May 21, 2002
Dear Readers,
Hot off the presses -- the top story in the newest issue of Fortune
Magazine highlights business leaders WITH dyslexia. These four "losers"
are, respectively, Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, John Chambers, and
David Boies. Billionaire Branson developed one of Britain's top brands with
Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Schwab virtually created the
discount brokerage business. Chambers is CEO of Cisco. Boies is a
celebrated trial attorney, best known as the guy who beat Microsoft.
In one of the stranger bits of business trivia, they have something in
common: They are all dyslexic. So is billionaire Craig McCaw, who
pioneered the cellular industry; John Reed, who led Citibank to the top of
banking; Donald Winkler, who until recently headed Ford Financial; Gaston
Caperton, former governor of West Virginia and now head of the College
Board; Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko's; Diane Swonk, chief economist of
Bank One.
This article emphasizes that dyslexia "is not an intelligence disability" and
looks closely at how it affects learning. Many successful people, including
the four men named above, faced great difficulties in school. "One was
spanked by his teachers for bad grades and a poor attitude. He dropped out
of school at 16. Another failed remedial English and came perilously close to
flunking out of college. The third feared he'd never make it through school -- and might not have without a tutor. The last finally learned to read in
third grade, devouring Marvel comics, whose pictures provided clues to help
him untangle the words." To read the entire Fortune article, visit:
http://www.schwablearning.org/SchwabLearning.asp?id=726