Abraham Lincoln, Former U.S. President

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), the sixteenth President of the United States, successfully led his country through its greatest crisis, the Civil War, only to be assassinated less than a month after the war's end. Before his election as President, Lincoln was a lawyer, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Senate. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. During his term, he helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.

Lincoln closely supervised the victorious war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. Historians have concluded that he handled the factions of the Republican Party well, bringing leaders of each faction into his cabinet and forcing them to cooperate. Lincoln successfully defused a war scare with the United Kingdom in 1861. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war. Additionally, he managed his own reelection in the 1864 presidential election.

People will criticize your ideas. Stand strong for what you believe in:
Opponents of the war (also known as "Copperheads") criticized him for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans, an abolitionist faction of the Republican Party, criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery. Even with these road blocks, Lincoln successfully rallied public opinion through his rhetoric and speeches; his Gettysburg Address is but one example of this. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation. His assassination in 1865 was the first presidential assassination in U.S. history and made him a martyr for the ideal of national unity.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Abraham Lincoln's "Failures" and "Successes"
Abe Lincoln became one of the greatest success stories in history, here are the things he had to overcome to get there:

• Lost job
• Defeated for state legislature
• Failed in business
• Sweetheart died
  
• Had nervous breakdown
• Defeated for Speaker
• Defeated for nomination for Congress
• Lost renomination
• Rejected for land officer
• Defeated for U.S. Senate
• Defeated for nomination for Vice President
• Again defeated for U.S. Senate

In the 56 years (1809 - 1865) of his life, Abraham Lincoln had many failures and successes along the way. How many people do you know that could overcome the losses and failures that he has and still become one of the greatest success stories in history?

Timothy Ferriss, American Author and Speaker

Timothy Ferriss (b. 1977) is an American author, public speaker, and "productivity guru." In 2007, he published The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich which was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller.

Ferriss is known for his application of the Pareto Principle to business and personal life. He has also taken the position that technology such as email, instant messaging and internet-enabled pda's complicate life rather than simplify it. His teachings fit under the umbrella of what he calls "lifestyle design" which he positions as an alternative to the "deferred-life" career path where one would work a 9 to 5 job until retirement in their 60's. This involves breaking what he calls "outdated assumptions" and finding ways to be more efficient so that 'work' takes up less of people's time.

Ferriss delivered guest lectures on High-Tech Entrepreneurship and Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, where he is also a graduate.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Timothy Ferris on Compounding Time:
I met David Kutoff in Omaha at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting, and he asked me an interesting question:

Do you think that the value of time can compound like interest?

Three glasses of wine into a post-event party with Cirque du Soleil performers, I didn’t have a good answer, but David recently sent me a thought-provoking e-mail I thought I’d share.

How might better use of your time compound? David explores:

Bear with me, this is somewhat rough at the moment — my initial quandary was whether time, like currency, could be invested to produce a compounding effect. After a bit of thought, my conclusion is that the value of ones time could experience a significant gain, and perhaps a compounding effect over time, given an investment of [that present-state] time in knowledge, skill or other capacity, and a reinvestment of future gains (just like currency).

Money and currency — accumulated excess money — represent one part of your capacity to transact in the marketplace, and can be exchanged for help from others in the form of products or services, including “things” like consumables, depreciable and appreciable assets. Similarly every action you take, whether it be transaction-related or not, requires the expenditure of some amount of time, which is roughly fixed for all of us (say 10,000 working days between the ages of 22 and 62).

Much like currency can be exchanged for appreciable assets that can grow with a compounding effect over time if the gains are re-invested, my theory is that time can be thought about in a similar way, which may lead to more effective action.

To put this in terms of your thinking from your book, lets say you work 40 hours per week simply performing tasks requested by your employer, none of which produce any additional future potential for generating income for yourself.

Think of your time as compounding, and continually reinvest it:
This is the equivalent of spending your money on consumables or living expenses. It’s single use, and gives you no real future gain, aside from whatever currency you might earn in the moment. Now, you decide to outsource 50% of your tasks to India, producing the same outcomes with 50% of your time. You just doubled the value of your time compared to before (less the additional expense for the help). Now, with that free time, you get more rigorous about working out, studying, and building your networks. You increase your energy, skill, and capacity working with others and manage to produce yet the same results that were taking 50% of your time with only 30%. If you keep reinvesting some of your time in additional gains in your capacity to act, you can theoretically have a compounding effect with the value of your time (rather than time itself). Just like investing currency, the earlier you start this process, and continue to invest in your capacity, the more time your capacity has to compound, and the greater outcomes you can produce during your lifetime.

Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the U.S.

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1706] – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and a musical instrument. He formed both the first public lending library in America and first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity and as a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation and as a diplomat during the American Revolution, he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence possible.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Franklin learned printing from his older brother and became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia, becoming very wealthy, writing and publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was interested in science and technology, and gained international renown for his famous experiments. He played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and Franklin & Marshall College and was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society. Franklin became a national hero in America when he spearheaded the effort to have Parliament repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. From 1775 to 1776, Franklin was Postmaster General under the Continental Congress and from 1785 to 1788 was President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of his life, he became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

Franklin's colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, has seen Franklin honored on coinage and money; warships; the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, namesakes, and companies; and more than two centuries after his death, countless cultural references.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Benjamin Franklin has offered a lot a great advice on many differing topics over his lifetime and can be learned from. Below are excerpts from Money Advice from Benjamin Franklin, the website details 78 pieces of gathered advice from this very successful man. The top 10 in each section are listed below.

Motivation and Utility:

1. Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise
2. Diligence is the mother of good luck
3. God helps them that help themselves
4. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright
5. Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of
6. Lost time is never found again
7. He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night
8. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee
9. Industry need not wish
10. He that lives upon hope will die fasting

Lessons learned from his words:

• Do your research
• Staying busy will tire you less than simply sitting around
• Do not waste time, every second is precious and cannot be taken back
  
• If you start sometime late, you must work harder than the next guy to win
  
• Be in control your life, don't let your life control you

Edward Lampert, American Investor

Edward S. "Eddie" Lampert (born July 19, 1962) is an American investor, financier and businessman.

He is the chairman of Sears Holdings Corporation(SHLD) and founder, chairman, and CEO of ESL Investments. Until May, 2007 he was a director of AutoNation, Inc. He previously served as a director of AutoZone, Inc. from 1999 to 2006.

Lampert graduated from Yale University in 1984 (B.A., economics, summa cum laude), where he was a member of Skull and Bones and Phi Beta Kappa. He was an intern at Goldman Sachs in July 1984, and worked in the firm's risk arbitrage department from March 1985 to February 1988. He worked directly with Robert Rubin; when Lampert decided to go out on his own, Rubin warned it was a bad career decision.

He left the bank to form ESL Investments, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, in April 1988. The name ESL derives from Lampert's initials. Richard Rainwater, whom he had met on Nantucket Island, gave him $28 million in seed money and introduced him to clients, such as Geffen. In 2003, he was kidnapped from the parking lot of his office, but Lampert convinced his captors to let him go after two days.

Lampert's investment style can best be described as "concentrated value", often focusing on the retail sector. He has produced annual returns of 30% since forming his fund. Lampert typically holds his investments for several years and usually has between three and fifteen stocks. His investment style has drawn comparisons to the financier Warren Buffett. He has, in large part, been credited for forming and merging Kmart and Sears into Sears Holdings.

His earnings in 2004 were estimated to be $1.02 billion USD, making Lampert the first Wall Street financial manager to exceed an income of $1 billion in a single year. In 2006, Lampert was the richest person in Connecticut with a net worth of $3.8 billion. As of 2007, he retained that rank, with a net worth totaling $4.5 billion.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Achieve your full potential, even if people question you:
“Like Eli Manning, we know what it’s like to be underestimated and questioned, but we intend to keep working on our game to achieve our full potential,” - Eddie Lampert

Bill Davidson, American Entrepreneur

William Morse Davidson, J.D. (born December 5, 1923 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American entrepreneur and professional sports owner and a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

He is the chairman of Guardian Industries Corp., one of the world's largest manufacturers of architectural and automotive glass. He is also the chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, principal owner of the Detroit Pistons of the NBA, the Detroit Shock of the WNBA, and the owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL. His Pistons won the 1989, 1990, and 2004 NBA Finals; his Shock won the 2003 & 2006 WNBA Finals; his Lightning won the 2004 Stanley Cup, making him the only owner in professional sports history whose teams have won an NBA Championship and a Stanley Cup in the same year. His combined business ventures have led him to an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion.

Source: Wikipedia.org

William Davidson's Profile
Hire Competent Managers and Place the Responsibility on Them:
The Pistons' majority owner likes success and has known it in his business interests. That's why now, the success of the Detroit Pistons comes as no surprise to those who are aware of Davidson's ability to manage people. His secret is simple: Hire competent managers and place the responsibility on them.

Pistons owner Bill Davidson gets Hall call
Allow Good Managers to Do Their Jobs Without Interfering:
However, Dumars was quick to praise Davidson for his leadership and vision.
"He allows me to go out and do my job," Dumars said at the time. "Without him, this wouldn't be possible."

Alan Greenspan, American Economist

Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926 in New York City) is an American economist and from 1987 to 2006 chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve of the United States. He currently works as a private advisor, making speeches and providing consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC.

First appointed Fed chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring after a record-setting tenure on January 31, 2006, at which time he relinquished the chairmanship to Ben Bernanke. Greenspan was lauded for his handling of the Black Monday stock market crash that occurred very shortly after he first became chairman, as well as for his stewardship of the Internet-driven, "dot-com" economic boom of the 1990s. This expansion culminated in a stock market bubble burst in March 2000 followed by a recession beginning in late 2000 and continuing through 2002.

From 2001 until his retirement from the Fed, he was increasingly criticized for some statements seen as overstepping the Fed's traditional purview of monetary policy, and viewed by others as overly supportive of the policies of President George W. Bush, as well as for policies seen by Business Week Magazine and others as leading to a housing bubble. During his tenure Greenspan was considered to be the leading authority on American domestic economic and monetary policy, and his active influence continues to this day.

Quotes:
Success Quotes

I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.

• Use honesty and help others to get better and in the end you all will be happier. I wonder how some people sleep at night when they consciously take advantage of others through dishonesty and other practices.

To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education--literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills.

• Build from the ground up. You have to start somewhere and you mind as well start now. Study hard and better your communication skills.

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.

• Be proud of what you have accomplished. Look back at what you have done but don't forget to also look into the future. Reflect on all of the challenges you have overcome and remember that you made it without hurting others.

Rose Blumkin, Nebraska Furniture Mart

A great, influential story of Rose Blumkin of Nebraska Furniture Mart who was an immigrant from Russia without a formal education. Here is her story with success traits.

Warren Buffett makes no secret of his belief that a good business needs a good manager and, when he buys businesses, prefers to leave management in place, if they are good and know what they are doing.

There can be no better example of this strategy than the Nebraska Furniture Mart founded by the incredible Rose Blumkin.

Rose Blumkin was born in Minsk, Russia in 1893, one of eight children of an impoverished Rabbi, and worked from the age of six in her mother’s small general store. Rose did not go to school but learned arithmetic from a family friend.

When Rose was old enough for outside employment, she got a job in a local haberdashery and was soon running the show. Soon after, she married, and with her husband migrated to America, her husband going ahead before her, and Rose making her way alone via the Trans Siberian Railway, apparently without a passport. The Blumkins made their way to Nebraska where Rose, to augment the family income, sold second hand furniture from her home.

Things must have gone well enough for Rose because in 1937, she borrowed $500 and opened the Nebraska Furniture Mart in a basement shop in Omaha, under the motto that she was to make famous:

Be sincere:
‘Sell cheap and tell the truth’.

Use other options if something doesn't work:
Rose Blumkin had problems in getting the big furniture wholesalers to stock her, but she outsmarted them by buying excess stock from other out of state retailers at reduced prices and selling them to her Omaha customers at low profit margins. This set the scene for the business practice that was to make her famous; buy in bulk, run a tight ship and pass on any cost savings to the customers. She generally worked on no higher than a 10 per cent mark up.

The Furniture Mart grew bigger and bigger, with Mrs B, as Buffett used to call her, working long hours every day and getting her family to do the same. Rose Blumkin’s furniture shop became a Nebraska legend. The original 3000 square feet shop now occupies 75 acres.

Warren Buffett, as a local resident, knew about the store and the wonderful business that Mrs B had established and made several attempts to buy her out, but could not come up with a price that was acceptable.

Finally, according to Roger Lowenstein in Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Buffett walked into the store one day, approached Rose Blumkin, and asked her if she wanted to sell and, if so, to name her price. Mrs B said she was a seller at 60 million dollars and Buffett accepted immediately. He insisted apparently, on Rose and her sons, by then helping her to run the business, retaining a minority shareholding and keeping on managing.

Buffett knew from previous enquiries that the business was grossing about 15 million dollars a year in profits, but seemed to have done little additional checking, settling the deal within a few days, without audits or due diligence. He knew a good deal when he saw it, and, as he was later to say, he trusted her integrity.

After the deal was done, Rose Blumkin is alleged to have told Warren that they were now going to ‘put our competitors through a meat grinder’. That would not have been news to the various businesses that had tried to compete with Mrs B over the years and who had already been minced.

In his 1984 Letter to Shareholders, Warren Buffett said this, reflecting his own investment principles:

Be enthusiastic, and realize and remain in your area of special competence:
‘I have been asked by a number of people what secrets the Blumkins bring to their business. These are not very esoteric. All members of the family:

1. Apply themselves with an enthusiasm that would make Ben Franklin and Horatio Alger look like dropouts;

2. Define with extraordinary realism their area of special competence and act decisively on all matters within it;

3. Ignore even the most enticing propositions falling outside of that area of special competence; and

4. Unfailingly behave in a high grade manner with everyone they deal with. (Mrs B boils it down to "sell cheap and tell the truth".’ (paragraphing modified).

Never give up:
Mrs B kept at it but apparently became a bit irascible as she grew older. In 1959, then over 90 years old, she had a falling out with family members who were then running the store and left in high dudgeon. So what did she do? She opened up a competing store, specializing in carpets, not far from the Nebraska Furniture Mart, calling it ‘Mrs B’s Warehouse’. She did pretty well, apparently causing a dent in the Furniture Mart’s carpet sales.

Several years later, she reconciled with family members, sold the carpet business to Berkshire Hathaway for $5,000,000 and went back to work at the Furniture Mart, turning up, of course, seven days a week.

Rose Blumkin died in 1998, aged 104. A business legend.

Source: Buffettsecrets.com

Quotes from Mario Andretti

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek." Mario Andretti

Mario Gabriele Andretti (born February 28, 1940 in Montona d'Istria, Italy, now Motovun, Croatia) is an Italian American racecar driver, and one of the most successful Americans in the history of auto racing.

He has competed and won in many different types of auto racing, including stock cars, midget cars, sprint cars, IndyCars, drag racing cars, sports cars, and Formula One cars. During his career, Andretti won four IndyCar titles, the 1978 Formula One World Championship, and IROC VI (the 1978 - 1979 IROC). To date, he remains the only driver ever to win the Indianapolis 500 (1969), the Daytona 500 (1967), and the Formula One World Championship, and, along with Juan Pablo Montoya, the only driver to have won a race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Formula One, and an Indianapolis 500. No American has won a Formula One race since Andretti at the 1978 Dutch Grand Prix. Andretti had 109 career wins on major circuits.

Andretti had a long career in racing. He was the only person to be named United States Driver of the Year in three decades (1967, 1978, and 1984). He was also one of only three drivers to win races on road courses, paved ovals, and dirt tracks in one season, a feat that he accomplished four times. At his final IndyCar win in April 1993, Andretti became the first driver to win IndyCar races in four decades and the first to win races in five decades.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Richard Branson - English Entrepreneur, Virgin Brand

"Above all, you want to create something you are proud of.... That has always been my philosophy of business. I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off doing nothing." - Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies. Branson's first successful business venture was at age 15, when he published a magazine called Student. He then set up a record mail-order business in 1970. In 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores and rebranded as zavvi in late 2007. With his flamboyant and competitive style, Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s - as he set up Virgin Atlantic Airways and expanded the Virgin Records music label. Richard Branson is the 236th richest person according to Forbes' 2008 list of billionaires as he has an estimated net worth of approximately $7.9 billion USD.

Source: Wikipedia.com

Create Something Ground-Breaking. Assemble Good Teams:
"To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running, and if you have a good team around you and more than a fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But you certainly can't guarantee it just by following someone else's formula."

Have Integrity:
"All you have in life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name, then you'll never be happy. The thought will always lurk at the back of your mind that people don't trust you. I had never really focused on what a good name meant before, but that night in prison made me understand."

Richard Branson's 10 Secrets to Success:
1. Challenge the big ones.
2. Keep it casual.
3. Haggle: everything is negotiable.
4. Have fun working.
5. Do the right things for the brand.
6. Smile for the cameras!
7. Don't lead "sheep" - herd "cats".
8. Move like a bullet.
9. Size does matter.
10. Be a common, regular person

Richard Branson Success Story
Sir Richard's first successful business was at age 16, when he dropped out of secondary school and moved to London to set up a magazine called Student. His next business, a record mail-order company, led to his big break: a chain of record stores called Virgin Megastores, now with over 100 stores worldwide.

Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s when he set up Virgin Atlantic Airways. Other brands that have followed since include Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Finance, Virgin Brides, Virgin Cinema and over a hundred others.

Don't Let Failures Get You Down:
Not all of Sir Richard’s ventures have been a success: Virgin Trains damaged the company’s reputation, as they inherited many of the problems left over from British Rail. He also had to sell Virgin Records in 1992 to keep his airline alive: a move he regretted, resulting in the launch of V2 Records a few years later.

Other interesting facts about Sir Richard:

- Virgin Galactic plans to make flights to outer space available to the public with tickets priced at US$200,000.
- His company is called Virgin, because Sir Richard and the other co-founders were all “virgins to business”
- He owns Necker Island, a 74-acre island in the British Virgin Islands.
- He has been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts for oceans crossings by both boat and hot air balloon.
- He had a reality TV show called The Rebel Billionaire
- The Simpson's have based a character on Sir Richard
- He was knighted in 1999 for "services to entrepreneurship"
- Sir Richard appears at No. 85 on the 2002 BBC list of "100 Greatest Britons"
- Sir Richard was ranked in 2007's Time Magazine Top 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page - Founders of Google

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy, and positive employee relations have been important tenets during Google's growth, the latter resulting in being identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work. The company's unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil", however Google is not without controversy related to its business practices; there are concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, censorship, and discontinuation of services.

Be Innovative:
Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.

Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally, the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost US$1.1 million, including a US$100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

In March 1999, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003. The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for US$319 million.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability. In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at US$.05 per click. This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing). While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

Source: Wikipedia.org

How Google Became Great
Don't Be Too Complacent:
[Brin sees the success of Google in broad terms. “To me, this is about preserving history and making it available to everyone,” he says. Meanwhile, Page refuses to stop and reflect, claiming that the work is never done. “In a couple of years, I may be blown away by it, but now I’m just involved and worry about it,” he says. “I don’t want to be too complacent.”]

Complacent: pleased, esp. with oneself or one's merits, advantages, situation, etc., often without awareness of some potential danger or defect; self-satisfied

Source: Dictionary.com

John D. Rockefeller - American Industrialist and Philanthropist

John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (July 8, 1839 –May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it until he retired in the late 1890s. Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness. Rockefeller kept his stock and as gasoline grew in importance, his wealth soared and he became the world's richest man and first U.S. dollar billionaire, and is often regarded as the richest person in history. Standard Oil was convicted in Federal Court of monopolistic practices and broken up in 1911. Rockefeller spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered the development of medical research, and were instrumental in the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever. He is also the founder of both University of Chicago and Rockefeller University . He was a devoted Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions throughout his life. Rockefeller adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life.

He married Laura Celestia ("Cettie") Spelman in 1864 and outlived her. The Rockefellers had four daughters and one son; John D. Rockefeller, Jr. "Junior" was largely entrusted with the supervision of the foundations.

Source: Wikipedia.com

Here are the Success Traits:

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER Biography
Organize, Create Systems and Order, and Hire the Right People:
[From the start Rockefeller showed a genius for organization and method. The firm prospered during the Civil War (1861–65), when Confederate (Southern) forces clashed with those of the Union (North). With the Pennsylvania oil strike (1859) and the building of a railroad to Cleveland, they branched out into oil refining (purifying) with Samuel Andrews, who had technical knowledge of the field. Within two years Rockefeller became senior partner; Clark was bought out, and the firm Rockefeller and Andrews became Cleveland's largest refinery.]

Work Hard with Focus at Something You Are Passionate About:
[Rockefeller's personal life was fairly simple. He was a man of few passions who lived for his work, and his great talent was his organizing genius and drive for order, pursued with great single-mindedness and concentration. His life was absorbed by business and family (wife Laura and four children), and later by organized giving. He created order, efficiency, and planning with extraordinary success and sweeping vision.]

Put Your Soul Into It
Be Energetic, Ambitious, and Generous:
[ Self-made billionaire, John Davison Rockefeller (1839-1937) approached life with energy and ambition. Born in Richford, New York, he was raised to work hard, save, and be generous.

Called the world's greatest philanthropist, in his lifetime he gave away over $530,000,000.

"I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty," said the successful entrepreneurs.

Like his contemporary Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller started with little. In 1859, with $1,000 saved and another $1,000 borrowed from his father, Rockefeller formed a merchant partnership with neighbor Maurice Clark.]

Learn from Your Mistakes:
In 1863, the duo added partner, Samuel Andrews and turned to oil production. "I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity," Rockefeller explained.

Two years later, Rockefeller bought the refinery business outright for $72,500 and expanded. He formed Standard Oil in 1870, which at its peak controlled 90% of the U.S. oil industry and according to Rockefeller, "revolutionized the way of doing business all over the world."]

Take the Path Less Traveled:
["If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success," said the successful capitalist icon.]

Warren Buffet - American Investor and Philanthropist

Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American investor, businessman and philanthropist. He is regarded as one of the world's greatest stock market investors, and is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. With an estimated net worth of around US$62 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world as of March 5, 2008.

Often called the "Oracle of Omaha," Buffett is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000, which is on the low side of senior executive remuneration in other comparable companies. He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at around $700,000.

Buffett is also a noted philanthropist. In 2006, he announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2007, Buffett was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in The World. He also serves as a member of the board of trustees at Grinnell College.

Source: Wikipedia

Here are the Success Traits:

Warren Buffett Biography
Even Harvard Makes Mistakes:
[In 1947, a seventeen year old Warren Buffett graduated from High School. It was never his intention to go to college; he had already made $5,000 delivering newspapers (this is equal to $42,610.81 in 2000). His father had other plans, and urged his son to attend the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett stayed two years, complaining that he knew more than his professors. When Howard was defeated in the 1948 Congressional race, Warren returned home to Omaha and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Working full-time, he managed to graduate in only three years.

Warren Buffett approached graduate studies with the same resistance he displayed a few years earlier. He was finally persuaded to apply to Harvard Business School, which, in the worst admission decision in history, rejected him as "too young". Slighted, Warren applied to Columbia where famed investors Ben Graham and David Dodd taught - an experience that would forever change his life.]

Persistence:
[Ben Graham became an idyllic figure to the twenty-one year old Warren Buffett. Reading an old edition of Who's Who, Warren discovered his mentor was the Chairman of a small, unknown insurance company named GEICO. He hopped a train to Washington D.C. one Saturday morning to find the headquarters. When he got there, the doors were locked. Not to be stopped, Buffett relentlessly pounded on the door until a janitor came to open it for him. He asked if there was anyone in the building. As luck (or fate) would have it, there was. It turns out that there was a man still working on the sixth floor. Warren was escorted up to meet him and immediately began asking him questions about the company and its business practices; a conversation that stretched on for four hours. The man was none other than Lorimer Davidson, the Financial Vice President. The experience would be something that stayed with Buffett for the rest of his life. He eventually acquired the entire GEICO company through his corporation, Berkshire Hathaway.]

Even the Best Fail Sometimes:
[During these initial years, Warren's investments were predominately limited to a Texaco station and some real estate, but neither were successful. It was also during this time he began teaching night classes at the University of Omaha (something that wouldn't have been possible several months before. In an effort to conquer his intense fear of public speaking, Warren took a course by Dale Carnegie). Thankfully, things changed. Ben Graham called one day, inviting the young stockbroker to come to work for him. Warren was finally given the opportunity he had long awaited.]

More Hard Times:
[It was shortly thereafter one of the most profound and upsetting events in Buffett's life took place. At forty-five, Susan Buffett left her husband - in form. Although she remained married to Warren, the humanitarian / singer secured an apartment in San Francisco and, insisting she wanted to live on her own, moved there. Warren was absolutely devastated; throughout his life, Susie had been "the sunshine and rain in my [his] garden". The two remained close, speaking every day, taking their annual two-week New York trip, and meeting the kids at their California Beach house for Christmas get-togethers. The transition was hard for the businessman, but he eventually grew somewhat accustomed to the new arrangement. Susie called several women in the Omaha area and insisted they go to dinner and a movie with her husband; eventually, she set Warren up with Astrid Menks, a waitress.]

A Chronological History of the Oracle of Omaha: 1930-1956
Confidence:
[1943: Warren declares to a friend of the family that he will be a millionaire by the time he turns thirty, or "[I'll] jump off the tallest building in Omaha."]

Strengthen Your Weaknesses:
[1951: Buffett takes a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learnt, he began to teach a night class at the University of Nebraska, "Investment Principles". The students were twice his age [he was only 21 at the time].]