The path to success is not always a direct and easy climb – even the most fulfilled leaders, such as Mike Bloomberg and Mark Cuban, had setbacks before achieving success. The same is true for Kenn Ricci, an American aviation entrepreneur and president of the Flexjet private jet company. After being dismissed from his first job as a pilot after leaving the Air Force, he turned a complicated situation into a billionaire fortune.
“I worked for [companhia aérea] Northwest Orient for a brief period. I was dismissed. Unemployed, I lived again with my parents, ”Ricci told“ Wall Street Journal ”in a recent interview by remembering how he did his first million dollars.
Also read:
Continues after advertising
But instead of giving up, he saw a golden opportunity. Ricci accepted a work as a pilot hired at Professional Flight Crews, and one of the companies to fly was Corporate Wings, a private aviation company. The aspiring businessman was intrigued when his owners put the business for sale for $ 27,500 in 1981-and grabbed the opportunity to buy it.
Ricci won a $ 27,000 loan, but still missing $ 500. So he took the phone and called his father to ask the rest – and that call would launch his career into entrepreneurship.
In the early 1990s, his company was earning $ 3 million a year. Ricci led to Corporate Wings to new heights, literally carrying artists such as Barbara Streisand and Elton John in tour jets.
Continues after advertising
But the real great moment came when a governor of Arkansas who competed for the presidency needed a plane for just over a year. That political aspiring eventually became the 42nd president of the United States: Bill Clinton.
“I said, ‘The Arkansas governor won’t need a plane for 13 months. This guy has no chance of becoming president.’ And then I took him to the inauguration, ”Ricci recalled.
Of humble origin to a billionaire lifestyle
Corporate Wings was just the act of opening following four decades of Ricci business triumphs.
Continues after advertising
In 1990, he launched Inertial Airline Services and Flight Options – with Flight Options earning $ 100 million in only its first three months. Feeling the gold mine he had built, Ricci sold the Inertial Airline Services for $ 10 million: his first true taste of “significant wealth.”
Flight Options ended up merging with Aerospace Defense Giant Raytheon, who bought her in what he later described as one of the “worst days” of his life. But the setbacks never endured: he founded the Direction Aviation Capital (DAC), investing in aviation companies and getting a gigantic victory when DAC acquired Flexjet, getting impressive $ 3.8 billion in revenue last year.
From the humble son of a government official in “a very, very poor family”, Ricci’s ruthless impetus in aviation catapulted him to the status of billionaire.
Continues after advertising
Now, the aviation entrepreneur says that his entire life is like a vacation – and when asked how much spends on real trips, it reveals a shocking value for the majority. Ricci spends six weeks in Italy with his family, spending between $ 750,000 and $ 800,000 (from $ 3.9 million to $ 4.3 million) on the luxurious trip.
“I have too much houses and too spent on trips,” Ricci said in an interview with WSJ. “It may seem like a large number, but it has more to do with the fact that if I go somewhere, I want to enjoy it. I want it to be the best possible experience.”
The billionaire revealed that routinely spend a lot on tips for workers at their vacation sites, giving $ 1,000 advanced to restaurant employees by visiting them for the first time.
Continues after advertising
In hotels you go to, it will leave “10 times more” at the beginning so that employees know what your “level of expectation” is. Ricci always wants his trips to be the best possible experience.
Flexjet’s president also likes to celebrate success with fine watches, as well as Tom Brady and Mark Zuckerberg. Whenever something “important happens” in your life, he buys another. To date, it has accumulated a collection of about 40 watches worth $ 2.5 million (R $ 13.3 million)-with the most expensive individual purchase costing it $ 150,000 (R $ 800 thousand).
“When I sold the first company, I bought a clock for me. And so, over the years, it’s not so much that I love watches, but I watch a clock with a financial memory when we have a success.”
2025 Fortune Media IP Limited
