught basic business practices by their father, and at the age of 12, Slim bought shares in a Mexican bank, Banco Nacional de México.
His father also gave each of his children a savings book with their usual weekly allowance in order for them to learn to manage their income and expenses.
Mark Zuckerberg // Founder of Facebook // £20bn
On his college application, Zuckerberg claimed that he could read and write French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek.
In college, he was known for reciting lines from epic poems such as The Iliad.
As a teen, he built a product called ZuckNet, just for his family. His father was able to send an instant message to anyone in the house and visa versa. It was, essentially, an early version of AOL’s Instant Messenger.
Karl Albrecht // Founder of Aldi // £15bn
Karl served in the Wehrmacht during World War II and was wounded on the Eastern Front.
George Soros // Finance and Banking // £12bn
In 1945, Soros survived the Battle of Budapest, in which Soviet and German forces fought house-to-house through the city.
Michael Dell // Founder of Dell // £9bn
In a bid to enter business early, Dell applied to take a high school equivalency exam at age eight. In his early teens, he invested his earnings from part-time jobs in stocks and precious metals.
Dell purchased his first calculator at age seven and encountered an early teletype terminal in junior high.
As a teen, Dell sold newspaper and magazine subscriptions and while making cold calls, he noted that the persons most likely to purchase subscriptions were those in the process of establishing permanent geographic and social presence. So he targeted this demographic group by collecting names from marriage and mortgage applications. Dell earned $18,000 that year, exceeding the annual income of his history and economics teacher. Now that’s initiative.
Jeff Bezos // Founder of Amazon // £4bn
At an early age, he displayed mechanical aptitude – as a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib.
Bezos often showed intense scientific interests. He rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room.
Larry Page // Founder of Google // £19.8bn
While at the University of Michigan, Page created “an inkjet printer made of Lego bricks”.
His older brother also taught him to take things apart and before long he was taking “everything in his house apart to see how it worked”.
Larry Ellison // Founder of Oracle // £30bn
After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. He did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48.
Warren Buffett // Investment (Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway) // £27bn
On his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route.
On a trip to New York City at 10 years old, he made a point to visit the New York Stock Exchange and at 11, he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and three for his sister.
Bill Gates // Founder of Microsoft // £38bn
Gates’ family was fiercely competitive, one family friend has said that “it didn’t matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock…there was always a reward for winning and there was always a penalty for losing”.
After administrators this school became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school’s computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with what he has referred to as “a disproportionate number of interesting girls.”
Gates scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT.
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