The Unknown Billionaires: The life stories of 50 self-made men and women

238 Pages·2014·4.38 MB·English

by  Michael Caldwell

The Unknown Billionaires
By Michael Caldwell
Creative Classic Publications Inc.
4121 Rue Du Barrage
Charny, Quebec
Canada
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Caldwell and Creative Classic Publications Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of quotations
that may be used in critical articles and reviews.
This e-book – The Unknown Billionaires – was published in Canada.
ISBN 978-0-9784620-8-6
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
S. Daniel Abraham
Andrew Beal
Arthur Blank
Gary Burrell
Clive Calder
S. Truett Cathy
Jin Sook Chang
James Clark
Denise Coates
Brunello Cucinella
Bernard Ecclestone
Charles Ergen
Judy Faulkner
Lorenzo Fertitta
Doris Fisher
Richard Hayne
Andrew Houston
James Jannard
Ronald Joyce
Ingvar Kamprad
Sidney Kimmel
C. James Koch
Guy Laliberté
Jorge Paulo Lemann
Edir Macedo
Dietrich Mateschitz
Clayton Mathile
C. Dean Metropoulos
Arnon Milchan
Henry Nicholas III
Jonathan Oringer
Sean Parker
Bob Parsons
Kevin Plank
J. Joe Ricketts
Renzo Rosso
Edward Stack
Alfred Taubman
Hamdi Ulukaya
Mark Vadon
Joop van den Ende
Todd Wagner
David Walentas
Ty Warner
Leslie Wexner
Farris Wilks
Evan Williams
Nicholas Woodman
Zhang Xin
INTRODUCTION
When you hear the word “billionaire,” the usual suspects come to mind –
Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergei Brin, Larry Ellison, and
occasionally, the indefatigable Donald Trump.
What most people don’t realize is that the world’s billionaire population has
increased a staggering 1000 percent in only the last 25 years. Almost a century
ago – 1916 – the first person to become a billionaire was John D. Rockefeller. If
you convert dollars from then to now, he was worth over $500 billion. It gives
new meaning to the phrase ‘set the bar high.’
For our new book, we chose fifty self-made men and women from the
Forbes list of over 1,600 billionaires in sixty-nine countries.
And while you may not know their names, you will probably know of their
achievements – many of which are products that enjoy worldwide distribution.
Some of these stories will surprise you. Most of the featured billionaires are
good people. However, all is not honey and sunshine.
You will read about gambling and cocaine addictions, billion-dollar divorce,
suicide, forgery, sweatshops, forced labor, bribery, fraud, embezzlement, tax
evasion, an execution-style killing and an international spy.
Although they are all very gifted and very rich, in the end, minus five or six
zeroes, most of these unknown billionaires are just like you and me – both
fantastic and flawed.
S. Daniel Abraham
S Daniel Abraham
Birth date: August 15, 1924
Net worth: $2 billion
Residence: Palm Beach, Florida
On June 6, 1978, a twenty-six-year-old mother of four in Georgia named
Gloria Jean Davis developed a severe headache accompanied by bright, flashing
lights. When her right arm and leg became partly paralyzed an ambulance was
called. On her way to the hospital, Davis slipped into unconsciousness. Doctors
determined she had suffered a stroke caused by her nonprescription diet pills,
Appedrine.
Davis sued the pill maker, Thompson Medical Company, claiming the pills’
active ingredient phenylpropanolamine (PPA) had caused her stroke. Thompson
Medical denied any culpability and maintained PPA was safe but agreed to pay a
$125,000 out-of-court settlement. According to a company spokesman they paid
to avoid expensive litigation.
Margaret Forgnone, director of the University of Florida Drug Information
Center in Gainesville, called diet pills the most abused drugs sold legally or
illegally. “I think the drug is dangerous and should be taken off the market.”
The New York Times reported, “The National Clearing House for poison
control centers in August estimated that it handles each year 10,000 reports of
phenylpropanolamine poisoning and that the drug forces at least 1,000 to seek
emergency care. The Medical Letter, a nonprofit publication that keeps doctors
abreast of the latest developments on drugs, is also skeptical about the
effectiveness of chemical dietary aids, as is the American Medical Association.”
Thompson Medical Company, which marketed several products fueled by
PPA, took issue with all the reports that suggested the pills in recommended
dosages caused hypertension, strokes, or psychoses. Spokesmen insisted the
benefits far exceeded the risks for the vast majority of the American public. But
the writing was on the wall now that the Federal Drug Administration had PPA
in its sights. (The FDA eventually outlawed PPA in over the counter diet aids
due to an increased risk of stroke in younger women.)
By the 1970s, dieting was a $10-billion-a-year industry and growing. The
owner of Thompson Medical, a World War II veteran named S. Daniel
Abraham, needed a new product that tapped into the United States’ national
obsession with weight loss.
The irony was that Abraham, who owned a medical company, was not a
doctor or even a researcher. In fact, he had no college education at all. He was
simply an entrepreneur with a nose for what the public wanted.
Abraham was born in Long Beach, New York in 1924 and after graduating
from high school he eventually went into the military, fighting in the Army
infantry corps in Europe during World War II. After his discharge in 1945,
Abraham went to work at his uncle’s small drug company in New York. One
day he came across an advertisement in a trade journal for an itch-relief cream
and decided to purchase the product and its manufacturer for $5,000. Abraham
traveled neighboring states offering doctors and pharmacists samples of his
product and leaving advertising posters. Abraham called his company the
Thompson Medical Company.
Abraham used his first profits to hire chemists and pharmacologists to
modify other company’s products. He also purchased the rights to smaller and
less-successful product lines from other pharmaceutical companies, which he
modified and then marketed as Thompson Medical products.
In 1956, the company introduced its first diet product, called Slim-Mint gum
that contained a hunger suppressant called benzocaine. By 1960, Abraham added
a line of diet pills called Figure-Aid. That was followed by Dexatrim, which
became the best-selling diet pill on the market and pushed the company past $50
million in sales by the end of the 1970s.
In the late 1970s Abraham decided to bring back an old product idea from
the 1950s that may have been ahead of its time. Metrecal, a liquid diet product,
had enjoyed some success but weight loss had not become a consuming issue for
most Americans at that time. But the cultural revolution of the mid 1960s
coupled with new fashion trends that celebrated thinness above all, had made
dieting the true national pastime. He was convinced the United States was ready
for a convenient, fast meal promising weight loss. He called it Slim-Fast.
However, just as Abraham was getting his diet drink division off the ground,
a story came out attributing more than 50 deaths to a liquid protein drink. It was
discovered that the heart attacks were caused by the lack of vitamins and
minerals in the diet drink. In 1976, the FDA outlawed liquid protein diets due to
missing amino acids and complex proteins. All fluid meal-replacement products
were pulled from the shelves.
To make up for the loss of earnings, Abraham went public in 1979. The
offering brought in $8.4 million in earnings, which he mostly spent on
advertising and promotion.
Through his medical community connections he teamed up with MIT
physician George Blackburn to come up with a nutritional shake recipe that
could be substituted for a proper meal. Blackburn’s formula included the 24
vitamins and minerals found in today’s product. For a convenience-seeking
culture, a slimming meal on the go was a perfect fit. But they key now was
getting the buying public to believe that his drink was slimming, nutritious, and
safe.
Abraham named his product Slim-Fast and its slogan—a shake for breakfast,
a shake for lunch, then a sensible dinner—was one of the most recognizable ads
of the time. And Americans responded.
Slim-Fast’s hook was offering a product that was modeled after a tasty
milkshake. Abraham’s diet system was based on restricted caloric intake. Each
Slim-Fast contains between 200-250 calories. To lose weight the consumer
drinks two shakes a day totaling five hundred calories and an average dinner of
around eight hundred calories. While many people claimed the diet worked,
there were also critics who argued that Slim-Fast took weight off at first but as
soon as the person stopped using it they gained back their lost weight plus
additional pounds.
No matter. The product sold and its success brought similar products into the
market. To stay ahead of the competition Abraham added snack items, new
shake flavors, and offered Slim-Fast in cans as well as powder. In the mid-
1990s, Slim-Fast would offer meal bars that could also be used as meal
replacements. He used celebrity endorsements to give his product additional
appeal. To further the brand, Abraham also published The Slim-Fast Body-Mind-
Life Makeover.
Dexatrim wasn’t Thompson Medical’s only headache. In 1981 the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against Thompson Medical for false
advertising for insinuating Aspercreme contains aspirin when it didn’t. One
television advertisement used by Thompson stated:
‘When you suffer from arthritis, imagine putting the strong relief of aspirin
right where you hurt. Aspercreme is an odorless rub which concentrates the
relief of aspirin. When you take regular aspirin, it goes throughout your body.
But, in seconds, Aspercreme starts concentrating all the temporary relief of two
aspirin directly at the point of minor arthritis pain…Aspercreme. The strong
relief of aspirin right where you hurt.’
The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in February 1987 to let
stand the ruling that Thompson Medical had engaged in false and misleading
advertising. The company was also banned from claiming that any of its
nonprescription analgesic drug products were effective in relieving minor pain
unless the statement was supported by “at least two adequate and well-controlled
clinical studies.” At the time, Aspercreme was the second leading ointment sold
for arthritis relief.
The court ruling did little to impact Thompson Medical’s healthy bottom
line, and in 2000 Abraham sold Slim-Fast to Unilever for $2.3 billion. The sale
gave Abraham, who has very close ties to Israel, the means to fund his expansive
philanthropy by putting his money where his heart was. In March 1988, after
returning from a trip to the Middle East region, Abraham formed the Center for
Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation with then-Utah Congressman
Wayne Owens.
“I was in World War II, Abraham noted. “I lived in fox holes. I saw my
buddies get killed. The horrors of war are unbelievable. It’s not the way to solve
problems. We have to learn that peace is worth everything. We have to learn
how to live together.”
Over the years he has also endowed an S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle
East Policy Studies at Princeton University, and a Chair in Nutritional Medicine
at Harvard University Medical School. He built a wellness facility for Mayo
Clinic employees. He has funded the Dan Abraham School for Business
Administration and Economics at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and the S. Daniel
Abraham Israel Program at Yeshiva University, and Honors Program at Stern
College for Women. Abraham is vocal in his belief that Israel needs to give
Palestinians their own country in order to finally secure a lasting peace. To that
end he authored the book Peace is Possible. His second book, Everything is
Possible: Life and Business Lessons from a Self-Made Billionaire and the
Founder of Slim-Fast was published in 2010.