World Billionaires Who Grew Up Very Poor And Wretched

While most billionaires where already from a very humble background and born with a silver spoon, most of them are not so favored growing up -- They never inherited properties from no body and never banked on anybodies wealth -- Every dime they have today was strictly made from scratch, from personal development and determination. Most of them even grew up finding it hard to to feed, cloth and shelter.

Below are world billionaires that grew up poor and today, they are basking in wealth.

Oprah Winfrey

Family wealth isn’t the secret to this billionaire and media maven’s unparalleled success. Now worth an estimated $3.1 billion, according to Forbes, Oprah Winfrey was born to a teenage single mother in Mississippi. In an interview with Barbara Walters, she talked about not having running water or electricity growing up.
By focusing on school, participating in beauty pageants and then working at a radio station, Winfrey was able to enter the media world.

Howard Schultz

Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz helped Starbucks become the company it is today — a giant coffee retailer with 23,000 retail stores in 73 countries and a market value of about $85 billion, according to Forbes. However, this successful businessman, who boasts a net worth of $2.9 billion, wasn’t born into wealth.

Ralph Lauren

Known for its polo shirts and high-end ties, the Ralph Lauren fashion brand is easily recognizable. But did you know that there was a time when the iconic fashion designer couldn’t even afford clothes?

“As a kid, I was always into clothes, but I didn’t have the money to buy them,” Lauren told fellow billionaire Oprah Winfrey in a 2002 interview. “When I’d get my brothers’ hand-me-downs, there was an energy in me that made me say, ‘I want to get my own things, to make my own statement.’ Somewhere along the line, that energy — coupled with my exposure, through movies, to a world I hadn’t known — turned into something.”

That “something” is now a fashion brand with a market value of nearly $8 billion, according to Forbes. As for Lauren, he’s worth a cool $5.9 billion and is considered one of the richest fashion icons.

Larry Ellison

Oracle founder and former CEO Larry Ellison was born in New York City but grew up in a lower-middle-class community on the South Side of Chicago.

“I’ll never complain again about living in a bad neighborhood, after moving from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to a still-worse neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago,” said Ellison in an interview posted on the Academy of Achievement website. “After my ninth month, I kept my mouth shut about the neighborhood.”

Although he came from modest beginnings, Ellison is now a multibillionaire worth $61.8 billion. And Oracle has a market value of almost $183 billion, reports Forbes.

Kenneth Langone

Self-made billionaire businessman and investor Kenneth Langone, who helped create Home Depot, had humble beginnings.

In a 2013 interview with OneWire, posted on Business Insider, Langone said he had a “charmed life” as a child — but not because of his material possessions. In fact, his mother was a cafeteria worker. Still, Langone enjoyed unconditional love, which later helped him get over his failures and not let them bring him down.

Today, Langone has a net worth of $3 billion, according to Forbes. And, he’s proud of that fact, he said in an interview for “Street Smart” on Bloomberg.

Sheldon Adelson

He’s the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, the largest casino company in America, but Sheldon Adelson had to earn his $35.2 billion fortune the old-fashioned way. Born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, he grew up in a tough neighborhood of Boston, sharing a one-room tenement with his parents and three siblings.

Alan Gerry

While he has a net worth of $1.4 billion today, Alan Gerry grew up in Liberty, N.Y., during the Depression. A frozen food distributor, Gerry’s father often struggled to feed the family on his salary.

Gerry later dropped out of high school to serve in the Marines during World War II. He used his GI Bill benefits to become trained in television repair and, in 1956, he invested $1,500 to start a cable company in his hometown. Decades later, his business evolved into 64 cable systems in 18 states. He sold the company to Time Warner in 1996 for a reported $2.7 billion — including $900 million in personal profit.

John Paul DeJoria

Founding high-end tequila company Patrón Spirits Co. and haircare company Paul Mitchell Systems turned John Paul DeJoria into a mogul with a net worth of $3.3 billion. In a 2011 interview with Forbes, DeJoria — who was once in foster care — discussed growing up poor in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“We didn’t know that we were really going through tough times, because everybody was going through the same thing,” he said. “I remember once in junior high school, on a Friday, my mom came home from work and said to my brother and I, ‘You know, between us, we have only 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator, we have our little garden out back and we’re happy, so we are rich.’”

A true rags-to-riches story, he was homeless twice before joining forces with Paul Mitchell in 1980 to create the billion-dollar haircare brand. He now uses his fortune to give back, and was even named Variety’s 2017 Philanthropist of the Year.

Harold Hamm

The youngest of 13 kids, Harold Hamm was raised by Oklahoma sharecroppers, who put him to work picking cotton barefoot as a child. The founder, chairman and CEO of oil company Continental Resources now has a net worth of $10.1 billion, but at age 16 he had to take a job at a gas station to support his loved ones.

Despite his family’s financial struggles, in a 2014 interview with Forbes, Hamm revealed that he drew inspiration from fellow Enid, Okla., residents. One was a local potter who spoke to Hamm and his classmates at a school assembly.

“He had this lump of clay that he was slapping like a baby,” Hamm said. “It was clear that he did well because that was his passion, his art, and the message was that all of us could do well if we followed our passion in life.”

J.K. Rowling

In a 2013 interview with the London-based Daily Mail, J.K. Rowling shared her struggles as a single parent, before the Harry Potter books turned her into the world’s highest-paid author.

“I remember 20 years ago not eating so my daughter would eat,” she said. “I remember nights when there was literally no money.”

Those days are long past, as the author earned $95 million between June 2016 and June 2017, according to Forbes. Now a philanthropist, Rowling enjoys giving back so much that an estimated $160 million in charitable giving contributed to her fall from billionaire status in 2012.

Today, Rowling’s fortune is back up to $1 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth.