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Steve Jobs of China: Lei Jun Founder of Xiaomi

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Recognized as the ‘Steve Jobs’ of China, Lei Jun  the Founder of Xiaomi has amassed a net worth of $8.4 billion. Xiaomi Inc. is the world’s fastest growing mobile phone company, who climbed to fourth position in a short span of time.

Lei Jun is not just an entrepreneur but much more than that. He is the mastermind behind the quick and astounding growth of Xiaomi Inc. Since the incubation of this company ten years back, today the company’s net worth is a whopping $45 billion. The company’s motive is to provide quality smartphones with high-end features in affordable price range. And they have stood to their point delivering the smartphones loved by the whole world.

Success only comes after a huge struggle and Lei Jun has faced all those hard times to become the most influential personality today. He was born on 16th December, 1969 in Hubei, China. Jun’s childhood was spent in an under developed industrial area of Wuhan, Central China. He graduated from Mianyang Middle School in 1987 and further went to Wuhan University to take a degree in Computer Science. And in 1991, he came out as a Bachelor’s student of Computer Science.

The most common ‘next step’ after gaining a degree is to find a suitable job. Lei Jun was also in the race to find one. His graduation days were spent in reading about the tech revolutionary Steve Jobs and dreaming to become like him one day. After wandering for a job Lei landed a job offer from Kingsoft, a software giant in China. Just within seven years Lei Jun was announced as the CEO and President of the company. During his time as a CEO Jun started an online bookstore. Joyo.com, in 2000 which went on to become so famous that it became number one fan base for the book lovers till 2004. The rising popularity of Joyo grabbed Amazon’s attention and they acquired it for a mind-blowing price of $75 million.

Lei Jun has made a unique image by not just being a CEO of Kingsoft. He is an active investor who has invested in numerous startups like Vancl.com, YY, UCWeb, etc. Jun has successfully funded more than 70 startups. In the year 2007, Lei Jun faced health complications leading him to resign from the CEO post and settle on Vice Chairman instead. This was when he seriously started thinking upon founding his own dream company, Xiaomi Inc. The company was started and garnered success Jun never even thought of.

Jun was featured in the Top 10 IT figures in 1999, 2000, and 2002. In 2012 the China Central Television chose him as one of the top 10 business leaders in China. Fortune has named Jun as the most powerful business personality in the whole Asia. Jun lives with his wife and two children in China.

Pierre Omidyar – The Founder of eBay

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Brilliant ideas are born out of the curious minds. The ideas or problems often roam around and everyone fail to notice them except some brilliant curious minds. These brilliant minds are the ones responsible for smartphones, computers, airplanes , tv, refrigerators; literally everything that has made our daily life so easy. One such extra-ordinary mind is Pierre Omidyar, a man who turned into a billionaire just at the age of 31. Omidyar, for the first time, brought the auction business on the online platform and connected hundreds of thousands of buyers and sellers through his website – eBay.

Pierre Omidyar is a French born Iranian American businessman and philanthropist. Born in 1967, Pierre’s interest in computers began from high school. He would skip the gym sessions to spend that time at the computer lab. This behavior got him his first job instead of teacher’s scolding. At the age of 14 he was put on the task to create a program that would generate catalogue cards for the library by the principal. Starting from a mere $6 per hour and earning almost 8 billion, Pierre has set a wonderful example for the whole world.

Pierre went on to Tufts University for his graduation in computer science and then joined a company to develop the Macintosh software. Before starting his software company Ink Development Corp in 1991, Pierre worked for Apple’s subsidiary Claris. His Ink Development Corp was purchased by Microsoft in 1996 and also changed its name to eShop. Just a year before that is in 1995 a multi-billion dollar idea had already taken birth in Pierre’s mind.

During the summer of 1995 Omidyar wrote a code for a portal called Auction Web on his own website. The purpose was to let people list the items for auction. Surprisingly, this idea grabbed stupendous attention that he had to set up a whole new website which was devoted just for online auctions. This site would later be known as eBay. With the launch of new website he also started charging a nominal fee for listing the items for auction. The charges would be anything from 25 cents to $2.

The pace at which eBay was growing made Omidyar to quit his job at General Magic, a company backed by Apple. Since then he started devoting his entire time to grow eBay. Omidyar was announced as the chairman of eBay in 1998 with Meg Whitman as the president and CEO of the company. Under Whitman’s leadership the company expanded its branches to Australia, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, etc. At the end of 1998 the company had generated $750 million revenue and hosted 2.1 million buyers and sellers. The online auction strategy was then adopted by Amazon in 1999.

Omidyar is on the board of directors at ePeople, an online marketplace for technical support. He is married to Pamela Wesley and has three children. The couple also run a philanthropic firm Omidyar Network. This network is dedicated for journalism and launched the First Look Media along with Glenn Greenwald, the man who published government documents leaked by Edward Snowden. In 2014, the company published its first online copy The Intercept. Omidyar believes that journalism should have its own independent voice for the benefit of democratic society.

Richard Branson: How A Dyslexic Kid Became Owner of 400 Companies

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Can you imagine a dyslexic kid to be growing up and becoming a beast of the business world? Meet Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin group of companies. Richard Branson ventured into the business world at the tender age of 16. From dropping out of school and starting his own business to grow it into a billion dollar mountain, Richard has set an example before today’s youth to take risks and think bigger.

Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, son of Edward James Branson and Eve Branson, was born on 18th July, 1950, in Surrey, England. His father was a barrister and mother, a flight attendant. Richard’s poor performance in academics, at the age of 13, worried the teachers during his time at the all-boys Scaitcliffe School. He dropped out of school at the age of 16 due to continuous problems of dyslexia. This was the turning point in Richard’s life which would give birth to what would become a multi million dollar company – a youth-culture magazine, Student.

The magazine’s aim was to publish student written articles and various creative pieces. Richard sold first 50,000 copies of the magazine for free and covered the costs through advertising. He garnered $8000 worth of advertising money in the first edition itself. The next big idea Branson decided to transform into a business was the mail-order record company called Virgin. This would also help him in supporting his magazine. Branson soon expanded the mail-order business and started a record shop at the Oxford Street, London. In 1972 he successfully launched a recording studio in Oxfordshire, London. This school drop-out was on a greater mission and his next steps would significantly make him the smartest business man in the world.

The launch of Virgin Records also launched the careers of singers and musicians. The first artist, in 1973, on the label was Mike Oldfield who’s single ‘Tubular Bells’ was a record hit and stayed on the UK charts for 247 weeks. Branson, taking the advantage of Oldfield’s success, signed up numerous artists and then the world saw the rise of aspiring musical groups like Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Genesis, etc. The back to back hits from these artists helped Virgin music to reach a position in top six record companies in the world.

The next big leap Richard Branson took was venturing into the airlines business. He expanded his businesses and started the Voyager Group in 1980 and Virgin Atlantic Airlines in 1984. Virgin was rapidly becoming a brand name in the world. Branson faced a major fall of his company in 1992 when the loss was immeasurable. This crushed Branson and he had to sell the company for $1 billion to Thorn EMI. When everything was lost Branson made up his mind to hold strong the music business. And in 1993, he launched Virgin Radio which was followed by V2, another record company in 1996 thus launching the careers of artists like Tom Jones.

Branson’s further major achievements were starting a train company, a mobile phone company, a luxury game preserve and finally a space tourism company named Virgin Galactic. The test launch of Spaceship Two was so massive a success that about 500 people have already booked tickets to ride on Virgin Galactic Spaceship. The company’s next venture is to launch luxury cruises and plans to sail its first cruise in 2020.

Richard’s massive success has set tremendous inspiration for entrepreneurs all over the world. He lives with his wife and two children, Holly and Sam, at Necker Island residence. Branson also gives motivational speeches and is an active supporter of charity organizations.

Biz Stone- From An Undergraduate To A Net Worth Of US$200 Million

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A creative mind knows no boundaries. This statement is as true as it sounds. A person with even a slightest bend towards creativity will always be on the edge of his mind to introduce a unique idea into this world. Born on March 10, 1974, Christopher Isaac Stone, also known as Biz Stone, is an American entrepreneur and one of the co-founder of world’s popular microblogging app Twitter. Stone is a perfect example of a kid who badly wanted to enter the tech-business world. His first start-up was way back in 1999 named as Xanga. It is a weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles host.

Stone attended three educational institutions during his academic phase. He initially graduated from Wellesley High School and then he attended Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts, Boston. Although attended, Stone did not complete his graduation in either of them. He was a nerd from high-school itself and was eager to break into the technological industry.

The Story of Co-founding Twitter
To be an entrepreneur you’ve to be hundred times smarter than everyone. Biz Stone gripped this formula into his mind and applied it at the very early stages in his career. Stone was one of the people working in the building phases of Twitter along with the man behind the idea i.e. Eve Williams while working on Odeo, which was a pod-cast startup. One fine day, Stone mailed Eve and asked a courageous question, “Maybe this is inappropriate, but if I don’t ask, I’ll never know! What do you envision my title to be? Is there a chance I could be called the co-founder?”

This question, a dare in itself, set a mutual understanding between Eve Williams and Biz Stone which would further help them grow the company multiple folds. Eve, after lots of thought turmoil, finally decided to take Stone on board as the ‘co-founder’ of Twitter and gave him 3% share in the company.

A Multi-level Entrepreneur
Biz Stone has never experienced taking a halt in his career. From the beginning itself he had engrossed himself into multiple businesses. He is a leading investor and encouraging advisor in the startup community. He sits on the board of director chair at Beyond Meat, Medium, Workpop and Polaroid Swing. Stone has worked for Google for two years from 2003 to 2005. Stone own’s a start-up, Jelly, a one-of-a-kind search engine which would have a person to answer every question posted on it.

Stone’s creative level is not just bound to tech-space but to the visual storytelling medium too. He, in collaboration with Ron Howard and Canon USA, debuted as a director for a short film titled Evermore. Along with Natalie Portman, Stone was an Executive Producer of the documentary Eating Animals. For some personal reasons Stone left Twitter some years back but has recently, in May 2015, announced his comeback in Twitter. Stone was awarded the Doctor of Laws degree by the Babson College in 2011. He has published three informational books titled Blogging Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content in 2011, Who Let The Blogs Out? In 2004, and Things a Little Bird Told me in 2014. Stone is married to Livia and has a son Jacob and currently resides in Marin County, California.

Evermore from Augussta on Vimeo.

Evan Spiegel – The Founder of Snapchat

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Born to the lawyer parents, Evan Spiegel led a privileged childhood. He received his first computer when he was just in the 6th grade. The lavish life during his childhood never seemed to hold him back from his interests. Evan was a nerd from childhood itself. He grew up in Pacific Palisades, California and completed schooling from Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica. His interest particularly lied in technology and design and he took professional training in the same early from his childhood.

Spiegel’s educational journey was mostly through the Art and Design schools and colleges. During his high school days Spiegel took design classes in the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. The next internship he landed was in the famous energy drink producing company Red Bull. Although it was an unpaid internship he learnt a great deal about the marketing of products. This further led him to pursue product design program at the Stanford University.

Evan’s idea to connect the world with images and keep yourself updated with rest of the world was initially ridiculed by his classmates. And if it would had not been about the ridicules, the world would have never seen Snapchat. Spiegel proposed this idea positively to conduct his class final project in the Stanford but failed to receive the same response.

Spiegel met Bobby Murphy, the co-founder of Snapchat, during Kappa Sigma fraternity. The two tech enthusiasts united in an unexpected way before becoming partners in what is now a billion dollar company. Murphy was working on his idea of building an online social network platform, which was highly inspired from Google Circles. Looking at Spiegel’s previous work and experience Murphy hired him to design the platform. Unfortunately, the idea failed, but not for Spiegel.

His designing work impressed Scott Cook, co-founder of the financial software giant Intuit, and was hired for txtWeb. The project required him to design a platform to broadcast information by using web over text messages.

The Turning Point
Spiegel developed Future Freshman along with Murphy which aimed to simplify college admissions. The project was well appreciated and received a good response initially. But with time it took the low lane and finally came to a halt. When one door closes it opens another one. Who knew that shutting down of Future Freshman would actually give a kick-start to Snapchat. Evan Spiegel was approached by Reggie Brown, third in their team to build Snapchat, to discuss his technological curiosities.

The third member boosted the team’s confidence and the idea for Snapchat, for the first time, saw the light of the day. Brown suggested that the app should be named Picaboo as its main aim was to connect the world just with images. The idea was dropped as it failed to grab investors into their pockets. The company saw a downfall within just a small span of its incubation when Brown decided to part his ways and asked for 30% share and the credits the company owed to him.

Evan Spiegel and Murphy mutually decided to drop out Brown and rename the company with added features. Thus, was born Snapchat. This fallback actually set the company in motion as it started attracting youngsters and soon made its mark towards the ‘million dollar company’ tag. The company is now in full swing and is expected to introduce much more exciting features for its users.

Doug McMillon: CEO of Walmart

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Success is the result of abundant knowledge. Human mind is capable of absorbing as much as knowledge we feed to it. A person working in a particular field acquires deeper and deeper knowledge of that field. But the essential part is to extend that horizon ‘wide’ along with the ‘deep dive’. Walmart made a smart move to handover the CEO position to a person whose mind is equipped with the knowledge from basic to the advance level. Doug McMillon – a true learner who has successfully extended his knowledge horizons in every possible direction.

Doug, 51, became the fifth CEO of the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, in 2014. Unlike some other big shot CEOs his story begins right from the bottom. Doug joined the company in his summer vacations way back when he was just a teenager. His summer internship may not have given him glamorous paychecks but was the beginning towards his 2014 journey. As a summer student he was handed over the work of unloading the trucks at one of the Walmart distribution centers.

Born on 17th October, 1966, Doug was raised with his parents in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The McMillon family moved to Bentonville, Arkansas when Doug was just 16. In 1984, he took the summer job at Walmart as they were now residing in the retailer giant’s hometown. McMillon holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas and he went further to get a masters in MBA from University of Tulsa.

During his MBA degree, McMillon joined Walmart in 1990 as a buyer trainee in the athletic department of the Walmart store in Tulsa. After successfully completing his MBA in 1991 he decided to move back to the Walmart’s, and his own, hometown, Bentonville where he joined the buyer trainee program. McMillon took numerous job roles including buyer and merchandiser, working for the deals in the food, clothing, and crafts departments, etc. This marked the beginning of a consistent raise in McMillon’s career.

From a general merchandise manager of Walmart’s wholesale store, Sam’s Club, to reaching at the company’s highest position i.e. CEO in 2006 proves McMillon’s worth and efforts. Under his leadership the Sam’s Club focused mainly on the small-business owners and boosted its growth with respect to the strong contenders like Costco. In the year 2009, McMillon took over Mike Duke to lead Walmart’s international division. His efforts again worked like a magic on the company and shot the profits to a whopping 29% with the introduction of ‘everyday low price’ mantra into the international market.

McMillon’s consistent success rate pushed Walmart to replace the CEO of the company. After all they still wanted to be in the business and compete with rapidly growing e-retailers like Amazon. Then came the big decision to move McMillon to the board of directors of Walmart. And, on February 1, 2014 Doug McMillon was promoted to the CEO of Walmart once again replacing Mike Duke.

McMillon, during his role as a CEO till now, has focused on his company employees like no one has ever done before. He has constantly raised the wages of his employees from the moment he took over the CEO seat. He believes in the statement, ‘happier workers and better customer service’. The increased competition with e-retailers like Amazon, McMillon’s long-term goal is to increase investments in e-commerce business and create a ‘seamless shopping experience’. The biggest challenge Doug McMillon is facing is the expansion of Walmart into Asia’s two major countries, India and China.

One thing to learn and to believe in this man’s vision is that he has managed to rise up from the dock and sit on the high-profile chair just in the span of three decades. His abilities, courage to take risks and strategic business methods has and, in future, definitely lead the company to the positions it has never seen before.