Richard DeVos (1926–2018) was an American billionaire businessman, sports-team owner, and philanthropist. He was the co-founder of Amway (now Alticor) with Jay Van Andel and the owner of the Orlando Magic basketball team.
Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, DeVos and Van Andel were next-door neighbors. During World War II, they served in the Army Air Corps, and both later graduated from Grand Rapids’s Calvin College. After a few failed entrepreneurial attempts, they became sales agents for Nutrilite, a California vitamin company.
Nutrilite’s products were “directly marketed”—they were not sold in stores, but purchased by independent sales-people at a discount from the company and then sold to customers. Nutrilite differentiated itself from other direct-marketing companies in that it used a multilevel marketing system. Salespeople not only receive commissions on the products they sold but also were free to enlist and train salespeople of their own and then take a commission on the profits of those they brought in.
DeVos and Van Andel co-founded Amway in 1959 based on Nutrilite’s prototype—they modeled their employee hierarchy on the same multilevel, commission-based system as Nutrilite. Amway prospered—by the 1980s, Amway had achieved sales of $1 billion a year worldwide. Forbes ranked it No. 29 among the largest privately held companies in America in 2015.
DeVos and Van Andel donated millions of dollars to revitalize Grand Rapids. DeVos founded the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, an American conservative foundation and grant-making body in 1970. He was a significant donor to the U.S. Republican Party and conservative causes.
DeVos’s books include Hope From My Heart: Ten Lessons For Life (1997,) Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People (2016,) and the autobiographies Believe (1981) and Simply Rich (2016.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Richard DeVos
If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, “Here comes number seventy-one!”
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Perseverance, Persistence
If you have a dream, give it a chance to happen.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Chance, Dreams
Life … tends to respond to our outlook, to shape itself to meet our expectations.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Life, Expectation
It is impossible to win the race unless you venture to run, impossible to win the victory unless you dare to battle.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Courage, Bravery
The riches of life, the love and joy and exhilaration of life can be found only with an upward look. This is an exciting world. It’s cram-packed with opportunity. Great moments wait around every corner.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Possibilities, Opportunity, Potential
The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Belief, Confidence
Money cannot buy peace of mind. It cannot heal ruptured relationships, or build meaning into a life that has none.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Money
Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope.
And you can do it when things are tough.
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Optimism, Praise
The easiest thing to find on God’s green earth is someone to tell you all the things you cannot do.
—Richard DeVos
If I had some idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?
—Richard DeVos
Topics: Possibilities, Potential
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