A look at 10 entrepreneurs who achieved success late in life: It’s never too late to start a business

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For your first million in life, you’ll never be too old. Successful entrepreneurs prove that you can start your own business at any age. Many of today’s globally renowned and extremely wealthy successful people began their own businesses at an early age – Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Donald *** and Richard Branson are the best examples: the companies they founded achieved great success when they were in their 20s. Zuckerberg’s Facebook became profitable when he was just 25 years old. At the same age, Richard Branson’s Virgin Company was already very successful. Here are ten representative entrepreneurs who achieved success at a late age: 1. No one knows better than Jack Ma that it’s not age that matters, but perseverance and the ability to seize opportunities. After being rejected by countless universities and companies, he founded Alibaba at the age of 35, and three years later the company experienced rapid growth. 　　2. Before starting his business based on the idea of instant messaging services, Jack Dorsey was an avid skateboarder. While studying at New York University, he designed a program to speed up taxi rides. When he became the founder and CEO of Twitter as we know it today, Dorsey was exactly 30 years old. 　　3. After completing his studies and changing jobs frequently, Ben Horowitz joined Netscape Communications at the age of 29. At the age of 33, he co-founded LoudCloud company with Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape. The two of them often teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. But by the time they sold Loudcloud, the company was worth $1.6 billion, and Horowitz was 41 at the time. 　　4. At the age of 28, Mark Chuban was living in an apartment with only three beds, sharing it with five other people. At that time, the software consulting company Micro Solutions, which he had founded, was already three years old. At the age of 32, Chouban sold his company and invested the $6 million he received in Broadcast.com; selling his second company generated $5.7 billion in revenue for him. 　　5. Before becoming world-famous, Peter Thiel was just one of many lawyers who hated their work. After working at Credit Suisse for a while, the current billionaire founded PayPal at the age of 31. Four years later, the company was sold to eBay, and Thiel earned $50 million. 　　6. Tim Westergren founded the music service company Pandora at the age of 35. The online radio station, which would go on to achieve great success, had a very difficult time in its first two years: Westgren couldn’t even pay his employees, and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy at one point. But this former musician persuaded 50 employees to stay by giving speeches every week to motivate them – and in the end they were rewarded for it. 　　7. Jane Koum, a well-known employee at Yahoo, tried her luck at Facebook—but was firmly rejected. So on his 33rd birthday, he created the WhatsApp messaging service. In February 2014, Facebook approached Koom again, and subsequently WhatsApp was sold to Facebook for $19 billion. 　　8. Before becoming an entrepreneur and starting his own business, Reid Hastings was a member of the U.S. peacekeeping force in Swaziland. At the age of 31, he founded Pure Software, a troubleshooting tool for computer engineers. At the age of 37, Hastings sold the company for $750 million. With this money, he founded Netflix, the now highly successful streaming service. 　　9. Henry Ford, just like Steve Jobs, had a passion for perfectionism when it came to details. This led to the failure of his first two companies, as he could never meet the deadlines. At the urging of investor James Cazenove, Ford began making changes at the age of 40. Carnes convinced him to sell cars that were not perfect as well. Today, the automobile manufacturer Ford is worth nearly $166 billion. 　　10. Sam Walton is the owner of a small discount store in the United States. He used the borrowed money to buy another store, yet it was still difficult to pay his employees’ salaries. However, leveraging his experience, Walton took the first step from a franchisee to an independent entrepreneur at the age of 44, opening the first store of the now highly successful Walmart supermarket chain.