Dave Portnoy quit an $80K sales job to start Barstool—he hand-delivered papers in a secondhand van while living with his girlfriend's mom for 6 years

Dave Portnoy (Credit: Michael Hickey/Getty Images)

Before Dave Portnoy was running Barstool Sports, stirring the pot on social media, or even reviewing pizza slices—he was just another recent college graduate with no clear career path.

“I was essentially like every other white middle-class dude in the world with a liberal arts degree,” he described in a new book, Cancel Me If You Can. “I had no real skills.”