Whether you’d buy a yacht, go on luxury holidays or simply give it all away to good causes, lots of people have dreams about what they would do in the event that they received a large amount of money. The sad reality, of course, is that many people won’t come anywhere close to those kinds of riches – but, as the stories in this article will reveal, it does happen to some people. This article will look at some of the best all-American success stories in recent times and analyze how people in certain sectors and from certain walks of life managed to get to the top financially.
The media
Some of the richest people in the US today are those who work in the media world, and several of the people we see on our TV screens every single day actually came from next to nothing when they first started out. Oprah Winfrey, for example, is now one of America’s richest self-made women, but she began her life in very humble circumstances. In interviews, she has said that she used to wear potato sacks because her family couldn’t afford clothes, for example. Her net worth is a whopping $2.8 billion dollars these days, and that makes her living proof that it’s possible to go from nothing to everything over the course of a lifetime.
Winning the lottery
Seeing their lucky numbers come up and opening the door to a fantastic life of fortune and riches is something that many people dream about as they fall asleep at night. And for some lucky Americans, this is a dream that actually does come true. One of the largest single Powerball prize wins ever was the $758.7 million jackpot won by Mavis Wanczyk in 2017. This prize meant that her previous life as a worker at a local medical center was about to drastically change – and, sure enough, she announced she was going to quit her job right away. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll check the Powerball CA game page and find that you have followed in Mavis’ footsteps and won big!
Technology booms
From Amazon to Microsoft, there are all kinds of multimillion and even multibillion dollar businesses out there today in the exciting and innovative field of tech. The industry is full of success stories as well, such as Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Before he founded the software development firm, he lived with his single mom and later became a college dropout who had to support himself by working odd jobs here and there. Now that he has a net worth of tens of billions of dollars, though, he’s become a great example of America’s amazing potential for rags to riches success.
And success in the technology world isn’t just about going from no money to lots of money, either – it’s also about going from no prospects to the dizzying heights of success in just a few short years. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of social media giant Facebook, dropped out of his prestigious degree program at Harvard University before he graduated and left himself facing a lifetime of despair. Just a few years later, he was in charge of Facebook and now boasts a net worth of $72.9 billion. That’s some turnaround!
Telecoms industry
No matter what industry you look closely at, it’s likely that you’ll quickly find success stories like these. Kenny Troutt, for example, set up company Excel Communications back in 1988. Later, he would merge the firm with another company called Teleglobe for a deal believed to have been worth more than $3 billion. But it wasn’t always an easy ride for him – he grew up in a home where his dad worked a low paying job as a bar staff member. He had to find the cash to cover his own tuition fees while he was studying at university, and he also took a job selling insurance in order to get there and achieve his dream.
Getting rich quick is something that we’ve all probably wished we could do from time to time. And although it may seem like an unlikely outcome, it’s not worth losing all hope. Whether you launch an amazing business that becomes the next Facebook, find yourself building a TV career like Oprah did or simply end up scoring the winning numbers next time you play the Powerball, these amazing stories just go to show that there’s always a way to become rich if you really try.
