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The Early Business Pursuits of Bezos, Buffett, and Other Legends

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They say everyone has to start somewhere.

And for legends like Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Est̩e Lauder, and Richard Branson Рwell, they got into the money-making game early.

From hawking golf balls to bootstrapping student magazines, many of these iconic entrepreneurs started their very first businesses in their childhood or teenage years. Not all of these enterprises fared well, but they did give these eventual magnates an early taste of the startup life.

Childhood Ambition

Today’s infographic comes to us from Colonial Life, and it showcases the early endeavors of ten successful business greats:

The Early Business Pursuits of Bezos, Buffett, and Other Legends

While some business greats weren’t afraid to get started later on, people like Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos had an entrepreneurial drive at a very early age.

It likely drove their parents wild, but it seems that hitting the ground running ended up paying off in the long run.

Entrepreneurial Early Years

How did famous entrepreneurs get their feet wet in business? It generally falls into two categories.

1. Work With What You Have

People like Warren Buffett, Ingvar Kamprad, and Daymond John worked with what they had, finding the easiest route into business possible.

Buffett sold golf balls, built an ambitious newspaper route, and sold gum. Meanwhile, Ingvar Kamprad marked up wholesale matches to sell them to neighbors for a profit, while Daymond John personalized pencils in his school classes.

The lesson here? Sometimes the first opportunities you see are not glorious game-changers – instead, you need to apply hard work and creativity to a widely available opportunity and grind it out.

2. Early Passions Realized

On the other hand, entrepreneurs like Michael Dell, Max Levchin, Kevin Plank, and Estée Lauder realized their passions early, and these initial childhood ambitions were linked to their later careers.

Dell and Levchin were both involved in computers early Рeither building them or programming on them Рand would both start renowned tech companies (Dell and Paypal) in their adult lives. Kevin Plank of Under Armour was in the apparel business early, selling t-shirts at local concerts, and Est̩e Lauder was selling cosmetics to her friends that were made by her chemist uncle.

Want other useful hints from the world’s best? Take a look at the Habits of Highly Successful Entrepreneurs.

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Visualizing All of the U.S. Currency in Circulation

This graphic illustrates the amount of U.S. currency in circulation globally, by denomination, based on data from the Federal Reserve.

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Visualizing All of the U.S. Currency in Circulation

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Have you ever wondered how much U.S. currency is in circulation?

Every year, the U.S. Federal Reserve submits a print order for U.S. currency to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). The BEP will then print billions of notes in various denominations, from $1 bills to $100 bills.

In this graphic, we’ve used the latest Federal Reserve data to visualize the approximate number of bills for each denomination globally, as of Dec. 31, 2022.

Breakdown of U.S. Currency in Circulation

The following table lists all of the data we used to create the visualization above. Note that value figures were rounded for simplicity.

Type of BillNumber of notes
in circulation (billions)
Value ($B)
$114.3$14B
$21.5$3B
$53.5$18B
$102.3$23B
$2011.5$230B
$502.5$125B
$10018.5$1,850B
$500-10,000*0.0004n/a

*$500-10,000 bills are listed as a range, and a total circulation of 0.0004 billion. Not included in graphic.

From these numbers, we can see that $100 bills are the most common bill in circulation, even ahead of $1 bills.

One reason for this is $100 bills have a longer lifespan than smaller denominations, due to people using $100 bills less often for transactions. Some businesses may also decline $100 bills as payment.

Based on 2018 estimates from the Federal Reserve, a $100 bill has a lifespan of over 20 years, which is significantly higher than $1 bills (7 years) and $5 bills (5 years).

If you’re interested in more visualizations on the U.S. dollar, consider this animated chart which shows how the dollar overtook the British pound as the world’s most prominent reserve currency.

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