Twenty Billionaires Who Started With Nothing

[Dien Rice]

Here are a couple more...

http://images.businessweek.com/slide...hing/slides/13

Ken Langone
[...] His first fortune came in 1968, when he partnered with Ross Perot to take Electronic Data Systems (HP) public. In the 1970s he teamed with Bernard Marcus to start Home Depot (HD) [...]

Actually, in the above one, I want to highlight Ross Perot more than Ken Langone...

http://images.businessweek.com/slide...hing/slides/14

Ralph Lauren

[...] Next he worked as a clerk at Brooks Brothers, then toiled as a tie salesman—which caused him to decide that men were ready for wider, brighter designs. According to a profile in Time, Lauren sold $500,000 worth of ties in 1967, the year he started designing them for St. Louis-based Beau Brummell Cravats. The next year, he started Polo (RL) with $50,000 from clothier Norman Hilton. The company tallied $5 billion in revenue during its 2010 fiscal year.

Many rich people have a good experience in sales. Such as Ross Perot and Ralph Lauren (among many others).

Not every sales person gets rich - but sales knowhow can help, especially when mixed with a little entrepreneurial spirit - since nothing happens until a sale is made!

"Selling" is not only selling the products to customers, but also selling the idea of your business to investors as well, plus to suppliers, distributors, ...

By the way, another guy connected to Ken Langone is Arthur Blank - one of the other co-founders of Home Depot...

From Wikipedia's entry on him - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Blank

After graduating from Babson College, Blank was hired by Handy Dan Hardware, and worked his way up through the company to become a regional manager. He was fired in 1978 for a disagreement with executives.

In 1978, Blank co-founded Home Depot with Bernie Marcus, another former Handy Dan manager. New York investment banker Ken Langone assembled the initial group of investors.

Probably the day Arthur Blank got fired was the best day of his life (with hindsight)! Getting fired enabled him to pursue the opportunity to co-found Home Depot.

If Arthur Blank hadn't been fired - would he be a billionaire today?

Maybe not!

One thing which is good to do is to "Solve Problems In the Direction Of your Goals" (SPIDOG), that's a concept that Harvey Brody teaches. Getting fired - and using that new opportunity to create an unbelievable company like Home Depot - that's a great example of that...

- Dien