ExecutiveChronicles.com | Who Are America’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs Today? | Running and operating a small business is a rewarding and fulfilling way to live, according to many who did this kind of work. However, the life of an entrepreneur can also be quite challenging. There are a lot of obstacles that one must face and a lot of difficulties to overcome before making it a success in the world of business.
Any small business owner could use some inspiration to do their best and model themselves after those who have come before. Looking at some successful entrepreneurs and the work that they have done can help make your own success story feel more vivid and achievable.
If you’re looking for a few entrepreneur success stories, there are plenty go around. To make things more convenient for you, we’ve compiled a list of them here for your easy perusal. Read on and we’ll walk you through some of the most inspiring entrepreneur success stories out there.
Mark Zuckerberg
Let’s launch off this list with a name that almost everyone around the world probably recognizes: Facebook founder and chief operator Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg changed the face of the internet when he first decided to build Facebook from the grounds of his Harvard dorm room.
Within a few years, a huge percentage of the world’s population had their own accounts on the platform, and Zuckerberg himself was worth billions.
With the money, Zuckerberg has worked hard to increase educational opportunities and better the world around him. Facebook is still embroiled in various privacy concerns and growing pains, but the path ahead of the billionaire disruptor is looking bright.
There are few young people who have achieved the success that Zuckerberg has, and his hard work and determination provide a model for anyone out there looking to break the mold and change the world.
The biggest lesson one can learn from looking at Zuckerberg’s rise? Don’t chase the money. Zuckerberg refused to compromise on his values early on in the Facebook process, losing opportunities in his race to expand Facebook’s reach.
It paid off: the platform exploded in popularity and had a much longer life because of these difficult decisions. As the man himself once said: “the biggest risk is not taking any risk…”
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison is the co-founder of the Oracle Corporation, one of the biggest software platforms in the entire world. Since the late 1970s, Oracle has been doing huge business, driving Ellison to become one of the richest men in the world.
Recently, Oracle has pushed more than 40 billion dollars in profits out of their market each year. That’s a huge profit margin and one that no company in the world can claim to really compete with.
Ellison got there by chasing a dream and keeping true to his vision and thinking with the future in mind. If you can say the same about your own business, you just might have a bright future ahead as well.
Ellison’s entrepreneurial spirit runs deep, with his daughter heading the prestigious Annapurna production company, which has produced high-quality feature films for a number of years. Much like Zach Mottl Atlas Tool, the sense of entrepreneurship has been passed through the family from generation to generation.
Elon Musk
How could one make this sort of list without including one of America’s most notable celebrity entrepreneurs, inventor, and Tesla founder Elon Musk? The short answer is that we couldn’t.
Elon first rose to fame as one of the founders of PayPal, the popular online payment system that is still prominently used to this day. The most notable thing about Musk is his willingness to take major risks on the road to success and innovation.
He’s a man that is always big picture first and details second, allowing his ideas to have a solid ground of support before getting into the nitty-gritty. He also has an endless thirst for success. When he sold PayPal for nearly $200 million dollars, he invested almost every dollar into his new enterprises, SpaceX and Tesla.
That’s a man who’s willing to take risks and fight the odds. You could use that inspiration when approaching your own business as well.
Oprah Winfrey
Speaking of celebrity entrepreneurs, there are few people who achieved success so consistently and for so long as Oprah Winfrey. Oprah rose to international prominence hosting the Oprah Winfrey show from 1986 onward.
That show gave her a platform to craft a platform so large, she’s engineered an entire brand out of it. Underneath the umbrella of that brand, Oprah acts, produces films and television, writes books, runs charities, and works with large companies from around the world.
Oprah hustled hard from an early age to craft a brand that powerful. Her story of rags to riches is one of the starkest and inspiring of all. If you’re looking for a little inspiration in terms of what might be possible if you put your mind to dreaming, you don’t have to look much further than what Oprah has shown us time and time again.
As far as successful black entrepreneurs go, she’s top of the chain.
Jack Dorsey
If you’re looking for American entrepreneurs that have redefined the way the world works, you don’t have to look much farther than Jack Dorsey for a huge claim to that title. Dorsey is the CEO and creator of not one but two major American companies: Twitter and Square.
It was the former that first launched him to international fame and success over a decade ago, pushing Dorsey’s personal net worth up past the $12 billion dollar mark. Dorsey is quieter and more reclusive than many of his peers in the community but still strikes a formidable pose when it comes to his vision and execution.
Both Twitter and Square saw needs in the world and moved to fill them with easy, user-friendly solutions. Today, both companies are worth a great amount and Dorsey’s star is only continuing to rise.
Sergey Brin & Larry Page
If you’ve noticed one thing about this list of successful American entrepreneurs, it’s likely the line of work that they’re all in. Many of those who have made millions in the past decade or two did so by rising up through the ranks of the technology world.
Using the internet and modern tech to innovate and change the world around us is clearly the path to major success, and many are following the model set down by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Page and Brin are partners that met at Stanford and together invented the most popular spot on the internet: the Google search website.
The pair founded Google out of a parent’s garage right before the turn of the century. Since then, Google has exploded into one of the world’s most powerful companies, literally shaping how we interact with the mountains of data and information that surround us at any given moment.
Brin and Page are well-known for both their conviction and their ambition. While you may not have a Google-sized business idea in your head at the moment, their dedication and commitment to dreaming big can inspire you everyday no matter what industry you work in.
Kevin Plank
Let’s take a moment to look at someone outside of the tech sphere who still managed to craft an incredible business out of a simple idea. That would be Kevin Plank, the inventor of Under Armour.
Plank lived a true entreprener’s life, starting his company in 1996 and selling the moisture-wicking clothes he designed out of his car to interested buyers.
Flash-forward to about fifteen years later and Plank is the head of a company that makes nearly $1 billion dollars in revenue. Today, Plank’s clothing and designs provide the template for almost all modern athletic uniforms and the man is one of the most popular figures in athletic wear.
That’s a great, big rise for someone who started with such simple orgins. Plank is also a figure to look up to in many ways, as he is always looking to give back to others and does a lot to support the local community around where his business is based.
Specifically, Under Armour does a lot of charity and community support work in Baltimore, Maryland, where the company has its main headquarters.
A Look at America’s Succesful Entreprenuers
It’s amazing what can come from some hard work, determination, and belief. The above list of inventors and CEOs include many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs who were able to take a great idea and turn it into a world-changing business. Their stories can provide great inspiration for your own.
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