Michael Dell

Michael Dell, born February 1965, started the road to success out of his University of Texas dorm room in 1984 with just $1,000 and an idea to provide affordable personal computers to college students. Dell is now Chairman and CEO of his company with a net worth of over $30 billion.

"You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream."-Michael Dell

Following the simple idea that by selling customized personal computer systems directly to customers he could best understand their needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs, Dell has made Dell Computer Corp. the world's leading direct computer systems company.

Dell's parents wanted him to be a doctor. But by the time he was in junior high, Dell was hooked on computers. While most of his classmates were tinkering under the hoods of old cars, Dell loved to tinker with his Apple IIe.

To please his parents, Dell enrolled as a premed student at the University of Texas in 1983, but by then his only real interest was in computers. During his first semester, Dell spent his spare time buying up remaindered, outmoded PCs from local retailers, then upgrading and selling them from his dorm room. He was so successful, that one day his roommate piled his ever-growing inventory up against the door of their dorm room.

Dell took this as a sign it was time to move his burgeoning business off campus. His parents were furious when he told them he wanted to drop out of college, so to appease them, Dell agreed to go back to school if the summer's sales proved disappointing. In his first month in business, Dell sold some $180,000 worth of PCs. He never returned for his sophomore year.

While looking for ways to expand his fledgling start-up, Dell concluded computers would soon become a commodity, and with commodities, what matters most is price and delivery. Dell saw that the quickest way to achieve both goals was to cut out the middleman. He realized that he could buy components and assemble the whole PC himself more cheaply. Then he could sell each machine over the phone directly to customers at a 15 percent discount to established brands. This technique, which came to be known as "the direct model of selling," would revolutionize the industry and make Dell a multibillionaire in the process.

The 19-year-old Dell dubbed his venture PCs Ltd., and the Austin-based company soon became one of the fastest-growing enterprises in the country. Rather than flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of "plain brown wrapper" computers, the company would focus on what it did best-creating customized machines to order.

His idea was to sell computers directly to the consumer without going through retailers, and in the process design and deliver a computer based upon the customer’s own specifications. Thus, in 1984, Dell founded the Dell Computer Corporation with $1,000. In 18 years, Dell has grown into a $31.2 billion company. Today, Dell's average earnings are $40 million per day, and it is the largest online commercial computer seller in the world.

Now Dell is the world's largest PC manufacturer, growing from $6 million annual revenue to over $40 billion in only sixteen years. It employs over 40,000 people in over 170 countries worldwide. Dell’s product line has diversified to includes not only PC’s and network servers, but storage systems, printers, hand-held computers, MP3 players, and televisions, plus a wide selection of computer services. Dell is the largest online computer retailer, selling an average of $30 million a day

Bill Gates

William Henry Gates, known to his friends and the rest of us as Bill , is probably the world’s most prominent entrepreneur. From a teenager’s interest in computer programming, he founded and built Microsoft to its position of global dominance of the vast personal computer market. He is certainly one of the world’s richest individuals. Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and enterprise are today very fashionable topics. The self-made, intelligent and visionary individual, who sets up a business that eventually arrives on everyone’s ‘must have’ list and sees off all rivals, is now the focus of press, film and TV. Entrepreneurs are now role models. Yet, in 1955, when Bill was born in Seattle, very few people ever mentioned the word ‘entrepreneur’. Even as recently as 1975, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft, calling a business person an entrepreneur was often a term of abuse in Britain, if not in the US.

"Merely being extremely rich is not the same thing as being an entrepreneur"

Bill Gates was born in Seattle to a father who was a leading lawyer there and a mother who was part of a prominent banking family. So, young Bill had no problem with social status and the family was not short of money. However, there is evidence that Bill was driven by a joy of creativity. As a boy, he was fascinated by computers and programming. He even managed to convince his teachers to let him drop moths so that he could pursue programming. At the age of 14, Bill and his school friend, (and future Microsoft partner) Paul Allen, converted an Intel processor into a traffic counter and earned $20,000 each for themselves.

"Ultimately, the PC will be a window to everything people are interested in-and everything we need to know."-Bill Gates

Some see him as an innovative visionary who sparked a computer revolution. Others see him as a modern-day robber baron whose predatory practices have stifled competition in the software industry. Regardless of what his supporters and detractors may think, few can argue that Bill Gates is one of, if not the most successful entrepreneur of the 20th century. In just 25 years, he built a two-man operation into a multibillion-dollar colossus and made himself the richest man in the world somewhere along the way. Yet he accomplished this feat not by inventing new technology, but by taking existing technology, adapting it to a specific market, and then dominating that market through innovative promotion and cunning business savvy.

Gates' first exposure to computers came while he was attending the prestigious Lakeside School in Seattle. A local company offered the use of its computer to the school through a Teletype link, and young Gates became entranced by the possibilities of the primitive machine. Along with fellow student Paul Allen, he began ditching class to work in the school's computer room. Their work would soon pay off. When Gates was 15, he and Allen went into business together. The two teens netted $20,000 with Traf-O-Data, a program they developed to measure traffic flow in the Seattle area.

Despite his love and obvious aptitude for computer programming, and perhaps because of his father's influence, Gates entered Harvard in the fall of 1973. By his own admission, he was there in body but not in spirit, preferring to spend his time playing poker and video games rather than attending class.

All that changed in December 1974, when Allen showed Gates a magazine article about the world's first microcomputer, the Altair 8800. Seeing an opportunity, Gates and Allen called the manufacturer, MITS, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and told the president they had written a version of the popular computer language BASIC for the Altair. When he said he'd like to see it, Gates and Allen, who actually hadn't written anything, starting working day and night in Harvard's computer lab. Because they did not have an Altair to work on, they were forced to simulate it on other computers. When Allen flew to Albuquerque to test the program on the Altair, neither he nor Gates was sure it would run. But run it did. Gates dropped out of Harvard and moved with Allen to Albuquerque, where they officially established Microsoft. MITS collapsed shortly thereafter, but Gates and Allen were already writing software for other computer start-ups including Commodore, Apple and Tandy Corp.

The duo moved the company to Seattle in 1979, and that's when Microsoft hit the big time. When Gates learned IBM was having trouble obtaining an operating system for its new PC, he bought an existing operating system from a small Seattle company for $50,000, developed it into MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), then licensed it to IBM. The genius of the IBM deal, masterminded by Gates, was that while IBM got MS-DOS, Microsoft retained the right to license it to other computer makers.

Much as Gates had anticipated, after the first IBM PCs were released, cloners such as Compaq began producing compatible PCs, and the market was soon flooded with clones. Like IBM, rather than produce their own operating systems, the cloners decided it was cheaper to purchase MS-DOS off the shelf. As a result, MS-DOS became the standard operating system for the industry, and Microsoft's sales soared from $7 million in 1980 to $16 million in 1981.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942)

 is an American businessman and politician who is currently Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $25 billion in 2012, he is also the 10th-richest person in the United States. He is the founder and 88% owner of Bloomberg L.P

Michael Bloomberg started his New York City story sweating in his underwear in Salomon Brothers' vaults. And in a little over 20 years he turned a $10 million severance package from that now defunct bank into a multi-billion dollar company Wall Street can't live without. The inspiring journey, with plenty of highs and lows, is one of a man who enjoys both success and philanthropy. His current gig is only paying him $1 per year, but it's not like he needs the money.  According to Forbes, he's now the 11th richest man in the world. He invested $4 million of his $10 million Salomon Brothers severance package into his start-up. His company was originally called Innovative Market Solutions, and consisted of four others, who collaborated to create and program a computer terminal that let traders stay informed about the Treasury bond market.

After leaving Salomon Brothers, Mayor Bloomberg started his own business because “nobody offered me a job, I was probably too proud to go look for one, and I said well why not start your own company.”

And before he became the three-time Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg made billions running the financial information company bearing his name. But it might never have happened if he hadn’t been fired from Wall Street during the early days of his career.

A hands-on founder who studied engineering, Mayor Bloomberg remembers spending “every Saturday at an engineer’s barn up in Connecticut” physically helping build the hardware (pointing out this was before PC’s and the internet) and flying to Chicago to tackle related infrastructure repairs. If anything broke he says it remained that way until he could catch a flight. Reflecting on those first three years, Bloomberg says, the first year, “You don’t think about the downside, the second year is the difficult one, the third year you see that light at the end of the tunnel.” Looking ahead, the Mayor recognizes that “intellectual capital” is crucial for making New York a world-class tech center and says “the business strategy, if you will of New York  City Government is not to subsidize companies, not to pay for people to bring jobs here, it is to invest in parks and cultural institutions and better public schools and lower crime to get the best and brightest to want to live here.”

Bloomberg's company became wildly successful during the 1980s.

In 1986, the company's name changed from Innovative Market Systems to Bloomberg L.P.Bloomberg's company also moved to 499 Park Ave in New York. In 1987, Bloomberg sold its 5,000th terminal and launched its trading systems platform. In 1989, Bloomberg bought back 1/3 of Merrill Lynch's 30% stake for $200 million.  With that valuation, Bloomberg's company was worth $2 billion only eight years after its launch.

 Today, Bloomberg L.P. has over 310,000 subscriptions to its financial news and information service.  Bloomberg now employs more than 15,000 people throughout its several offices around the world.

 Bloomberg L.P. is a financial software, news and data company founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, which now controls approximately a third of the global financial data market. The company generates a profit from providing financial software tools such as an analytics and equity trading platform, data services and news to financial companies and organizations around the world through the Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg L.P. has grown to include a global news service, including television, radio, the Internet and printed publications, most recently acquiring Business Week. 

Bloomberg is a businessman and politician. The son of a bookkeeper, Bloomberg put himself through Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University, where he earned an MBA in 1966. His first Wall Street job was with Salomon Brothers, where he quickly climbed the ladder, becoming partner in 1972.

When Salomon Brothers was bought in 1981, Bloomberg started his own company, Bloomberg L.P., built around a financial information computer that revolutionized the way securities data was stored and consumed. The company was enormously successful and soon branched into the media business with more than 100 offices worldwide. As one of the wealthiest men in the world, Bloomberg chose to turn his attentions to philanthropy, with an emphasis on education, medical research and the arts.

Oprah Winfrey

Born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi, Oprah Winfrey lived with her grandmother on a farm until she was six years old. From the age of 6 to 13, she lived in Milwaukee with her mother. At 13, claiming abuse, she ran away from her mother’s home. The authorities sent her to a juvenile detention center. Denied admission to the detention center because of overcrowding, Oprah went to live with her father in Nashville. Her father, Vernon Winfrey was a strict disciplinarian instituting a midnight curfew and requiring her to read a book and write a book report each week.

This strict upbringing would later prove to be beneficial in Oprah’s career. At 17, Nashville radio station, WVOL, hired her to read the news on the air. That same year she became Nashville’s Miss Fire Prevention and Miss Black Tennessee. She enrolled at Tennessee State University, majoring in Speech Communications and Performing Arts.

In 1973, Oprah became Nashville’s first african-american TV correspondent and the youngest person ever to co-anchor news at WTVF-TV. In 1976, WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland offered her a job to co-anchor the 6 o’clock news. After two years with the station, Oprah began co-hosting WJZ-TV’s ‘People Are Talking’ talk show, while remaining an anchor and reporter.

Oprah soon discovered her talent as a talk show host and in 1984; she relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV’s “AM Chicago,” a faltering morning talk show. Oprah proved her style and within a month AM Chicago became the #1 talk show in the region. Within a year the format was changed from a half-hour to a one hour show, and in September 1985 it was renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

1985 would be the start of Oprah’s rise to become the billion dollar woman as she starred in The Color Purple, which would earn her a Golden Globe and Academy Award for best supporting actress nominations. In 1986, she formed Harpo Productions as the Oprah Winfrey show enters national syndication and she stars in the feature film ‘Native Son’.

In 1987 after a year in syndication, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” received three Daytime Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Host, Outstanding Talk/Service program, and Outstanding Direction. Oprah hosted the 14th annual daytime Emmy awards that year. In 1988, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” received its second consecutive Daytime Emmy Award as Outstanding Talk/Service Program. Over the next 20 years, the Oprah Winfrey show would receive 40 daytime Emmy’s.

Oprah has in addition received numerous personal awards from a variety of humanitarian to business awards and has been named to Time magazines ‘100 most influential people’ three times. In 1991, Oprah initiates the national child protection act, testifying in front of the US senate judiciary committee to establish a national database of convicted child abusers. President Bill Clinton signed it into law in 1993.

In 1995, Oprah online on AOL debuts with ABC, her first venture into the world wide web. In 1996, she launched the Oprah Book Club, promoting authors, and their books through her show. In 1998, she co-founded Oxygen media and the Oxygen Network on cable and satellite. In 1999, Oprah launched Oprah.com, a woman’s lifestyle website, where she also created the world largest book club.

In 2000, she launched ‘O’ magazine and went international in 2002. That same year her Harpo productions creates Dr. Phil, a new daily syndicate talk show, she launches ‘Oprah after the show’ on oxygen network and breaks ground for the Oprah Winfrey leadership academy for girls in West Africa. She also received the Bob Hope Humanitarian award and was an inductee into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.

In 2003, Forbes magazine listed her as the first African-American woman to become a billionaire. She was able to achieve this great wealth through her persistence and diversification of her brand, Oprah.

Today, her show is more popular than ever and airs internationally as well as on XM satellite radio, and via the web through her YouTube channel. Since 2005, her website surpasses 100 million page views per month.

Pierre Omidyar (eBay)

"I never had it in mind that I would start a company one day and it would really be successful. I have just been motivated by working on interesting technology."-Pierre Omidyar

Growing Up

Omidyar was born in Paris in 1967. He moved to Baltimore when his father began his term of residence at Johns Hopkins. Omidyar became captivated by computers while at high school and skipped his gym classes in order to use it. Noticing the boy's keen interest, the principle gave him the job of creating a program that would produce catalog cards for the library. He was paid $6 an hour.

At Tufts University, Omidyar worked on a program to assist Macintosh programmers with computer memory problems.

His request that users of this shareware file pay on the honour system did not bring many replies; the cheques that should have been going to fund his years as a computer science undergraduate went solely to paying for the post office box.

In 1991, Omidyar went to work with three friends to create pen-computing programs. Though Pen computing was a dismal failure, the e-commerce site (eShop) on the Web site that Omidyar introduced and operated enticed Microsoft to buy the company.

Starting the Business

Omidyar went to work with General Magic, a software company, in 1994 and made extra money designing Web pages on the side. The girl he was dating at the time, Pamela Wesley, who would later become his wife, collected Pez dispensers and often complained how difficult it was to meet others passionate about her hobby on the internet. Thoughtfully, Omidyar appended a small online auction to his personal website so Pamela would make contacts with other collectors as well as buy and sell.

eBay (electronic Bay, as in the San Francisco Bay area), as it was when it first appeared in 1995, operated merely as a forum for people to sell and bid on various items. Omidyar did not back goods, mediate conflicts, or get involved if there were accusations of dishonesty or abuse of the system. Almost immediately, collectors of Barbie dolls, Beanie babies and the like flocked to eBay.

Three months after its launch, Omidyar had to ask his friend Jeff Skoll, also a programmer, for help. In order to cover the new costs involved with the growth of the business, Omidyar began charging small change to list an item on the site and took a small commission if the item was bought.

Building an Empire

Omidyar was surpised by his continued success and had to hire someone to open the large number of cheques that were being sent in. He was also surprised that people were not simply using the site to buy and sell, but also as a meeting place where relationships were made over common interests.

After qutting his day job, Omidyar worked along with Skoll to improve eBay. They felt that if a sturdy framework was in place, business would generate by itself. After just under two years of operation, eBay was one of the most popular internet sites, 150 users bidding on 794,000 items daily. And the company was now doubling every three months.

At such a rate of growth, Omidyar and Skoll sought venture capital assistance and a management team that would further move the company forward. Benchmark Capital gave the partners a $4.5 million cheque for 22% of the company. Benchmark also found a CEO for eBay, Margaret Whitham, an executive from Hasbro, and with her leadership, the business became a slick corporate entity. With a new look, better publicity, and greater organization, eBay went public on September 24, 1998. Within four months of trading, the stock, which started at $18 per share, was worth $300. Omidyar became a billionaire.

Now selling far more than just Pez dispensers, eBay has completely changed e-commerce. Despite increasing competition, eBay continues to grow. Omidyar recognized and seized the opportunity that essentially fell into his lap and revolutionized internet use.

Evan Carmichael is an entrepreneur and international speaker. His webpage is among the top 10 Internet sites globally for entrepreneurship and contains profiles of famous entrepreneurs, lessons learned from successful business owners, and expert opinions and analysis. He also runs Entrepreneur Mastermind Groups to give business owners important insights from their peers into managing and growing a small company.

According to Forbes magazine, Pierre Omidyar is the 156th richest person in the world (US $5.5 Billion 2009), and is also well-known as the richest Iranian.

Walt Disney

Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago and was an avid artist from an early age. At 16, he enlisted in the Red Cross and served in World War I, driving an ambulance that he customized with his own cartoon drawings. Upon his return, he worked as an advertising cartoonist in Kansas City, Missouri

There are many successful entrepreneurs, which have achieved unimaginable results in their companies or firms, as in the case of this famous American character Walter Elias Disney, who was born in Chicago Illinois in the year 1901. Walt Disney’s story begins when he founded the company with his brother Roy Disney, the company would be named The Walt Disney Company.

Walt Disney’s childhood was typical of a farmer, as his father Elias Disney was dedicated to these tasks, he was the son number 4 of 5, for being one of the smallest did not help much in the work, so devoting their time to play and draw.

He was a train enthusiast, he loved him. But then his father became ill, so had to sell the farm and travel to Kansas, where the Disney brothers had to work. Walt was very difficult to leave the farm and live in the city, but had to get used to. He began to work delivering newspapers, but this job required him to get up early, so be studying the performance was not very good, because sometimes he fell asleep.

When Walt was 15 he got a job selling newspapers on the train and some goodies, but as he was more interested in the train, often robbed of their goods. He then enlisted in the Red Cross and was sent to France, where ambulances management and also learned the habit of smoking, the same that would lead to death.

At the end of World War II, Walt went back to America, and began to study a career and began working on PESEM-Rubin Art Studio, where he performed newspaper drawings. There he gained experience and decided to put his own company, then founded the Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc., a company in which he began to create his characters, in which it decided to create an ambitious project in the movie Alice in Wonderland `s But when making the company declared bankruptcy and the employees had to go, Walt Disney decided to go to Hollywood, so he sold his camera and took only his film Alice’s Wonderland, arriving at Los Angeles had only $ 40. I wanted to become a director and toured businesses and gave no chance.

Unable to find employment again tried to animation in a garage in his uncle Robert in Los Angeles, sending your film to the company Margaret Winkler who liked and continued to produce.

Every effort was Walt Disney began to be rewarded and in 1928 created his most famous character Mickey Mouse, which launched him to fame. Henceforth began many challenges to Walt Disney, who was a successful entrepreneur.

Since the 1940′s began the idea of ​​founding a Walt Disney theme park, the legends that seeing the ground to buy told a friend and told him to buy the all around this area, and the friend answered no .. it was crazy and Disney just smiled.

What began as a dream is now reality and The Walt Disney Company now has eighteen parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, eleven cable television channels and one terrestrial ABC.

Disney was one of the most interesting entrepreneurs studier successful, his addiction to cigarettes brought death, he died of lung cancer. Here are some words of Walt Disney:

“I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I’ve ever met”

“No sleep for rest, sleep to dream, because dreams are to be fulfilled.”

“Think, Dream, believe and dare.”

“If you have a dream, and believe in it, you run the risk of reality.”

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.

"We started out to get a computer in the hands of everyday people, and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."-Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is well-known as a successful and innovative Entrepreneur. But by his own definitive published statement, Jobs was both an Entrepreneur and Entrepreneur! Steve and Apple made new Technologies available for the masses was material improved by the creativity and innovation of Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s Chairman, was specifically helpful in popularizing the term “entrepreneurship.” In a September 30, 1985 “Newsweek” article Jobs said of Entrepreneurship within Apple,

“The Macintosh team was what is commonly known as entrepreneurship… a group of people going, in essence, back to the garage, but in a large company.”

                                                       

Earlier that year, the February 4, 1985 TIME Magazine’s article, “Here come the Entrepreneurs” discussed the entrepreneurial spirit. The article included the creation of Apple, Saturn within General Motors, as well as entrepreneurship ventures within AT&T, Data General, DuPont, and Texas Instruments.

As a side note, Apple Computer itself was potentially an entrepreneurial venture, as it was an outgrowth of two big corporation employees. Steve Jobs had worked at Atari and Steve Wozniak (“Woz”) worked at Hewlett Packard part-time when he and Steve Jobs were first experimented with creating “personal computer.” Because of his employment agreement with HP Wozniak actually had presented his prototype “personal computer” to an HP executive. Fortunately for “Woz” and Jobs the HP Executive unilaterally rejected the idea with a comment to the effect of “what would ordinary people do with a computer?” On hearing the good news of the HP rejection Jobs is reported to have said, “We’re on our way!”

Later, in the early 1980’s Steve Jobs and his handpicked group of twenty Apple Computer engineers separated themselves from the other Apple employees to innovatively and entrepreneurially create the Apple Macintosh Computer (the “Mac”). Some ay that this creative, entrepreneurial and very independent group of entrepreneurs verged on becoming a “cult” within Apple Computer.

The MAC group, under Steve Jobs’ personal leadership, operated totally independently and without interference from anyone at Apple. Some who were familiar with the situation commented that Jobs and his Band of Engineers were allowed to play “without adult supervision” to successfully and independently using entrepreneurship to create the Apple “Mac” Computer. (Hint: Apple’s, CEO, John Scully, and the Apple Board of Directors).

This separate Apple entrepreneurship venture would ultimately compete with Apple’s mainstay products. This competition was part of what ultimately led Apple’s CEO John Scully along with Apple Board Director venture capitalist Arthur Rock to become displeased with Jobs leadership style and his Entrepreneurial independence. Scully along with venture capitalist Arthur Rock later led the Board fight to fire Steve Jobs (which John Scully later admitted was mistake on his part). Fortunately, several years late Steve Jobs later returned to save Apple as its Chairman until his death 2012.

Entrepreneurship, sometime called Corporate Entrepreneurship, comes from the idea of using entrepreneurial ideas, innovation, and start-up business techniques within a large (or medium sized) organization.

To be a successful entrepreneur takes much more than just creativity or an idea. The successful entrepreneur has to be willing to take real risks at sharing and pushing a unique idea. An entrepreneur has to be willing to go into work focused on a mission and be willing to be fired at any moment in defense of their entrepreneurial objective. Steve Jobs clearly demonstrated that virtue.

  

“Entrepreneurship has been called the ‘secret weapon for success’. It has been used in high tech firms such as 3M, Anaconda-Ericsson, Apple Computer, AT&T, Corona Data Systems, Data General, DuPont, GE, Genentech, Lockheed, Prime Computer, Rubbermaid, Sony, Texas Instruments, Toyota, and other successful firms!” (quote from Dr. Haller’s 2009 published entrepreneurship book, “Entrepreneurship Success: A PR1ME Example”)

The term “Entrepreneurship” has become part of the business lexicon for the last thirty years. The TIME and Newsweek articles were both published in 1985. But three years earlier, Howard Edward Haller’s completed formal academic case study and Master’s Thesis documented the terms “entrepreneurship” and “corporate entrepreneurship.” Haller successfully defended his June 1982 Masters Thesis which was an Entrepreneurship Case study. He studied, researched, and wrote about the Super Mini Computer firm, PR1ME Computer Inc. (1977 to 1980). Haller’s Master’s Thesis research was published by the University in 1982. (Dr. Haller’s 1982 University published entrepreneurship academic research and case study is cited in Wikipedia.org’s History of Entrepreneurship.) Then three years later, the “Entrapreneuring” term was popularized by management consultant Gifford Pinchot III in his book “Entrapreneuring” which was published in 1985. Dr. Howard Haller’s recent 2009 published entrepreneurship book “Entrepreneurship Success” is additionally cited by Wikipedia.org in their History of Entrepreneurship.

Thanks to Steve Jobs, the Ultimate Entrepreneur and Entrepreneur, for a wonderful solid string of innovative products including, but not limited to: Apple Computer, Mac, iPod, iTune, iPad, iPhone, iCloud, Pixar and much more.

Jeffrey Preston

Jeffrey Preston "Jeff” born January 12, 1964 is an American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and the model for Internet sales.

"Our vision is to be the world's most consumer-centric company, where customers can come to find anything they want to buy online."-Jeff Bezos

In 1994, Jeff Bezos was already what many would consider extremely successful. The youngest-ever senior vice president at Wall Street investment banker D.E. Shaw & Co., the 30-year-old Bezos was already making an estimated six-figure salary and was destined to rise even further in the company ranks. But Jeff had other plans. Fueled by a secret passion for the infant business of electronic retailing, Jeff dreamed of creating his own company in the vast, then virtually uncharted wilds of the World Wide Web. It was a risky move, but it quickly paid off.

Bezos first got the idea to start an Internet enterprise in 1994. While surfing the Internet in search of new ventures for D.E. Shaw & Co. to invest in, he came across the statistic that World Wide Web usage was growing by 2,300 percent a month. Bezos immediately recognized the expansive possibilities of selling online and began exploring the entrepreneurial possibilities of developing an Internet business.

For Bezos, Seattle was the ideal city for his new business. Not only was it home to a tremendous pool of high-tech talent, it was also in close proximity to Ingram Book Group's Oregon warehouse. While Mackenzie drove, Jeff spent the trip pecking out a business plan on a laptop computer and calling prospective investors on a cell phone. With $1 million raised from family and friends, Bezos rented a house in Seattle and set up his business in the garage.

 

For nearly a year, Bezos and a crew of five employees worked out of the garage, learning how to source books and setting up a computer system that would make Amazon.com easy to navigate. A true marketing visionary, in addition to creating a user-friendly interface that would streamline the "needle in a haystack" process that bookstore shopping often entails, Bezos wanted to establish a "virtual community" where visitors could "hang out." To achieve this goal, he and his team created a number of innovative programs, including one that would let customers add their own book reviews to the site and a feature that recommends books based on a customer's previous purchases.

In July 1995, Amazon.com opened its virtual doors, calling itself "Earth's Biggest Book Store," with more than 1 million titles to choose from. Fueled by word of mouth, or more accurately, word of e-mail, Amazon.com rocketed off the line like a nitro-burning dragster. Enraptured by the enormous selection of books, the superior customer service and the user-friendly design of the site, Internet users ecstatically plugged Amazon.com on Internet newsgroups and mailing lists.

The orders poured in, and by September 1996, Amazon.com had grown into a company of 100 employees and had racked up more than $15.7 million in sales. Three years later, those figures would rocket to more than 3,000 employees (including some in Britain and Germany) and more than $610 million in sales.

Amazon.com has continued to stay ahead of its closest competitor, boasting 85 percent of the Web book market to Barnes & Noble's 11 percent. But that may soon change. In fact, in the near future, they may no longer even be considered competitors. After his successful venture into the music market, Bezos set his sights on expanding Amazon.com into other markets. Shortly before the 1998 Christmas season, Bezos added a temporary gift section to Amazon.com, where customers could buy toys and games. He also began experimenting with "Shop the Web," a program giving Amazon.com a commission for directing its customers to other, noncompeting online retailers. In late January 1999, Amazon.com went after the $150 billion U.S. pharmacy market, buying a share of Drugstore.com, a company that sells everything from breath mints to Viagra online.

Sales: $610 Billion; Profits: $0

Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about Amazon.com is that even though its sales are growing at a rate of 3,000 percent annually and it is the country's third-largest bookseller, the company has yet to make a dime. In 1997, Amazon.com lost about $30 million, followed by another $1.25 million loss in 1998. But that doesn't bother Jeff Bezos. "To be profitable [now] would be would be a bad decision," he told PC Week. "This is a critical formative time if you believe in investing in the future." Bezos' plan is to forego profits, at least initially, in favor of establishing brand-name recognition. To this end, he has poured most of Amazon.com's revenue into marketing and promotion. "There are always three or four brands that matter," Bezos says. "With the lead we have today, we should be the No. 1 player."

 Just four years after Bezos created Amazon.com; the virtual bookstore became the template for how e-commerce businesses should be run, with sales of more than $610 million and more than 13 million customers worldwide.

Amadeo Peter "A.P." Giannini

"I have worked without thinking of myself. This [is] the largest factor in whatever success I have attained."-Amadeo Peter "A.P." Giannini

 

It may seem strange today, when there are banks on just about every corner and lenders incessantly hawk low-interest loans on TV and radio, but at the turn of the century, banks were only interested in lending money to the wealthy. In fact, many things today's bank customers take for granted, such as checking accounts, saving accounts, home mortgages, auto loans and other installment credit simply didn't exist. At least not for the working man. They had to hide their savings under mattresses and borrow from loan sharks at astronomical interest rates. But Amadeo Peter "A.P." Giannini changed all that. Through his dogged determination and unusual focus on "the little people," Giannini built what was at his death the largest bank in the country, and created the model for modern international banking.

The son of poor Italian immigrants, Giannini was born in San Jose, California, in 1870. At age 14, he quit school to assist in his stepfather's produce business. By 19, the amiable young charmer was a partner in the thriving enterprise, built largely on his reputation for fairness and integrity.

 

In 1892, Giannini married Clorinda Cuneo, the daughter of an Italian immigrant who had made a fortune in real estate. At the time, Giannini had income from investments of about $250 a month, plus his half-interest in his stepfather's firm. He decided that was enough. "I don't want to be rich," he said. "No man actually owns a fortune; it owns him." So he sold his interest in the family business to his employees for $100,000 and "retired" at the ripe old age of 31. But fate had other plans, and unbeknownst to Giannini, his real career was about to begin.

Less than a year after Giannini went into retirement, his father-in-law died, and Giannini took over his seat on the board of the Columbus Savings and Loan Society, a small bank in San Francisco's "Little Italy" section of North Beach. But Giannini soon found himself at odds with the other directors, who had little interest in lending money to hardworking immigrants. Like most banks of the day, the Columbus S&L dealt only with businesspeople and the wealthy. Giannini tried desperately to convince the board it would be immensely profitable to lend to the working class, which he knew from personal experience to be hardworking and very creditworthy. But the board turned a deaf ear, so the determined entrepreneur decided to strike out on his own.

In 1904, Giannini raised $150,000 from his stepfather and 10 friends, and opened the Bank of Italy in a converted saloon directly across from the street from the Columbus S&L. It was the first of what is known today as a full-service bank, providing both savings and commercial checking accounts, while also offering small loans. From the very beginning, Giannini intended his bank to be for "the little fellow," and he routinely lent money to farmers, merchants and laborers, most of whom were immigrants. He also encouraged recent immigrants to move their small savings from their mattresses to his bank.

The Bank of Italy continued to grow and prosper until the morning of April 18, 1906, when, like a lot of folks in the Bay Area, Giannini was thrown from his bed as the Great San Francisco Earthquake turned much of the city to rubble. After ensuring the safety of his family, Giannini raced to North Beach in a vegetable wagon, arriving at his bank just ahead of the fire that was sweeping through the downtown area. Sifting through the ruined building, he discreetly loaded $80,000 in gold, coins and securities into the wagon and, wary of looters, covered it all with a layer of fruits and vegetables.

In the days after the disaster, most San Francisco bankers wanted area banks to remain shut until the damage could be sorted out. But Giannini had a different plan. He set up shop on the docks near North Beach. With a wooden plank straddling two barrels for a desk, he extended credit "on a man's face and a signature" to small businesses and individuals desperately in need of money to help rebuild their lives. Giannini became a hero, and his actions spurred the city's redevelopment.

Giannini's experience in 1906 left him a changed man. "At the time of the fire, I was trying to make money for myself. But the fire cured me of that," he recalls. He saw how the power of banking could improve people's lives and made that his life's mission. He came up with the idea for a statewide system of branch banks that could bring monetary resources to far-flung communities. "By opening branches, I foresaw that we could give better service to everybody," he explains.

At the time, no other bank in America had such a system, prompting many in the business to deride Giannini's dream as mere folly. But in 1909, Giannini opened his first out-of-town branch in San Jose, and in 1913, he expanded into Southern California. In less than 10 years, Bank of Italy had 24 branches throughout California and was the fourth-largest bank in the state. Then in 1928, Giannini established the Transamerica Corp. to act as a management company for his extensive businesses, which now included industries other than banking. The following year, he combined Bank of Italy with other banks he had acquired, under the name Bank of America. By the end of the 1920s, Bank of America had become one of the largest banks in the country.

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