What do Millionaires Know that I Don't? The Answer May Surprise You.
“Bill Gates dropped out of college.” “Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage.”
Every aspiring entrepreneur has heard these anecdotes at some point. Both of these statements depict a humble, humanized image of these globally-known business owners.
While these anecdotes are usually shared to drive home a point that “anything is possible” they’re not usually given with any additional context.
Truth behind these tales
Is there total truth behind these famous stories about some of the world’s most famous business leaders?
While writing Tireless, I often considered these humbling stories of business owners that deviated from the conventional path to achieve tremendous success in their ventures.
Let’s look at a couple of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs together so that we can grasp a clearer picture of how they went from “rags to riches!”
Gates and Allen - College Dropouts
Did Paul Allen and Bill Gates, co-founders of the still revolutionary tech company Microsoft, really drop out of college?
Yes, they did! But separately, and for different reasons.
Bill Gates had enrolled in Harvard in 1973, and made the decision two years later to drop out in 1975. His parents were in support of his decision, and Gates had said later in an interview, "If things hadn't worked out, I could always go back to school. I was officially on leave."
Paul Allen had been attending Washington State University, after scoring a perfect 1600 on his SAT’s. He dropped out two years after his enrollment as well to become a programmer at Honeywell in Boston… where he would soon meet his future business partner, Bill.
Are they really “dropouts?”
To call Bill Gates and Paul Allen “college dropouts” would be a bit unfair. Although they did drop out of college, both were doing so to pursue promising alternative callings.
They both had visions they were chasing that required them to put all other obligations on hold, namely college.
Think where our world would be if they’d stayed in school?
Jeff Bezos - Garage Sale Guru
These days, it’s easy to forget that the global behemoth Amazon was once…
- Solely selling books
- A local business in Bellevue, WA
- Was ran entirely out of Jeff Bezos’ garage
Amazon officially began on July 5, 1994.
Side Note: Perhaps you’ve noticed already — Amazon’s own holiday “Prime Day” is the anniversary of Amazon as a company!
Bezos left his job at D. E. Shaw investments and started his business from inside his parents’ garage in Bellevue. He did, however, outgrew the space very quickly. Amazon became a publicly traded company just one year later in 1995.
Keep those humble beginnings in mind when you see Amazon’s fleet of delivery vehicles rolling through your neighborhood!
Capitalizing on Opportunity
What Bezos, Allen, and Gates have in common is not that they quit other ventures to make something happen. Rather, it is that they had the perspective to see the opportunity in front of them and bring it to life.
At the time, the world needed a tech breakthrough that Microsoft was best equipped to bring forth. The same can be said for Amazon as an online book retailer.
Continuing to Innovate
But both Microsoft and Amazon have continued to align themselves with great business leaders who have visions for what COULD be… not what is right in front of them for everyone to see.
Amazon has made acquisition after acquisition, ranging from food distribution, to their own technology and hardware, and even powering a substantial portion of the entire Internet with Amazon Web Services.
It doesn’t matter where you came from, only where you’re going
I firmly believe that anybody can achieve anything… regardless of where they’ve come from.
Perhaps you’re not ready to be a tech conglomerate or a book retailing giant-turned global empire. But surely, you must flame in your heart that compels you to build something of your own?
In my new book Tireless, I share my own experience and stories. Through these experiences, I will equip you with the tools and perspective needed in order to redirect the flame in your heart to forge your own lasting legacy!
Click here to learn more about my book, Tireless.
Who knows, one day people may write a “rags to riches” blog about YOU!