Just a few days old, Freddie Figgers was left next to a dumpster in rural Florida. A passerby saw him and called the police.
Freddie was admitted to a hospital where he stayed for 2 days to recover from his minor injuries. Once stable, Freddie was placed in the foster care system.
He was taken in by Nathan and Betty Figgers who lived in nearby Quincy, Florida, and already had a daughter of their own. The Figgers, regular foster parents, quickly decided to adopt Freddie.
Growing up, Freddie was bullied by other kids in elementary school who called him the "garbage baby". "It's a rural area, so after it happened, everyone knew about it," said Figgers, now 30. "My parents told me the truth about what happened growing up. I thought about it a lot as a kid, and I would have to say he was embarrassed when he was younger."
However, it was also during his elementary school years that Freddie found his passion for computers. His father, Nathan, bought Freddie an old 1989 Macintosh from a thrift store for $25 to play with. "He thought a computer could help me stay out of trouble," Figgers said. It worked.
At just 9 years old, Freddie took the computer apart and reassembled it several times. Later, figured out how to use some old radio parts to fix the Macintosh so it would turn on. "I still have it," Figgers said of that first computer. "It's what sparked my interest in technology."
At age 13, Freddie was so good at playing computers that the city of Quincy began hiring him to fix his computers.
At age 15, he started his first company in his parent's living room called Figgers Computers. He specialized in fixing computers and helping clients store data on the servers he created. Freddie was so good at playing with computers that the city of Quincy started hiring him to fix their computers. "I wouldn't recommend my path to everyone," Figgers said of dropping out of college. “But it worked for me.
By the time I was 17, I had 150 clients who needed websites and storage for their files. I just kept building from there.”
In Freddie's early 20s, Nathan Figgers developed Alzheimer's disease. Before Nathan passed away in 2014, Freddie had invented a GPS-tracking two-way communication device to help find and track his father when he wandered off confused. "I created a device that I could insert into his shoe that would allow me to track him, as well as talk to him through his shoe," Figgers said. "It was hard to see him decline, it's something he will never forget. I was always very grateful to him and my mother. They taught me not to let my circumstances define who I was." Despite this difficult circumstance, Freddie was able to sell his GPS tracking invention to an undisclosed company for $2.2 million in 2012 at age 23.
His private company, Figgers Wireless, which sells smartphones and data plans, was valued in 2017 at more than $62 million.
