Rags to riches stories are everyone’s favorite. People love to hear stories of courageous men who struggle against all odds and make their names in the list of world’s wealthiest men. Here, we tell you 8 remarkable and inspiring journey of 8 people who travel from rags to riches and may ignite your never-lose spirit to become all you want to be.
1. Andrew Carnegie – From one-room weaver’s cottage to the steel tycoon
The facts state that Carnegie steel, the American industrialist is the company that produces more steel than Great Britain at one point. Andrew Carnegie has a terrible childhood if you want to know the truth. He was born in a poor family who worked as a handloom wavers in Scotland. He was raised in a tiny one-room house and often sleep to forget the misery of hunger.
Later, he learned business during his railroad works and invested in steel and oil companies. He got huge returns and founded Carnegie Steel Corp. in 1889, become the richest man in the world.
2. Samuel Walton – From milking cows, delivering the newspaper to the retail giant
Samuel Walton is an American entrepreneur and owner of the giant Walmart supermarket chain. However, his childhood had spent in struggles because he grew up during the Great Depression. He had done various jobs before opening the first Walmart store on July 2, 1962.
He milked his family cow and drove it to customers, delivered newspapers on a paper route, and waited tables in the childhood before he amasses the fortune of over $23 billion. He took a loan to buy his first store. Within 3 years, his sales volume grew to $225,000. The popular magazine Forbes had ranked him as the richest person in the United States from 1980 to 1988.
3. Oprah Winfrey – From getting raped at age 9 to the Queen of all media
Oprah Winfrey is quite a celebrity due to her famous multi-award-winning talk show ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’. She was ranked as the richest African-American of the 20th century. She was born into a poor family and she was raped at the age of 9 and at 13. She became pregnant at 14, her son died in infancy. She was anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19.
She became a millionaire at age 32, the moment her talk show get national fame. Forbes has listed her as the world’s only black billionaire for 2 years from 2004 to 2006 in world history.
4. Larry Ellison – Born to an unwed Jewish mom to the CEO of Oracle
Larry Ellison was born to an unwed Jewish mother, and his father was an Italian American US Air Force pilot. He is further adopted by his uncle and aunt where his uncle was distant and unsupportive. He was an inattentive student.
In 1977, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with an investment of $2,000 along with two partners. In 1982, it became Oracle Systems Corporation after its flagship product, and the Oracle database. Currently, Ellison owns stakes in Salesforce.com, Quark Biotechnology Inc., NetSuite, and Astex Pharmaceuticals. By the end of September 2011, Ellison was listed as the fifth richest man in the world with the worth of $36.5 billion.
5. Li Ka-Shing – From quitting school to the richest man in Asia
Li Ka-Shing is the Hong Kong business magnate, philanthropist, is the richest person in Asia having a net worth of $31.9 billion, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of April 16, 2014. This Chinaman has a terrible childhood where he was forced to leave school in order to support his family.
Li’s businesses have expanded in almost every facet of life in Hong Kong from electricity to telecommunications, from shipping to the internet, from real estate to retail. The Cheung Kong Group operates in more than 55 countries and employs over 260,000 staff worldwide.
6. Jan Koum – From a poor Ukrainian immigrant to a Silicon Valley mogul
Jan Koum become the talking sensation when Facebook announced that it was buying WhatsApp for $19 billion in Feb 2014. Koum is truly a rag to a rich hero. He was born and raised in a village of Kiev, Ukraine, as the only child of a construction laborer.
He used to sweep the floor of a grocery store, and collected food stamps. He becomes a computer hacker by the age of 18. On his birthday, February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.
7. Dhirubhai Ambani – From selling bhajia at village fairs to becoming the polyester prince
Dhirubhai Ambani is the founder of Reliance Industries. His selling anecdote include a tale where he bought a tin of groundnut oil on credit from local wholesaler and sold in retail on the roadside.
He used to set up bhajia stalls at village fairs. In 1949, the company promoted Dhirubhai to manage the company’s oil-filling station at the port of Aden. He thought to set up and owning a refinery. When he returned to India, he started his first textile mill in Ahmednagar.
By 2007, the Ambani family have the combined fortune of $60 billion, that makes Ambani’s the second richest family in the world.
8. Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo was born as the youngest of four children, his mother Maria Dolores dos Santos and his father Jose Dinis Aveiro. He grew up in a largely working class neighborhood in a small less fortunate home, he was introduced to the game of soccer through his dad, who worked as an equipment manager at a boy’s club. His early life was shaped by hardship, as his father was an alcohol addict. To help keep the children fed and maintain some financial stability, Ronaldo’s mother worked as a cook and house maid. Ronaldo was expelled from the school after assaulted his teacher by throwing a chair at him. By the time he was 10 years old, Ronaldo’s talents began to blossom as he ate, slept and drank soccer. By his early teens, Ronaldo’s talent and legend had grown considerably. He signed with Sporting Portugal in 2001, and went on to sign for Manchester United when he was just 16 years old. The Club payed £12 million (over $14 million U.S. dollars) to sign him, a record fee for a player of his age at that time in 2003.
From being raised in hard environment that would make even the strongest of men crumble to becoming a multi-millionaire with his own brand(CR7), Cristiano Ronaldo was able to overcome every obstacle thrown at him.
Guinness World Records Honours Cristiano Ronaldo for Becoming Highest Scoring Man in International Football
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