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Serena Williams
Compton to 23 majors — then she turned the winnings into a fund for founders nobody else backs.
The rise
Born on 26 September 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan, the youngest of five sisters, she learned the game on the public courts of Compton under her father Richard, who coached her and Venus himself before moving the family to Florida. She turned professional in October 1995, at fourteen, and won the US Open in 1999, at seventeen.
What they did
She took 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most of the Open era, held the number one ranking 319 weeks and four Olympic golds. She won the 2017 Australian Open eight weeks pregnant, nearly died of a pulmonary embolism after the birth, and spoke out on Black maternal mortality. In 2022 she closed a $111 million fund, Serena Ventures, and left the tour; she came back in June 2026, at 44.
The full picture
Her fights with officials are on the record: in the 2018 US Open final she was docked a game after calling the umpire a thief, fined $17,000, and booing ran through Osaka's first major. She boycotted Indian Wells fourteen years after racist abuse in 2001. Serena Ventures is asked what its record owes the brands she endorses.
Why it matters
She won at the top of a sport that had no room for her, was policed for her body and her temper as her rivals were not, then put the money behind founders the venture industry walks past.
“Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution.”