The current richest people in the word, like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, all have fortunes
worth well over 100 billion dollars. And yet, if we account for inflation, their wealth is not
even close to making them the richest people ever. So today, we’re delving into the past
to explore the richest people in history, and how they made their unthinkably large fortunes.
And we start with #1: John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate that’s widely considered
the richest American of all time, with an approximate net worth of around 400 billion
dollars in today’s money, even after giving a substantial amount of his fortune away.
And yet, he started from very humble beginnings. He was born into a large family, with a father
who was frequently absent and was regarded as a con-man who sold worthless potions. So,
from a young age, John needed to help provide for the family, and took on odd jobs,
like looking after the neighbours turkeys, or selling potatoes and candy.
Even though these things didn’t pay a lot, John was really good at them
and worked hard, and so he was able to save enough money to start offering small loans
to other people. So even as a young boy that entrepreneurial instinct was there.
But when he turned 16 he dropped out of school and got his first real job as a book-keeper, earning
just 50 cents a day. However, after working there for around 2 years, his employers still refused to
give him a meaningful raise, and so he decided to start his own produce business, as he had
a goal to make $100,000, and knew he’d need to build something of his own to reach that target.
Luckily, that first job had already taught him a lot, and gave him the experience, connections
and reputation, to raise $4,000 for starting his own venture; a business selling goods like meat,
hay and grain. Which did well, in the first year of trading it made almost half a million
dollars - of course Rockefeller didn’t keep all of that, a lot of it went back into business expenses
and loans, but it meant when a big opportunity arose, he now had some real money to invest.
And that opportunity, was oil. In 1859, the first American oil well was discovered,
which began the Pennsylvania oil rush. However, Rockefeller realised that whilst most people
were trying to get rich from drilling oil, the bigger profits were actually in oil refinery. So,
at just 24 years old, he used the money from his first business to build an oil refinery.
Now, around this time he met a man named Henry Flagler who was interested in
investing in his business, and so together they incorporated the Standard Oil Company,
and began the process of buying out all the smaller nearby oil refineries that were in
competition with them. Whenever any of these refineries refused to sell their oil to him,
he simply started selling his oil at a loss so that their customers flocked to him instead,
which would put these smaller companies out of business.
These kind of practices allowed the Standard Oil company
to keep expanding across the entire country - they kept buying out rivals, undercutting competitors,
and cutting costs wherever possible. The more they grew, the more negotiating power they had,
so they could push for better rates and prices and discounts on everything. Rockefeller was also
known for some shady secret deals, and so with all of these factors combined, by the 1870’s,
Rockefeller's oil company owned 90% of the world's oil refining industry.
He also hired the owners of the oil refineries he bought as a board of trustees, which meant that
all the smartest oil experts were all working within one super company, with Rockefeller at
the head of it. He owned 20,000 oil wells, had over 100,000 employees, and at the vert peak,
some estimate its total value would today have been worth almost a trillion dollars.
This kind of empire was pretty unheard of, but Rockefeller wasn’t done yet.
At this point, the two biggest industries were oil and railroads, so Rockefeller set out to do
a similar thing he’d just done with oil, with railroads. However, as he begun monopolizing
another industry, he also began to become a bit of a public enemy. He was depicted as the ultimate
symbol of corporate greed and cruelty. In response to Rockefeller’s ever-growing empire, legislation
was passed to try and prevent these kind of monopolies; in particular, The Sherman Anti-trust
act was passed, which would lead to the breakup of Standard Oil into different subsidiaries.
Except, over time many of these subsidiaries would simply merge back together, and are still around
to this today - such as BP and Chevron. And, since Rockefeller kept his share in all of those
companies even after they got split up, it meant that at the time of his death, he was still the
richest person in the world, and likely the richest self-made man in all of modern history.
Now, what should we actually think about John D Rockefeller?
On the one hand, he made oil an affordable commodity, and brought it to the masses. He
went from nothing to building a business empire that may never be matched again.
He gave around $540 million to charitable courses,
which when you adjust for inflation, makes him one of the most accomplished philanthropists ever.
However, on the other hand, Rockefeller was a greedy, ruthless tyrant of business, who
sometimes bullied, extorted and exploited others on his merciless path to dominance, especially
the tactics used to crush the competition. Biographer Ron Chernow argues ‘his good side was
every bit as good as his bad side was bad. Seldom has history produced such a contradictory figure.’
However what’s undeniable, is he will always be remembered
for his insanely vast fortune and the impact he had.
But wait. We now need to travel back in time even further, to someone who
was arguably much richer than Rockefeller, and yet many people have never heard of him.
However, quick side note before that: the further back in history we go,
the harder it is to definitively rank wealth. When we’re talking about modern history,
it’s a lot easier - for example we can say with a good level of certainty that:
Andrew Carnegie had an empire worth around 310 billion dollars, as he founded the Carnegie
Steel Company, which later became U.S Steel, the first billion dollar company in the world.
We also know for sure that Henry Ford had an empire worth around $200 billion dollars when he
died in 1947, as he founded Ford Motor company and pioneered assembly line mass production.
And so with businessmen like that it’s much easier to calculate their wealth; but
once we start talking about the value of owning countries and land, things get a little blurrier.
Even in present day, some people would disagree with the the Forbes rich list
that puts Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos as the richest people in the world.
Its been argued that someone like Vladirmir Putin may be the real wealthiest person alive today,
it’s just it’s difficult to verify exactly what he owns.
So bearing all that in mind, let’s go back to our list of the richest people in history,
and venture all the way back to the 14th century, where we find Mansa Musa,
considered by many historians as the richest person human to ever live.
Mansa Musa ruled the Mali empire in
Africa for 25 years, which was extremely rich in salt and gold. In fact, some sources estimate they
were the largest gold producer in the world, and had more than half of the world's total supply.
And so Mansa spent the early part of his reign expanding Mali’s trade routes,
which allowed them to trade their gold and salt all across Africa and Asia.
Under his leadership, the Mali empire tripled in size - he conquered 24 major cities,
and it’s believed he never lost a battle in his lifetime. However, Mansa also got many territories
to join the Mali empire willingly, due to the relatively high quality of life its citizens had.
However, Mansa wasn’t content with that - he wanted to truly put the Mali
empire on the map to the whole world. Now, since he was a devoutly religious Muslim,
he had already planned to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca,
and then he realised he could use this trip as as an opportunity to capture the world’s attention.
And thus in 1324, he began the most extravagant pilgrimage in human history.
The voyage, which would span an estimated 4,000 miles, was travelled by Mansa Musa with tens of
thousands of soldiers, slaves and heralds, draped in Persian silk and carrying golden
staffs. One account estimated up to 60,000 people travelled with him, each carrying
up to hundreds of pounds of gold. It’s fair to say it was a spectacle that got noticed.
But Mansa also gave away huge amounts of gold to the poor he met along his route, and it was
reported he built a Mosque every Friday. Having said that, his generosity somewhat backfired,
as it’s also claimed that he spent so much gold on souvenirs during his journey,
that he destabilized the local economy and caused mass inflation,
since these territories had never had so much gold before, and he was handing it out so freely. And,
if you really think about that, it highlights how absurdly rich Mansa Musa was:
that he essentially caused a financial crisis by spending too much on his travels.
When he finally returned from his pilgrimage, the Mali empire had annexed Timbuktu under his orders,
and he established it as the epicentre for commerce in the region. He had also brought back
with him scholars and architects, who helped him build schools and mosques. Mansa even established
the first major university in the region, which could take up to 25,000 students, and had one of
the largest libraries in the world. All of these different building projects further elevated the
city’s reputation, and helped attract even more top scholars from all over Africa and beyond.
And therefore, many historians credit Mansa with leading the Mali Empire
to even greater prosperity and development.
However, whilst Musa did indeed put the Mali empire on the map like he wanted, it didn’t quite
have the intended consequences. As news of their huge wealth and gold supplies made its way to
Europe, several European powers saw an opportunity to conquer the empire and take the resources for
themselves. But, by that point Mansa would have died, and already cemented himself in history
as one of the richest people to ever live. Now, as for how rich he was, some estimates put
Mansa’s modern day wealth equivalent at between 400-500 billion dollars - but remember it is
extremely difficult to accurately compare today’s money, with a fortune that was built on salt,
gold and territory. So, I guess you could say, take this estimate with a very big pinch of salt.
However, because historians can’t quite agree on how to compare wealth
from so many centuries ago, that means the title of the richest person ever is still up
for debate - so let’s finish this video with 3 very honourable mentions who may be contenders:
One person that could have been the richest in history, is Ghenghis Khan. The fearsome Mongol
leader conquered a mind-blowing 12 million square miles of land between 1206 and his death in 1227,
more than anyone else in history. As he conquered all of these different kingdoms,
he also took their wealth and possessions, which combined with the value of the land
he took, would arguably have been worth trillions of dollars - or in other words
incomprehensibly large amounts that is difficult to even quantify.
It’s an extremely brutal way to build your fortune, but it was certainly effective.
Another candidate for the richest person in history is Jakob Fugger, also known as
Jakob Fugger the Rich - and you don’t get a name like that without having a pretty giant fortune.
In fact, if you took Europe’s entire economic output at the time Jakob was alive, he owned 2.2%
of all of that. Of the entire continent! Jakob was the 10th of 11 children, but would go on to become
a banker who financed kings, explorers, and religious leaders - what’s crucial here though,
is that before Fugger came along, Christians could not legally charge interest on loans, but
he managed to convince the Pope to change this, and then profited from the rule change immensely.
In a biography written about him, the author explains that Fugger just seemed to have a gift
for making money and spotting opportunities, especially when it came to business and
investments. For example, when the Archduke of Austria desperately needed a loan,
Fugger decided to offer it when no other banker would. And it paid off big time. He also had a
great talent for convincing other people to lend him money so that he could invest it,
and turn it into a much bigger profit. He was undeniably very strategic and shrewd,
and built a fortune that would today be worth an estimated $400 billion dollars.
But, now it’s time for one final candidate for the richest people ever, Caesar Augustus,
the first Roman emperor, reigning from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Time Magazine
once estimated his equivalent net worth today as being "$4.6
trillion" because he "personally owned all of Egypt". But again, going back this far in time,
it’s virtually impossible to put an accurate number on his wealth.
So we can’t say for certain who takes the title of the richest person ever, but we can definitively
say that all of these names mentioned in this video had obscene levels of wealth, and were
amongst the wealthiest humans to ever live, with fortunes far bigger than Jeff Bezos or Elon musk…
at least, for now. Of course both of these men are still working and growing their business empires,
so if either of them have some more major breakthroughs, like
colonising Mars, then who knows how vast their fortunes may become.
But, now a question for you: what are your thoughts on all of these incredibly wealthy
historical figures? I know that for some people, hearing about wealth can be kind of motivating,
whereas for other people, it can just seem really unfair.
But if you do feel that way, then it’s worth remembering that the fact you have access
to antibiotics, electricity, internet and so on - means that in many ways,
your quality of life is greater than some of the richest kings,
emperors and business magnates in history that we’ve just heard about.
After all, you can do something that Rockefeller, Mansa Musa, and all the others never could.
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