Who is the richest man in the world? How did they make their fortune?These are the type of questions that are constantly on the lips of entrepreneurs. Every year, Forbes publishes the list of richest men in the world with their net worth. These rich men are either self made billionaires or they inherited their fortune. Some are a combination of both; they had an inheritance and has gone on to build more wealth for themselves.
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Using Forbes Statistics, we have billionaires who are self-made such as the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates as well as Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Also on the list, we have billionaires whose wealth are from the family inheritance such as the Koch brothers.
The richest men in the world are Tech Innovators, Fashion Moguls, Expert Investors and financial experts. These richest men in the world have one thing in common; they are heavy on giving to charity and are known for their philanthropic activities.
So fasten your seat belt as we
Top 10 Richest Men in the world
Jeff Bezos
Top on our list is the founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. He started Amazon from his garage as a virtual book store and later expanded into a variety of products and services including video and music streaming. Under his guidance, Amazon became the largest online sales platform in the world.
Aside from Amazon, Bezos is the proud owner of Blue Origin, a rocket manufacturer and spaceflight services company. He founded Blue Origin in the year 2000 with the aim to decrease the cost and increase the safety of human spaceflight.
Blue Origin initially focused on suborbital spaceflight and later moved into orbital spaceflight technology business in 2014. In 2015, his aerospace company made headlines when testing their New Shepard Space Vehicle. The company planned to convey its first passengers in New Shepard Space Vehicle this year and launched its orbital rocket, New Glenn in 2021.
On January 31st, 2019, Blue Origin announced that it signed a deal with Telesat, a Canadian telecommunications company to launch satellites on its New Glenn rocket.
Bezos acquired the Washington Post, a major American daily newspaper for $250 million in cash, using Nash Holdings LLC in 2013. He also manages other business investment through his venture capital fund. He has investments in Google, Twitter, Uber, Rethink Robotics, Business Insider and many more.
According to Forbes 400 List of wealthiest Americans in 2018, Bezos is worth a staggering sum of $160 billion, making him the richest man on the planet.
Bill Gates
Bill Gates is known in the world as one of the people responsible for easy of use of the modern computer. It is no doubt that he is one of the richest men in the world. He ranked among the world’s wealthiest people, starting from 1987.
He built Microsoft Corporation, one of the largest software companies in the world. Microsoft Corporation gave rise to his billionaire status.
Gates launched Microsoft with his friend, Paul Allen in 1975 which later became the world’s largest PC software. Microsoft major breakthrough came when it was asked to develop an operating system for IBM’s new computers. Ever since then, Microsoft has grown into a multinational technology company. Keen to diversify his technology business, he released Microsoft Windows for computers, Internet Explorer and many more.
Aside from Microsoft Corporation, he owns Cascade Investment, a private holding and investment company. Also, he invested in a mix of stocks and other valuable assets including Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate holding company.
Gates believes in giving his wealth back to the society. He founded Bills & Melinda Gates Foundation with his wife, Melinda Gates. In his interview with Neil Tweedie in 2013, he says “Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organisation and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.” Through the foundation, he contributed billions of dollars to charitable initiatives around the world.
According to Forbes 400 List of wealthiest Americans in 2018, Gates’s net worth was estimated at $97 billion, making him the second richest man in the world.
Warren Buffett
Buffet known as the “Oracle of Omaha” is one of the richest men and the most respected investors in the world. Warren is the chairman, CEO and the largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway.
He has worked as an investment salesman and securities analyst before starting his partnership business, Buffett Partnership Limited in 1956. He later became a millionaire doing his own thing.
Early in the 1960s, Warren saw an opportunity to invest in a New England textile company, Berkshire Hathaway and bought some of its stock. He aggressively bought its shares until he ultimately took complete control of the firm in 1965. Gradually, he shifted the Berkshire’s focus away from textile to an investment firm.
Today, Berkshire Hathaway is a multinational conglomerate holding company. Some of the companies which Berkshire Hathaway owns include GEICO, Duracell, Pampered Chef, NetJet and BNSF Railway. Also, Warren’s company has shares in other big firms including American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo and many more.
According to Forbes 400 List of wealthiest Americans in 2018, Warren’s wealth was estimated at $88.3 billion, making him the third richest man in the world.
Bernard Arnault
On our list of the richest men in the world is one of the world’s ultimate tastemakers, Bernard Arnault. He is the chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of LVMH. LVMH is a multinational luxury goods conglomerate and the largest in the world. Through LVMH, Arnault manages 70 brands including Fendi, Sephora, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Christian Dior and Céline.
In 1984, Arnault acquired Boussac Saint-Frères that owned the fashion house of Christian Dior with the help of Antoine Bernheim, a senior partner of Lazard Frères. He focused on Christian Dior and eventually took control of the company in 1989.
Arnault saw an opportunity to invest in LVMH in 1987. He invested millions in the shares of the new company until he became LVMH’s first shareholder and chairman. Under his leadership, he transformed the company into the world’s largest luxury product company and made himself a billionaire.
As of September 2018, Forbes estimated Mark’s net worth at $76.7, making him the richest person in fashion.
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark is one of the richest men in the world. Majority of his wealth came from his social network company, Facebook which he owns nearly 17% stake.
In 2004, he launched Facebook along with fellow Harvard college students and roommates, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew Mc Collum, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes. Facebook, originally launched to connect friends US colleges and has turned out to be the world’s most popular social networking platform. As of January 2018, it had more than 2.2 billion monthly active users.
Beyond his valuable asset, Facebook, he acquired some companies operating as independent entities under Facebook’s umbrella including Instagram and WhatsApp.
As at the beginning of 2018, Forbes estimated Mark’s net worth at $71 billion, but due to some trials he faced in mid-2018, his net worth dropped to $63.5 billion.
Amancio Ortega
He is one of the wealthiest retailers and the richest men on the planet. Amancio Ortega is a fashion mogul billionaire who owns about 60% stake in Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A (Inditex Group). Inditex Group is a Spanish clothing company that houses fashion brands like Zara, Massimo Dutti and Bershka.
Ortega is a school drop-out and once worked as an assistant in a fashion store called Gala. While in Gala, he learned to make clothes by hand and later left to start his own business.
He founded his first clothing company, Confecciones GOA in 1963 which later integrated into Inditex in 1985. Today, Inditex is a multinational clothing company which has about 7,500 stores around the world.
Ortega also has investments in tourism, gas, bank, and real estate. He invested the majority of his wealth into real estate in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Chicago, Miami, and New York.
As of 2018, he worth a sum of $70 billion, according to Forbes.
Carlos Slim Helu
The Mexico-born business tycoon is ranked the 7th richest person in the world by Forbes. He is the richest in Mexico and Latin America. Slim started investing in businesses at a young age.
At age 15, he had become a shareholder in Mexico’s largest company, Banco Nacional de México. After school, he started buying stock in companies and that is how he built his fortune. Slim has extensive holdings in a numbers of Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso.
In 1990, Slim bought a stake in a Mexican Telecommunications company, Telmex which eventually formed the bulk of his wealth. Today, Slim’s mobile telephone company, América Movil has taken over Telmex. He also has a large stake in major US retailers such as Barnes & Noble, OfficeMax, Office Depot, Circuit City, Borders, and CompUSA. He owns 17% of The New York Times.
His business Investments cut across communications, insurance, construction, energy, mining, retailing, publishing, and finance.
Forbes estimated Slim’s net worth at $67.1 billion in 2018.
Charles Koch
Charles is an American billionaire whose source of wealth is majorly from Koch Industries. He co-own Koch Industries with his younger brother, David Koch who was the Executive Vice President of the company. Though the two brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, Charles took the lead in the day-to-day operation of Koch Industries.
He took over his father’s oil company, Rock Island Oil and Refining, in 1967 and transformed it into Koch Industries, a multinational corporation. Today, Koch Industries is one of the largest privately held company in the United States.
Charles is also one of the leading contributors to conservative politicians and think tanks including the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.
Forbes estimated Charles Koch’s wealth at $60 billion as of 2018.
David Charles
David is one of the richest men in New York City and on the planet. He is the co-owner and was the Executive Vice President of Koch Industries. He joined his brother, Charles Koch in 1970 to run the family business.
David founded the company’s New York office and was appointed the president of Koch Engineering in 1979. He oversees Koch Engineering which was later renamed Chemical Technology Group.
Apart from being one of the richest men in the world, David is a well-known philanthropist and cancer survivor. He has donated millions to medical research causes and institutions including $20 million to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore for cancer research.
According to Forbes 2018, David Koch’s net worth was $60 billion.
Larry Ellison
Ellison is the co-founder, chairman and Chief Technology Officer of a multinational computer technology firm, Oracle Corporation. Majority of his wealth came from the software company, Oracle which he co-founded in 1977.
He launched Oracle, formerly Software Development Labs with Robert Miner and Ed Oates. The company started with an investment of $2000 of which Ellison has the largest share. In the early years, Oracle became a successful database vendor to a mid and low range system, making Ellison one of the richest men in the world.
Ellison has other ventures outside Oracle; owns stakes in Tesla, Netsuite and Salesforce.com. He also has an investment in real estate; he has a stake in the Island of Lanai, owns properties in Malibu and acquired Porcupine Creek.
In early last year, he launched a consumer wellness company, Sensei with David Augus, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Southern California. The company will soon begin its first project, hydroponic farming on the Hawaiian island Lanai. Hydroponic Farming is a method of growing plants in water rather than soil.
His net worth was $58.5 billion as of 2018, according to Forbes.
If you want to get closer to making Forbes’s richest billionaire list, then you need to study these men, the type of businesses they run and their investment pattern.
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