Entrepeneurs

Paul Orfalea

Bill Thompson

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.

Dave Thomas

Bill Thompson

If you’ve ever eaten that Wendy’s, and most of us have, you probably know that the chain was founded by a guy named Dave Thomas. He needed a first daughter. And you probably remember his TV commercials:

Photo: John Mathew Smith

But here’s what you may not know about Dave Thomas. He was born during the Great Depression. Later he was adopted, but his home life was so unstable, he dropped out of high school and struck out on his own at age 15.

As a young man, he got into the restaurant business. And eventually, he started working with an older gentleman, who had just started his own business: Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I first met Dave Thomas in 1991, when he wrote a book that was part Memoir, part How to Succeed in Business.

So here now, from 1991, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas.

Now, there is more to the story. The following year, after our interview, Dave Thomas made a decision. He told me about it, the next time we met, in 1994:

Dave Thomas died just a few years later, in 2002, at the age of 69.

Debbi Fields

Bill Thompson

Mrs. Fields Cookies can be found in hundreds of cities across America, and around the world. It’s one of the largest names in the snack food industry.

It all started back in 1977, when Debbi Fields and her husband started a small business selling homemade-style cookies.

It grew into a major enterprise, which Debbi Fields sold in 1993.

When I met her in 1996, she had just published a book of dessert recipes — traditional classics ti which she had added the Mrs. Fields touch.

So here now, from 1996, Debbi Fields:

Debbi Fields is 63 now. She is spokesperson for the Mrs. Fields brand. She lives in Tennessee.

Sir Richard Branson

Bill Thompson
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.

Sir James Dyson

Bill Thompson
Photo: The Royal Society

Sir James Dyson will tell you, it’s not eas being an innovator.

Dyson is the guy who, a few years ago, came up with a whole new kind of vacuum cleaner, which he dubbed the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum.

It was a revolution in vacuum technology that upended that well-established undustry.

But as he told me, in our 2004 interview, it isn’t as easy as just building the better mousetrap.

The company founded by Sir James Dyson is still innovating. Recently, the company announced it was building thousands of ventilators to help treat coronavirus patients.