Determination, calculated risk-taking, a lot of hard work, a relentless pursuit of greatness, and luck. Read the bios of anyone on the Forbes billionaire list, or any top athlete, etc, and you'll see the same traits. For example, Michael Jordan didn't make the varsity basketball team, so he trained vigorously and became the star of the JV team to prove himself. Many others probably gave up. The Forbes list is full of stories of people working from poverty to billionaire status, and even losing everything and becoming billionaires again. It is the willingness to do whatever it takes to be the best when others give up that makes you great. Plus luck.
Early beginnings, taking risks with their reputation where others won't combined with unconventional thinking also has something to do with it: Paypal, Reddit and The Power Of Fakin’ It - <a href="http://platformed.info/seeding-youtube-megaupload-paypal-reddit/" rel="nofollow">http://platformed.info/seeding-youtube-megaupload-paypal-red...</a>
At the risk of sounding overly trite: think different. But honestly even that is not enough.<p>The four titans listed here do not have as many similarities as an association might imply. However, they all do(did) share the ability to see the status quo and deem that things could be done better.<p>There are also many other qualities which are almost to impossible to quantify. If they were, there would be more names on this list given the billions of lives that have come before, during, and after them.<p>Thinking different is not enough. You have to become a force of nature in a situation where you can affect real change; and that isn't something that can be coached on a website.
That's Elon Musk's wife in case no one noticed:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Musk" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Musk</a>