Businessmen and the Entrepreneurship of Oprah Winfrey

¶ … Businessmen and the Entrepreneurship of Oprah Winfrey

In today's business environment, working for oneself is often a much more lucrative and successful choice than resigning to work for someone else. As more and more companies see lay offs in these hard times of recession, the thought of self-ownership and entrepreneurship is becoming an ideal dream for many. This makes it crucial to understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how prominent examples like Shai Agassi and Donald Trump can be a pathway to emulating their great success. Overall, it is a business woman who best embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship; Oprah Winfrey is the epitome of a modern day entrepreneur who has taken every obstacle and turned it into a very lucrative advantage and by branding herself, she has gained enormously, both monetarily and through the love and devotion of her millions of fans around the world.

The first businessman to be examined here in this analysis is Shai Agassi. He is currently working the company, Better Place, which he founded in 2007. The company is taking responsibility for finding new ways of reducing our overall carbon footprint. In fact, Better Place is a leading producer and developer of Electric Vehicles (EVs). According to the research, Agassi is a crucial part in spearheading programs that focus on more sustainable development and greater responsibility and eco-consciousness. His bio states that "He is focused on one of this century's biggest challenges, moving the world from oil-based to sustainable transportation," (Better Place 2011). Agassi has worked with nations like Israel to embrace a more sustainable view of car production and maintenance. He and his company are now working with companies in California, Hawaii, Ontario, Denmark, and Australia to help facilitate successful large scale launches of EVs. It is through responsible businessmen like Agassi that the world and business as we know it will change forever.

Donald J. Trump is another infamous entrepreneur who has made a name for himself through hard work and shrewd business decisions. He is most famous for the Trump International Hotel & Tower, a luxury hotel and apartment complex in the middle of swanky Manhattan in New York City. Trump also has a number of other real estate property holdings in his name, and essentially made his career through the leveraging of real estate, especially apartment buildings, as huge assets. Trump was born and raised in New York City, where he later built his real estate empire. He began dabbling with real estate when he was still working in his father's financial company, asking his father to use apartment complexes as a way to back further financial processes. He then left his father's company to strike out on his own. He found great success in buying and retaining middle income apartment buildings and complexes. Additionally, he made millions in building new apartment complexes around the city of New York, which is known for its high real estate prices and high demand for living space in a small, condensed urban zone. He focused on the construction of large scale housing units in order to make his millions, Moreover, he bought the Pennsylvania Central Railroad Station's lands west of Manhattan in hopes of expanding his apartment empire. However, "When initial plans for apartments proved unfeasible because of a poor economic climate, Trump promoted the property as the location of a city convention center, and the city government selected it over two other sites in 1978," (Biography.com 2011). This clearly shows Trump as a master of turning obstacles into advantages, and never allowing the threat of failure to ruin his potential success. Eventually Trump bought a series of hotel chains and signed a partnership agreement with the Hyatt Hotel Corporation for the building of a large downtown hotel, the Trump Towers.

Finally, this examination turns to Oprah Winfrey, a true story of entrepreneurial success in the modern context. Winfrey was born in 1954 and soon began her long career in broadcasting in high school at a local radio show, WVOL. She then became an anchor for a local Nashville news station WTVF-TV. She kept moving forward in her career by increasing her ability to reach out to more and more people. She eventually found herself on AM Chicago, a morning talk show in Chicago. According to the research, "In less than a year, the show expanded to one hour and was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. It entered national syndication in 1986, becoming the highest-rated talk show in television history," (Oprah.com 2011). Her famous talk show lasted until 2011. However, it was her persistence and willingness to branch into new mediums that often led to her increased success. She launched O, Oprah Magazine, which gave her the power to reach out to many more people through print media, as well as her talk show. Then, it was time for her to move on to new successes with the launch of her very own cable network, Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN. Here, the research states that "The new multi-media venture is designed to entertain, inform, and inspire people to live their best lives," (Oprah.com 2011).