Armir Harris came to the U.S. as a political refugee, but under the wing of his uncle, who immigrated two years later, he acquired the tools to shape his own American dream. Harris is the founder of Shofur, an Atlanta-based platform that books buses for events and tracks their location in real time.
MY EARLIEST MEMORIES are of Albania. It is a beautiful country, but in the 1990s, civil war broke out. In the turmoil before the war, I couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on, but I felt my family’s fear, and I saw violence everywhere. For eight or nine months, we didn’t leave the house. We didn’t go to school. In 1996, my mother fled to the U.S. with me and my sister, seeking political asylum.
WE ARRIVED IN ST. LOUIS with $2,000 in our pockets. We went from one homeless shelter to another, sometimes sleeping in a park or an Amtrak station. My mom got under-the-table jobs cleaning restaurants, and my sister and I would sleep on the seats while she worked. Although we were homeless and times were tough, we had each other. We were happy. My uncle joined us two years later, and we all moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. He drove a taxi, and by the time I was 15, he had started a limousine and party-bus service. He couldn’t get a loan or afford employees, so my mom and I pitched in. We’d clean the vehicles, and I’d help him with accounting, dispatching, and taking reservations. Once I got my driver’s license, I would fuel up the vehicles and get them ready for the drivers. I taught myself HTML and built him a website.
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Karen Dillon Congratulations on Your Company's Big Success. So Now, Let Me Ask- Are You Happy? - Happiness is actually contagious. The Framingham Heart Study-the longest ongoing study of heart health in the world, which has tracked aspects of participants' lives for more than 75 years-found that being in the presence of someone who is happy is likely to spur happiness in yourself.
For Jeremy Kasler, founder and CEO of CaskX, the pandemic offered an unexpected opportunity to reset his life. Having sold his previous company, Hong Kong-based Art Futures Group, which paired midcareer artists with investors, the native Brit planned to spend some time reconnecting with family in Australia as he got his new startup off the ground. The new business, which helps individual investors purchase barrels (or casks) of bourbon and Scotch from distilleries in the U.S. and Scotland, was still in its early days when Kasler arrived in Sydney just a day before the country went into lockdown. I kind of got stuck there, he recalls. But in hindsight, it was one of the best things that could have happened to him-and his new company.
AI Is in Its Awkward Era - Companies on this year's Inc. 5000 detail their growing pains, as investors expand their understanding of AI beyond chatbots and generative art.
For AI entrepreneurs, the enthusiasm is doubleedged. Interest in their tools has never been greater, as nearly half of the Inc. 5000 honorees who took our CEO Survey (see page 49) cite the use of at least one AI service. OpenAI was the top provider. But genAI hype has also led to misconceptions about what these tools actually do. As AI zips to the top of investors' portfolios, founders say the biggest factor limiting their growth isn't fundraising; it's overcoming a towering knowledge gap.
Meet the Inc. 5000- Moving the Goalposts - Religion of Sports believes it has the strategy for docuseries success in a suddenly cost-conscious Hollywood.
Religion of Sports believes it has the strategy for docuseries success in a suddenly cost-conscious Hollywood. When it comes to understanding athletes, Gotham Chopra has learned some lessons: Losses are more interesting than victories, the old guard has more enlightening things to say than up-and-coming phenoms, and success doesn't typically happen overnight. It was Serena Williams who served that last point to him after he rallied for seven years to try to get her to do a documentary with his production company, Religion of Sports. "Boy, you're persistent," he remembers she said to him.
Chip Conley Human wisdom is more valuable than ever. But true wisdom requires these six skills- When management theorist Peter Drucker coined the term knowledge workers in 1959, most people had no idea what he was talking about.
When management theorist Peter Drucker coined the term knowledge workers in 1959, most people had no idea what he was talking about. Since then, knowledge workers have come to rule the world. Today, seven of the world's 10 most valuable companies are tech companies, the ultimate workplace for knowledge workers.
Managing the Future of Work Isn't an Easy Job
Hirings and firings, layoffs and resignations. The workforce is experiencing never-ending upheaval, and HR professionals are pivoting fast.
Power Players
The future of energy is greenand smells like oil. Whatever the political fights, our demand for juice is rising fast, and Inc. 5000 companies are ready to meet it.
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