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Have you ever met a billionaire before? Chances are you haven’t, considering there are barely more than a thousand in the entire world. Yet we all have our own ideas about what they look like and where they come from – most of us assume billionaires must be highly educated people that come from a long line of other billionaires. The truth is, many of the world’s billionaires come from a modest up-bringing and have accumulated all of their wealth on their own. In fact, many don’t have a prestigious college education from Yale and some never even attended college at all. The fact that there are several billionaires that dropped out of high school just goes to show that just about anyone is capable of being a billionaire if they have the commitment and work ethic necessary to succeed. Here’s a look at several prominent self-made billionaires.
How They Became Billionaires
- John Menard Jr. – With an estimated $7.3 billion dollars and growing, John Menard Jr. has certainly come a long way since building barns to pay tuition at the University of Wisconsin. He built his wealth around the hardware store chain Menard’s in 1972 and hasn’t looked back. It’s now the third largest home improvement store in the country with locations in nearly a dozen Midwestern states.
- Leonardo Del Vecchio – You may not recognize his name, but if you’ve ever purchased an expensive pair of sunglasses then you’ve probably added to Leonardo’s $10 billion dollar wealth. He owns over 6,000 sunglasses and glasses retail stores, include Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters.
- Glen Taylor – Once a simple Minnesota farm boy, Glen Taylor paid his way through college by working at a print shop, which he eventually bought. He was a Republican Minnesota State Senator from 1980 to 1986 and is currently well known as the majority owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team.
- Carl Linder – Though he started out delivering milk for his family’s business during the Depression, Carl Linder would eventually create his own dairy business that became the United Dairy Farmers chain. Worth an estimated $2.3 billion dollars today, Linder is a minority owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball teams and is investing in an alternative energy program.
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