“It’s about creating new market opportunities. Giving users new ways to be creative…We see our technology as a platform for other things” – Chad Hurley.

Like many other concepts that we now take for granted as part of our everyday lives, YouTube developed from a fragmented series of ideas and became the product of its own popularity. Rather than representing the result of a well thought out business plan, or a journey through the helping hands of various angel investors, the explosion of the ultimate concept propelled YouTube from an unknown to a household name in very short order. Cofounder and chief executive officer Chad Hurley is a graphic designer, but always had an eye for a business opportunity. Little did he dream, surely, that his first venture would be a beauty to behold.

Chad Hurley was born in Birdsboro, PA in 1976. He exhibited a keen interest in computers during high school, but an even keener interest in design arts. In 1999 he graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in finance. Ironically, his first job position was at PayPal, another quick startup-to-Internet phenomenon. He is credited with designing the initial PayPal logo as part of his job initiation and was to go on to make a significant impression within the company, engaging two company engineers, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim to help him brainstorm his business idea.

The Web 2.0 revolution was really humming at that time and in 2002 auctioneer eBay bought out PayPal as part of its expansion plans. Hurley received a bonus from this transaction which he used, in co-operation with Chen and Karim to launch YouTube. Launch may be too grand a word, as the initial days of the company were spent in less than ideal surroundings, working from homes and in tandem with a couple of handfuls of dedicated enthusiasts, all working more for love than money. Chad was keen to develop something which had the chance to “affect people’s lives,” and he had a keen eye for popular culture. He worked on a process of trust and friendship with his compatriots and his skills as a good motivator certainly helped in those early days.

YouTube did not really have a business model, although the team quickly came to learn that they needed core video upload sites to distribute videos in and around the community. It wasn’t too long before the concept became known within the blogosphere and suddenly went viral. YouTube went from virtually nothing to one million visitors per day in a very short space of time.

With some assistance from the former chief financial officer of PayPal, Roelof Botha, Hurley and his team were able to secure significant rounds of funding to fuel explosive growth. Storage and distribution of video files requires a huge server capacity, a team of very knowledgeable people and the ability to scale on an almost unheard-of level. Hurley basically created “a community around video,” and the concept seems so simple, yet essential today. “I see our service as one that’s been needed for a long time. The pieces to make it all happen just weren’t in place until we came around.”

YouTube was sold to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion, with significant portions of the wealth attributed to Hurley, Chen and Karim. In addition to addressing the power of popular culture, YouTube has become the chosen marketing tool for corporations large and small. People love the moving image and they often opt to open a video file before a static file when they surf the net. There are clearly significant options for monetization, although Hurley has always said that “we’re building a community and we don’t want to bombard people with advertising. We’re not in a hurry. We’re trying to improve the experience for people on our site.” Nevertheless, as YouTube now represents a significantly scaled search engine in its own right, “pre-roll” ads may yet appear when you click to view your favorite videos.

The YouTube of today likely represents only the tip of the iceberg, for as Hurley puts it, “everybody aspires to be a star.”

Matthew Toren

“The biggest risk you can take is to take no risk” – Mark Zuckerberg

To be classified as one of the world’s most influential people at the age of 24 is quite an achievement. Most people of that age are still trying to formulate their ultimate direction in life, let alone have achieved what the vast majority will never aspire to. Mark Zuckerberg seems hardly fazed by his status as one of the world’s top “thinkers” and has attracted his fair share of controversy as the phenomenon that he created, Facebook, inserts itself squarely into the lives of millions of people around the world.

At first glance, Zuckerberg can be very disarming. He hardly displays the demeanor of a billionaire (his estimated net worth is somewhere in the region of two big ones) and is almost dismissive about his achievements thus far. He readily admits that he has made a lot of mistakes, some rudimentary and that Facebook never really started off in any particular direction, nor materialized in any predetermined fashion during its formative days. During interviews, he can be somewhat vague about his immediate or long-term plans for his creation, but the underlying theme of his comments seems to point to the fact that he always wants to “do something people want.”

Zuckerberg was born in New York in May of 1984 and developed an understanding for computer programming during early education. During his attendance at Phillips Exeter Academy he developed a product that interpreted the user’s musical tastes due to their listening habits and this drew the attention of giants AOL and Microsoft, even as he continued his tinkering at Harvard University. He attributes his early successes with the Facebook concept as a means of gathering notes as a “study tool,” prior to a major exam. The website that he created was his first attempt at a social network and he eventually expanded it to a variety of other members within Harvard.

During 2004, Facebook was launched from a dorm room in Harvard and with help from his roommate, Justin Moskovitz, the platform eventually spread to a number of other Ivy League colleges rather quickly. The idea just “morphed” and did not follow any logical pattern, according to Zuckerberg. Again he refers to just wanting to “do something people want.”

The decision was made to move to Silicon Valley and buoyed by the success of the platform within some of the traditionally skeptical school environments, he decided it was worth pushing for the big time. Peter Thiel was Facebook’s earliest investor, who helped the startup move into its first office later in 2004, from where the phenomenon started to really grow.

Zuckerberg prides Facebook as a melting pot of entrepreneurialism and a “strong hacker culture,” allowing the company to “build things quickly for lots of people.” He believes that this kind of approach has been responsible for Facebook’s meteoric rise.

Facebook has attracted quite a lot of controversy, as might be expected due to its novelty and the very nature of its background and approach to innovation. There are many allegations of privacy invasion and suggestions that a lot of material is being released about individual members with little regard for future repercussions. Further controversy arose when two former classmates of Zuckerberg sued, alleging that he had stolen their idea. After lengthy legal meanderings, Facebook agreed to pay a $65m settlement.

Mark Zuckerberg acknowledges that there is much to challenge ahead and sees no reason why technological innovation should not help to carry Facebook well into the future. Expect Facebook to change significantly as time goes forward as in his words “in an evolving world, if you don’t change you will lose.”

Adam Toren

“Don’t be afraid to take time to learn. It’s good to work for other people. I worked for others for 20 years. They paid me to learn” – Vera Wang.

Vera Wang fully understands that life is all about a long journey through experience. She often talks about life’s rich learning curve and is clearly a product of the experience gained. Her belief that “success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learned along the way,” fits nicely with her assertion that previous employers paid her as she learned her life skills. Wang may be very inward looking and self-effacing, but she has been extremely successful, both in her educational achievements and in her career and she attributes this to her undying passion for everything she gets involved in. “If your heart is attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it. When you have a passion for something then you can not only be better at it, but you work harder at it too.”

Wang was born in the summer of 1949 in New York City to Chinese immigrants. Her parents had fled to the United States to avoid the Chinese Communist revolution and they had themselves become quite successful in their new world. She attributes a lot of her drive to her father, who owned a medicine company and who has always encouraged her to make the most of her experience. She may not have always had her dream job, but she was always open enough to understand that every day is a part of the journey.

After attending the upscale Chapin School in a tony part of Manhattan, Wang followed with further education at the University of Paris and the Sarah Lawrence College, resulting in a degree in art history. It was during her younger years that she did discovered a passion for figure skating and put her heart and soul into the idea. She would make every sacrifice for the passion but ultimately decided that she would never aspire to the highest echelons, which in her mind meant the Olympic Games and she turned away.

While working for Vogue magazine, Vera learned a great deal about fashion and clothing and started to dream about how a woman could look so good when skating and how this could be applied to her dress styles in life. “All those years of skating and dancing have carried over. I can’t design anything without thinking of how a woman’s body will look and move when she’s wearing it.”

She left Vogue after 15 years and went to work for Ralph Lauren for a few years. Feeling the inspiration to design her own creations in 1990, just after getting married, she opened her own salon in New York City featuring bridal gowns. She knew that she would have to create something different to stand out and set out to create a unique brand, staying close to her beliefs and coming up with an inspired collection, which has found appeal to this day. The wedding gowns have been chosen by a veritable “who’s who” of celebrities and one of her crowning moments has been to provide costumes for figure skaters taking part in the Olympic Games.

Despite being involved with what many would consider to be a very high-end product and clientele, Wang is nevertheless firmly grounded in the need for sensibility. She asserts that style is not about price but is about a look that works for the woman who is wearing it. In today’s economy the fashion mix has to be sensible and she recognizes that her audience are all smart shoppers.

Vera Wang has been recognized for her achievements in fashion and has expanded a reach into jewelry, fragrance, housewares and home fashion. Most recently she signed an agreement with retailer Kohls to sell budget spin off brands. She is now 60 years old and still exhibits a passion for her creations and for the art of learning.

Matthew Toren

“Never not do something because you don’t have the money. If you want to do it enough and you’re focused enough, the money will find you” – Julie Meyer*

She may be American by birth and exhibit all the outward signs of being a fully focused, goal orientated, “winner take all” native, but she prefers the culture and the people of her main base in London and is seen as one of the 50 most powerful women in Europe, according to the Wall Street Journal. Julie Meyer has risen to become one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs, yet at age 42 is still searching for the next “aha!” moment, even as she strives to help somebody follow in her footsteps.

Meyer is well-known for being fast on her feet and making quick decisions, some of which come back to haunt her. However, she is known for her work in bringing capital to the table for hungry entrepreneurs, and for a business accumen which found its roots when she started First Tuesday back in 2000. The underlying concept was, in fact, created in the fall of 1998 and was designed to be simply a networking event series, focused on the first Tuesday of each month. However. the concept snowballed and by the time the company was sold in July 2000 it was responsible for networking 500,000 people each month and the company’s sale duly netted her $11 million.

With funds from the sale of First Tuesday, Meyer set up her next creation, Ariadne Capital, a company that is involved at the core advisory level with digital media and communication ventures. She is currently raising a significant sum to form a venture capital fund going forward and is shrewd enough to seek out equity stakes in key startups in exchange for the provision of services and advice. She is no doubt motivated by her original investment of $35,000 in First Tuesday, which realized a more than 30,000% return.

Julie sees the current economic environment as the best time to move forward. “One of the fundamentals of investing is to buy low and sell high, it doesn’t get much lower than where we are now.” She is always a champion of free enterprise noting that “government cannot make revenue, companies do that” and calling for a relaxation of Britain’s typically restrictive higher income tax band rates.

Meyer is an acknowledged workaholic, committing seven days a week and spends little time on her personal fetish, which is to enjoy some spa relaxation time with friends. She has something of a golden touch and has helped famous startups such as Skype, Emap and Spinvox to gain their considerable footings.

Living in Europe for most of her adult life, she has a degree in English literacy, an MBA and strong business and emotional ties to her adopted London. She is still single and has no plans for motherhood, but is however setting up a foundation for teenage girls to help them focus on what they could become and in turn bridge what is still an imbalance between successful men and women in the higher echelons of business and commerce.

Meyer is well respected and has an impeccable track record. She may not consider herself to be ambitious, but her achievements precede her.

Matthew Toren

* source: timesonline.co.uk

“I think if you study – if you learn too much of what others have done, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody else” – Milton Hershey.

Milton Snavely Hershey was quite possibly the ultimate philanthropist. Born to humble means in rural central Pennsylvania in 1857, Hershey enjoyed just a spotty education and was to drop out of school after reaching only the fourth grade. His early forays into entrepreneurship were destined for failure, but he was to go on to become one of the nation’s foremost industrialists.

During his early years, Hershey served a lengthy apprenticeship with a prominent candy maker in the city of Lancaster and felt that he could establish his own candy making business in the big city. His initial effort in Philadelphia failed, as did other attempts in Chicago and New York City. Despite the efforts of his mother’s family to help him finance these ventures, Hershey was virtually bankrupt by the age of 30.

Nevertheless his experience was to prove valuable as, upon return to Pennsylvania in 1890, he opened a caramel business that was to finally “work.” Indeed the Lancaster Caramel Company began to ship products all over the country as well as internationally and eventually employed more than 1400 staff. During the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the entrepreneur became intrigued with the art of chocolate making, previously a European art and particularly the realm of the secretive Swiss. Shortly thereafter he began producing chocolate coatings for his products using some German machinery, but realized that his future lay in the production of the chocolate itself.

The Hershey Chocolate Company was born in 1894 and Milton set out to try and devise the perfect recipe for making milk chocolate. This was definitely a process of trial and error, but ultimately he mixed in just the right formula of cocoa, sugar and milk to come up with something not only palatable, but very popular as well. As soon as he had perfected his recipe he sold the caramel company to focus entirely on the process of making chocolate.

By this stage a highly competent and efficient businessman, Hershey realized that he needed to find a suitable place for what would prove to be a significant expansion. He needed to find a location that was convenient from an import and distribution perspective, with great access to the primary raw material produced by dairy farmers and with good access to a hard-working population. This was to prove the core of his philanthropy as the initial community that he founded in Derry Township eventually grew and was renamed in his honor as the town of Hershey.

Hershey’s vision included the rights and well-being of his workers and their families. He went out of his way to provide an environment that was both pleasant for them and conducive to hard work. He reasoned that those who were treated fairly and who lived in pleasant conditions were likely to be loyal and productive and he was right. With all amenities, churches, schools, parks, transportation and recreation, the town itself was to focus on its people, his workers and not on his giant industrial production facility.

Hershey was also completely committed to providing good educational opportunities for those who, just as in his early days, might otherwise have had poor options. The Hershey Industrial School was founded in 1909 for orphaned boys and to this day remains a highly regarded establishment for boys and girls alike. “The main object in view is to train young men to useful trades and occupations, so that they can earn their own livelihood.“

Hershey’s greatest philanthropic act was made with very little fanfare in 1918 when he transferred ownership in the burgeoning Hershey Chocolate Company to the Hershey Trust, to benefit his educational endeavors. Further, in 1935 he established another foundation to provide educational and cultural chances for residents of the town and to support the museum, theater and gardens. A teaching hospital in the town also benefited from his gifts.

Milton Hershey was to pass away in 1945, but his creation remains one of the world’s most sought after treats. The chocolate company stands proudly in a city that is now a significant tourist attraction in its own right and his legacy is exceptional. As the man himself once said, “one is only happy in proportion as he makes others feel happy and only useful as he contributes his influences for the finer callings in life.”

Adam Toren

“We’re fond of constraints that inspire creativity. Constraints inspire us in how we approach the press, how we approach business relationships, how we do everything.” Jack Dorsey.

It’s quite sobering to think that someone at the ripe old age of 29 could come up with a such a simple idea, that has the ability to change the very way that we communicate socially. The emergence of Twitter, which is still enjoying meteoric growth, came about somewhat by accident and still represents a phenomenon that is to a certain extent, without direction.

Jack Dorsey, born November 19, 1976, had an idea that eventually morphed into what we now know as Twitter, when he was only 24 years old. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he had already exhibited an interest in software development by the age of 14 and was to invent open source software applications related to taxicab and messenger route dispatching. His initial efforts were picked up by several organizations in his home city and are still in existence to this day.

Following college at the University of Missouri and in New York, he moved to California. At the time, instant messaging was really starting to take off, with AOL’s Instant Messenger service being particularly popular. Dorsey took a look at this and wondered whether he could combine his earlier ideas to provide a service sending status messages. “What if you could share your status with all your friends really easily, so they know what you’re doing, but you don’t want to have to write a whole blog entry or Live Journal entry?”

As time went by and Jack was busy working on a web based dispatch solution, he considered whether SMS text messaging could be incorporated into his interactive status messaging concept. Podcasting service Odeo became aware of his interest and collectively they decided that they should go ahead and build a prototype that was to become Twitter. Dorsey and fellow geek Biz Stone honed the concept in just two weeks.

Evan Williams, a former Google executive, provided investment funding and together with Dorsey and Stone co-founded an operation to host Twitter, Inc. By early 2006 they were ready with the first incarnation, but did not really have an active launch strategy. By August of 2006, however, the word was starting to spread that the service existed and even though they didn’t have a marketing presence of any kind set up as such, Twitter was born.

Since that time, the organization has been focused merely on keeping up. Expansion has been off the charts and it has taken every bit of effort from Dorsey (who was until recently the CEO) and the others merely to keep up with the demand. Every couple of weeks the user base was doubling as people really took the concept to heart.

The very idea of Twitter appeals to the human need to socialize and to keep in touch. As we all lead such busy lives, the idea of being able to send a very brief, 140 character or less, simple status message back and forth has a certain attraction.

To this day, Twitter is still self-funded by Evan Williams and there seems little pressure for them to create a business model, which is completely non-existent at this point. Other investors have offered to buy out the organization and it has been estimated that it might be worth a market capitalization of somewhere in the region of $1 billion. Nevertheless, Dorsey and Stone remained grounded. They want to keep in control of what they are doing. “We’re looking for a very simple investment and a very clear financial base and hopefully enough to get us a way out so we can focus on building a great product.”

While they have admitted that they are looking at several different models to help them achieve revenues, their main focus is just growing the service and staying true to the original philosophy. Meanwhile Dorsey has stepped down as CEO to become chairman of Twitter as he considers the implementation of his next brainwave idea.

Adam Toren

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” – Larry Ellison.

Lawrence Joseph Ellison was not to meet his biological mother until he was 48 years old, often feuded with his adoptive father, dropped out of high school and is known for the occasional run in with authority, yet he has risen through the ranks to become the fourth richest person in the world and remains actively involved as chief executive officer of the $100 billion company that he founded.

Ellison was born in New York’s Bronx, but grew up on the southside of Chicago. His adoptive parents were making a meager living following the postwar years and the young Ellison often appeared to be somewhat listless and without direction. He dropped out of school and then also out of college, but during that brief time at the University of Chicago he picked up enough knowledge about computer programming to spark an interest that was to prove very prophetic. “I have had all of the disadvantages required for success,” he would later quip.

After an extended period working in various technical and administrative positions, Larry arrived in Berkeley, California, where he was to plant his roots. His programming skills came to the fore when he was employed as a programmer at Ampex and in 1977 he and two colleagues left to found their own company, Software Development Labs, with only a few thousand dollars.

Their attentions focused largely on database management systems and in particular on a new concept called Structured Query Language, SQL, a concept which has much significance in our modern era. Their innovations caught the eye of the CIA no less and enabled them to win a crucial two year contract award to develop database management for the government entity. This was to lead to the creation of the Oracle project.

By 1980, Ellison’s company had designed a commercial application based on the Oracle theory and they were poised for a meteoric rise. Computer giant IBM saw the value of Oracle and from then on the business doubled its size every year. Software Development Labs was soon to become the Oracle Corporation, in honor of its priceless creation.

However, it was not all sweetness and light. Soon after the company went public in 1986, Oracle committed, in Ellison’s words, “an incredible business mistake.” Overzealous employees would often stir in future sales potential into current business figures, artificially inflating the value of the company. Over time, this activity was to lead to the potential demise of Oracle and it was only through direct intervention by Ellison that Oracle actually avoided bankruptcy in the early 90s. Recognizing that they needed to make primary changes in the organization, he replaced many of the senior staff with far more experienced organizers and moved his own energies into product development, allowing experts to right the ship. Soon thereafter, the company rose back to become the industry leader in database management software.

Ellison’s goals for Oracle appeared undiminished, nor did they seem to have any boundary. Through the 90s and into the new millennium, a process of acquisition would see multiple billion dollar purchases of small and large companies, aiming to increase Oracle’s dominance. It appears that his goal is to go after number one competitor IBM and to create an all-encompassing systems and software enterprise conglomerate. Through his career though, he has often said that Microsoft is his biggest target and not IBM. He has made no bones about the fact that he dislikes the way that Microsoft operates and would dearly love to engage. “If an innovative piece of software comes along, Microsoft copies it and makes it part of Windows… This is not innovation. This is the end of innovation.”

Ellison’s tenacity in the business marketplace seems to be matched in his personal life. He is never one to stand still, is an owner of many exotic racing cars and exudes passion for yacht racing. One of his greatest achievements outside of the boardroom came as the winner of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race, against considerable opposition and awful weather.

As part of a passion for living life on the edge, he settled an insider trading lawsuit out of court and was often cited for breaking aviation rules when piloting his private jet. However, he has been very magnanimous in his charitable donations, frequently topping a list of the most charitable donations made by wealthy Americans.

Currently, Ellison is poised to make his biggest achievement yet as, pending regulatory approval, Oracle will purchase hardware and software giant Sun Microsystems for $7.4 Billion. What started off with a few thousand dollar investment will have become the world’s largest business software company.

Adam Toren

“Don’t judge yourself by others’ standards … have your own. And don’t get caught up into the trap of changing yourself to fit the world. The world has to change to fit you. And if you stick to your principles, values and morals long enough, it will” – Berry Gordy Jr.

The auto industry has had a significant effect upon American popular musical culture in a way that many people may not have entirely realized. If it had not been for the booming automotive business in the ‘twenties, Berry Gordy Jr’s family might not have moved to Detroit. After a stint with Lincoln – Mercury, as the young Berry envisaged a way that he could associate the “production line” activity with a method of producing future artists, he created a spark. This vision would help him to develop a business that was to have a permanent effect on the black entertainment industry and the music world in general.

During times when racial tensions were still prevalent in America and the country was still somewhat divided and often inhospitable, Gordy was responsible for steering a musical path through the troubles and helping to unite a somewhat torn country. His contribution to the music industry cannot be overestimated and he will be viewed in the annals of history as an iconic figure.

Gordy’s story is one of a classic “rags to riches.” He was born into a middle-class working family, who would move from Georgia to Detroit as the automotive business established a strong growth pattern. Following an initial stint with the Army, time served in Korea and an early position as a record store manager, Gordy began writing songs in the mid-’fifties and producing fledgling artists. As a songwriter, his big break was the famous “Reet Petite,” picked up by Brunswick Records in 1957 for the singer Jackie Wilson. This track went on to achieve significant international exposure. A few more hit singles were to follow before, in 1960, Tammie Records, (to go on to become Tamla, Motown and ultimately Tamla Motown) was formed. Several labels were incorporated within this company and managed out of a now famous suburban house in Detroit – “Hitsville USA.”

Motown was soon to become a label with national reach, following the hit “Way Over There,” by the Miracles and other releases. A veritable “who’s who” of emerging artists were to flow through the doors of the unassuming house, including the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandelles, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and the iconic Jackson Five.

Throughout this period of growth, Gordy remembered his time at the auto plants. “Every day I watched how a bare metal frame rolling down the line would come out the other end a spanking brand new car. Maybe I could do the same thing with my music … create a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door an unknown and come out another door a star.”

Berry Gordy ensured a strict “production line” of his own would apply within Motown. Each track had to be simple, yet catchy, have a recognizable hook and a certain element of intensity. By all accounts he was a strict taskmaster and insisted that all his artists were schooled in the arts of presentation, composition and professionalism. Within this somewhat regimented approach however, Gordy did not lose sight of creativity. “It still had an atmosphere that allowed people to experiment creatively and give them the courage not to be afraid to make mistakes.”

During the late ’sixties and early ’seventies, Gordy decided to relocate to Los Angeles and closed Hitsville. From then on, his company grew further into an entertainment conglomerate. The company moved into movie production, with a string of hits to its credit.

While Motown did not continue to live up to the heady heights of the ’sixties and ’seventies, it nevertheless was responsible for establishing Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and the Jacksons as household names. Ultimately, Motown was sold to MCA in 1988.

At its height, it is estimated that Motown’s “production-line-track-machine” was responsible for creating hits from three out of every four releases, a figure that has not been repeated. Gordy described this phenomenon as “the sound of Young America” and his movement was certainly responsible for revolutionizing American popular music. “We stuck to who we were at Motown, and the world came around.”

Matthew Toren

Donald Fisher has two life changing events to thank for his legacy. The native Californian readily admits that the first “changed my life completely,” and the second prompted him to start a business enterprise that would elevate him and his wife into the list of the 400 wealthiest people in the United States.

Fisher, now 82 years old, was far from a model student and became quite a controversial figure during his college education at Berkeley. Indeed, he was caught cheating but was not expelled, and he is quick to admit that he reflects to this day on these events. He is now so engrossed in educational causes that he is a major contributor to many different funds and serves on the California State Board of Education. He regularly donates to colleges and universities, charter schools and museums and is a well recognized figure in educational circles within his native San Francisco.

Donald Fisher’s early years, after graduating from college, were involved in his father’s real estate business, but in the late ’sixties, a simple shopping experience was to provide the second life-changing experience, when he and his wife encountered trouble trying to exchange a pair of blue jeans he had bought. The experience taught him how disorganized the industry was and within the course of that very same year, the first “Gap” store was opened in San Francisco.

The Fishers, including wife Doris, put all their efforts behind the new store, named after the “generation gap” and aimed squarely at young people and college students. The promotional method and the casual styles stocked became a hit with the youth of that day and expansion quickly followed. Initially, “the Gap” was only a jeans retailer and relied heavily on products manufactured by Levi Strauss. However, Fisher was not too impressed by the legendary jeans manufacturer and soon branched out into private-label merchandise, eventually to the exclusion of Levi.

After the company went public in the mid-’seventies, growth has been quite meteoric. A wider assortment of items were introduced, including colorful and contemporary styles and, with 550 stores under their fashionable belt, a further expansion involved the purchase of the fledgling Banana Republic brand in 1983. Not content to sit on his laurels, Donald was soon on to the next project after overseeing the expansion of the new division to almost 300 stores. While Banana Republic catered to an upscale casual, chic style and Gap was dedicated to the contemporary user, Fisher saw another opening in 1993. With longtime friend Mickey Drexler at the helm, he founded Old Navy, reflecting a more down to earth or minimalist image and again not in competition with his other creations.

Fisher’s inventiveness and foresight have been responsible for creating a variety of trends and styles within the clothing industry. Both Donald and his wife seem to have an unerring knack for satisfying customer requirements without being sidetracked by short-lived popular fads. They’ve always been able to move with the times, introducing khaki styles in the ‘nineties when jeans were not quite so popular.

Gap division stores are today responsible for a significant portion of overall clothing sales with a store base expanding to over 2,000 around the world.

In 1995, Donald Fisher stepped down from the role of CEO but remains chairman of Gap Inc., to this day. He is not one to remain inactive though and has devoted a lot of his time to his educational philanthropy. In 1998 he pledged $25 million to a foundation and has a very loud voice in the San Francisco educational arena. Some controversy erupted in 2000 when it was alleged that he was channeling “soft money” during school board elections and he has remained a controversial figure to some since then. He sees complacency and inefficiency everywhere and is adamant that his significant donations should help improve the lives of those less fortunate. Many are very thankful for his continued involvement, but some are wary, even in outright opposition, of the tacit power that such a significant philanthropist may possess. For example, the onetime president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Aaron Peskin, called Fisher “a mean, rich old man who is trying to be relevant and is afraid of dying.”

Nevertheless, Fisher recognizes broad approval from across political parties even though he is a staunch Republican. He counts as his friends Gavin Newsom, the mayor of the city, as well as US House leader Nancy Pelosi. He wishes to see the educational system get to the same heady heights of success as his beloved Gap empire and is driven to this day. “The fear of losing pushes relentlessly from behind,” as he once said.

Matthew Toren

Herb Kelleher is synonymous with success. He has become the poster child for the airline industry in an era where there has been precious little good news. Kelleher founded Southwest Airlines against considerable behind the scenes and blatant opposition and went on to head one of the most significant success stories in American business.

Kelleher was born in the late winter of 1931 in New Jersey. He enjoyed his education in the Northeast and moved with his wife and four children to Texas, theoretically to start a law firm. In the early 70’s the airline industry was going through one of its many periodic reinventions and endured a very poor reputation among consumers. Kelleher was sure that he could change this by injecting a breath of fresh air, a maverick approach and a different philosophy. To him, the “hub and spoke” operating system employed by the major airlines had inherent flaws and was a major reason for their litany of problems. In addition, the congestion at these major hub airports was a major turnoff for flyers and Kelleher decided that, rather than be like all other startups and try to squeeze gate allocations, he would choose a different approach.

Other airlines have mimicked the Southwest approach, perhaps most notably JetBlue, but the major airlines have been unable to achieve the high rankings of Southwest, which has been number one for on-time arrivals and departures more often than not. Kelleher opted for simplicity, choosing only the Boeing 737 planes throughout the entire fleet for logistical and operational purposes. He ensured that the company honed the task of turning around a plane between landing and takeoff to a fine art, so that they could utilize these very expensive assets to ultimate effect during each flying day. Perhaps most notably, Southwest avoids all the major airports and features secondary city ports or other fields which are essentially close to major conurbations.

Kelleher is known for his colorful personality and his larger-than-life approach. The Southwest Airlines of today owes virtually everything to this and its customer service has being built on a lighter approach to the sometimes dowdy business of flying, while maintaining a first-class work ethic and an unrivaled approach to safety.

“We tell our people, “don’t worry about profit. Think about customer service.” Profit is a byproduct of customer service. It’s not an end in and of itself.” Kelleher maintains that the company is marketed gregariously. He injects an element of self-deprecation and encourages all his staff to engage an outgoing personality. It is not unknown for flight attendants to sing their in-flight announcements or to cast pithy comments about a particularly bumpy landing, for example.

Southwest Airlines can be viewed as one of the few truly original success stories within the airline industry. At the time of its launch, it was certainly seen as one of many upstarts, destined for bankruptcy in short order. However, Kelleher’s approach defied critics and the company has gone on to be nothing less than an outstanding success. Southwest has been named one of the most admired corporations in America and the best place to work on many different occasions.

In 1996, Kelleher wrote a book entitled “Nuts,” documenting the success of the airline, its title referring to his famous policy of serving only soft drinks and peanuts onboard at a time when others were complicating issues with meals of varying size. He likes to keep in the present and take advantage of trends, advocating an open approach. For example, he is frequently seen flying on Southwest routes and engaging with other passengers.

Kelleher may be a joker, but he is very shrewd. He knows that his disarming personality makes it difficult for other people to take offense, yet beneath that front is a highly efficient “people person” and one who knows how to motivate. “People who emphasize too strongly the fact that they are professionals usually are not very good at what they do.”

In business today there are few top executives like Kelleher, who seems to shun the traditional American corporate image and everything that it evokes. He has certainly struck a chord with flyers and, almost forty years later, Southwest Airlines continues to go from strength to strength.

Adam Toren