I 5 Serial Entrepreneur Billionaires

Billionaires

5 Serial Entrepreneur Billionaires

These five self-made billionaires have founded at least two businesses. Combined, they are worth $542.5 billion. Net worths are as of December 1, 2021.

Jack Ma

Net worth: $37.3 billion Country: China

Ma’s first venture as an entrepreneur was Hangzhou Hope, a translation agency launched in 1994. The billionaire has since built an empire with e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, launching 13 subsidiary companies, including retail marketplace Taobao and streaming platform Youku. Ma founded private equity firm YunFeng Capital in 2010 and fintech Ant Group in 2014. The latter was set for a recordbreaking $34.5 billion IPO until Chinese regulators suspended it in 2020. Alibaba’s shares declined by about 46% until December 13, 2021, as government crackdowns on Ma’s businesses continued.

Richard Branson

Net worth: $3.9 billion Country: U.K. Branson has established over 45 companies in 50 years under the umbrella of the Virgin Group, his global investment company. The billionaire became an entrepreneur at 15 when he launched Student magazine in 1967. Branson found startup success with Virgin Records in 1970 and went on to diversify into several industries, from travel to technology. His Virgin businesses include the aerospace company Virgin Galactic, launched in 2004, which had a market value of $3.7 billion as of December 3, 2021.

Elon Musk

Net worth: $297 billion Country: U.S. Best known as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has founded six companies over the past two decades. He launched Zip2, a navigation software, with his brother Kimbal in 1995. The company was acquired for $307 million in 1999. Musk’s second startup, online bank X.com, found success when it merged with Confinity in 2000, which became PayPal in 2001. The company was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Although Musk was ousted as CEO, he invested $100 million from his share of the sale to cofound SpaceX, reportedly valued at $100 billion in 2021. The world’s richest person according to Forbes’ real-time estimates as of December 2021, Musk bought back the domain name X.com from PayPal in 2017. The serial entrepreneur has since cofounded Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.

Oprah Winfrey

Net worth: $2.6 billion Country: U.S. Winfrey founded Harpo Productions, a privatelyheld media company, in 1986. Harpo bought the rights to The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988. As host, Winfrey became the secondhighest-paid TV personality in the world, earning $68 million between 1989 and 1990, according to Forbes estimates. Winfrey is also the founder and CEO of OWN Network, a 50/50 joint venture with Discovery Communications launched in 2011. In 2017, Discovery paid $70 million for an additional 24.5% stake and acquired 20.5% more in 2020. For the latter deal, Winfrey received 1.3 million Discovery shares, worth $32.1 million as of December 3, 2021. Winfrey became the first female African-American billionaire in 2003 and was the highest-ranked AfricanAmerican on the Forbes 400 in 2012.

Jeff Bezos

Net worth: $201.7 billion Country: U.S. In 1994, Bezos founded online bookstore Amazon. com. Between 1995 to 1997, the company made more than $164 million in sales. In Q3 2021, it made $110.8 billion. Bezos is also the founder of investment firm Bezos Expeditions, which manages over 100 of Bezos’ investments, including his $250 million purchase of The Washington Post in 2013. With assets under management worth $107.8 billion as of December 2021 according to SWFI, the firm’s portfolio includes Twitter, Uber, and Airbnb. In 2000, Bezos founded his own space company, Blue Origin, preceding space rivals Musk and Branson. Bezos flew on the company’s first space mission in July 2021.

The proliferation of digital technologies in every aspect of daily life has given rise to the digital economy, where the majority of products and services are digitally augmented or based on a digital delivery model. In fact, research suggests that by 2022, digitally transformed products, services, and enterprises will account for 65% of global GDP.

Saudi Arabia identifies the digital economy as a critical component of the nation’s future. In 2020, the kingdom came up with a digital economy policy and has taken several steps across three key areas:

NATIONAL PROGRAMS: Saudi Arabia has created several vision realization programs such as the public sector-focused National Transformation Program; the National Transport and Logistics Strategy; the private sector stimulation program, Shareek; the ICT Sector Strategy 2023; and the Programme HQ initiative, to name a few. These initiatives stimulate sectoral growth and catalyze the evolution of the digital economy.

MEGA-PROJECTS: Saudi Arabia is building several mega-cities, including the flagship NEOM – a city fueled by data and run by artificial intelligence. These developments feature ultra-personalized services and sustainable models, creating a new global benchmark in smart city development.

DIGITAL-FOCUSED ENTITIES AND LEGISLATION: Saudi Arabia has established several tech-focused entities and legislation to support the digital economy. These include the authority and strategy for data and artificial intelligence (SDAIA & NSDAI), the Cloud First Policy for government entities, and the Internet of Things (IoT) Regulatory Framework.

The rise of the digital economy in Saudi Arabia provides significant opportunities for private-sector enterprises. However, to play and compete in this new economic construct, organizations need to transform themselves into digital enterprises. Research demonstrates that digital enterprises realize twice the revenue and operating profits of conventional enterprises today.

Such digital enterprises thrive on four key aspects:

EXPERIENCES: A digital enterprise provides consistent, personalized experiences to customers and employees. Employees are becoming more critical than ever due to the increase in work-from-home practices and the enhanced focus on acquiring and retaining talent.

OUTCOMES: Digital enterprises focus on outcomes achieved through digital business models and automation. For example, retailers that adopted e-commerce, digital supply chains, and warehouse automation were more resilient to COVID-19 disruption and adaptive to the new normal.

INSIGHTS: In a digital enterprise, data is considered critical in enabling experiences, automation, decision making, and product/service improvement. One survey reveals that 55% of organizations in Saudi Arabia plan to increase investments in big data analytics — the highest rate for any advanced tech.

COLLABORATIONS: Innovating with partners and participating in industry ecosystems is a key differentiating characteristic of digital enterprises. The bank–fintech collaboration to cater to a new generation of customers is an interesting example in this regard.

The Digital Economy and Its Primary Constituents In the post-pandemic world, business resiliency will be underpinned by the adoption of digital technologies. To thrive in the new normal, organizations need to move fast on their digital journeys, converting themselves into data-centric digital enterprises.

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