Famous American Entrepreneurs

Henry Ford, Sr.

Henry was an inventor, philanthropist and successful American entrepreneur. He was born on July 30, 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1893, Henry created his first gasoline-driven buggy or Quadricycle that was completely self-propelled. Ford then started the Detroit Automobile Company with several other investors to improve on his design, but the company went bankrupt soon after. Henry Ford then started the Henry Ford Company, which he also left, before eventually starting the Ford Motor Company in 1903. He created the first inexpensive mass-produced automobile- The Model T which was introduced in the market by the Ford Motor Company in 1908. Ford became the largest automobile company in the United States. In 1913, he began using standardized interchangeable parts and assembly-line techniques in his plant. He doubled the wages of his workers and cut the workday from nine hours to eight hours. By 1924, 10 million Model T cars had been sold. Henry also invented the first one-piece engine, the V-8. In 1947, Henry died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Bill Gates

Bill is the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software company. He is currently the world’s third richest person. Gates was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. He grew up in Seattle. He graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. In the fall of 1973, he entered Harvard University as a freshman. It was during Bill’s Harvard days that he and his boyhood friend Paul Allen developed Basic, the programming language for the MITS Altair (the first microcomputer). In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft. They started developing software for personal computers. Gates and Allen partnered with IBM to install the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) in IBM computers. The success of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the software industry. Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows in 1985. Microsoft created a new version of Windows in 1990 called Windows 3.0 with a much-enhanced GUI and Features. More than 10 million copies of it were sold. Windows 3.1, 3.11 and workgroups that added networking support, followed this. In 1995, the operating system Windows 95 was released. Windows 98 and 2000 followed this. Microsoft became the largest software company in the world. Bill Gates is estimated to be worth 58 billion dollars today.

Sam Walton

Sam was a famous American businessman and entrepreneur. He was the founder of two American retailers, Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Sam was born on 29th March 1918 near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Sam attended the University of Missouri at Columbia, graduating in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. After graduation Walton worked as a management trainee at JC Penney in Des Moines, Iowa. Sam served as a Captain in the US Army Intelligence Corps from 1942 to 1945. After World War II he decided to start his own business. In 1945, his father-in-law loaned him $20,000 to open a Ben Franklin variety store. His initial store earned a profit as Walton introduced ideas of cutting costs that are still present in Wal-Mart today. Sam bought large volumes of goods directly from manufacturers and made his store more accessible to more customers with longer hours and a good central location. Walton opened his second store, which was also a franchise, named Walton’s 5 & 10 in 1950. The new store, located in Bentonville, Arkansas was a success and was followed by another store shortly in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Sam introduced profit sharing for his employees. He opened the first Wal-Mart store in 1962 in Arkansas. The Wal-Mart retail business was a success, and continued to grow. Sam Walton initially opened his stores in smaller communities that the other major retailers would not touch. Walton added Sam’s Club to the business in 1983, and in 1985, Sam Walton was regarded as the richest man in America. Wal-Mart became the nation’s top retailing business in 1990. Sam died on April 5, 1992 of a type of multiple myeloma.