Paying off student debt, carving out a career, and working out strange new business and personal
relationships...that’s pretty much how most twenty and thirty-somethings balance their
time. But some of us, it appears, are more than a little driven by the big bucks at a
much earlier age. In 1987, Bill Gates, at 31 years of age, became a self-made billionaire.
Just over 20 years later, in 2008, Mark Zuckerberg took the title for youngest self-made billionaire
when he reached that status at just 23 years old. Our billionaires seem to be getting younger
and younger. But who else has reached billionaire status as a youngen? That’s what we’ll
find out, in this episode of The Infographics Show, Who became Billionaires the Youngest?
Perhaps the Youngest Billionaire in the world right now is a 23 year old Norwegian heiress.
Alexandra Andresen, an investment banker and heir to a family tobacco fortune, is a typical
young billionaire. Because her dad’s company is now worth a mint, she and her 22 year old
sister are currently the youngest billionaires rocking the billionaire circuit. Alexandra
enjoys horse riding, cos why not, is part of the national dressage team, and is said
to own at least six of the horses. The net wealth of the horses is currently unknown.
But not all young billionaires inherited their fortunes; the aforementioned Mark Zuckerberg
was just 23 years old when Facebook exploded from his college dormitory and into the world’s
biggest social network website. Even after taking a hit after floatation, Zuckerberg
is still worth something around the staggering 72 billion dollar mark...not bad for a lad
who has yet to hit 35 years of age. The slightly older co-founder of Napstar,
Sean Parker, was an early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg and an early investor in Spotify and other
start-up tech companies. He’s currently amassed more than 2 billion dollars to his
name, and reached billionare status in 2005 at the ripe old age of 26. Parker proves that
having a finger in many tech pies is the best way forward to amass a fortune in your earlier
years. Since 2005, Parker has been an active donor to Cancer Research, and has pledged
a 5 million grant to create an immunotherapy Dream Team to help control and prevent the
disease. Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel became a
billionaire in 2015 at the age of 25, making him one of the youngest self-made billionaires.
He’s now worth just double that at 2.1 billion. Snapchat is a photo messaging service that
exchanges temporary photos between friends and was valued at 10 billion dollars in 2014.
Representing China, Wang Yue became a billionaire at the age of 29 through development of online
and mobile gaming. Wang, formally of 51.com, has built King.net into a leading online and
mobile game service and also runs a popular mobile phone application.
Meanwhile Larry Page earned his first billion in 2004 at age 30, making Google’s co-founder
one of the youngest to first hit the billion sweet spot. Today Larry is estimated to be
worth around 35 billion dollars, according to, you guessed it, Google.
Lukas Walton, son of Walmart founder Sam, inherited a sizable sum of the estate following
his father's death, making John, at age 31, a young billionaire who got his money the
old fashioned way – through inheritance. The fortune was thought to have been left
to his mom Christy Walton, but recent news indicates Lukas was the main beneficiary of
the Walmart billions. Lucky him.
2015’s richest man, the above-mentioned Bill Gates, had his first billion netted by
the age of 31, which makes him one of the groundbreaking pioneers of the get rich tech
savvy brigade. Today gates is worth around 91.2 billion dollars, and is still going strong.
But things weren’t always so rosy. The microsoft founder was to said to have memorised employees
license plate numbers to monitor their comings and going to and from the office in his earlier
years as Microsoft boss, but has admitted when the company became a certain size he
had to ‘loosen up’ a little.
Representing the energy sector, Scott Duncan, age 34, is worth over 5 and a half billion
dollars after he began the pipeline company Enterprise Pipelines, with inherited money.
While the energy sector has been taken over by the tech industry in terms of young billionaires,
let us not forget that there is still plenty of old money in oil and gas. Duncan is a young
gun in an old man’s game.
Amazon’s co-founder Jeff Bezos raked in his first million at age 35 in the year 1999.
The CEO’s shares in the global mail order service brought him from millionaire to billionaire
as worldwide sales flourished. He’s now worth an estimated 125 billion dollars and
business is flourishing with the advent of Amazon kindle, Amazon TV, and their new publishing
and content services.
Nathan Blecharczyk is a 34 year old billionaire worth almost 4 big ones, He co-founded and
ha s a 13 percent stake in Airbnb, the international company that is taking on traditional hotel
chains and the hospitality industry around the world. Showing us yet again that the tech
world is infiltrating all business sectors with increasing and escalating success stories
for the well-heeled young.
And back to tech companies, Mark Cuban sold his first company Micro Solutions to make
him a millionaire and then sold his second Broascast.com at the age of 40 years old making
him his first billion in 1998.
Last of all, and perhaps the granddaddy of the modern day billionaire boys club, is Sir
Richard Branson, who didn’t earn his first billion dollars until he’d reached the comparatively
wise old age of 41. Thanks to the success of his many companies, the Virgin group CEO
is now worth approximately 5 billion dollars. And Sir Richard, along with Bill Gates, and
new boy on the block Mark Zuckerberg, have paved the way for many of billionaires to
follow in their trail-blazed paths.
So, do you think it’ll get more and more common for people in their 20s to become billionaires?
Let us know in the comments! Also, be sure to check out our other video called What a
Million Dollars Gets You! Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share,
and subscribe. See you next time!