Ted Turner - Broadcasting, Media
If you want to become a billionaire, you have to take some risks. For people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, the risk was a relatively modest financial investment but a considerable investment of time and energy. They achieved success be pushing early returns back into the business. For others like Fred Smith, the risk was a significant financial commitment.
The king of risk-taking is Ted Turner. Like Smith, Turner started with an inheritance, in this case a successful billboard business. He received the inheritance at a young age when his father committed suicide. Through a series of seven high-risk moves over thirty years, Turner built a net worth that peaked at about $10 billion.
Failure on any one of the moves could have wiped him out. Indeed, the collapse of AOL/Time Warner stock when the dot-com bubble burst dropped his net worth as much as 80 percent. We'll never know how many people out there failed on their first or second bet.
Known as "The Mouth of the South," Turner achieved his success despite saying things no businessman would be able to whisper today. A radical right-wing conservative in his youth and a left-wing activist as an adult, Turner was always controversial. Although much of his business career is behind him, he occasionally returns to the news when he makes controversial or insensitive comments about religion (saying Christianity is for losers), politics (claiming that Israelis are terrorists just like Palestinians), or the environment (by advocating population control).