9 CEOs Who Started Companies as Kids


Bangalore: Today these CEOs might be known for earning millions from their business, but very few of us know that these business ideas are based on their childhood experiences and habits. Let’s check out some CEOs who started working when they were kids.

Seth Goldman, Honest Tea

Seth Goldman’s company, Honest Tea, is an all-natural brand that would strive to create healthy and honest relationships with its customers, suppliers and the environment. Goldman was already building on those values from the age of four. While climbing through the bushes of a golf course near his house, Goldman would find deserted golf balls and resell them to empty-handed golfers. This is when he realized it pays to be resourceful.

Being an energetic person, Seth was persistently in search of the ideal drink to quench his thirst after a run, a game of basketball and between grad school classes. Yet, Seth found most drinks either too sweet or too tasteless. Barry Nalebuff, Seth's professor at the Yale School of Management, found that he and Seth shared a craze for the idea of a less sweet drink. And eventually they came up with the idea of Honest Tea, bottled tea made of real tea leaves.

Before introducing Honest Tea, Goldman was Vice President of the Calvert Group, which shaped the Calvert Social Index. Prior to that he was Director of an AmeriCorps demonstration project in Baltimore, MD, and served as deputy press secretary for Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. He worked for a year in China and a year and a half in the former Soviet Union. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in government (a degree in Government is in the bureaus, agencies and departments of federal, state and even municipal governments) and from the Yale School of Management.