The Fortune 500 may include the most powerful CEOs in the world, but just a few of these top executives can look back and reminisce on the very first days of their company. This year there are 22 CEOs who can also say that they founded their empires, either alone or with partners.
From Mark Zuckerberg to Jensen Huang, the background and businesses of these executives varies widely. Several founders started their companies during college, like Bom Kim, who dropped out of Harvard to start e-commerce giant Coupang. Others, like Salesforce founder Marc R. Benioff, worked for years before starting his own business.
While the success of a business venture is always bound to ebb and flow, these founders anchored themselves in their own projects, even through times of major transformation. Their innovation and dedication has clearly paid off, as their one-time startups have grown into some of the most important companies in the U.S.
Mark Zuckerberg
Company: Meta Platforms
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 30
While studying computer science at Harvard University in 2004, Zuckerberg created social media website Facebook alongside several of his peers. Since then, he has rebranded the company as Meta, and branched off into new ventures from virtual reality to AI.
Elon Musk
Company: Tesla
Title: Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 40
Musk joined Tesla as a venture capital backer and cofounder in 2003. Tesla’s first car was the roadster, and the company spent several years dominating the EV market, although it has recently lost ground to competitors.
Michael S. Dell
Company: Dell Technologies
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 48
As a 19-year-old college student at the University of Texas, Dell created a startup called PC Limited to sell computers to IBM. Since 1985 the company has sold computers directly to consumers; it was renamed Dell Technologies in 1987.
Jensen Huang
Company: Nvidia
Title: President, CEO & Director
2024 company ranking: No. 65
With two electrical engineering degrees under his belt, Huang dreamed up his company after meeting with two colleagues at a Denny’s where he once worked. Nvidia is now a top manufacturer of GPUs: electronic units that can process large amounts of data quickly, which are critical to AI.
Richard D. Fairbank
Company: Capital One Finance
Title: Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 91
In 1988, Fairbank and his colleague developed a way to integrate business operations with technology to improve products and pricing strategies. Following their rejection from dozens of national retail banks at the start, one corporation took interest and launched a credit card division for Fairbank and his partner to spearhead. This was later spun off into a new company that would eventually be renamed to Capital One Finance.
Marc R. Benioff
Company: Salesforce
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 123
After working at Oracle for 13 years and quickly rising within the ranks to assume the role of vice president, Benioff got the idea for Salesforce while swimming with dolphins in Hawaii. The company was founded on the premise that enterprise software should be accessible from a web browser, and not just business servers—a revolutionary thought in the 1990s.
Marc Rowan
Company: Apollo Global Management
Title: Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 136
After the firm he was working for in 1990 collapsed, Rowan created asset management company Apollo Global Management with his former colleagues from Drexel Burnham Lambert.
Bom Kim
Company: Coupang
Title: Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 168
Inspired by Groupon’s business model, Kim dropped out of Harvard’s MBA program in 2010, moved back to South Korea, and created e-commerce platform Coupang. Since then, the company has also ventured into streaming services.
Jack Dorsey
Company: Block
Title: Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 186
In 2009, Dorsey and his cofounder Jim McKelvey ran into a problem: They couldn’t complete a purchase because the retailer didn’t accept credit cards. Turning this annoyance into inspiration, the pair created Square, a card reader that became Block’s first product. Dorsey also famously cofounded X, the company formerly known as Twitter.
Mark D. Millett
Company: Steel Dynamics
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 221
Leaving their roles as executives for steel manufacturer Nucor, Millet and two of his cofounders started Steel Dynamics in 1993. The company is now one of America’s largest steel producers.
Laurence D. Fink
Company: BlackRock
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 231
Fink cofounded BlackRock in 1988 after his departure from investment bank First Boston. He and his fellow cofounders focused on the buy-side of trading, and integrated investing with risk management.
Leonard S. Schleifer
Company: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals
Title: Co-Chairman, President, Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 311
While practicing neurology, Schleifer became fed up with the pharmaceutical industry’s lack of neurodegenerative disease treatments, so he founded Regeneron in 1988 to fill that gap in care.
Niraj S. Shah
Company: Wayfair
Title: Co-Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 346
Shah created Wayfair in 2002 with a friend on a tight budget, operating out of a spare bedroom in his cofounder’s house. He noticed that consumers couldn’t easily shop online, so he set out to create a user-friendly online marketplace. Now, the home goods retail giant is comprised of more than 250 niche e-commerce sites that sell all types of furniture.
Ernest C. Garcia III
Company: Carvana
Title: President, Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 377
As the son of used car dealership DriveTime owner Garcia II, Garcia III followed in his father’s footsteps and formed Carvana as a DriveTime subsidiary in 2012. It later spun off into its own operation, which is now one of America’s largest online used vehicle franchises.
Brian Chesky
Company: Airbnb
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 396
Chesky came up with the idea for the online homestay marketplace in 2007 after he couldn’t pay a month’s worth of rent upfront. He and his Rhode Island School of Design classmate and cofounder then opened their house to short-term renters, eventually turning that spark of an idea into the larger Airbnb business.
Jeffrey C. Sprecher
Company: Intercontinental Exchange
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 397
Sprecher created the Intercontinental Exchange in the 2000s after noticing flaws in the power market, and recruiting banks and companies to help fix them. The corporation eventually acquired the NYSE, of which Sprecher was the chairman until 2021.
Jure Sola
Company: Sanmina
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 433
With an engineering degree and work experience in electric manufacturing, Sola cofounded Sanmina in 1980 and focused on manufacturing highly technical telecommunications products.
Tony Xu
Company: DoorDash
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 443
After washing dishes as a young man in a Chinese restaurant, Xu wanted to create a way for frontline workers to better support themselves. While studying at Stanford University in 2012, he cofounded the food delivery service Doordash with his fellow classmates.
Hamid R. Moghadam
Company: Prologis
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 463
Moghadam first co-founded AMB Property Corporation in 1983, which later merged with Prologis in 2011. Prologis has become a leading global logistics real estate company.
Stephen A. Schwarzman
Company: Blackstone
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 464
After rising to managing director of global mergers and acquisitions at Lehman Brothers in 1984, Schwarzman left to start his own investment company. He co-created Blackstone Group with a former boss in 1985, and they funded it with their own money.
Robert Greenberg
Company: Skechers U.S.A.
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 465
After stepping down as CEO of footwear company LA Gear, which he also cofounded, Greenberg created Skechers with a focus on men’s street shoes in 1992. One of the largest American shoe brands, the apparel organization has also expanded into sportswear and clothing.
Charles Liang
Company: Super Micro Computer
Title: Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 498
Liang has multiple degrees in electrical engineering, and cofounded Super Micro Computer in 1993 as a five-person operation. He holds several patents for his server technology creations, and has since opened a manufacturing subsidiary within the company.
June 5, 2024: This article has been corrected to reflect an early company founded by Hamid R. Moghadam.
