Nueve casos de emprendedores millonarios

9 Entrepreneur Dropouts Now Worth Millions
KATHERINE MUNIZ, MYBANKTRACKER
Business Insider

Reuters

Most of us are familiar with Mark Zuckerberg’s story — brilliant Harvard student who dropped out sophomore year to create Facebook, a move that changed the face of social media entirely. What a mouthful, right?

However, the dropout entrepreneur archetype didn’t start with Zuckerberg. In fact, many entrepreneurs carry surprisingly limited higher education credentials. Their accomplishments go beyond degrees, and can instead be measured by the global impacts they have made. The visionaries shown in the slideshow are recognized for their million dollar ideas, and had the nerve, talent, and skill, to bring them to life.

All of the entrepreneurs in our list have taken the gutsy and lesser-taken path, forsaking degrees and choosing to bank on their own ideas. However, what was once a risky move has come to be seen as a formula, and some are trying to reproduce similar results by attempting to test out the formula.

In 2012, billionaire and venture capitalist Peter Thiel funded 20 promising young talents, paying them each $100,000 to drop out of college for at least two years to become a “Thiel Fellow.” So is success really as easy as giving bright minds the money to fuel their ambition? The verdict is still out on that one.

In the meantime, check out the wildly successful entrepreneur dropouts that struck gold.

Rob Kalin, Founder of Etsy

Flickr

At the age of 25, Rob Kalin was a high-school dropout-turned-furniture designer just hoping to make a living selling his goods online. After hours of surfing the net, Kalin had an epiphany. He envisioned a community marketplace in which artisans could sell their wares and people could purchase handcrafted items online directly. With the help of two techies and $50,000 investor, Etsy went live in 2005, and become a hit immediately.

As of 2010 Etsy was valued at $300 million. Though Kalin stepped down as CEO in 2011, he is still seen today as the visionary of Etsy. Kalin had dabbled in half a dozen colleges before finally graduating from New York University with a major in the classics.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter

Vivian Giang / Business Insider

Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and founder and CEO of Square, a mobile payments company, dropped out of New York University and hopped between jobs before landing at Odeo,the forerunner of Twitter.

In 2008 he was named as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35 by MIT Technology Review.

Last year he was given the "Innovator of the Year Award" for technology by The Wall Street Journal.

Dean Kamen, Inventor of the Segway

Flickr

Inventor of the Segway, Dean Kamen attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute for two years before dropping out.

He now holds more than 80 U.S. patents, and has become famous for his Segway PT, an electric, self-balancing human transporter complete with a computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilization and control system.

He is also an illustrator for many EC Comics publications, including Mad and Weird Science.

In a morbidly ironic twist, 62-year-old millionaire and Segway Inc. owner, Jimi Heselden, died in a Segway-related accident in 2010 when he accidentally drove the electric scooter off a cliff and into a river.

David Karp, Founder of Tumblr

REUTERS/Stephen Chernin

Twenty-seven year old web developer and entrepreneur David Karp created Tumblr, the 9th-most visited site in the United States, in 2007, despite never graduating high school.

Karp had held an interest in tumbleblogs (short-form blogs) for some time, and after a year of waiting for other established blogging platforms to introduce their own tumbleblogging platform, he decided to start one of his own with engineer Marco Ament. Within two weeks of the site's induction, the service had gained 75,000 users.

As of May 20, 2013 Yahoo! announced it was to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion, with Karp remaining as CEO of the company.

Jack Taylor, Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Enterprise Rent-A-Car

American businessman and billionaire Jack Taylor never finished college. As a youth, he enrolled in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in 1940, but left to join the U.S. Navy.

Once the war ended, Taylor returned to St. Louis and started a delivery service company. In 1957, he went on to develop a successful car leasing business at the Lindberg Cadillac dealership.

As the business grew, he changed the name of the company to Enterprise, later to become Enterprise Rent-A-Car, named after the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier he served on in World War II.

By 1995 the company had reached $2 billion in revenues. His son currently serves as the CEO and chairman.

Jerry Yang | Co-founder of Yahoo! Inc.

Yahoo! via flickr

Jerry Yang is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo.

Jerry Yang, billionaire co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! left his Stanford University PhD program to create Yahoo!.

Yang moved from Taipei, Taiwan at the age of ten to San Jose, California with his mother and brother. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science, as well as a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

While Yang studied electrical engineering at Stanford, he teamed up with friend David Filo to create an Internet website called "Jerry and Dave's Guide to the World Wide Web", which consisted of a directory of other sites. It was later renamed Yahoo!. When the site exploded, Yang and Filo realized the business' potential and both postponed their doctoral programs.

Matt Mullenweg, Founder of Wordpress

Automattic

Matt Mullenweg creator of WordPress, cofounder Automattic

Matt Mullenweg, an online social media entrepreneur and web developer, developed the free and open-source software WordPress, which currently powers 16 percent of the web.

Mullenweg dropped out of the University of Houston in 2004, a safe move given that he had already begun developing the beginnings of WordPress by age 20, and was being fielded with job offers from tech companies.

While he left to work for CNET in San Francisco, he left to found Automattic, the company responsible for WordPress. Wordpress gets 140 million visits a year, and all of Automattic's sites are visited by nearly half a billion visitors.

Arash Ferdowsi, Co-Founder of DropBox

gaborcselle via flickr

Arash Ferdowsi, an Iranian-American entrepreneur, dropped out in his last year of school at MIT to focus on his business, Dropbox.

Estimated as having a net worth of $400 million, 26-year old Ferdowsi is the CTO and co-founder of Dropbox. Ferdowsi and partner Drew Houston began Dropbox as a simple college project, which they later realized had big potential.

Dropbox gained 45 million users in under four years as a free service that allows access to your photos, docs, and videos anywhere, as well as being able to share them easily. The service advertises never having to email yourself a file again. Brilliant, but simple.

Daniel Ek, Founder of Spotify

Twenty-nine year old Swedish entrepreneur Daniel Ek founded the popular music streaming service, Spotify, in 2008. Never having graduated college, he enrolled at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology but did not complete his degree.

The company is rumored to be worth $4 billion, with Ek's net worth being estimated at $310 million.

Ek created his first company when he was 14 years old in 1997. In the past he's served as CEO for Bit Torrent giant, µTorrent, which he then followed by collaborating with the co-founder of Trade Double, Martin Lorentzon, to build Spotify.

Business Insider 

Read more »

Gran Hermano en Londres usa smartphones

(Updated) London's bins are tracking your smartphone

Smartbins use devices' Wi-Fi connections to log their MAC address and track customer habits
(See bottom of the story for a response from the City of London Corporation)

London’s ‘smart bins’ are tracking passerbys by identifying their smartphones’ wi-fi connections. First reported by Siraj Datoo for Quartz, the scheme is currently being trialled around Cheapside, with the intention is sell this information to brands to create targeted advertisements. However, with the technology in its infancy there are still unanswered questions over the legality of the scheme.


Renew, the startup that build and sell the pod-like recycling bins, installed the bins in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics . They currently have 200 units spread across the City of London equipped with wi-fi and LCD screens. Advertisers then buy time on the screens, with local councils and charities receiving “up to a third” of the screentime.

With each unit costing £30,000 to build and install and costing around half a million in maintenance costs over Renew’s 21-year contact, the bins are no small investment. However, these expenses are balanced out by the quality of the advertising space.

Broadcasting to ‘affluent AB professionals’ almost without competition, the bins can even offer live-updates to the displayed content. The decision to track individuals and offer targeted advertisement is a logical progression for the company.

An illustration of how the technology works, identifying the phone's manufacturer and MAC address. Credit: Renew

The ‘Renew ORB’ technology looks for smartphones with their wifi turned on and logs their MAC address - a string of numbers unique to each device. From this it can calculate the “proximity, speed, duration and manufacturer” of each smartphone. Over the course of a week Renew reports that “4,009,676 devices captured with over 530,000 uniques acquired.”

The graph below shows the number of smartphones identified each day with repeated triple dips representing increases in foot traffic during morning, lunch and evening. Renew say that the data could allow them to track which stores individuals visit, how long they stay there (“linger time”) and how loyal customers are to particular shops.

A graph showing a week's worth of data collected by the new technology. Credit: Renew

The scope for new advertising methods offered by this data is remarkable. For example, If Costa Coffee knows that the iPhone with MAC address A8-23-RR-XX usually stops in around 8 in the morning for a coffee and a croissant (don't forget, this technology could be extended into the stores themselves) is now heading to Pret for a morning pick-me-up, then they might pay to flash an advert on a relevant bin just as the A8-23-RR-XX is appraoching, reminding him of a loyalty scheme or a special offer.

This particular scenario may be overly elaborate, but the core concept of what this data could mean to companies is not unusual. This sort of tracking happens on the internet all the time, and similar technology is already used in the US in malls.

However, Renew are currently facing accusations that their scheme is violating individuals’ privacy and perhaps even UK law. Speaking to The Independent Renew CEO Kaveh Memari was keen to defend the technology: “The gist of it is that we are collecting anonymised, aggregated MAC details. We’re not really collecting a personal piece of data: we don’t know who anyone is.”



(Above: a map of Renew's bin locations)

“This is just testing to see if the technology works. It’s been used before in indoor environments but not outdoors before. In fact, it’s actively used in a lot places and people don’t even know it.”

Whilst the collection of anonymised MAC numbers is legal, the UK and the EU have clear laws regarding cookies – tiny individual databases created by companies to track how individuals use their websites. As EU Directive 2009/136/EC states:

“Member States shall ensure that the storing of information […] in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his or her consent.”

Essentially this means that websites that store cookies, that tracks users’ habits, have to tell people they’re doing so. The problem then is the grey area as to whether the information collected by Renew is the same as a cookie. It doesn’t help that the motto of Presence Orb, the company that provides the technology to track the smartphones, is ‘a cookie for the real world’.

Memari doesn’t think that the two are the same, stressing that the information collected by the trial schemes has essentially been a “people counter”. All the extrapolations from this data - about shopping habits and brand loyalty - would be processed by the brands.

One of Renew's bins displaying tube information. Credit: Renew

“The data would be sold to advertisers in a raw form,” says Memari, “and then it would be their responsibility. Anonymised MAC addresses aren’t personal data but once you start enriching it - which we are not planning to do – that’s when you get into interesting [legal] areas.”

So far, this seems to be the consensus but there are still many unknowns. The Information Commissioner’s Office (the UK’s independent authority on information rights) have refused to comment until more details on the technology are known, and Renew too hope that they can establish themselves more firmly in the debate.

“We very much want to be involved in the privacy issue and be at the forefront because we know this is an area that isn’t well regulated,” says Memari. “We’re one of the first movers here, it’s all new.”

Update: The City of London Corporation has release the following statement regarding the bins:

“We have already asked the firm concerned to stop this data collection immediately. We have also taken the issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Irrespective of what’s technically possible, anything that happens like this on the streets needs to be done carefully, with the backing of an informed public.”

The Independent

Read more »

Las nuevas tecnologías y los discapacitados: Google Glass y una silla de ruedas

Esta historia de una mujer en silla de ruedas usando Google Glass le hará brotar lágrimas
JULIE BORT


Alex Blaszczuk

Se habla mucho de historias de personas que utilizan Google Glass, a veces por razones increíbles y algunas veces hasta el horror de sus amigos y sus compañeros de trabajo. Pero aquí está uno que realmente muestra cómo el dispositivo puede ayudar a alguien.

Alex Blaszczuk posee Glass como parte del programa Explorer de Google, en el que Google le permitió a unas 8.000 personas comprar el dispositivo de 1.500 dólares cada uno.

Blaszczuk es un estudiante de derecho cuya vida cambió en el otoño de 2011. Ella estaba en su camino a un viaje de campamento cuando un accidente automovilístico la dejó paralizada desde el pecho hacia abajo, incapaz de usar sus manos.

El mes pasado, Alex finalmente llegó camping, ayudado en gran parte por la confianza que recuperó mediante el uso de vidrio.

Ella compartió su historia y el vídeo del viaje realizado con vidrio. (En serio, después de ver esto, tenemos lágrimas en los ojos.) Felicidades a Blaszczuk!



Business Insider

Read more »

Estudio del Comercio Electrónico en Argentina 2012

Resumen ejecutivo Estudio Comercio Electrónico 2012 from Cámara Argentina de Comercio Electrónico

Read more »

44% de aumento en el eCommerce argentino

Argentina, uno de los países con mayor crecimiento en el comercio electrónico



El país sudamericano experimentó un crecimiento del 44% durante el año pasado. Cifra que supera con creces al esperado y lo convierte en uno de los países con mayores expectativas con respecto al e-commerce de cara al futuro.







“Si bien estas cifras continúan siendo alentadoras, seguimos teniendo por delante el enorme desafío de seguir trabajando de manera conjunta con el gobierno, las empresas, cámaras empresarias y la comunidad académica para potenciar aún más el comercio electrónico en Argentina y convertirlo en el más competitivo de la región” afirmaba Patricia Jebsen, Presidenta de la Cámara Argentina de Comercio Electrónico (CACE).



La CACE ha presentado recientemente los resultados de su último informe sobre el e-commerce en Argentina. Estos datos han aportado mucha esperanza sobre el futuro del comercio electrónico en este país:



Durante los 4 últimos años el e-commerce se ha disparado en este país, llegando a culminar en 2012 con un crecimiento del 44%, cifra que se espera superar durante este año (las expectativas para 2013 son de un trepidante crecimiento del 48%)



Podéis ver el informe completo aquí: Estudio de Comercio Electrónico Argentina 2012

MathMen

Read more »

El valor económico del Software de Fuente Libre

Economic value of open source from Carlo Daffara

Read more »

Teclas populares en cualquier teclado

These Are The Three Most Popular Keys On A Keyboard

JAY YAROW

Pop quiz: What are the three most popular keys on a computer's keyboard?

Microsoft's Senior Product Marketing Manger for Hardware Suneel Goud was at our office showing us some of the company's ergonomic keyboards. 

While doing the demo, he told us the three most popular keys. 

The third most popular is... the "backspace" key. 

The second most popular is... the letter "e".

The number one most popular is... the space bar.

Another fun fact from Goud: 90% of people only use nine fingers when typing — they don't use their left thumb, because they use their right thumb to hammer the space bar.

Microsoft built a keyboard with a split space bar. The left space bar can be converted into a backspace button so people can hit the third most popular key with their unused left thumb. 

Business Insider: 

Read more »

Espionaje: El FBI se aterroriza de los hackers y los contrata

The FBI Is Terrified Of Hackers, And It Employs Them

GEOFFREY INGERSOLL 

Getty Images/Andrew Burton

The FBI is terrified of hackers, so it avoids them at all costs, unless of course the agency needs to buy some nifty cyber surveillance tools.

Intel agents have been buying sophisticated "hacking" surveillance tools from mercenary hacker organizations in order to surveill American citizens, and sometimes their ideas are not always legal, reports Jennifer Valentino-Devries and Danny Yadron of the WSJ.

From WSJ:

[Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union], who is presenting on the topic Friday at the DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas, said information about the practice is slipping out as a small industry has emerged to sell hacking tools to law enforcement. He has found posts and resumes on social networks in which people discuss their work at private companies helping the FBI with surveillance.

The FBI employs a number of hackers who write custom surveillance software, and also buys software from the private sector, former U.S. officials said.

As we've covered a few times, mercenary hackers and hacking firms have sprung up around the globe. They sell zero-day exploits — computer hacks that no one has identified publicly yet — to private companies and now even government agencies.

The WSJ even mentions an Italy-based company of the sort. Internet dissident and cyber-minded journalist Barret Brown referred to the partnerships as the "cyber industrial complex."

In a recent interview, Professor Peter Ludlow, an Internet culture expert and professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, told Business Insider that the companies subsidizing this type of cyber surveillance are fueling the cyber arms race in potentially disastrous ways.

Once a zero-day exploit is "out in the wild," he said, "it's like a virus, other hackers can 'mutate'" — study, copy, or alter it and it could come back on the creator.

"The whole internet has become Beirut, or Afghanistan, the whole thing is a war zone, basically being fueled by nation states giving money to people who develop these kinds of exploits," said Ludlow.

Since zero-days are getting so expensive, and potentially invasive and questionable surveillance activities are all the rage lately, the WSJ reports that the FBI "is loath to use these tools when investigating hackers, out of fear the suspect will discover and publicize the technique."

They point out that a Texas judge recently ruled against FBI software used to"extract files and covertly take photos using a computer's camera" because he was worried that "innocent people" might become targets for surveillance.

Business Insider 

Read more »

Tendencias económicas y empresariales que cambian el Mundo

Economic and Business Trends Changing the World (Updated) from Kyle Lacy

Read more »

Un segmento atado al eCommerce

Los “Millennials” y la mina de oro del e-commerce
MathMen

Un reciente estudio de la agencia DDB Worldwide ha evidenciado que las personas nacidas entre los años 1980 y 2000 (la llamada “Generación Millennial”) son los que más tienden a comprar por Internet.

Concretamente, entre un 33% (en el caso de las mujeres) y un 40% (en el caso de los hombres) se encuentra el porcentaje de estos jóvenes compradores, muy lejos de otros rangos de edad que pueden llegar a poseer la mitad de probabilidades de realizar transacciones online.

Como vemos, la llamada “Generación Millennial” es el público ideal para cualquier vendedor moderno, especialmente en el entorno virtual. El 55% de estos jóvenes dedican una hora o más en sus compras, por lo que no parecen dejarse llevar por sus primeros impulsos.

En cuanto a los productos más demandados: los cosméticos, zapatos y equipamiento deportivo se llevan los primeros premios del ranking.

eMarketer

Read more »