22 CEOs who founded their Fortune 500 companies

The Fortune 500 may include the most powerful CEOs in the world, but just a few of these top executives can look back and reminisce on the very first days of their company. This year there are 22 CEOs who can also say that they founded their empires, either alone or with partners.

From Mark Zuckerberg to Jensen Huang, the background and businesses of these executives varies widely. Several founders started their companies during college, like Bom Kim, who dropped out of Harvard to start e-commerce giant Coupang. Others, like Salesforce founder Marc R. Benioff, worked for years before starting his own business.

While the success of a business venture is always bound to ebb and flow, these founders anchored themselves in their own projects, even through times of major transformation. Their innovation and dedication has clearly paid off, as their one-time startups have grown into some of the most important companies in the U.S.

Mark Zuckerberg

Company: Meta Platforms
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 30

While studying computer science at Harvard University in 2004, Zuckerberg created social media website Facebook alongside several of his peers. Since then, he has rebranded the company as “Meta,” and branched off into new ventures from virtual reality to AI.

Elon Musk

Company: Tesla
Title: Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 40

Musk joined Tesla as a venture capital backer and co-founder in 2003. Tesla’s first car was the roadster, and the company spent several years dominating the EV market, although it has recently lost ground to competitors.

Michael S. Dell

Company: Dell Technologies
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 48

As a 19-year-old college student at the University of Texas, Dell created a start-up called PC Limited to sell computers to IBM. Since 1985 the company has sold computers directly to consumers, and was renamed Dell Technologies in 1987.

Jensen Huang

Company: Nvidia
Title: President, CEO & Director
2024 company ranking: No. 65

With two electrical engineering degrees under his belt, Huang dreamed up his company after meeting with two colleagues at a Denny’s where once worked. Nvidia is now a top manufacturer of GPUs: electronic units that can process large amounts of data quickly, which are critical to AI.

Richard D. Fairbank

Company: Capital One Finance
Title: Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 91

In 1988, Fairbank and his colleague developed a way to integrate business operations with technology to improve products and pricing strategies. Despite getting rejected from dozens of national retail banks at the start, one corporation took interest and launched a credit card division for Fairbank and his partner to spearhead. This was later spun off into a new company that would eventually be renamed to Capital One Finance.

Marc R. Benioff

Company: Salesforce
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 123

After working at Oracle for 13 years and quickly rising within the ranks to assume the role of vice president, Benioff got the idea for Salesforce while swimming with dolphins in Hawaii. The company was founded on the premise that enterprise software should be accessible from a web browser, and not just business servers—a revolutionary thought in the 1990’s.

Marc Rowan

Company: Apollo Global Management
Title: Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 136

After the firm he was working for in 1990 collapsed, Rowan created asset management company Apollo Global Management with his former colleagues from Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Bom Kim

Company: Coupang
Title: Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 168

Inspired by Groupon’s business model, Kim dropped out of Harvard’s MBA program in 2010, moved back to South Korea, and created e-commerce platform Coupang. Since then, the company has also ventured into streaming services.

Jack Dorsey

Company: Block
Title: Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 186

In 2009, Dorsey and his co-founder Jim McKelvey ran into a problem: they couldn’t complete a purchase because the retailer didn’t accept credit cards. Turning this annoyance into inspiration, the pair created “Square,” a card reader that became Block’s first product. Dorsey also famously co-founded X, the company formerly known as Twitter.

Mark D. Millett

Company: Steel Dynamics
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 221

Leaving their roles as executives for steel manufacturer Nucor, Millet and two of his co-founders started Steel Dynamics in 1993. The company is now one of America’s largest steel producers.

Laurence D. Fink

Company: BlackRock
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 231

Fink co-founded BlackRock in 1988 after his departure from investment bank First Boston. He and his fellow co-founders focused on the buy-side of trading, and integrated investing with risk management.

Leonard S. Schleifer

Company: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals
Title: Co-Chairman, President, Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 311

While practicing neurology, Schleifer became fed up with the pharmaceutical industry’s lack of neurodegenerative disease treatments, so he founded Regeneron in 1988 to fill that gap in care.

Niraj S. Shah

Company: Wayfair
Title: Co-Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 346

Shah created Wayfair in 2002 with a friend on a tight budget, operating out of a spare bedroom in his co-founder’s house. He noticed that consumers couldn’t easily shop online, so he set out to create a user-friendly online marketplace. Now, the home goods retail giant is comprised of more than 250 niche e-commerce sites that sell all types of furniture.

Ernest C. Garcia III

Company: Carvana
Title: President, Director & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 377

As the son of used car dealership DriveTime owner Garcia II, Garcia III followed in his father’s footsteps and formed Carvana as a DriveTime subsidiary in 2012. It later spun off into its own operation, which is now one of America’s largest online used vehicle franchises.

Brian Chesky

Company: Airbnb
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 396

Chesky came up with the idea for the online homestay marketplace in 2007 after he couldn't pay a month's worth of rent upfront. He and his Rhode Island School of Design classmate and co-founder then opened their house to short-term renters, eventually turning that spark of an idea into the larger Airbnb business.

Jeffrey C. Sprecher

Company: Intercontinental Exchange
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 397

Sprecher created the Intercontinental Exchange in the 2000s after noticing flaws in the power market, and recruiting banks and companies to help fix them. The corporation eventually acquired the NYSE, of which Sprecher was the chairman until 2021.

Jure Sola

Company: Sanmina
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 433

With an engineering degree and work experience in electric manufacturing, Sola co-founded Sanmina in 1980 and focused on manufacturing highly technical telecommunications products.

Tony Xu

Company: Doordash
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 443

After washing dishes as a young man in a Chinese restaurant, Xu wanted to create a way for frontline workers to better support themselves. While studying at Stanford University in 2012, he co-founded the food delivery service Doordash with his fellow classmates.

Hamid R. Moghadam

Company: Prologis
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 463

Moghadam first established Security Capital Industrial Trust in 1991, later to be named Prologis, after he cofounded investment firm AMB Property Corporation in 1983. The companies merged in 2011, and Prologis has become one of the largest industrial real estate firms in the world.

Stephen A. Schwarzman

Company: Blackstone 
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 464

After rising to managing director of global mergers and acquisitions at Lehman Brothers in 1984, Schwarzman left to start his own investment company. He co-created Blackstone Group with a former boss in 1985, and they funded it with their own money.

Robert Greenberg

Company: Skechers U.S.A. 
Title: Chairman & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 465

After stepping down as CEO of footwear company LA Gear, which he also co-founded, Greenberg created Skechers with a focus on men’s street shoes in 1992. One of the largest American shoe brands, the apparel organization has also expanded into sportswear and clothing.

Charles Liang

Company: Super Micro Computer 
Title: Chairman, President & CEO
2024 company ranking: No. 498

Liang has multiple degrees in electrical engineering, and co-founded Super Micro Computer in 1993 as a five-person operation. He holds several patents for his server technology creations, and has since opened a manufacturing subsidiary within the company.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com