The 17 Greatest Entrepreneurs of All Time

Oil barons and steel kings share this list with garage start-ups and a talk-show host. Some built companies, others built whole industries.

1. 1
   Steve Jobs

   Apple co-founder who took the company from a garage to the Mac, iPod and iPhone, and also built Pixar.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Andrew Carnegie

   Scottish-born steel magnate who built Carnegie Steel and then gave most of his fortune to libraries and universities.
   666pts
3. 3
   Henry Ford

   Founder of Ford Motor Company whose moving assembly line made the car affordable for ordinary families.
   646pts
4. 4
   Phil Knight

   Co-founder of Nike, who started by selling running shoes from the trunk of his car.
   646pts
5. 5
   Mark Zuckerberg

   Founder of Facebook, which grew into Meta with Instagram and WhatsApp.
   624pts
6. 6
   Warren Buffett

   Investor who turned Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile mill, into one of the largest companies in the world.
   516pts
7. 7
   Sam Walton

   Founder of Walmart, which grew from one discount store in Arkansas into the world's largest retailer.
   516pts
8. 8
   Elon Musk

   Founder or early leader of Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal and several other companies.
   461pts
9. 9
   Akio Morita

   Sony co-founder who brought the Walkman and Japanese electronics to the whole world.
   400pts
10. 10
    Oprah Winfrey

    Talk-show host who built a media company, a magazine and a TV network around her own name.
    248pts
11. 11
    Richard Branson

    Founder of the Virgin Group, from a record shop to airlines, trains and space flights.
    248pts
12. 12
    John D. Rockefeller

    Founder of Standard Oil, which at its peak refined about 90% of America's oil.
    248pts
13. 13
    Jack Ma

    Former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company.
    154pts
14. 14
    Estée Lauder

    Self-taught cosmetics entrepreneur who built one of the world's largest beauty companies.
    154pts
15. 15
    Thomas Edison

    Inventor-businessman behind the phonograph, a practical light bulb and the company that became General Electric.
    154pts
16. 16
    Jeff Bezos

    Founder of Amazon, which grew from an online bookstore into a retail and cloud-computing giant.
    154pts
17. 17
    Bill Gates

    Microsoft co-founder who put Windows and Office on most of the world's personal computers.
    0pts

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