Best Entrepreneur

John D. Rockefeller was an American industrialist who founded Standard Oil in 1870 and built it into the dominant United States oil-refining enterprise. The company expanded through horizontal consolidation, vertical integration, transportation agreements, and aggressive competition before the Supre...

Sam Walton was an American retail entrepreneur who opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962. He developed a discount model centered on low prices, high sales volume, efficient distribution, and stores serving smaller communities that many national chains overlooked. Walton also fo...

Warren Buffett is an American investor and the longtime leader of Berkshire Hathaway, which he transformed from a struggling textile company into a holding company with operating businesses and a large investment portfolio. His approach emphasizes purchasing understandable companies with durable eco...

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-born American industrialist who built a major steel enterprise in the late nineteenth century through large-scale production, technological investment, and control of supplies and transportation. He sold Carnegie Steel to J. P. Morgan in 1901, helping form United State...

Oprah Winfrey is an American television host, producer, media executive, actor, and philanthropist. She became nationally prominent through The Oprah Winfrey Show, a syndicated daytime talk program that ran from 1986 to 2011, and founded Harpo Productions to produce and control media projects. Her l...

Phil Knight is an American entrepreneur who co-founded the company that became Nike with track coach Bill Bowerman. Established as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, the business initially distributed Japanese running shoes before introducing Nike footwear and adopting the Nike name in 1971. Knight served...

Hiroshi Yamauchi was a Japanese businessman who served as Nintendo's president from 1949 until 2002. During his tenure, Nintendo developed from a manufacturer of playing cards into a major producer of electronic entertainment, entering arcade games, handheld systems, and home consoles. He oversaw th...

Bernard Arnault is a French business executive associated with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the luxury-goods group formed through the combination of major fashion, leather-goods, wines, and spirits businesses. As its controlling figure and long-serving chairman and chief executive, he directed...

Beyoncé's influence extends far beyond music. Shes a cultural icon who redefined artistry through visual albums, powerful performances, and astute business ventures. Her impact on fashion, activism, and representation for Black artists is undeniable. She consistently pushes creative boundaries whil...

Ray Kroc was an American businessman who joined the McDonald brothers' restaurant enterprise as a franchise agent in 1954 after observing their streamlined food-service system in California. He opened a McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955 and acquired the brothers' interest in the...

Amancio Ortega is a Spanish entrepreneur who co-founded the clothing company that became Inditex and developed the Zara retail chain, whose first store opened in A Coruña in 1975. Inditex grew into an international fashion group operating several retail brands through an integrated system of design,...

Gabe Newell is an American software entrepreneur who co-founded Valve Corporation in 1996 after working at Microsoft. Valve developed games including Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, and Dota 2, while its Steam service became a major platform for purchasing, distributing, updating, and playing PC...

Paul Graham is a British-born computer scientist, programmer, essayist, and entrepreneur. He co-founded Viaweb, an early web-based application for creating online stores, and later co-founded the startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2005. Through Y Combinator and widely read essays on programming, co...

J. P. Morgan, born John Pierpont Morgan in 1837, was an American financier who played a central role in the consolidation of major industries and railroads during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He helped organize General Electric and the 1901 formation of United States Steel, the first corp...

Don Valentine was an American venture capitalist who founded Sequoia Capital in 1972 after working in the semiconductor industry, including at Fairchild Semiconductor and National Semiconductor. He became known for investing in technology companies during Silicon Valley's formative decades, with ear...

Ferdinand Piëch (1937-2019) was an Austrian engineer and automotive executive who began his career at Porsche before joining Audi in 1972. At Porsche, he led the engineering program associated with the 917 racing car, which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1970. At Audi, he held senior technical and e...

Pony Ma, also known as Ma Huateng, is a Chinese technology entrepreneur and a co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Tencent. Tencent operates WeChat and QQ and has extensive businesses in video games, digital media, financial technology, cloud services, and online advertising. Ma studied comp...

John Doerr is an American venture capitalist associated with the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins, which he joined in 1980. He participated in investments in technology companies including Amazon, Google, and Netscape and served on Google's board of directors. Doerr is also closely associated wit...

Bob Iger is an American media executive who has served as chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company during two separate periods. Under his leadership, Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, Marvel Entertainment in 2009, Lucasfilm in 2012, and most entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox in 2019. H...

Patrick Collison is an Irish technology entrepreneur who co-founded Stripe with his younger brother, John Collison, and serves as the company's chief executive. Stripe develops payment-processing software and financial infrastructure used by internet businesses to accept payments and manage related...

Jack Ma is a Chinese entrepreneur and former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba Group in 1999. The company began as an online business-to-business marketplace and expanded into consumer commerce, cloud computing, logistics, and digital financial services through affiliated businesses. Ma served...

Michael Moritz is a Welsh-born venture capitalist and writer associated with Sequoia Capital. After working as a journalist, including at Time magazine, he joined Sequoia and participated in early investments in technology companies such as Google, Yahoo, and PayPal. He later served as chairman of S...

Yvon Chouinard is an American rock climber, environmentalist, and businessman who founded the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. He first built and sold reusable climbing hardware, and the equipment business that became Chouinard Equipment helped popularize lower-impact climbing practices before Pa...

Howard Hughes was a prominent American aviator and entrepreneur recognized for his pioneering achievements in aviation during the Golden Age. He established numerous air speed records, notably piloting the experimental North American X-15 rocket plane. His engineering contributions, particularly wit...

Andrew Viterbi is an American electrical engineer recognized for his pivotal role in developing CDMA technology. He co-founded Qualcomm alongside Irwin Jacobs in 1985, pioneering digital wireless communication. Viterbi’s invention of the Viterbi algorithm remains a cornerstone of data transmission a...

Jan Koum is a Ukrainian-born American technology entrepreneur who co-founded the mobile messaging service WhatsApp with Brian Acton in 2009. WhatsApp emphasized simple, phone-number-based communication and later added group messaging and voice calling while generally avoiding advertising in its earl...

Michael Dell is an American entrepreneur who founded the computer company that became Dell Technologies while studying at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984. The business initially distinguished itself by selling personal computers directly to customers and configuring systems to order, reduc...

Michael Bloomberg is an American businessman, public official, and philanthropist who co-founded the financial information company Bloomberg LP in 1981. The company developed the Bloomberg Terminal and expanded into financial data, software, news, and media. Bloomberg served as mayor of New York Cit...

Bill Gurley is an American venture capitalist who became a general partner at Benchmark, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm organized around equal partnerships. He is known for investing in technology companies including Uber, Grubhub, Nextdoor, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, and Zillow. Gurley also writ...