Charles Simonyi
Engineer
Hungarian-born computer engineer who oversaw Microsoft's development of Word and Excel.
While working as a night watchman for a computer lab, he learned programming from one of the engineers.
In 2009, he became the first tourist (or non-astronaut,) to go up into space, twice.
He married Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire, in 2008.
Paul Allen at Microsoft intervened directly to give him a job.