1 Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in the city of Seattle, Washington. His parents’ names were William H. Gates II, who was a prominent lawyer in Seattle, and his deceased mother, Mary Gates, who was a former school teacher and was very well connected. Also, Bill Gates had two sisters, Kristianne, who is the eldest and Libby. Mary played an integral role in Bill Gates’ entrepreneurial life. She was a University of Washington regent and sat in the board for United Way International. The CEO of IBM also happened to sit in this board with Mary, which later became the connection of a lifetime. Bill would often go to these volunteer meetings with his mother. Although Gates’ parents hoped for a law career for their son, Bill showed great interest in computers at the age of only thirteen! His first encounter with a computer was at the Lakeside School. A company called the Computer Center Corporation, leased computers from Digital Equipment Corporation. The school then decided to provide their students with some computer time and this is when Bill Gates found his passion for the first time. Gates met a new friend who would later be his first business partner. His name was Paul Allen. He was two years older than Gates but they certainly shared the same passion for computers. In his teens, Gates had already built a program that allowed people to play tic-tac-toe. When these bright, young people came together they formed the Lakeside Programmers’ Group. Later on after catching some experience as well as going deeper with their passion, the group created a program that counted traffic in Seattle, called Traf-O-Data. Traf-O-Data was able to calculate how many cars were on the road at one given time, and it would give information about the best time for a stop light. The duo along with other classmates earned $20,000 for their efforts. Also, during the computer time that the school offered, Gates and Allen created a scheduling program for their school. At their young age, Gates and Allen wanted to start their own company but Gates’ parents wanted his to finish school and hoped their son would become a lawyer. This is where the history of computers started as we know it. Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973 and went on to Harvard University to pursue a law career, like his parents wanted. After life in Lakeside School was over Gates made sure to keep in touch with his friend, Paul Allen. Allen attended Washington State University for two years but later dropped out to move out to the East Coast to work for a company called Honeywell. Bill Gates is considered the genius or the era but when he enrolled at Harvard, it can be said that his grades did not reflect his brilliant intellect. He would just get a few hours of sleep and study for test at the last possible minute. What were the consequences? He would pass his classes with a reasonable but not an excellent one. Gates still felt very passionate about computers and programming so he w.

1. 1
Bill Gates
was born on October 28, 1955, in the city of Seattle,
Washington. His parents’ names were William H. Gates II, who
was a prominent lawyer in Seattle, and his deceased mother,
Mary Gates, who was a former school teacher and was very well
connected. Also, Bill Gates had two sisters, Kristianne, who is
the eldest and Libby. Mary played an integral role in Bill Gates’
entrepreneurial life. She was a University of Washington regent
and sat in the board for United Way International. The CEO of
IBM also happened to sit in this board with Mary, which later
became the connection of a lifetime. Bill would often go to
these volunteer meetings with his mother.
Although Gates’ parents hoped for a law career for their son,
Bill showed great interest in computers at the age of only
thirteen! His first encounter with a computer was at the
Lakeside School. A company called the Computer Center
Corporation, leased computers from Digital Equipment
Corporation. The school then decided to provide their students
with some computer time and this is when Bill Gates found his
passion for the first time. Gates met a new friend who would
later be his first business partner. His name was Paul Allen. He
was two years older than Gates but they certainly shared the
same passion for computers. In his teens, Gates had already
built a program that allowed people to play tic-tac-toe. When
these bright, young people came together they formed the
Lakeside Programmers’ Group. Later on after catching some
experience as well as going deeper with their passion, the group
created a program that counted traffic in Seattle, called Traf-O-
Data. Traf-O-Data was able to calculate how many cars were on
the road at one given time, and it would give information about
the best time for a stop light. The duo along with other
classmates earned $20,000 for their efforts. Also, during the
computer time that the school offered, Gates and Allen created a

2. scheduling program for their school. At their young age, Gates
and Allen wanted to start their own company but Gates’ parents
wanted his to finish school and hoped their son would become a
lawyer. This is where the history of computers started as we
know it.
Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973 and went on
to Harvard University to pursue a law career, like his parents
wanted. After life in Lakeside School was over Gates made sure
to keep in touch with his friend, Paul Allen. Allen attended
Washington State University for two years but later dropped out
to move out to the East Coast to work for a company called
Honeywell. Bill Gates is considered the genius or the era but
when he enrolled at Harvard, it can be said that his grades did
not reflect his brilliant intellect. He would just get a few hours
of sleep and study for test at the last possible minute. What
were the consequences? He would pass his classes with a
reasonable but not an excellent one. Gates still felt very
passionate about computers and programming so he would
spend hours and hours in the computer laboratory at the
University.
In the summer of 1974, Gates decided that his passion was not
law but instead he pursued his true passion for computers and
programming. He went to Boston, Massachusetts, to work at
Honeywell with his long-time friend, Paul Allen. This was the
summer that changed everything. Allen showed Gates a
magazine article about the Altair 8800 mini-computer kit. Both
men were utterly fascinated and imagined a myriad of
possibilities that the Altair could create for personal computing.
The Altair 8800 was created by a small company located in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, called MITS. MITS stood for Micro
Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems.
The two young men were very excited and decided to contact
MITS. They said that they were working on a basic software
program that would run the new computer. The truth was Gates
and Allen did not have an Altair computer to work with nor did
they have a software program. They just wanted to see if the

3. company was interested in having someone develop such
software; this ‘white lie’ had the effect they had hoped for. It
tuned out that that MITS was actually interested in a
demonstration of the software. The president, Ed Roberts, asked
the guys for such demonstration; Gates and Allen had to
construct it in two months and it was done in the Harvard
computer lab. Allen had to travel to New Mexico to have a test
run with the new software that was built for the Altair, also
keeping in mind they did not have an Altair to work with and it
turned out to be just perfect. MITS decided to hire Allen and
Gates followed very soon after. Needless to say his parents were
at all not pleased. In 1975 Gates and Allen joined forces and
created Micro-Soft. Micro-Soft stood for micro-computer
software.
Microsoft is said to have started on a ‘shaky note.’ Even though
the creating of their BASIC software for the Altair produced
royalties it was not meeting their goals. Gates later found out
that only ten percent of the people that purchased the software
for the Altair had paid for it. This situation made Gates very
angry because the software was easy to reproduce and many
people took advantage of this. He thought it was very unfair
that software that was made to be sold was just being copied
and distributed for free. Gates saw this type of free distribution
as stealing.
In 1977, MITS was sold by its president, Ed Roberts, leaving
Gates and Allen on their own. The pair sued the new owner of
the company to retain the right of the software they developed.
Microsoft wrote software for various companies and by 1978
the company was moved to Bellevue, Washington. Gates was
happy to be home again. The company consisted of twenty-five
employees; these people were responsible for marketing,
product and business development. Gates’ great software and
business skills came in handy; he was a born leader. He placed
himself at the top of Microsoft, which by the end of 1978
grossed about $2.5 Million; not at all bad for a 23 year-old guy.
Bill Gates was very connected to his job to the point that he

4. would double check every line of code that the company would
send out. He wanted to make sure it was perfection. When the
computer industry was growing at the time, Gates took that
opportunity to get on the road to promote Microsoft. It is said
that in many occasions he traveled with his mother, who was a
respected member in many corporate boards. Amongst those
boards was Mary was on was IBM, who later on would be a very
good business connection for Gates.
“In November 1980, IBM was looking for software that would
operate their upcoming personal computer and approached
Microsoft… Gates did look very young, but he quickly
impressed IBM, convincing them that he and his company could
meet their needs. The only problem was that Microsoft had not
developed the basic operating system that would run IBM's new
computers.” This would not stop Gates from making the
business deal of a lifetime. Gates bought an operating system
that was developed to run on computers similar to IBM's
personal computer. He made a deal with the software's
developer, making Microsoft the only licensing agent and later
full owner of the software but not telling them of the deal that
was made with IBM. The software developer sued Microsoft on
grounds of holding vital information. At the end the lawsuit was
settled for an unknown amount. Gates and his company never
admitted to doing anything wrong.
Gates had to adapt the software he purchased to work for the
IBM PC. He sold it for a fee of $50,000. IBM wanted to
purchase the code but Gates quickly refused because he wanted
to license copies of his software and, of course, profit from it.
IBM accepted and agreed to pay Microsoft a fee for every copy
sold. In mid- 1981, Gates was appointed president. Between
1979-81, Microsoft’s revenue went from $4 Million to $16
Million. By 1983, the company had offices in Japan and Great
Britain, and had 30% of the world’s computers using its
software. In November 1985, Bill Gates and Microsoft launched
Windows. By 1987, Gates’ wealth had reached $101 Billion. In
1989, Microsoft created Microsoft Office, which combined

5. office productivity applications such as Microsoft Excel and
Word into one system that worked for all Microsoft products;
100,000 copies in just two weeks. This left Microsoft with a
virtual monopoly on operating systems for PCs. Soon the
Federal Trade Commission began to investigate Microsoft for
unfair marketing practices.
So, what can be learned from Bill Gates? Personally, I find that
he found his passion at a very early age, he had the money and
resources to follow it. He does have a brilliant mind and by
looking at Microsoft’s history it can be determined that he is a
very ambitious business man. While doing research, I felt that
he indeed was unfair about wanting to monopolize the industry
but that is the kind of ambition that gets a business to the top of
its industry.
--------------------------
2
Elon Musk’s Background
Elon Musk was born in the year 1971 in South Africa by a
South African father and a Canadian mother. The father was an
engineer while the mother was a nutritionist. Elon interest was
in computers at a younger age which led him develop his own
code for a video game which later he sold for $500 at his tender
age of 12 years. Therefore, it is clear that Elon musk was born
an entrepreneur.
He attended Pretoria Boys High school in South Africa for his
secondary education but later transferred to Canada where he
studied at Queen’s university, Ontario in Canada and later went
to Pennsylvania University, Wharton School where he earned
degrees in Economics and Physics respectively. His life as a
scholar took a twist of event when he was admitted in Stanford
University where he was supposed to study PhD in energy
Physics.
Elon Musk Entrepreneurial History
Elon Musk developed an entrepreneurial culture at a younger
age but made a real mark at the age of 24 years. In the year

6. 1995, he started his first company called Zip2 Corporation
Company. This was after dropping out of Stanford University
where he happened to attend only 2 classes. The corporation he
started was a city guide transacting its business via online
through provision of material s and content to online versions
which then comprises of the Chicago tribune and the New York
Times. The business though profitable, had its own challenges.
Competition was fierce but Elon struggled to maintain it
relevant in the market. Due to challenges, he sold majority of
the shares of his corporation to capitalist ventures in an
exchange of $3.6 million so that he could re-invest. Musk later
sold out Zip2 Corporation to Compaq computer at a price of
$307 million in 1999 and where his share at the company could
worth $22 million.
After selling out Zip2, Elon Musk entrepreneurial skills had
advanced and at the same year he sold the corporation, he
started an online banking business. He started a company called
X.com with a capital of $10million accrued from the sale of
Zip2 Corporation. This is where his innovativeness and
creativity was realized. He invented a secure money transfer
method using the email address of the recipient.
In the year 2000, Elon musk started his third company called
PayPal. This was immediately after soliciting the purchase of
Confinity Company using X.com. This company had already
invented in the money transfer process which was almost
similar to the transaction carried out by his second company.
Therefore, Musk merged the two companies and adopted PayPal
as the company name. PayPal became a global payment and
money transfer financial institution. After 2 years of service,
Elon Musk sold PayPal to e Bay Company at a cost of $1.5
billion where he managed to secure stock worth of $165 million
at eBay from the sale of PayPal.
His entrepreneurial venture was not to end yet. In the year 2002,
Musk started Space Exploration Technologies commonly known
as SpaceX. The company is one of its kind and is the largest
space exploration company to be owned by a private individual.

7. He established this company with an interest in exploration of
Mars. Musk himself is a bona fide member of an organization
known as Mars society. This society was formed by individuals
who was interested in the exploration of the planet Mars. With
this society, his entrepreneurial culture and ambitions has not
been left out. Musk aims at launching man to Mars and probably
starting an artificial green house in that planet. Therefore, his
agitation for Mars exploration is to enable him push through his
plan and project.
In the year 2004, Elon using his architectural skills, founded
Tesla Motors. This is the company tasked with the production of
Electric vehicles. It has specialized in the production of electric
sports vehicles and other models of vehicles such as economic
four door electric sedan, Tesla Roadster and Model S.
Elon Musk with his cousin co-founded photovoltaic services and
products which were later named SolarCity to provide
affordable solar energy to the public.
Unveiling of Subsonic air travel Machine (Hyperloop) on
August 2013 was his current and latest venture. This id is to
offer a new form of transportation between Los Angeles and San
Francisco Bay.
Important turning points of Elon Musk
The most notable turning point of Musk as an entrepreneur was
when he started the software company, Zip2.Although it was
unpopular decision considering the fact that he had dropped out
of school, his entrepreneurial prowess started at this point.
When Elon Musk sold the majority of his share control to
venture capitalists, it was a risk move but turned out to be a
boost to him because, this was the time he became a recognized
millionaire at his late 20’s. This was because the company was
purchased by Compaq where Musk was given shares worth $22
million in the company. In addition, it was the same time when
he started the online banking company X.com.
Another important turning point in the entrepreneurial career of
Musk was when he initiated the merger of the online companies
of Confinity and X.com and named it PayPal. This marked his

8. entry into global business. Nevertheless, the sale of PayPal
catapulted Musk from a millionaire to a billionaire. This
enabled him venture into the space exploration technologies,
SolarCity and the Tesla motors where he has been the Chief
Executive Officer and the Chairman.
Successes and failures of Elon Musk
Elon is known for his inspirational quote, “Failure is an option
here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
which is actually the force behind his success. He has changed
the way things are operating in the current world. The success
of his companies is his success. He holds a philanthropic statute
being the head and the brain behind all the companies he holds
interest in them. His first and major success was the successful
launch of the Zip2 Corporation. PayPal is his second success
where users on the global platform can sell and buy online.
Thirdly, the SolarCity project he initiated ensured for affordable
solar energy to the general public. Finally, his project of
Affordable electric car by Tesla motors and the SpaceX
technologies are the major success made so far in the two
industries which gives a promising future in the two fields.
However, Musk’s failures have mostly been attributed to
financial crises. The three major companies he owns were on
the prink of financial collapse. As a result, staff was laid of
duties to salvage the situation, especially the Tesla branch in
Detroit. His financiers pulled out of some deals it had entered in
the SolarCity project forcing Musk to bail it out using his own
pocket money.
Important Learning points
The success of Elon Musk as an entrepreneur teaches the current
generation on how to think about greater things going beyond
this world just like how he innovated on the auto industry.
One can learn on how to utilize emerging technologies to create
opportunities. Nevertheless, one can learn about importance of
pivoting in business. Musk, stated one company after the other
without losing grip on the previous.

9. Failure in business is not an option. One has to embrace failure
especially in thinking and making great business decisions.
Working hard is another important learning lesson drawn from
Musk’s work spirit. He is able to manage and coordinate all
activities of the various companies he holds interest.
------------------------------------------------
3
An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and takes risks in
order to pursue their dreams. Estee Lauder was an entrepreneur
who became one of the wealthiest women in business. Lauder,
like most entrepreneurs had a rough beginning before she
became a common household name.
Estee Lauder
was born to Rose and Max Mentzer on July 1, 1906, in New
York City. Lauder’s birth name was Josephine Esther Mentzer.
The name Estee evolved from a nickname Esty, which sounded
more like Estee when her father spoke it in his Hungarian
accent. Estee grew up with eight siblings, all of who helped in
their father’s hardware store below their living space. The
hardware store was where Estee got her first experience with
sales and customer service. Once her uncle, John Schotz, came
to live with the family was when she was introduced to the
cosmetic world. Schotz was a chemist who was constantly
whipping up creams and oils for beauty purposes. Lauder
become incredibly interested in his products and continued to
watch and learn his processes. During high school Lauder gave
demonstrations and makeovers to her friends and sold her
uncle’s products to them. As her sales began to grow Estee
realized this was her passion and she would do anything to see
it succeed. In 1935 the Estee Lauder Company was established.
Lauder began selling her products on counter spaces, which she
begged department stores to let her use. In 1944 Estee joined
forces with her husband, Joseph Lauder, and the two opened the
first Estee Lauder store in New York City. Estee sold her
beauty products during the day and by night she was cooking up
replenishments in a converted restaurant located in Manhattan.

10. A unique aspect of the Estee Lauder Company is the fact that it
is the company who began a now widely used practice of giving
a free gift with purchase. Lauder would give customers a
sample of another product similar to their purchase in hopes
they would be coming back for more. One of her quotes “Tell-
A-Phone, Tell-A-Graph, Tell-A-Woman,” was her way of
explaining that once a woman tried the product she would like it
and immediately share with her friends. Word of mouth is
always a great way to advertise freely so the cost of sampling
simply paid for itself.
The first turning point for the Estee Lauder name was when an
order placed by Saks Fifth Avenue stocked out after only two
days of being in the store. After this Estee realized her
products could compete with the bigger names such as Revlon
and Elizabeth Arden. From that point on Lauder pursued the
fine department store market in an effort to sell her products in
luxurious stores. The next huge success for Lauder was the
introduction of Youth Dew. Youth Dew is bath oil that doubles
as a perfume and was sold at only eight dollars and fifty cents
per bottle. This product helped sales explode and made the
company a multimillion-dollar business.
With the many successes Lauder had there also came some
challenges. As the company began to expand into different
product lines, a line named Clinique was formed. Clinique was
the first line of facial creams and cleansers that was allergy
tested. The line did not do very well at first and it lost Estee
Lauder Companies around three million dollars within two
years. Lauder was not ready to give up on the line and
continued to stick with it. Clinique is now a full line of makeup
products and skin care treatments.
Estee Lauder started out as a young woman selling her uncle’s
cosmetic products to close friends and schoolmates. What
started as a small venture turned into a company with a net
worth estimated to be five billion dollars according to Fortune
magazine. Although Estee herself is no longer with us (she
passed away in 2004 of a cardiopulmonary arrest) she is still the

11. spirit behind the vision of the company. Estee once said “If you
have a goal, if you want to be successful, if you really want to
do it and become another Estee Lauder, you've got to work hard,
you've got to stick to it and you've got to believe in what you're
doing,” and that is a piece of advice every future entrepreneur
should keep in mind.
----------------------------------------
4
Jay Z created his own destiny, and took the necessary risks to
succeed. Shawn Carter (Jay Z) was born in the Marcy Projects
of Brooklyn, New York in December of 1969. He and his three
siblings were raised by their single mother, after their father
walked out on the family. The Marcy Projects were a dangerous
place to live, as described by Carter in some of his song lyrics,
and Carter turned to selling crack on the streets of Brooklyn as
a teenager to make money (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z). To sum up
the dangers of crack in his neighborhood, Carter says “It was
either you’re doin’ it or you was movin’ it” (The King Of Rap,
Kohn). He attended two different high schools in Brooklyn and
one in Trenton, New Jersey. Although he did not graduate high
school, he did attend these different high schools with
influential people, including rappers Anthony Cruz (AZ),
Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.), and Trevor Smith,
Jr. (Busta Rhymes). Being around other people interested in
music sparked Shawn Carter to start rapping (Entrepreneur,
Eha).
As previously stated, at an early age Shawn Carter was
introduced to the music business from his peers. He started off
by freestyling on the streets and was known on the streets as
“Jazzy.” In 1989, Carter started off his major successes with
fellow rapper-friend Jonathan Burks (Jaz-O). Jaz-O recorded a
song and featured Jazzy on the track. Later in 1989, Carter
evolved “Jazzy” into a new street name, “Jay-Z” (Rolling Stone,
Jay-Z). Carter says that his name, Jay-Z, is a tribute to his
friend Jaz-O as well as the J/Z subway line that stopped near the

12. Marcy Projects in Brooklyn (Entrepreneur, Eha). Even from his
early freestyles and street reputation, Jay-Z was destined for
success. The only thing that could not be predicted was his
success in different fields other than the rap game.
In 1995, Jay-Z began his own record label company with friends
Damon Dash and Kareem Burke, known as Roc-A-Fella
Records. In 1996 at the age of 26, an old age as compared to
most rappers when their debut album drops, Jay-Z released his
first rap album, Reasonable Doubt, which reached number 23 on
the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Albums (Entrepreneur, Eha). Being
older than most rappers helped because Jay-Z was more mature
and had the mind of an entrepreneur, meaning that he knew he
should not become complacent and always strive for greatness.
In the next few years, Jay-Z’s name would start to grow and be
known all over the world. Next, in 1999 Jay-Z and Damon Dash
started a clothing line called Rocawear. Just like an
entrepreneur would do, Jay-Z developed the clothing lines to
reflect his personality and passions (Entrepreneur, Eha). In
2003, Jay-Z continued to build upon his success and opened The
40/40 Club in Brooklyn, New York. The 40/40 club is upscale
sports bar and lounge (Black Entrepreneur Profile). In 2005,
Jay-Z became the CEO of Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella Records
after a distribution agreement, but he left his CEO position in
2007.
In addition, in 2005 Jay-Z became an investor in Carol’s
Daughter, a line of beauty products. In 2008, Jay-Z created Roc
Nation, LLC, as an American entertainment company with the
help of Live Nation and Sony Music Entertainment. Roc Nation
is partnered with artists such as: J.Cole, Calvin Harris, Shakira,
Rihanna and Wale (Black Entrepreneur Profile). Jay-Z had no
reason to stop now. In 2010, he became a minority owner of the
NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and helped with the Nets’ move from
New Jersey to Brooklyn, Jay-Z’s hometown. Jay-Z also has
performed eight times at the Nets home arena, The Barclays
Center (Black Entrepreneur Profile). Like many entrepreneurs,
most business ventures require a risk, and in 2013 Jay-Z took

13. that risk. He founded Roc Nation Sports, which is also a
division of Roc Nation. Roc Nation Sports is a sports
management company that signs and manages high profile
athletes (Black Entrepreneur Profile). This was something very
similar to what Jay-Z had done at Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella
Records, so naturally Jay-Z would be destined to succeed. Jay-Z
became certified as a sports agent, and he had to make moves
fast in the competitive sports agent environment. Roc Nation
Sports has signed high profile athletes such as Robinson Cano,
Kevin Durant, Victor Cruz and Geno Smith (Black Entrepreneur
Profile). Overall, from the time he debuted his first album in
1996 to creating a sports agency in 2013, Jay-Z has broadened
his portfolio of interests to include a wide variety of
opportunities.
The first thing that comes to mind when Jay-Z is mentioned, is
that he is arguably one of the greatest rappers in history. But
what many people do not know about Jay-Z are his many
ventures outside of rapping that has made him worth an
estimated $500 million (Forbes). To continue, Jay-Z’s main
success came from his rapping. 1997 was his breakout year, by
releasing his second album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, which
reached number 3 on the Billboard Top 200. Also in 1997, Jay-
Z was featured on a track on the album Life After Death by The
Notorious B.I.G., who was one of the most famous rappers in
the 1990s (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z). Jay-Z took off from here and
began his entrepreneurial success. In 2004, Jay Z sold his
remaining stakes of Roc-A-Fella Records to Def Jam for $10
million. Jay Z ended up selling his Rocawear company for $204
million in 2007 (Entrepreneur, Eha). He has sold over 50
million records worldwide, has 11 platinum albums and has 17
Grammy Awards (Forbes). Jay Z’s successes were never limited
to one area of his career.
Looking at famous people, it is hard to believe they ever had
any failures in their life. A more fitting term for Jay-Z instead
of failures is ‘hard times’ which seems fitting because Vol.
2…Hard Knock Life is the name of Jay-Z’s third studio album,

14. and one of his most famous songs is Hard Knock Life (Ghetto
Anthem). With that being said, Jay-Z has faced many hard times
in his life. Growing up with 3 siblings with a single mother in
the projects of Brooklyn was far from a middle class life.
Before creating Roc-A-Fella Records in 1995, Jay-Z was selling
CD’s out of his car (The King Of Rap, Kohn). No record label
wanted to sign Jay-Z. Determined to make it on his own instead,
he created his own record label; Jay-Z would not be silenced by
the critics. Another setback came in 1999 when Jay-Z was
involved in a nightclub incident in New York City in which he
stabbed record label executive Lance Rivera for allegedly
bootlegging his CD, Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter (The
King Of Rap, Kohn). The incident resulted in three years of
probation for Jay-Z and was a problem of Jay-Z slipping back
into his hustler days on the streets of Brooklyn and he used it as
a turning point (Rolling Stone, Jay-Z).
Jay-Z learned from the hard times in his life and moved on from
them, continuing to lead a healthy and successful life. The
nightclub incident played a significant role in Jay-Z’s
successful career, as it served as a wake-up call to remind Jay-Z
of the life he used to live. At this point, he could either fall
back into the life of a hustler on the streets selling drugs and
getting involved in fights or turn his back to the dangerous life
and stay on the path to success.
In conclusion, Jay Z has proved his worth to the world not only
with his musical and entrepreneurial talent, but the lessons that
can be learned along with his personal story: from the streets of
Brooklyn to being listed on Forbes’ as worth over 500 million
dollars. One of the main points that I can take away after
learning about the life and times of Jay Z is that you should
control your destiny. I have learned about this before in
management class about being an introvert. I believe that I am
responsible for my outcomes in life, just as Jay Z did in his life.
When no record company would sign Jay Z, he started his own.
Jay Z created his own destiny just as I will create mine. Another
important lesson I learned from Jay Z’s story is his risk taking.

15. At some times, Jay Z had to make risky decisions regarding his
future. For example, many of his investments were risky at the
time that he invested. However, he believed that they would
turn out successful with the work that he put into them.
Therefore, I believe that if I truly want something to happen in
my future, I need to make the necessary decisions to make sure
that it happens. Finally, I have also learned the entrepreneurial
importance of combining all of my interests into a portfolio.
Just as Jay Z did with his love of music, clothing, sports, and
entertainment, I will combine what interests me into a personal
folder of passions to follow as an entrepreneur. Overall, Jay Z’s
entrepreneurial story is a unique one that gives hope to all
young entrepreneurs with dreams of succeeding in the passions
they have.
-----------------------------------------
5
Jerry Yang the Taiwanese-born American internet mogul is most
famed as the co-founder of the Yahoo! navigational guide and
the former Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo! Inc. He was listed
in the “25 Most Influential men on the Web” by time magazine
in 2008 and the 360th on Forbes “400 richest people in
America” list in 2013.
"This company isn't really about technology; it's about solving
people's basic needs for efficiency, effectiveness and
simplicity." Jerry Yang once said about Yahoo!
The story of David Filo (the other co-found of Yahoo!) and
Jerry Yang's success begins at Stanford University, where the
two doctoral candidates found they both enjoyed time surfing
the Web, in search of new and exciting sites to explore. There
was only one problem. Even though there were plenty of
interesting sites, due to the Internet's lack of formal
organization, finding them was akin to searching for a book in a
library without the aid of a card catalog.
Time and again, Filo and Yang would find a site that interested
them, then would be unable to locate it the next time they

16. logged on. Frustrated at their inability to keep track of the good
places they'd visited, Filo and Yang came up with the idea to
provide a kind of road map for online users. They put together a
list of their favorite sites, organized them into topics, then
designed a search engine that made finding the right site as
simple as typing in the right keywords.
In early 1994, they began posting their list online as "David and
Jerry's Guide to the Web" so their friends could access the
informal guide to "cool" sites. As the list of sites grew, Filo and
Yang began dividing them into categories, then subcategories to
provide more structure and easier searching. Later that summer
they re-dubbed the system Yahoo!
As Yahoo!'s list of sites expanded, so did its number of users.
By November 1994, 170,000 people a day were visiting the site.
By 1998, Web surfers were dropping into Yahoo! at the rate of
more than a million a day. Internet access service giant AOL
offered a buyout. Microsoft and Prodigy approached them with
partnership deals. But Filo and Yang refused them all. They
weren't in it for the money. They were doing it for the sheer
enjoyment of it.
At the end of 1994, Yang recruited Tim Brady, a college friend
who was then attending Harvard Business School, to devise a
prospectus for Yahoo! that he and Filo could use to lure in
potential venture capitalists. It didn't take long for someone to
take the bait, Moritz staked $1 million on the fledgling Web
directory. Armed with Moritz's money, Filo and Yang took a
leave of absence from Stanford, printed business cards
identifying themselves as Chief Yahoos, and hired a staff of
graduate school friends and interns. Realizing that neither of
them had any real business experience, the Chief Yahoos hired
former Motorola Inc. executive Tim Koogle as company
president and CEO.
In 1995, in return for a graphical link on Yahoo!'s homepage,
Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen lent David Filo and Jerry
Yang the computer equipment and phone lines they needed to
get Yahoo! up and running. Andreessen also added a

17. "Directory" button on Netscape's Navigator Web browser, which
linked users directly to Yahoo! Both companies profited from
this synergy until late 1995, when Netscape ditched Yahoo! for
a competitor who paid them a handsome sum to direct users to
their search engine instead. Industry experts predicted that
Yahoo! would soon drown in the sea of other directories, many
of which had corporate backing. Though Netscape's back-out
did result in a temporary drop in Yahoo!'s Web traffic, Yahoo!
Survived-perhaps because of its unique appeal-and continues to
reign as the Internet's number-one search engine.
Yahoo! began selling advertising on their page. Initially, the
move prompted a hail of criticism from Web purists who
accused them of "selling out." But the criticism quickly died
down as advertising became a regular feature on the Web. In a
second groundbreaking move, Yahoo! teamed up with London-
based Reuters news service so users could access news wire
stories online with the click of a mouse.
Over the next two years, Filo and Yang added new
enhancements that further increased Yahoo!'s popularity. Their
innovations included links to weather, stock quotes, phone
listings, sports scores, interactive maps, flight schedules, "My
Yahoo " (a feature which enables users to create their own
customized Yahoo! page with the particular information and
links that interest them), and "Yahooligans"--a special version
of the directory tailored to children ages 8 through 14.
When Yahoo! made its first public offering on April 12, 1996,
shares originally priced at $13 rose as high as $43 before
closing at $33. At the end of the day, Yahoo! was valued at
$850 million. By 1999, Yahoo! was making money not only by
charging for ad space on its pages, but also through special co-
op deals with online retailers. The arrangement entitled Yahoo!
to a flat fee and a commission on any sale made to a customer
Yahoo! directed to their site. Yahoo! also established a
partnership with MCI and became an Internet service provider
as well as an information provider.
Jerry Yang was CEO of the company from 2007 till 2009 though

18. throughout this time he was very much criticized by several
investors as the stock prices and revenues did not rise. The
situation worsened when he refused Microsoft’s offer of buying
Yahoo! for 47 billion dollars. Consequently Yang was replaced
as CEO by Carol Bartz with Yang assuming his previous role of
‘Chief Yahoo’ and member of Board of Directors. In 2012 it
was announced that he would leave the company along with all
his responsibilities.
By 2008 the company’s shares had dropped to only 14 dollars
per share. BusinessWeek listed Yang as the ‘Worst Managers of
2008’. At the time of Yang’s resignation from the board Yahoo!
market capitalization was only 20 billion dollars. Despite the
company’s bleak situation, Yang did play a key role in
managing and developing the company’s business policies,
international ventures and improving its vision. His business
career and contribution to the internet media industry proves his
talent as a business magnate.
In fact, Jerry Yang never really disappeared from the Silicon
Valley scene, the former Chief Yahoo has moved onto the next
stage of his career, which perhaps could be called Jerry 2.0.
Still, in many ways, Yang has launched a new digital life by
focusing on what made him interested in tech in the first place:
Entrepreneurs. “I feel like the thing I missed the most is what
really early entrepreneurs were doing,” Yang said his latest
efforts, which have been well known among techies, even if
Yang has never been one to toot his own horn much in general.
“I’m not sure at all that I’m any good at this
mentoring/investing business — that’s why I’m using my own
money, and that’s why it’s not a career.” what informs his
investment choices centers on the activity around mobility,
sensors, cloud and big data that is enabling the next generation
of computing.
“The main investing premise is the idea that devices are more
and more network connected,” said Yang, who noted that data
that is being collected is now at another order of magnitude than
ever before. “The cloud has become the next-generation

19. supercomputer, and the smartphone has provided the revolution
to spur its use.”
To select from the companies he sees, Yang has only one young
associate, Nick Adams, who codes, helps on deal mechanics,
interacts with entrepreneurs and also has had extensive
experience in Asia.
“I might not have better ideas, but I think my experience is
unique and helpful [to entrepreneurs] and there is a value to my
network,” said Yang. “I think what I have to contribute, besides
money and a network, is that I am very candid about the
experience I have had.”
“I’m truly humbled by the talent that’s out there, and at the
same time recognize it’s a very crowded space,” said Yang. “It
is not a career yet, but I’m having a lot of fun, and we’ll see.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
6
Biography of Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales, also known as “Jimbo”, is an American
internet entrepreneur who changed the way we seek information
online like nobody else did before by co-founding the gigantic
website Wikipedia. Jimmy was born August 7th in 1966 in
Huntsville, Alabama in the United States of America. Jimmy’s
father worked at a grocery store as a manager, and Jimmy’s
mother and his grandmother who ran a small private school
called the House of Learning where Jimmy received his early
education there with his three siblings.
Ever since Jimmy was young, he always put a lot of time on
reading books which eventually a sense of intellectual curiosity
became nothing but a habit to him. Jimmy Wales spent a do
many hours reading from the Britannicas and World Book
Encyclopedias during his childhood, and when he became an
adult, he became very upset of how the government is treating
schools and education facilities.
With such young age and that much of enthusiasm, Jimmy
Wales always wanted to change something about education in

20. general, especially in term of cost. Wales went to the university
preparatory school in Huntsville called Randolph after
graduating from high school at the age of sixteen. Then Wales
went to the Auburn University where he received his bachelor
degree. Wales then entered the PhD finance program at the
University of Alabama before leaving with only a master’s
degree to enter a PhD finance program at Indiana University
where he taught postgraduate studies. He left the PhD program
before writing the doctoral dissertation required for a PhD.
So in term of education he only holds a bachelor’s and a
master’s degree in finance. However, in term of career he
worked at Chicago Options Associates in 1994, a future and
option trading firm in Chicago, Illinois. After having
accumulated capital through speculating on interest-rates and
foreign-currencies fluctuation, he felt like it is time to get back
to his old dream and kick start an online business and become
an internet entrepreneur. It all started in 1996 when Jimmy
Wales and two other partners kick started a new company called
Bomis, it is basically a male oriented web portal featuring
entertainment and adult content. Bomis provided the required
desired fun to kick start Jimmy Wales’s online encyclopedia
dream called Nupedia. Nupedia was launched in 2000 and it
only operated for three years straight. Nupedia was a web-based
encyclopedia; the articles were written by experts, PhD holders,
respected scholars and licensed as a free content. Jimmy had
Larry Sanger as chief editor of Nupedia, Nupedia’s
functionality was basically a peer-reviewed scientific articles
posted online for free. The website was designed by expert
professionals to evaluate and approve articles before posting
them online; it only approved 21 articles in its first year.
Nupedia’s approval process takes some time; the system was
designed to make sure that the types of articles posted online
are high quality. Due to Nupedia’s slow operation, Nupedia
stopped operating in 2003, the website only published 25
articles throughout its life. Jimmy Wales attempted to increase
the process of authenticated articles and post them in Nupedia

21. faster, so he Launched Wikipedia to allow the general public to
post editable articles in Wikipedia to help them increase the
amount of information that can be taking into account while
processing new articles in Nupedia. Wales noticed a huge
difference between the official website Nupedia and the public
article gathering type of website Wikipedia. During the first
year of Nupedia’s life in 2000, Nupedia only approved and
posted 21 articles compared to Wikipedia posting 200 articles in
the first moth, and 18,000 articles in the first year. Surprised by
the popularity and success of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales decided
to abandoned Nupedia peer-review model and decided to start
encouraging and investing more in Wikipedia new model of
anyone can share, comment and edit. Jimmy Wales watched
Wikipedia it grow and treat it as a vacuum that hosts all type of
information from around the world. Larry Sanger did not like
the idea of public editable information and left Jimmy Wales to
open Citizendium. Both Wikipedia and Nupedia were dependent
on volunteers, but they differ on who edit the articles and what
are their credentials. One more difference is that Nupedia is for
profit, and Wikipedia is non-profit company. Jimmy Wales’s
current positions are as follows: Board member of Wikipedia
Foundation, Creative Commons, Sunlight Foundation, MIT
center for collective intelligence and Civilination.
What is Wikipedia? Wiki is a Hawaiian word for “Quick”, and
pedia comes from Encyclopedia basically. So Wikipedia is an
online free encyclopedia and it is the largest and most popular
general reference. The goal behind is to create a vacuum were
people from all over the world post, share, correct information
and raise it a step closer towards an error free encyclopedia.
Reaching that stage can be interpreted that ideas are being
unified globally. Although some may deem Wikipedia as
untrustworthy and bias, but the fact is Wikipedia is trying to
eliminate bias by trying to unify a global opinion on so many
different topics. An investigation by Nature magazine in 2005
showed that the since articles they compared in Wikipedia came
so close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopedia Britannica.

22. Wikipedia is also a mean to find the correct information as well,
it helps gather the right sources that people editors post with the
articles.
Wikipedia is also a multilingual; it has 285 language versions,
which no other online website can ever get close to this number.
Wikipedia is also the host of over 30 million articles, 4.3
Million English articles were written by volunteers from all
over the world. According to the latest online data collected by
Alex, Wikipedia is occupying number six in the whole world in
term of visited websites daily and page views. Wikipedia has
365 million readers worldwide and over 77,000 current active
editors online. Wikipedia allows users to create, edit and
discuss the content on Wikipedia. Whether we love it or we hate
it, Wikipedia has drastically changed the way we look at
information in the internet.
Some academic professors do not approve of Wikipedia as
legitimate source of information, or approve of submitted
citation of Wikipedia by students. However, the general public
treats Wikipedia like they treat Twitter, Facebook or YouTube,
they do not use these platforms to establish new unprecedented
science, but rather as a station of discussion and sharing
information with everybody around the globe. A couple lessons
I have learned from Jimmy Wales is that Partnership cannot last
long forever if partners do not share the same vision and follow
the same mission. Sometimes we have to conduct businesses
other than what we desire just for the purpose of funding and
supporting our dream in the future.
-------------------------------------------------
7
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is a bold entrepreneur that is not afraid to invest in
a risk that he believes in. Most of these risks have paid off for
him and have helped turn him into the celebrity that he is today.
He continues to challenge the status quo in the media and
technology worlds, but who would have thought that he started

23. from such humble beginnings.
Mark Cuban was born on July 31st, 1958 in Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania. His father, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants,
was an auto upholster. At age 12, Mark started his first
enterprise, selling garbage bags door-to-door. It went pretty
well since he was the only kid selling garbage bags. When he
was older, Cuban sold powdered milk door-to-door, and after
Pittsburgh Press employees went on strike, he and a friend
drove to Cleveland, Ohio to collect the Plain Dealer Newspaper
for resale in Pittsburgh. He said “It was easy when I realized
[selling] wasn’t about taking something from somebody, but
about helping. If I can help you, you’ll buy from me. I’ve
always been the best salesman everywhere I’ve been. Whatever
I was selling, I believed in” (Thompson 98)
Cuban attended Indiana University for college because it was
the cheapest top 10 business school in the country. Since he was
too young to drink alcohol during his freshman year at Indiana,
he took the hardest courses, predicting that when he came of
age, he would want to party. As a freshman he attended
graduate-level business classes, but during his sophomore year
he had to drop them after the dean of the business school
discovered that Cuban was in effect an MBA student. After
turning 21, Cuban earned money by promoting parties at the
Bloomington National Guard Armory, running an extremely
successful off-campus bar, and giving disco lessons. He also
swept floors at a computer store, but found that he enjoyed
computers so much that he couldn’t resist trying to sell them.
This attempt to sell led to his firing (Thompson 99).
Cuban graduated from Indiana University in 1981 with a B.S.
degree in business. He then moved to Dallas, Texas to sell
software. He lived with five other men in a three-room
apartment. During that period, without ever having taken a
computer class or even owning a computer, he founded Micro

24. Solution
s, a computer consulting business. Thanks to his strong work
ethic, the computer company grew and was included in Inc.
magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing privately held
companies four years in a row. In 1990, Cuban sold Micro