What did the most successful people in 25 years do

Joanna Rowling came up with Harry Potter on the train

Rowling was 25 years old when she came up with the idea of ​​the Harry Potter adventure during her train journey in 1990.

She began writing a book that evening, but several years passed before she completed it. Working as a secretary in the London office of Amnesty International, Rowling was fired for excessive daydreaming during working hours, and her deteriorated financial situation helped her concentrate on her work in the following years.

Over the years, she managed to get married, have a daughter, get a divorce, get a diagnosis of clinical depression and finish the first book in 1995. It was published in 1997 year.

Jay Zee already performed on the rap scene, but was not known

Born Sean Carter, Jay Zee grew up in a high-rise building in Brooklyn and was known as "Jay Zee" at the age of twenty.

Over the next few years, he performed with other rappers, but “remained unknown to the general public” as a performer until, at the age of 27, he started recording the record label “Roc-A-Fella Record” with two friends. That same year, Jay Zee released his first album, Reasonable Doubt.

Kat Cole was a starHooters»

Cole, president of Cinnabon, worked at Hooters for fifteen years, starting a hostess career at seventeen and taking 26 for years as vice president.

An exemplary employee, at nineteen, she received an offer to go to Australia to launch a franchise network, and spent most of her time there, teaching employees and management personnel, reports Fortune.

She never received a bachelor's degree, but eventually became a master, according to Fortune.

“I was happy that“ Hooters ”was not a very sophisticated company, because otherwise I would not have such chances at that age,” she says. - Of course, after all, graduates of the Ivy League are unlikely to dream of getting positions at Hooters.

Ralph Lauren was a seller at Brooks Brothers

The real name of the designer is Ralph Livshits. He was born in the Bronx, New York, but changed his name at the age of fifteen. Ralph studied economics and business at Bernard Baruch College, but dropped out and went to serve in the army. He was demobilized at the age of 24 and began his career at Brooks Brothers.

When Ralph turned 26, he decided to create a new, wider European model of a tie, which led him to create a chain of stores, Neiman Marcus. The following year, he launched the new trademark Polo.

Before becoming a politician, Madeleine Albright was an ordinary housewife.

According to The Bio Agency, before becoming the first woman US Secretary of State and Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University, Madeleine Albright was a simple housewife.

In 1959, Madeleine graduated from the University of Velesley, Massachusetts, where she studied political science. She then studied the policies of the USSR and international relations. At this time, Madeleine lived in Washington and raised two twins - Alice and Anna.

After moving to New York with her husband, Madeleine graduated from Columbia University with a diploma in USSR and a master’s degree and a doctorate in public law and management.

During her studies, she made such an impression on one of the teachers that he recommended her to become a politician. This was the beginning of Madeleine's career at the National Security Council, where she was responsible for public relations.

Marissa Mayer started her career at Google, becoming her twentieth employee

At the age of 24, Marissa became the 20th employee of Google and the first female engineer of the company. She worked for the company for thirteen years, after which she became CEO of Yahoo.

Speaking with a representative of the company VMakers, Marissa said that before Google had not occupied such a huge area as it is now. “When I came for an interview, there were several employees in the company. The interview took place at the ping-pong table, which also served as a table for meetings. That was in April 1999, when they just applied for funding. Therefore, immediately after the interview, Larry and Sergey moved to a new office. ”

Like other applicants, Marissa was told to come the next day to go through the second stage of the interview.

Warren Buffett worked as an investment salesman in Omaha.

At twenty, Warren Buffett began his career as an investment salesman at Buffett-Falk & Co., Omaha. When he turned 26, he moved to New York and became a securities analyst. In the same year, Buffett founded Buffett Partnership LLC, an investment partnership.

But he wanted more than New York. In an interview with NBC, he noted: “In some places it is difficult to develop. But not in Omaha. ”

Ursula Burns began her career at Xerox as an intern, but at the age of twenty she became a full-time employee.

The difficult childhood years of Ursula were spent in a residential complex for the poor in New York. She graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and then received a degree from Columbia University.

At this time, Ursula began her career at Xerox. When she was 22, she went through a summer internship at Xerox and a year later she got a job there, receiving a master’s degree. Ursula made a fast-moving career working on new product development in various positions, and became CEO in 2009.

“When I joined the company, I just started doing my job. Someone said, "How about doing this?" I agreed, and the company soon released a new development, ”says Ursula in an interview for the filming of“ Market Makers ”, a PBS documentary. "Then I was offered to do business planning, and I began to delve into the more important issues of the company."

Facebook began to generate revenue when the number of registered users reached three hundred million people

Mark Zuckerberg worked on creating Facebook for about five years. By that time - in 2009 - he was 25 years old. Then Facebook began to generate income, and the number of registered users reached three hundred million people. He was excited but said it was just the beginning and wrote on Facebook that "this is just the beginning of our goal to unite humanity."

The following year, Zuckerberg became the "Man of the Year" in the Time rating.

Before becoming an actress in the improvising troupe "Second City", Tina Fey worked at the reception desk of the children's room YMCA (Youth Christian Association)

After graduating from the University of Virginia, Tina moved to Chicago and began attending acting classes. Before becoming an actress in the improvising troupe "Second City", she worked at the reception desk of the children's room YMCA (Youth Christian Association)

In an interview with the New Yorker news agency, Tina said that she decided to start her career in “Second City” because “she knew that most of the participants of the show“ Saturday Night Live ”started there. In 1997, she sent the script to Lorne Michaels, producer of "Saturday Night Live", who took her on as a screenwriter.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz worked in the Xerox sales department when he was young.

After graduating from Northern Michigan University, Schulz worked in the Xerox sales department. When he turned 26, he got a job in the Swedish company Hammerplast, which was engaged in the production of coffee machines.

While working at Hammerplast, he learned about the opening of the first Starbucks offices in Seattle. At the age of 29, he went to work at Starbucks.

Schultz writes about his work for Xerox in his book “Pour your heart into it”: “I learned more about the world of work and business there than in college. I was trained in sales, marketing, and presentation skills, and I went out of there, developing a healthy self-esteem. Xerox was a prestigious, elite company, and I was treated with respect when I said where I work ... But word processors didn’t attract me much. ”

Previously, Oprah Winfrey worked as one of the leading local TV show in Baltimore

According to the Huffington Post, in 1977, Oprah Winfrey was fired from her six-hour news lead on WJZ-TV on Baltimore television. She was then 23 of the year. In 1978, Oprah got a job as a host of "As They Tell" - a local talk show on the WJZ channel. She also hosted a local version of the Call and Receive Show.

In 1983, Oprah Winfrey moved from Baltimore to Chicago and got a job on the AM Chicago TV show on WLS-TV.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Google, Eric Schmidt, began his career in information technology, still in his youth

Eric Schmidt holds a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. In 27 years, he became a PhD in networking technology and software development in a distributed environment.

During the summer holidays, Eric worked in the world-famous Xerox laboratories in Palo Alto. There he met the founder of Sun Microsystems, where he received his first job.

About his first years of work as a programmer, he says that “I did not sleep at night, because at night computers worked faster”.

Cheryl Sendbergh met Professor Larry Summers and received an MBA

At the age of 25, Sandburg graduated with honors from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in economics. She then took a job at the World Bank, where she worked under the guidance of her former mentor, Larry Summers, who later became Minister of Finance. At 1995, she graduated from Harvard with an MBA.

Then Cheryl worked for McKinsey, and at the age of 29 became the head of the personnel department at Summers (at that time he was already finance minister at Clinton).

Cheryl studied at Harvard before Google, but it helped her see the economic potential of Internet technologies. Speaking to Harvard graduates last year, Cheryl noted:

“Just recently I was in your place. But during this time the world has changed significantly. The students of my group, group B, have already tried to take online lessons from Harvard. To do this, we used the AOL chat room and the remote access service (your parents know what it is). We made a list of nicknames, because we could not even think that it would be possible to indicate our real name on the Internet. But the system worked tight. She was constantly breaking ... then it was still impossible to connect ninety people. But we still dreamed of those times when it would be possible at any time to see colleagues, relatives, friends online. ”