Dan Gilbert's humble beginnings and vision for Detroit

Today, Dan Gilbert is an NBA team owner, the chairman of Quicken Loans, and the owner of several of Detroit's buildings that are coming back to their glory. But it hasn't always been like this.

Gilbert is a business man and has been since he can remember. When he was a kid, he remembers his friends reading comic books while he was reading the Wall Street Journal.

When he was 12, he was selling pizzas. Not as a delivery driver; he was buying, making, and selling them. It all came with a lesson though.

"We were about 11 or 12 years old. We bought a bunch of Chef Boyardee pizzas. We had flyers and left them in the mailboxes. Because the mothers would allow you to mess up their kitchens for more than one night a week, so we had five different phone numbers for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday night.

"Then we had our 10-year-olds, our little brothers, deliver them. Then the health department shut them down. We violated health laws, zoning laws, so it was our first interaction with regulatory issues."

After high school, he made it to Michigan State and thought he wanted to be an intern. He even landed at Channel 2 with former sports anchor Fred McLeod, but it didn't last.

"Fred McLeod suspended me from the week days to the weekends because I screwed up editing so much," he said.

Gilbert bet billions on Detroit's comeback and it's paying off. So what's next for the city of Detroit? What is Gilbert's vision for the Motor City? He gave his answer in this exclusive interview.
 

Miss part one? Click here for Gilbert's private fight against neurofibromatosis.