After a difficult childhood marked by poverty and an abusive stepfather in Milwaukee, Chris Gardner moved to San Francisco in the early 1980s chasing a career in finance. He landed an unpaid stockbroker training program at Dean Witter Reynolds right around the time his relationship fell apart, leaving him a single father to his two-year-old son.
Evicted from his apartment, Gardner and his son spent roughly a year homeless — sleeping in shelters, church basements, and, when nothing else was open, a BART station public restroom. He kept showing up every day in a suit for his unpaid internship, and kept studying for his broker's license exams the whole time.
He passed his exams, was hired as a full stockbroker, and in 1987 founded his own brokerage firm, Gardner Rich & Co., which he later sold a stake in for a reported eight-figure sum.
His memoir became the basis for the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness, with Will Smith playing Gardner opposite his own real-life son, Jaden Smith.
Ad space