Sergey Mikhailovich Brin is an American computer scientist and businessman who co-founded Google with Larry Page. He was the president of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., until stepping down from the role on December 3, 2019. He and Page remain at Alphabet as co-founders, controlling shareholders and board members. As of November 2024, Brin is the 7th-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $153 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential, such as unicorns.
Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies. He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists. Khosla was named the top venture capitalist on the Forbes Midas List in 2001 and has been listed multiple times since that time. As of August 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$7.2 billion.
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of July 2024, Thiel had an estimated net worth of US$11.2 billion and was ranked 212th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Entrepreneur is an American magazine and website that carries news stories about entrepreneurship, small business management, and business. First published in 1977. it is published by Entrepreneur Media Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California. The magazine publishes 10 issues annually, available through subscription and on newsstands. It has been published under license internationally in Mexico, Russia, India, Hungary, the Philippines, South Africa, and others. Its editor-in-chief is Jason Feifer and its owner is Peter Shea.
Reid Garrett Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is also chairman of venture capital firm Village Global and a co-founder of Inflection AI.
Gary Vaynerchuk is an American businessman, author, speaker, and internet personality. He is a co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Resy and Empathy Wines. First known as a wine critic who expanded his family's wine business, Vaynerchuk is now more known for his work in digital marketing and social media as the chairman of New York–based communications company VaynerX, and as CEO of VaynerX subsidiary VaynerMedia.
Tory Burch is an American fashion designer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. She is the Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of her own brand, Tory Burch LLC. She was listed as the 88th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2020.
Dennis J. "Chip" Wilson is an American-born Canadian businessman, investor, and philanthropist who has founded several retail apparel companies, most notably the yoga-inspired athletic apparel company Lululemon Athletica Inc. Wilson is widely regarded as the progenitor and a pioneering figure of the athleisure phenomenon, which has permeated mainstream North American society since its emergence in 2014.
Kendra Scott is an American fashion designer. She is the executive chairwoman, designer, and former chief executive officer of Kendra Scott, LLC. In 2017, she was named Ernst & Young's National Entrepreneur of the Year.
Brittany "Brit" Morin is an American venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and technologist. She is the co-founder of and managing partner at Offline Ventures, an early stage venture fund and studio, founder and CEO of Brit + Co, a media and digital education company based in San Francisco, the founder of Selfmade, an education and community platform for female entrepreneurs, and the founder of BFF, an open-access community for women and nonbinary people in Web3.
Jan Borysovych Koum is a Ukrainian-American billionaire businessman and computer programmer. He is the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app which was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for US$19.3 billion. According to Forbes, he has an estimated net worth of US$15.2 billion as of October 2023, making him one of the richest people in the world. Koum was ranked 44th on the Forbes' list of richest Americans in 2023 with a net worth of $15.1 billion.
Adam Lyons is an American entrepreneur. He founded The Zebra, an insurance comparison website and REALLY Wireless, a telecommunications company.
Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich — And Why Most Don't is a non-fiction book about personal finance, co-authored by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. The book was published in hardcover format in 2011. The coauthors became familiar with each other through mutual work at The Learning Annex, and The Art of the Deal. Trump was impressed by Kiyosaki's writing success with Rich Dad Poor Dad. The coauthors then wrote Why We Want You to be Rich together in 2006, and followed it up with Midas Touch in 2011.
Adam Neumann is an Israeli-American billionaire businessman and investor. In 2010, he co-founded WeWork with Miguel McKelvey, where he was CEO from 2010 to 2019. In 2019, he co-founded a family office dubbed 166 2nd Financial Services with his wife, Rebekah Neumann, to manage their personal wealth, investing over a billion dollars in real estate and venture startups.
Julia Hartz is an American entrepreneur, investor, and the co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global ticketing and event technology platform. She is known for her leadership of Eventbrite during the COVID-19 pandemic and empowering women in the technology industry. Hartz was selected as one of Fortune magazine's most powerful women entrepreneurs. Hartz is Jewish.
Masters of Scale is a business podcast and media brand owned and produced by WaitWhat, the media company founded and led by former TED executives June Cohen and Deron Triff. In 2017, Masters of Scale launched as a business and leadership podcast hosted by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and partner at Greylock Partners. Masters of Scale aims to “democratize entrepreneurship” and has since extended into multiple podcasts, a learning app, a book., and events, including the Masters of Scale Summit.
Benjamin David Francis is a British businessman. He is the co-founder, CEO and majority owner of Gymshark, a fitness apparel and accessories company founded in 2012.
Tony Xu is a Chinese American billionaire businessman and the co-founder and CEO of DoorDash. Xu was born in Nanjing and immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of four. He earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Early in his career, Xu interned at Square, Inc., and worked for McKinsey & Company, eBay, and PayPal. He was included in Fortune's 40 Under 40 in 2020.
Michelle Zatlyn is a Canadian businesswoman. She is the co-founder, president, chief operating officer and a board member of American content delivery network provider and cybersecurity firm Cloudflare.
