It is difficult to find a person who does not want to live in abundance. And if some have to work hard every day to earn a penny, then fate has given others huge fortunes in the form of an inheritance.
1. Wealth without happiness is an empty jingle of coins
Unfortunately, most of us are not the minions of fate, and there is no end in sight to our daily chores. But many rich people created their first capital thanks to resourcefulness, the correct use of their talents, on which their entire biography was built. And thoughts, as time shows, are united in one thing - to work as much as possible with the mind and not be lazy.
The famous French writer and philosopher Stendhal believed that a person lives on earth not in order to become rich, but in order to become happy. Achieving high prosperity does not mean finding peace and joy in life. Direct proof of this is the biographies of the richest people in the world. Many billionaires, drowning in luxury, still remained lonely and unhappy.
2. Biography and thoughts of the richest people in the world, also kind
The successful people of this world are known to everyone. Bill Gates, for example, has been one of the leaders for a number of years. Where did you start? I just loved technology, was fond of computers and created the Microsoft program. He simply took a risk, but he risked deliberately, realizing that the product is necessary for users. personal computers. His main motto is not to stop there. It was he who suggested that intellectual property has a shelf life of bananas.
Let's look at another successful lady. Oprah Winfrey, a black American, lived in a poor family, went to a simple school. Only self-improvement, curiosity and a diligent attitude to everything she does led her to the bench of the Faculty of History. Perhaps it was the biography and thoughts of the richest people in the world, which she learned about from history books, that taught her a lot. “Don't give up on your dreams. Don't be disappointed in yourself. Your perseverance will pay off anyway!” are her words. They are a direct confirmation of her determination. A sharp mind, a desire to delve deeper into the fate of people, the purity of speech made her OWN program the most popular and in demand among viewers. So not all biographies of the richest people in the world are full of gifts of fate.
3. Acquired or appropriated?
I don’t really want to find out how the Russian magnates got rich, the thing is that here, in addition to intelligence and resourcefulness, the “freebie” effect worked. Many Russian rich people have become owners of the property left over from the Soviet period: factories, factories, combines, etc. The biography and thoughts of the richest people in the world in relation to Russian billionaires lose their instructiveness and meaning. Everything was earned fraudulently in the dashing 90s by appropriating foreign or state capital.
Another thing is the American billionaire Donald Trump. He was brought up in an ordinary family with four children. Donald was a difficult child, and in order to curb the boy's hard temper at least a little, he was placed at the Military Academy at the age of 13. And there he learned discipline and rigidity. He perfectly described his temper with the words: “In business, it is better to be impudent, even impudent, than tough and intractable.” The study gave him a morale start and Donald decided to be more aggressive in order to get the result he wanted. The owner of numerous casinos and hotels scattered around the world, began with the fact that, with the support of the state, together with his father, he reconstructed the Commodore Hotel. The biography of the richest people in the world - Donald and Fred Trump - tells that there are no easy ways to wealth. Life rewards those who are not afraid of difficulties.
The biography of the richest people in the world often begins precisely with moral and psychological shocks. The main thing is to be able and not to deviate from the intended goal.
16.02.2016
Hello followers successful businessmen! Today, especially for you, I will tell you popular business success stories from scratch. After all, other people's luck is contagious. In addition, examples of effective business ideas can be very useful for you.
Billion dollar ideas
Many of the world's richest people started from scratch, without huge financial investments, rich parents and winning the big lottery. They just invented an amazing business idea, knew how to work "by the sweat of their brow" and go towards their goal, no matter what! And, of course, these people were distinguished by an extraordinary mind, non-standard views on life.
I hope you are one of those people who, after reading business success stories from scratch, will reconsider their lives and take action! After all, if you just think that where are you up to such accomplishments and give up, it will not work. So read short biographies famous billionaires peace and absorb the energy of wealth.
Biographies of the richest people
So, now I turn directly to the success stories of millionaires and billionaires. By the way, you can learn an interesting Internet profession and earn your first million here.
Sheldon Adelson
This man was born in Boston in the family of an ordinary taxi driver. From the age of twelve he began a small entrepreneurial activity selling newspapers. After that, various jobs followed - a financial consultant, a mortgage broker, a court reporter, a salesman of tours. However, all this was only a difficult path to future success. 1979 was a landmark year for Adelson. He organized COMDEX - an exhibition-fair of computer topics, which for 20 years was the most famous event dedicated to computer technology.
9 years after the creation of the fair, Sheldon buys a hotel, a casino in the largest gaming city of Las Vegas and instantly increases his material wealth, which, according to general estimates, is $ 26 billion.
Roman Abramovich
An example of a billionaire comes from Saratov. The childhood of this famous oilman passed under the upbringing of close relatives, since the boy's parents died. In his youth, Abramovich had excellent organizational skills. 1980-90 - the year when he created a small business for the manufacture of polymers, toys.
This was followed by trading mediation, developing into an oil raider. Then, after establishing useful ties with B. Berezovsky, B. Yeltsin's family, Roman Arkadyevich noticeably improved his financial situation. They say that it was thanks to them that he took possession of Sibneft. Further career Abramovich - the post of deputy, governor, contributing to the expansion of the oil business. The next step to enrichment is the purchase of the Chelsea football club. The approximate amount of the entrepreneur's income is 23.5 billion dollars.
Li Ka-shing
Chinese businessman who earned about $26.5 billion. He began his career at the age of fourteen. In order to earn a living after the death of his father, the boy dropped out of school. At first he worked as a trader in plastic products. A few years later he was able to open his own business - the company Cheung Kong Industries, which later became a major investment corporation in Hong Kong, and Ka-Shing - the richest person in China.
Maxim Nogotkov
This is the youngest Russian businessman, earning more than one billion. Nogotkov started working as a schoolboy, selling copies of PC programs. Already 2 years later, without finishing higher education, he, together with his comrades, opened his own business - the Maxus company, in order to engage in a wholesale type of trade in equipment on the radio markets. The organization then became a distributor of Siemens radiotelephones.
Start trading mobile phones did not bring success. But the purchase of salons cellular communication allowed to reach a new horizon, as a result of which the Svyaznoy brand appeared. Today's turnover of the company is more than five hundred billion rubles.
Fred De Luca
An American entrepreneur, along with a friend, started their business by opening a regular diner. Then Fred was only 17 years old. The original plan was to open 32 eateries over a ten-year period. Thanks to further franchising, the chain of stores has expanded significantly. Now outlets SUBWAY brand have become popular all over the world. Their number exceeds 21 thousand in different countries of the world, which exceeds the number of another popular fast food brand McDonald's.
It's just 5 stories successful business from scratch. But there are actually a lot of them. Re-read the biographies of the most famous rich people in order to trace the patterns of ascent from poverty to prosperity, to be inspired by other people's successes. It will definitely work if you are determined to start your own business and think like a millionaire.
Sincerely, Ivan Balashov!
Someone turns millions and billions, but it's not you yet? To be honest, what do you think when you hear success stories about Her or Him, in which everything goes fantastically well: the first million years at 25, the most expensive car, a luxurious house, several operating businesses inspiring assets…. The success stories of rich people, in fact, are too diverse to be “combed” with one brush and taken in a stereotyped way.
It can often seem that rich people become rich without lifting a finger, because behind such a person successful person there were already golden mountains, green rustling banknotes donated by parents, and not taking advantage of all this is a sin.
So that nothing seems, and finally understand the reality for yourself - that you can sit in a soft leather interior of a car, or open a bottle of the most expensive wine on your own terrace, and all this without reference to already prepared soil, we will simply demonstrate 10 real stories becoming the richest people in the world from virtually nothing. From scratch, without support and golden diapers.
By the way, not all the biographies of the rich people of the world, which we will now tell about, are familiar to you. If you were guided only by Forbes ratings, there will be an opening. Why not expand your own boundaries?
10. Michael Rubin opens the top ten richest people on the planet. The future billionaire and founder of Kynetic sold seeds to his neighbors as a child. At the age of 10, the enterprising boy was already hiring 5 guys to remove snow from neighbors' lawns for a fee. At the age of 14, Michael already had his own store, and at 23, under his leadership, there was a company with a turnover of $ 50 million. Michael's fortune is estimated at 2.3 billion dollars. Almost always strong personalities begin in this way: with the manifestation of an entrepreneurial vein from early years.
9. Oprah Winfrey will be the only woman in our ranking of the richest people in the world. Yes, not in the first place, but if it were a rating of diligence and dedication, she could be safely given the championship. Now she is 62 years old and her path to success has nothing to do with the story of Cinderella. She can answer questions about how rich people became rich based on personal experience: she plowed and achieved everything herself. Oprah Winfrey was born into a poor family. Mother was a maid and father was a miner.
For the first 6 years of her life, Oprah lived with her grandmother in the wilderness. The American TV presenter herself admitted in an interview that she was raped at the age of 9 and became pregnant at 14. The child died shortly after birth. At the age of 17, Oprah began working as a reporter, and in 1986 she created her own program, The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2011, she launched her own TV channel, OWN. The state of the TV presenter is estimated at 3.2 billion dollars.
8. This guy doesn't make tens of billions like some of the top rankings do, but he does have something in store: almost $10 billion in hard-earned capital. He owns a 7.6% stake in Facebook. Dustin Moskowitz was born into a Jewish family in Washington DC. The father worked as a psychiatrist, but more information about Dustin's family was not disclosed.
7. In the honorable seventh place of our TOP-10 richest people, Canadian-American engineer Elon Musk. He is 12 years older than Dustin Moskowitz. Elon Musk's net worth is $12.3 billion. He founded SpaceX and X.com. The latter, after merging with Confinity, was called PayPal and was sold for $1.5 billion. Musk was born in South Africa. True, his father was a businessman, and his mother - famous model Therefore, it is difficult to call a family poor. But there is a downside to the coin - Elon was often beaten at school, and this, of course, left a significant mark on the level of self-esteem.
At 12, Elon made his first video game and sold it for $500. It was the first independent earnings on the way to billions. If you look at what such children do from an early age, you can predict future success for them. And success "overtook" Elon.
6. Meet Li Ka-shing, the richest and most powerful man in Hong Kong and Asia. While Forbes was estimating Hong Kong's Superman net worth at $25.5 billion, it has grown to $34. And this is 2015 data. We think Li still did well in 2016. In narrow circles, this enterprising Hong Konger is called "Superman" and is now 87 years old.
Li Ka-shing is the chairman of the boards of Cheung Kong Group and Hutchison Whampoa, which have a capitalization of about 15% of the Hong Kong stock market. Among the stories of rich people who started from scratch, his is one of the most difficult. For understanding: Lee was born in the family of the most ordinary teacher.
From the fifth grade, Kashin began selling watch straps, and a little later he got a job at a plastic watch factory. 16 hours of work in a factory and after attending an evening school - this is how the Hong Kong guy Li Ka-shing began his journey to the first million. Having gained experience in the factory, he began to trade in plastic flowers himself, and soon headed his own company.
5. The stories of rich people who started from scratch are not the same. Like the story of Sergey Brin, who also falls into our ranking of the richest people in the world in fifth place. Sergey is nothing at all - 42 years old and he is a co-founder of Google. Sergei was born into a Jewish family of mathematicians who moved to the United States in 1979, and the future billionaire was only 5 years old. In 2016, according to Forbes magazine, the fortune of an American entrepreneur with Russian roots was estimated at almost $35 billion.
4. You probably heard about this guy too. Larry Page is an American billionaire who, together with Sergey Brin, created the first search engine, which eventually grew into the most powerful tool for finding any information - Google. Larry was born into a professorial family, and while getting an education at the prestigious Stanford University, he met Brin. The joint launch of Google, as we see, has become a gold mine for the guys. Now the state of Larry Page is estimated at $ 32.3 billion, and this is the 17th place in the Forbes rating, however, in 2014. We dare to assume that in 2 years a couple of billions have increased.
Biographies of the richest people in the world: TOP-3. Who is in the lead?
3. Another example of crazy success without any seemingly chance of it from birth is American businessman Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon is one of the twenty richest people according to Forbes magazine. Adelson once again proves that the richest people on the planet are not those who were born and immediately fell into golden diapers. The son of a taxi driver, a newspaper salesman at the age of 12, a court reporter and even a toiletry salesman. Sheldon got a lot. The future American billionaire was born into a Jewish family. And by the way, he is recognized as the richest Jew.
According to the most recent figures that have been announced, Sheldon Adelson's net worth is $38 billion. Not bad, right? The billionaire receives the main income from his investments in real estate: the construction of casinos, hotels, shops, expo centers, etc.
2. We only write "Mark", and you already understand who we are talking about. And yes, you are not mistaken. The founder also enters the TOP 10 richest people in the world social network Facebook Mark Zuckerberg. In May, Mark's wealth was updated (talking about money), and the capital amounted to $ 51.6 billion. But the guy is only 32 years old! By the way, like many on the list, he is of Jewish origin. Father is a dentist, mother is a psychiatrist. Mark has 3 sisters. How much do you think doctors could provide for 4 children? While still a schoolboy, Mark developed a network version of the game "Risk", and while studying at Harvard - an internal social network, which he himself did not bring to mind, but the guys came to the rescue: Dustin Moskowitz, Eduardo Saverin and others.
1. The ex-president of Inditex could not be outside our list of the TOP 10 richest people in the world. And, you know, we put it first. While many multiply their income several times, Amancio Ortega, we are sure, is not "lost". It was he who in October last year received the title of the richest man on the planet according to Forbes magazine. But in May 2016, his fortune was estimated at 72.9 billion dollars. If the name of the Indetex company does not tell you anything, then you have heard about the Zara brand. Here Amancio is the founder of this brand as well.
Amancio's father was a railroad worker, and his mother was even "better" a servant. The family was so poor that the guy didn't even graduate high school, and from the age of 13 he began working as a messenger in a shirt shop. Yes, did the 13-year-old guy then think that in 2015 he would lead the ranking of the richest people on the planet? We doubt. Today, the billionaire invests considerable sums in real estate in Florida, Madrid, London, as well as in banks and tourism.
This is how the ranking of the richest people in the world looks like, who started the path to their success from scratch. Are there no borders? They really don't exist. Just act, and any goal will be achieved. Who knows, maybe you will find yourself in the Forbes ranking in a couple of years.
Forbes annually publishes a list of the 400 richest people in the United States. It's not just a rich list, it's a story of opportunity. Many of them started out penniless. Take-off stories like these are meant to remind us that acumen and determination, spiced with luck, can help you overcome adversity and achieve incredible success.
1. Jan Kum - from food stamps to WhatsApp
Equity: $7.7 billion.
Kuma is now 37 years old. At 16, he moved from Ukraine to the United States. His family, trying to make ends meet, bought food stamps just a couple of blocks from the current WhatsApp office in Mountain View.
In 2009, Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched a messaging app that was supposed to replace SMS to people around the world. WhatsApp now has over 600 million users, and Facebook bought the company earlier this year for $19 billion. This deal turned Koum into a billionaire.
2. Jack Ma - From Teaching English to Alibaba
Equity: $20.2 billion.
Ma was born in Hangzhou, China. He grew up in poverty, and he was not hired even at the local KFC. Ma failed the state college entrance exam twice, but still managed to learn and started teaching English.
In 1995, he first came to the United States and saw the Internet. Realizing that there was still little Chinese content on the web, he started building the China Pages website, a directory sometimes referred to as the first Chinese startup. He failed quickly.
And in 1999 he founded Alibaba. Today, the online store handles twice as many orders as Amazon, and since its September IPO, Ma has become China's richest man.
3. Elizabeth Holmes - founded her own blood test processing company at 19
Equity: 4.5 billion dollars.
She was 19 in 2003 and was a sophomore at Stanford University. Then she founded Theranos, a company that greatly reduced the cost of blood tests.
Now her startup, located in Palo Alto, employs 500 people. The company has reportedly received $400 million in funding and is valued at $9 billion.
Holmes has always been precocious - as a child, in Houston, she taught herself Chinese as a hobby. Before entering Stanford, she managed to work in the patent office. Now she is a billionaire.
4. Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, grew up on a farm in Sweden
Equity: 3.9 billion dollars.
As a seven-year-old boy in the early 1920s, Kamprad began selling matches to his neighbors.
He soon moved on to pencils, postcards and Christmas decorations, and at the age of 17 he founded a company called IKEA (this is an abbreviation for Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd farm, Agunnaryd parish). The company began selling furniture when the founder was in his 22nd year - this is how the IKEA empire began.
Today, it has 340 stores in 42 countries, generates $36 billion in annual sales, and is described by The New Yorker as "the invisible home designer."
This does not affect Kamprad's habits. He still leads a modest life and refuses to fly business class.
5. Starbucks founder Howard Schultz grew up in social housing
Equity:$2.1 billion.
In an interview with the British tabloid Mirror, Schultz says:
“As a child, I understood that we live in poverty. I knew that others more money, more things, life is happier. And for some reason, I wanted to climb to the top, to achieve something that others considered impossible. Don't look that I'm wearing a suit and tie. I remember where I come from and I remember what it is.”
As a result, Schultz won a football scholarship to the University of Northern Michigan, and after graduation he went to work at Xerox. Shortly thereafter, he headed a chain called Starbucks - then it included only 60 coffee shops. Since 1987, he has grown the company into a network of 16,000 cafes scattered around the globe.
6 Oprah Winfrey Was Born Poor And Became The First Black Correspondent On TV
Equity: 3 billion dollars.
Born poor in Mississippi, Winfrey won a scholarship to the University of Tennessee and became the state's first black television correspondent at age 19.
In 1983, she moved to Chicago to work on the AM talk show, which would later be called The Oprah Winfrey Show.
7. Businessman Shahid Khan once washed dishes for $1.20 an hour.
AP Photo/Sang Tan
Equity:$4.4 billion.
He is now one of the richest men in the world, but after coming from Pakistan, he worked as a dishwasher while studying at the University of Illinois. He now owns Flex-N-Gate, one of the largest private companies in the US, and two football clubs: the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars and the Premier League's Fulham.
8. John Paul DeJoria, owner of the hair care empire and Patron Tequila brand, lived in a car.
Equity: 3.2 billion dollars.
DeJoria, a first-generation American, was not yet ten years old when his parents were forced to place him in a foster family. Before entering the military service, he managed to visit a member of a street gang.
With a $700 loan, DeJoria formed John Paul Mitchell Systems and peddled shampoo while living in a car. Then he founded Patron Tequila, and now he invests in other industries.
9. Forever 21 co-founder Do Won Chang worked as a janitor, gas station, and coffee shop after coming to the US
Equity:$5.2 billion.
Life hasn't always been kind to the founders of Forever 21, Do Won Chang and his wife, Jin Sook. After moving to America from Korea in 1981, Do Won had to work three jobs at the same time to make ends meet. They opened their first clothing store in 1984.
Now Forever 21 is an international empire with 480 stores and $3 billion in annual sales.
10. Ralph Lauren thought about men's ties while working as a clerk at Brooks Brothers.
Anton Oparin/Shutterstock.com
Equity:$7.8 billion.
Lauren graduated from high school in New York, in the Bronx. He later dropped out of college for military service. As a sales assistant at Brooks Brothers, Lauren decided to see if men were ripe for wider, brighter ties. In 1967, he decided to make his dream come true and sold $500,000 worth of ties. The following year, he founded the Polo brand.
11. Leonardo Del Vecchio grew up in an orphanage and then went to work in a factory where he lost part of his finger.
Equity:$18.4 billion.
His mother, a widow, could not raise five children, so Del Vecchio was sent to an orphanage. He later took a job in a factory making molds for auto parts and eyeglass frames.
At the age of 23, Del Vecchio opened his own mold shop and founded Luxottica, which became the world's largest manufacturer of eyewear, including sunglasses, under the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands.
12. Legendary Trader George Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and arrived in London as a poor college student
Equity: 24 billion dollars.
To survive in Nazi-occupied Hungary, young George posed as the godson of an employee of the Hungarian Ministry Agriculture. In 1947 he fled the country to London to live with relatives. Entering the London School economy, he simultaneously worked as a porter at the station and as a waiter.
After graduating from university, Soros worked in a gift shop, and only then received a position in a bank in New York. In 1992, his famous game against the British pound earned him a billion dollars.
13. Oracle founder Larry Ellison dropped out of college after the death of his adoptive mother and worked odd jobs for eight years.
Equity:$48 billion.
He was born in New York, in Brooklyn. Ellison grew up with an uncle and aunt in Chicago. After his aunt's death, he dropped out of college and moved to California, where he worked odd jobs for the next eight years. In 1977, he founded the Oracle software company. Over time, it has become one of the largest technology companies in the world.
He recently stepped down as CEO but continues to lead an adventurous life.
14. Roman Abramovich was orphaned as a child. Russian tycoon now owns Chelsea Football Club
AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
Equity: $9.5 billion.
Abramovich was born in Saratov in 1966. When he was one and a half years old, his mother died, and at four, his father. He grew up under the care of his Moscow uncle and grandparents, who lived in the north, in Komi.
After graduating from the Ukhta Industrial Institute, he began trading in oil in Western Siberia. The turning point came in 1992 when he met Boris Berezovsky, one of the leading tycoons of the new Russian capitalism.
Following allegations of fraud, Berezovsky fled to the UK, while Abramovich took over the reins of his empire, which combined 80% of the shares of Sibneft, the fifth largest Russian oil company, 50% of Rusal, the Russian aluminum monopolies and 26% of Aeroflot, the national airline. He then moved on to private investment.
Today Abramovich is one of the richest people in Russia. He loves toys: the world's largest yacht, a Boeing 767 and football club Chelsea.
Today I want to tell you the stories of some of the richest people on our planet who were able to earn over a billion dollars thanks to their brilliant ideas, hard work and desire to get rich. What is most interesting, all these people did not inherit a huge fortune and did not win the lottery, they all started their business from almost nothing. Very interesting, read on.
Li Ka-shing - $26.5 billion
Li Ka-shing was born and lived in China until he left the country in 1940 and moved to Hong Kong. Due to the death of his father, he had to leave school at the age of 14 and go to work. His first job was in a plastic products trading company and he had to spend 16 hours there.
The first ten years, plus thrift, led to the opportunity to open his own business, Cheung Kong Industries. Like Ka-shing's previous job, it was a plastics business, but over time, it has grown into Hong Kong's largest investment corporation. Li Ka-shing himself is considered one of the richest Chinese.
Sheldon Adelson - $26 billion
Sheldon Adelson, the son of a taxi driver from Boston, began his entrepreneurial career at the age of 12 by selling newspapers. After that, he was a court reporter, mortgage broker, investment advisor and financial advisor. There was a period when he tried to sell toiletries and charter tours.
But the organization of the computer exhibition-fair COMDEX in 1979 became a serious success. For the next 2 decades, it was the leading exhibition in the computer field in the United States.
And in 1988, together with partners, he acquires a casino and a hotel in Las Vegas (Sands Hotel & Casino), after which he quickly begins to get rich.
Sergey Brin - $24.9 billion
This is already a new wave of billionaires who began to earn money in the age of computerization and the Internet. Sergey Brin, a 40-year-old Google owner and former Russian, was born in Moscow and then moved to the United States with his family of mathematicians. Engaged in search engines (this is how Google.com itself is called correctly) began at Stanford with classmate Larry Page. The system was tested at the university, and then they began to look for investors. The name Google is a mispronunciation of gugol, a word spoken during one of the project's presentations.
Brin and Page were included in the list of billionaires in 2004, when they were 30 years old. Today, Brin is mainly engaged in the development of new projects and directions, such as augmented reality glasses and an unmanned vehicle.
Larry Page - $24.9 billion
The co-founder and co-owner of Google has been running the company itself since 2011 and is actually responsible for it. strategic development. In addition to Google, he is actively engaged in the development of the clean energy sector, in particular, together with Brin, he invested in Tesla Motors, which produces electric cars. high level(this is a normal machine that is powered by batteries).
Roman Abramovich - $23.5 billion
A well-known personality in narrow circles, Roman Abramovich, a billionaire orphan, who was raised by his grandparents. He went into business while still a student, creating a cooperative for the production of toys and various polymers. After that, there were many other companies and cooperatives, both in production and in trade.
But, as some sharp tongues say, Abramovich's main talent is being able to be at the right time in the right place - thus he was able to gain control of Sibneft, which allowed him to become a billionaire.
Amancio Ortega - $20.2 billion
Until I read who it was, the name meant absolutely nothing to me - Amancio Ortega. If we say that this is the founder and owner Zara then many things will fall into place.
He started sewing his first suits in his living room with the help of $25 and his wife. The first clothing store opened in 1975, and after a while became the owner of the popular clothing chain Zara. In addition to the Zara chain, he has chains of clothing stores for children, for young girls, lingerie stores, etc. In total, Ortega has more than 3,000 stores in 64 countries around the world.
Mark Zuckerberg - $19 billion
29-year-old Mark Zuckenberg is an icon of the modern world. Young, lazy, creative and rich. The creator of the largest social network Facebook, who created a system for his university - Harvard - but in the end could not finish it, because. there was no time left. Helped in the creation of Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskowitz, plus Eduardo Saverin. First big investment came from Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal.
Now Facebook is a public company, which first lost a lot in price, and then (in 2013) began to rise in price. Zuckenberg now has a 17% stake, making him the youngest billionaire in history.
Kirk Kerkorian - $16 billion
The now elderly uncle of the age of 96 left school in the 8th grade for the sake of boxing. At that time, he achieved great success and even became the welterweight champion in the Pacific Amateur Boxing Championship. After the Second World War, he left the ring and went to the airfield and began to fly the plane, but in 1944 he ended up in Las Vegas, where he got stuck for 3 years. After losing a lot of money, he nevertheless said goodbye to gambling and bought the airline company Trans International Airlines for 60 thousand dollars. After some time, he was able to sell it for $ 104 million to Transamerica.
And since 1968, he took up Hollywood - he earned at MGM, United Artists, Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox.
Elon Musk - $6.7 billion
Elon Musk is one of those new rich people who capture the market with their brains, hands and business acumen. First big deal at the age of 12, he wrote a program that he sold for $500 (at that age I only spent pocket money on ice cream and buns). At the age of 25, together with his brother, he created a company dealing with software for news companies, and 4 years later he was able to sell it for a price of 307 million. He invested this money in the creation of PayPal, which, in turn, he sold to eBay for $1.5 billion.
Today he is engaged in the Space X space program and has contracts from NASA. Also engaged in the aforementioned Tesla Motors.
Dustin Moskowitz - $5.2 billion
About this young man You can also say he was at the right time in the right place. Dustin Moskowitz is Mark Zuckenberg's roommate and helped him build Facebook. On the this moment he owns 5% of the shares and this is the basis of his fortune. Facebook is not his main project now - now he is working on the Asana project. This is a web application for efficient project collaboration. Of the interesting things, he rides a bicycle to work and participates in the Giving Pledge project (a philanthropic project from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett). The essence of the project is that half of the members' fortune goes to charity.
Ken Griffin - $4.4 billion
Billions are made not only on computers. Ken Griffin is the owner of Citadel hedge funds. He got his first positive experience of playing on the stock exchange at the age of 18 and has not stopped working since then. He became one of the most famous specialists in his field. After 2008, the funds lost half their price, but are now gradually recovering.
John Arnold - $2.8 billion
Another successful stock player, John Arnold, started at Enron, now deceased. At the age of 27, he earned $1 billion for the company and received his bonus of $8 million. It was this money that he used to invest for himself and leave the annoying company.
In 2012, he surprised the whole world by announcing that he was retiring from trading after 17 years of successful experience. Now he and his wife charitable foundation with a budget of 1.4 billion dollars, and he is also a member of the Giving Pledge project, which we mentioned above.
Oprah Winfrey - $2.5 billion
Oprah Winfrey is a whole layer of American culture. This is the Cinderella of our days, who did not drop her shoe on the stairs, but plowed like a horse and used all the possibilities. The beginning of life is harsh, you can’t say anything: a strict mother, she was first abused at the age of 9, at 14 she gave birth to a child who died in infancy. But when I was in school, I first got a job at a radio station. At the age of 19, she already hosted local news, then daytime talk shows. The next major achievement is to promote a completely unpopular show so as to become a celebrity, and then, with experience and a name, create your own production company.
At 32, Oprah became a millionaire, and her show is the property of the nation. Since 1994, it has become so popular that the check for the year exceeded 9 figures. Oprah Winfrey became the first African American woman to be featured on the Forbes list.
Today, once on the air with Oprah, you can become a celebrity in 1 day. For example, this was done with Robert Kiyosaki in 1997 (of course, we will not belittle the achievements of Robert himself).
Mikey Jagtiani - $2.5 billion
Mikey Jagtiani, a Middle Eastern representative on our list of billionaires, was going to be an accountant, but his studies didn't work out. living in London was too expensive, plus the exams were also not going smoothly. To survive, I had to work as a taxi driver and a cleaner.
At the age of 21, Mikey Jagtian ends up in Bahrain alone with 6 thousand dollars (that's all the family had) and opens a children's goods store with this money. And today it is a retail chain in the list of the most profitable in the Middle East.
A corporation called Landmark includes 280 stores throughout the Middle East and brings Mike Jagtiani up to 650 million in profit per year.
Michael Rubin - $2.3 billion
Another representative of today's billionaires, Michael Rubin, CEO Kynetic. He began his career as an entrepreneur as a child and sold seeds to his neighbors. At the age of 10, he already hired 5 guys to remove snow from neighboring lawns for money. At the age of 14, this future billionaire had already opened the first store, persuading his father to sign a lease. At 23, he was already a director in a company with $50 million in sales.
But he saw his destiny in e-commerce, which was just beginning to develop. He invested about 80 million in his online store, but, despite increasing sales, he could not make this business sustainable. However, eBay came to the rescue, which bought the company from Rubin for 2.4 billion. The price is much higher than the real cost of this project, but eBay was behind in the race with Amazon, so they shelled out this money.
Today, Rubin is engaged in Fanatics clothing stores and websites of various kinds, in which he has already invested 500 million.
Eduardo Saverin - $2.2 billion
Another person who made a fortune on Facebook. Saverin is Zuckenberg's first investor and was the commercial director of the young project. But while Saverin was in New York on practice, Zuckenberg attracted new investors and artificially lowered his equity stake from 34% to 0.03%. Eduardo sued and got his share back up to 5%.
These 5% allowed him to get into the list of billionaires. In addition, the man turned out to be reasonable and, before Facebook filed for an IPO, he renounced his US citizenship and became a citizen of Brazil, which allowed him not to pay US taxes. And although he has a Brazilian passport, he lives in Singapore and invests in online projects: an application that scans the barcode of a product and offers it at the lowest price on the Internet or online credit card payments using a webcam.
Sean Parker - $2 billion
Another co-owner of Facebook, Sean Parker, started out as a talented programmer and hacker. Already at the age of 16, he was arrested for hacking the websites of companies that were on the Forbes list. He also had a hand in creating the Napster Internet resource, through which it was possible to exchange music. It was a kind of breakthrough, albeit closed for "some" friction with the law. At 24, he meets Zuckenberg and is the president of Facebook. True, then he is removed, which, however, does not prevent him from keeping 3% of the shares and becoming a billionaire.
Today he is engaged in his startups.
Richard Desmond - $2 billion
The life of Richard Desmond also did not indulge at the beginning: his parents divorced, lived together in a small apartment, left school at the age of 14 to play drums and help his mother earn money.
His first real job was at the Thomson Newspaper, but by the age of 21 he owned two record stores. But the experience of the media also received its continuation - in 1974, Desmond became the publisher of the International Musician and Recording World magazine.
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