Billionaires Who Went From Rags To Riches

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13 Mar 2024

10 Billionaires Who Went From Rags To Riches

Most billionaires have a long family history of fame and fortune to build upon. Imagine making billions of dollars when starting from scratch. Here are ten billionaires who started with nothing.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey was born into poverty and raised in the segregated state of Mississippi in the 1950s. She ended up relocating to Nashville where she became an honour student and accepted a scholarship to attend Tennessee State University. After graduating, she became the first black female news anchor in Nashville and then moved to have her own talk show in Chicago. This show then grew in popularity, allowing Winfrey to expand her media empire into TV networks and magazines. Oprah Winfrey is now worth $2.5 billion and is seen as one of the most important entrepreneurs of her time.

Steve Bisciotti

Steve Bisciotti is the co-founder of the Allegis Group. He came from a working-class Italian-American family and graduated college with a liberal arts degree. Soon after, he founded the Allegis Group with his cousin and began running the business from his basement. In the company’s first year, it generated $1.5 million in revenue. The company has since grown to become the biggest in its marketplace and Bisciotti went on to own the Baltimore Ravens football team.

Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz is the Chairman and CEO of Starbucks. He grew up in a housing complex for the poor and desperately wanted to escape that poverty. He got into college with a football scholarship and after he graduated, he took over what was then a small coffee shop named ‘Starbucks’ and turned it into a billion-dollar global franchise. His net worth is now $4 billion.

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren had immigrant parents and was raised in the Bronx. He joined the army after he dropped out of college and soon after became a clerk at Brooks Brothers, he then moved up to be a salesman for the company. He made his own ties from rags and sold them to small shops. He went on to open his own necktie store under the ‘Polo’ brand and over half a century later, his estimated net worth is $6.7 billion.

François Pinault

François Pinault was raised in poverty and dropped out of high school because of constant bullying from his classmates. He began to work with his father in the timber industry but quickly moved to fashion retail. He worked his way up in the business world to eventually start his own company, Artemis S.A. A company which now owns Converse shoes and Samsonite luggage, among other things. He owns one of the largest art collections in the world and is considered one of the richest men in France, with a net worth of over $42 billion.

John Paul Dejoria

John Paul DeJoria, the co-founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair products, grew up in a foster home where he began selling newspapers and Christmas cards to support his family. He worked as a janitor and a door-to-door salesman while living out of his car. He went on to co-found multiple billion-dollar businesses and now has a net worth of $4 billion.

Ken Langone

Ken Langone is the co-founder of the department store Home Depot. He was born into a blue-collar lifestyle, his parents had to take out a second mortgage on their house so that he could attend college. Two years after he graduated, he saved up money and partnered with Bernard Marcus and started Home Depot. His net worth is now $3.7 billion.

Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle, one of the largest companies in the world. He was raised by his aunt and uncle and dropped out of university to move to California. Ellison worked odd jobs for eight years until he gathered enough resources to found Oracle in 1977. Ellison is now considered one of the richest men in the world with a net worth of $103 billion.

David Murdock

Murdock grew up with a salesman father who travelled a lot and a mother who was a housekeeper so the family could make ends meet. He is now the chairman and CEO of Dole Foods, a multinational agricultural organization and is believed to be worth around $3.4 billion.

Harold Hamm

The business tycoon grew up in a house where his parents were sharecroppers and Hamm himself pumped gas and repaired cars to try to help his family financially. He stayed in the business of gas and oil and is now the head of Continental Resources and is reportedly worth over $25 billion.