World’s Top 10 Youngest Billionaires
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Making a million is tough. But making a billion? Simply insane!
And when you consider achieving this feat at a young age, it becomes even more admirable. And that’s why there are only a few people who have been able to achieve this feat.
Even though people say money doesn’t define you, it’s safe to say these are a special set of people. In the sense that they’ve achieved what most people are trying and failing to do.
You may ask: how young are we talking here? And that would be an excellent question.
Because the word “young” is subjective. For instance, young means different things to a 60-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy.
Regardless of how you define young, these billionaires fit that definition — especially when you make comparisons to other billionaires.
Heck, some people at these ages are still trying to go through college or pay student loans. So for someone at this age to become a billionaire, you have to say kudos.
Of course, while talking about young billionaires, we can’t help but mention Mark Zuckerberg. He became the youngest self-made billionaire at the age of 23.
He became the image of the young tech CEO. Although, you have to admit that Facebook’s popularity also helped Mark’s popularity as the company’s CEO.
This year, in 2019, Kylie Jenner has usurped Mark Zuckerberg to become the youngest self-made billionaire ever at the age of 21. This is according to Forbes Billionaires latest rankings.
TYPES OF BILLIONAIRES
As you already know, there’s no single way to the market. And the same thing applies to being a billionaire.
How do people become billionaires? There are 2 major ways:
- Inherited: if you find yourself in a billionaire family, then you’ll become a billionaire if your parent(s) decide to will their wealth to you. I mean how many people don’t want to be in this shoe? It’s like you don’t have a choice but to be a billionaire.
- Self-made: these are people who created businesses and grow them until their stake in the business is worth a billion. Another way of putting it is that this is first-generation wealth.
In some cases, a person can inherit a level of wealth and grow it remarkably. Having said these, who are the world’s top 10 youngest billionaires right now.
Let’s dive into the list from the oldest to the youngest.
10. Patrick Collison
Patrick is an Irish entrepreneur popularly known as Stripe’s co-founder. He founded the company with his younger brother John Collison in 2010.
Stripe builds software that helps businesses with websites and apps to receive payments directly to their bank accounts.
Patrick had gained fame by winning the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition at the age of 16 in 2005. In 2007, Patrick and his brother formed a software company Shuppa which later became Auctomatic.
He dropped out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take on this project.
In March 2008, they sold this company and the two brothers first became millionaires. The two brothers founded Stripe in 2010 and were backed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sequoia Capital.
The company’s first payment was processed when the brothers went on a vacation to South America. Patrick claims the company had about 100 customers before it launched officially.
In 2016, Stripe got a $150 million funding from CapitalG, Google’s investment division, and General Catalyst Partners. This raised Stripe’s valuation to $9.2 billion and the brothers became billionaires with a worth of $1.1 billion.
In September 2018, Stripe received $245 million in funding to raise the company’s evaluation to $20.25 billion.
This also lifted Patrick and John’s net worth to $2.1 billion. Patrick likes to cycle and does this in his spare time. He has also compared cycling to running a company where it’s never easier but you have to get faster.
Patrick was born on September 9, 1988, at Dromineer, County Tipperary, Ireland. He is currently 30 years old and has a net worth of $2.1 billion. This puts Patrick at number 1116 on the Forbes billionaires list.
9. Jonathan Kwok
Jonathan inherited his wealth from his late father, Walter Kwok. Walter was the chairman of the largest developer in Hong Kong, Sun Hung Kai Properties.
However, Walter was ousted as chairman in 2008 as a result of a feud with his brothers Raymond and Thomas.
This led to him starting another property developer named Empire Group Holdings in 2014.
When Walter died in 2018 at the age of 68, Jonathan and his brother, Geoffrey, took over their father’s company. They also inherited their father’s 7.3% stake in SHKP.
Jonathan studies Business Administration at Cornell University and is a citizen of Hong Kong.
He’s currently 30 and has a net worth of $2.5 billion. His wealth puts him at number 916 on the Forbes billionaires list for 2019. Apart from that, this puts him at number 15 in Hong Kong.
8. Anna Kasprzak
Anna inherited her wealth from ECCO, the Danish shoe manufacturer founded by her late grandfather, Karl Toosbuy, in 1963. ECCO is an international company with its products sold in 90 countries in more than 2,200 ECCO shops and on their website.
Apart from being a billionaire, Anna is a dressage rider. And she even competed in the last Olympics in Brazil where she ranked 14th. She also has a private dressage barn in Haderslev, Denmark, where she lives.
She’s currently 29 years old and has a net worth of $1 billion. This puts her at number 2057 on the Forbes billionaires list.
7. Ludwig Theodor Braun
Braun inherited a 10% stake in B. Braun Melsungen. This is a medical device company which was founded in 1839.
Some of their products include surgical instruments and injection solutions.
His father, Ludwig Georg Braun took over the company in 1977 and improved sales from $24 million when he took over to $8 billion now. The company also now boasts of 60,000 employees around the world.
Braun’s stake in the company is worth $1 billion. Currently, Braun is 29 years old.
He’s a German who resides in Melsungen, Germany. His wealth puts him at number 2057 in the Forbes billionaires rankings.
6. Evan Spiegel
Even if you don’t have a Snapchat account, I’m sure you’ve heard about this social media app. It allows people to send messages that self-deletes after it’s received by the recipient.
The idea started in 2011 when Spiegel proposed an app with temporary messaging for a product design project.
His classmates didn’t buy into this idea but Spiegel worked on a prototype with his classmates that would later be his co-founders.
The app was initially named Picaboo but later renamed to Snapchat. When the idea picked up with users, Spiegel left Stanford before the end of his degree to focus on Snapchat. This was to improve the app to drive more users and revenue for the company.
In 2017, Snapchat had its IPO with Spiegel and his co-founders having 45% of the stock and 70% of the voting power. Snapchat has gained millions of users over the years. For instance, the app had 186 million daily users in Q3 of 2018.
The company has also attracted young people as 71% of its users are 34 or below. And these people are not just present on these platforms, they also visit it multiple times daily. This means they can capture the new set of online audience for years. And with the increase in users, the company’s evaluation has also risen.
Evan Spiegel is one of the co-founders and the CEO of Snap Inc, the company responsible for the app. He co-founded the company with his classmates at Stanford University, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown.
Evan was born on June 4, 1990, at Los Angeles, California, in the United States.
Currently, Evan is 28 years old and his stake in the company is worth a cool $2.1 billion. This gives Spiegel a rank of 1116 on the Forbes billionaires list.
5. John Collison
John co-founded Stripe with his elder brother Patrick in 2010. But before then, he went back for his Irish Leaving Certificate examination after Auctomatic was acquired for $5 million in 2008.
He had 8 A1 and 2 A2 grades in this examination. He began his Physics degree at Harvard University in September 2009. He later dropped out to focus on Stripe.
With big customers like Lyft and Facebook, the company has a big reputation in Silicon Valley. Apart from being a tech entrepreneur, John is also a licensed pilot and fly planes in his free time.
He’s currently 28 and has a net worth of $2.1 billion. This puts John at number 1116 on the Forbes billionaires list.
Likewise, he comes in at number 15 on the list of America’s richest entrepreneurs under 40. He currently resides in San Francisco, California, U.S.
4. Gustav Magnar Witzoe
He’s one of the 3 Norwegians on this list and owns up to half of Salmar ASA. This is a company that produces salmon.
The company was founded in 1991 by Gustav Magar Sr and has grown to be one of the biggest producers of salmon in the world. This was achieved due to the company’s lead in industrialization of fish farming to increase its margins.
Over the years, fish farming has become one of the biggest industries in Norway. For instance, Salmar alone harvest almost 130,000 tons of salmon in 2016.
This stock was released to him by his father in 2013. Although his father still runs the company, Witzoe also invests in tech startups and real estate. He lives in Kverva Norway.
He’s currently 25 years old and has a net worth of $3 billion. His wealth puts him at number 745 on the Forbes billionaires list.
3. Katharina Andresen
Katharina is a daughter of the Norwegian businessman, Johan H. Andresen. Along with her sister, Alexandra, she received 42% ownership of their father’s company Ferd.
This is a Norwegian investment company that operates a hedge fund and invest in the Nordic stock exchange.
The company owns stakes in finance, manufacturing, and tech firms. The family is also popular for their tobacco brand which they sold in 2005.
Katharina worked as an accounting intern for three days a week at Ernst & Young in Oslo while working on projects for the family business and women in business.
At the same time, she was studying social sciences at Amsterdam University College.
Katharina was in the news in 2017 after she was found to be driving under the influence at Tony ski resort Hafjell.
She was found to be driving 3 times the legal limit. This led to a fine of $32,000, 18 days of imprisonment and 13-month license suspension.
She’s currently 23 and has a net worth of $1.4 billion. This puts her at number 1605 on the Forbes billionaires list.
2. Alexandra Andresen
Alexandra received 42% ownership of her father’s company, Ferd, along with her sister. She held the title of the youngest billionaire for 3 years till this year when Kylie Jenner has assumed that throne.
Apart from being one of the world’s youngest billionaires, she participates in dressage riding.
In fact, she’s a three-time junior Norwegian champion in dressage riding. She’s sponsored by Kingsland and Samshield, providers of riding gears.
She’s currently 22 and has a net worth of $1.4 billion. Alexandra maintains the same rank as her sister and they both reside in Oslo, Norway.
1. Kylie Jenner
Kylie is the youngest on this list. And not only that. She’s also the most popular. This is probably due to the Kardashians. This is one of the most popular families in the fashion industry for many years now.
Kylie first gained popularity for starring in the blockbuster show “Keeping up with the Kardashians” since 2007.
Her first piece of business was collaborating with PacSun in 2012 at the age of 14 to form a clothing line. This was done with her sister, Kendall, and the line was called “Kendall & Kylie.”
She has surpassed Mark Zuckerberg to be the youngest self-made billionaire. Kylie is still in the fashion industry although now as a businesswoman. She started Kylie Lip Kits in 2015 and later renamed the company to Kylie Cosmetics.
This change was made in 2016 and the number of lip kits produced rose from 15,000 to 500,000.
She also released a mobile app for the company and it reached the top position on the iTunes App Store.
It was reported that Kylie cosmetics made about $630 million in makeup sales. The company is worth $900 million according to Forbes and Jenner owns 100% of the stakes.
Kylie has been able to market her business with her popularity. For instance, Kylie and her sister, Kendall, were listed as one of the most influential teens in the world in 2014 and 2015 by Time magazine.
Likewise, she was featured in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2017. She ranked number 59 as a result of making $41 million in the past year. As a result of that, she was the youngest celebrity on the list at 19.
With over 129 million followers on Instagram, this is a platform where Kylie has been able to market her products. In fact, she has her own television series on E! called “Life of Kylie.”
Admirably, despite being one of the youngest members of the Kardashian family, she’s now the richest.
She’s currently 21 and has a net worth of $1 billion. She’s also getting featured on Forbes billionaire list for the first time at number 2057.
Although some have claimed that her wealth is not self-made due to her background, she claimed none of her wealth is inherited.
CONCLUSION
There are many ways to be a billionaire. But whatever way you go about it, it’s never an easy task to maintain this position.
Whether you become a billionaire as self-made or you inherit your billions, it takes a lot of discipline and effort to maintain your position as a billionaire.
Because it’s possible for billions to turn into millions through wasteful spending and bad business decisions.
In most cases, people who are billionaires don’t have their billions in cash and a single piece of negative news could wipe billions off their net worth in the stock market.
Take as an example, Mark Zuckerberg once lost $20 billion out of his net worth in a few days due to Facebook privacy issues. This issue affected the company stocks negatively and in turn affected Mark’s too.
Another trend you’ll see among any billionaires list is that tech billionaires are increasing in numbers. More people are making their money online due to the internet’s popularity.
The internet is one of the latest gold mines around and if you’re looking for an opportunity to make your first billion, a groundbreaking idea on the internet could be your fast track.
Having said that, doing traditional businesses is still bringing in billions. As you can see from this list, tech billionaires dominate with 3 out of 10.
But the other 7 are from traditional businesses like shoes, cosmetics, fishing, property development, etc.
Therefore, there’s probably a way to make your billions from the work you currently do. If you’re able to scale it to a big company.
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