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- Adam Smith – Solely because he wrote the “bible of capitalism,” the first scholarly work to analyze the generation and distribution of wealth.
- Colaeus – By a century later the Phoenicians had established a regular route, bringing out tin as well as silver.
- Estée Lauder – business genius built a cosmetics empire that would continue to support her family even after passing at the age of 97
- Zhang Qian – So Zhang continued to wander, as far as northern India, and found a surprising number of peaceful and prosperous lands civilized people.
- Giovanni De’ Medici – When old Vieri retired in 1393, Giovanni took control of the whole operation. In 1397 he transferred his headquarters back to Florence.
- Helena Rubinstein – Rubinstein began travelling to promote her products, and in 1908 opened the Salon de Beauté Valaze in London.
- Irene of Athens – Even as wife to Leo, Irene of Athens saw the enormous economic benefit in silk production to feed the demand in Europe.
- Jakob Fugger – As Maximilian borrowed ever more, Jakob gained ever more land, a title of nobility, and was made a count of the empire in 1514.
- Jamsetji Tata – This world traveler understood the profit to be gained in the textile industry and opened a cotton mill in Bombay.
- John Jacob Astor – The Jay Treaty in 1794 forced the British out of the region, and in short order Astor had expanded his operations throughout the Great Lakes territories.
- John Rockefeller – Based on 1918 federal income tax records, Rockefeller earned about 1.5 billion dollars that year, roughly 2% of the country’s total wealth.
- John Spilsbury – He made his first puzzle in 1767 and went on to turn the world, continents, and countries into puzzles.
- Levi Strauss – One of his customers, a tailor named Jacob Davis, innovated on the design of denim pants by adding metal rivets to the seams to prevent ripping.
- Marco Polo – Having made contact with the court of Kublai Khan, the brothers Polo returned to Venice in 1269.
- Marcus Licinius Crassus – As a young officer, Marcus had been forced to flee to Hispania when Lucius Cinna took control of Rome 87 BC.
- Mary Katherine Goddard – That is, until he returned a year later. It was this same year that Mary assumed the role of postmaster.
- Masaru Ibuka – founded Tokyo-Tsushin Kenkyusho, specializing in educational electronics, especially in magnetic recording devices.
- Melitta Bentz – One day, tired of all this, Melitta used a nail to poke holes in the bottom of a brass cup and then lined it with a sheet of blotting paper from her son’s school notebook. And made coffee.
- Piero De’ Bardi – Even in its declining years in the 14th Century, it would play a notable role in financing early voyages to the New World.
- Raja Todar Mal – He began his bureaucratic career as a scribe in the court of Sher Shah Suri.
- Sarah Breedlove – an African-American entrepreneur, to promote the products that Breedlove had devised and that Malone would manufacture.
