Gróf András István after surviving to the Nazi invasion of Hungary first (when, being Jew, changed his name to Andras Malesevic), and to Stalin’s dictatorship later, ran off to USA after the Hungarian revolution in 1956. Arrived in the USA with no knowledge of English he changed his name to Andrew “Andy” Grove and graduated in Chemical Engineering. He found employment at Fairchild Semiconductor, and left it with three colleagues to found Intel. In 1995 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He started to study the disease and refused his doctor’s suggestion to undergo surgery in favor of his own studied treatment, succeeding in defeating the cancer.

Steve Jobs left the college very young after a semester and got landed with sleeping on his ex-mates dorm’s floor. He used to return Coca-Cola bottles for 5 cents each to buy a meal at the local Hare Krishna temple. Later on, after being employed in the computers industry, he founded Apple, with his colleague Steve “Woz” Wozniak. When a new partner joined, Jobs was outvoted and forced to resign. He then founded NeXT and rejoined Apple triumphantly when Apple bought this company some years later.

Chris Gardner, in 1980, following a combination of wrong investments and bad luck, got landed with no money, no house, divorced and with one little son to look after. He hit on a broker and convinced the man to give him employment in a brokerage agency.  Sleeping in parks, in train station’s bathrooms, in the office (pretending to be the first one to arrive and the last one to leave) and in 10 dollars per night hostels he started to earn something and, after changing to Bear Stearns & Company, in 1987 he founded Gardner Rich & Co. The company grew and became a holding: Christopher Gardner International Holding Company.

Ingvar Kamprad started to trade with Christmas cards at 5 years of age. At 17 he received from his father money for good marks at school and invested it in pens, wallets, frames, watches, jewelry, sheer stockings and other low cost products. Later on with the proceeds he started to make and sell wooden furnitures. In 1943 he founded IKEA (Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd, combination of his initials and the name of his farm and home town), in 1950 he opened his first furniture trade show in Älmhult, Sweden. At present IKEA consists of 258 sell points in 34 countries.

Richard Branson, affected by dyslexia, never got good marks at school. In spite of that, at the age of 15 he started two companies, one selling Christmas trees and one selling canaries. After their bankrupt, at 16 he founded the magazine “Student”, his first success. He soon founded “Virgin Records”, had legal problems with the sale of records, was arrested and sentenced to pay not payed taxes, To find the money, his mother, Eve, was forced to mortgage her house. Today he is the 236th world’s richest man and owner of the trademark Virgin, with a total of 360 companies.

William Harley and Arthur Davidson, both 20, in 1901 built in a 3mt. by 5 garage a prototype of motorized mono-cylindrical bike using, as it seems, a bean can as carburetor. In the first 2 years of production they sold 2 bikes. in 1903 they founded Harley-Davidson with a annual production of 3 bikes. In 1920 Harley-Davidson was the world’s first motorbikes maker. Today it is a multinational company invoicing more with merchandising than with the motorbikes themselves.

Now stop complaining and start making something of your life.