The richest people in the world have a staggering amount of wealth —
comparable to the GDP of small countries for some. Many of the world’s
richest, like
Microsoft founder
Bill Gates,
Amazon CEO
Jeff Bezos or
Facebook co-founder
Mark Zuckerberg, are self-made and turned an idea into a billion-dollar fortune. For others, like the
Koch brothers of Koch Industries, their businesses were inherited, but their control of the company led to overwhelming amounts of wealth.
Many billionaires donate a large percentage of their
money to charity. In fact, several of the world’s richest including
Gates and Warren Buffet have made
“The Giving Pledge,” which means they have vowed to give away at least half of their wealth to charity.
There are more than 2,200 billionaires in the world,
Forbes reported, and that number is only expected to grow. Based on the most recent estimates from
Forbes,
the world’s richest people range from tech CEOs to heiresses to expert
investors. Read on to find out how and why these people got so rich.
Who is the richest man in the world?
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates in July 2017 to become not only the world’s richest man, but the
richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $112 billion, according to
Forbes’s 2018 Billionaires List.
Bezos’s fortune jumped in 2017 amid a remarkable year
for the retail giant, in which the company bought Whole Foods in June
2017 and had a record-breaking Amazon Prime Day.
Bezos, who bought The Washington
Post in 2013 for $250 million, owns about 17% of
Amazon.com, which is part of what buoyed him to the world’s richest man.
Morgan Stanley analysts predicted the company would
soon be worth $1 trillion, and Bezos himself earned $20 million in the last year.
Who is the richest woman in the world?
Following the death of French heiress Liliane
Bettencourt of L’Oréal fortune in 2017, two women are now considered as
the richest women in the world. One is
Walmart heiress
Alice Walton, who has a net worth of about $46 billion in March, according to
Forbes. And the other is Bettencourt’s daughter
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the 64-year-old heiress who now has a net worth of $42.2 billion, according to
Forbes.
Walton is the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam
Walton. The heiress has not been heavily involved in the family
business, but is an active art patron who opened the Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., in 2011.
Though she rarely gives interviews or appears in
front of the media, Bettencourt’s daughter is known as an academic and
an avid pianist according to
Bloomberg.Bettencourt
passed away at age 94 in September 2017 at a time when she was worth
about $39.5 billion and among the top 20 richest people in the world
overall, according to
Forbes. Her father, Eugene Schueller,
founded the iconic cosmetics company L’Oréal in 1907, and Bettencourt
owned a third of the makeup brand with her children.
List of the 10 Richest People in the World
1. Jeff Bezos
Responsible for the growth of online shopping and e-commerce, Jeff Bezos made his fortune by founding
Amazon.com.
The 53-year-old CEO of Amazon, launched the retail giant in 1994 after
leaving his New York hedge fund job. Initially an online book retailer
operated out of Bezos’s garage in Seattle,
Amazon.com grew to become the world’s largest online shopping retailer, now worth over $430 billion,
according to CNBC.
Bezos also owns a private space company Blue Origin and purchased The Washington
Post in 2013 for $250 million. Amazon bought the upscale grocery chain
Whole Foods in June for an estimated $13.7 billion.
Bezos’s parents, Jackie and Mike Bezos, operate the
Bezos Family Foundation, which supports youth education.
Industry: Technology
Net worth: $112 billion
2. Bill Gates
Born in Seattle, Gates used his first computer in
1967 while a kid in school. And about a decade later, he and his
childhood friend Paul Allen, who also developed an interest in computers
at their school, co-founded Microsoft together in 1975.
He was Microsoft’s CEO until 2000, and was the
company’s chairman and largest shareholder until 2014. Gates is still a
member of the board and serves as a technology adviser for the company.
Gates and his wife, Melinda, co-chair the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the world’s largest private charity.
The foundation, launched in 1999, focuses on ending infectious diseases
around the world, including HIV and malaria.
Outside of Microsoft, Gates is a public figure who,
along with Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, founded “The Giving
Pledge” to encourage other billionaires to donate a hefty amount of
their wealth to charity. His charitable foundation focuses on health and
development issues across the world.
An influential figure, the 61-year-old also
releases a list of his favorite books each year.
Industry: Technology
Net worth: $90 billion
3. Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett is an iconic
figure and investment genius who bought his first stock when he was just
11 years old and filed his first taxes at age 13. Nicknamed the
Oracle of Omaha, Buffett owns more than 60 companies.
One of the world’s best investors, Warren is also known for his cheap spending habits. In the recently released HBO documentary
Becoming Warren Buffett, the 86-year-old billionaire said he typically
pays under $4 for breakfast from McDonald’s each morning.
Like his peers, Buffett is a philanthropist and has vowed to give away 99% of his wealth.
Industry: Finance and investments
Net worth: $84 billion
4. Bernard Arnault
Bernard Arnault is responsible for many of the
world’s most fashionable brands, including Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, Dom
Perignon and Sephora. The French billionaire is the chairman and CEO of
LVMH, which is the largest luxury goods company in the world.
The 68-year-old began his career as a civil engineer
and gained control of his family parent company, Groupe Arnault. In the
1980s, he bought fashion brand Christian Dior — a move that avoided
bankruptcy for the brand.
Though he hasn’t cracked the top 10 in several other
rankings, Arnault’s wealth grew by more than $5 billion in late April
2017 when he announced he would take full control of Christian Dior,
Forbes reported.
Arnault is an art collector and created the Paris-based Foundation Louis Vuitton, which supports artistic creation in France.
Industry: Retail
Net worth: $72 billion
5. Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg was only a sophomore at Harvard
University when he created the first version of Facebook in 2004. The
social media powerhouse, which first began on college campuses, now has
more than 1.2 billion users and dozens of offices located around the
world. The company is now worth $400 billion.
Zuckerberg, the youngest of the world’s top
billionaires at 33, is the chairman and CEO of Facebook in addition to
being its co-founder. The 2011 award-winning film
The Social Network was based off of Zuckerberg’s founding of Facebook while in school, and the subsequent drama that came as a result.
Like other billionaires, Zuckerberg is a
philanthropist who has donated millions to charitable causes. He and his
wife, Priscilla Chan, have pledged to donate 99% of their wealth
through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Industry: Technology
Net worth: $71 billion
6. Amancio Ortega
Amancio Ortega is a Spanish self-made billionaire
best known for founding Inditex fashion group, which includes Zara
clothing stores. The richest man in Europe, Ortega co-founded Inditex in
1975 with his ex-wife Rosalia Mera, who passed away in 2013.
Ortega, 81, is also the wealthiest retailer in the
world and owns 59% of Inditex, which operates 7,000 stores worldwide. He
stepped down as chairman of the company in 2011.
His approach to his company’s success can be
attributed to two factors: speed and customers. Oretga’s “fast fashion”
philosophy included refreshing the stock at Zara stores twice a week,
CNBC reported.
And instead of focusing on what’s in at fashion shows, the company
follows bloggers and customers for what they’re wearing to inform what
is sold,
Fortune reported.
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