Founders from United States.

Turned a $1,000 loan into a New York real-estate firm sold for $66 million

Left Cisco to found Zoom and built a video-conferencing giant that IPO'd in 2019

Built a global cosmetics empire from a kitchen and invented gift-with-purchase

Bought a 6-store Seattle roaster and built the world's largest coffeehouse chain

Built Amazon from an online bookstore into a trillion-dollar everything store

Co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and grew it into a trillion-dollar AI chip leader

Built one of America's first great Black-owned enterprises from a homemade hair remedy

Ecuadorian immigrant who built a billion-dollar IT staffing company

Turned a talk show into Harpo and became America's first Black woman billionaire

Turned one California burger stand into the world's largest fast-food franchise

Led the $985M buyout of Beatrice International, the first Black-owned billion-dollar business

Bootstrapped Spanx from $5,000 in savings to a self-made billion-dollar brand

Co-founded Apple in a garage and rebuilt it into the world's most valuable brand