For those of us who dabble in ecommerce, our competition is winning. His name is Jeff Bezos and he’s wiping the floor with all retailers, both online and off. The behemoth that is Amazon has helped fill the pockets of Mr Bezos to the tune of about $112 billion USD, making him the first billionaire to smash through the 100 billion mark and snatching the number spot from Billy Gates!
From a primitive looking online book seller in 1994 to a global giant that sells everything from original oil paintings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars through to the kitchen sink and everything in between. Amazon is bigger than Walmart and is one of the most valuable public companies in the world.
And for those just starting out in ecommerce, this is what Amazon.com looked like in 1994..
And in 2017 Amazon had more than $177 billion USD worth of revenue and now employs more than 566,000 people. Wow huh?
Anyway, let’s have a look at the top ten richest people in the world according to Forbes. Obviously their numbers should be taken with a grain of salt and there’s probably a few zillionaire reptilians flying under the radar, but this is as good as we have access to.
Also, a super rich guy once told me that if you know how much you’re worth then you’re probably not worth very much. He meant that he had so many interests in things that he had no idea what he was worth. Unfortunately I know exactly what I’m worth and I won’t be making no rich list anytime soon.
- Jeff Bezos – $112 Billion – American billionaire (age 54) Amazon, Blue Origin, Bezos Expeditions, Washington Post, etc.
- Bill Gates – $90 Billion – American billionaire (age 62) Microsoft, Investments.
- Warren Buffett – $84 Billion – American billionaire (age 87) Berkshire Hathaway, Investments.
- Bernard Arnault – $72 Billion – French billionaire (age 69) LVMH
- Mark Zuckerberg – $71 Billion – American billionaire (age 34) Facebook
- Amancio Ortego – $70 Billion – Spanish billionaire (age 82) Zara fashion
- Carlos Slim Helu – $67.1 Billion – Mexican billionaire (age 78) Telecom, Investments.
- Charles Koch – $60 Billion – American billionaire (age 82) Koch Industries
- David Koch – $60 Billion – American billionaire (age 78) Koch Industries
- Larry Ellison – $58.5 Billion – American billionaire (age 73) Oracle, Investments.
Just the top 10 richest people on the Forbes rich list are worth a combined $744.6 billion dollars! That’s nearly a trillion dollars and almost enough to become a god on earth!
It’s now almost becoming common to be a billionaire with a record 2,208 billionaires listed by the magazine. They’re from 72 countries with Zimbabwe and Hungary being added to the list in 2018. In total these ‘people’ are worth about $9.1 trillion USD which is an 18 percent increase on last year.
The United States of America dominates the rich list 585 of the 2,208 of the uber wealthy coming from there. America has also created the first ever centi-billionaire with Jeff Bezos smashing through the 12 figure barrier. He saw an increase of about 39 billion dollars in the past 12 months, which is also a record for the Forbes list. That’s about $750 million dollars per week, every week for a year. Impressive!
Anyway, that’s enough zeroes for one day. I’m a little jealous but a LOT motivated now. Let’s go make some money.
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