Successful people's struggle story 1: Peter Thiel. Tyrell
He is a math genius, a chess master, and loves the works of Solzhenitsyn and Rand. In the global Internet community, venture capitalist Peter Thiel is an inescapable figure. Peter Thiel is an inescapable name in the global Internet community. Because people in the industry always look forward to hearing what new projects this "prophet" type of person is interested in, but also because of his successful entrepreneurial and investment experience, and his ability to turn stones into gold.
PayPal IPO, the first bucket of gold
Located in Palo Alto's most vibrant section of University Avenue (University Avenue) is the Silicon Valley technology product release outpost. On this street is a cafe called Caf?Venetia. Peter? Almost all of Peter Thiel's businesses are located in the Caf?Venetia neighborhood. In the summer of 1998, Max Levchin, a 23-year-old Ukrainian programmer who had just arrived in the San Francisco area, was discussing his ideas and venture capital. Max Levchin, a 23-year-old Ukrainian programmer who had just arrived in the San Francisco area in the summer of 1998, heard a talk at Stanford University by Thiel on currency trading. The next day, they met in Palo Alto, where they hoped to build an electronic payment system that would make e-commerce transactions simple, uniform, and secure - the beginnings of what would become PayPal. 2002 was the year that Thiel met with his friend, Elon Musk, in this same cafe. Musk (Elon Musk) met to discuss whether to let PayPal listed, and reached an agreement. Eventually, the electronic payment company founded in 1998 successfully listed, market capitalization of about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, becoming the "911" events after the first large-scale IPO. subsequently, PayPal to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars by the price of eBay acquisition, Tyrell also got the first bucket of money in life?55 million U.S. dollars.
Venture capital, turned into gold
After financial freedom, Thiel went into venture capital. He changed the name of Thiel Capital Management, which he founded in 1996, to Clarium Capital Management, and injected $10 million of his own money. Since then, Thiel has been patiently searching for promising startups. At the time, social networking, a little-favored area is considered to be the next dangerous Internet bubble, but Thiel still full of confidence, in the summer of 2004, Hoffman and Silicon Valley urchin Sean Parker (Sean Parker). Hoffman and Silicon Valley nerd Sean Parker introduced Thiel to Zuckerberg, who was looking for a major investor for Facebook at the time. Thiel provided Facebook, then valued at less than $5 million, with $500,000 in startup capital, its first outside investment, which earned him a 7 percent stake in Facebook and a seat on the company's board of directors. Though Thiel sold nearly half of his shares in the following years, and the remaining shares were further diluted by Facebook's multiple rounds of financing, Thiel's holdings still account for about 3% of the company's shares. If the market capitalization of $100 billion after Facebook's IPO, the value of the shares in Thiel's hands is expected to reach $3 billion, a return on investment of more than 6,000 times. If we say Mark? Zuckerberg created the miracle of Facebook to change the way of life of mankind, then Peter Thiel (Peter Thiel). Thiel (Peter Thiel), born in 1964, this geek is the miracle behind the push. The U.S. Internet community will once again remember Thiel's name.
A year later, he founded Fonders Ventures with $50 million (Founders Fund), and after the establishment of the fund invested in a series of highly innovative startups, including YouTube, image sharing software company Slide, user reviews site Yelp, the development of search for terrorists and financial fraud software Palantir Technologie, rocket manufacturer SpaceX, electric car company Tesla Motors, and micro-lender Kiva, all of which have since proved to be highly successful. Suffice it to say, Thiel counts himself among the world's most successful technology venture capitalists.
How do you pick promising entrepreneurs? Thiel says the most important question he asks every entrepreneur seeking investment is, "Why is the 20th employee joining your company?" According to Thiel, "It's easy to explain why someone would want to be a CEO or join a startup as an early employee because they want to run a company or want to get rich by joining an early stage startup. It's also easy to see why the 1,000th employee would want to join because it's clear that the company is on its way to growth and joining would provide a steady income. But the 20th employee can mean a lot of different things. Because by the time the 19th employee joins your company most of the equity in your company has been distributed, but the company is not yet successful, so your company is not a place worth joining for a steady income." "The only company I'd vote for with that answer is the company where the 20th employee will join because it's doing something completely new and different."
Paradoxical Complex, "Born to Win"
Thiel was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1967 to a chemical engineer father, and his father, Klaus, jumped from job to job several times at several large engineering firms, and kept the family on the move, before eventually Foster City, 20 miles south of San Francisco, Calif. Foster City, 20 miles south of San Francisco. Thiel attended elementary school in seven different places. He finally settled in Foster City on the San Francisco Bay in the fifth grade. His early upbringing left Tyrell confident, intelligent, and alone to enjoy solitude. He was a math prodigy and an expert chess player, with the life motto "Born to Win" affixed to his chess set. As a teenager, his favorite book was "The Lord of the Rings", which he read over and over again. He also enjoyed the works of Solzhenitsyn and Rand. Thiel grew up in a ____ family and became a believer in Christ ____ during his high school years, when he began to believe in free willism and even became an extreme believer in free willism. He describes his beliefs as "more or less heretical," saying, "I believe in Christ. But I don't try to persuade other people to maintain the same beliefs as I do." At the same time, as a Christian, Thiel is also gay through and through, and this is one of the specific ways in which Thiel has been described as a combination of contradictions. In response, he says, "In my head, identity exists in all sorts of subtly different forms. I think queer people, black people, and women all have deep and different experiences with it. I also think that people have a tendency to exaggerate this and elevate it into the realm of ideology." Clearly, Thiel is a classic synthesis of contradictions, living or doing business in his utopia and reveling in it.
The information age has brought Thiel great wealth, but he remains disappointed by it. He believes that the Internet technology revolution has not created enough jobs, nor has it improved manufacturing and social productivity. A virtual world of innovation does not replace the real world of technological progress. Thiel rarely updates his Facebook page. He's also "not used to using things like BlackBerry, iPhone or e-mail." He didn't even start texting until about a year ago.
Believes in innovation to save the world
Now, having already profited handsomely from social media, Thiel has a new goal? Funding ideas that "can save the world" and, in his oft-quoted words, "take our civilization at least one level higher." According to Thiel, almost all of the world's problems, such as flaws in government institutions and education systems, lingering financial turmoil, market bubbles, energy crises, and wars over resources stem from stagnant scientific and technological innovations, and the only salvation can only come from dramatic scientific breakthroughs. Currently, Thiel has invested large sums of money in companies focused on life extension, ocean platforms for immigration, space commercialization, friendly artificial intelligence, modifying DNA sequences to accelerate evolution, and a number of other crazy ideas. Another recent jaw-dropping investment by his Thiel Foundation? A fresh meat 3D printing technology startup.
The company working on fresh meat 3D printing technology is called Modern Meadow, based in Missouri, and is said to have received a six-figure dollar investment from the Thiel Foundation. The company says that by specially treating and cultivating different categories of special structural layers so as to make test-tube meat edible, it is equally capable of providing the body with the required proteins. The company says it is engaged in this research to reduce the environmental impact of large-scale farming. The meat produced so far is 2 centimeters long, 1 centimeter wide and half a millimeter thick. "We expect to first attract a group of early consumers who prefer to cook and those who are vegetarians for ethical reasons. Then, as the price is gradually lowered, it gains acceptance from more religious vegans (such as Hindus, Jews and Muslims) and ultimately, we hope to be able to offer a safe and secure pork product to the general public."
Currently, Thiel is #365 on the Forbes list with $1.5 billion. Thiel's contribution to the Internet world is not just as a venture capitalist, but more importantly, his unique thinking power. In any case, Thiel had these dreams of changing the world.
Successful People's Struggles 2: Christopher? Levy
Back in the day, Christopher Levy was the most successful actor in the world. Levy because of the success of the star of the blockbuster "Superman" and became famous in the international film industry, but just when he was in Hollywood red, the scenery is endless, an accident but let his acting road came to an abrupt end. May 1995, in a fierce equestrian competition, he accidentally fell "upside down", and from then on to become a forever can only Since then, he has become a paraplegic who can only sit in a wheelchair forever. When he woke up from the coma, the first words he said to his family were: "Let me get rid of it as soon as possible!"
After being discharged from the hospital, his family pushed him in his wheelchair to go out for a trip in order to give him a break.
One time, the car was traveling on a winding mountain highway in the Rocky Mountains. He quietly looked out the window and found that the mountain road bends, peaks and turns, "turn ahead" a few big words over and over again impact on the eyeballs, gradually knocked his heart awake: the original, not the road has come to an end, but to turn. He suddenly realized, rushed to his wife shouted: "I want to go back, I still have to go!"
From then on, he used a wheelchair as a substitute for walking, as a director.
His first directorial film won the Golden Globe Award; he also bit the pen with his teeth, began a difficult writing, his first book "Still Me" came out, entered the bestseller list, and won the Literary Award; at the same time, he founded a paralyzed patient education resource center, and was elected chairman of the Association of the whole body paralyzed; he also traveled around, organizing speeches, for the disabled people's He also traveled around, held lectures, raised money for the welfare of the disabled, and became a famous social activist.
Recently, Time Magazine reported on his story under the title "Ten Years On, He's Still Superman". In this article, he recalled his journey by saying, "When misfortune strikes, it's not that the road has come to an end, but it's a reminder that it's time for you to make a turn."
Successful people's struggle story 3: Chen Guangbiao
Poor boy white hand startup
Chen Guangbiao, 45 years old, was born in the rural village of Tianganghu Township, Sihong County, Jiangsu Province. By farming for a living parents gave birth to five children, Chen Guangbiao 2 years old, a brother, a sister because of extreme poverty in the family, has died of starvation.
When Chen Guangbiao was 13 years old, he rode his bicycle for more than ten miles every day to sell popsicles. Later, Chen Guangbiao also did the grain trade, at first earned five or six dollars a day, and later earned more than 300 yuan a day. 17-year-old summer vacation at the end of the year, Chen Guangbiao earned 20,000 yuan, became the first township "juvenile ten thousand yuan household".
Chen Guangbiao did not waste his studies, he did business after school or holidays. 1985, Chen Guangbiao entered the Nanjing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, after graduation, he chose to continue to entrepreneurship.
He believes that the market soon after the auricular acupuncture point disease detector has a good market prospect, but there is no intuition, the patient can not intuitively see the results of the detection, funded by the experts to provide guidance to the auricular acupuncture point disease detector to do a simple improvement, mounted on the monitor shell, input physiological images, so that the patient as long as the two electrodes of the instrument will be able to hold the hands of the two intuitive display to see which parts of their body Diseases. This was named by Chen Guangbiao "cross-century family CT" of the new instrument, received a national patent, a listing on the widely acclaimed. The cost of such an instrument is less than dry yuan, the wholesale price of about 5,000 yuan. Chen Guangbiao has opened up the Jiangsu and Anhui markets, sold more than 5,000 units of products in half a year.
In 1996, 28-year-old Chen Guangbiao founded the Nanjing JinWeiLi electronic medical equipment limited company, the electronic disease detector sold to the country more than 20 provinces and regions. By 2000, he earned tens of millions of dollars.
This year, Chen Guangbiao went to Tai'an in Shandong Province to study, at that time, Tai'an abundance of ganoderma lucidum, and the price is low, 200 yuan a kilogram. Chen Guangbiao found that there is a big business opportunity. "Ganoderma lucidum is good, can be inconvenient to eat, if it can be ground into powder, made into capsules to take much more convenient." With this exciting idea, he knocked on the door of Nanjing University and provincial hospital experts, asked Nanjing University experts to do advertising planning, and then asked the hospital to do clinical reports. After getting the production license, he raised money to order production line in Shanghai, and then went to Shandong Tai'an to buy a large number of ganoderma lucidum powder, back to deep processing and technical processing, made of ganoderma lucidum capsules. In this way, 200 yuan a kilogram acquisition of ganoderma lucidum made of capsules, the sale price of 2000 yuan a kilogram, so that Chen Guangbiao gained a lot of money.
By 2001, relying on the sale of auricular acupuncture point measurement of disease treatment instrument and ganoderma capsules, Chen Guangbiao netted 1. 200 million yuan. "I became a billionaire at the age of 32 by starting a business with nothing, which can be considered a role model for young people to start a business." Chen Guangbiao said.
What makes Chen Guangbiao happy is that the "ganoderma lucidum capsule" project to promote the "ganoderma lucidum economy" in Tai'an, Shandong Province, to bring wealth to one side of the people.
From the construction waste to discover the "treasure"
In early 2002, Chen Guangbiao through the introduction of friends, the field of circular economy has a strong interest.
"According to the regulations of the relevant departments, in the transformation of the old urban areas, each demolition of 1 square meter of floor space of the old house, the developer has to subsidize the demolition company tens of dollars. But in fact, most of the house demolition companies as long as they can get the job, even if the developer does not pay, white work are happy. You can not think that these companies are learning from the thunderbolt, demolition of this seemingly grimy line of work, in fact, lucrative. Each demolition of 1 square meter floor area of the building, on average, can earn about 30 yuan, high can earn 60 yuan." It turns out that the old building demolition of steel, wood, plastic, etc., can be sold at a good price, because they can be recycled back to the furnace. Listening to the introduction of friends, is looking around for projects Chen Guangbiao bright eyes, he decided to get involved in the demolition of buildings.
In the spring of this year, he gathered people to set up the Whampoa demolition company. Although the first year of this business, Chen Guangbiao did not earn too much money, but has accumulated valuable experience in the industry. The next year, his company through bidding to get a big project? The demolition of an old exhibition hall in Nanjing. This looks like a dilapidated old building, is simply a "invisible gold mine", only demolition of waste steel, wood, wire electric olive, plastic, etc. is worth more than 4 million yuan, minus the cost of workers' wages, this single business so that Chen Guangbiao net profit of 2.85 million yuan.
The most sought-after steel from the building rubble, a project has just begun, the steel recycling company will send a car to send people "waiting". Because it has a 100% recycling rate, all of which can be in the workshop of the steel enterprise "fire rebirth", into a new and highly sought-after goods; from the construction of the demolition of wood, manufacturers can be used to do flooring, furniture after recycling. Even if the small bits and pieces of wood, will not be cheap as firewood, but to do the mechanism of the board, plywood, pengkou board. Jiangsu Wujiang is such small wood throughput, the local timber factory has a kind of equipment, "eat" into the waste small wood, "spit" out is a sheet of neat specifications of the mechanism of the board. Chen Guangbiao from the building rubble demolition of wood, all sold there.
What can be recycled are recycled, the site finally left only the real construction waste, how to deal with these huge amounts of waste, is the most demolition companies and even government departments headache. They are mainly composed of broken concrete, masonry, slag, mortar, decoration waste, etc., in the eyes of the demolition company, these are all useless "money-losing goods"? Because of the cleanup of these garbage, each ton needs to pay 20 yuan of freight. A 100,000-square-meter demolition project, will produce 80,000 tons of construction waste, only to clear the freight will cost 1.6 million yuan.
Chen Guangbiao produced a bold idea: If I can turn the construction waste into ecological building materials, both to solve the "garbage around the city" problem, but also to turn waste into treasure, not two birds with one stone! He has done a variety of attempts, all ended in failure.
In 2004, when he went to Germany to study, Chen Guangbiao found a long time looking for the "magic weapon". That is a parked in the demolition site on the "behemoth"? Construction waste treatment equipment, blink of an eye, piles of bricks, concrete blocks and other construction waste, it was "chewed" into tiny particles. Technicians said that this particle can be used to pave the road. Chen Guangbiao immediately to 3 million yuan a high price, from Berlin introduced 10 sets of construction waste crushing equipment.
Chen Guangbiao called this assembly line equipment for the "deformation of the Golden Steel", because whether it is a defective square brick, round stones, unshaped concrete slag, this guy to refuse, as long as the input into its big "mouth", all can be turned into small particles.
Next, Chen Guangbiao began to repair the road units to market his hands of construction waste particles, at first people are still half-believing, let him first put some goods to try. When the understanding of this environmentally friendly building materials, customers not only on the spot to pay off the purchase price, but also impatient to him to place a large order. Originally, they used to pave the roadbed with crushed stone, the price of 130?140 yuan per ton, and with the new materials provided by Chen Guangbiao, only 30 yuan per ton. In addition, crushed stone are produced by opening up the mountain and blowing up the stone, take the material at the same time in the destruction of the ecological environment, the use of Chen Guangbiao's products to do the roadbed, not only the quality is excellent, but also very environmentally friendly.
Ruins into a gold mine. Worth tens of billions
July 1, 2004, in order to protect land resources, the state issued a ban on the use of solid clay bricks. This puts many brick factories in a dilemma: either close down, or switch to alternative raw materials? The use of stone powder, sand, lime, fly ash and other brick-making, but these raw materials are not easy to find and the cost is too high. At this point, Chen Guangbiao released a good news: with construction waste can also produce durable bricks, and is environmentally friendly.
It turned out that the regulations prohibiting the excavation of burning bricks just came out, Chen Guangbiao began to use his brain to improve his machinery and equipment, some efforts, he got what he wanted, so that the "deformation of the gold steel" in addition to the production of small particles, but also can spit out fine powder. He put these deep processing out of the powdered construction waste, sold to the brick-making enterprises at a price.
Chen Guangbiao provided construction waste powder in the price is far lower than concrete, white ash, etc., and soon replaced the other brick raw materials, become the new favorite of brick-making enterprises. From then on, Chen Guangbiao sold a carload of powder foam into a carload of environmental bricks, hollow bricks, road bricks, sidewalk bricks, green belt bricks? Tested by the relevant departments, these new environmentally friendly bricks not only fully meet the quality standards, the service life is even longer than the traditional red brick, but 20% lighter than the former.
Since then, many environmental protection brick factory chasing Chen Guangbiao to produce raw materials, highway construction units call for goods also made him overwhelmed.
In February 2005, Chen Guangbiao founded Jiangsu Huangpu Renewable Resources Utilization Co., Ltd. to vigorously develop the circular economy and green economy. Subsequently, he demolished the house this circular economy model, transplanted to waste cars, home appliances, production equipment, etc., for example, scrap car tires can be cleaned, cut into pieces, into powder, made into agricultural tires or plastic runway, etc.. From now on, in Chen Guangbiao's eyes, there is no real garbage, only misplaced treasure.
Because "Whampoa" is the first domestic high-tech environmental demolition company, he received the demolition project is getting bigger and bigger: Beijing Chang'an Street widening project demolition project, there was a fire in the CCTV building demolition project, are Chen Guangbiao's company to do; 2008 Beijing Olympic Games long-distance running rubberized track, is also by him! The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games long-distance running rubber track is also processed by him with "scrap".
The ever-expanding market for Chen Guangbiao has brought huge gains, and his personal wealth snowballed. Among the rich class, Chen Guangbiao did not forget to return to society, in donations and disaster relief repeatedly appeared "big money". Wenchuan earthquake, he to 1.81 billion yuan donation will be "China's top good" title into the bag. 2010 September 5, Chen Guangbiao in his company's official website hung out to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett a letter. Gates and Warren Buffett, announcing that he would donate all of his property to charitable organizations after his death. Some people estimate that at that time in more than ten cities across the country Chen Guangbiao has more than 600 sets of large-scale equipment, in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Nanjing and other places purchased office buildings, plus other fixed assets and cash together, about more than 5 billion yuan.
Chen Guangbiao's good deeds, but also for him to bring an unexpected harvest. Because of the "Whampoa" fame, coupled with Chen Guangbiao with people's good character has won the respect of countless people, especially since 2012, he received more and more demolition projects.
In 2014, he is doing demolition projects are Shanghai Baosteel, Nanjing Iron and Steel Plant, as well as Henan's cement plant, Tianjin's chemical plant, Chongqing's hydroelectric power plant, are doing demolition.
Experts predict that in the next 30 years, there will be "ten emerging technologies", in which "waste disposal" is ranked second. Today, although Chen Guangbiao's company has become a large enterprise with more than 4,000 employees, business to do all over the country, its personal assets of more than 9 billion yuan, but he is still not satisfied, and recently spared no expense to hire a group of experts from abroad stationed in the "Whampoa", and seeks to improve the recycling rate of construction waste to 100% through technological research, and extract more waste from the rubble. Refining more "gold" from the ruins, let the city become better!
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