- [Narrator] As the
most iconic billionaires of our time prove, the road to success
can take on many forms. Some success stories are heartbreaking, some are hopeful, and the odd
few are downright hilarious. With that said, let's
take a look into the lives of the world's most iconic billionaires before they had a 10-digit
bank account balance. (bright music) - Amazing. - [Narrator] JK Rowling. In 2004, JK Rowling became
the first author ever to make a billion dollars. Her creation, "Harry Potter," is the best-selling
book series of all time. Having her books adapted into a series of mega hit movie franchises didn't hurt Rowling's net worth either. But an incredibly rocky path came before Rowling's eventual success. She knew she wanted to be
a writer from a young age, but never expected her life
to inspire her work so deeply. When Rowling was in the early stages of writing the first "Harry
Potter" book, her mother died. For Rowling, Harry's
parents' deaths in the books became an outlet to
explore this agonizing loss of such an important figure in her life. Three years later, Rowling
underwent a difficult divorce, and was left to raise her
infant daughter by herself. She filed a restraining
order against her ex-husband, which has led to speculation
that she was also abused during their relationship. In the aftermath of those hardships, she became clinically
depressed and suicidal, which reportedly fed into the creation of the soul-sucking
Dementors in her books. At this point, Rowling was extremely poor, even with the help of welfare,
living in a tiny flat. But change began to arrive when she completed her first book. It was written by hand, typed up on an old manual typewriter, and rejected by 12 publishers before someone picked it up a year later. After that, her well-earned,
enormous fortune began to form, just like magic. Elon Musk. Elon Musk is currently worth $20 billion. He uses that wealth to
make very quiet cars, spaceships, and outrageous statements. Despite his apparent
confidence and success now, Elon was continuously,
brutally bullied at school until he was 15. As the youngest and smallest
student in all his classes, he was the natural target. But it went beyond swirlies
and stolen lunch money at his school in South Africa. On one occasion, he was
hospitalized after bullies threw him down a flight of stairs and
left him there, unconscious. He badly broke his nose, and to repair the damage,
Elon needed cosmetic surgery. Things began to look
up after that, though, and Musk's tough early
years fueled his motivation and aptitude on the path to success. Elon worked some far less glamorous and much lower-paying jobs
on his path to wealth. He shoveled grain, cut wood,
and cleaned the boiler room at a lumber mill as a teenager in Canada. In college, he and his
roommate converted their house into a basic nightclub to make extra cash, the first of his oddball, genius ventures. Elon's career really got
started with his ventures into software, particularly with PayPal. But the Elon in images from this time seems a little different. Notice anything? There's speculation that
he's had a hair transplant, but I disagree. The truth is obviously
that being a billionaire not only makes you happier,
it also grows your hair back. But if he continues
behaving like a Tony Stark with a mild social disorder, he may not be a billionaire forever. And then it's hair today, gone tomorrow. Richard Branson. Richard Branson, the famed
businessman, investor, author, and philanthropist, founded the Virgin Group in 1970. The conglomerate owns 400 companies today. Among Branson's greatest
achievements are appearances on both "Friends"- - So what are you find
gentlemen in the market for? We got scarves, souvenir postcards. - [Narrator] And "Baywatch." - Me, but believe me, Mitch, if we weren't absolutely
certain we could pull this off, we wouldn't be here. - Terrific. - [Narrator] His wild hobbies involve circumnavigating the globe in a balloon and other kooky ventures, not the sort of activities you get into without having a lot of cash on hand. But while he's always been a wildcard, had you known Branson as a kid, you may not have picked him
out for a huge future success. He had terrible grades in school, thanks to a combination of
dyslexia and a rebellious nature. He was not at all the suave
child he's portrayed as in this Virgin Mobile ad. His headmaster told him that
he would either end up in jail or become a millionaire, and Branson ran with the latter option. In the late '60s, Branson
lived as a squatter in a London basement for a year, where he began devising business plans. While his living situation was unusual, it was his own choice, and besides, who needs their own place when they look like a
handsome Austin Powers? - Yeah, baby! - [Narrator] His first
two businesses failed, selling Christmas trees,
and later selling parakeets. But the third time proved the charm, and his magazine, "Student,"
ended up launching his career. It evolved into Virgin Records,
and the rest is history. (bell dings) Jay-Z. Shawn Corey Carter, better known as Jay-Z, once identified himself as a business man, not a businessman. He was right. Carter became the first
billionaire rapper in 2019, thanks to his incredibly
successful music career, alongside his own clothing retailer and his own luxury sports bar chain. He also owns Tidal, which is somehow the third
largest music streaming site, despite the fact that
nobody actually knows anyone who uses it. But the young Shawn Carter
had it rough to say the least. Before he was even a teenager, his father abandoned his family, leaving him and his three siblings to be raised by their mom. At the age of 12, Jay-Z shot
his drug-addicted older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. He attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education
High School in Brooklyn at the same time as other future rappers Biggie
Smalls and Busta Rhymes, but never graduated. Unsurprising, when you
consider his life at the time consisted largely of selling
crack and getting shot at by rival gang-members. But under a tough exterior,
he had an artistic side. Shawn was known to write
lyrics, freestyle rap, and even craft drumbeats
on the kitchen table. His childhood nickname was
Jazzy, which later combined with his rap mentor's
name Jaz-O, to form Jay-Z. His sense of style at this age is probably the biggest difference
from his billionaire self. Judging from his early
musical endeavors in the '90s, he seemed to be into striped
shirts and goofy dancing. But he grew out of this
phase, married Beyonce, and became a billionaire. His striped T-shirts have evolved too. Jack Ma. Chinese businessman Jack Ma is best known as the co-founder of Alibaba. Named one of the world's
greatest leaders by "Fortune," Jack's real name is in fact Ma Yun. Jack was a nickname given to him by an English-speaking
pen-pal when he was a kid. Indeed, his hard work began in childhood, when he would regularly
ride 70 miles on his bicycle to practice his English
on tourists in Hangzhou. Hard work took a long time
to pay off for Jack though. It took him four years to pass
his college entrance exams, and after finally passing and studying at a Chinese university,
he applied to Harvard. He was rejected 10 times. After that, he set his
sights a little lower. He tried to become a police officer, but he didn't make the cut. He applied to work at KFC, but couldn't get hired there either. All hope seemed lost. But in 1994, Jack found
out about the internet, and started his first company, Hangzhou Haibo Translation Agency. It was a success, despite the haircut he was sporting at the time. After a few technology ventures, Ma formed the business-to-business
online marketplace, Alibaba. Following this momentous
meeting with the 18 friends he decided to involve, extreme
wealth began to pile up. What began right there, as a business run from Ma's apartment, became the seventh most
valuable company on Earth. Mark Zuckerberg. If you've ever been on the internet, which for some reason I'm
pretty confident you have, you're probably aware of Mark Zuckerberg. Founder of Facebook and eighth
richest person on the planet, Zuckerberg has become widely-criticized for selling Facebook
users' personal information to companies. He also reminds some people of an alien trying to impersonate a human. Maybe that's because he had a
"Star Wars" themed Bar Mitzvah when he turned 13. Yeah, he was always a bit
of a socially-awkward geek, but a genius geek, nonetheless. With exceptional grades across the board, he decided to specialize in
his greatest talent of all, programming. As a teenager, he'd get his
friends to make drawings, which he'd then adapt into video games. He even developed and sold media software that used machine learning to tailor songs to users' listening habits. This was all before he
even went to college. His first dive into stealing personal data came in the form of
Facemash, a simple website he devised for his
fellow Harvard students. The site was based around
rating people's attractiveness, but was shut down because
Mark had neglected to ask anyone's permission
before using their photos. Sound familiar? Despite this, its popularity
overloaded Harvard's network before it was shut down. Inspired by his success,
he constructed Thefacebook, later shortening the name, which got him international attention. - And now we're at 100,000 people, so who knows where we're going next? We're gonna launch a bunch
of site applications, which should keep people
coming back to the site and maybe can make something cool. - [Narrator] Though Marks
optimistic here in 2004, he couldn't possibly have known
just how unbelievably huge and influential Facebook would become. Bill Gates. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft with a net worth of $105 billion, has developed a reputation as being the good kind of billionaire. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private
charity in the world, and Bill and his wife have
donated more than 28 billion. If only all billionaires were like this. But Bill's record isn't as
squeaky clean as it seems, and there were some hilarious
hiccups in his past. While in high school, Bill
used his computer skills to try and improve his
chances with the ladies. With the help of later
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, he hacked into the school's computers and put himself into classes
where he would be the only boy. Bill later commented that, "It wasn't that I could
talk to them or anything, but they were there." Baby steps, young Bill. You'll be a billionaire one day, but not before a long career of crime. This mugshot of a young Bill
Gates was taken in 1977, when he was arrested in New
Mexico for a traffic violation. The exact offense remains unknown, but his sordid past is riddled with clues. Bill had also been
arrested two years prior for speeding and driving
with an expired license, so perhaps the hot-rod lifestyle
took him a while to shake. But he did, and I'd
say he more than atoned for his terrible crimes. Jeff Bezos. In 2018, Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world. Bezos' pet colossus, Amazon, is currently the most valuable company in the world. It's not only the largest online retailer, it's also the largest provider of artificially-intelligent assistance and cloud infrastructure services. That's a long way to come, considering he used to
flip burgers at McDonald's as a high school student. But in fairness, Bezos'
rise to extreme wealth was built on sturdy foundations. He was a gifted engineer from a young age, winning countless academic awards throughout school and college. After various successful jobs
in technology and banking, Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, starting the company in his garage. It's difficult to believe that this setup would become the most
valuable company in the world. The homemade Amazon sign
certainly has personality. And his first desk, which he
reportedly still uses today, was crafted out of a wooden
door and four-by-fours. Bezos himself was far from sure that Amazon would become
the giant that it is today. In an interview in 1999, Bezos was very open about the possibility that Amazon might fail like so many other web-businesses did. - There's no guarantee that Amazon.com can be
a successful company. - [Narrator] But his investors kept faith, including Bezos' parents,
whose life savings helped keep the company
afloat in the early years. And, as we all know, their
faith paid off enormously. But anyway, how could you
not have faith in this guy? Today, Amazon is still a
slightly unstable entity, but if it all goes wrong, there's always a spatula
waiting for Jeff at McDonald's. So, if your goal in life is to make a massive amount of money, don't forget that you'll
have to fail a bunch of times in order to get there. Who knows, you may still be
in the Early Life section of your future Wikipedia page. Which billionaire backstory
surprised you the most? And could you pull of
Jay-Z's '90s dance moves? Let me know in the comments section below. Thanks for watching. (soft music)
