BY TRACEY WALLACE
We're finishing the last chapters of our October #MashReads non-fiction book club pick, Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, and really hoping you are, too.
If you aren't caught up on the premise of David & Goliath, then you should know that Gladwell goes into some serious detail and makes a very compelling argument that many disadvantages in our lives are not really disadvantageous at all. Certainly no one would wish dyslexia or an over-populated school on anyone, but it turns out that, despite common beliefs and stigmas, situations like those can in fact benefit those who lived through them, and managed to persevere, much more than those who didn't have to face them at all.
Originally published on Mashable
That concept certainly rings true in the tech industry, where many of the most well-known entrepreneurs started in schools, neighborhoods, family situations and hospital beds that we all actively try to avoid. Yet, these five founders — plus one CEO — are proof that the situations we most dread can be the best teachers when it comes to letting nothing stand in your way.
1. Joe Fernandez - Founder Of Klout
Image: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Joe Fernandez faced an uncomfortable dilemma that turned out to be his light bulb moment: he had his jaw wired shut for three months to allow it to heal after a surgery. Not necessarily the ideal scenario for conducting business, but it was at this time that Fernandez realized something he had missed before — if you can't talk, social media is absolutely essential for easy communication.
"It was amazing to me that the people I trusted the most, I could tell them anything instantly from my phone [on Facebook or Twitter] and it would have an impact on them. And... what they were saying would have an impact on me," Fernandez told Mashable in an early interview. "I don't know if it was the pain relievers but I got really obsessed with the idea that, for the first time, word of mouth was scaleable and the data was there to measure it."
From there, his idea for Klout, a site that measures your influence on social media, grew, leading him to create a 9-figure startup and eventually pull data for half a billion people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
In Fernandez's own words, found on his about.me page: "I am really good at falling on my face but even better at getting up swinging."
2. Alexis Ohanian — Founder Of Reddit
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Alexis Ohanian was only a month into his Y Combinator summer in which he and co-founder Steve Huffman built Reddit when he received the first of three disheartening phone calls.
First, it was a call from his then girlfriend's mother. Her daughter, who was studying abroad in Germany at the time, had fallen out of a five-story window and was in a coma.
Next, it was a call from his own mother. Max, his family dog, had died after having suffered from Cushing's Syndrome for quite some time.
And finally, it was a call from his father. His mother had been diagnosed with class IV Glioblastoma multiforme — terminal brain cancer.
The story of how Reddit was founded and the long hours, fueled by pizza and beer, that Ohanian and Huffman put into the site are well documented and extraordinary on their own. But it is these words, written on Ohanian's blog in 2010, that really shine light on his unfaltering determination:
"And you'd better believe that when you come home to a mother battling brain cancer and a father spending every waking hour taking care of her and running his own business, you don't complain, you don't cower, and you most certainly don't quit."
3. Larry Ellison — Founder Of Oracle
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People will say that Larry Ellison, Silicon Valley's most infamous bad boy, has a big ego — but it is exactly that ego which has gotten him, and Oracle, to where he is today. And, that ego is seemingly impossible to break down, even against bad news, blunders or situations that would mentally exhaust any entrepreneur. Then again, Ellison isn't just any entrepreneur.
At 9-months-old, Ellison's 19-year-old mother gave him to her aunt and uncle to adopt in Chicago's South Side. It would be 12 years until he learned that he was adopted, and 36 more until he would actually meet his birth mother. His has never met his birth father.
He later dropped out of the University of Chicago after his adoptive mother died, never earning a degree, moved to California and bounced around odd jobs for eight years. But, he had learned to code back at school and that won him a contract with the CIA to build a special project code-named "Oracle." He and his co-workers finished that project a year early, leaving them time to build a commercial-facing version.
"I don't think my personality has changed much since I was 5-years-old. The most important aspect of my personality, as far as determining my success goes, has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting the experts and questioning authority," Ellison said in an interview with the Academy of Achievement. "While that can be very painful in relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life."
4. Don Charlton — Founder Of Resumator
Don Charlton lived in poverty until he was 18-years-old and cites paying for his $75 bus ticket to college as the biggest personal obstacle he has overcome. Despite his poverty, he managed to earn and subsequently save that $75 by painting classrooms from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then working at McDonalds from 7:30 p.m. to close. He worked 80 hours a week at minimum wage in the late 90s to save $150.
Half of that went to his bus ticket.
Over the next decade, he combined his art passion with computer programming, won awards for his interactive designs, developed software and then, in 2009, launched Resumator, the company that hires for the likes of Instagram, Hootsuite, Klout, Bitly and even Mashable.
"People overcoming obstacles. That is the story of my life. I went to college with $75 and my bus ticket. I did okay. Jay Z grew up in the Marcy housing projects. He’s worth half a billion. I will always root for the kid who comes from nothing and does something before the kid who came from something and is simply following someone else’s Blueprint (Jay Z reference intended)."
5. Steve Jobs — Founder of Apple
It'd be hard to make a list about insanely successful entrepreneurs who faced circumstances that society deems "disadvantageous" without mentioning Steve Jobs.
Jobs was born to a single mother in the 1950s and given up for adoption to Paul and Clara Jobs, under the condition that they would send him to college. However, Jobs was extensively bullied in school, particularly in middle school, where he had advanced a grade and was smaller than most of his classmates. Eventually, he refused to go to school unless his parents sent him elsewhere.
They did, and the rest is history.
Moving the family to Palo Alto meant better schools, despite many financial sacrifices, and though Jobs remained somewhat of a loner, a math teacher nurtured his love of technology and he eventually joined the math club where he met other like-minded students.
And now, that house on 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, where Jobs built the first Apple computer, may soon be a historical site.
“You can’t connect the dot looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards,” Jobs said in his Stanford commencement address in 2005. “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
6. Plus: Ursula Burns - CEO At Xerox
Image: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Ursula Burns might not be the founder of Xerox, but as the CEO who has managed to shake off the company's carbon copy reputation, she certainly is has built a brand new company.
Raised by a single mother living in public housing in Manhattan's Lower East Side, it was Burns' love for math, and her mother's inspiring outlook on life, that got her to where she is now.
"Many people told me I had three strikes against me. I was black. I was a girl. And I was poor," wrote Burns in her LeanIn story. "Mom didn't see it that way. She constantly reminded me 'where I was didn't define who I was.' She knew that education was my way up and out."
Did we miss any of your favorite tech entrepreneurs and CEOs who have overcome the odds? Tell us their story in the comments!
