The CEOs of the world’s largest companies are not just great leaders and business gurus, they are also people who have achieved personal growth. Their stories show that they can grow personally even while leading their businesses to success.
For instance:
- There is an entrepreneur who started out as an SEO at Pokie Mate Casino. He has been recognized as one of Australia’s top entrepreneurs under 40 years old by being named on the list 5 times.
Below the sections provide an overview of how the CEOs grew themselves personally and professionally while building billion dollar companies. While there are some similarities among them, each CEO has a different personality, background, challenges to overcome and skillset. The CEOs are also in different industries and countries than one another.
CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates
Bill Gates is a philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, one of the most successful technology companies in history. He has had an enormous impact on global affairs as well as on the lives of millions around the world.
Gates earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University (his father was a professor there). When he graduated, he dropped out to pursue his passion for programming and computer science — but not before making some friends along the way: Paul Allen, who would later become CEO with him at Microsoft; Steve Ballmer; and Charles Simonyi (who left shortly after joining).
Founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison is an American businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation. He was born in New York City.
Larry Ellison began his career as an engineer at IBM before leaving to start up another company called Software Development Laboratories (SDL). SDL was later bought out by Sequoia Capital where he served as CEO for many years before selling it off to Sun Microsystems Inc in 1996 for $6 billion. The sale made him one of the richest people in America at that time.
Founder of Google, Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. He grew up in a middle-class family in Chennai and graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and University of Maryland, College Park.
Pichai started his career at Applied Materials as a mechanical engineering student with an internship at McKinsey & Company before he joined Google as its vice president for products in October 2004. In January 2015, Google announced that it had appointed Pichai as CEO effective July 2016.
Founder of Apple, Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, who founded Apple in 1976 as a company and later became its CEO until 2011, was a college dropout. He left Reed College in Portland with just two years of college under his belt, but that didn’t stop him from starting one of the most successful companies in history.
After leaving Reed College, Jobs took a job as an engineer at Atari where he worked on games like Pong and Missile Command (the first arcade video game). He then got another job at Next Computer Corporation where he worked for three years before being asked to leave because they thought he wasn’t doing enough work at their office.
Founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk
Elon Musk is the founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX; he is also the founder, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc. In addition to being a technology entrepreneur who has founded two companies (SpaceX and SolarCity), Musk is actively involved with other businesses including Neuralink Corporation which aims to develop brain-computer interfaces through nanotechnology.
Elon Musk’s story can teach us how one person can make an impact on their own life while also helping others around them achieve their dreams as well! Let’s look at some lessons that we can learn from him:
- Be persistent – Elon Musk has had many failures before reaching his current success but he never gave up on himself or his dreams until today when he founded SpaceX which now has over 1 000 employees worldwide! It took him years before he could even afford his first car so don’t give up if someone rejects your idea because it might be a good thing for both parties involved in this situation! Just keep trying until you succeed someday soon enough.
Founder, Chairman and CEO of Alphabet Inc., Eric Schmidt
Eric Schmidt is the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. He was born in Washington D.C., and grew up in Falls Church, Virginia. He attended Princeton University for two years before dropping out to join Sun Microsystems as a software engineer. In 1998, he moved over to Novell Inc., where he served as COO until 2003 when he became CEO at Veritas Software Corporation (now called Symantec).
In 2004, he left Veritas for another tech company: VMware Incorporated where he served as CIO until 2008 when Steve Ballmer brought him onboard Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) as their chief scientist officer
A Final Note
It is clear from the examples above that the CEOs have created their own personal growth by learning new things and expanding their horizons. The CEOs have also built up a strong network of mentors who helped them with their journey towards success.