" We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details…. We don’t give up on things easily. Our third-party seller business is an example of that. It took us three tries to get the third-party seller business to work. We didn’t give up.”
“If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”

Anderson grew up poor, but set off alone to Copenhagen at 14 when a fortuneteller told him that although he would suffer early on, eventually he would become famous.

Those predictions came true, as Anderson first tried and failed to become actor and singer. Seeing something special in Anderson, the director of the Royal Danish Theater took him under his wing and attended to his education. Anderson was teased terribly at school and harassed by students and a hateful headmaster, and he considered those some of the darkest days of his life.

After leaving school, Anderson began to publish his writing. His fairy tales became immensely popular and eventually earned him the fame he was promised as a child. He never forgot his initial poverty--The Little Match Girl was inspired by how his mother was forced to go begging in the streets as a young girl.

Today Hans Christian Anderson is still beloved, known for rich fairy tales, many of which have inspired Disney animation classics (which, it should be noted, have much happier endings than the original tales).

Ross is the author of Firefox For Dummies (ISBN 0-471-74899-4; published January 11, 2006).

In 2014, he entered the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans at position 62, with an estimated worth of more than seven and half billion dollars. He was the highest-ranked newcomer to the list that year