Don Vultaggio surrounded by lots of of cans of AriZona iced tea.Emily Christian/Enterprise Insider
Cofounder of the corporate behind AriZona iced tea, Don Vultaggio, is value almost $6 billion.
In contrast to different billionaires, together with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, Vultaggio by no means went to varsity.
He attributes his success to giving clients service and worth and treating workers like household.
In an period when American billionaires are minted in Silicon Valley and fortunes are constructed on algorithms and synthetic intelligence, Don Vultaggio stands out.
With a internet value of almost $6 billion, the 73-year-old cofounder of Arizona Beverage USA made his billions largely by promoting $0.99 cans of iced tea which have develop into as iconic as they’re reasonably priced.
In contrast to ultrawealthy college alums, together with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett, Vultaggio by no means went to varsity. In reality, he stated he most likely would not have completed highschool if his mom hadn’t stepped in.
“I wasn’t a very good pupil, nevertheless it wasn’t the varsity’s fault. It was my fault, and it labored out for me, however generally it would not work out,” Vultaggio advised Enterprise Insider’s Emily Christian throughout a current interview at AriZonaLand in Keasbey, New Jersey.
Vultaggio stated that mentorship, not formal training, laid the muse for his profession.
When he was a youngster, nonetheless at school, Vultaggio stated he started working for his first boss at a Brooklyn grocery retailer, incomes $1 per hour. “That man gave me the expertise of being a enterprise individual,” he stated. The job taught Vultaggio the worth of $1 and the way lengthy an hour can final.
When that boss died a couple of years in the past, the household despatched his ashes to Vultaggio. “He is buried in my yard, and a plaque there that claims ‘World’s best boss.'”
A Brooklyn grocery retailer.Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures
After graduating from highschool, Vultaggio was nonetheless working in grocery shops, identical to his father, who’d been within the enterprise his complete profession. “He stated, I do not need my son within the grocery store enterprise,” Vultaggio recalled. “So he obtained me a job at an area brewery.”
A few years later, the brewery closed, instructing Vultaggio an essential lesson in enterprise: “I all the time say that when companies fail, they forgot what the client needed,” he stated, “It was a model of beer that was well-liked at a degree however then misplaced its recognition.”
For concerning the subsequent 20 years, Vultaggio ran his personal multibrand beer-distributing enterprise that he grew from the bottom up. “I went to robust neighborhoods in New York and introduced beer to bodegas within the metropolis.”
He stated it labored out as a result of, whereas his beers weren’t the most cost effective, he gave his clients service and worth after they wanted it — a trait that served him effectively when he lastly co-founded Arizona Beverage USA, aka AriZona, with John Ferolito in 1992.
Each AriZona tallboy has 99¢ printed proper on the can.Emily Christian/Enterprise Insider
“Once I first began the model, I did not know something about iced tea aside from I drank it after I was a child. I did not know the best way to develop it, supply it, the best way to make it — all that type of factor, however I realized on the job,” Vultaggio stated.
What he did know stepping into was how clients shopped for drinks as a result of he’d seen it firsthand numerous instances within the shops and outlets he’d delivered to for thus a few years.
“Shoppers decided proper on the cooler. It did not matter what they noticed yesterday on tv on a industrial. They decided proper there, and a value signal motivated that call,” he stated.
These instincts finally led Vultaggio, in 1997, to do what certainly one of his salesmen stated was the dumbest concept he’d ever had: print “99¢” proper on his iced tea tallboys.
A can of AriZona’s inexperienced tea with ginseng and honey.Emily Christian/Enterprise Insider
“Since I did not have the sources to compete with Coke and Pepsi on promoting, I stated I’ve obtained to have a can that jumps out of the cooler,” Vultaggio stated.
By 2000, gross sales had been up 30%, he advised The New York Occasions. As we speak, AriZona is likely one of the main ready-to-drink tea entrepreneurs within the US, promoting about 2 billion cans a yr and producing $4 billion in gross sales, in response to Forbes.
Whereas its tallboys are the corporate’s declare to fame, it additionally sells gallon-sized jugs and smaller plastic bottles of its teas, juice cocktails, and vitality drinks.
Vultaggio attributes his success to a couple issues.
“When someone lays their hard-earned greenback on a desk and will get a can of tea or juice, and so they say, ‘Wow, that is a very good deal.’ I’ve now secured that buyer.”
Vultaggio stated he is concerned with each facet of manufacturing, together with style assessments.Emily Christian/Enterprise Insider
Initially, what set AriZona drinks aside was its giant 24-ounce cans, embellished in colourful designs that Vultaggio’s spouse created, promoting on the identical value as its rivals’ smaller bottles. As we speak, it is the truth that the corporate hasn’t raised the $0.99 value on its massive cans in 33 years, regardless of inflation and value hikes by different main manufacturers, together with Nestlé, Lipton, and Snapple. The corporate has, nevertheless, lowered the scale of its massive cans to 22 fluid ounces.
Not all the pieces’s been clean crusing. Vultaggio spent a few decade in a bitter authorized dispute along with his former enterprise accomplice, Ferolito, who needed to promote his stake within the firm. Vultaggio finally purchased out Ferolito’s stake for a reported $1 billion in 2015.
Proudly owning the corporate is a giant a part of why he is managed to maintain prices down, even in the course of the pandemic when transportation prices elevated. “We personal all the pieces; we are able to afford to carry the road. We did not have some financial institution or some board of administrators or some stockholders saying, ‘What are you doing?'” he stated.
In the meantime, Vultaggio’s internet value has almost doubled from $3 billion in 2018 to almost $6 billion in 2025, in response to Forbes.
Vultaggio at AriZonaLand in New Jersey.Emily Christian/Enterprise Insider
Regardless of his immense wealth, Vultaggio nonetheless describes himself as a “common man.” From forklift drivers to executives, Vultaggio says he believes in working a enterprise like a group the place folks deal with one another with respect.
“That is why we’re profitable,” he stated. “Not simply me. Lots of people, hundreds of individuals, all contributing regularly. I inform folks, it’s a must to run a enterprise prefer it’s a household.”
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