Self-made billionaire Charles Robert Schwab is considered one of the biggest risk-takers in Business World America. But that risk paid off: he invested his success in his company

الضخمة “تشارلز شواب”  التي تُقدر قيمتها السوقية بنحو 63.28 مليار دولار في حين تُقدر ثروة تشارلز حاليًا بنحو 8.75 مليار دولار، وفقًا لمؤشر

“بلومبرج للمليارديرات”.

A Very Humble Life

 عاش تشارلز حياة متواضعة للغاية فقد ولد في وليامزبورغ في بنسلفانيا في 18 فبراير عام 1862 لأسرة من الطبقة الوسطى لكنه نشأ في لوريتو

Pennsylvania. He attended St. Francis College, now known as Saint Francis University, and early in life found several ways to earn money

on his own, such as selling magazine subscriptions and raising chickens in the backyard.

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طاقة وطموح

Charles began his career as a stockholder in a company called Edgar Thompson Steel Works, which was owned by businessman Andrew Carnegie.

He gradually improved and advanced in his work, becoming assistant manager in the early 1880s and manager in 1887. But his mindset and ambitions had

already taken him much further than that.

But energetic and ambitious Charles wasn’t satisfied with that. He and two friends decided to become their own bosses by launching a regular newsletter

for investors in 1963. It attracted 3,000 subscribers, each paying $84 a year. The business grew quickly and expanded to include a mutual fund worth

مشتركا قيمته 20 مليون دولار ولكن بعد انهيار السوق عام 1969، أمرت ولاية تكساس “روبرت” بالتوقف عن تلقي الطلبات من سكان الولاية، لأنه

hadn’t registered his company with the relevant authorities. This led to a legal battle that left him $100,000 in debt.

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He Refused to Give Up

كانت هذه الديون دافعا لتشارلز الذي لم يركن للهزيمة وأدار ظهره لـ”وول ستريت” وما يحاك داخل أروقتها من اتفاقات ومؤامرات، وتمكن من خلق

his own path and spark an investment revolution. He brokered the purchase of a plot of land for his uncle, who decided to pay off the rest of his nephew’s debts and give him

an additional $100,000 to start a new venture.

أسّس تشارلز شركته “تشارلز شواب” في كاليفورنيا تحت اسم “فريست كوماندر كوربراشن”، لتقديم خدمات الوساطة التقليدية ونشرة أخبار استثمارية،

وبعد عامين، غيّر اسم الشركة إلى “تشارلز شواب آند كو” التي وان يعمل لديها نحو 10 موظفين وما يقرب من ألفي عامل.

Charles’s ambition never waned. He was always striving to put his business in a stronger position, developing the company’s operations and compensation structure. He was among the first brokers to enlist

with computers to launch an electronic trading system, making it one of the largest banking service providers in the United States and one of the country’s best-known firms in

the financial brokerage industry.

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صدمات عنيفة

ورغم مرورها بصدمات عنيفة، مثل انهيار سوق الأسهم عام 1987، وانفجار فقاعة “دوت كوم” لكن “تشارلز شواب” استطاعت النجاة على مدار

five decades. It had only just entered the online world, and within a few years had transformed from a mere retailer of financial products into a

vast marketplace managing trillions of dollars, with the company’s market capitalization estimated at $63.28 billion.

لك يركل “روبرت” لهذت النجاح بل على تقديم الجديد واستأنف إطلاق Products and new services and subsidiaries. It opened several branches in different regions,

and by 1981, the company had branch offices in 40 cities, 600 employees, 220,000 customers, and annual revenue

of $42 million.