Kinko’s was built by a man who could barely read.
Paul Orfalea was dyslexic, flunked two grades, and was expelled from one school after another. A school administrator told his mother he might learn to lay carpet. In 1970 he rented a 100-square-foot space beside a hamburger stand near UC Santa Barbara, put in a copier, and named the shop after his nickname, Kinko. FedEx bought it in 2004 for $2.4 billion.
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