Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz was a Xerox salesman.

After graduating from Northern Michigan University, Schultz worked as a salesman for Xerox. His success there led a Swedish company named Hammerplast that made coffeemakers to recruit him at age 26.

While working for that company, he encountered the first Starbucks outlets in Seattle, and went on to join the company at age 29.

On his job at Xerox, Schultz writes :

“I learned more there than in college about the worlds of work and business. They trained me in sales, marketing, and presentation skills, and I walked out with a healthy sense of self-esteem. Xerox was a blue-chip pedigree company, and I got a lot of respect when I told others who my employer was … But I can’t say I ever developed a passion for word processors.”

America’s first lady of talk shows Oprah Winfrey was co-hosting a local talk show in Baltimore.

America’s first lady of talk shows Oprah Winfrey was co-hosting a local talk show in Baltimore.

According to the Huffington Post, Winfrey was fired from the 6 p.m. news slot at Baltimore’s WJZ-TV in 1977 at age 23.

In 1978, a 24-year-old Winfrey was recruited to co-host WJZ’s local talk show “People Are Talking.” While there, she also hosted the local version of “Dialing for Dollars.”

Winfrey remained in Baltimore throughout her mid- and late-20s, until moving to Chicago in 1983 to host “A.M. Chicago” for WLS-TV.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was building a deep background in computer science.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was building a deep background in computer science.

Schmidt spent six years as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, earning a master’s and Ph.D. by age 27 for his early work in networking computers and managing distributed software development.

He spent those summers working at the famed Xerox PARC labs, which helped create the computer workstation as we know it. There, he met the founder of Sun Microsystems, where he had his first corporate job.

In his early years as a programmer, “all of us never slept at night because computers were faster at night.”