I World’s Richest Executive Billionaires

Billionaires

World’s Richest Executive Billionaires

These are the richest five billionaires that found their way to wealth by joining a lucrative company as an employee. Steve Ballmer tops the all-boys list with a lead of over $70 billion. Net worths are as of October 11, 2021.

Steve Ballmer

Company: Microsoft Net worth: $94.8 billion Citizenship: U.S. Ballmer is the world’s 11th richest person and the former CEO of Microsoft. After dropping out of Stanford’s MBA program, the 65-yearold joined the tech giant in 1980 as its 30th employee. He still owns a stake in the firm, shares of which rose 33% in the last year. Ballmer served as CEO from 2000 for 14 years. After retiring in 2014, Ballmer bought the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion. The team is worth $2.75 billion. He has ranked as the richest U.S. sports team owner for seven consecutive years according to Forbes. In 2018, Ballmer invested $59 million in Social Solutions, which develops software for nonprofits and government agencies.

Eric Schmidt

Company: Google Net worth: $23.4 billion Citizenship: U.S. Tech investor Schmidt served as Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011. The 66-year-old left the board of Google parent company Alphabet in June 2019 after 18 years, though he has stayed on as a technical advisor until February 2020. Under his leadership, Google drastically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings. In 2010, he co-founded Innovation Endeavors, a venture capital firm that has invested in Uber and SoFi, among others. Schmidt is a visiting innovation fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has advocated for open internet access in Cuba and North Korea. Before Google, he had stints as CEO of Novell and chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems.

Steve Ballmer

Huang Shilin

Company: CATL Net worth: $20.9 billion Citizenship: China Shilin is vice-chairman of electric battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and the second-wealthiest person at the firm. The 54-year-old is one of nine billionaires who have fortunes of $1 billion or more from their stakes in CATL. The fast-growing Chinese maker of batteries for electric vehicles has produced more billionaires than any other publicly-listed firm, surpassing the eight billionaires each at Facebook and Google. CATL’s shares have touched over 150% in the past year. The firm’s customers include BMW, Volkswagen, and Geely. In 2018, it went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Stéphane Bancel

Company: Moderna Net worth: $10 billion Citizenship: France Pandemic-born billionaire Bancel became CEO of Massachusetts-based biotech firm Moderna Therapeutics in 2011 after leaving his previous job as CEO of French diagnostics firm BioMérieux. He became a billionaire in March 2020 after the stock jumped on the vaccine news. The 49-yearold owns about 8% of the biotech firm. Moderna was the first company to begin human trials of its vaccine for COVID-19 on March 16, 2020, in Seattle. In December 2020, Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine— with reported efficacy of 95%—was the second to be approved by regulators in the U.S. after the PfizerBioNTech vaccine.

Doug Leone

Company: Sequoia Capital Net worth: $7.9 billion Citizenship: U.S. Italian immigrant Leone joined VC firm Sequoia Capital in 1988 and became a managing partner in 1996. He inherited the reins from the firm’s founder Don Valentine in the mid-1990s and became a billionaire in 2014. The 64-year-old investor has guided Sequoia into tech investments, including ServiceNow, RingCentral, and Nubank. In the third quarter of 2021, Sequoia Capital China was the world’s busiest firm, averaging 1.5 deals per day, as per CB Insights. Leone ranked 28th on Forbes’ 2021 Midas List of the top tech investors. He began his tech career at Sun Microsystems, although his first job was collecting golf balls by hand at a driving range.