WARREN BUFFETT BIOGRAPHY 5 Warren Buffett Biography Background Warren Edward Buffett is an American business mogul, investor, and philanthropist. He has been recognized as the top investor of today. Other names that are used to refer to him are “Wizard of Omaha” and “Sage of Omaha”. Buffett was born in Omaha in August 30th, 1930. He was the only son of Howard Buffett, a U.S. Representative, and Leila Buffett. He joined Rose Hill Elementary and later transferred to a school in Washington because his family moved; his father was voted in the United States Congress; hence, they had to move. He later went to Alice Deal Junior High School as well as Woodrow Wilson High School in the year 1947. Between 1947 and 1949, Buffett attended the Wharton School. His education did not stop there, in 1951; he proceeded to acquire masters in economics degree at the Columbia University. It was during this time that he met Benjamin Graham, his mentor, and started to come up with his investment strategy. He also studied at New York Institute of Finance. In 2012, he underwent prostate cancer treatment after being diagnosed with the disease in the same year (Lowenstein, 2012). As a philanthropist, Buffett has donated money to many charitable organizations. He largely contributes to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation whose main objective is to improve healthcare and reduce poverty levels across the globe. He has pledged to donate 83% of his fortune to charity upon his death (Hagstrom, 2008). Entrepreneurial History His entrepreneurial skills were evident from a tender age; at the tender age of six, he bought 6 Coca Cola packs from his grandfather’s business and sold them at a profit of five cents. He was to become the largest shareholder of Coca Cola as of 2012. He was good as making and saving money from a tender age. He was an extraordinary child since he developed a business mind from a tender age. He became interested in the stock market started to develop at a tender age. When he was 10 years old, he made a visit to the New York Stock Exchange and bought three shares. After buying the stock, the price fell to $27, but Buffett decided to wait until the price rose to $40City Service shares were sold at $38 per share which were later sold at $40 per share. He made a grave mistake by selling them since the price shot up to $200. This taught him the value of patient as a virtue in business. As a young man, he made money through selling various goods like cookies, newspapers, barbershop, chewing gum, golf balls, stamps, among other minor things. During his sophomore year in high school, he collaborated with his friend to buy a pinball machine at $25. They placed this machine in a barbershop in their locality. After few months, they had expanded their business since they had bought several machines in various local barbershops. In 1944, he filed his first income return tax taking a $35 deduction (Kilpatrick, 2010). In 1954, he became Graham’s partner in busines.

1. WARREN BUFFETT BIOGRAPHY
5
Warren Buffett Biography
Background
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business mogul,
investor, and philanthropist. He has been recognized as the top
investor of today. Other names that are used to refer to him are
“Wizard of Omaha” and “Sage of Omaha”. Buffett was born in
Omaha in August 30th, 1930. He was the only son of Howard
Buffett, a U.S. Representative, and Leila Buffett. He joined
Rose Hill Elementary and later transferred to a school in
Washington because his family moved; his father was voted in
the United States Congress; hence, they had to move. He later
went to Alice Deal Junior High School as well as Woodrow
Wilson High School in the year 1947. Between 1947 and 1949,
Buffett attended the Wharton School. His education did not stop
there, in 1951; he proceeded to acquire masters in economics
degree at the Columbia University. It was during this time that
he met Benjamin Graham, his mentor, and started to come up
with his investment strategy. He also studied at New York
Institute of Finance. In 2012, he underwent prostate cancer
treatment after being diagnosed with the disease in the same
year (Lowenstein, 2012).
As a philanthropist, Buffett has donated money to many
charitable organizations. He largely contributes to Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation whose main objective is to improve
healthcare and reduce poverty levels across the globe. He has
pledged to donate 83% of his fortune to charity upon his death
(Hagstrom, 2008).
Entrepreneurial History

2. His entrepreneurial skills were evident from a tender age; at the
tender age of six, he bought 6 Coca Cola packs from his
grandfather’s business and sold them at a profit of five cents.
He was to become the largest shareholder of Coca Cola as of
2012. He was good as making and saving money from a tender
age. He was an extraordinary child since he developed a
business mind from a tender age. He became interested in the
stock market started to develop at a tender age. When he was 10
years old, he made a visit to the New York Stock Exchange and
bought three shares. After buying the stock, the price fell to
$27, but Buffett decided to wait until the price rose to $40City
Service shares were sold at $38 per share which were later sold
at $40 per share. He made a grave mistake by selling them since
the price shot up to $200. This taught him the value of patient
as a virtue in business. As a young man, he made money
through selling various goods like cookies, newspapers,
barbershop, chewing gum, golf balls, stamps, among other
minor things. During his sophomore year in high school, he
collaborated with his friend to buy a pinball machine at $25.
They placed this machine in a barbershop in their locality. After
few months, they had expanded their business since they had
bought several machines in various local barbershops. In 1944,
he filed his first income return tax taking a $35 deduction
(Kilpatrick, 2010).
In 1954, he became Graham’s partner in business. However, this
partnership was dissolved two years later forcing Buffett to
move to Nebraska and form Buffett Associates Ltd. As the
company grew, he formed new partnerships. In 1962, all
partnerships were merged, and it is at this point that Buffet
began purchasing Berkshire Hathaway shares. By 1965, he had
acquired enough shares to give him control of the firm. The
company was worth $15 per share, and this has increased to
$140,000 per share today. Since taking control of this company,
Buffett has used it as both a mechanism for investment and an
umbrella firm for other subsidiary companies like G.E.I.C.O.
(O’Loughlin, 2011).

3. Important turning points
There are some things in Buffett’s life that acted as turning
points; hence, shaping him into what he has become today. The
experience with the Cities Service shares is one of them. After
buying the shares, the price shot up by $160 per share, and this
served as an important lesson for him. He learnt that patience is
a very important virtue in investing. He seemed to have learnt
his lesson since he seems to be doing quite well in that area.
Another important turning point has to be after Graham
dissolved the partnership. This made Buffett establish his own
farm, which became a success. The dissolution made him
realized that he also had the potential to make it on his own.
While working under Graham, Buffett learnt a lot about
business since he was able to see opportunities that the former
ignored. It was tough working for Graham since he was a
difficult man, but Buffett took advantage of this time to learn
the dos’ and don’ts’ in business. This helped him make
informed decisions once he formed his partnership (O’Loughlin,
2011).
Successes
Buffett’s successes can be quoted from a tender age since he
managed to do well in business. Nevertheless, his significant
successes are those that can be accounted for today. He is the
largest shareholder of the Coca Cola Company. This is a major
success given that he used to sell Coca Cola packs on a trolley;
yet, he is now the biggest shareholder. Currently, he is the CEO
and chairman at Berkshire Hathaway. A company he was able to
purchase after merging all his partnerships at Buffett Associate
Ltd. He has raised the value of this company significantly since
establishing it; the value of one share has risen from $15 to
$140,000. Apart from the value, the company has expanded to a
great deal since it has subsidiary companies. He also owns the
largest number of shares at Berkshire. In 2008, he was
recognized as the wealthiest person in the world, and in 2011,
he come in third. In 2012, “Time”, an American Magazine,

4. termed Buffett as among the influential individuals on an
international scale (Malkiel, 2012).).
Lesson Learnt from his Story
Buffett’s life history provides many valuable insights to
aspiring entrepreneurs. One of the lessons is that success is not
an overnight thing. People have to keep on pressing until they
attain what they want. He ventured into several businesses until
he successfully established what he has today. Another
important lesson is that it is important to listen to those who
have a wealth of experience. After graduating from Columbia
University, Buffett wanted to take up a job at Wall Street, but
Graham and his father discouraged him. These people have
insight; hence, listening to them is important. Perhaps, he would
not be as great as he is today had he taken that path. Finally,
giving is a virtue. Philanthropic people always get more. Giving
is a virtue that needs to be embraced by all.
References
Hagstrom, R. (2008). The Warren Buffett Portfolio. New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Kilpatrick, A. (2010). Of Permanent Value: The Story of
Warren Buffett. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lowenstein, R. (2012). Buffett: The Making of an American
Capitalist. New York: Doubleday.
Malkiel, B. (2012). A Random Walk Down Wall Street. New
York: Norton.
O’Loughlin, J. (2011). The Real Warren Buffett. London:
Nicholas Brealy.

5. Sam Walton
Background and Entrepreneurial History
Sam Walton is the co-founder retail chain ‘Wal-Mart Stores
Inc.’ and ‘Sam’s Club’. He was one of the greatest
entrepreneurs of American history with sheer hard work and
ambition. Walton was born on 29th March 1918 in Kingfisher,
Oklahoma. He lived with his parents on their farm until 1923,
and then the family moved to Orlando, Florida and from there to
several other places finally settling in Columbia, Missouri.
Growing up during the Great Depression, Sam helped his family
to meet their financial needs by distributing milk to customers,
and selling newspapers and magazine subscriptions. On
graduating from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia,
he was voted as "Most Versatile Boy". After high school, Sam
decided to attended college to find a better way to help his
family. He attended The University of Missouri, and graduated
in 1940 with a Bachelor's of Economics. The first job Sam
Walton had was at J.C. Penney as a management trainee, in Des
Moines, Iowa, paying him $75 a month. He quit in 1942 in
expectation of being recruited into the military for service in
World War II. Temporarily, He worked DuPont munitions plant
near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Later, Walton joined the military in the
U.S. Army Intelligence Corps, controlling security at aircrafts
plants until he reached the rank of Captain.
Important Turing points, Success and Failures
In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton acquired his own
store at the age of 26. He bought a Ben Franklin franchise
variety store in Newport, Arkansas using a $20,000 loan from
his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved from his time in the
Army. This was the first turning point and the beginning of the
successful entrepreneurial journey for Sam Walton. Many of
small stores failed during the time of the twentieth century in

6. America. According to Richard Tedlow a professor of Business
Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School, there were
about 1.7 million retail establishments in the United States in
1945. Walton initiated many concepts that became vital to his
success. One of his concepts is that shelves have to be provided
with many types of goods so customers can find the needs they
want.
Walton opened his second store “Eagle” down the street from
his first store and next to his main rival in Newport targeting to
stop his rival from expanding. His brother Bud helped run the
store. As part of a franchise, Walton had to follow the
company's rules, but he found ways to act on his own and lower
his costs. Large volumes of goods were purchased directly from
the manufacturers or distributors and were sold to customers.
Walton made his store the most profitable Ben Franklin in the
region that the sales grew from $80,000 to 225,000 in three
years. This success made the landlord to refuse to renew the
lease and he reclaimed the store in 1950. A year before leaving
the store in Newport, Walton found a location in the downtown
square of Bentonville, Arkansas
. He tried six times to acquire the new store on the condition
that he gets a 99-year lease to expand into the shop next door,
but the owner of the next door refused. Without Sam's
knowledge, his father-in-law went to the shop owner and paid
him $20,000 to secure the lease. The new Bentonville Walton's
5 & 10 was also a member of the Butler Brothers' Ben Franklin
chain. Walton applied the same strategy that implemented at the
first store. Finding less expensive suppliers, discounted goods,
passing the savings he reached to the consumer, and made his
profit on volume rather than on margin (Sam Walton: Great
From the Start). Sales increased more than 45 percent to
$105,000 in his first full year of ownership. The following year,
sales rose to $140,000. The year after sales increased 25 percent
to $175,000. After thirty months in business, Walton was able
to repay his father-in-law's loan in full, and opened second

7. store. With help of his father-in- law, brother, and brother-in-
law, he slowly added others in neighboring states.
Walton knew the discount idea was the future. He went to
Butler Brother, the owner of Ben Franklin stores, to back him in
a discounting venture, but they turned him down. Therefore, in
1962, Walton opened the first Wal-Mart in in Rogers,
Arkansas. He had an agreement with American manufacturers to
supply merchandise for the entire Wal-Mart chain at a price
low. Also, stores were located within one-day driving distance
from the company's distribution center to ensure immediate
replenishing. In 1967, Walton family owned 24 stores, ringing
up $12.7 million in sales (walmart.com). In 1980, Wal-Mart
reached $1 billion in annual sales, faster than any other
company at that time (walmart.com). By 1990, Wal-Mart was
the nation's number-one retailer. In 1992,
Legacy
-Sam Walton was ranked as the richest man in the United States
from 1982 to 1988, by the Forbes magazine.
- At the University of Arkansas, the Business College (Sam M.
Walton College of Business) has been named in his honor.
-In 1992, Walton received Presidential Medal of Freedom
- In 1998, Walton’s name was included in Time's list of 100
most influential people of the 20th Century.
- Wal-Mart operates in the United States and worldwide, and
has sales over $400 billion.
The Lessons Learnt From the Entrepreneur's Story
Entrepreneurs should have following attributes:
-Persistent: when failed, get up and start again.
- Hard workers: start the day early in the morning and commit
to your business
- Start small and think big.
-Humble: listen to everyone in your organization.

8. REFERNCES:
Huey, J. (1992). sam walton made in america.
Tedlow, R. S. (n.d.). Sam walton: Great from the start.
Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2375.html
(n.d.). Retrieved from walmart.com
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/sam-
walton-9523270
Reed Hastings
History and Background
Reed Hastings was born in October 8th, 1960 in Boston,
Massachusetts. He came from a middle class family where his
father was a lawyer ("Reed hastings revealed:," 2013). Mr.
Hastings grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, which is a suburb
of Boston (Copeland, 2012). He graduated from high school,
which is Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in 1978 located
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Hastings was selling vacuums
door to door as a first job. He was doing this job for a year
before entering Bowdoin College ("Reed hastings profile,"
2013). Mr. Hasting’s father was a lawyer who once served in
the Nixon administration. After high school, Mr. Hastings took
a year off between high school and college. During that time, he
was selling Rainbow vacuum cleaners door to door. As a
summer job, he started it, and then he found that he liked it. As
a sales pitch, He cleaned the carpet with the old vacuum that the
customer had and then cleaned it with the Rainbow (Zipkin,
2006).
According to Zipkin, he wanted to go to a small liberal arts
school, but he went to Bowdoin College. Therefore, Mr.
Hastings earned his bachelor degree in Mathematics from
Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1983 (Hamilton,

9. 2006). During his college years, he won the mathematics
department's Smyth Prize in 1981, and its Hammond Prize in
1983 ("Reed hastings,"). After that, he found it very interesting
to serve his country, so he joined the Marine Corps in their
Platoon Leader Class, which is a sort of officers’ candidate
school. In the Marines, he spent summers and between
sophomore and junior year he was in Quantico in Virginia in
boot camp. However, Then "I found myself questioning how we
packed our backpacks and how we made our beds. My
questioning wasn’t particularly encouraged, and I realized I
might be better off in the Peace Corps" (Zipkin, 2006).
Therefore, he left the Marine and went to Peace Corps.
Peace Corps
By joining the Peace Corps after dropping out of Marine "out of
a combination of service and adventure says Hastings," Mr.
Hastings went to teach high school to teach math in Swaziland
from 1983 to 1985. He credits portion of his entrepreneurial
spirit to the time spent in the Peace Corps". It was an extremely
satisfying experience" (Patrick, 2010). As describing the whole
experience that he spent with the Peace Corps, the process of
the application to get into the Peace Corps was almost a
yearlong. When he got into the Peace Corps, as a volunteer, he
was assigned to teach 800 students in northwest Swaziland in a
high school. Mr. Hastings taught geometry, algebra and
differential equations. In addition, he was in a rural part of the
country where there was no electricity and cooked with propane
and wood. Furthermore, he lived in a thatch hut and slept on a
cot. I think that one of Mr. Hastings turning points is the
experience that he had in Africa, because" once you have
hitchhiked across Africa with ten bucks in your pocket, starting
a business doesn't seem too intimidating"(Matthew, 2007).
Stanford University
In the late 1980s, after returning from the Peace Corps, Mr.

10. Hastings decided to go to graduate school in computer science,
so he went on to attend Stanford University. Mr. Hastings didn’t
achieve his first choice, which was MIT, which is the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he got accepted to
Stanford. "I had never been to California and arrived in late
summer. Driving up to the campus I saw palm trees. It was dry
and brown. I asked myself, “Where’s the ivy?” Within a week I
had fallen in love with California" (Zipkin, 2006). In 1988, Mr.
Hastings graduated with a master's degree in computer science.
During his Masters, he got his first look at high-tech
entrepreneurs. The founders of Sun Microsystems and other
start-ups were the examples set it. Also, the willingness of
Stanford to teach engineers both the business and the science of
their field, “was like having a license to dream,” Hastings
recalls (Hamilton, 2006).
First Job
Mr. Hastings's first job after graduating from Stanford was
working at Adaptive Technology, which is a networking switch
company that is owned by Audrey MacLean. She was also the
founder and CEO. Ms. MacLean now is an angel investor who
also teaches in the School of Engineering’s Technology
Ventures Program. In this organization, Mr. Hastings invented a
tool for debugging software, which he could see would be
snapped up by expanding software industry very rapidly
(Hamilton, 2006). Additionally, what Mr. Hastings learnt from
working in this company is that doing one product well is better
than doing two products in mediocre way. Also, he learned the
value of focus (Matthew, 2007).
Pure Atria
In 1991, Mr. Hastings left his job with MacLean’s blessing. She
also supported him with some of her personal investment
money, so he launched Pure Software (later Pure Atria), which
was the first company that he owned when he was 31. By the
time the company grew from 10 to 40 to 120 to 320 to 640

11. employees, Mr. Hastings found that he was definitely
underwater and over his head, and it was challenging as he
lacked managerial experience (Zipkin, 2006). Mr. Hastings was
an engineer himself, so he was able to double the revenue every
year. However, his transformation from engineer to CEO was
when Morgan Stanley took the company public in 1995. "We
went from one great niche item to a broad portfolio of products,
significantly improving the quality of software. We were then
acquired by Rational Software in 1997 for $750 million, which
gave me the means to start Netflix" (Sauer, 2010). When
Rational Software bought it out in 1997 for $750 million, Pure
was one of the nation’s 50 largest public software companies
(Hamilton, 2006). I believe that the next turning point for Mr.
Hastings is when he sold the Pure Atria, which is the biggest
one.
Netflix
In the same year, 1997, Mr. Hastings with Marc Randolph co-
founded Netflix, and in 1998 Mr. Hastings was named as the
CEO of it ("Reed hastings profile," 2013). After his company
was acquired, he got the idea for Netflix. Mr. Hastings had a big
late fee for “Apollo 13, which was six weeks late, and he owed
the video store $40. The reason was that he had misplaced the
cassette, so it was all his fault. Mr. Hastings did not want to
inform his wife about the late fee, but then he said to himself,
“I’m going to compromise the integrity of my marriage over a
late fee?” After that, on his way to the gym, he noticed that he
had a much better business model that customer could pay $30
or $40 a month and work out as little or as much as they want
(Zipkin, 2006). According to the Netflix web page, Netflix
started in 1997 with offering flat rate film rental-by-mail to
customers in the United States. When coming to the timeline of
the company, in 1999, Netflix launched the subscription service,
which offers unlimited rentals for one low monthly
subscription. In 2000, Netflix launched new feature, which is
the personalized movie recommendation system using Netflix

12. members’ ratings to accurately predict choices for all Netflix
members.
While Netflix was struggling to become profitable due to the
competition with Blockbuster in 2000, Gray Davis appointed
Mr. Hastings to the State Board of Education because he was
interested in education ("Reed hastings revealed", 2013). In
2001, he was the president of it (Hamilton, 2006). Mr. Hastings
spent three years as a president of the State Board of Education
in California (Sauer, 2010). In May 22nd, 2002,Netflix made its
initial public offering (IPO) at $15.00 per share of 5,500,000
shares. From 2002, the number of Netflix members has been
increasing. For example, in 2003, Netflix ends the year with
1,487,000 members, which is an increase of 74 percent from
2002. In general, the number of the member kept increasing to
present in huge percentage ("Company timeline,").
On Netflix Web page, it is mentioned that the current number
of members is around 40 million member around the world.
Since 2000, Netflix has been launching new features that have
enhanced the service that they provide to the customer. For
example, in 2007, Netflix introduces streaming allowing
members on their personal computers to instantly watch
television shows and movies. In addition, in 2008, Netflix
partnered with consumer electronics companies to stream on
Blu-ray disc players, Xbox 360, TV set-top boxes and the Apple
Macintosh computer. Also, it started to launch it service in
other countries. For instance, in 2010, Netflix launched it
service in Canada, Latin America, Caribbean, United Kingdom,
Ireland, and the Nordics.
When talking about Mr. Hastings timeline career life, he, as I
mentioned, had several positions. According to his Linked In
profile, he was a board member at Microsoft from April 2007
until November 2012. Additionally, he has been a board
member at California Charter Schools Association from 2008
until present. From 2010 until present, he has been serving as a
board member at Dreambox. Also, from 2007 until now, he has
been a board member at KIPP Foundation. The last one is that

13. Mr. Hastings has been a board member at Facebook from June
2011 until now, and of course he is the Chairman / CEO of
Nexflix from 1997 until now. In term of the lessons I leant from
this entrepreneur, long term planning is very effective when
doing business. Further, there always will be risks in any
business, so a good entrepreneur should be a risk taker. Not
being afraid from failure is another lesson that I learnt from
him. Another interesting lesson is focusing on one thing is a key
for success. The last lesson is the education. Being aware of
how business works is important key for success.
References
Company timeline. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://signup.netflix.com/MediaCenter/Timeline
Copeland, M. (2012, November 18). Reed hastings: Leader of
the pack. Retrieved from
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/18/reed-hastings-leader-of-
the-pack/(Copeland, 2012)
Hamilton, J. (2006, January). Home movies. Retrieved from
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id
=33351
Matthew , B. (2007, May 23). Questions for.. reed hastings.
Retrieved from
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/
05/28/100034248/index.htm?section=money_latest
Reed hastings . (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://mashable.com/category/reed-hastings/
Reed hastings profile. (2013, October 27). Retrieved from
http://www.davemanuel.com/dex/reed-hastings/
Reed hastings revealed: Bloomberg game changers. (2013).
Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/video/reed-hastings-
revealed-bloomberg-game-changers-
xL8E0K5VSfC~~cB0AIlTLw.html
Sauer , P. (2010). How i did it: Reed hastings, netflix .

14. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/magazine/20051201/qa-
hastings.html
Wordnet search. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=peace corps
Zipkin, A. (2006, December 17). Out of africa, onto the web.
Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/jobs/17boss.html?_r=0
Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc was an American Entrepreneur born in Oak Park,
Illinois on October 5, 1902. Early on in his life, Kroc
participated in World War I as a Red Cross ambulance driver.
He joined the forces at the age of 15 by lying about his age on
the application to serve. During his training he served with
famous names such as Walt Disney and Ernest Hemingway, both
of whom he kept a close relationship with throughout the rest of
his life.
After the war, Kroc experimented with different career choices
from paper cup salesman, pianist, a DJ on a local radio station,
and a milkshake salesman. It was working with a milk shake
company called Prince Castle Multimixers that Kroc spent his
middle aged years. After working in sales for 17 years, Kroc
noticed a smaller restaurant called McDonald’s that ordered
eight of his machines. The machines made five milkshakes at a
time, so Kroc went to McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino,
CA to see why they would need to make 40 milkshakes at once.
When Kroc went to McDonald’s, he noticed a burger and fries
joint that made high quality food at an extremely efficient pace.
McDonalds was owned by the McDonald brothers, Dick and
Mac. Kroc noticed the simplicity of the menu (only 9 original
items) and the efficiency that the items were cooked. The
McDonald brothers had a system that cut down serving time of a
burger from 20 minutes to only 30 seconds. Kroc, seeing the
potential for expansion of this restaurant, offered to work as a

15. franchising agent for a cut of the profits from each new
McDonald’s opened. The McDonald’s brothers agreed and Ray
started officially working for McDonalds in 1954.
After a year of work, Ray was named president of the
McDonald’s Corporation, and six years later he bought out the
McDonald brother to become the sole owner for $2.7 million.
Once Kroc become the sole owner, he was free to rapidly
expand the corporation as he wanted to do for so long. He began
opening McDonald’s all over the world and by 1958
McDonald’s had sold its 100 millionth hamburger.
Kroc’s system of having a systematic assembly line to produce
cookie cutter burgers every time was so efficient that he was
able to provide the burgers at a cost much lower than his
competitors. He standardized these operations so that a burger
made in New York would taste the same as a burger made in
Tokyo. He also rejected any cost cutting measures such as using
soybean filler in the hamburger patties. This type of practice
would go against Kroc’s philosophy of high quality burgers.
Other rules such as refunds to customers whose orders were
wrong or for those who had to wait longer than 5 minutes were
also put into place. The business was so well run that hundreds
of new McDonalds were popping up over the country every
month.
Kroc continued to work for McDonald’s corporation right up
until the day he died. Even while in a wheelchair, he worked in
a McDonald’s office in San Diego. At the time of Kroc’s death
on January 14, 1984, McDonald’s had 7,500 locations in 31
countries and was worth $8 billion. Kroc’s personal fortune was
worth an estimated $500 million at the time, but Kroc was never
really in it for the money. A quote by Kroc in his final years
tells it best. “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it,
but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the
customer first, success will follow.”

16. References
"Ray Kroc Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television,
n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.biography.com/people/ray-kroc-9369349?page=2>.
"The Ray Kroc Story." :: McDonalds.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 18
Nov. 2013.
<http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/our_story/our_history/the_ra
y_kroc_story.html>.
"MCD: Summary for McDonald's Corporation Common S-
Yahoo! Finance." Yahoo! Finance. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov.
2013. <http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MCD>.
Ralph Lifshitz
Ralph Lifshitz was born on October 14, 1939 in Bronx, NY to a
middle class family of Orthodox Jewish parents and three older
brothers. Both parents being Jewish immigrants from Belarus,
Ralph grew up attending Jewish day schools in New York. He
then attended DeWitt Clinton High School as a teen, which was
when he decided to change his last name to Lauren at the age of
sixteen. Throughout his high school career, Lauren worked in
retail at Brooks Brothers and spent summers in the Catskills.
There he was exposed to the wealthy American lifestyle, which
soon became his inspiration for design. Through his part time
work, Lauren was able to afford top of the line clothing and
became the best dressed in his class at the age of twelve. It was
during high school that he began crafting his own neckties and
selling them to his classmates (Eurbanista). After completing
high school, he went on to attend Baruch College and studied
business. After two years, he quit and was drafted into the
army. After serving in the army from 1962-1964 he married
Ricky Anne Low-Beer with whom he has three sons. After
marriage he continued his selling his neckties out of a drawer at

17. his retail jobs (Vogue). While working for A. Rivetz & Co, he
approached the manager with his necktie designs, but was
turned down repetitively. Once even being told, “the world is
not ready for Ralph Lauren” (Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation
History). After getting refused multiple times, Lauren took his
design to Beau Brummell Ties in 1967 and convinced them to
hire him as a designer. He even stated that he knew nothing
about fabric, nothing about measurements, and nothing about
making a tie. All that he knew was that he was a salesman and
was able to sell his idea to Beau Brummell Ties. Lauren’s focus
was on quality, and he got his inspiration from yearbooks of
Princeton, Harvard, and Yale graduates. His tie platform
consisted of a wider design with bolder colors than other ties on
the market. The reason for his different design was simple; he
states, “A tie was the way a man expressed himself. I believed
that men were ready for something new and different. They
didn’t want to look as if they worked for IBM” (Eurbanista).
From his time as a designer at Beau Brummell Ties, Lauren
decided within a year that he would be better off on his own.
With a $50,000 loan from Norman Hilton and help from his
brother, Jerry, he started Polo Fashions, Inc. in late 1967.
Throughout the first year of his business he began a men’s
clothing line and sold to large department stores including
Bloomingdales. After a couple years of exposure to the fashion
industry, Lauren received a Coty Award for his men’s line in
1970. This was a big achievement for Lauren which gave him
the confidence that he could grow his company even more.
Within the next year, Lauren attempted to begin a women’s
clothing line by tailoring his men’s dress shirts and cutting
them for women. This gave Polo Fashions great success with
sales topping at $10 million in 1971 (Polo/Ralph Lauren
Corporation History). Also during the same year, Polo Fashions
opened their first stand alone store in Beverly Hills. 1972 was
when he developed the Polo signature look of a mesh t-shirt that
comes in 24 colors with the company emblem on it. This shirt is
still a preppy classic to this day. As the years went on Lauren

18. took many efforts to better establish his brand throughout the
public eye. In 1974 the company released their first
advertisements in a New York magazine, had Cher appear in
Vogue wearing the brand, and was the first designer to model
for his own advertisement. Additionally in 1974, Lauren was
chosen to design the wardrobe for the cast of the movie, the
Great Gatsby. From 1978-1983 Polo Fashions Inc. developed a
boys’ and girls’ clothing line, cologne, luggage, eyeglasses, and
home furnishings (Vogue). The array of products that Polo
offered to its consumers set Lauren up for future success, and
by 1997 investors were begging Lauren to go public on the New
York Stock Exchange. Lauren also went on to open a restaurant
in Chicago and become the designer of Wimbledon uniforms.
Lauren is also known for his outstanding antique and rare car
collection, which is now exhibited in a museum in Paris.
Lauren’s success continued even after shocking the fashion
world with undergoing surgery for a benign brain tumor. After
successful recovery, he began his long term commitment to
philanthropy. With this he started the Polo Ralph Lauren
Foundation which funded education and healthcare in
underprivileged communities. He also started the Pink Pony
Collection in 2000, which helped support programs dedicated to
the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. In addition to
breast cancer, the designer also established the Ralph Lauren
Centre for Cancer Care and Prevention in 2003. This charitable
organization provides screening for a number of different
cancers. Additionally, he launched the American Heroes Fund
that provides scholarships to children whose parents were
victims of 9/11 (Ralph Lauren Biography).
Throughout Lauren’s career he came across many turning points
that led to success. From the beginning, Lauren was denied
multiple times about producing his necktie design being told
that it was not what men were looking for. Because Rivetz
refused to support his design, Lauren took his efforts elsewhere,
which ended in him developing one of the most successful
fashion companies in the world. Additionally, because his wife

19. was so eager to wear Lauren’s designs, he attempted a women’s
clothing line. Because the design was just cut down men’s
professional apparel, Lauren was weary after releasing the line.
Although he had his doubts, the women’s clothing line ended
with great success leading to $10 million in sales in 1971.
Finally, by pursing his dream of giving consumers everything
they need, the 1980s became the “decade of Ralph Lauren”.
With his release of fragrances, eyewear, shoes, accessories, and
house ware, his brand image grew rapidly and the company
became more secure. Although these success stories seemed to
put Lauren at great heights with his company, they did come
across a few halts in the business.
In 1972, Polo Fashions Inc was almost bankrupt because of poor
financial management and high expansion expenses. The
company was not shipping its products on time and having
delivery issues. In turn, Lauren had to invest $100,000 of his
personal savings back into the company. He also reached out to
Peter Storm, a friend from Norman Hilton, to become his
partner in Polo Fashions. With this partnership, they split the
company at 90% for Lauren and 10% for Storm. Storm stated
that he let Lauren deal with the design and advertising, while he
took care of the business that Lauren did not want to do.
Additionally, because of high costs towards production and
distribution, the partners decided to switch to a primarily design
focus. In turn, they licensed their manufacturing to Stuart
Kreisler, which helped with overall expenses. In continuance,
they also licensed their fragrance and home collection line to
Cosmair Inc. and J.P. Stevens Company respectively. Polo’s
fragrance line was not successful in sales until the mid-1980s
once they gave their operations over to Cosmair Inc.
Alternatively, as a licensee, J.P. Stevens Company failed to
provide proper operations when it came to Polo’s Home
Collection. In 1983, J.P Stevens Company ran into serious
trouble getting the products to retail outlets on time and
maintaining quality control. Additionally, they demanded stores
to have a certain standard when displaying their products, but

20. when it came to the price of such, stores refused and laughed at
the price tag. It took years for Polo to get the collection back on
track (Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation History).
Because of Lauren’s personal drive and taste, he was able to
build a foundation for himself and his style that will last
throughout the future. One lesson learnt from Lauren’s success
is to strive to be different. The designer’s original neck ties
were not the same as what was in style at the time, which was
why he kept getting turned down. He knew deep down that his
ideas were the next best thing, so he kept acting on it until
success was shown. In continuance, an entrepreneur must be
excited to be remembered. Lauren took chances with his designs
and that gave customers an experience they would not forget
through his clothing. Another lesson learnt was to ask for help
if need be. During Polo’s financial struggles, Lauren reached
out to a member of Norman Hilton to partner with him in the
company. In turn, he was able to turn over all of the financial
aspects to someone who had better experience. Because he
asked for help, the partners were able to build Polo back up
from the ground. The final lesson learnt from Lauren was to
have grit. Although he disappointed his mother by not becoming
a rabbi and was rejected by Bloomingdales from the beginning,
he still pushed forward and ended in success.
Overall, Ralph Lauren built himself to be the 122nd richest
person in the world with an estimated worth of $6.5 billion.
Currently there are 116 Polo-Ralph Lauren stores in the United
States and around 1,300 boutiques across the nation. He built
clothing traits that will last a lifetime, and his first polo design
is still in stores today. He states, “what matters the most to me
are clothes that are consistent and accessible” (Carmichael).
Because he kept a consistent, simple nature to his designs, he
was able to have product lines that can last forever. Even at 70
years old, he still believes he is just getting started in the
fashion empire.

21. Works Cited
Carmichael, Evan. "Billionaire from the Bronx: How Ralph
Lauren Achieved Success." EvanCarmichael.com. N.p., n.d.
Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-
Entrepreneurs/1895/Billionaire-from-the-Bronx-How-Ralph-
Lauren-Achieved-Success.html>.
Eurbanista. "Ralph Lauren: American Classic." Eurbanista.
N.p., 16 July 2009. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.eurbanista.com/ralph-lauren-american-classic/>.
"Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation History." History of
Polo/Ralph Lauren Corporation – FundingUniverse. N.p., n.d.
Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/polo-
ralph-lauren-corporation-history/>.
"Ralph Lauren Biography." Ralph Lauren. AETN UK, n.d. Web.
18 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/ralph-
lauren.html>.
Vouge. "Ralph Lauren." Voguepedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov.
2013. <http://www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Ralph_Lauren>.
Michael Dell
Synopsis
Michael Dell was born in Houston, Texas in 1965, February
23rd. He demonstrated an early fascination in gadgets and
technology. When he was 15 years old, Dell purchased an Apple
computer to disassemble it to see and understand how it
functioned. While in university, he began constructing
computers and vending them directly to individuals, aiming at
cheaper prices and strong client base. Dell Computer then

22. became world's leading PC manufacturer.
Earlier Life
Michael Dell was born in Houston, Texas in 2/23/1965. He
abetted in launching the revolution of personal computers
during the ‘80s with the establishment of the Dell Computer
Company (now recognized as Dell Inc.). Dell Computer
Company was started in Dell’s dormitory room at the Texas
University, and rapidly thrived into a multinational computer
corporation. By 1992, merely 8 years following the creation of
Dell Computer Company, Michael Dell became the youngest
Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune five hundred company.
Michael Dell's success was not utterly surprising. Whilst Dell’s
mother, an investment analyst, and his pater, an orthodontist,
pressed their son to do medicine, Michael Dell exhibited an
early fascination in business and technology.
A go-getter, Dell got employed in a Chinese restaurant to do
dishes when he was twelve years old to save cash for his
personal stamp collection. Some years later, Dell harnessed his
capability to sort through information to find novel clients for
Houston Post’s newspaper subscriptions that earned him
$18,000 while he was in high school. Fascinated by the growing
world of gadgetry and computers, Dell bought an Apple PC
when he was 15 years old for the precise purpose of
disassembling it to understand how it functioned.
Dell Computer
It was during university year that Michael Dell realized the
niche, which would turn out to be his success. The world of
computer was still undeveloped and Michael Dell recognized
that no firm had tried vending directly to consumers. Bypassing
the retailers and wholesalers, as well as the markups, Dell drew
off $1,000 from his savings account and began building, and
vending computers for individuals he was familiar with at the
university. His accent; however, was not just on high-quality
machines, but powerful customer support as well as cheaper
prices. Quickly, Dell had accounts separate from school, as well
as it was not long afore Dell withdrew from school and

23. dedicated all his energies on his thriving business.
The statistics proved amazing. In 1984, Michael's first-full-year
in production, he had six million dollars in sales. Dell Michael
was a billionaire by year 2000, and his corporation had
headquarters in thirty four nations with an employee total of
above thirty five thousand. In 2001, Dell Computer beat
Compaq PC as the globe's largest computer maker. Generally,
Dell's first twenty years attested to it being the most prosperous
company on the world, startling such titans as General Electric
and Wal-Mart. Dell's anecdote is so captivating that during
1999, he printed a best-selling volume concerning his
accomplishment, “Direct from Dell: Strategies That
Revolutionized the Industry.”
Altruism
Very much private and disreputably shy, Michael Dell has
surfaced from his casing throughout the years, from those who
are familiar with him, because of his spouse Susan, a Dallas
aboriginal whom he wedded in 1989. Michael and Susan have 4
children. Together, Michael and Susan have displayed a
readiness to share their prosperity. In 1999, they began the
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, a huge private charity, which
has shelled out billions to foundations and individuals like the
victims of tsunami in south of Asia. During year 2006, the
establishment contributed fifty million dollars to the Texas
University.
By 2004, Michael Dell bowed out as Chief Executive of the
corporation, but he stayed on as chairman of the panel. He
worked in the World Economic Forum foundation panel and the
International Business Council administrative committee. He
additionally sat on the United States President's Advisory
Council on Science & Technology, as well as chaired the
governing panel of the School of Business in Hyderabad, India.
Controversy
In current years; however, not all has gone perfectly for
Michael or his firm. Poorly manufactured computers brought
about in the corporation taking a 300 million dollar charge to

24. repair the defective machines, a colossal matter for the
corporation that led to in Dell Inc. losing its best perch on the
industry. Through a way to rectify things, Michael Dell went
back in 2007 as Chief Executive Officer, but the outcomes had
been jumbled. Poor merchandises continued to afflict the
corporation, and in spite of Dell Computer's determinations to
minimize the matter, documents later disclosed that workers
were well alert of the problems affecting many of its PCs.
By July 2010, Dell hit headlines as soon as he complied to pay
over 100 million dollars in fines to settle allegations of
accounting scam, which the commission of security and
exchange had filed. Rendering to the indictments, Dell
Computer expanded its netting statements through counting
allowances from the microchip manufacturer Intel, which were
handed out to Dell Computer to urge the firm not to utilize
computer chips from AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) in its
servers and computers. Through padding its financial
statements, investigators asserted that Dell Inc. had misled
stakeholders concerning its real profits.
In a step to help reestablish the corporation he created, Dell
declared in 2013 that he intends to privatize his firm again. Dell
reached a deal with Silver Lake Partners, an equity firm, which
is privately owned and majors in technology, as well as PC
software titan Microsoft to unveil an acquisition of all Dell’s
outstanding shares. This contract has been estimated between to
cost 23 billion dollars to over 24 billion dollars, rendering it the
largest acquisitions in current history.
Rendering to a Reuters newscast report, Dell believes that the
deal will open a thrilling new episode for Dell Computer, its
customers in addition to team affiliates. Many market analysts
share a number of Dell's excitement, but still believe the firm is
facing grave challenges. Dell Inc. has witnessed its portion of
the computer market fall in latest years along with increased
rivalry from smartphone and tablet makers.
Lessons Learnt
Michael Dell’s success was brought about by his interest in

25. computers and technology. Dell followed his passion in
technology in spite of the fact that his parents wanted him to
study medicine. His story is a living proof that hard work and
determination pays. His story also shows that it is best if people
stick to their dreams and aspirations no matter how long it take
them to attain them.
Entrepreneur – Mark Zuckerberg
For my entrepreneur presentation I chose the famous Mark
Elliot Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook. Zuckerberg was
born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York who was
raised by his father, Edward and his Mother Karen. His father
Edward owns and runs a dental practice out of to the family's
home while his mother is a licensed psychiatrist. Ever since
Mark was a young boy he has always had an extreme fascination
with computers which was driven by an innovative spirit. By the
time he was twelve years old, Mark was coding at a level of
most graduate students. For example, he programmed a
messaging application he called Zucknet which allowed all of
the computers in his house and his father’s office to be on an
intranet. This allowed them to communicate across the house
and through the office without having to yell to one another by
sending messages back and forth.
Marks parents hired a private tutor for him when they noticed
his love for computers and that spark of ingenuity that so many
entrepreneurs show early on in their life. David Newman, his
tutor was shortly outlived because Mark eventually excelled so
much that he surpassed his skill level and was off to bigger and
better things. Mark studied at Phillips Exeter Academy which is
an exclusive preparatory school in New Hampshire for students
that are all similar in talent and drive. While attending this
school he created a version of the music software similar to
Pandora which was called Synapse. This application was so well
developed that several companies such as AOL ad Microsoft
expressed their interest in purchasing the software as well as the

26. designer (Mark) on their teams. He declined both of these offers
and after graduating from the Academy School, Mark enrolled
at Harvard University. It hardly comes as a surprise that by his
sophomore year he was considered a prodigy in software
development and was the most sought after student for help.
During this time, he developed two programs that attracted a lot
of attention from both the student body and the administration.
One was called CourseMatch which was an application that
helped students choose their classes and base them on the
selection of other users. The second was an application called
Facemash which pretty much compared two pictures of student
on Harvards campus and allowed users to vote on which one
was “Hot or Not”. This was so popular that within a few short
days they were shut down for overrunning the switches of the
university. Also, it was shut down because students complained
that their privacy was being invaded. It’s incredible how
successful every one of Marks applications were when he was
younger and goes to show you that he knows what people want
to see/use.
His next project would be the one that both ignited his
incredible success and brought down his biggest legal suit to
date. Three students, Divya Narendra and two twin brothers,
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss came to him for help in working
out a way to launch a social networking site they called Harvard
Connection. Mark agreed to help them in their endeavor but in
reality he was working on his own social networking site with
his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo
Saverin. This required so much of his time that Mark decided to
drop out of Harvard his sophomore year to pursure his site
“thefacebook.com.” This site which most people are now
familiar with was created to allow users to create a profile about
themselves which would let them upload pictures, post
comments and communicate with each other on a virtual social
setting. Although a lot of people believe that Mark stole the
idea from the Harvard Connection idea, I still think that Mark
saw the future different that they did. They created Harvard

27. Connection as a dating social network and Mark saw that was
way too limited and something that he did not want to be a part
of. As an entrepreneur you have to be able to predict what the
world wants and what direction it is going. That is what he did
when he created www.facebook.com, he created something that
the world didn’t exactly know they needed or wanted but the
world ended up being hooked with the launch of Facebook in
2004.
In 2005, Mark’s Facebook enterprise received a massive and
well accepted investment from the venture capital firm Accel
Partners for $12.7 million which gave the company the capital it
needed to get off the ground. Originally focused on Harvard
campus only, the new found capital allowed Facebook to spread
to other Universities and high schools. This exposure caught the
attention of many companies looking to advertise on their social
networking hub. OF course again, Mark turned down companies
like Yahoo and MTV because he wanted to keep it clean and
focused on the users. Mark was faced with a lot of opposition
and lawsuits from the Saverin twins about his theft of their idea.
Although he fought this claim with tooth and nail claiming that
they were completely different social networking ideas but
ended up losing and had to pay the initial settlement of $65
million. A lot of entrepreneurs would have given up faced with
such a devastating set back but Mark and Facebook were doing
well enough that they were able to pay for their prior mistakes
while improving their characters along the way.
Another major setback to Mark was with the movie “The Social
Network” which was a movie that was supposed to be based on
the beginning of Facebook and all of the behind the scenes
lawsuits. They did not show him in the most positive light in the
movie which he found discouraging but he could not do
anything about it. As an entrepreneur he blasted his way
through this obstacle and made some fun out of it saying in an
interview, "It's interesting what stuff they focused on getting
right; like, every single shirt and fleece that I had in that movie
is actually a shirt or fleece that I own," I thought that shed a

28. little light on his character because he can look at an obstacle
like this and recognize that they are going to happen but realize
you are not going to be able to change them just go around
them. Inspite of everything he continued his success and was
named Time magazines Person of the Year in 2010 and Vanity
Fair put him at the top of their New Establishment list. I think
most notably and one he should be most proud of is that Forbes
ranked Mark at #35 on its Top “400” and provided his net worth
to be $6.9 billion.
As an Entrepreneur it is very important to be socially and
economically conscious of the world around you. I think that
Mark is a great example of this because he followed in the
footsteps of some of the greatest Philanthropists like Warren
Buffet and Bill Gates and committed to the “Giving Pledge”.
This pledge is given by entrepreneurs of massive worth who
want to give back to the world that provided for them by
promising at least 50 percent of their wealth to charity of their
lifetimes. Mark also donated $100 million to the failing Newark
Public Schools to help them stabilize their school systems in
New Jersey. "With a generation of younger folks who have
thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big
opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime
and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts," is a quote that
I think really sums up what type of entrepreneur Mark would
like to be.
One of the major life changes to occur for Mark came in May of
2012 when Facebook had its Initial Public Offering (IPO) it
raised $16 billion which is the biggest internet IPO in history. I
think this shows the success of not only Facebook but the
absolute success of Mark Zuckerberg as an entrepreneur. To be
an entrepreneur is something not everyone is capable of doing
or something that everyone even aspires to be but Mark had the
spirit and soul of an entrepreneur since he was only a small
child. Passion drives success and there is no one out there that
can say Mark is not passionate about computers/programing and
his baby Facebook. I learned a lot from studying Mark and his

29. history because I feel like I can relate to his passion of
computers and entrepreneurship because Ive always loved
computers and grew up in a family where my father started his
own company. He instilled those traits in me as a young man
and I hope that they have stuck with me and have matured
enough to develop into something that I can one day call my
own.
References
"Mark Zuckerberg Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks
Television, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
"Mark Zuckerberg." About.com Inventors. N.p., n.d. Web. 12
Nov. 2013.
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

30. 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
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

31. 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