RAGS TO RICHES

ANDREW CARNEGIE

This Scottish-American industrialist started to work at a cotton mill

for a 12-hour, 6-days a week job in America when he was only 13

years old after his father lost his jobs as a hand weaver in Scotland.

Hired later as a telegraph messenger at the Pennsylvania Railroad

Company, he was able to climb the corporate ladder where he used

his earnings to invest in ventures that led him to build an empire

in the steel industry including his large-scale philanthropic legacy.

OPRAH WINFREY

Born to unwed teenage parents in Mississippi, this media mogul wore

dresses that her grandmother made out of potato sacks. After

being molested, she ran away at the age of 13 and became a mother at

14, but her son died in infancy. Sent to live with his father, a barber in

Tennessee, she got a full scholarship in college, won a beauty pageant

and was discovered by a radio station. Her empire is now worth $2.7 billion

which she shares with the world through her philanthropic works.

MARIA DAS GRACAS SILVA FOSTER

Born in the poverty-stricken shantytown of Morro do Adeus, Brazil to

an alcoholic father, she earned extra money by collecting cans and

paper to continue her studies. She broke the barriers of the corporate

ladder when she was hired as an intern at Petrobras, an oil company,

in 1978 and became the first female head of the department of

engineering. She also became one of the world’s most influential

people as the first female CEO of Petrobras.

SAM WALTON

During the Great Depression, Sam Walton and his family lived on a

farm in Oklahoma where he milked the family cow and delivered bottles

to customers to make ends meet. He joined JC Penny three days after

graduating from the University of Missouri with a BA Economics degree.

After WW II, with capital of $25,000 that he borrowed from his father

along with the $5,000 that he saved from the army, he bought a

Ben Franklin variety store which he expanded into the retailer giant

Walmart and the membership-only retailer warehouse Sam’s Club.

CHRIS GARDNER

Born without knowing his real father, he was driven out of his home

by his abusive stepfather. He enlisted in the Navy and later became a

medical supplies salesman. Due to the slump in his job and with his own

family to support, he became interested in stock broking after seeing a

stockbroker with a Ferrari. His travails of sleeping in a subway station

bathroom, being homeless, passing the licensing exam for stockbrokers,

and becoming employed by Bear Sterns was documented in his memoirs,

“The Pursuit of Happiness,” which became a hit movie as well.

INGVAR KAMPRAD

Living on a farm most of his growing up years, this Swedish

business magnate had always been known for being enterprising

even at a young age as he bought matches in bulk and sold them

individually to his neighbours. This expanded to fish, pens and

Christmas decorations. He also used the cash reward that his father

gave him for good grades and used this to create a mail-order business

that became the retail company IKEA. Furniture became the company’s

biggest seller, which made him one of the richest men in the world today

having a net worth of $3 billion.

J.K. ROWLING

Joanne Rowling, a native of Yate, Gloucestershire in England moved

to Porto, Portugal in 1990 when her mother died. While she was already

writing the Harry Potter novel even before her mother’s death, the

seven-year period that followed entailed a divorce from her husband in

1993, a move to Edinburgh, Scotland and a life with a daughter living

on welfare while suffering from clinical depression until she finished the

first book in her famous series, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”

in 1997. She was able to finish it by writing on scraps of tissue paper

from the numerous cafes they visited to let her daughter sleep.

With over 400 million books and the worldwide success of the

Harry Potter franchise JK Rowling’s net worth is $1 billion.

JIM CARREY

James Eugene Carrey was born in Ontario, Canada to a middle-income

family where his musician father worked as an accountant. However,

things got worse for his family when his father lost his job and they

all had to move to Scarborough. He worked at the Titan Wheels Factory

for eight hours a day while attending school, but never finished high

school. While living in a camper van, he started doing stand-up routines

and eventually landed a gig in the sitcom The Duck Factory. He first

gained recognition in 1990 when he became one of the casts in the sketch

comedy ‘In Living Colours.’ He later moved on to movies and became

one of the highest paid comedians in America.

SHELDON ADELSON

The son of a Lithuanian immigrant taxi driver, his mother ran a

knitting store from their home. He grew up in a tenement where he

shared a bedroom with his parents and three siblings, started

selling newspapers at the age of 12, and started his candy-vending

machine business at the age of 16. Though he tried his hand at

various enterprises from packing hotel toiletries to mortgage brokering

his biggest break came from developing a computer trade show.

He purchased the Sands Hotel & Casino and later the mega-resort,

The Venetian, from the profits of his ventures pegging his net worth

at around $21.8 billion.