Curated playlist
American businesspeople in the drink industry
- Jay-ZNo major label would sign Jay-Z, so he sold burned CDs out of his car.
- Dr. DreDr. Dre's G-funk had live musicians replay funk melodies instead of sampling them. It debuted on The Chronic.
- Joan CrawfordA 1938 ad called Joan Crawford "box office poison," but Mildred Pierce later won her an Academy Award.
- Sean CombsSean Combs founded Bad Boy Records, which launched the Notorious B.I.G. He was later sentenced to four years in prison.
- Ryan ReynoldsRyan Reynolds gave up his usual fee so the Deadpool film would get made.
- Snoop DoggSnoop Dogg bought Death Row Records, the label that launched his career, in February 2022. It took nearly three decades.
- George ClooneyIn 1977, a teenage George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and did not make it past the first round of player cuts. No contract was offered. Clooney, an American actor and filmmaker, would go on to collect two Academy Awards, a…
- 50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times in 2000, then blacklisted by the music industry. He built his comeback on mixtapes.
- John Harvey KelloggJohn Harvey Kellogg built a chair that shakes its sitter twenty times every second, and visitors to the Kellogg Discovery Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, can still sit in it today. The physician who designed it lived from 1852 to 1943.…
- Magic JohnsonMagic Johnson told the world he had HIV from the free throw line in 1991. He was 32 and a five-time NBA champion.
- Gavin NewsomGavin Newsom, the governor of California since 2019, once fought San Francisco health inspectors over a $2,700 sink. The sink was meant for a carpeted wine shop he owned. The Department of Public Health classed wine as food and insisted…
- David ChangDavid Chang, born on the 5th of August 1977, built a restaurant group whose most exclusive room had just twelve seats. That room was Momofuku Ko in New York. Diners could book only online, ten days in advance, and the seats went to whoever…
- Hamdi UlukayaHamdi Ulukaya cannot say for certain when he was born. His Kurdish family herded animals and often moved with them between seasonal pastures, and he arrived during one of their treks into the mountains. Nobody recorded the day. He settled…