Chidi Okereke
-
Jeff Bezos – $88.7 billion
Industry: Technology
53-year-old Jeff Bezos founded amazon.com, an online book selling store in 1994, and set up shop in his garage that year. That small start-up has grown to be one of the biggest e-commerce businesses in the world. He also owns a private space company Blue Origin and purchased The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million. He is an early investor in many tech businesses, including Google – he invested $250,000 in 1998, and that investment is worth $3.1 billion today.
In June this year, Amazon bought the upscale grocery chain Whole Foods for an estimated $13.7 billion and yesterday he briefly became the richest man in the world, overcoming Bill Gates.
Pundits have predicted that Bezos will extend his lead over Gates in the coming months as Amazon shares could double to $2,000 if regulators approve its recent acquisition of Whole Foods.
-
Bill Gates – $89.8 billion
Industry: Technology
Bill was CEO of Microsoft from 1975 till 2000, and was the company’s chairman and largest shareholder until 2014. He remains a member of the board and serves as a technology adviser for the company.
Gates founded the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation with his wife, and along with Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, they started “The Giving Pledge” to encourage other billionaires to donate a hefty amount of their wealth to charity. His charitable foundation focuses on health and development issues across the world. Despite having given over $25 Billion to charity, Bill has been the wealthiest man in the world from 1995 to 1996, 1998 to 2007, 2009, and has been since 2014 till his temporary displacement by Jeff Bezos yesterday.
