Category: Billionaires

Do rich people only care about making more money? Not anymore. There’s a new generation of socially responsible billionaires looking to make the world a better place (at the same time as counting their cash).

From investors placing their money in green companies only to entrepreneurs who want to be known for the issues they care about, check out four of the most famous socially responsible billionaires below–and how they’re changing the world.

Larry Page

Larry Page is the co-founder of Google and number 12 in the Forbes List of Billionaires, with a net worth estimated at $39 billion. Besides his interest in consumer data, this entrepreneur puts a lot of effort into developing the charitable side of Google.

Thanks to Larry Page, Google develops technological solutions to help charities and organizations that fight hunger and poverty. The tech giant has adopted a series of green policies to reduce its carbon footprint and invests in renewable energy as well.

Evan Spiegel

Evan Spiegel is the co-founder and CEO of Snapchat. Even if his company did lose almost 40% of its value since its launch on the stock market, Spiegel is still worth around $2.5 billion and is one of just four self-made billionaires under 30.

Spiegel is only 28, but he has already stated his vision of the world on several occasions. Spiegel said at Code 2018:

“Life is really about having an impact on the world, changing the way that people experience the world, changing the way that you experience the world.”

Evan Spiegel contributed to raising money for AIDS research and community service in California. In 2017, the founders of Snapchat started the Snap Foundation, an organization that supports art and education.

Nathan Blecharczyk

Nathan Blecharczyk is co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Airbnb. Despite his growing fortune (estimated at around $3 billion), he still rides his bike to work. And stays in Airbnb homes when traveling.

The billionaire stated more than once that he feels responsible to do good. He and his wife support St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children and contribute to College Track, a nonprofit in California that supports students from under-served communities.

Blecharczyk, together with the other co-founders of Airbnb, also announced that they join Bill Gate’s Giving Pledge, meaning that they committed to donating at least 50% of their wealth in their lifetime or in their will.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s passion for renewable energy makes him one of the most famous socially responsible billionaires of his generation. He’s permanently investing in innovative technology that could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. He also has a well-known penchant for all things green.

Musk is interested in educational projects as well and donates high amounts to charity. Among the Tesla CEO’s benevolent acts, he donated $15 million to the Global Learning program by XPRIZE, $250,000 and battery systems to support hurricane victims, and $480,000 to fix the water system in 12 Flint schools.

Musk also joined the Giving Pledge started by Bill Gates. More than half of his wealth will support charity for good.

These four socially responsible billionaires are playing their part in keeping our planet clean. They also donate large amounts to charity and support hundreds of smaller organizations around the globe, proving that you don’t have to sell your soul to be a billionaire. You can give back some of your success as well.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

You already know about bulletproof vests, cars, and even planes. But did you know you can now buy your own bulletproof house? The Argentinean billionaire business mogul Eduardo Eurnekian is offering the ultimate in precaution by selling off his unique bulletproof house in New York City for $50 million.

Taking luxurious ballin’ to the next level, Eurnekian’s majestic seven-story bulletproof home is located to the east of Central Park at Lenox Hill. It would make the ideal home for any self-respecting crime lord, high-profile cartel leader, or just someone with a nervous disposition.

360-Degree Billionaire Bulletproof Panorama

The ultra-luxurious bulletproof mansion is the ultimate security-conscious billionaire pad in New York. Set over a gargantuan 10,400 square feet, coming equipped with six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and a stunning roof terrace with 360-degree panoramic views of the city.

With its own elevators, wine cellar, windows made of bulletproof glass and plenty of parking options, if you’re looking for the coolest–and safest–centrally located pad in NYC, it will cost you $50 million.

Compass Real Estate agent, Maria Belen Avellaneda, reckons there’s no architectural value for the property as a precedent has not been set for a bulletproof house in the heart of New York City. But she was extremely complimentary of the property’s unique design, saying it has:

“a notion of luxury that’s classy, refined, clean, smart, safe, efficient, striking, and linked to the ideas of technology and globalization — completely against a way of luxury that’s opulent and vulgar.”

Argentine Billionaire Lifestyle

Although Eduardo Eurnekian has been making news this week in regards to the sale of his bulletproof property, the Argentine billionaire reportedly has a net worth of $2.7 billion according to Forbes. Although, he didn’t make this year’s Forbes 400 rich list.

The Argentinean built his empire and fortune across a wide range of businesses such as his textile factory in Palermo, Buenos Aires, before running a television company and then venturing into the airport business.

The Billionaire is now 85-years old, but he still keeps active by swimming and doing yoga on a daily basis. He really loves what he does, and recently told Forbes:

“If you work to make money, you’re screwed. You don’t work to make money. An artist doesn’t paint to make money. And a good businessman is like an artist.”

Featured image: 6sqft

Forbes produced last week its latest Forbes 400 rich list. Individuals needed a record $2.1 billion net worth to make the list. The average wealth of the 400 U.S billionaires is also at its highest ever, reaching $7.2 billion.

15 Americans made the list for the very first time, most of them are self-made billionaires earning fortunes in e-commerce, transport and of course, technology.

Drew Houston – Dropbox

Houston enters the list in 302nd place with a net worth of around $2.1 billion as of today. He founded file sharing service Dropbox in 2007 at the age of 24 with his Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) classmate Arash Ferdowsi.

Houston owns 25% of Dropbox, which was publicly listed this year in March. Dropbox shares gained 35% in value on their first day of trading, entering the market at a value of $28.48 according to Nasdaq, with a value of $24.07 today.

Houston is 35 and also holds 1999th place in Forbes three comma club, it’s global billionaires 2018 list. He’s quoted as having said of success:

“Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”

Ben Chestnut – Mailchimp

Chestnut founded popular email marketing platform Mailchimp in 2001 with Dan Kurzius, it wasn’t until 2007 that Mailchimp gained enough customers for the team to commit to the project full time. The pair own 50% of Mailchimp each, a company set to turn over $600 million in 2018. Chestnut is 44 and business partner Kurzius is 46, also making the Forbes 400 list in 383rd.

Chestnut is quoted by Forbes as saying:

“I want people to see that the past 17 years were just a warm-up.”

Chris Larsen – Cryptocurrency

As the first cryptocurrency “tycoon” Ripple co-founder Larsen joins the Forbes 400 with a net worth of $2.1 billion sharing 283rd place. Had the cryptocurrency markets and the Ripple token, XRP, not declined in value Larsen would have been worth much more. Forbes estimated his worth in January 2018, at $37.3 billion.

Larsen’s wealth stems from an ownership of an estimated 5.19 billion XRP tokens as well shares in the blockchain payments platform Ripple itself.

Before getting into cryptocurrency Larsen co-founded e-Loan in 1997 and a peer-to-peer lender Prosper in 2005. The self-made billionaire is 58.

Thai Lee – SHI International

One of three women to make the list this year, Lee, now 59 was born in Bangkok and grew up in South Korea before moving to the U.S. She is CEO of IT company SHI International which boasts over 17,000 customers. Lee is worth $2.3 billion, having bought SHI for less than a million in 1989.

SHI sales for 2017 were $8.5 billion. The company won a cloud solutions master agreement to offer software and IT infrastructure services to almost all U.S state and local public sector organizations. The enterprise technology giant also supplies the Defense Logistics Agency and NASA.

Forbes has previously named SHI International as the largest female-owned business in the U.S. Supportive of her employees Lee is quoted as saying:

“A dollar amount could never accurately convey the respect and admiration I have for the employees of SHI.”

Steve Conine – Online Retailer Wayfair

Conine, 46, made the Forbes 400 list at 368th. He founded online home goods retailer Wayfair with business partner Niraj Shah in 2002. Shah also made the list sharing 368th position and equivalent wealth of $2.2 billion. Wayfair, listing more than 10 million products online, saw sales rise 40% in 2017, reaching sales of $4.7 billion.

Wayfair is a consolidation of 250 websites different websites created by Conine and Shar from 2000 onwards after they spotted a niche for retailing furniture and other home items online.

When he’s not working Conine is a competitive mountain biker who competes in global bike races.

There were already many technology entrepreneurs on the Forbes 400 list, who carried over their success into 2018. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos removed Microsoft’s Bill Gates’ 24-year hold over the number one spot on the list with a massive net worth of $160 billion. Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin hold positions six and nine respectively. WhatsApp’s Jan Koum is 47th on the list and Snapchat entrepreneur Evan Spiegel is still the youngest billionaire on the list at age 28 with a net worth of $2.3 billion.

Featured image of Drew Houston from Wikipedia.

Opinionated, political, extremely wealthy, and hosting the popular television series in the US and the UK, The Apprentice links US President, Donald Trump, to the British equivalent, Sir Alan Michael Sugar. The 14th series of The Apprentice has just begun on British television with Alan Sugar again taking the leading role. Unlike the US version where President Trump stood down to “make America great again,” Sugar has been the ever-present host since the UK version began in 2005.

The Apprentice (UK) sees Alan Sugar setting business-related tasks to a dozen or more aspiring “apprentices,” all eager to join his business empire. Contestants range from humble market traders to thriving entrepreneurs that have already made a name for themselves in business, but at a much lower level than they hope to achieve by joining up with “Sir Alan.”

Week by week the contestants are whittled down until just one entrepreneur claims the £250,000 investment from Alan Sugar as equal partners in the business they recommend. Uniquely, the last series had joint winners as the host couldn’t decide between the two business proposals.

Humble Beginnings for Alan Sugar and Politics

President Trump, or plain Donald John Trump as he was then, took up the reins of his family’s real estate business before going on to become one of the world’s best-known entrepreneurs.

Alan Sugar became a Lord in 2000 for his contribution to the explosion of low-cost personal computers in the 1980’s, but he is a self-made man, having been brought up in an apartment owned by the local authority before he built his business empire.

Alan Sugar is a popular figure in the UK for different reasons to different people. For soccer fans, he was Chairman of popular Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur from 1991 to 2001. To computer enthusiasts in the 1980s and 1990s, he pioneered the development of cheap personal computers under the brand Amstrad and buying the rights to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, originally developed by Sir Clive Sinclair.

To the wider general public, Sugar is best known for hosting The Apprentice on the BBC. But like President Trump, he also has a powerful political voice. Between 1997 and 2015 he was regarded as a Socialist being a fully paid-up member of the Labor party.

His humble beginnings may have influenced his early political persuasion, but just after the 2015 General Election, which the Labor Party lost, he became “disillusioned” with the Party and left. By 2017 he had moved to the right and was supporting Conservative Theresa May in the General Election, which she went on to win.

Sugar and Trump Billionaires

Sugar and Trump have both joined the billionaires club, but they didn’t amass their fortunes before the age of 30 which is left to a very select group of fewer than ten individuals globally. Unlike President Trump, Sugar is not yet “running the country” and at the age of 71, it is probably unlikely that he will ever become the Prime Minister of the UK. Switching his allegiance from Socialist left to Conservative right probably also hampers his prospects of taking up the number one job.

The similarities between these two entrepreneurial heavyweights are quite uncanny, with a few notable exceptions, and for most people, The Apprentice is their closest link. For budding entrepreneurs, following Sugar’s business decisions during the program can be quite insightful and selling part or all of any businesses you create is a tried and tested route to financial freedom.

Featured Image by De Damien Everett, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16205713

If you’re dreaming of amassing fortunes in the billions and you haven’t hit your third decade yet, you’d be joining a pretty small club. There are just nine billionaires under 30 according to Forbes. That’s an exclusive set indeed.

But what about all the unicorn startups and rags-to-riches stories we hear about so often? Don’t confuse starting a company valued in the billions with raking in the billions in private net worth.

Making (a shit ton of) money isn’t easy. The laws of physics (and stock prices) indicate that it requires time, experience, and something extraordinary. Especially if you’re not next in line to inherit a gargantuan sum any time soon.

What about the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Brian Chesky? Oh, they’re in the club alright, just not the billionaires under 30 one. They don’t get asked for ID when buying drinks anymore.

Self-Made Billionaires Are an Even Rarer Beast

Now we’ve established that your chances of joining the billionaires under 30 club are on a par with a camel passing through the eye of a needle, take heart. There’s more than a sprinkling of privilege in this club-of-nine list as well.

In fact, of the nine billionaires under 30, the majority are not self-made. The truly extraordinary individuals who have made their own fortunes from scratch are a grand total of just four. The other five had their wealth handed to them on a silver platter.

So, let’s take a look at the four self-made. Who are they and how did they make their money? It seems that the worlds of social media and fintech (AKA tech billionaires) walk away with the prize. The four richest people under 30 are the co-founders of Snapchat, and Stripe respectively.

Snapchat Cofounders

Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP) Cofounders Bobby Murphey (29) and Evan Spiegel (28) got the recipe right with their self-destructing messages and allowing people to take selfies with bunny ears. But like everything social media, trends are only popular for a while. It wasn’t long before even our ugliest friends having profile pics looking like Disney princesses started to get old.

Snapchat has had a turbulent year and so have its cofounders. From a historical high of 27.09 USD in March 2017 to its October 5, 2018 price of 7.77 USD, the Stanford frat brothers saw around 40 percent of their net worth wiped off this year. They still top the rich kids’ list, though, with a net worth of $2.5 billion.

Snapchat’s 200 million users (mainly between 18 and 34) users are a fickle bunch. Look to why the social media giant is losing popularity and it seems many fingers point to a Kylie Jenner tweet. Influential people complaining about the redesign saw a $1.3 billion drop in Snapchat’s worth.

Stripe Cofounders

At the age of 27, Irish brothers and Stripe Cofounders John Collison and Patrick Collison are on the fintech hall of fame with an estimated net-worth of around $1 billion as of February this year.

What’s Stripe? For those of you who don’t know, Stripe is a fintech unicorn that lets companies and individuals accept payments online easily. Another idea to be incubated in a college dorm room, Stripe processed its first payment when the brothers were vacationing in South America.

In 2016, Stripe was valued at around $9.2 billion. But Stripe’s valuation has recently be recalculated to around $20 billion, making it the sixth most valuable venture-backed startup in the US, alongside WeWork, and Palantir.

No plans to take the company public, millions of businesses already using Stripe and an estimated 80% or more US consumers having used it for payments, they see no need for an IPO. Some of Stripe’s most famous investors include Elon Musk and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

The Takeaway

The common threads between these self-made billionaires under 30 are technology and college. But with social media able to shed billions of value on the back of a celebrity tweet, fintech may be a more stable ground on which to build your empire. Moreover, college is really just a yardstick since some of the most successful individuals in the world are college dropouts–just ask Richard Branson and Steve Jobs. Neither of them were billionaires before 30 either.

Featured Image credit: De cellanr – Flickr: Evan Spiegel, founder of Snapchat

With a net worth of $21.1 billion, Elon Musk is probably not too concerned about the substantial fine recently handed down by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A few days ago the SEC broadcast a Press Conference to announce it had “charged Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based Tesla Inc., with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading tweets about a potential transaction to take Tesla private.”

In early August 2018, Musk took to Twitter stating he had funding in place to take Tesla private, at $420 per share.

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018

The price quoted by Musk was significant for two reasons:

• 420 is a term commonly used by marijuana users as the optimum time to smoke “pot,” i.e., 4:20 PM. Some Twitter users suggested that Musk may have been high on marijuana when he sent the Tweet.
• More importantly for the SEC was that $420 was significantly higher than Tesla’s stock price and Musk hadn’t provided any evidence for the source of funding.

An investigation for Securities fraud by the SEC would typically take months or even years. Within just two days of the Press Conference, the SEC announced: “Musk and Tesla have agreed to settle the charges against them without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations.” The punishment for the handful of Tweets is $40 million, split equally between Musk and Tesla, plus Musk has to relinquish the role of Chairman for at least three years. Musk takes a salary of just one dollar per annum, as did the late Steve Jobs of Apple Inc, with most of his remuneration paid as stock options. Resigning as Chairman will probably result in reduced stock options even though Musk is also the CEO and Product Architect at Tesla.

Elon Musk and the source of his wealth

Elon was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971 to Maye and Erol Musk. His mother is well known as a model, and his father is a pilot, electromechanical engineer, and sailor. Musk taught himself computer programming before he was a teenager and moved to Canada at the age of 17 with just $2,000 before amassing sizable student debts. His first known business deal was the sale of his computer game, Blastar, for $500 at the tender age of 12. At the age of 27, he sold his 7% stake in Zip2, which he founded with his brother Kimbal in 1995. Zip2 was acquired by Compaq/Alta Vista/CMGi in the year 1999. Elon made $22 million and Kimbal made $15 million on the deal. With the proceeds from the sale of Zip2, he co-founded X.com which became what we know today as PayPal.

Musk received $165 million for his Paypal stocks in 2002 when eBay acquired the business. Since 2002 he has gone on to build and invest in numerous companies, most notably SpaceX and Tesla. Today most of his wealth is derived from stock holdings of Tesla. He has made no secret of his annoyance at short sellers of Tesla stock. Some commentators have suggested the Tweets was his way of making investors think twice before shorting Tesla stocks.

The road to financial independence

Thus far Elon Musk has taken a tried and tested route to financial independence by building and buying income generating assets. We can’t all hope to nurture businesses that become household names like Tesla and SpaceX, but great wealth can still be achieved today from setting up a low-cost website or a smartphone app. If you are serious about creating financial independence for you and your family you might be interested in a couple of articles MoneyMakers published recently:

• Not wealthy and rich yet? You are not stupid.
• How to Make Money and Become Wealthy: Never Focus On “Get Rich Quick!”