What does it take to become a billionaire? Some have done it with social media, online shopping,
and electric cars, but there are a lot more billionaires you definitely haven't heard of,
and you won't believe how they made their fortunes.
Giovanni Ferrero is an unlikely candidate for the richest man in Italy, and he picked
up that title when his brother passed away in 2011. He became the sole heir to Ferrero SpA,
a multinational chocolate and confectionery company. It’s best known for those little
wrapped Ferrero Rocher balls, a flaky candy filled with bits of hazelnut that your aunt probably gave
you when she came back from Europe. So how does that translate into a net worth of 35 billion?
Ferrero makes another product that’s not as associated with it - the chocolate and hazelnut
spread Nutella, a favorite around the world. That’s a lot of nuts - and a lot of dough.
You’ve definitely not heard of the next billionaire on
our list - especially if you don’t live in India.
Gautam Adani isn’t just one of the richest men in Asia with a net worth of 93 billion,
he’s one of the few on this list who didn’t inherit his wealth. His father was a textile
merchant, he dropped out of school, and went to work for his brother in a plastics unit.
That gave him connections to the export-import industry and he founded the Adani Group in 1988.
It’s now a multinational corporation that designs ports around the world
and has holdings in energy, agriculture, and aerospace. He’s the majority owner of
India’s second-largest airport and was even the subject of a kidnap-ransom plot in 1998.
Another one of our self made billionaires made their fortune off what might be the cheapest
but most important thing on earth.
It might be surprising but Zhong Shanshan made his fortune by innovating the bottled
water market in China. While he has pharmaceutical holdings, his biggest money stream is beverages.
In China, distilled water was the most common choice, so he made a risky move when he stopped
removing natural minerals from his bottled water. This led Nongfu Spring to become one
of the world’s largest beverage companies - even beating out soda powerhouses in the Asian
nation. The notoriously reclusive Zhong saw his net worth skyrocket to over sixty billion
when the company went public in 2020, making him the richest man in China.
Sometimes you don’t even need to innovate to become a billionaire,
all it takes is being in the right place at the right time.
For Robin Zeng, it was all about picking the right thing to manufacture. The Chinese billionaire
founded Amperex Technology Limited in 1999 as a battery manufacturer, but he soon focused the
company on the lithium-ion batteries that became common in many smart items. Demand increased,
especially once they became used to power Tesla Roadsters. Zeng sold the company to a Japanese
corporation, but spun off the Lithium-Ion battery production into a new company - and
it took off like wildfire, giving him a net worth of just under fifty billion dollars.
You probably know what this next man did - even if you don’t know his name.
Zhang Yiming might be the closest thing China has to a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jeff Bezos - the founder
of some of the internet’s most popular sites. His company ByteDance included the news aggregator
Toutiao and a video-sharing platform known as Musical.ly. But the latter rebranded - and
that’s when it took off as the viral video juggernaut known as TikTok! Powered by a
billion dances and cat videos, Zhang Yimin became a controversial figure around the world - as well
as one of its richest, with a net worth of 44 billion even as he planned to step down as CEO.
From wood to wealth? That’s the story of this next man.
Francois Pinault had humble beginnings, as the French man was born in the countryside and worked
for his family’s timber company. After time in the military, he took over the family business
and founded a wood-trading company. He then made some savvy investments in bankrupt companies,
switched his focus to retail and luxury goods, and founded the conglomerates Kering and Artemis.
Heading back to China, few things are more powerful than communication.
Ma Huateng runs Tencent, Asia’s most valuable company. It’s not hard to see why - the tech
powerhouse is all over the map. He has holdings in investments, gaming, and
entertainment around the world. But his biggest asset is the instant messaging service WeChat,
which lets people from across China reach each other in seconds. With many western messaging
sites banned in the country, WeChat is critical and briefly made Ma Huateng one of the ten richest
men in the world. He’s fallen out of that list, but his net worth of 46 billion still makes him
a force to be reckoned with in the billionaire world- one that consistently avoids the spotlight.
Other billionaires made their fortune by providing something more vital than entertainment.
Why does everyone love Aldi so much? The discount German grocery store is known for its no-frills
service, including making you put a quarter in to rent a shopping cart. Checkout lines are long,
the stores are small, and prices stay low - and that’s turned the company into a massive
powerhouse. The current managers of the family trust, siblings Kark Albrecht and Beate Heister,
have kept their father’s business going strong and currently have net
worths of over fourteen billion dollars each. That’s a lot of canned goods.
And they’re not the only Teutonic titans on this list.
Kuhne + [use and in VO here] Nagel International has been a powerful
transport and logistics company based in Switzerland for over a hundred years,
and it’s evolved from a freight shipping company to one with holdings around the
world. It handles transport for major companies by land and sea on multiple continents and runs
massive events like the Rugby League World Cup. And at the helm is Klaus-Michael Kuhne,
the third-generation majority owner who has aggressively expanded the company. It’s paid off,
giving him a net worth of thirty-six billion - making him the richest man in Germany.
When people need something, supplying it is a great way to get rich.
If you need glasses in Italy, there’s really only one name on most people’s
lips - Luxottica. You might not have heard their name, but the odds are you’ve bought
their goods - because they own all of LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision,
Target Optical, and Glasses.com. Their founder and chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio,
has largely cornered the glasses-and-frames market around the world - and neither he nor
the company is flashy about it. With a net worth of 26 billion, he’s the second richest
man in Italy - and very happy to let you wear his goods without making him a household name.
Our next billionaire shows that there’s no age limit to being a successful businessman.
In Hong Kong, there’s one man who rises above them all - Lee Shau-Kee. A powerful real estate
magnate and philanthropist, he manages hotels and restaurants around the Chinese region.
He was briefly the fourth-wealthiest person in the world in 1997,
but then his empire was upended as China took over the former British holding.
That meant a new way of doing business and a new bureaucracy to contend with.
Lee Shau-Kee persevered and currently has a net worth of 33 billion. He retired from an
active role in his company in 2019 - about time since he had just turned ninety-one years old!
Jumping over from Asia to the Americas we discover another influential billionaire...
David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet. It’s a mouthful, and the Canadian media magnate
inherited a powerful empire from his father in 2006. Although there was some controversy upon
his ascension to the role, he proved himself in a big way when he acquired the international media
company Reuters and merged it with the Thomson company. While he’s not a household name, he’s
known for his love of art and has taken advantage of his net worth of 45 billion - the largest in
Canada - to build an underground art gallery at his home. Nobody truly knows the true value
of his collection but we do know that he has a tendency to pay a lot of money for art. He
purchased his most expensive piece, The Massacre of the Innocents, at the price of $76.7 million.
In some cases, these billionaires had to work much harder to make it onto the list...
Len Blavatnik had humble beginnings, growing up in Soviet Ukraine and immigrating as a college
student. He started anew halfway across the world, earned a business degree at Harvard,
and founded Access Industries in 1986. When the Soviet Union fell, he saw an opportunity
and jumped back into the eastern bloc. He took advantage of the vacuum and now runs a massive
company including investments in oil, coal, chemicals, plastic, media, and real estate.
He’s the richest man in the UK with a net worth of almost forty billion, but he’s most known for
his charitable giving. He pays it forward so much, he was even given a knighthood in 2017!
Sometimes, a lesser-known name runs an icon.
Everyone knows the Chanel brand, especially its controversial founder Coco Chanel. She’s
been dead for fifty years, but she had a co-founder - a man named Pierre Wertheimer.
The Wertheimers have been quietly running the luxury fashion and watch company ever
since, and Alain and Gerard Wertheimer are currently the controlling shareholders.
Alan handles fashion, Gerard handles watches, and the unassuming brothers have a net worth of over
thirty billion dollars. They don’t get too many headlines - unless it’s in equestrian digests.
You’ve definitely seen ads for this next guy’s company - but unless you’re a big football fan
you don’t know the name behind the ads.
Dan Gilbert went to law school but worked part-time at his parents’ real estate agency.
That short-term job turned out to be a worthy investment because Gilbert went
on to fund one of the first online direct mortgage lender companies, Rock Financial.
It was bought by a software company in 2000 and named Quicken Loans. He bought it back only two
years later with a group of investors and remains its chairman to this day,
with a net worth of 37 billion. But sports fans might know him better as
the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are worth upwards of 1.5 billion dollars!
Everyone knows the next company - but its founder is a little quieter.
Nike! It’s the name in sports attire, and everyone recognizes that famous swoosh.
Co-founder Phil Knight helped build it from a small company to an empire, and it’s paid off
by making him one of the few people with a net worth over fifty billion dollars. After founding
the company with his former college track coach, he’s become known for his massive philanthropic
contributions to his alma maters, as well as for owning the animated film company Laika.
If you like movies like Coraline or The Boxtrolls, they’re brought to you by Nike.
Going back to the other side of the globe we got to ask. Who is the richest man in Asia?
That would be Mukesh Ambani, an Indian businessman who got his start working in his father’s spice
and agriculture business. The business grew into the diversified corporation Reliance
Industries Limited and gained holdings in refining, petrochemicals, and media.
It only grew from there, and Ambani took over following his father’s death in 2002. He’s
built the fortune massively since, introducing a smartphone brand and purchasing one of India’s
most popular cricket teams. The end result? A net worth that tops one hundred billion dollars.
Sometimes it doesn’t take that long to get to the top, you just need to be lucky and time it right.
Sam Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 when many of his companions on the billionaire’s list were
already at the top of his game. He had a normal upbringing, being raised by two law professors.
But he gained an interest that would send him on a wild ride - cryptocurrency. He’s
now the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, running it out of the Bahamas.
His net worth of 26 billion dollars makes him the richest person in their twenties,
and he’s known for giving 1% of all the company’s revenue to charity.
But as volatile as crypto can be, people wonder how long he’ll stay on top.
Who’s the richest woman in the world?
Everyone knew Liliane Bettencourt, the French heiress and businesswoman who was one of the
leading shareholders of L’Oreal. But the cosmetics magnate died in 2017,
and the title of world’s richest woman was passed on - to her daughter,
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. She had a tense relationship with her mother before her death,
even suing her in 2008. Since she inherited the title of the world’s richest woman - with
an estimated wealth of 94 billion - she’s become known for her philanthropy,
giving a quarter of a billion dollars to rebuild the Notre Dame cathedral.
But not all billionaires are worth celebrating.
How rich is Dawood Ibrahim? No one knows, but the notorious Indian criminal is believed to be
a billionaire. Wanted around the world for drug trafficking, murder, terrorism, and other crimes,
he’s believed to be the mastermind behind a series of explosions in Mumbai in 1993.
He may have started out as a small-time criminal in the 1970s, but is now believed to have one of
the biggest cash stockpiles for a criminal since the notorious Pablo Escobar. But if you’re looking
to ask him for the secrets to his success, good luck - no one knows where to find him.
We still haven’t looked at the true richest men in the world.
When thinking about the richest men in the world the likes of Bezos,
Musk, and Gates come to mind right? But are they really the richest men
in the world? Although one of the three is often named as the richest man in the world
there is one man who overtook them all, and we are sure you have never heard of him
That would be Bernard Arnault, a French businessman and investor who serves as
chairman of the parent company of Louis Vuitton. The luxury goods company is a powerhouse,
but you don’t get to challenge tech titans on fashion brands alone.
Arnault is known for his savvy investments and love of collecting fine art and has slowly built
his fortune into a staggering one hundred and eighty-eight billion dollars - enough
to put him at #3 on the charts right now, and even briefly holding the #1 slot.
Who’s next? The odds are you might not have heard their name - yet.
For more on the billionaire class, check out “Millionaires vs. Billionaires - How Do They
Live”, or watch “The Ruthless Criminal Who Only Targets Billionaires” for the dark side of wealth.