Julian Crowley
John Paul Jones DeJoria began working from an early age, selling Christmas cards and newspapers at the age of nine.
When he was taken into foster care he was involved with gangs in Los Angeles until a high school math teacher told him he would “never, ever succeed at anything in life.”
DeJoria set out to prove him wrong. In his early twenties, following a divorce, he was homeless and living on the streets with his son, but that didn’t stop him from going from a hair care employee to co-founder, with hairdresser Paul Mitchell, of John Paul Mitchell Systems.
The hair products company now rakes in a very impressive $900 million annually and Forbes rates DeJoria’s net worth as $4 billion.
