THE 10 RICHEST SELFMADE BILLIONAIRES There was no silver spoon for these business greats.
A NOTE ABOUT THIS RANKING • Net worth figures came from Forbes’ real-time rankings on June 4th, 2015. • To be self-made, an American billionaire needed to have a “Selfmade” ranking of 6 or higher (on a 1 to 10 scale) on Forbes’ list. • Therefore, not only were many of the Walton family (Wal-Mart) not included, but neither were the Koch brothers, who inherited their medium size business and turned it into what it is today. • International candidates were judged as “self-made” on a caseby-case basis.
10) LARRY PAGE • Net worth: $29.5 Billion • Age: 42 Years Old • Position: CEO, Google Page and Sergey Brin founded Google back in 1998. Before going public in 2004, he turned over the reins of the company to Eric Schmidt. For seven years, Page learned how to run a multi-billion dollar company from Schmidt, and took over once again in 2011.
9) MARK ZUCKERBERG • Net worth: $36.1 billion • Age: 31 years old • Position: CEO, Facebook Zuckerberg’s rise to fame and fortune has been well documented. He founded Facebook in his college dorm room in 2004, and it quickly became one of the most popular sites on the Internet. He is expanding the company’s reach with acquisitions of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus Rift.
8) MICHAEL BLOOMBERG • Net worth: $37.0 Billion • Age: 73 Years Old • Position: CEO, Bloomberg When Bloomberg was let go Salomon Brother in 1981, he used his severance package to start his own company. The most ubiquitous product: an information portal that gave up-to-date information to traders. He also served as mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013.
7) JEFF BEZOS • Net worth: $38.9 billion • Age: 51 years old • Position: CEO, Amazon In 1994, Bezos was working on Wall Street, on a cross country road trip, when he wrote the business plan for what became Amazon. While he builds the empire ever bigger, he also has private investments in companies like The Washington Post.
6)WANG JIANLIN • Net worth: $40.6 Billion • Age: 60 Years Old • Position: CEO, Dalian Wanda Group Jianlin has been CEO at Wanda—a real estate developer—since 1993. Over that time frame, it has become the dominant player in Chinese real-estate. Jianlin has also acquired American properties, such as all AMC Theatre chains. Photo: Wanda Group
5) LARRY ELLISON • Net worth: $53.8 billion • Age: 70 years old • Position: Founder, Oracle Ellison grew up relatively poor in Chicago. While working at Ampex in the 1970s, he realized the potential for relational databases and founded Oracle. He served as the company’s CEO from its founding until last year.
4) WARREN BUFFETT • Net worth: $69.5 Billion • Age: 84 Years Old • Position: CEO, Berkshire Hathaway Buffett started his Buffett Partnership Ltd. in the 1950s. In the 1960s, his partnerships bought textile firm Berkshire Hathaway. The company would eventually become Buffett’s publicly traded holding firm. He is often considered to be the greatest investor ever.
Photo: Insider Monkey
3) CARLOS SLIM • Net worth: $70.9 billion • Age: 75 years old • Position: Chairman, Grupo Carso Slim took a similar approach to building wealth that Buffett took—with his holdings falling under his Grupo Carso business. Most of Slim’s successful investments started in the Mexican telecom business, but have since expanded into other industries.
2) AMANCIO ORTEGA • Net worth: $72.3 Billion • Age: 79 Years Old • Position: Founder, Inditex Ortega started in the fashion business by selling clothing that his wife made at home. He quickly expanded to found Zara clothing stores, which became very popular in Spain. Inditex now owns Zara, as well as several other popular European chains.
Photo: Inditex
1) BILL GATES • Net worth: $79.2 billion • Age: 59 years old • Position: Founder, Microsoft Gates made his fortune through Microsoft and its ubiquitous Windows and Office Suite. He has long since given up day-to-day duties at the company, and now focuses on solving major global maladies through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
CLICK BELOW TO FIND OUT ABOUT