Here is the list of the top twenty current richest people in the world as of November 2019. In looking at this list it is clear that founding or building a business while keeping ownership of a large amount of the equity in the company is the path to generational wealth. Nothing creates leverage like building a business that you can take public. Surprising that no one is on the top 20 list through real estate as it does not create the same level of scale. Steve Balmer was able to use his position as Microsoft employee #30 to get a large amount of equity in Microsoft.
- Jeff Bezos $111.9 Billion, Amazon Founder, USA
- Bernard Arnault & family $107.0 Billion, Louis Vuitton Chairman and CEO, France
- Bill Gates $106.8 Billion, Microsoft Founder, USA
- Warren Buffett $87.5 Billion, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO, USA
- Mark Zuckerberg $71.1 Billion, Facebook Founder, USA
- Amancio Ortega $69.8 Billion, Founder of Zara fashion chain, Spain
- Larry Ellison $68.2 Billion, Oracle Founder, USA
- Carlos Slim Helu & family $61.3 Billion, Controls America Movil, Mexico
- Larry Page $58.8 Billion, Co-founder of Google, USA
- Francoise Bettencourt Meyers & family $57.3 Billion, Granddaughter of L’Oreal’s founder, France
- Sergey Brin $56.7 Billion, Co-founder of Google, USA
- Mukesh Ambani $56.6 Billion, Father founded Reliance Industries, India
- Jim Walton $53.4 Billion, Father founded Wal*Mart, USA
- Steve Ballmer $53.2 Billion, Former CEO of Microsoft, USA
- Alice Walton $53.1 Billion Father founded Wal*Mart, USA
- Rob Walton $53.0 Billion, Father founded Wal*Mart, USA
- Michael Bloomberg $52.0 Billion, Founder of media company Bloomberg LP, USA
- Charles Koch $43.2 Billion, Father founded Koch Industries, USA
- Julia Koch & family $43.2 Billion, Inherited a 42% stake in Koch Industries from her husband, USA
- Jack Ma $39.4 Billion, Founder of Alibaba, China