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Paul Allen : Self-made Billionaire & the Co-founder of Microsoft

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A business magnate, investor, philanthropist and also a cancer survivor, the computer enthusiast, Paul Allen, was the one, who persuaded Bill Gates to drop out of his college and start a software company, that later, became the multi-billion Microsoft. He was the 46-richest person of the world, at the time of his death and comprising of 100 million Microsoft shares. The self-made billionaire also founded another multibillion-dollar company,  Vulcan Inc., which managed his various business and philanthropic efforts.

Early Life

Paul Allen was born and brought up in Seattle, Washington, U.S. He was born on 21 January 1953, to Kenneth Sam Allen and Edna Faye Allen. His father worked as the associate director of the University of Washington Libraries. Paul completed his schooling from a local private school named as Lakeside School. This was the place, where he met his two years younger friend, Bill Gates. The two shared a common interest- Computers. Both of them started learning programming languages and improvising their skills. They also sneakingly used the laboratory of the Computer Science Department of the University of Washington, to carry out their experiments. As they were not the students of the university, they got banned from the University campus, in 1971, after they got caught by the university authority. Later, Paul got a 1600 SAT score and got proper admission to the Washington State University, as a student.

Founding Microsoft

Allen decided to leave the college only after two years of his enrollment, to join a job as a programmer, for Honeywell in Boston, near Harvard University. Gates was an alumnus at the Harvard University. After working for a small time at the Honeywell, Allen convinced Gates to drop out of the university and start Microsoft with him.

Paul Allen
Image Source: geekwire.com

Allen and Gates together, built software for the first microcomputers on BASIC. They started marketing for their software, and in 1980, they bagged a contract from IBM. According to the contract, they had to develop a Disk Operating System (DOS) for the IBM PCs. The two were not able to complete the order, hence Allen made a deal with Tim Paterson, and purchased his QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) software to complete the contract. The deal was a success, and Microsoft emerged as a leading software development company.

In 1982, Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin disease, and hence, resigned from his post of Microsoft’s chief technologist. It led the parting of Microsoft shares between the two partners in 60:40 ratio, Allen having 40 per cent shares in the company.

Allen served as the member of the board of Microsft until 9 November 2000 and remained as a senior strategy advisor to the company’s executives.

Other Ventures

After leaving Microsoft in 1982, Allen invested in other businesses. Allen with his sister Jody Lynn, co-founded Vulcan Inc., in 1986. Under Vulcan Inc., Allen made various investments in different fields, including America Online, SureFind, Starwave, hardware, software, and wireless communications. He also founded the Vulcan Capital under Vulcan Inc.

Allen and Judy had also started a film production company named Vulcan Productions, and produced films like We The Economy, Far from Heaven, Hard Candy, Where God Left His Shoes, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, Racing Extinction and Body Team.

Allen was also into philanthropy and contributed more than $2 billion towards the advancement of science, technology, education, wildlife conservation, the arts, and community services in his lifetime. A trust named as Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was also founded by Allen, that had donated $494 million to over 1,500 nonprofits.

Allen also launched institutes like The Allen Institute for Brain Science (2003) and Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (2014), that carry out the scientific researches.

Personal Life

Allen stayed single whole his life. He was assumed to be reclusive. Allen was a pro guitarist and got his first guitar at the age of sixteen. Even Sony had released his major label with the name Everywhere at Once by Paul Allen.

Allen also owned two professional sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League and the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA.

In 1982, after receiving radiation therapy for his Stage 1-A Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Allen had recovered from the disease. But, in 2009, he was again tested positive with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It was also cured after treating Allen for a long time. Although cancer returned back and Allen died on 15 October 2018.

Jerry Yang : An Internet Entrepreneur & Founder of Yahoo!

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Destiny and hard work play a vital role in the success of a person. Not neglecting the hard work, to achieve something big, you have to be at the right place at the right time. The Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur, Jerry Yang had his circumstances, that brought him from Taiwanese to California, when he just knew a single word from Engish, i.e. Shoe. It took him only three years to master the language. As soon he became proficient with English, his aptitude proved his excellence in other fields too.

Early Life

Yang was born on 6 November 1968, as Yang Chih-Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan, to an English professor mother. He lost his father at the age of two. Yang was just ten, when his mother, along with him and his younger brother, moved to San Jose, California, in 1978. His mother taught English to the other immigrants, and the two children grew with their grandparents.

Jerry Yang
Image Source: South China Morning Post

Yang joined the United States Educational System in San Jose, where he excelled at every other subject. His remarkable performance made his teachers to put him in advanced classes for gifted students. He attended the Stanford University, where he earned the bachelor’s as well as the master’s degree in electrical engineering, just in four years. In 1989, at the university, he met his future partner and a fellow Stanford student, David Filo.

Founding Yahoo!

During the time, Yang was studying at the Stanford University, the internet was making its base in the city of San Jose. Yang became familiar with this new technology and decided to learn more about it. In 1994, he along with his friend David Filo created a web directory, that included the names and addresses of other websites. The two, named the website, as Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. After a few months, it became popular and was renamed as Yahoo Inc.!! Within a few months, the website gained 100,000 unique visitors.

With the increasing popularity, Sequoia Capital became its first official investor by investing $2 million in the venture. Yang and Filo becoming the Chief Yahoo appointed Tim Koogle as the first CEO of the company. Within one year of Yahoo’s launch, it gained the attention of other venture capitalists too, gaining more and more fundings.

In 1998, Yahoo was the most popular starting point for web users, and by 2004, Yahoo had its own search software. In 2007, Yang replaced the second CEO of Yahoo, Terry Semel and served as the CEO for two years. In 2012, Yang left Yahoo.

Share in Alibaba

In 1997, Yang had gone for a trip to China, where he met the founder of Alibaba; Jack Ma. At the time Jack Ma was working as a government employed tour guide and had taken Yang to the Great Wall of China. Their meeting included a conversation based on the development of the web. And after a few months, Jack Ma started working on Alibaba.

In 2005, Yang made Yahoo buy a 40% stake in Alibaba paying $1 billion. Yahoo, under Yang’s direction also bought the assets of Yahoo! China, for $700 million. Later, there was an alteration in the shares, as Yahoo sold a small portion of it, later buying another portion from the Alibaba stakes, again.

Yang as an Angel Capitalist

In 2015, Yang started his capital venture named as AME Cloud Ventures. According to another venture capitalist, Rob Solomon, Yang was “a great founder, evangelist, strategist and mentor”, having “created the blueprint for what is possible on the Internet. Till date, Yang has funded over 50 startups including Tango, Evernote, Wattpad, Vectra Networks Inc.

Personal Life

Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, whom he met during his student-exchange program to Japan, in 1992. The two are currently living in Los Altos Hills, California. Yang is the member of the boards of many technology companies and is also involved in philanthropy.

Karl Benz : The German Inventor & the Founder of Mercedes Benz

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The founder of the world’s first automobile, powered by an internal combustion engine, and one of the most expensive cars in the world, Karl Benz was a German engineer and entrepreneur. The great inventor who introduced the world with his signature design of the first horse-less carriage has been inspiring the world for years.

Early Life

Karl Benz was born on 25 November 1844, as Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant, to Johann Georg Benz, a locomotive driver, and Josephine Vaillant, in Mühlburg, Germany. During the time of his birth, his parents were not married, but, tied the knots, only after a few months of his birth. After the wedding, Karl received his father’s surname Benz. But, his father died of pneumonia when Karl was just 2 years old.

Karl Friedrich Benz
Image Source: jarmunaplo.hu

Karl completed his school education from the local Grammar School, and joined the Poly-Technical University, for further education. The founder of the science-based mechanical engineering, Ferdinand Redtenbacher, was one of his professors, at the University. In 1860, he started studying mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. On 9 July 1864, he graduated from the university as a mechanical engineer, at the age of 19.

Career

As soon Karl graduated, he looked for a job and started working as a mechanical engineer. He switched between many companies for almost 7 years, but could not fit in. He worked as a draftsman in a scales factory, worked for a bridge building company, and even worked in an iron construction company.

In 1872, Karl joined his hands with August Ritter and started an Iron Foundry and Mechanical Workshop, named as Machines for Sheet-metal Working, in Mannheim. Due to his partner’s irresponsible behaviour, the first year of the company went really bad. The company was facing losses, so, Karl’s fiancée Bertha Ringer, acquired the shares of August Ritter, with the money of her dowry.

Karl started working on the various vehicle parts, including ignition, spark plugs, gear, carburettor, water radiator, and clutch. He loved running bicycles and always wanted to make an automotive bicycle. His another dream was to replace the horse carts with the automotive engine carriages. In December 1885, Karl assembled his first two-seater, fully powered gas car. He received the patent for the two-stroke engine in 1879.

Karl was clear about his intentions, and soon he patented the speed regulation system, the ignition using sparks with battery, the spark plug, the carburettor, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator.

Due to the high expenditure on the experiments, Karl and Bertha became weaker, financially, and were forced to sell the shares of their company to photographer Emil Bühler and his brother. The company was renamed to Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim, in 1882, and Karl had only 5% of shares left in it. In 1883, Karl resigned from the company.

The Rise of Benz Motors

In 1883, After leaving Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim, Karl with Max Rose, the owner of a bicycle repair shop, founded Benz & Companie Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik. The company had 25 employees and became popular with the name Benz & Cie.

With the company, Karl started working on a horse-less carriage, named as Benz Patent Motorwagen, and registered the patent for the same, on 29 January 1886, as DRP-37435. With the four-stroke engine, he developed the carriage, that was pulled by a bicycle and, was based on the similar technology, when he created an automobile.

Karl kept on improving the vehicles and launched the next version of the same, the Motorwagen Model 2, in 1889, followed by the Model 3 in the same year. In 1988, the Motorwagen was open for sale and received a good response from the public.

In 1988, Bertha Karl’s wife along with their two children, went on a drive on the Motorwagen, from their hometown to Bertha’s mother’s house, in Pforzheim. The distance between the two places was 106 km, and it is said to be the first longest trip done on the Motorwagen. The motive behind the drive was to make people aware of the feasibility of the newly invented carriage. Interestingly, Karl was not aware of the trip and Bertha informed him about her success through a telegram.

Karl kept on experimenting, and by 1899, his company had 430 employees, producing 572 units of their product, becoming the largest automobile company in the world.

Soon, with the time, Karl produced a few racing cars and some affordable personal vehicles for people. Karl also gets the credits for building the first truck with an internal combustion engine (1895) and the flat engine (1896).

In 1906, Karl Benz, Bertha Benz, and their son, Eugen, founded the private company, C. Benz Sons, Karl remaining the director of Benz & Cie. The company was established 10 kilometres east of Mannheim, nearby Ladenburg, producing automobiles, gas and petrol engines. The company produced affordable vehicles, becoming most popular in London as taxis.

In 1923, Germany went through a rapid inflation, resulting in a lesser production of vehicles. Benz & Cie signed the “Agreement of Mutual Interest” with the infamous DMG (Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft), that was valid till 2000. Under the agreement, the two brands produced vehicles with mixed technologies, maintaining their own brands. It lifted both the companies shares, and the two managed to fight the economic crisis.

The two companies together launched the diesel trucks line, in 1927, and Karl served as the board member of the newly founded company until he died. Many of the Karl’s first and most important inventions are still preserved in Mannheim.

Personal Life

Karl Benz married his fiancee, Bertha Ringer, on 20 July 1872. The couple had five children. On 25 November 1914, on his seventieth birthday, the Karlsruhe University awarded Karl Benz an honorary doctorate.

On 4 April 1929, Karl Benz died from a bronchial inflammation, at the age of eighty-four. In 2011, a movie named Carl & Bertha was made on the life story of Karl and Bertha.

Konosuke Matsushita: The Founder & the Former CEO of Panasonic Corporation

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The story of the industrialist and the famous Japanese God of Management, Konosuke Matsushita, is nothing more than a roller coaster ride. The Japanese entrepreneur went through a lot of struggle and faced all type of conflicts, but, at last, emerged as the greatest leader, with its largest Japanese consumer electronics company Panasonic. The writer of four million sold copies of the Developing A Road To Peace And Happiness Through Prosperity and the inspiration of millions, Konosuke Matsushita was a true entrepreneur.

Early Life

Matsushita was born on November 27, 1894, in a Japanese village of Wasa. He belonged to an affluent family. His father was a landlord, primarily owned huge farmlands. Due to some bad investments, soon, the family went through a huge loss and had to give up all of their property. The family moved to a three bedroom apartment in the city and started working for their living. Matsushita received a standard schooling in the city.

Career

With the bad financial conditions, Matsushita could not continue his schooling and started working at a bicycle shop. The Shop went out of business, and his family sent him to Osaka, to do an apprenticeship at a hibachi store. Unfortunately, the store got shut within a year of his joining, and he had to look for another job. At the age of 15, he started working at Osaka Electric Light Company, an electrical utility company. During his job with Osaka Electric, he was promoted several times. After working for five long years with the company, he decided to take up another job, where he could also complete his education. But his father advised him to continue the same job and gain more experience in the field.

During his work at Osaka Electric Light Company, he had gained enough knowledge and experience, so that he invented a new and improved light socket in his spare time. He also introduced the idea to his boss, but his boss was not sure about the potential of the invention.

Founding Panasonic

At the age of 22, Matsushita got promoted as the electrical inspector of the company. In 1917, he decided to leave Osaka Electric and start his own firm, with the help of his wife and brother-in-law. Under the name of his company, he started producing the samples of his newly invented sockets, and approached various wholesalers, to sell his product. But, the new idea could not impress the wholesalers. This caused him a huge loss, and his employees also left him. With his wife and brother-in-law, he continued working on the samples and received his first huge order of thousand insulator plates for electric fans. Being a better and an inexpensive product it gained popularity and wholesalers started trading the product and eventually, Matsushita launched Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works on 7 March 1918, that later became Panasonic in future.

Konosuke Matsushita
Image Source: entrepreneurhalloffame.com

In the mid-1920s, Matsushita came with the idea of battery lamps for bicycles, as at the time, the bicycles used to have oil and wax lamps, that could be lighted only for 3 hours.

With the time, Matsushita became more focused on the marketing of the products, that proved to be a big contribution in raising the sales of his company. By 1929, he managed to establish his company among other Japan’s electrical manufacturing companies and opened a few sales branches in some other places across the country.

In the beginning, he produced the products with brand name National and developed many affordable electric appliances. Those appliances included electric iron, battery lamps, and three-tube model radio, etc. In 1940, during the second world war, Matsushita was forced to sign government military contracts. Those contracts helped him establish Matsushita Shipbuilding Company and the Matsushita Airplane Company. Although with these big achievements, due to the war, Matsushita lost 32 of his manufacturing factories and sales offices situated in the various parts of the country.

In 1951, during his tour to the USA, he realised that in order to help Japan recover from all the losses of the second world war, adoption of advanced Western technology was essential. In 1952, Matsushita signed a contract with Philips of the Netherlands. The company saw huge growth between the time of 1950 to 1973 and introduced new home appliances to the Japanese customers. In 1973, he retired from all of his duties for Panasonic.

Personal Life

Matsushita was married to Mumeno Iue, who was a big support for him during his struggle period. Matsushita was always focussed on economic growth of people and has published 44 books based on his social and commercial philosophies. He received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers in 1987. At the age of 94, on 27 April 1989, he died from pneumonia.

Mark Zuckerberg : The Founder & CEO of World’s Biggest Social Network

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The inventive programmer and the youngest billionaire of the world, Mark Zuckerberg needs no introduction. The CEO and the founder of Facebook, the largest social media network, was once the captain of the fencing team of his school. The young entrepreneur was always interested in programming and used to develop games based on the sketches, his artist friends made. Having a few lawsuits in his name and films made on his life story, Zuckerberg is among the few programmers who have established themselves as the smartest entrepreneurs of the world.

Early Life

Mark Zuckerberg aka Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, and grew up in the suburbs of Dobbs Ferry, New York. His father Edward Zuckerberg, a dentist and mother Karen (née Kempner), a psychiatrist, belonged to a Jewish family. He was a bright student and always topped in the class. He completed his schooling from Ardsley High School and Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire. He excelled in mathematics, astronomy, physics and won many prizes in quiz competitions of his school. By the end of his school, he became proficient in French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek.

Mark Zuckerberg
Image Source: articlebio.com

Zuckerberg owned his first PC Quantex 486DX, on the Intel 486, when he was in middle school. He, eventually, grew an interest in programming languages and ended up learning Atari BASIC Programming form his father. He also received a private tuition to learn more about programming. Soon, he started developing small applications and developed a program, that connected the computers of his father’s office, through a messenger named ZuckNet. During his final year, at the high school, he joined a company name Intelligent Media Group, that worked to build a music player Synapse Media Player. The media player was developed using AI technology, that enabled it to create a playlist based on the music choice of the user. The music player even grabbed the attention of Microsoft and AOL.

Founding Facebook

After completing his school, due to his outstanding performance, he managed to get admission in one of the top universities of America, the Harvard University. By creating some useful software and games, he had already made his reputation as a programmer. He adopted Computer Science and Psychology as his major subjects. His first software at his college was the CourseMatch. The software helped the students to choose the right course and help others with their choices.

In the summer of 2003, Zuckerberg created a website for the students of the Harvard, named as Facemash. The project was developed during one his insomniac nights. The website was inspired by the college yearbook Facebook, that included the profiles of the students having their personal details and pictures in it. The concept behind Facemash was to compare two students based on their appearance. Most of the students enjoyed using it and the others complained about Zuckerberg, saying that he was using their personal data, without permission. The site got shut down within two days and Zuckerberg had to apologise to the students.

After the failure of Facemash, he started working on his new project, The Facebook. Zuckerberg launched the website after one month, i.e., on 4 February 2004. The website was basically designed for the students of Harvard, to help them connect with each other, easily. The website became an instant hit, and just after a year, it expanded to other colleges and schools, in the city. In the second year of his college, he left his studies in between, to work full-time on The Facebook. The founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, became its first angel investor, by investing $500,000. Soon, Facebook had 50 million registered users, and Zuckerberg started receiving offers to sell Facebook, from large companies, like Yahoo. Even receiving offers worth billions, he never accepted one. Although, he himself acquired many major projects like What’s App and Instagram.

The Lawsuit

On the initial launch of Facebook, three of Zuckerberg ‘s seniors at the University, Divya Narendra, and twin brothers Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea. According to them, Facebook was based on their idea, that was to create a platform to connect the students of Harvard. They even claimed that they had hired Zuckerberg to work on their website. Later, they even sued him for the same. In the end, there was a settlement between them, for 1.2 million Facebook shares.

Personal Life

Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend and fellow student from Harvard, Priscilla Chan, on 19 May 2012. The couple has two daughters Maxima Chan Zuckerberg and August Chan Zuckerberg.

In July 2018, Zuckerberg became the third richest person in the world $81.6 billion net worth. Although, within a week, his net worth was tumbled nearly $20 billion, eliminating him from the position of the third richest person.

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.