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Kyle Vogt

From Engineer to Entrepreneur: The Rise of Kyle Vogt

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Kyle Vogt is an American engineer, businessman, executive in technology, and pioneer in robotics.

About Kyle Vogt and Cruise

Vogt established Cruise Automation in 2013, and he presently holds the positions of president, CTO, and CEO of the company. Since being acquired by General Motors in May 2016, Cruise has operated as a stand-alone division of the automaker and develops self-driving car technology.

Kyle Vogt
Image Source: inc.com

Initially, Cruise concentrated on creating direct-to-consumer kits to equip cars with rudimentary self-driving features. In 2015, Cruise modified its approach and started developing software for fully autonomous vehicles.

The brand’s ideology exhorts drivers to participate in shared ownership rather than private ownership in order to lessen the harm done to the environment, the frequency of accidents, and the traffic in major cities.

Also Read: A High School Dropout becoming a Billionaire

Cruise has been working on creating hardware and software to create completely autonomous vehicles utilizing an adapted Chevy Bolt EV since joining General Motors. Cruise announced last year that it would offer a free autonomous robotaxi service to the general public in San Francisco.

This accomplishment enabled SoftBank Vision Fund to spend $1.35 billion. Once Cruise was prepared for commercial deployment, SoftBank had already agreed to contribute an extra $1.35 billion in addition to its previous $900 million investment.

Early Life

Vogt attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an undergraduate student to study electrical engineering and computer science. Vogt took part in the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge there, which several influential figures in the field of autonomous vehicles have credited with catalyzing the development of technology essential to self-driving automobiles.

Vogt participated in two seasons of BattleBots and worked as an intern at Roomba while he was still attending MIT. During his junior year, Vogt dropped out of MIT to join the group that would later find Justin.tv and Twitch.

Success Story

Vogt joined the founding teams of Socialcam and Twitch in 2011; both companies were later acquired, Twitch by Amazon for $970 million and Socialcam for $60 million. Vogt switched to autonomous vehicles after leaving Twitch and co-founded Cruise Automation as President and CTO in 2013.

Early on, the business took part in Y Combinator, a startup boot camp that trains and supports aspiring business owners. Cruise was Y Combinator’s first venture into the auto sector; they hadn’t previously worked on automobiles. However, the partners were familiar with Vogt.

The RP-1 iteration of Cruise technology-enhanced human driving by providing an autonomous capability that was provided for the Audi A4 or S4. The $10,000 kit was designed with the final goal of retrofitting all vehicles with a highway autopilot system.

Also Read: The Success Story of Sam Walton: Founder of Walmart

Ultimately, Cruise came to the conclusion that mastering city driving posed the bigger obstacle. The company made the decision to forgo the RP-1 in January 2014 in favor of employing the Nissan Leaf to create a fully driverless vehicle. In 2016, General Motors reportedly paid more than $1 billion to acquire Cruise.

After former Cruise CEO Dan Ammann departed the company in 2021, Vogt took over as CEO in an acting capacity until he was officially named in 2022, keeping his positions as CTO and President.

Herb Chambers

Herb Chambers: A High School Dropout becoming a Billionaire

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American billionaire businessman Herb Chambers is the owner and President of The Herb Chambers Companies, a collection of 60 auto dealerships in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, region. He was ranked 392 out of the 400 wealthiest Americans in 2015, when he was 74 years old, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion.

Early Life

Chambers was raised in the working-class Dorchester district of Boston, where he worked as a cart collector at the neighborhood grocery store. After dropping out of high school and searching for a career in 1959, Chambers joined the US Navy as an aircraft electrician. He served for four years, earning the rank of Petty Officer Second Class.

Herb Chambers
Image Source: bostonglobe.com

Following his return, he pulled $500 from his mother to launch his first business, a copy distributor, which he later sold for $80 million. Herb founded A-Copy America, which grew to be the largest office copier dealership in the world, before going into the vehicle industry.

He combined that business with what is today known as Ikon in 1983. Ikon is a multinational corporation with eight operating nations that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Success Story

Herb looked for a new business challenge in 1985. He has always had a passion for cars and saw the automotive industry as being full of opportunities. After buying an Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealership in New London, Connecticut, in 1985, Chambers launched his own vehicle company.

Also Read: The Success Story of Sam Walton: Founder of Walmart

He made the business purchase as a result of his own disappointing dealership buying experience. Chambers established the Herb Chambers Companies after making improvements to the initial auto dealership.

Following the purchase of the Cadillac and Oldsmobile dealership in New London, General Motors authorized the purchase of a second Cadillac franchise in Rhode Island. In the same year that Hyundai entered the U.S. market, numerous suitable candidates applied for dealerships in strategic locations.

Hyundai selected Herb Chambers to be their local dealer after carefully examining each applicant’s qualifications. A little over a year later, Boston had Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche stores. It goes without saying that many people applied because they wanted to buy one of these expensive cars. All three manufacturers settled on Herb Chambers as their sole choice.

For his excellent achievements in the automobile industry, Chambers received the New England Motor Press Association Executive of the Year Award in May 2017.

Also Read: Gabe Newell: The richest man in the video game business

With more than 17,000 employees, the Herb Chambers car dealerships produce annual sales of over 1.5 billion dollars. Herb thinks that the training he obtained from other dealers before entering the industry has contributed to the company’s exceptional success in the auto dealer industry.

Currently, Herb Chambers has four Honda dealerships in Massachusetts: Burlington, Boston, Seekonk, and Westborough. The biggest Honda dealer in New England is Herb Chambers.

Additionally, he owns New England’s highest volume Porsche, BMW, Hyundai, and Dodge dealerships.

Sam Walton

The Success Story of Sam Walton: Founder of Walmart

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Sam Walton, an American business tycoon, is most known for establishing Walmart and Sam’s Club in 1962 and 1983, respectively. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. expanded to become both the largest private employer and the largest company in the world by revenue.

Sam Walton
Image Source: forbes.com

Walton formerly held the title of the richest person in America. His family has maintained its position as the wealthiest in the United States for a number of years running, with a net wealth of over $240.6 billion as of 2022.

Early Life

Sam Walton made the decision to join the US Army Intelligence Corps in order to serve his country. He was a Captain who was stationed in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sam spent three years at his job in the military.

Also Read: Journey of Databricks from Academia To A $6.2 Billion Business

Sam Walton made the decision to start a store selling inexpensive products after leaving the military. He made certain that there was always fresh food on the shelves. With the aid of a $20,000 borrowing from his father-in-law and $5,000 in savings from his time in the military, he was able to launch the business.

On April 5, 1992, the day after Walmart celebrated its 30th anniversary, Sam Walton passed away. There were 1735 stores globally, with $5 billion in yearly sales, at that time.

Success Story

In 1945, Sam Walton acquired a lease on a Ben Franklin store location. His objective was to sell goods for a low price in order to increase sales at a low-profit margin. When the store first opened, it had an annual income of $105,000; by the fifth year, it had increased to $250,000.

Sam Walton had to shut down the store once the five-year lease came to an end since he was unable to extend it. Walton’s Five and Dime was the name of the new business he later founded in Bentonville. The Walmart Museum now occupies this location.

The first real Walmart shop debuted in Rogers, Arkansas, on July 2, 1962. Sam Walton’s vision for the Wal-Mart Discount Store was to stock it exclusively with goods created in the United States and provide them for low prices. Sam took sure to place his stores outside of the major cities, in the smaller communities.

Also Read: The richest man in the video game business

Due to the substantial discounts, customers never dried up at the store’s entrance. Sam wanted to ensure that common people could afford basic necessities. The respectable businessman’s desire for success became stronger with time.

He persisted in opening ever more Wal-Mart locations across America. Sam had already established 24 stores by 1967, and they were experiencing astronomical sales all throughout the country.

The business was incorporated under the name Walmart Inc. on October 31, 1969, and changed its name to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1970. The massive retail store became publicly traded in 1970 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The business expanded significantly in the 1980s when sales reached $1 billion. Walton passed away from multiple myeloma, a kind of blood cancer, on 5th April 1992 (three months before Walmart celebrated its thirtieth anniversary) in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin: Success Story of Fanatics’ Billionaire CEO

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Michael Rubin is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He serves as the executive chairman of Rue Gilt Groupe, the top off-price e-commerce portfolio firm, which comprises RueLaLa.com, Gilt.com, and ShopPremiumOutlets.com, as well as the CEO of Fanatics, the largest retailer of officially licensed sports apparel in the world.

Michael Rubin
Image Source: cnbc.com

In 1998, he launched GSI Commerce, which he later sold to eBay for $2.4 billion. In order to fund $60 million to combat food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rubin created the wildly popular “All In Challenge,” in which famous people, influencers, and corporations gave priceless items or once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Success Story

After selling his ski stores and using the money from his chance overstock deal, he founded KPR Sports, a company that bought and sold overstock name-brand athletic equipment.

Michael Rubin acquired 40% of Rykä, a maker of sporting shoes for women, in 1995. Global Sports Incorporated, a clothing and shipping business founded by Rubin in 1998, subsequently evolved into the multibillion-dollar e-commerce giant GSI Commerce.

Rubin began working on strategies to move GSI online in 1999. Even before going online, the wholesale sports equipment shop never had any physical retail storefronts; instead, it sold to other retailers directly. Rubin’s company was acquired by eBay in 2011 for $2.4 billion.

Rubin held little under 10% of the company at the time. He repurchased Shop Runner, a retail rewards program; Rue La La, a flash seller; and Fanatics, Inc., a licensed sports merchandiser.

Michael Rubin is the CEO of Fanatics and the executive chairman of the board at Rue La La.

The partnership between Simon Property Group and Rubin to bring their mall inventory online and their $280 million investment in the project was revealed on CNBC in 2019.

FedEx bought ShopRunner in December 2020. Rubin arranged partnerships between Fanatics and more than 300 professional sports leagues, teams, and organizations.

These partnerships included agreements with Nike, the National Football League, and Major League Baseball, which gave Fanatics exclusive rights to design, produce, and sell all Nike fan gear for the two leagues. Rubin purchased a minority stake in the Philadelphia 76ers in October 2011.

Michael Rubin belongs to the investor group that successfully offered $280 million for the team.

Two years later, Rubin invested $320 million in the administration of the Prudential Center and a part of the New Jersey Devils hockey team as a part of the same investment group. In 2013, the NHL approved the agreement and made the announcement.

Due to potential conflicts between his position as CEO of the expanding Fanatics company and the regulations governing sports club ownership, Rubin surrendered his shares in both franchises in June 2022. At its Philadelphia Visionary Gala in 2011, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) recognized Rubin for inspiring its students and embodying “the true spirit and determination of an entrepreneur.”

He was one of the “20 Most Powerful CEOs 40 and Under” in 2011, as per Forbes. Rubin was included in the first Bleacher Report “Power 50” list of the most important sports figures in 2018. Between 2015 and 2019, Rubin was listed among the “Top 50 Most Influential People in Sports Business” list published by Sports Business Journal.

Chris Sacca

Chris Sacca: Most Successful Venture Capitalist

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Chris Sacca is an American venture capitalist, business counselor, entrepreneur, and attorney.

About

He is the owner of Lowercase Capital, an American venture capital company that has made investments in seed and early-stage technology firms like Instagram, Uber, Twitter, Twilio, and Kickstarter. As a result of these investments, Forbes ranked him No. 2 on its Midas List: Top Tech Investors for 2017.

Chris Sacca
Image Source: forbes.com

Chris Sacca engaged in acquisitions and mergers while holding a number of positions at Google, where he oversaw alternate access and cellular operations. He made several “Guest Shark” appearances on ABC’s Shark Tank between 2015 and 2017.

Sacca announced his retirement from venture capital investing at the beginning of 2017. Sacca declared in 2021 that he was returning to venture investment with a focus on environmental issues.

Success Story

Chris Sacca, who was born in May 1975, attended Georgetown University to study law.

Chris Sacca began trading equities at this time using the money from his college debts.

He used leverage to turn $10,000 into $12 million, but he lost it all and wound up $4 million in debt which he eventually repaid. Sacca started his career in Silicon Valley in 2000 as an associate at Fenwick & West, where he managed venture capital, mergers, and acquisitions, and licensing transactions for clients in the technology industry like Macromedia, VeriSign, and Kleiner Perkins.

After being let off in September 2001 after working for roughly 13 months, he spent the following months going to networking events and “surviving” in Silicon Valley by creating contracts and working as a freelance voice actor.

He founded the consultancy company The Salinger Group in order to network, and in May 2002, he was hired by Speedera Networks According to Sacca, moving to the mountain hamlet of Truckee near Lake Tahoe in 2007 was a defining moment in his angel investment.

Sacca subsequently bought the house next door to entertain various visiting entrepreneurs after entrepreneurs like Travis Kalanick and Sacca would spend hours exchanging ideas when visiting the residence. He spent time practicing law and working for Google before launching his own venture capital business, Lowercase Capital, in 2007.

Returns are not disclosed in Lowercase. But according to records that were leaked to the media, Lowercase’s primary fund returned 447% of investors’ money in cash between 2010-2015, and it also claims to have unrealized holdings in digital companies that would have increased returns to 7,600%.

One of the most prosperous venture capitalists in history, Sacca’s early investment in Uber may have increased total profits to 216 times the original investment. When Twitter went public in 2013, Sacca used $1 billion in outside funding to purchase more shares from employees after making his initial investment of $26,000 in the company in 2006.

When the stock price was roughly double its current levels in 2015, he sold the majority of the shares. In total, he and his investors profited $5 billion from the business. In 2020, Sacca and his wife co-founded Lowercarbon Capital, a fund dedicated to combating climate change.

In August 2021, the company revealed details of its initial $800 million outside investment round. As of August 2021, the company had invested in about 50 businesses, many of which were start-ups devoted to eliminating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Robert Herjavec

Robert Herjavec: From a poor immigrant to a millionaire ‘shark’

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Robert Herjavec is a Croatian-Canadian entrepreneur, investor, and TV personality.

About

Herjavec developed the Canadian Internet security software integrator BRAK Systems, which he later sold to AT&T Canada (now Allstream) for $30.2 million. He established The Herjavec Group in 2003, which currently has over $200 million in yearly revenue and is one of Canada’s leading IT and computer security organizations.

Robert Herjavec
Image Source: inc.com

He has appeared in episodes of the CBC Television program Dragons’ Den and the ABC program Shark Tank, in which he is an investor. He has published books on how to succeed in business as well.

Early Life

Robert Herjavec was born in Croatia in 1962. The nation was then a part of Yugoslavia, a socialist one-party state ruled by Communists. Herjavec’s father was a strong and courageous man who was determined to speak forth against the ruling system and its unjust form of government.

Unsurprisingly, his father’s outspoken opposition to communism frequently resulted in imprisonment. And his father eventually had enough after being arrested over 22 times. He so managed to get away from his captors and left the nation with his family. The family of Robert Herjavec moved to Canada for just $20, but his father ultimately got a job in a factory.

Although it wasn’t much, there was just enough money to support a family. Herjavec was only 8 years old at the time, but the authoritarianism back at home, as well as the poor economic circumstances and the pessimism that his father railed against, had a profound effect on his mental makeup.

Herjavec, who grew up close to poverty, decided to make improvements to his family’s and his own lives at the age of 14. He finally find his way to college and graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in political science and English literature, and then entered the professional world with a heart full of ambition and a head full of optimism.

Success Story

He created BRAK Systems, a corporation that specialized in security integration, after becoming familiar with the ins and outs of the computer industry. Herjavec’s company flourished quickly becoming one of the leading security integration businesses in North America.

And luckily for Herjavec, AT&T was interested in purchasing his business, which he quickly sold for $20 million. Following that, Herjavec landed an executive role with a corporation called RAMP Networks. He grew the business as the VP of Sales for one of the initial VPN technology providers, which Nokia eventually purchased for $225 million.

Later he founded the Herjavec Group. Similar to his earlier business, he quickly expanded this one into a major force in the IT sector. His company, which is now renowned as Cyderes and is among the biggest in Canada for cyber security, merged with Fishtech Group.

He attracted the attention of a writer for the National Post when he stated that he had paid more than $10 million for a property in the early 2000s. And it was because of this media coverage and publication that he eventually attracted the attention necessary to get a role on Dragon’s Den, a predecessor to Shark Tank in Canada.

Before entirely ending his tenure with The Dragon’s Den in 2009, he also negotiated a deal with ABC’s Shark Tank. The rest is history, as they say. Since then, he has been a constant part of the program, and he has continued to gain fame and recognition.

Herjavec was given the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Governor-General of Canada for Outstanding Service to Canada as well as the 2012 Ernst & Young Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Technology.