Rags To Riches: 10 Billionaires Who Beat The Odds

Forbes

Forbes is highlighting a handful of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the U.S. who started with next to nothing.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicahunter-hart/2024/12/28/rags-to-riches-segregation-homelessness-neglect-10-billionaires-who-beat-the-odds/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, segregation, homelessness, neglect.

00:0510 billionaires who beat the odds.

00:09It seems like luck is forever

00:10in America's billionaires' favor these days,

00:12with a record number of them,

00:14richer and more powerful than ever,

00:16and the stock market is continuing to ride high.

00:19But quite a few didn't start out that way.

00:22While plenty of these moguls were born rich

00:23or had big head starts in life through family connections,

00:27dozens of others came from little to nothing.

00:29True rags-to-riches stories that show just how far

00:32someone can go in one generation.

00:35Take Frank Vandersloot,

00:37founder of the wellness company Melaleuca,

00:40who spent his childhood working on a farm in Idaho

00:42and could only afford college by living in a laundromat.

00:46Recounting his favorite childhood Christmas gift,

00:49Vandersloot once told Forbes, quote,

00:51"'My folks didn't have much money,

00:53but I was very excited when I was about eight,

00:55and my dad brought me home a cardboard box

00:57with holes in it, so I knew something was alive.

01:00There was a pigeon inside.

01:02He worked on the railroad,

01:03so he had caught it and brought it home."

01:06Now Vandersloot is worth an estimated $3.2 billion,

01:10a fortune that could buy a pet pigeon

01:11for every child in the United States.

01:14When Oprah Winfrey was a kid

01:16living with her single mother on welfare,

01:18presents were far from guaranteed.

01:21One year, when Winfrey's mom told her

01:23they couldn't afford to celebrate Christmas,

01:25she remembers dreading the moment

01:27she'd have to tell her peers

01:28that she didn't receive a single gift.

01:31But when a few nuns showed up at her house unexpectedly

01:34to offer food and a doll,

01:36it became the best Christmas of her life.

01:39Winfrey, now worth an estimated $3 billion,

01:42has tried to repay the favor by donating toys

01:44to tens of thousands of disadvantaged kids.

01:48Vandersloot and Winfrey are hardly the only billionaires

01:51whose childhood holidays were humble.

01:54Just a few weeks ago,

01:55Forbes recounted 10 tales of billionaires

01:57who grew up more like Tiny Tim than Mr. Scrooge.

02:01Here are a few of the billionaires

02:02with rags-to-riches stories.

02:05Harold Hamm, who now has a net worth of $18.5 billion,

02:09was one of 13 siblings

02:11born to poor sharecroppers in Oklahoma.

02:14As a kid, he helped out the family

02:16by picking cotton barefoot

02:17and then got a job at a gas station at age 16.

02:21That sparked his interest in oil and gas

02:23and led him to start a trucking business

02:25transporting water to oil fields.

02:28In 1967, he founded Continental Resources,

02:31which now produces 400,000 barrels

02:34worth of oil and gas per day.

02:36Hamm took the company private in 2022

02:39in a $27 billion transaction.

02:43Jan Koum, who now has a net worth of $16.4 billion,

02:47grew up in a house without hot water

02:49in a rural village near Kiev, Ukraine.

02:52When he was 16, he migrated to California with his mother,

02:56who supported them with babysitting jobs

02:58and then a disability allowance when she got cancer.

03:01Koum also earned money as a grocery store cleaner.

03:04He went on to found the instant messaging company WhatsApp,

03:08which he sold to Facebook for $19 billion in 2014.

03:13He inked the deal on the steps of the social services office

03:15where he'd once collected food stamps.

03:19David Stewart, who now has a net worth

03:21of $11.4 billion, grew up in the 1950s

03:25in segregated Missouri.

03:27His father supported him and his six siblings

03:29as a trash collector, mechanic, and janitor.

03:32The early days of Stewart's technology solutions company,

03:35Worldwide Technology, or WWT, which he founded in 1990,

03:40were difficult, too, with him foregoing paychecks

03:43and even watching from the office parking lot

03:45as his car got repossessed.

03:48Today, WWT generates $20 billion in annual revenue,

03:52and Stewart is the richest black person

03:54in the United States.

03:57Rihanna, who now has a net worth of $1.4 billion,

04:01had a childhood in Barbados that was marked by difficulties,

04:04particularly because the now pop star's father,

04:07who sold clothes in a street stall,

04:09suffered from drug and alcohol addiction.

04:12Her stress manifested itself in regular migraines

04:15that were so painful, doctors suspected a tumor

04:18might be causing them.

04:19After wowing music producer Evan Rogers in an audition,

04:23she's gone on to release eight platinum studio albums.

04:26Thanks to her cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty,

04:29which she co-owns with French luxury goods company, LVMH,

04:32she's now one of the richest female musicians in the world.

04:37For full coverage and to see the whole list,

04:39check out Monica Hunter Hart's piece on Forbes.com.

04:45This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:47Thanks for tuning in.

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