Paul Orfalea

Tomorrow, November 17th, is National Entrepreneurs Day. And perhaps no one better embodies what the day is about that Paul Orfalea.

Back in 1970, the young man with e kinky red hair started a small business, making photocopies for students at UC Santa Barbara.

The business took off, and before long Orfalea — known to his friends as Kinko — was a successful entrepreneur.

But Paul Orfalea’s story is all the more remarkable when you understand that all his life, he has dealt with dyslexia and ADHD. Wait’ll you hear what experts told his parents that he would end up doing for a living.

I met him in 2005, years after he had parted ways with the company he founded, and had become a teacher.

So here now, from 2005, Paul Orfalea.

Paul Orfalea will be 73 later this month.
He is a philanthropist and a visiting professor at California Lutheran University’s School of Management.

Sir Richard Branson

Photo: Chatham House

You could say that Richard Branson’s success in business has always been about disruption.

He disrupted air travel, he risrupted the music business, he disrupted retail — all through the Virgin Group, which he founded in the 1970s.

I met him in fall 1998. He had just written a memoir called “Losing My Virginity.”

So here now, from 1998, Richard Branson:

Richard Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace about a year and a half after our interview.

He was honored for, quote, “services to entrepreneurship.”

Today Virgin Group controls over 400 companies. Last month, Forbes estimated Branson’s net worth at $4.1 billion.

And romorrow, July 18th, is Branson’s 70th birthday.