We don't expect those who have made a fortune and a name for themselves to have been homeless as an adult, lived off welfare payments or even to have had a serious drug problem. But these people show that it's possible to go from rags to riches at any time in your life. Click or scroll through to read their stories.
After dropping out of high school and briefly working in a petrol station, David Murdock was drafted into the army in 1943. After fighting in World War II he found himself homeless, and at one point was sleeping under a bush in a car park in Detroit. His future looked very bleak.
A generous loan of $1,200 from a kind Samaritan allowed Murdock to buy a failing coffee shop, which he soon turned into a profitable business. Following that he started Castle & Cooke, a real estate company, and in 1985 took control of Dole Food Company, which at one point went on to take the title of the world’s largest marketer and producer of fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers, according to Los Angeles Business Journal. Now 96 years old, David Murdock is worth $2 billion (£1.6bn).
Canadian Frank O’Dea was far from a likely candidate to become a millionaire businessman. O'Dea says that he became an alcoholic at just 13 years old, and by the time he reached his 20s he was homeless and begging to make money to fund his addiction. Fed up with his lifestyle, the catalyst for change came one day when someone put a dime into the cup he was holding when standing at an intersection. O'Dea says he used the dime to make a phone call to a support group, and there and then decided to give up drinking and to find a better job.
A position in sales got O’Dea back on his feet and prompted him to co-found Second Cup in 1975, where he sold whole bean coffee from a kiosk in a shopping mall. It has come a long way since then and now has 242 cafés all over Canada. In fact, it is the country's largest speciality coffee chain. He then went on to co-found ProShred Security, which he later sold for several million dollars. O'Dea has set up a variety of charities including the Samaritan Air Ambulance Services and Street Kids International, and has also penned a book about how he turned his life around.
In the early 1990s Canadian Suroosh Alvi, one of the founders of the global media empire VICE, was fresh out of rehab after overcoming a heroin habit. The son of university teachers, Alvi had completed a BA in philosophy at McGill University and had enrolled in grad school in Toronto but had to drop out because of his addiction. After rehab Alvi was attending Narcotics Anonymous in Montreal, and living off welfare, but couldn't get a job or a sponsor. Things changed when he was approached to write for The Voice of Montreal, a new community magazine launched by not-for-profit Images interculturelles. This turned out to be more than just a job for Alvi...
Soon Alvi was at the helm, and recruited Gavin McInnes as comics editor and Shane Smith as head of sales, who pushed the magazine's growth. These three were the ones to take The Voice of Montreal forward, eventually dropping the 'o' to become VICE and blossoming into VICE Media, which rapidly diversified beyond publishing into TV, film, events and music. VICE Media now has offices across the globe and was valued at $5.7 billion (£4.4bn) in 2017, although many believe that to have been an overvaluation, and the business lost $50 million (£37m) in 2019. But Alvi hasn't forgotten where his success came from; he still attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings and tells his story to other former addicts several times a year.
Joanne Rowling had always known that she wanted to write, but in her early 20s her divorce meant that as a single mother she had turn to state benefits to be able to provide for her daughter Jessica. During this time, however, Rowling would write in cafés local to where she lived in Edinburgh with her baby daughter sleeping in a pram beside her. The now world-renowned author was also suffering long bouts of depression, and the initial drafts for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone were rejected 12 times before Bloomsbury agreed to publish it.
Rowling did not give up however, and the huge success of Harry Potter has led to her becoming the world's highest-paid author, although book sale profits no longer make up the majority of her wealth. Harry Potter films, merchandise, and theme parks all contribute, while the two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child made $2.3 million (£1.8m) in ticket sales in a single week when it opened in the US in 2018; that's more than any other non-musical on Broadway. Rowling was also the first ever billionaire author, but after giving a lot of her money to charity her net worth dropped. However, today her wealth sits around $1 billion (£795m) according the The Sunday Times Rich List 2020.
Back in 2003, Khalil Rafati was completely hooked on heroin and cocaine. He had nowhere to live, no money or qualifications as he had dropped out of high school, and even had a conviction. Having reached rock bottom, he realised he had no choice but to get sober and clean up his lifestyle. However, eight months sober he received the news that his mother had cancer and, still broke, he had no way to help her. This, he says, "was the lowest point of [his] life". It was around this time that a friend introduced him to juicing, and Rafati felt he had more energy and that his anxiety was changing to excitement.
Rafati started coming up with ideas to change his fortune. However, it was only when he met Hayley Gorcey and set up his own Riviera Recovery Center in 2007 that things started to really go right. The pair, inspired by Rafati's new healthy lifestyle and love of superfoods, then set up SunLife Organics in 2011, opening the café in Malibu. Serving wholesome, organic food and healthy juices, the business reached sales of $1 million (£775k) in its first 12 months according to the BBC. The company has continued to grow year on year, and there are now 10 SunLife Organics cafés across California and Arizona, as well as a successful online shop that sells snacks, clothings and accessories.
Suffering from insomnia, Michael J. Lindell decided to start his own pillow company in 2004, creating pillows that would hold their shape. But a serious drug addiction served as a distraction in the company's early years. He had been taking cocaine for years, but just as his pillow project was gaining traction he got into crack cocaine. His wife left him and he lost his house, which meant he nearly lost his fledgling business too.
In 2008 Lindell was at rock bottom, and hadn't slept for two weeks from the drugs he was doing. It was then that even his dealer refused to sell to him until he rested, and told other dealers not to either. Lindell saw how bad his situation had become, but it was still 10 months later until he finally realised that he had to choose between his dependency and his business.
So Lindell quit drugs and gave pillow production his all. The Minnesota-based company had its ups and downs over the years, but Lindell stayed clean and the company has expanded its range of products to beds, linens and even pet beds. And it was working as the US pillow manufacturer racked up $280 million (£217m) in revenue in 2017 alone. However, Lindell's support of Donald Trump has now started to affect the business. Even though Trump lost the 2020 election, Lindell questioned the result and Dominion Voting Systems threatened to sue the entrepreneur over his claims the election was rigged. Lindell maintained his support of Trump despite the Capitol siege on 6 January, going as far to describe the event as "very peaceful". Now these comments have led retailers including Bed, Bath & Beyond, Kohl's and JC Penney to stop selling MyPillow products.
Meet the CEOs who worked their way up their famous companies