World's Richest Persons

William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs and pioneers of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Gates co-founded Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it went on to become the world’s largest personal computer software company. Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, but he remained chairman and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he had been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning to a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation that he and his wife, Melinda Gates, established in 2000. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie. He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 and assumed a new post as technology adviser to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella. In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic endeavors including climate change, global health and development, and education. Since 1987, he has been included in the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world all but four of those years. In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who had an estimated net worth of US$90.6 billion compared to Gates’s net worth of US$89.9 billion at the time. As of November 2020, Gates had an estimated net worth of US$113.7 billion, making him the third-wealthiest person in the world, behind Bezos and Elon Musk. Later in his career and since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors. He has given sizable amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world’s largest private charity. In 2009, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.

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Jeffrey Preston Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and president of the multi-national technology company Amazon. The first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos has been the world’s richest person since 2017 and was named the “richest man in modern history” after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018. According to Forbes, he is the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding $200 billion.Born in Albuquerque and raised in Houston and later Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986. He holds a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked on Wall Street in a variety of related fields from 1986 to early 1994. Bezos founded Amazon in late 1994 on a cross-country road trip from New York City to Seattle. The company began as an online bookstore and has since expanded to a wide variety of other e-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It is currently the world’s largest online sales company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the world’s largest provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services through its Amazon Web Services branch.
Bezos founded the aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company Blue Origin in 2000. Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle reached space in 2015, and afterwards successfully landed back on Earth. The company has upcoming plans to begin commercial suborbital human spaceflight. He also purchased the major American newspaper The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million, and manages many other investments through his Bezos Expeditions venture capital firm.

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Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault (French: [bɛʁnaʁ ʒɑ̃ etjɛn aʁno]; born 5 March 1949) is a French billionaire businessman and art collector. He is the chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, the world’s largest luxury-goods company. In April 2018, he became the richest person in fashion, topping Zara’s Amancio Ortega. Arnault briefly surpassed Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world in December 2019. He again became the world’s richest person for a short time in January 2020.

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Warren Edward Buffett ( born August 30, 1930) is an American investor, business tycoon, philanthropist, and the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is considered one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net worth of over US$78.9 billion as of August 2020, making him the world’s fourth-wealthiest person.Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He developed an interest in business and investing in his youth, eventually entering the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947 before transferring to and graduating from the University of Nebraska at 19. He went on to graduate from Columbia Business School, where he molded his investment philosophy around the concept of value investing pioneered by Benjamin Graham. He attended New York Institute of Finance to focus his economics background and soon after began various business partnerships, including one with Graham. He created Buffett Partnership, Ltd in 1956 and his firm eventually acquired a textile manufacturing firm called Berkshire Hathaway, assuming its name to create a diversified holding company. In 1978, Charlie Munger joined Buffett as vice-chairman.Buffett has been the chairman and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway since 1970. He has been referred to as the “Oracle” or “Sage” of Omaha by global media. He is noted for his adherence to value investing, and his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. Research published at the University of Oxford characterizes Buffett’s investment methodology as falling within “founder centrism” – defined by a deference to managers with a founder’s mindset, an ethical disposition towards the shareholder collective, and an intense focus on exponential value creation. Essentially, Buffett’s concentrated investments shelter managers from the short-term pressures of the market.Buffett is a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He founded The Giving Pledge in 2009 with Bill Gates, whereby billionaires pledge to give away at least half of their fortunes.

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Amancio Ortega Gaona (born 28 March 1936) is a Spanish billionaire businessman. He is the founder and former chairman of Inditex fashion group, best known for its chain of Zara clothing and accessories shops. As of December 2019, Ortega had a net worth of $68.3 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in Europe after Bernard Arnault, and the sixth-wealthiest in the world. For a brief period of time in 2015, he was the richest man in the world, bypassing Bill Gates when his net worth peaked to $80 billion as Zara’s parent company, Inditex’s, stock peaked.He is the head of the Ortega family and the second wealthiest retailer in the world.

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Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American media magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding Facebook, Inc. and serves as its chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder. He also is a co-founder of the solar sail spacecraft development project Breakthrough Starshot and serves as one of its board members.Born in White Plains, New York, Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched the Facebook social networking service from his dormitory room on February 4, 2004, with college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Originally launched to select college campuses, the site expanded rapidly and eventually beyond colleges, reaching one billion users by 2012. Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares. In 2007, at age 23, he became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. As of November 2020, Zuckerberg’s net worth is $101.2 billion, making him the 4th-richest person in the world. He is the only person under 40 years old in Forbes’ list of the 20 richest people.Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year award. In December 2016, Zuckerberg was ranked 10th on Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People.

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Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist who is a co-founder, the executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO) of Oracle Corporation. As of October 2019, he was listed by Forbes magazine as the fourth-wealthiest person in the United States and as the sixth-wealthiest in the world, with a fortune of $69.1 billion, increased from $54.5 billion in 2018.

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Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P.. He was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School. He began his career at the securities brokerage Salomon Brothers before forming his own company in 1981. That company, Bloomberg L.P., is a financial information, software and media firm that is known for its Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg spent the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO. In 2020, Forbes ranked him as the sixteenth-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $48 billion as of April 7, 2020 and as of July 21, 2020, Bloomberg ranked 8th in Forbes 400 with net worth $60.1 billion. Since signing The Giving Pledge, Bloomberg has given away $8.2 billion.
Bloomberg was elected the 108th mayor of New York City. First elected in 2001, he held office for three consecutive terms, winning re-election in 2005 and in 2009. Pursuing socially liberal and fiscally moderate policies, Bloomberg developed a technocratic managerial style. After a brief stint as a full-time philanthropist, he re-assumed the position of CEO at Bloomberg L.P. by the end of 2014.
As mayor of New York, Bloomberg established public charter schools, rebuilt urban infrastructure, and supported gun control, public health initiatives, and environmental protections. He also led a rezoning of large areas of the city, which facilitated massive and widespread new commercial and residential construction after the September 11 attacks. Bloomberg is considered to have had far-reaching influence on the politics, business sector, and culture of New York City during his three terms as mayor. He has also faced significant criticism for his expansion of the city’s stop and frisk program, support for which he reversed with an apology before his 2020 presidential run.In November 2019, Bloomberg officially launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in the 2020 election. He ended his campaign in March 2020, after having won only 61 delegates. Bloomberg self-funded $935 million for his candidacy, which set the record for the most expensive U.S. presidential primary campaign.

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Carlos Slim Helú ( born January 28, 1940 in Mexico City) is a Mexican business magnate, investor and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the Forbes business magazine. He derived his fortune from his extensive holdings in a considerable number of Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso. As of February 2020, he is the fifth-richest person in the world according to Forbes’ listing of The World’s Billionaires, with he and his family having a net worth estimated at $68.9 billion. He is the richest person in Latin America.His conglomerate includes education, health care, industrial manufacturing, transportation, real estate, media, energy, hospitality, entertainment, high-technology, retail, sports and financial services. He accounts for 40% of the listings on the Mexican Stock Exchange, while his net worth is equivalent to about 6 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product. As of 2016, he is the largest single shareholder of The New York Times Company.

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Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of the co-founders of Google along with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 (stepping down in favor of Eric Schmidt) then from April 2011 until July 2015 when he moved to become CEO of Alphabet Inc. (created to deliver “major advancements” as Google’s parent company), a post he held until December 4, 2019. He remains an Alphabet board member, employee, and controlling shareholder. Creating Google built a large amount of wealth. Forbes placed him 10th in the list “Billionaires 2019”, and as of July 2020, Page was the 13th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $69.4 billion, according to Forbes. Page is the co-creator and namesake of PageRank, a search ranking algorithm for Google Page received the Marconi Prize in 2004 with co-writer Brin.

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Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin (Russian: Серге́й Миха́йлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur. Together with Larry Page, he co-founded Google. Brin was the president of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., until stepping down from the role on December 3, 2019. Brin and Page remain at Alphabet as co-founders, controlling shareholders, board members, and employees. As of July 2020, Brin is the 7th-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$68 billion.Brin immigrated to the United States with his family from the Soviet Union at the age of six. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps by studying mathematics, as well as computer science. After graduation, he enrolled in Stanford University to acquire a PhD in computer science. There he met Page, with whom he built a web search engine. The program became popular at Stanford, and they suspended their PhD studies to start up Google in Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park.

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Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian billionaire business magnate, and the chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India’s most valuable company by market value. He is the richest person in Asia with a net worth of US$81.1 billion, and as of October 2020, the 6th richest in the world.

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Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is a French billionaire heiress and an author of Bible commentaries and works on Jewish-Christian relations. She is the only daughter and heiress of Liliane Bettencourt, and her family owns the company L’Oréal. She married Jean-Pierre Meyers, the grandson of a rabbi murdered at Auschwitz, and they decided to raise their children Jean-Victor (* 1986) and Nicolas (* 1988) as Jewish. Her marriage caused controversy because of her grandfather Eugène Schueller’s trial for collaboration with the Nazi government; he was L’Oreal’s founder.In 2008, she sued François-Marie Banier for taking money from her mother, and she started proceedings to have her mother declared mentally incompetent. The revelations in the secret recordings that she used in evidence led to the Woerth-Bettencourt scandal. In December 2010, Bettencourt Meyers announced that she had settled out of court with both her mother and Banier. Her mother died in September 2017 when her net worth was about $39.5 billion, which makes Bettencourt Meyers among the top 20 richest people in the world. As of October 2019, she is the richest woman in the world, with an estimated fortune of $59.3 billion, according to Bloomberg.After a fire severely damaged Notre-Dame de Paris, Bettencourt Meyers and L’Oréal donated $226 million to repair the cathedral.

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Steven Anthony Ballmer ( born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). As of Oct 2020, Forbes estimates his personal wealth at US$74.7 billion, ranking him the 9th richest person in the world.Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University. He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and resigned from the Board of Directors on August 19, 2014 to prepare for teaching a new class.His tenure and legacy as Microsoft CEO has received mixed reception, with the company tripling sales and doubling profits, but losing its market dominance and missing out on 21st-century technology trends.

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Alice Louise Walton (born October 7, 1949) is an American heiress to the fortune of Walmart. In September 2016, she owned over US$11 billion in Walmart shares. As of 28th November 2020, Walton has a net worth of $70.4 billion, making her the 14th-richest person and the 2nd richest woman in the world.

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Charles de Ganahl Koch (born November 1, 1935) is an American businessman and philanthropist. As of March 2019, he was ranked as the 11th-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $50.5 billion. Koch has been co-owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of Koch Industries since 1967, while his late brother David Koch served as executive vice president. Charles and David each owned 42% of the conglomerate. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, then expanded the business. Originally involved exclusively in oil refining and chemicals, Koch Industries now includes process and pollution control equipment and technologies, polymers and fibers, minerals, fertilizers, commodity trading and services, forest and consumer products, and ranching. The businesses produce a wide variety of well-known brands, such as Stainmaster carpet, the Lycra brand of spandex fiber, Quilted Northern tissue, and Dixie Cup.
Koch Industries is the second-largest privately held company by revenue in the United States according to a 2010 Forbes survey. In February 2014, Koch was ranked 9th richest person in the world by Hurun Report with an estimated net worth of $36 billion. Previously, in October 2012, he was ranked the 6th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $34 billion—according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—and was ranked 18th on Forbes World’s Billionaires list of 2011 (and 4th on the Forbes 400), with an estimated net worth of $25 billion, deriving from his 42% stake in Koch Industries. Koch has published three books detailing his business philosophy, The Science of Success, Market Based Management, and Good Profit.Koch also supports a number of libertarian educational organizations, including the Institute for Humane Studies, the Ayn Rand Institute, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He also contributes to the Republican Party and candidates, libertarian groups, and various charitable and cultural institutions. He co-founded the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute. Through the Koch Cultural Trust, founded by Charles Koch’s wife, Elizabeth, the Koch family has also funded artistic projects and creative artists. Along with his brother, Koch has been an important funder of think tanks that lobby to oppose environmental regulation.

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Jack Ma, or Ma Yun (Chinese: 马云; [mà y̌n]; born 10 September 1964), is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. Ma is a strong proponent of an open and market-driven economy.Ma is a global ambassador for Chinese business and is often listed as one of the world’s most powerful people, with Forbes ranking him 21st on its “World’s Most Powerful People” list. He also serves as a role model for startup businesses. In 2017, Ma was ranked second in the annual “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” list by Fortune. In September 2018, he announced that he would retire from Alibaba and pursue educational work, philanthropy, and environmental causes; the following year, Daniel Zhang succeeded him as executive chairman.As of July 2020, with a net worth of $48.2 billion, Ma is the second-wealthiest person in China (after Ma Huateng), as well as one of the wealthiest people in the world, ranked 20th by Forbes. In 2019, Forbes named Ma in its list of “Asia’s 2019 Heroes of Philanthropy” for his work supporting underprivileged communities in China, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East.

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Ma Huateng (Chinese: 马化腾; pinyin: Mǎ Huàténg, born on October 29, 1971), also known as Pony Ma, is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Tencent, Asia’s most valuable company, one of the largest Internet and technology companies, and the biggest investment, gaming and entertainment conglomerates in the world. The company develops China’s biggest mobile instant messaging service, WeChat, and its subsidiaries provide media, entertainment, payment systems, smartphones, internet-related services, value-added services and online advertising services, both in China and globally.
In 2007, 2014, and 2018, Time magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people, while in 2015, Forbes credited him as one of the world’s most powerful people. In 2017, Fortune ranked him as among the top businessmen of the year. In 2018, he was named one of the “Most Powerful People In The World” by the CEOWORLD magazine. Ma is a deputy to the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress and a delegate in the 12th National People’s Congress.Being one of “Fortune world’s greatest leaders”, Ma is known for his low profile personality as compared to fellow Chinese businessman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s outgoing personality. Ma has been closely compared to American investor Warren Buffett for their similar investment philosophies, and often described as an “aggressive acquisitor”. As of September 2020, he is China’s richest man, surpassing Jack Ma, with a net worth of US$59.9 billion according to Forbes. On 21 November 2017, his estimated net worth briefly surpassed that of Larry Page and Sergey Brin (individually) ranking him the ninth richest man in the world at the time, and the first citizen from China to enter Forbes’ top 10 richest men list.

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