When we think of the richest people on Earth, we normally think about their enormous wealth and luxury. But often we forget not all of them had it easy and some of them made their fortunes totally from the scratch.
Here are some rags to riches story that you will inspire you.
1. Amancio Ortega
He is one of the richest men on Earth. The owner of Zara was not always a fortunate man.
When he was just 12, he started delivering shirts in order to support his family. He dropped out of school and learned how to make dressing gowns and lingerie.
He opened the first Zara store in a small town of Coruña in the year 1975.
And after that, there was no looking back. Today he has more than 1500 stores in over 70 countries.
2. Ingvar Kamprad
He is one of the richest self-made men in the world. There is a hardly anyone who has not heard about the famous furniture brand Ikea. Kamprad single-handedly made Ikea the brand it is today. Because of his poverty, he started selling matches, when he was just six.
By the time he was 10, he started selling all kinds of things like pencils, fish and Christmas decorations.
In 1943, when he was just 17 years old, his father gave him some money with which he started a business now known as IKEA.
Kamprad started selling furniture at a price which most of the other manufacturers couldn’t even compete. He soon started manufacturing his own furniture that later shaped his career.
3. Larry Ellison
Today Oracle is one of the biggest names in the IT industry. The Oracle’s founder never met his biological father and came from very humble background.
Ellison was a college dropout with little or no knowledge about computers and computer programming. It was only after he got the job of programmer that he bought a book and started to learn to program all by himself.
This helped him land a job at Ampex corporation, soon he left the company with two of his co-workers, to form a company of his own, which we now know as Oracle.
4. Li ka-Shing
Li Ka-Shing is one of the richest men in Asia. When he was a child, he was forced to drop out of school as his family could not afford his education.
To support his family, he started working in a factory and by the age of 22 he had opened his own factory. His factory used to produce plastic flowers and way back in 1950, he had correctly predicted plastics would become a major industry.
Soon from plastics, he moved to real estate. He also made a fair share of profit from Facebook, as he was one of the first major promoters of the company.
5. Henry Ford
When Henry Ford was alive he was counted amongst the richest men of his time. He singlehandedly revolutionized the car industry with his iconic Model-T.
If he had not left home in 1879, then it is quite possible that he too would have become a farmer like his dad. He started working at the age of 16, as an apprentice mechanic. At the age of 28, he joined Thomas Edison’s company as an engineer.
At the company, he started working on the gasoline engines. Soon, he left his job to form his own company but just after two years the company became bankrupt.
He tried his luck for the second time, he opened another company called The Henry Ford Company, but soon he had to leave his own company due to certain differences.
After miserably failing twice, he again formed another company called The Ford and Malcomson company and this time luck smiled on him. The company was renamed as The Ford Motor Company, and this company changed the automobile industry forever.
6. Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt did not even complete his school before he started his own business.
He took a loan of 100$ from his mother and brought a boat, which he used to ferry passengers from Staten Island and Manhattan.
Soon, his business grew and not just boats but he even got into railroad business. When he died, he was considered as one of the wealthiest men in the country.
7. Leonardo del Vecchio
He is the founder of the famous eyewear company Luxottica. His company owns brands like Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ban, and Oakley.
The man who is now the second richest man in Italy was once abandoned in an orphanage and was forced to work in a factory at an age when most of us go to school.
In Milan, he started working as an assistant in a factory that made auto and spectacle parts. He took a keen interest in spectacles and wanted to transform something that was viewed as an item of necessity into a fashionable accessory.
8. Jack Ma
Today, he is one of the richest men in China. His company Alibaba is one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world. The story of how an English teacher living in a tiny apartment made a company as valuable as Walmart is quite fascinating.
He started his career working as an English guide for foreign tourist. Soon, he saw the potential of the internet and knew that it could be used as a tool to connect all the businesses in China.
With just $60,000, he started a company. Well, you must know that though Alibaba is e-commerce site its model is actually different all other e-commerce sites. Alibaba does not hold any inventory but only acts a middleman.
9. Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is a man who needs no introduction. Like most of the other billionaires, he started quite early. He bought his first share at the age of just 11 and soon joined his father’s brokerage firm.
Believe it our not, the business tycoon made his first profit selling gum and cola in the neighborhood. Interestingly, it was actually a failure that made him such a successful investor.
Once he brought a share for 40$ but soon the prices fell and he sold it for just 20$, later the same share went as high as 200$. This failure made him realize that in order to achieve success, one needs patience. This was a lesson that changed his life forever.
10. Bill Gates
Well unlike most of the others on the list, Gates actually came from a pretty well to do family, but that being said becoming the richest man in the world is not an easy job.
Right from his childhood, Gates was quite fascinated with computers and it was not long before he understood computers can actually change his life.
He first success came when he made a deal with IBM according to which every IBM computer will have his operating system.