Founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs.
Ed Catmull, a University of Utah physics and computer science graduate who wanted to be an animator, co-founded Pixar and later led Walt Disney Animation Studios; he won the 2019 ACM Turing Award.
Jillian Michaels became a household name as a trainer on NBC's The Biggest Loser and built a fitness, nutrition and media business.
Bill Bowerman coached Oregon track to four NCAA titles, trained 31 Olympians and, as co-founder of Nike, invented the Cortez and the Waffle Trainer.
John Mackey co-founded Whole Foods Market in 1980, led it as CEO until 2022, and helped lead the natural food movement.
Joe Coulombe bought out the six Pronto Markets that Rexall wanted to liquidate, renamed them Trader Joe's in 1967 and sold the chain to Theo Albrecht in 1979.
Stanford biochemist Patrick O. Brown invented the DNA microarray, co-founded the Public Library of Science and founded Impossible Foods.
Ethan Brown left fuel cell and energy policy work, met plant-protein researchers in Missouri in 2009 and founded Beyond Meat.
Hamdi Ulukaya bought a defunct upstate New York yogurt plant in 2005 and grew Chobani to over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years.
Julia Hartz went from MTV and FX to co-founding Eventbrite in 2006, became CEO in 2016 and took it public in 2018.
Sophia Amoruso built the fast-fashion retailer Nasty Gal into one of Inc.'s fastest-growing companies, wrote #GIRLBOSS and founded Girlboss Media after Nasty Gal's 2016 bankruptcy.
Sallie Krawcheck rose from Sanford C. Bernstein analyst to head of Bank of America's wealth division, then founded Ellevest, an investing platform for women, in 2016.
Emily Weiss started the beauty blog Into the Gloss between 4 and 8 a.m. before her Vogue day job, then founded the cosmetics company Glossier.
