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Jonathan Ive – Chief Design Officer Of Apple

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A passion to do something and following your heart can take you places. Who would have thought that just being fond of designing would make Jonathan Ive the Chief Design Officer of the world’s most leading tech giant: Apple? he is serving the company for last 22 years and has designed some beautiful and innovative products.

Early Life
Ive was born in Chingford and raised in Staffordshire on 27th February 1967 under the guidance of his father Jonathan Jony Ive who was a lecturer and silversmith by profession. Ive got interested in drawing at very early and tender age of 14. Inheriting the skills from his father he started designing from jewelry to furniture and cars to boats.

Finally, after meeting few experts Ive decided to take a product designing course and joined industrial design at Newcastle Polytechnic. A hearing aid designed by Ive is kept on display in the London Museum of Design. Ive slowly started getting into technology and especially designing products using a Mac computer.

Beginning of Career
After the completion of his course Ive co-founded Tangerine – a London based design firm designing household products like kitchen and bathroom appliances. And Ive’s journey for Apple began from here. As Apple was one of the client’s at Tangerine they wanted him to join Apple after being impressed with his work. Robert Burner, the industrial design chief of Apple, hired Ive in 1992 and just in the next five years became the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design. Ive worked hard on the products such as the Newton MessagePad 110, which was one of the forgotten Apple products. Ive was on the verge to quit Apple but Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president of hardware engineering, gave him a raise and persuaded him to stay.

The Leap
Good that Ive took Rubinstein’s advice and stayed because in the coming years he would design some of the most famous Apple products like 1998’s iMac, 2001’s iPod, 2007’s iPhone, and 2010’s iPad. These were the groundbreaking designs by Ive which raised the bar of his reputation higher and higher. The uniqueness of the designs brought by Apple made them stand out in the market and a lot of other companies even copied the designs. Ive’s latest design is the Apple Watch.

Under Steve Jobs, Ive was given complete freedom to explore new ideas and designs. After the death of Jobs, some additional responsibility was put on Ive’s shoulders including the handling of software along with the hardware. He also has a personal design lab and is one of the most secret areas at Apple’s headquarters. And only a handful of people can actually enter this personal lab.

Ive holds more than 730 US design and utility patents as of 2014. Many more patents are yet to arrive in the future. He was awarded various awards recognizing his work in the design field. Ive lives with his wife Heather Pegg and twin sons in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, California.

Ive believes in charity and has developed products like the Leica Camera and Jaeger-LeCoultre sports watch which were sold at auction for charitable trusts. He considered Steve Jobs to be his closest friend and Jobs considered him to be his ‘spiritual partner’ at Apple.

Richard Barton- Founder of Expedia

Founder, Story / By

A true businessman is someone who observes a problem that exists in the society, thinks for a possible solution and comes up with something to resolve that problem. Thus, making a difference in the society by providing the services which makes our life easy. Richard Barton is founder of multiple ventures all focused to make people’s life easy. Barton uses a slogan “power to the people”, the staunch philosophy behind his each start-up. Barton has created a space for the people where they can access information, data, and even share their views, thus making internet a place for people.

Image Credit: Twitter

Born on 2nd June, 1967 in New Canaan, Connecticut, United States, Richard Barton is a son of a teacher and mechanical engineer. His father, Jim Barton, once gifted a Commodore 64 to Richard when they lived in New Canaan. Barton has a strong family background with his forefather John Barton and his grandfather Horace Barton known as celebrated in the 1999 South Dakota Tennis Hall of Fame.

Richard Barton completed his degree in engineering in 1989 from Stanford University. Before joining Microsoft in 1991, he took a job at Alliance Consulting Group. After joining Microsoft, one day in a conversation with Bill Gates, Barton pitched the idea of his first business venture – Expedia, and asked Gates to back him. The idea behind Expedia was it would directly allow the consumers to view the prices and book online airline travel tickets, thus, removing the travel agents from the picture. He founded Expedia in 1994 and the idea took off a great leap becoming a massive success for Barton. Later, he left Microsoft as Expedia was declared as a separate company and went public in 1999. He remained as CEO of Expedia till 2003 after which the company was acquired by IAC Corp.

The acquisition of Expedia and considerable amount of free time gave Barton much needed space to think and work on his next ventures. He wanted to create something which had the same motto as Expedia had – to make common people’s life better. In one of the interview he said, “If we’re doing things for regular folks that make their lives better and save them money and give them transparency, we’re on the side of the angels”. His next project was to start a website called Glassdoor.

The idea behind Glassdoor was to provide job seekers transparent information about the company, employees, their salary and even rate the working based on the information. This would encourage the job seekers to find the right job for themselves and for the company to raise their bar so that their ratings are not affected. The site has a whopping 22 million members and has successfully raised $93 million. According to Mr.Hohman, Chief Executive Glassdoor, the company is willing to go public.

Barton’s another idea was to create a space to share transparent information about the local real estate markets. And thus was launched Zillow – a website to find any information needed about real estate. The aim of this website was to provide all that information which was previously hidden from the customer. Barton, as of today, owns shares worth $400 million in Zillow.

Although a genius business mind Barton avoids the hubbub of Silicon Valley and doesn’t wish to get himself mixed up in the flashy corporate world. He prefers to stay away and work from a place where he finds peace and can relax whenever he wishes. Currently, he is a board member at Netflix, a venture partner with Benchmark, and also an active investor in start-ups. Barton has managed to keep a low profile and lives in Seattle.

Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO of Salesforce

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Talented people have the urge to make a difference in this world and create a name for themselves from quite an early age. One such genius who jumped into the entrepreneurship race from the age when he was just in high school is Marc Benioff. Influenced by his father, a Hindu guru, and a former secretary of state Marc Benioff is best known as  founder of Salesforce – a cloud computing company.

Marc Benioff, son of Joelle and Russell Benioff, was born on September 25th 1964 in San Francisco and was raised in the Bay Area. Marc got his first exposure into the business world through his father’s local departmental store in San Francisco. In one of the interviews he went on to credit his father and said, “I learned my work ethic from him”. He studied high school from the Burlingame High School and during his time there he developed and sold his first software called “How To Juggle” for the TRS-80 Model 1 Computer. This trade gained him $75 from the buyer computer magazine.Marc BenioffThe next major successful turn came into Marc’s life when he was 15. This was the year when he founded his single-man company named Liberty Software dedicated to develop games for the Atari 800 computer. Under this company’s banner Benioff developed games such as “King Arthur’s Heir”, “The Nightmare”, “Crypt of the Undead”, and “Escape from the Vulcan’s Isle”. His venture of developing games became his primary source of income and by the next year Benioff was making $1500 per month which he would later use to pay for his higher studies. He graduated from High School in the year 1982 and enrolled himself into University of Southern California to pursue Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree.

The USC days were of great opportunities for Benioff. He landed an internship as a programmer with the tech-genius and the greatest visionary ever lived Steve Jobs at Apple’s Macintosh division. It was here when he learned that revolutionary ideas were not just a dream but they can be pursued and achieved too. Benioff had made his mind to make his career in programming but one of his professor at USC had something else in mind. He suggested Benioff to take business. And, thus, was born an entrepreneur who would revolutionize the online world.

Marc started his career immediately after graduating from USC and joined the database giant Oracle as a customer support. Benioff had an exceptional oratory skills and this helped him to gain the “Rookie of the Year” title at the age of 23. Three years later he climbed up his career ladder so fast that he reached the Vice President position and became the youngest person to be on that post. This also gained him a fat salary of $300,000.

Benioff’s success caught an eye of the top-line people and the founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, himself called him in. Benioff and Ellison quickly became close friends and spent a good amount of time together attending parties, going on vacations, etc. After 13 years of job at Oracle, Benioff decided to work on something of his own project. And he started working on the idea of cloud computing and gave the company a name which today is known as “Salesforce”. Ellison supported Benioff’s idea by funding the project with $2 million and took a seat on board of directors.

As the time passed by, Benioff found out a potential competitor to Salesforce and it was none other than Oracle itself. This led to the start of downfall between Ellison and Benioff’s relations. While the business war’s continued Salesforce managed to survive the huge dot-com bust blow-off in early 2000s. The survival made the company even stronger and brought it in the list of biggest companies in modern cloud computing market. The company went public in 2004 and raised $110 million. Today, the company is valued at $40 billion and has also been awarded multiple awards including the “Best Place to Work at” for 8 consecutive years.

Starting from selling a software for $75 to making a billion dollars company Marc Benioff stands at number 16 in the Forbes 500 most influential CEOs list. Besides his business work, Benioff has also written a business book “Behind the Cloud”, a memoir on Salesforce in 2009. He is actively involved in philanthropical works and donates a huge sum to charitable trusts and organizations. Benioff currently lives in San Francisco, California with his wife Lynnie Benioff and two children.

Rags to Riches Story: Stan Shih, Founder of Acer

Founder, start-up, Story / By

A great man once said, “If you are born poor it’s not your fault. But if you die poor it is your fault”. The one who stands up against all the odds and comes out successfully through the worst of times is bound to achieve the greatest feats of his lifetime. This is the story of Stan Shih, founder of Acer who has achieved the greatest success and is now a billionaire.

Born on 8 December, 1944 in the Republic of China – Taiwan, Stan Shih faced a struggling childhood. The already poor family was in a state of disaster when Stan, at a tender age of four, lost his father. At this small age he joined hands along with his mother in her business of selling eggs. The money they earned from this business helped Stan complete his preliminary education. But, his dream was much more than just completing preliminary. He worked even harder in their business and, with enough money accumulated, he went on to pursue the Bachelor’s and then Master’s program in Electronic Engineering from the National Chiao Tung University. He also successfully completed his honorary PhD in Electronics Engineering in the year 1992.

From an early age, Stan was dedicated towards his interests. He enjoyed every little process about his studies which immensely helped him to launch Acer in 1976. The launch of this company further saw such a tremendous growth that in 2006 it converted Taiwan into a PC-manufacturing powerhouse among the whole world. Today Acer stands as the second largest computer manufacturing company in the world.

Stan started the company along with his wife Carolyn Yeh and five other partners and it was initially named Multitech. Shih, accepted the chairmanship of Multitech in 1987 and it was this year when they decided to rename it to Acer. Beginning his career, in 1971, as a computer engineer at Unitron Industrial Corp. Shih made Taiwan’s first successful desktop calculator. His next major feat was the development of world’s first pen watch which he achieved during his time at Qualitron Industrial Corp., which he helped to establish too.

Stan Shih has shared a major part in establishing three largest PC companies Acer, BenQ and Wistron. He took retirement from the chairmanship of Acer in the year 2004 and has accepted the seat on the Board of Directors at Acer, BenQ and Wistron. Starting Acer with a mere $25,000 back in 1976, the company’s net worth has reached as high as US $22.2 billion. The company ranks at number 4 in terms of total PCs and at number 3 for the total notebooks across the whole world.

Social Responsibility
Shih, in one of his speeches, said, “You have to always look ahead, always be positive. It’s your choice, your destiny. You have to enjoy life but still have a personal social responsibility.” Despite being a billionaire Stan Shih is actively involved with social and public organizations. He was a chairman of the Asia Business Council, he sat on the board of directors of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd, and is also a chairman of the Brand International Promotion Association.

Awards and Honors
The year Acer was founded, i.e. 1976, also earned Shih a place on Taiwan’s “Ten Most Outstanding Young Persons” and just seven years later he was named one of the “Ten Most Outstanding Persons in the World” by International Jacees. Shih has been featured in noteworthy magazines like Asiaweek,  BusinessWeek, Fortune, and was featured in Time magazine’s “60 Years of Asian Heroes” for his achievements. The most precious day in Shih’s life was the day when he was awarded an honorary Doctor of International Law, the highest honor of the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Shih now lives with his lovely wife Carolyn Yeh and three children.

Neil Patel Co-founder of Hello bar, Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics

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Internet is a world of organized chaos. One can reach immeasurable heights if the path through this chaos is figured out. And once figured out it can make you millionaire or a billionaire. One such bright mind to carve a path through this chaotic world is that of Neil Patel. He managed to find a solution on which numerous multi-billion dollar companies would rely in the future. Patel, at an early stage in his career, realized the potential of digital marketing and dedicated his whole time in finding the best way that would increase the traffic on a website.

Born on 24th April, 1985 in London Neil grew up in a family with a strong entrepreneur background. While studying at the John F. Kennedy High School, Neil saw his cousin making money out of selling burned CDs. He too tried to follow his cousin but avoided selling the pirated versions due to legal constraints. However, the burned CDs gave considerably low returns and Neil thought of a new idea to increase his income. Now, he would sell the black boxes and by buying cable black boxes from eBay he would capitalize his money. Again, the legal constraints made him jump to yet another idea of reselling automotive parts. This time he acquired legal permission from the State Board of Equalization to avoid any further disturbances in his business.

Patel, at an early age of 15, landed his first job which involved cleaning restrooms, picking up and emptying trash cans, sweeping the vomit, etc. He would earn comparatively extra cents than other places. His next and better job was in the sales just 3 months later working in Quality Systems selling vacuums worth $1600. But Patel’s aim was not just to earn money but to get rich and the sales job wasn’t going to make him a rich man.

A Step Forward
Neil’s sister introduced him to the boss at Oracle consultant. He studied the business model of Monster.com he started his own venture called Advice Monkey which failed terribly. But every failure brings with it new opportunities and lessons to learn. Neil learnt the magnificent potential of Internet Marketing.

With the knowledge of potential business model and the tool to achieve it already acquired Neil only needed proper education of the same. Therefore, he joined Cypress Community College to learn Digital Marketing. And along with his partner, and her sister’s then boyfriend, setup a venture called Crazy Egg which took the internet marketing field by storm.

The reputation Crazy Egg gained made Neil work harder on his business model and further setup numerous software and internet marketing firms. He has also founded KISSmetrics , Hello Bar, etc. His digital marketing strategies attracted several MNCs like HP, e-commerce giant Amazon, Viacom, GM and NBC. Patel’s model helped to increase the revenue growth of these companies multiple folds.

Patel is the owner of $10 million fortune and is now eyeing to help several non-profit organizations. He is known as the SEO Tycoon in the digital marketing field as his strategies increased the traffic on TechCrunch by a whopping 30% in just two months. Growing in a family full of business men and his mother who owns a home daycare business, Neil grew up to follow the footsteps and has made a name for himself in the entrepreneur world.

Richard M. Schulze: From School Drop Out To $50 Bn. Company

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Life is just a monotonous symphony without any risks. Success follows only the risk takers who believe in their vision. Today’s billionaires were once just common people struggling to survive. This is the story of one such significant man who changed the way of selling and shopping, the founder of Best Buy – Richard M. Schulze.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Schulze spent his earlier days in the Central High School. Due to some problems he soon had to drop out of the school. Richard later earned an honorary degree from the University of St. Thomas. He then joined U.S. Air Force at the Minnesota Air National Guard. He further changed his line of work and started working as an electronics salesman.

First Risk
Schulze, while working as electronic salesman, thought of starting something of his own in the electronics industry. He decided to start an audio equipment store called Sound of Music in Saint Paul. Schulze opened this store in 1966 with the money he acquired by mortgaging his home. The business witnessed a massive growth in a small time and was soon expanded to nine stores.

The company launched its first massive sale after one of its store was hit by a tornado. The sale’s instant success brought one another major change in the business. The name Sound of Music was changed to Best Buy and the company shifted to superstore model immediately on an 18,000 sq. ft. area. The superstore offered products at everyday low prices, special discounts which attracted massive attention of people. The introduction of VCR technology profited Best Buy and the company started forty new stores across the whole U.S. in 1989.

From the very first year the company saw huge financial success with $160,000 worth sales. Schulze’s long term vision helped him take crucial decisions which would take the company to greater heights. This decisions included expanding the sales from just stereo equipment, changing the business model, etc. Although they had very less experience selling appliances the company’s business model helped them achieve the massive $9.5 million sales in 1982, the same year when the company acquired the name Best Buy.

Bumpy Rides
The company was in huge success as they touched $240 million sales in 1987 and had become the number one rival of other stores like Highland Superstores. Schulze’s first major loss hit the company hard. The company witnessed 60% decrease in their profits despite of massive revenue being generated. The loss was huge and made the company think of some solution to recover it. This is when creativity worked its magic as the company came up with an idea called “Concept II” which also was considered to be the most innovative idea ever used.

The ‘Concept II’ idea became a massive hit among the customers too and garnered the company a whopping $1.5 billion revenue mark. This huge success of Best Buy came as a hurricane for the other competitors like Highland superstores. The increased sales of Best Buy and drastic losses of Highland superstores led the latter one to shut down their business due to lack of sales. Schulze’s company was in limelight from then and they went on to expand their stores in every city of the US. The company successfully started 95 new stores across the whole US during the period 1996-97. And at the end of 1997 the company had secured $7 billion in revenue.

The company gained so much popularity by 2003 that every store’s every shelf was equipped with almost every electronic device. This included smartphones, washing machines, music players, etc. of every brand.

Richard’s journey so far, has made him a billionaire. Starting from a small town in US to spreading his business worldwide Best Buy has become the largest electronics supermarket in the world. In the current time the company owns more than 1,150 stores all across the world and has crossed more than $50 billion revenue. Success has followed Richard every time he took a daring and risky decision. Their expansion strategy has made them a top superstore company in the world.