Corruption kills creativity in developing nations

Friday, July 10, 2009
Here is what America's immigrant billionaires are made of
Devon Pendleton, Forbes

When New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg welcomed visitors to the newly accessible crown of the Statue of Liberty recently, he paid special tribute to the millions of immigrants who passed by the icon en route to America."The great business formations taking place today are done by people who value the opportunities that America gives them," the city's billionaire chief executive said.

Bloomberg was born in Boston, but dozens of his comrades on the Forbes list of the 400 Richest Americans immigrated to the U.S. armed only with creativity, energy and fierce ambition. Decades later they've built empires in technology, media, real estate and health care, created thousands of jobs and contributed billions of dollars to the U.S. economy.

Grocer and property baron John Catsimatidis, whose parents immigrated from Greece when he was six months old, credits his hardworking father for setting an example of what it takes to be successful."Growing up, my dad worked seven days a week as a busboy," he says. "There was no room for failure, that was instilled in me from the beginning."

Catsimatidis took a job as a grocery store clerk while studying at NYU, and dropped out in his senior year after a friend offered him a chance to buy a piece of his family's store. Catsimatidis owned 10 markets by age 24 and was making $25 million a year in revenue. He plowed $5 million into Manhattan real estate in 1977, and today owns hundreds of millions of dollars of property around the country.

"There is no question that there's a connection between one's drive and search for opportunities and having a foreign beginning," says California real estate magnate Igor Olenicoff. This is particularly true if your early years were spent in a poor country with a strong class system, he says. Olenicoff's Russian family fled to Iran after the 1917 Revolution.

Within Iranian society, "we would never be able to excel or achieve wealth," Olenicoff recalls. It was a sharp contrast to the U.S., where Olenicoff found opportunity--and credit--in abundance when he arrived in 1956.

Both Catsimatidis and Olenicoff say it's tough to instill the ambition and scrappiness bestowed on them by their foreign roots in their children, who have been raised with all the benefits--and trappings--of wealth. "To this day I go around the apartment shutting off lights at night," Catsimatidis says. "Until recently I cleaned my own plate. My kids wouldn't do that."

Tech-savvy immigrants have had a particularly profound impact on today's hyper-connected world. Had Google ( GOOG - news - people ) co-founder Sergey Brin not moved with his family from Moscow to Maryland in 1979, his fortuitous partnership with Larry Page and their subsequent founding of the world's most influential Internet company might never have happened.

Also crucial to Google's success is Iranian immigrant Omid Kordestani, often called the company's "business founder" for his success transforming Google's brand into a mainstream verb.

Yahoo was also the brainchild of foreign-born talent: co-founder Jerry Yang moved to California from Taiwan with his mother and brother in 1978. Ten years old at the time, Yang claims to have known only one word of English. Today he's worth more than $1 billion.
Here is what America's immigrant billionaires are made of