We live in an age where everyone wants to throw the finger at conventional 9-5 cubicle jobs, take a heaping shit on their boss’ desk, turn their million dollar idea a reality, become their own boss and then sell their company for a billion dollars.
I get it. I left a career in the world of finance to be a part of BroBible during its infancy. Why would anyone give up a high-paying job for this, you ask? First of all, I loved the ability to actually be the irreverent asshole my parents raised. BroBible, back then, had no rules. Whatever despicable thought came to my brain, I said it. And no one stopped me. Hell, they encouraged me. After slaving away in a cubicle for five-plus years, it was fucking incredible to actually be unhinged. The second reason I made the plunge, was because for the first time in years, I stopped wishing that I died in my sleep when the alarm went off in the morning. That’s a pretty rad feeling. Ya know, not hating your job so much that it makes you want to die.
Anyway, being an entrepreneur isn’t all sunshine and rimjobs. There are A LOT of bumps and bruises along the way. And unless you have serious funding, there is also incredibly low pay in the beginning. Like, poverty line low pay. However, if you can make it through the ocean of shit, you might just become successful. Or at least something close to it. How do you do that? Start by listening to 50 of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. It’s a decent way to spend 19 minutes on a Friday afternoon.
1) Jeff Bezos – Amazon – 0:00
2) Steve Jobs – Apple – 0:12
3) Pierre Omidyar – eBay – 0:33
4) Michael Dell – Dell – 0:59
5) Sergey Brin – Google 1:16
6) Biz Stone – Twitter 1:35
7) Gary Vaynerchuk – Wine Library 1:50
8) Daniel Ek – Spotify – 1:58
9) Kevin Rose – Digg, Tiiny – 2:29
10) James Altucher – ‘Choose Yourself’ – 2:55
11) Robert Greene – ‘Mastery’ – 3:21
12) Guy Kawasaki – Apple – 3:35
13) Steve Wozniak – Apple – 4:06
14) Mark Cuban – Broadcast – 4:26
15) Sam Altman – Loopt – 5:01
16) Tony Fadell – Nest – 5:12
17) Danae Ringelmann -Indiegogo – 5:26
18) Simon Sinek – ‘Start With Why’ – 5:46
19) Seth Godin – Marketing guru – 6:25
20) Evan Williams – Blogger, Twitter, Medium – 6:52
21) Reid Hoffman – LinkedIn – 7:13
22) Jack Dorsey – Twitter, Square – 7:45
23) Kevin Systrom – Instagram – 8:08
24) Drew Houston – DropBox – 8:34
25) Brian Chesky – Airbnb – 8:53
26) Peter Thiel – PayPal – 9:04
27) Elon Musk – Tesla, SpaceX – 9:14
28) Alan Schaaf – Imgur – 9:36
29) Chris Sacca – Baller Investor – 9:56
30) Paul Graham – Y Combinator – 10:18
31) Dennis Crowley – foursquare – 10:40
32) Eric Ries – The Lean Startup – 11:11
33) Leah Busque – TaskRabbit – 11:25
34) Anthony Casalena – Squarespace – 11:44
35) Alexis Ohanian – Reddit, Hipmunk – 12:03
36) Jason Fried, Basecamp – 12:21
37) Palmer Luckey – Oculus Rift – 12:42
38) Kamal Ravikant – AngelList – 12:52
39) Ben Silbermann – Pinterest – 13:19
40) Tony Hsieh – Zappos – 13:43
41) Andrew Mason – Groupon – 14:14
42) Richard Branson – Virgin – 14:39
43) Andrew Ljung – Soundcloud – 15:08
44) Justin Kan – Justin.tv – 15:30
45) Jessica Livingston – Y Combinator – 15:59
46) Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook – 16:14
47) Marc Andreessen – Andreessen Horowitz – 16:15
48) Dustin Moskovitz – Facebook – 17:22
49) Tim Ferriss – 4 Hour Work Week – 17:47
50) Emmett Shear – Twitch – 18:24