Tom Szaky is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of TerraCycle, Inc., producer of the worlds first product made from and packaged in waste.
At 14, Szaky started his first business, a web design company called Flyte Design, which employed three associates and earned its young proprietor a five-figure income. Szaky then engaged in the start-up of three small dot.com companies: Werehome.com (an online home improvement site), piority.com (an online fundraising school), and studentmarks.com (an online grade tracking software).
In 2002, Szaky took a leave of absence from Princeton University to dedicate himself full-time to starting TerraCycle, Inc., beginning as a 2 man outfit in the crowded basement of an old office building in Princeton. Today TerraCycle occupies a 20,000 sq. ft. factory in an urban enterprise zone in Trenton, NJ, where it employs over 20 workers and makes and ships its unique consumer products to WalMart Canada, Whole Foods, Home Depot, and other major retail stores.
Let me try to paint you the best picture to really illustrate what the risk was. I mean it was a big risk. But it's all relatively speaking. So - I am not from a wealthy family. So for us as a - I am an only child. It was a very big thing for my parents to be there. We came from Hungary while ...(Full transcript available to logged in subscribers.).
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