Chaos and Creativity in the Lives of Entrepreneurs and

Scientists

by Ted Goertzel

Why Study Entrepreneurs and Scientists?

• They have a powerful impact on society

• They are important role models for young people

• They are underrepresented in a sample based on published biographies, especially the entrepreneurs

• But: the amount of information available on their childhoods is often limited

Who are the Eminent?• There is no “correct” list but the same

people often occur on many lists

• One criterion is celebrity status and popular interest

• Another is expert judgment as to the importance of individual accomplishment

• We used both of these criteria, limited to people who lived into the twentieth century Who would you

choose for a book such as this?

Samples in theCradles of Eminence Research

• 1962: Over 400 people with biographies in the Montclair, NJ public library

• 1978: Follow-up sample of over 300 from the Menlo Park, CA pubic library

• 2003: Sample of over 700 from the Montclair public library online catalog, supplemented expert judgments from Time and Life magazine studies

Natural Scientists, Engineers and Mathematicians in the 1962 Cradles of Eminence Sample

• Luther Burbank• George Washington

Carver• Marie Curie• Paul Ehrlich• Albert Einstein• Havelock Ellis• Emrico Fermi• Reginald Fessendren

• Alexander Fleming• Robert Oppenheimer• Ivan Pavlov• Bertrand Russell• Ernest Rutherford• Charles Steinmetz• Selman Waksman• Norbert Wiener• Hans Zinsser

Physical Scientists, Engineers and Mathematicians in the 1978 300 Eminent Personalities Sample

• Niels Bohr• Rosalind Franklin• Karl von Frisch• George Gamow• Otto Hahn• Earnest Lawrence• Stanislaw Ulam

Natural Scientists, Engineers and Mathematicians in the 2003 Cradles of Eminence Update Sample

• Richard Feinman• Jane Goodall• John Muir• Dian Fossey• Stephen Hawking• James Herriot• Jacques Cousteau• Stephen Jay Gould• Linus Pauling• Carl Sagan• George Dawson

• Charles Drew• Otto Frisch• Edwin Hubble• Richard Leakey• George Lewis• Konrad Lorenz• Peter Medwar• James Murray• Roger Peterson• Alan Turing• John Wesley

Business Leaders in the 1962 and 1978 Samples

• 1962• Bernard Baruch• Andrew Carnegie• Henry Ford• Ivar Krueger• Cecil Rhodes• John D. Rockefeller• John D. Rockefeller,

Jr.

• 1978• Elizabeth Arden• Coco Chanel• Howard Hughes• Emil Jellinek-

Mercedes• Louis Renault• Helena Rubenstein• David Sarnoff

Business Leaders in the 2003 Update Sample for Cradles of EminenceArledge, Roone (1931-2002) Television Producer and Executive LifeBechtel, Stephen (1900-1989) Builder TimeBernays, Edward (1891-1995) Public Relations Executive LifeBurnett, Leo (1891-1971) Advertising Executive TimeDeLorean, John (1925- ) Automobile Executive MPL Gates, Bill (1955-1998) Entrepreneur, Founder of Microsoft Time, MPLGiannini, A.P. (1870-1949) Banker, founded Bank of America Life, TimeHall, Joyce C. (1891-1982) Greeting Card Manufacturer LifeIacocca, Lee (1924- ) Automobile Executive MPL Kroc, Ray (1902-1984) Restaurant Entrepreneur, McDonald's Life, TimeLauder, Estee (1910-1982) Cosmetics Executive Time, MPLLevitt, William (1907-1994) Builder, Levittown TimeLoewy, Raymond (1893-1986) Industrial Designer LifeMcCardell, Claire(1905-1958) Fashion Designer LifeMerrill, Charles E. (1885-1956) Stock Broker Life, TimeMorita, Akio (1921-1999) Entrepreneur, Founder of Sony TimeSloan Jr., Alfred P. (1875-1966) Industrialist and Philanthropist LifeTrippe, Juan (1899-1981) Airline Entrepreneur, Pan Am TimeTrump, Donald (1946- ) Real Estate Developer MPL Turner, Ted (1938- ) Media Entrepreneur TimeWalker, Sarah (1876-1919) Marketer of Hair Care Products MPL Walton, Sam (1918-1992) Entrepreneur, Founder of Walmart TimeWatson, Jr., Thomas J. (1914-1993)Businessman, Founder of I.B.M. Life, Time

Business Leaders in Landrum’s Profiles of Genius

Bich, Marcel BicBushnell, Nolan AtariGates, Bill MicrosoftHead, Howard Head SkiHonda, Soichiro HondaJobs, Steven Apple ComputersJones, Arthur NautilusLear, William Lear JetMonaghan, Tom Domino's PizzaMorita, Akio SonyPrice, Solomon Price ClubSmith, Fred Federal ExpressTurner, Ted CNN

Prometheus Books

Traits of Entrepreneurs

• Creative, visionary thinkers

• Energy to realize ideas through vigorous, persistent action

• Courage to endure uncertainty and ignore criticism and hostility

• Lust for power, competitive

• Often abrasive and unpleasant in personal interaction

Maury Klein on the Childhoods of Entrepreneurs

• Middle class or wealthy families• Many fathers had career problems or marital

problems

• A few had especially devoted or attentive mothers • “Education offers little that explains their success

except perhaps in a negative role”• Started work early and worked very hard• Often inspired by mentors

Twentieth Century Entrepreneurs in The Change Makers by Maury KleinWarren E. Buffett (1930- ) Berkshire HathawayAndrew Carnegie (1835-1919) Carnegie SteelPierre Sameul du Pont (1870-1954) Du PontJames Buchanan Duke (1856-1925) American TobaccoWilliam Crapo Durant (1861-1947) General MotorsGeorge Eastman (1854-1932) Eastman KodakThomas Edison (1847-1931 Thomas Edison Inc.Henry Ford III (1863-1947) Ford Motor Co.William Henry Gates (1955- ) MicrosoftEdward Harriman (1848-1909) Missouri Pacific RR & Western UnionSamuel Insull (1859-1938) Union Pacific RRRay Kroc (1902-1984) McDonald'sEdwin Herbert Land (1909-1991) PolaroidCyrus McCormick (1809-1884) International HarvesterRobert Noyce (1927-1990) IntelJohn Henry Patterson (1844-1922) National Cash RegisterJames Cash Penney (1875-1971) J.C. PenneyJohn D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) Standard OilTheodore Newton Vail (1845-1920) AT&TSameul Moore Walton (1918-1992) WalmartJohn Wanamaker (1838-1922) WanamakerThomas Watson (1874-1956) IBMGeorge Westinghouse (1846-1914) WestinghouseFrank Winfield Woolworth (1852-1919) Woolworth

Early Twentieth Century Entrepreneurs

John D. Rockefeller (Senior)• His father was a charlatan who sold cancer

remedies and a bigamist who was absent for long periods of time

• Young John D. sat by the road waiting month after dreary month for his father to come home

• He and his siblings had to work for their money although their father never had less than $1000 in his pocket

• Dropped out of high school to go to work, taking ten weeks of commercial college courses

• Excelled at mental arithmetic

The headline in the New York World of February 2, 1908 made the point brutally clear:

SECRET DOUBLE LIFE OF ROCKEFELLER'S FATHERREVEALED BY THE WORLD. . . .Old Dr. William A. Rockefeller and “Dr. William Levingston,” Who Lived as a Bigamist Thirty-four Years, Proved to Be the Same.

• Andrew Carnegie’s father’s handloom operator job in Scotland was mechanized

• He had only five years of education in Scotland and could not afford school after moving to Pennsylvania

• His family had leftist, pro-labor views

• Went to work at 13 as a bobbin boy in a factory, learned telegraph operation and management

• Built Keystone Bridge Company and Carnegie Steel

• Became famous as a strike-breaker

• Gave huge sums to philanthropy for libraries and world peace

Andrew Carnegie

Entrepreneur

Strike-Breaker

Philanthropist

• A. P. Giannini’s father, an immigrant entrepreneur from Italy, was gunned down by a disgruntled employee when Amadeo was six years old

• Starting at twelve, Amadeo followed his stepfather to the overnight produce markets, making deals of his own

• He did well in school but stopped writing on the board when someone called him a teacher’s pet

• Dropped out one month short of eighth grade graduation, doing a three month business school course to placate his disappointed mother

• He innovated by expanding banking services to small businesses

A.P. Giannini

Founder of the Bank of Italy and the Bank of America

• John Henry Patterson, founder of National Cash Register, grew up in a farming family that scraped by

• In college: “What I learned mostly was what not to do.”

• He served in the Union Army and graduated from Dartmouth, but he developed a dislike of college education and distrusted college men all his life

• He had a gift for picking men to work for him, but had a hard time giving them autonomy to do the work

• He praised then humiliated subordinates, sometimes firing favorites unexpectedly

• IBM founder Tom Watson, Sr., went to a one room school house, then to an academy a half day’s walk from his home.

• His father just scraped by in various business ventures

• Bored in business school, where he learned bookkeeping, he apprenticed to an itinerant salesman

• He learned from the John Patterson, founder of National Cash Register, then went out on his own after being fired

Financially Precarious Fathers

• Andrew Carnegie’s father was a weaver in Scotland who lost his trade to mechanization

• George Eastman’s father died when he was 14

• Thomas Watson grew up in a cramped cabin with no running water, his father became too ill to work

• Edmund Harriman’s father was an impecunious minister

• F.W. Woolworth’s father was a struggling farmer

• Warren Buffet’s father went broke during the depression but reestablished himself

• Joyce Hall’s father was an itinerant preacher who sent little money home, then left altogether when Joyce was seven.

Entrepreneurs on Schooling• Joyce Hall: (of a rural grade school) “We went to school

because we had to. Not much reason was ever given why we should take it seriously.”

• J.C. Penney: “Whatever education I received has been picked up as I went along - just as a locomotive scoops up water without stopping.”

• Theodore Vail: “Schools teach too much science and unpractical things. Young men grow up to think the world owes them a living.”

• Michael Dell: “As important as [high] school was, I found that it could be very disruptive to a steady income.”

• Warren Buffett: “It seems like a waste to go to school and get a Ph.D. in economics. It’s a little like spending eight years in divinity school and having someone tell you that the ten commandments are all that matter.”

Mid to Late Twentieth Century Entrepreneurs

• Father a “Horatio Alger figure” who died when Fred was four years old

• Congenital bone disease made it difficult for him to walk

• Overcame illness with strong support from mother. Athlete and “Best All-Around Student” in high school

• A letter from his father implored him to put his inheritance to good use

• Started businesses when a teenager. A recording company he started with a friend at age 16 is still in business

• Admits to being a “crummy student” at Yale

• Risked his whole inheritance on the Federal Express startup despite everyone telling him there was no market for it.

Childhood of a “Pizza King”

• Tom Monaghan’s father died when he was four

• Mother felt unable to raise him, left him in St. Joseph’s Home for Boys, later in foster homes

• He called St. Joseph’s a prison and his classmates inmates, yet felt close to one of the nuns

• His mother favored his younger brother, left him in foster homes

• High school diploma and one semester of college

• Dislikes moderation, favors disciplined work habits, diet, rigorous exercise routine, religious observance

From Tom Monaghan’s WEB site:

I Am Focusing On God, Family And Domino's Pizza

IT’S BEEN A LONG EXCITING ROAD SINCE THE ORPHANAGE

Only in America could a once poor, yet determined young boy from Ann Arbor, Michigan, combine hard work, unwavering courage, and strong faith to build a multi-billion dollar pizza business from the ground up.

Tom Monaghan

Domino’s Pizza

• A second son, Donald Trump surpassed his older brother as his father’s heir apparent

• As small child he howled for no apparent reason, insisted on being a center of attention

• Exuberant and disruptive in school, taken out of private school and sent to a military academy

• Couldn’t wait to get out of college and into the real estate business. Started buying Philadelphia real estate while a student at Wharton

• Sam Walton’s father went broke as mortgage broker during the depression.

• Mother was ambitious for him and proud of his accomplishments

• Made A’s in school, Eagle Scout, natural leader, dressed well

• Worked his way through the University of Missouri, business major, couldn’t afford MBA

• Borrowed from wife’s parents to start first business, lost lease

• Strong belief in hard work and traditional values

• Ray Kroc hated high school - especially algebra

• His parents let him drop out

• He became a salesman of milkshake machines

• He happened on the first McDonald’s restaurant

• He saw McDonald’s potential for franchising and developed a successful national franchise

• Walt Disney was whipped by his father until he was fourteen

• Little encouragement from his family for his drawing

• He moved frequently as his father’s businesses floundered

• Dropped out of high school to join the

ambulance corps in WW I

• Learned his trade from correspondence courses, Saturday museum classes and as an apprentice to a commercial illustrator

• Ted Turner’s parents left him in a boarding school when he was six as they took off on a wartime assignment

• Attended military academies where he was isolated and ostracized as a “Yankee”

• Rejected social interaction became a voracious reader

• His father believed that insecurity would lead him to greatness

• Nickname: “Turnover Ted” for capsizing his sailboat

• Party animal and noted ladies’ man in college

“Turnover Ted” Turner

A risk-taker in sailing and in business.

• John DeLorean’s father drank and raged at the family and had trouble keeping a job

• His parents separated three times when he was young, divorced when he was 17

• His middle class home and lifestyle were less than his friends had

• Went to Detroit’s high school for honors students and won a music scholarship to Lawrence Institute of Technology

• He was brash and self-promoting but willing to help others

• Learned his trade from Bunkie Knudson of GM

• Martha Stewart’s childhood was not as idyllic as she portrayed it. Her father was a strict disciplinarian and her mother was withdrawn

• She was a teacher’s pet who bonded with a grade school teacher

• Her father encouraged her to become a model while in high school, taking hundreds of photographs in a basement photo studio

• She was an excellent student in both high school and college, who remained focused on her career goals

• She had “the intelligence to recognize opportunities when they dropped in her lap…and the drive, energy and determination to turn them into unprecedented business success”

Local boy (from Western Oregon) makes good!

• Linus Pauling’s father wrote to the Portland Oregonian asking advice about books for his son

• His father was a pharmacist, perhaps the closest small town match to chemistry

• Pauling had a lifelong love of books

• His hobby was collecting encyclopedias

Belle and Linus PaulingHerman Pauling

William P. Murphy, Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine, also grew up in Condon

Linus at 9

Linus lived in Condon, western Oregon, from ages 4 to 9

Pauling lived from ages 4 to 9 in Condon, Oregon.

463 miles

Condon

Flathead Lake

• But his dad died when he was 9 • His mother was sickly and had difficulty supporting the family• She wanted him to work as an engineer after college to help with family expenses.

Oregon Agricultural College Chemistry Laboratory c 1915

Linus at the Gamma Tau Beta Fraternity House 1917 (later Delta Upsilon)

Hi-Tech Entrepreneurs

The computer “Nerds” who changed the world instead of following conventional careers are widely celebrated. Their social ineptness is a stereotype that is often inaccurate.

Nolan Bushnell

Video Game Entrepreneur

Nickname: King Pong

• Father self-employed mason

• Built ham radio at ten years old

• Worked his way through college

• Graduated last in his BSEE class at the University of Utah

• Built a company of hippies who loved playing games – Steve Jobs worked for him before starting Apple

• Bill Gates “was impatient with those not as quick as he was, teachers included.”

• He did better when his parents sent him to an elite private school

• Started a small business while in high school

• He dropped out of college to go into the software business

Bill Gates’ father took a red eye from Seattle to Boston to warn him he would never be a success if he dropped out of college...

• Steve Jobs was adopted, a loner and nonconformist in school, dropped out of Reed College

• Experimented with Indian mysticism, hallucinogenic drugs, communes, vegetarianism, fasting

• “I’m just a guy who should have been a semi-talented poet on the Left Bank. I got sidetracked here.”

• Steve Wozniak was the shy computer nerd who made a personal computer mostly because he wanted one for himself

• The shortest in his fourth grade class, he excelled Little League.

• Known for practical jokes, sabotaging school computers

• Strong support from his father and electronics teacher in high school

Two who lacked the greed or competitive spirit to become billionaires. Bob Frankston (standing)

and Dan Bricklin invented the electronic spreadsheet but chose not to patent it.

• Dan Bricklin, inventor of Visicalc, started programming in the mid-sixties while still in high school. He received a BS in electrical engineering from M.I.T.

• He has since started several innovative companies with mixed success

• He teamed up with Frankston to write the Visicalc code

• Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, developing the URL and the http mark-up language

• His parents were mathematicians and computer programmers who encouraged him to build toy computers from cardboard boxes

• Programming, imaginary numbers and abstract mathematics were dinner table conversation.

• He built a real computer with leftover parts, an old TV and a soldering iron while a student at Oxford in 1976

• Did not profit commercially from the development of the WEB

• David Filo and Jerry Yang started Yahoo! while students at Stanford University in 1994

• It began as a list of cool WEB sites posted for their friends

• David is from Louisiana and majored in computer engineering at Tulane University

• Jerry is from San Jose and got his bachelor’s degree at Stanford

The Chief Yahoo!’s Grow Up• Jerry Yang was born in

1968 in Taiwan• His father died when he was

two, leaving his mother with him and a one year old brother

• Jerry began writing Chinese characters at age three

• His mother moved to the U.S. when he was five to get a college teaching job

• He got straight A’s all through school

• David Filo was born in 1966 in Moss Bluff, Louisiana

• He was the fourth of six children, a “bright and curious child”

• He grew up and went to college in New Orleans getting a bachelor’s in computer science at Tulane

• He met Jerry Yang at Stanford where they were doctoral students

Starting Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle!

• Filo “was terribly bored” with graduate work making tiny changes to manufacturing plans for computer chips

• Yang agrees: “Really, we’d do anything to keep from working on our theses”

• Yahoo! started as a hobby listing of cool WEB sites• When the WEB boomed and Yahoo! took off they

took a leave from graduate school• After writing business plans for various WEB

business, including books, they decided that they already had a service people wanted

• Mark Andreeson made a fortune by starting Netscape during the internet boom

• Andreeson’s interest in computers began in the fifth grade using school computers

• High school principal says he had “an intellectual capacity that could intimidate people”

• Andreeson developed Mosaic while an undergraduate at the University of Illinois

• He went to Silicon Valley and was approached by Jim Clark, who had already started Silicon Graphics

• Jeffrey Preston Bezos was born to a teenage mother whose marriage to his father lasted less than a year

• Early childhood on his grand-father’s ranch in New Mexico

• He was a computer whiz in high school and was valedictorian of his high school class.

• He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton and had a successful career with banks and stock hedge funds before starting Amazon.com

• He started the company in his garage not because he had to, but because he wanted to be able to say he did

• Jeff Bezos attended fourth to sixth grade at a magnet school in the prestigious River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, Texas

• The school was part of the Vanguard Program, the largest gifted education program in Texas

• A visitor in 1976 described him as “a student of general intellectual excellence, slight of build, friendly but serious…not particularly gifted in leadership…moves confidently among many friends at Vanguard - who provide a full spectrum of shapes, sizes, colors and manners attributed to gifted children”

Jeff Bezos’s Sixth Grade Day

• Bus: picked up at seven for 20 mile ride

• Math class: frequently works alone on enrichment projects, sometimes joins one of three ability grouped “teams”

• A computer terminal available for simple programming, flow charting, work in base two mathematics

• Independent Project: a statistical survey of how the teachers teach

• Reading: the Hobbit• Science specialist comes

every other day. Jeff built an “infinity cube” modeled on one he saw in a store

• Art specialist conducts visualization exercise

• Language arts and Social Studies Projects

“Productive Thinking” at River Oaks

• “Productive Thinking” exercises are often conducted in language arts class because it is highly individualized and small-group activity fits in well

• Process for discussion:– silent reading of a story

– discussion questions comparing ideas and conclusions

– generalization about how conclusions had been reached

• The first story describes an archeological expedition that discovered artifacts shown to be unauthentic

• Why had the scientists undertaken the project against obvious odds and what better reasoning might they have used?

• What is the meaning of “gaps” and “discrepancies” in research?

• Michael Dell got a job in a restaurant when he was twelve to raise funds for a stamp auction business

• In junior high he joined a “number sense club” that did math problems in their head and competed in math contests

• He got his first Apple at 15 and promptly took it apart, upsetting his parents who thought he had ruined it.

• He made $18,500 selling newspaper subscriptions in one year in high school

• Defied his parents’ insistence that he give up the computer business and stick to pre-med, he took a leave from the University of Texas after the freshman year and never returned.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google as a research project while Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University

• Page was 24 and Brin 23

• Page, the son of a computer science professor, fell in love with computers at age six. He is an honors graduate of the University of Michigan in computer engineering

• Brin, a native of Moscow, graduated with honors from the University of Maryland in math and computer science

• They disdain financial values and espouse slogans such as “Making the World a Better Place” and “Do No Evil”

Ray Kurzweil• Grew up in Queens, his

mother an artist and his father a musician

• Inspired by the Tom Swift, Jr. books at age 8

• At 16 he had created a computer that composed original melodies as a high school science project

Video clip (on WEB)

Kurzweil

• His parents fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and raised him as a Unitarian

• His father died of heart disease when Ray wa 22

• He believes in the “singularity” - a point at which exponential rates of change will be so fast that things will be constantly changing

• He also advocates life extension

"An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The 'returns,' such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity—technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light."

Dorothy Baker author, MissoulaDirk Benedict actor, HelenaW. A. Tony Boyle labor union official, Bald ButteDana Carvey comedian, MissoulaGary Cooper actor, HelenaChet Huntley journalist, TV newscaster, CardwellWill James writer, artist, Great FallsEvel Knievel daredevil motorcyclist, ButteJerry Kramer football player, author, JordanMyrna Loy actress, HelenaDavid Lynch filmmaker, MissoulaGeorge Montgomery actor, BradyJeannette Rankin first woman elected to Congress, MissoulaMartha Raye actress, ButteMichael Smuin choreographerLester C. Thurow economist, educator, Livingston

Norman Maclean, writerThomas McGuane, writer, from Mcleod, alcoholic father

Famous Montanans Pearl Jam

http://www.thingstodo.com/states/MT/famous_people.htm

Suggestions for Educators:

Focus on Special Interests• Elective and advanced placement classes to

meet special interests• Make special-interest groups and clubs and

central to the program, don’t belittle them as “extra-curricular”

• Encourage students to develop their strengths and interests, being well rounded is much less important than being really good at one thing

Suggestions for Educators:

Encourage Creative Thinking• Introduce creative thinking exercises and

problems throughout the curriculum

• Don’t hesitate to try new things, even if they may fail

• Don’t try to sugar-coat any eccentricities you may have

• Share your Passions and Enthusiasms with Your Students

Suggestions for Educators

Ideational Sessions

• Hold brainstorming, synectics or “ideation” sessions. These are freewheeling discussions where:– quantity of ideas is wanted– criticism is ruled out– freewheeling is welcomed– metaphors and analogies are used– combination and improvement is sought

Suggestions for Educators:Encourage “Pushy Parents”

• Eminent people sometimes had pushy parents whom others thought too involved in their children’s lives

• Fitting into the routines of the school may make life easier for the educators but not be in the best interest of the child

• Don’t assume that tests scores and grades are more accurate than parents’ insights