Top 10 Richest Entrepreneurs in 2022
An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business or an organization by taking a financial risk.
With financial risk comes a chance to earn financial rewards in terms of profit. Apart from financial gain, entrepreneurs are also motivated by factors like innovation, disruption, making an impact etc.
What makes a successful entrepreneur?. What made the richest entrepreneurs so successful?.
I believe entrepreneurial success depends on the following traits:
- Strategic mindset
- People management skills
- Holding nerve during a downturn
- Perseverance
But entrepreneurship isn’t easy & definitely not a recommended career line for the faint hearted ones. Having said that, it does provide an immense opportunity to change the world for a better. Had an entrepreneur not taken a risk then products like social networks, search engines, messenger apps & digital wallets would not have been invented.
TOP 10 RICHEST ENTREPRENEURS
1. Elon Musk
With a net worth of $ 269 billion, Elon Musk tops the list of richest entrepreneurs. Famously, he's the CEO of the world's largest electric vehicle company called Tesla. Musk became the largest shareholder of Tesla by investing $ 6.5 million dollars in 2004. Tesla was originally founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard & Marc Tarpenning.
Tesla has also got diversified interests in the following ventures:
- Maxwell Technologies (energy storage & power devices/solutions for electric vehicles)
- Tesla Energy (solar energy devices & solutions)
- DeepScale (technology solutions for self-driving vehicles)
- Grohmann Engineering (automated manufacturing solutions)
- Tesla Insurance (insurance services for Tesla vehicle owners)
- Perbix Machine (automated manufacturing devices)
- Tesla Financial Services (finance services for Tesla customers)
2. Jeff Bezos
Born in 1964, Jeff Bezos is the founder & CEO of the e-commerce giant called Amazon. With a net worth of $187 Billion, he's second on the list of richest entrepreneurs. He founded Amazon as an online bookstore in the year 1994. After that, there was no looking back for Bezos as he kept adding new categories of products.
Today, Amazon is not only world’s largest online shopping platform but also has diversified interests in many other businesses like:
- Amazon Web Services (cloud computing service)
- Kindle (ebook reading device & service)
- Alexa (cloud voice service)
- Audible (audiobook marketplace)
- Goodreads (community for book readers)
- Twitch (live streaming platform)
- Whole Foods (supermarket chain for organic food products)
- Diapers.com (online retailer for baby products)
- Zappos (online retailer for shoes)
- iMDb (community for movie viewers)
- Amazon Fresh (grocery delivery service)
- Amazon Prime (subscription & streaming service of Amazon)
- Amazon Pay (online payment service)
The aforesaid list isn't complete. Why? Because Amazon, as of today, has 40+ subsidiaries. It isn't feasible list all of them here. So, I only picked & featured the most popular ones.
What an incredible journey! From selling books to selling (possibly) everything on the earth.
Key Facts about Jeff Bezos
- Net worth: $ 187 billion
- Age: 58 years
- Shareholding in Amazon: 10%
- Education: Princeton University (Degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science)
- Key Designation: Founder & Chairperson of Amazon (In 2021, Bezos resigned as CEO of Amazon)
- Citizenship: USA
Jeff Bezos's Success Story
After graduating from college in 1986, Bezos first worked at Fitel, a telecommunication company. Thereafter, he joined Bankers Trust. After a short stint there, he joined a hedge fund (DE Shaw & Co.) as a manager & worked there for around 4 years till 1993.
In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon that went on to become the world's largest online retailer. Initially, Amazon was just into selling of books. However, after Bezos took Amazon public through IPO, it quickly started expanding into other products & verticals.
Post IPO, Amazon was struggling to generate profit. Fast expansion meant more cash burn. The bank balance was dwindling. Bankruptcy was looming in the air. The situation was such that Amazon had to lay off a chunk of its workforce. And, it had started vacating its distribution centers.
However, in 2002, Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) that changed the game for Amazon in terms of cash flow & profitablity. AWS quickly became popular for its affordable cloud computing services. It actually disrupted an industry in no time.
And, the rest, as we say, is history.
Today, Amazon generates an annual revenue of more than $ 500 billion.
3. Bill Gates
Bill Gates is the founder of the PC software firm Microsoft corporation. With a net worth of $97 billion, Gates is at number second on the list. He is widely credited as one of the pioneers who revolutionized the personal computing industry with Microsoft’s operating system ‘Windows’. Started in 1975, Microsoft now has diversified interests in various companies including Skype, LinkedIn, Yammer, Microsoft Mobile (Earlier known as Nokia). He is also actively involved in various philanthropic projects.
4. Warren Buffett
Warren Buffet is one of the most successful investors of our time. With a net worth of $82 billion, he is at the number 3 spot on this list. He owns Berkshire Hathaway which owns more than 60 companies including Geico & Duracell. He has pledged to donate 99% of his wealth towards charities.
5. Bernard Arnault
6. Amancio Ortega
7. Larry Ellison
8. Mark Zuckerberg
9. Michael Bloomberg
10. Larry Page
I believe money isn’t the correct parameter to judge if an entrepreneur (or for that matter even a person) is rich.
At the end of the day what matters is the impact, the social impact.
Anyways, the objective of this post was to list the names of billionaire entrepreneurs in monetary terms
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