Money
Making Billions: The Richest People in the World
The Richest People in the World
In the last year, the wealth controlled by the world’s top 10 billionaires has jumped by over $76B.
Even in the teeth of jittery markets, many of the world’s richest people have seen their wealth surge to new heights as COVID-19 unfolds.
Today’s infographic draws data from Forbes Billionaire’s List and shows a broad cross-section of the world’s billionaires – highlighting their stratospheric wealth in the current economic climate.
Wealth in Astonishing Circumstances
The below table shows the fortunes of the world’s 10 richest people, comparing the numbers from March 5, 2019 to the most recent data from April 22, 2020.
Rank | Name | Net Worth 2020* | Net Worth 2019* | Change 2019-2020 |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Jeff Bezos | $145B | $131B | +$14.1B |
#2 | Bill Gates | $104B | $97B | +$7.1B |
#3 | Bernard Arnault & Family | $92B | $76B | +$15.5B |
#4 | Warren Buffett | $73B | $83B | -$9.1B |
#5 | Mark Zuckerberg | $69B | $62B | +$6.5B |
#6 | Larry Ellison | $66B | $63B | +$3.4B |
#7 | Steve Ballmer | $63B | $41B | +$21.3B |
#8 | Amancio Ortega | $61B | $63B | -$2.2B |
#9 | Larry Page | $58B | $51B | +$7.6B |
#10 | Jim Walton | $57B | $45B | +$12.0B |
Total Change | +$76.2B |
Source: Forbes – *As of April 22, 2020 **As of March 5, 2019
Gaining the highest across the top 10 is former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who saw his fortune rise over $21 billion since March 2019.
Facing the steepest losses belong to investing luminary Warren Buffett, whose net worth has dropped over $9 billion over the past year. At year-end 2019 Buffett was a 11% shareholder in Delta Airlines. In April, Buffett sold 13 million shares in the airline.
Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune is holding steady. Amazingly, the Facebook founder still remains one of the world’s youngest billionaires (ranking 22nd out of 2,095) despite first joining the billionaire club a dozen years ago.
Newcomers to the List
As a new decade begins, who are among the most newly-minted billionaires?
Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom has climbed in the ranks as online video communication demand soars. Zoom went public in April 2019 at a stunning $9.2 billion IPO valuation. As of April 24, 2020, Zoom was valued at over $44.3 billion.
Rank | Name | Net Worth | Source of Wealth |
---|---|---|---|
#1 | Eric Yuan | $7.8B | Zoom |
#2 | Anthony von Mandl | $3.9B | Mark Anthony Brands |
#3 | Larry Xiangdong Chen | $3.6B | GSX Techedu |
#4 | Dmitry Bukhman | $3.1B | Playrix |
#5 | Igor Bukhman | $3.1B | Playrix |
#6 | Sun Huaiqing | $3.0B | Guangdong Marubi Biotechnology |
#7 | Forrest Li | $2.4B | Sea Group |
#8 | Byju Raveendran | $1.7B | Byju's |
#9 | Jitse Groen | $1.5B | Takeaway.com |
#10 | Qian Ying | $1.5B | Muyuan Foods |
*As of April 22, 2020
Similarly, Netherland’s Jitse Groen has witnessed his food-delivery company Takeaway.com expand extensively. Takeaway.com currently operates in 11 countries across Europe and received regulatory approval to complete a $7.6 billion merger with JustEat in April.
Forrest Li who runs Sea, an online-gaming and e-commerce company, has similarly joined the ranks. Tencent and private equity firm General Atlantic are among its major stakeholders.
The COVID-19 Response
As the global economy contends with a loss of confidence and job losses, some of the world’s richest people are stepping up to the plate.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is donating roughly 25% of his net worth to COVID-19 in the form of Square stock, valued at $1B.
His donation, which was placed in a donor-advised fund called Start Small LLC, is more than four times higher than any other billionaire. That said, after the pandemic, Dorsey also stated that this money may also go towards girl’s health and education, as well as universal basic income (UBI).
Rank | Name | COVID-19-Related Donation | % of Net Worth |
---|---|---|---|
#1 | Jack Dorsey | $1B | 25.6% |
#2 | Bill & Melinda Gates | $255M | 0.2% |
#3 | Azim Premji | $132M | 2.2% |
#4 | Andrew Forrest | $100M+ | 1.2%+ |
#5 | Jeff Bezos | $100M | 0.1% |
#6 | Michael Dell | $100M | 0.4% |
#7 | Lynn Schusterman, Stacy Schusterman | $70M | 2.1% |
#8 | Amancio Ortega | $68M | 0.1% |
#9 | Nicky Oppenheimer | $54.5M | 0.7% |
#10 | Johann Rupert | $54.5M | 1.1% |
*As of April 15, 2020
Overall, 77 of the world’s billionaires have made public contributions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, just a fraction of the world’s ultra-rich.
As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, will the world’s billionaires still accumulate wealth at greater speeds, or will a different picture emerge as unconventional policies around the world become increasingly commonplace?
Money
How Small Investments Make a Big Impact Over Time
Compound interest is a powerful force in building wealth. Here’s how it impacts even the most modest portfolio over the long term.
How Small Investments Make a Big Impact Over Time
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Time is an investor’s biggest ally, even if they start with just a modest portfolio.
The reason behind this is compounding interest, of course, thanks to its ability to magnify returns as interest earns interest on itself. With a fortune of $159 billion, Warren Buffett largely credits compound interest as a vital ingredient to his success—describing it like a snowball collecting snow as it rolls down a very long hill.
This graphic shows how compound interest can dramatically impact the value of an investor’s portfolio over longer periods of time, based on data from Investor.gov.
Why Compound Interest is a Powerful Force
Below, we show how investing $100 each month, with a 10% annual return starting at the age of 25 can generate outsized returns by simply staying the course:
Age | Total Contributions | Interest | Portfolio Value |
---|---|---|---|
25 | $1,300 | $10 | $1,310 |
30 | $7,300 | $2,136 | $9,436 |
35 | $13,300 | $9,223 | $22,523 |
40 | $19,300 | $24,299 | $43,599 |
45 | $25,300 | $52,243 | $77,543 |
50 | $31,300 | $100,910 | $132,210 |
55 | $37,300 | $182,952 | $220,252 |
60 | $43,300 | $318,743 | $362,043 |
65 | $49,300 | $541,101 | $590,401 |
70 | $55,300 | $902,872 | $958,172 |
75 | $61,300 | $1,489,172 | $1,550,472 |
Portfolio value is at end of each time period. All time periods are five years except for the first year (Age 25) which includes a $100 initial contribution. Interest is computed annually.
As we can see, the portfolio grows at a relatively slow pace over the first five years.
But as the portfolio continues to grow, the interest earned begins to exceed the contributions in under 15 years. That’s because interest is earned not only on the total contributions but on the accumulated interest itself. So by the age of 40, the total contributions are valued at $19,300 while the interest earned soars to $24,299.
Not only that, the interest earned soars to double the value of the investor’s contributions over the next five years—reaching $52,243 compared to the $25,300 in principal.
By the time the investor is 75, the power of compound interest becomes even more eye-opening. While the investor’s lifetime contributions totaled $61,300, the interest earned ballooned to 25 times that value, reaching $1,489,172.
In this way, it shows that investing consistently over time can benefit investors who stick it through stock market ups and downs.
The Two Key Ingredients to Growing Money
Generally speaking, building wealth involves two key pillars: time and rate of return.
Below, we show how these key factors can impact portfolios based on varying time horizons using a hypothetical example. Importantly, just a small difference in returns can make a huge impact on a portfolio’s end value:
Annual Return | Portfolio Value 25 Year Investment Horizon | Portfolio Value 75 Year Investment Horizon |
---|---|---|
5% | $57,611 | $911,868 |
8% | $88,412 | $4,835,188 |
12% | $161,701 | $49,611,684 |
With this in mind, it’s important to take into account investment fees which can erode the value of your investments.
Even the difference of 1% in investment fees adds up over time, especially over the long run. Say an investor paid 1% in fees, and had an after-fee return of 9%. If they had a $100 starting investment, contributed monthly over a 25-year time span, their portfolio would be worth over $102,000 at the end of the period.
By comparison, a 10% return would have made over $119,000. In other words, they lost roughly $17,000 on their investment because of fees.
Another important factor to keep in mind is inflation. In order to preserve the value of your portfolio, its important to choose investments that beat inflation, which has historically averaged around 3.3%.
For perspective, since 1974 the S&P 500 has returned 12.5% on average annually (including reinvested dividends), 10-Year U.S. Treasury bonds have returned 6.6%, while real estate has averaged 5.6%. As we can see, each of these have outperformed inflation over longer horizons, with varying degrees of risk and return.
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