Some people are born rich, but it is the self-made billionaires who inspire people more than anybody else. While most entrepreneurs won’t end up in the 10-digit club, there are lessons to be taken from these elites. The fact that hard work, business acumen, determination, perseverance, and smart decision-making can help even ordinary people become rich appeals to all. There are a number of examples of billionaires, some of whom you may not have heard of, who were not born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth, but made it big with their courage and intelligence.

Surprisingly, the majority of billionaires are self-made. The prominence of entrepreneurs in the richest 1 percent of the population brings figures such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to mind. Their success results from technological innovation coinciding with opportunities, a benefit of Information Age advances. This is a big reason for the emergence of billionaires who created their wealth over those who inherited it. And business-related income jolts made by fortune makers like Gates and Zuckerberg, in addition to the typical self-sustaining entrepreneur, are benefitting more than just themselves.

These rags-to-riches billionaires are often referred to as “superentrepreneurs” — people who not only rose to high earnings, but also continue to harbor influence by promoting sustainability and economic growth in their countries as their businesses flourish. “Superentrepreneurs” account for millions of new jobs and trillions of dollars in societal value in addition to their own incomes. However, the need for founders on every monetary level still exists even in this new age of innovation, as they help fill economic demands of all shapes and sizes.