How a homeless high school dropout became CEO of a $1 billion company Entrepreneur became homeless when he quit high school for band Min Jeong Lee and Komaki Ito, Bloomberg Dec. 18, 2020 FacebookTwitterEmail Taihei Kobayashi in Tokyo.Shoko Takayasu/Bloomberg Taihei Kobayashi has gone from sleeping on the streets of Tokyo to heading a technology startup whose market value topped $1 billion. His rags-to-riches story is among the most remarkable to emerge from a small-cap stock boom that’s minting fortunes in Japan. Kobayashi’s company, which helps startups and other firms to design and create new businesses and products, went public in July and its shares have since more than tripled.