, by
Dan Greenburg
Spice Merchant Dhirubhai AmbaniAmassed family fortune of more than $60 billion, sufficient for his son, Mukesh, to build a 27-story private home in Mumbai. |
Unemployed Californian Larry EllisonAfter being divorced by his first wife because she said that he would never amount to anything or make any money, started Oracle Corporation, world's leading supplier of relational database management software (Note to academic computer scientists: don't worry if you aren't sure what an RDBMS is; it isn't necessary for running Microsoft Word). |
Corsican Lieutenant Napoleon BonaparteConquered most of Europe and Egypt. Emancipated the Jews throughout Europe. |
Frail Lincolnshire Lad I. NewtonDuring an 18-month school vacation, developed calculus, inverse square law of gravitation, and laws of motion. |
Programmed by Eve Astrid Andersson and Philip Greenspun back in the mid-1990s. If you're a nerd, you might find the source code useful.
Original Inspiration: How to Make Yourself Miserable