EVEN MORE RAGS TO RICHES

DO WON CHANG

Do Won Chang had to work three jobs as a janitor, gas station

employee, and coffee shop attendant to support his family when

they moved from Korea to America in 1981. After three years of

thrift-spending, he was able to open his first retail store Fashion 21,

which grew to be the retail clothing giant Forever 21, a pioneer in

fast fashion. The multinational clothing empire with over 480 outlets

worldwide generates an annual income of $3 billion.

GEORGE SOROS

After surviving the Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1947,

George Soros escaped the country to stay with his relatives in London.

He supported his studies by working as a waiter and railway porter

and then sold goods at a souvenir shop after graduating. He also

wrote to every merchant bank in England until he gained an

entry-level job at Singer & Friedlander. He became “the man who

broke the bank of England” due to his famous bet against the British

pound in 1992, where he earned more than a billion dollars in profit

in one plunge in the Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.

ZDENEK BAKALA

With just a $50 bill wrapped in plastic and hidden in a sandwich,

Zdenek Bakala fled communist Czechoslovakia in 1980 when he was

19 years old and made it to Lake Tahoe. He worked as a

dishwasher at Harrah’s Casino while studying for his

undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Dartmouth.

He later on ventured in banking, opened his first company

Credit Suisse First Boston in Prague after the fall of the Berlin Wall

and presided over a coal company that has a $2.52 billion market.

Harold Simmons grew up in a shack in the poor rural town of

Golden, Texas with no plumbing or electricity. He still managed,

however, to graduate with a B.A. and masters in Economics from the

University of Texas. His first venture was a series of drugstores

which were almost entirely funded with a loan. This became a

100-store chain which he sold to Eckerd for $50 million.

He became famous as a master of the corporate buyout and

currently owns 6 companies that trade on the NYSE including the

world’s largest producer of titanium, Titanium Metals Corporation.

RICHARD DESMOND

Richard Desmond was raised by a single mother living on top

of a garage. He quit school at the age of 14 to focus on being a

drummer while working as a coat-checker to help pay bills.

Though he never became famous for his musical abilities,

he later opened his own record store and published his first magazine,

“International Musician and Recording World” and expanded the

Desmond magazine empire with publications such as the

British version of Penthouse and OK!. He now owns a number of

publications around the world and was listed on the 2011 Sunday

Times Rich List with a net worth of £950 million.

HARRY WAYNE HUIZENGA

Harry Wayne Huizenga was born in Chicago, Illinois to an

abusive father. His family moved to Florida to save his parents’

marriage but his father never changed. He moved back to

Chicago to go to college but soon dropped out and then signed

up to be a reserve in the Army. He went back to Florida after

his training and bought his first dump truck to start a trash

disposal business. This venture became highly profitable so

he purchased more garbage trucks and later built his company,

the Waste Management Inc., which became well-known all over

the US. He also purchased Blockbuster stores, which later

merged with Viacom. He is credited for founding three

Fortune 500 companies.

RICHARD BRANSON

Born to a family of lawyers in Blackheath, London, he had poor

academic performance due to his dyslexia. Therefore, he focused

more on his business which included growing Christmas trees and

raising parakeets. He later started his own record mail-order business

at the age of 16. In 1972, he established the record store Virgin Records,

which prospered in the 1980s with a number of outlets. He also

created Virgin Atlantic Airwaves, which expanded Virgin Records

into a music label, making him the 245th richest person in the

world today.

ROMAN ABRAMOVICH

An orphan at the age of four, this Russian business tycoon was

raised by his uncle and grandmother. He got his first break from an

expensive wedding gift given by his in-laws. He dropped out of

college to pursue his business, which included selling imported

plastic ducks from his Moscow apartment. He then ventured

into managing the oil giant Sibneft after taking it over in 1995.

He continued to flip his investments with profitable ventures such

as Russian Aluminium and the steelmaker Evraz Group.

He is now the 5th richest person in Russia and owns the $1.5 billion

yacht ‘Eclipse,’ the largest private yacht docked in New York City

and the Chelsea Football Club, among others.