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Ma Huateng : The Wealthiest Man in China & Co-founder of Tencent

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The invention of social media platforms has brought the whole world closer. It has connected millions of people around the globe. The genius minds behind the development of such software and applications, deserve success and they have achieved it. From Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, in the US, to QQ in China, all the social media platforms are receiving a whacking response. Chinese internet entrepreneur, Ma Huateng, founded Tencent, which is the biggest internet firms in China, making him the richest man in China.

Early Life

Ma Huateng was born on 29th October 1971, in Dongfang, Hainan, China. His family moved to Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, as his father was a port manager, in Shenzhen. He enrolled at Shenzhen University, in 1989, to study software engineering, and graduated in 1993, with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.

Early Career

After graduating, Ma took a job, as a software developer, with China Motion Telecom Development and developed software for pagers. In that job, he made around $176 per month. In his next job, Ma worked in the research and development department, for internet calling services, in Shenzhen Runxun Communications.

Founding Tencent

In 1998, Ma along with his four classmates founded Tencent. Ma had participated in a presentation, for ICQ, which was the world’s first internet instant messaging service, started by an Israeli company. In February 1999, Tencent launched its first ever product. The product was a similar version of ICQ, but with Chinese interface, and was named OICQ (where O stands for Open). This software received a huge response, and it gained more than a million registered users, just in the first year of its launch. OICQ, soon, became one of the largest internet instant messaging services, in China.

Ma-Huateng
Image Source: moneyinc.com

The early days of Tencent were hard and full of struggle, for all the four co-founders. In the beginning, the company was funded through the money they earned in the share market. The first few years proved to be crucial for the survival, and Ma took various roles, from janitor to website designer, in the company, during that time. Tencent’s initial services included e-mail and internet paging services.

After the launch of OICQ, there were several controversies, and Tencent also faced a lawsuit from America Online (AOL). After acquiring ICQ, AOL filed a lawsuit against Tencent, in the United States, and claimed that OICQ’s domain names OICQ.com and OICQ.net, violated ICQ’s intellectual property rights. Tencent loss the lawsuit, and also suffered heavy costs. They had to shut down both the websites. Soon, Ma changed the name of the software to QQ and decided to expand his business horizon.

Tencent became the largest instant messaging service, in China by 2004 and also launched an online gaming platform, which attracted more than a million online gaming people. The company also launched WeChat, in 2015, after they conducted a competition between two teams of engineers. WeChat is one of the largest instant messaging apps, used all over the world. Ma also plans to launch an internet hospital that will provide long-distance diagnosis and medicine delivery services to the needy.

Personal Life

Ma Huateng is also popularly known by his nickname Pony. The name is derived from the English translation of his family name, which translates to ‘horse’. He serves in the 12th National People’s Congress and is a great supporter of the Government. He believes in: “Ideas are not important in China – execution is.” He was awarded Innovative CEO of the Year, in 2015. He owns a palatial residence in Hong Kong and also supports charity.

Ted Turner : The American Media Tycoon and Co-founder of CNN

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In every century, there comes a person who brings a revolution to the world and the world witness a new wave of development, after such revolutions. A similar person revolutionized the television industry from 1980 onwards. From starting a 24-hour news channel to broadcasting films, sitcoms and gifting the children with their favourite cartoon channel, this man named Ted Turner, is a television and media magnate.

Early Life

Born on 19th November 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ted Turner’s original name is Robert Edward Turner III. He was born to parents Robert Edward (Ed) Turner Jr. and Florence (Rooney) Turner. He was the eldest child in the family. His father owned a company, Turner Advertising, which sold billboard ads. His father suffered from bipolar disorder, experiencing mood swings, and vented out his anger on young Ted. After years Ted found out that he too suffered from bipolar disorder just like his father.

Ted was left alone in the Cincinnati boarding school after his father signed up for Navy when World War II broke out. Ed came back after the war and moved to Savannah, Georgia, with his family. He enrolled Ted into Georgia Military Academy. Ted attended McCallie boarding school, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he received military training. He wanted to attend the United States Naval Academy, but his father wanted him to attend Harvard. Due to low grades, he had to join the Brown University, in 1956. In 1959, Ted was kicked out of the University for having a woman in his dorm room. He could not earn his diploma and the same year his parents, too, got divorced.

The beginning of Business Career

Ted, then came back South, in 1960, and took up the position of general manager at his father’s company. He was the general manager of Macon, Georgia branch of Turner Advertising. Just in his first year, Ted showed tremendous growth and doubled the revenue of the company. But soon, the company was in a difficult financial condition, when his father bought the company’s competitor, in 1962. This led him into depression and he committed suicide, in March 1963.

Ted Turner
Image Source: Forbes

After this shocking incident, Ted engrossed himself more in work. He took the positions of president and CEO at the age of 24, and consequently, made the company a global enterprise. The company boosted in financial profits and was considered to have a monopoly in Savannah, Macon, Columbia, and Charleston. In 1969, Ted bought several Southern radio stations and renamed the company as Turner Communications. He sold the radio stations and purchased a couple of struggling television stations. By 1970, Ted Turner became famous as the owner of the largest advertising company, in the southeastern United States. His investment in television channels proved highly profitable as he believed that people wanted several choices. He also purchased rights to old movies, sitcoms, and some cartoons.

But it was in 1976, that a big leap occurred when the FCC gave him the permission to use satellite technology to transmit content to local cable providers. This led Turner to reach an even larger audience. Now, with more audience base and even more broadcasting options, Turner changed the company’s name yet again to Turner Broadcasting Company. He was constantly on the lookout for new business ideas and expanding his broadcasting to larger and larger audiences. It was in the late 1970s when he came up with an idea of starting a 24-hour news network. And in 1980, he launched Cable News Network (CNN) with the help of Reese Schonfeld who was then appointed as the first president and chief executive officer of the channel.

Throughout the years, Turner was constantly investing to expand his business horizon. In 1976, Turner acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and in 1992, he launched Cartoon Network, which went on to grow one of the most famous cartoon channels, all over the world. In the same year, he launched Turner Network Television and Turner Classic Movies, which made him the leader in both television and internet fields. In 1996, he sold his company to Time Warner for a whopping $7.5 billion. He ventured into yet entirely new business just the next year i.e. a steakhouse serving bison named Ted’s Montana Grill.

Personal Life

Ted Turner married three times and is divorced all the three times. He is the father of five children from his first two marriages. Two from his first wife, Judy Gale, and three from his second wife, Jane Shirley Smith. His most famous marriage was with the actress Jane Fonda, that lasted for ten years and broke over religious disagreements. He is known as the individual owner of largest land in North America.

Robert Noyce : Co-Founder of Intel & Co-Inventor of the Integrated Circuit

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A scuba diver, a pilot, an inventor and what not? Known as the Mayor of the Silicon Valley, the legendary inventor Robert Noyce made his mark in the history of Semiconductors. Noyce was a sharp student and had shown his traits as an inventor, from his childhood. From building a boy-sized aircraft to creating a transistor from scratch, he always loved playing with machines. Having a sharp mind, he also gained the name Rapid Robert from his classmates. This remarkable physicist had brought a revolution in the field of personal computers with its the first integrated circuit and gave Silicon Valley its name.

Early Life

Robert was born to Rev. Ralph Brewster Noyce and Harriet May Norton, on 12 December 1927, in Burlington, Iowa. He was the third of his three siblings, Donald Sterling Noyce, Gaylord Brewster Noyce and Ralph Harold Noyce. Noyce was a brilliant student, and was also, good at other co-curricular activities like sports, acting and singing. He completed his high school from Grinnell High School and enrolled himself into the physics course in Grinnell College. During his school days, he excelled in mathematics. Later, he joined MIT and received a PhD in solid-state physics in 1953.

Early Career

During his PhD, Noyce found his interest in transistors. After the completion of his PhD, he joined Philco Corporation in Philadelphia as the research engineer. In 1956, he left the job at Philco and joined the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California, owned by the co-inventor of transistor and Nobel prize winner, William Shockley. He worked there for a year and left the company with the infamous ‘traitorous eight’ on having a dispute with William Shockley, on his way of working.

Founding Intel

After quitting the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, he co-founded a semiconductor company named Fairchild Semiconductor, with Sherman Fairchild, the owner of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, in 1957. At Fairchild Semiconductor, Noyce co-invented the first Integrated Circuit built with Silicon. During the invention of this IC, he also developed a planar process, that made it easy to develop the transistors at a lower cost.

Robert Noyce
Image Source: thefamouspeople.com

Working for 9-long years, Noyce left the Fairchild Semiconductors and co-founded NM Electronics, with his former co-worker, Gordon Moore, from Shockley Semiconductor Labs, in 1968. Later, NM Electronics was renamed to Intel Corporation. Noyce served as the President of Intel till 1975 and in 1978, chaired the board of directors of Intel, till 1978.

The team intel invented the first commercially successful product, the 3101 Schottky bipolar 64-bit static random access memory (SRAM) chip, in May 1969. In 1971, Intel made the first single-chip microprocessor in the world, that made Intel more famous, that ignited the personal computer revolution.

Noyce was popular for his working style and employee administration, that was the main reason of his leaving the Shockley Semiconductor Labs. He provided the employees with rewards and bonuses to encourage teamwork. He created a relaxed working environment for the employees, and avoided any type of luxuries, to maintain equality among every employee.

In 1978, he left Intel and joined the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) as the chairman. In 1988, Noyce decided to get retired and established an association named SEMATECH, a semiconductor manufacturing consortium with the help of SIA and held the position of the President of the company.

Personal Life and Death

Noyce married Elizabeth Bottomley in 1953 and had four children with her. The two got divorced in 1974. Noyce on 27 November 1974, got married to Ann Schmaltz Bowers, who became the first Director of Personnel for Intel Corporation.

On 3 June 1990, Noyce died of heart attack, at the age of 62.

In his life, Noyce kept himself busy in various inventions and got his name recorded as a great inventor. He received many awards for his contribution to the technology, including the Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1966, IEEE Medal of Honor in 1978, National Medal of Science in 1979 and National Medal of Technology in 1987.

Hugh Herr: The Leader of the Bionic Age

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There have been many scientists whom inventions by mixing the technology and biology has helped the humankind to achieve the things that were unimaginable at some time. The technology has become a helping hand for those who have born with disabilities or have got one due to some mishappening. Hugh Herr is one extraordinary person, who was born like any other fit person, but misfortune hit him bad. Even though the doctors had given up on him, he overcame his disability by inventing the perfect aid for himself, which now is also helping others as well.

Early Life

Herr was born and brought up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in a Christian family. In the beginning, he was not much into studies and found his love for rock climbing at an early age. At the tender age of 8, he climbed the face of Mount Temple (11,627-foot high) and became the best climbers in the United States, when he was just 17.

The Climb

In January 1982, with a fellow climber Jeff Batzer, Hugh caught into a blizzard, while climbing the Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. Due to the snowstorm, the two lost their ways and spent three nights into the Great Gulf, at a temperature of ?29 °C. On the fourth day, the rescue team found and saved them. Spending three days at such a lower temperature caused them major injuries. Due to the frostbite, Hugh was amputated below both of his legs and Jeff got his left leg, fingers of his right hand and the toe on his right foot, amputated.

Hugh Herr
Image Source: bostonmagazine.com

Hugh went through a number of surgeries. The doctors could do everything but give him another pair of legs. Hugh could not climb the mountains anymore and had to be dependent on others. He could not accept that and, his love for mountaineering, made him create a specialized prostheses feet for himself. The prostheses feet helped him not only walk but, were also capable of ascending steep ice walls efficiently.

With time, Hugh managed to create a pair of feet that had toes with a high stiffness that could stand on a small rock of the size of a coin. He even scaled many, difficult to reach, mountains with the help of those titanium feet. Soon, he regained the title of the best climber of the US once again.

Career

Along with making improvements in his prostheses feet, Herr joined college and received a graduate degree in Physics. He then attended MIT, to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering and received a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University.

After obtaining his Doctorate degree, he started working on advanced leg prostheses and orthoses, at MIT. He headed the Biomechatronics research group at the MIT Media Lab. The group focusses on creating more functional and comfortable wearable robotic emulating devices for the disabled people.

Hugh founded BionX Medical Technologies, Inc. also known as iWalk, Inc. In 2006, that create devices that emulate and serve to supplement the human functionality. His company manufactures the computer-controlled assistive devices to aid the disabled persons.

Hugh Herr is a true achiever, and his story is an inspiration for many. He has received numerous awards for his contribution to Science and Technology, including the 13th Annual Heinz Award in 2007, and the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award, in 2005.

Personal Life

Hugh is married to Patricia Ellis Herr, who is an author by profession. The couple has two daughters together. At present, Herr is working as the associate professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences. In 1991, Osius, Alison wrote his biography with title Second Ascent: The Story of Hugh Herr.

Will Shu : The Co-Founder of the Multi-Million Delivery Empire

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Spotting a delivery boy, with his company’s branding food box, has become quite a common thing these days. But, a few years ago, these delivery services were limited to a few restaurants only. The saying ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ can’t be denied, if your late night craving leads you to launch a food delivery service very next day. Same happened with the founder of Deliveroo, Will Shu, who was working as an investment banker in London, and an idea to start a food delivery service clicked his mind, during one of his late night shifts.

Early Life

Will Shu aka William Shu, is a 38 years old American entrepreneur, who was born in 1979 in a Taiwanese household, in Connecticut, United States. He attended the Northwestern University, where he received a bachelor’s degree. After graduating in 2001, he started working at Morgan Stanley in New York as an investment banking analyst. After working for a few years, in 2010, he decided to return back to the US and completed a master’s degree in Business Administration from Wharton Business School.

After his MBA, he joined S.A.C. Capital Advisors as an analyst. In 2012, he started working as an investment banker at the London branch of Morgan Stanley.

Founding Deliveroo

While working for Morgan Stanley in London, Will Shu faced difficulty with arranging food at mid-nights at his office. An idea of starting a delivery service hit his mind and discussed the same with his childhood friend and software engineer, Greg Orlowski. The idea looked fine, and Will contacted his landlord who also owned a cafe. His landlord became his first client and ultimately, Shu became the company’s first delivery boy.

Will Shu
Image Source: whartonmagazine.com

The restaurants like Pizza Hut were already delivering food to their clients, but, Deliveroo became a delivery service that helped all size’s restaurants to deliver food to their customers through a single delivery service.

In the beginning, partnering with his landlord’s cafe, Will delivered food in the surrounding area, to understand the business on both the sides; the restaurant and the customer. Slowly, he reached more restaurant owners and managed to sign a contract with them. According to the contract, he would deliver the food to the customers that will cost a small amount to the restaurant. He worked, as a delivery boy, alone for 9 months and his delivery service became famous, receiving really good feedback from the customers. After nine months, he started hiring more employees for the company. By 2014, the service expanded to other cities of London and in 2015, Deliveroo reached Paris, Berlin and Dublin.

In 2017, the company’s worth was estimated to be around £1.5 billion, and it had expanded to 12 countries and was working in more than 150 cities. Deliveroo helped many independent restaurants to reach more customers, in the neighbouring localities. These small, independent restaurants, have always been the main focus of the business plan of Deliveroo. Will intends to build a separate kitchen for the delivery operations for those independent restaurants.

Personal Life

Will holds the American nationality and lives in Notting Hill, London. He still continues to deliver food once in two weeks for Deliveroo.

The Founders Behind the Worldwide e-Commerce Marketplace : Groupon

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In the industry, where most of the businesses want to earn more profit by avoiding bargaining and discounts on their services, Groupon.com brought a new way of earning profits with their different business model. The company is solely based covering the idea of selling discount deals on the services of local as well as multinational companies. The idea was unusual which gained huge popularity and benefits in a short interval of time.

It was Andrew Mason, who came up with the idea of creating such a business model for his first start-up company. Andrew Mason, who was first appointed as the CEO of the company, convinced Eric Lefkofsky, to invest $1 million in the idea, making the latter the co-founder of Groupon.

Early Life

Andrew was born in Pennsylvania and did his schooling from Mt. Lebanon High School, in 1999. In 2003, he received a bachelor’s degree in music from Northwestern University. After graduating from college, he joined a web designing company InnerWorkings, as a web developer. The company owner, Eric Lefkofsky, became his future partner and co-founder of Groupon.com. Andrew left the job to join the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy to pursue a master’s degree. However, he dropped out from the course after a few months of joining and again started working at Lefkofsky’s.

Founding Groupon.com

In 2006, the time, Andrew was working as a web developer, he was also dealing with the cancellation of a cell phone contract. He became frustrated with the client service and was looking for a solution. Soon, an idea lit Andrew’s mind and he started working on ThePoint, his first entrepreneurial venture. Lefkofsky also became interested in the project and offered a $1 million amount for the start-up. The two along with another business partner of Lefkofsky, Brad Kwywell, became the co-founders of ThePoint.

ThePoint was a platform developed for the purpose of getting people together to accomplish a certain goal, using the social media. Eventually, the main objective of ThePoint became saving money through various discounts from local vendors. In 2008, ThePoint was renamed to Groupon and was launched as the platform that focussed entirely on group buying.

The idea of Groupon was new in the market, and, in just one and a half year, the company valued at over $1 billion. The company became the first one, to join the $1 billion club in such a small time. In November 2011, Groupon was public, having the biggest IPO by an Internet company, since Google (2004). The concept behind Groupon was to provide deals to the consumers and sell the services of the companies, taking 50 per cent of every deal. Till 2014, it was noted that the company revenue hiked by 25% every passing year.

To avoid any kind of competition, Andrew and Lefkofsky started acquiring the local deal-of-the-day companies. Starting with the Europe-based MyCityDeal in 2010, Groupon also acquired other companies like ClanDescuento, the Japanese service Qpod.jp, Russian Darberry.ru, the Singaporean Beeconomic.com and the Indian deal-of-the-day website SoSasta.com. By March 2015, Groupon expanded in 500 cities worldwide, has 48.1 million registered users.

On February 28, 2013, Mason was dismissed from his post of CEO. Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell remain as the major investors of the company, and the former is serving as the chairman of the company.