# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published September 28, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-17-greatest-entrepreneurs-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Steve Jobs** — score 1000/1000
   Apple co-founder who took the company from a garage to the Mac, iPod and iPhone, and also built Pixar.
2. **Andrew Carnegie** — score 666/1000
   Scottish-born steel magnate who built Carnegie Steel and then gave most of his fortune to libraries and universities.
3. **Henry Ford** — score 646/1000
   Founder of Ford Motor Company whose moving assembly line made the car affordable for ordinary families.
4. **Phil Knight** — score 646/1000
   Co-founder of Nike, who started by selling running shoes from the trunk of his car.
5. **Mark Zuckerberg** — score 624/1000
   Founder of Facebook, which grew into Meta with Instagram and WhatsApp.
6. **Warren Buffett** — score 516/1000
   Investor who turned Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile mill, into one of the largest companies in the world.
7. **Sam Walton** — score 516/1000
   Founder of Walmart, which grew from one discount store in Arkansas into the world's largest retailer.
8. **Elon Musk** — score 461/1000
   Founder or early leader of Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal and several other companies.
9. **Akio Morita** — score 400/1000
   Sony co-founder who brought the Walkman and Japanese electronics to the whole world.
10. **Oprah Winfrey** — score 248/1000
   Talk-show host who built a media company, a magazine and a TV network around her own name.
11. **Richard Branson** — score 248/1000
   Founder of the Virgin Group, from a record shop to airlines, trains and space flights.
12. **John D. Rockefeller** — score 248/1000
   Founder of Standard Oil, which at its peak refined about 90% of America's oil.
13. **Jack Ma** — score 154/1000
   Former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company.
14. **Estée Lauder** — score 154/1000
   Self-taught cosmetics entrepreneur who built one of the world's largest beauty companies.
15. **Thomas Edison** — score 154/1000
   Inventor-businessman behind the phonograph, a practical light bulb and the company that became General Electric.
16. **Jeff Bezos** — score 154/1000
   Founder of Amazon, which grew from an online bookstore into a retail and cloud-computing giant.
17. **Bill Gates** — score 0/1000
   Microsoft co-founder who put Windows and Office on most of the world's personal computers.

Tags: historical figures, business, entrepreneurs, founders, steve jobs