Sometimes sheer talent and persistence is enough. As a single mother on welfare in Scotland, Rowling began writing the first Harry Potter novel in Edinburgh cafés whenever she could get her infant daughter to sleep. After being rejected by 12 publishing houses, Bloomsbury, a small publisher in London, offered an advance of 1,500 pounds (about $2,400)--even while one its editors, Barry Cunningham, advised Rowling to get a day job. Good thing she didn't listen: The following year, U.S. publishing rights to the first Potter book sold for $105,000. Rowling has since sold nearly 400 million copies worldwide, and is the only author on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. <BR><BR> Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
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Oprah Winfrey <BR> Age: 55 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $2.7 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Media/Entertainment <BR><BR>
The accidental daughter of two Mississippi teenagers, Winfrey faced poverty and physical abuse from an early age. A stellar student, she won oratory and beauty contests and eventually earned a scholarship to Tennessee State University, later becoming the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. At 29, she hosted a Chicago morning television show called AM Chicago, later re-named The Oprah Winfrey Show. A millionaire by age 32, Winfrey branched out on her own in 1998 by founding Harpo Studios, producer of films and television shows including the Dr. Phil show and the Rachael Ray show. Other Oprah ventures include the cable television network Oxygen (purchased in 2007 by NBC for $925 million) and publications O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home. <BR><BR>
Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
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John Paul DeJoria<BR> Age: 65 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $2.5 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Hair Products, Tequila <BR><BR>
DeJoria started out as a door-to-door Christmas card salesman in Los Angeles at age nine. After a short stint in the Navy, he returned to his salesman roots, selling encyclopedias. In 1980, with just $700 and an iron will, DeJoria and friend Paul Mitchell, a hairdresser, decided to launch a new line of shampoo and other hair care products based on a new formula Mitchell had developed. In the early months, when he wasn't pounding on salon doors and told to bug off, DeJorira bought supplies on credit and lived in his car. Without ever borrowing a dime, Paul Mitchell Systems became the largest salon-only hair care company in the U.S., with products in 10% of salons across the country. Then came his (and partner Martin Crowley's) agave assault with Patron. DeJoria currently owns a 51% stake in Paul Mitchell Systems and 70% of Patron. <BR><BR> Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
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Jeffrey Katzenberg <BR> Age: 58 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $750 million <BR><BR>
Industry: Media/Entertainment <BR><BR><BR>
While he didn't launch a business on a shoestring, Katzenberg spent decades building a network that would eventually help him launch one of the most storied movie studios of all time. He began honing his skills at age 15 as a volunteer in John Lindsay's campaign for mayor of New York in 1965. Through a connection at Lindsay' office, he later met Barry Diller, then president of Paramount, who invited him to Los Angeles to work as his assistant. During his 11 years at Paramount, Katzenberg also befriended Michael Eisner, then chief executive of the movie studio. When Eisner left Paramount for Disney in 1984, he took Katzenberg with him; there they pumped out hits like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. After a falling out with Eisner in 1994, Katzenberg left to launch his own studio, DreamWorks SKG, with the likes of Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. <BR><BR>
Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
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William Moncrief Jr.<BR> Age: 89 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $1.1 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Oil <BR><BR>
At 10 years old I watched my Daddy drill into the East Texas oil fields, and I turned to my mother and said, "When I grow up I want to be an oil man," says Moncrief Jr., who went on to study petroleum engineering at the University of Texas and work briefly with another oil company in Indiana. While his father was successful, Junior didn't take any handouts. "Any deals we did together we would own 50-50 in each of our names," he says. When Dad passed away in 1986, he left everything he owned--including his shares of the business--to his other children and grandchildren, knowing that Moncrief Jr. had enough money and land of his own. <BR><BR> Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
德吉千瀚
發表於： 2009/09/24 11:53pm
[這篇文章最後由德吉千瀚在 2009/09/25 00:02am 第 2 次編輯]
<b> How 10 Self-Made Titans Launched Their Empires
</b> <BR>
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John Catsimatidis <BR> Age: 60 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $1.7 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Supermarkets, Real Estate, Oil <BR><BR>
This son of a busboy entered the grocery industry in the summer of 1966, just after he graduated from high school. Befriended the owner of a Manhattan superette and started taking on more responsibilities. Four years later, the owner offered him a 50% stake in one of his stores to be acquired over the next 10 months at a rate of $1,000 per month. Within a few months, the store's sales doubled, and Catsimatidis was earning a profit of $500 per week (not bad for a 20-year-old back then). A year later, he launched the Red Apple Group, a chain of grocery stores that now includes Gristede's, Sloan's and Red Apple. Lacking working capital for inventory, he convinced vendors to let him buy on credit. By the age of 25, he owned 10 stores--debt-free. <BR><BR>
Reporting current as of June 2009.
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Harold Hamm <BR> Age: 63 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $3.5 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Oil and gas exploration <BR><BR>
Youngest of 13 children in a family from Purcell, Okla., (pop: 5,571), Hamm worked school jobs as a gas station attendant to supplement his parents' incomes as cotton pickers. In 1966, two years after graduating from high school, Hamm launched his first venture. With a bank loan co-signed by a friend, he purchased a single truck, the main asset of a new oil-and-gas exploration-services business. Two years later, the company changed its name to Continental Resources. Recent market cap on the New York Stock Exchange: $5.6 billion. Hamm owns 72% of the outstanding shares. <BR><BR>
Reporting current as of June 2009.
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Sandy Weill <BR> Age: 76 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $800 million <BR><BR>
Industry: Banking <BR><BR>
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Polish immigrants in 1933, this cobbler of giant Citigroup saved his pennies before striking out on his own. After graduating from Cornell (on scholarship), Weill took a job as a runner for Bear Stearns and studied for his stockbrokers' licensing exam at night. A few years later, in 1960, he and three friends pooled their savings--an estimated $200,000--and opened their own brokerage firm, called Carter Berlind and Weill. Two decades of acquisitions later, their Travelers Group was the industry's second-largest brokerage, trailing only Merrill Lynch. In 1998, Travelers Group merged with Citicorp to make what is now known as Citigroup. <BR><BR>
Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
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George Soros <BR> Age: 78 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $11 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Finance <BR><BR>
Like Sandy Weill, Soros socked away a few pennies to jump-start his entrepreneurial career. Born in Hungary in 1930, Soros and his parents fled the Nazis and landed in England. After putting himself through the London School of Economics while working as a railway porter and waiter, Soros moved to the United States in 1956 and found work at several investment firms, including Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, where he worked his way up to vice-president of the company. After running several offshore investment funds, he launched his own investment firm with colleague Jim Rogers. Their Soros Fund began with just $12 million under management (it's unclear how much of that was their own capital); it has since grown into the multibillion-dollar Quantum Fund. <BR><BR>
Reporting current as of June 2009. <BR><BR><BR>
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Kirk Kerkorian <BR> Age: 91 <BR><BR>
Net Worth: $5 billion <BR><BR>
Industry: Investments, Casinos <BR><BR>
Old-fashioned bartering helped put this farmer's son and future Wall Street titan on the map. In the late 1930s, Kerkorian offered to look after famous female aviator Pancho Barnes' cattle in return for flying lessons. During World War II, he took a job with the Royal Air Force transporting planes from their Canadian factory to England at $1,000 per month--an especially treacherous journey, as the planes weren't designed to withstand the long trip or the harsh weather over the North Atlantic. With savings from his wartime job, Kerkorian purchased Trans International Airlines for $60,000 in 1947. (It is unclear as to whether he needed additional financing.) He later sold it to Transamerica for $104 million in stock, used to fuel further investments. His private investment firm, Tracinda, now owns 39% of MGM Mirage, down from 53% in May. <BR><BR>
當然，與沒有安全靠山的人相比，極少數家境富裕的幸運兒則擁有更大的機會成為商業精英。美國人口普查局 (U.S. Census Bureau) 2002年對約1600萬企業主進行的一項調查顯示，高達55%的受訪者是依靠個人和家庭資金起家的。只有11.4%獲得了銀行貸款，8.8%的受訪者憑藉個人和商業信用卡起家，餘下的受訪者中大部分依賴政府貸款和外部投資者的支持。
以護髮產品公司 Paul Mitchell Systems 和高端龍舌蘭酒品牌 Partron Spritis 的所有者 John Paul DeJoria 為例，他從9歲開始在洛杉磯做上門推銷的銷售員。起初，他出售耶誕節卡片，很快便轉向報紙和其他期刊。在海軍短暫服兵役之後，他回到銷售老本行，出售百科全書。
1980年，憑藉僅700美元和堅定的意志，DeJoria 和理髮師朋友 Paul Mitchell 決定根據 Mitchell 開發出來的新配方推出一個新系列的洗髮水和其他護髮產品。起初的幾個月，DeJorira 挨家挨戶地推銷產品，並一次次地遭到拒絕，他只能賒賬購買所需用品並住在自己的車裏。現年65歲的 DeJoria 說：「擁有了上門推銷其他產品的經驗之後，我瞭解到遭受拒絕只是一個必經的過程。」
在未借一分錢的情況下，Paul Mitchell Systems 成為了美國最大的沙龍護髮公司，其產品在美國沙龍市場上佔據了10%的市場份額。之後，他與 Martin Crowley 合作創辦 Patron 進軍龍舌蘭酒行業。DeJoria 目前擁有 Paul Mitchell Systems 51% 的股份和 Patron 70%的股份。最新統計資料顯示，DeJoria 的淨資產達25億美元。
在派拉蒙供職的11年間，Katzenberg 還與當時擔任該電影工作室行政總裁的 Michael Eisner 成為了朋友。1984年，Eisner 帶著 Katzenberg 一起離開派拉蒙，轉投迪士尼 (Disney)。在迪士尼，他們推出了《小美人魚》(The Little Mermaid)、《美女與野獸》(Beauty and the Beast) 和《阿拉丁》(Aladdin) 等巨作。1994年，在和 Eisner 鬧翻後，Katzenberg 離開了迪士尼，與志同道合的 Steven Spielberg 和 David Geffen 一起成立了自己的工作室——夢工廠 (DreamWorks SKG)。憑藉這樣的合作夥伴，Katzenberg 的身價達到7.5億美元也就不足為奇了。
憑藉戰時工作的積蓄，Kerkorian 於1947年以60,000美元的價格購買了 Trans International Airlines。（他當時是否需要籌集更多資金尚不可知）。後來他以股票的形式和1.04億美元的價格將該公司出售給了 Transamerica，以促進更多投資。他的未上市投資機構 Tracinda 現在持有 MGM Mirage 39%的股份，較5月的53%有所下降。
現年78歲的超級富豪、金融家喬治-索羅斯 (George Soros) 利用幾便士的儲蓄開始了他的企業家生涯。索羅斯於1930年出生在匈牙利，他和他的父母因躲避納粹黨而逃到了英格蘭。在倫敦經濟學院 (London School of Economics) 攻讀完課程（在此期間還做過鐵路搬運工和服務員）之後，索羅斯於1956年搬到了美國，並在幾家投資機構找到了工作，其中包括 Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder，他在這家公司一直做到副總裁。在管理了幾家海外投資基金後，他和同事 Jim Rogers 一起創立了自己的投資公司。他們的 Soros Fund 在成立時管理的資金只有1200萬美元（其中有多少是他們自己的資金尚不可知）；後來該基金發展成了擁有數十億美元資產的量子基金 (Quantum Fund)。索羅斯目前的資產淨值約為110億美元。
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