15 Billionaires Who Became Rich the Quickest — and How They Did It
Did you know that if you made $1 every minute for 24 hours every day, it would still take you more than 1,902 years to become a billionaire? Despite this fact, there are many billionaires out there who made their fortunes in only a few years.
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Here are 15 billionaires who made their fortunes the fastest — and how they did it.
Jan Koum (4 Years): WhatsApp Co-Founder
Jan Koum emigrated from Ukraine to the U.S. as a teenager, settling in California. He attended San Jose State University and worked at Yahoo before co-founding WhatsApp.
His experiences as an immigrant influenced his vision for a communication tool that could connect people across the globe. Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, catapulting Koum into billionaire status.
Mark Zuckerberg (4 Years): Created Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg grew up in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and was interested in computers and programming from an early age. He was studying computer science at Harvard University when he began to work on what would become Facebook.
As a Harvard sophomore, Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his dorm room in 2004. The platform quickly expanded beyond college campuses, becoming the world’s leading social network. Zuckerberg’s wealth soared as Facebook grew, and his net worth passed a billion dollars in 2008.
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Jeff Bezos (4 Years): Founded Amazon
Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and raised in Houston, Texas, Jeff Bezos showed an early interest in technology. He studied electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University, and his fascination with the burgeoning internet led him to quit a lucrative finance career to start Amazon.
Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 as an online bookstore. With an aggressive expansion strategy into various products and services, Bezos built Amazon into a retail giant and became a billionaire by 1998.
Mark Cuban (4 Years): Sold Broadcast.com
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mark Cuban graduated from Indiana University with a degree in business. Before his big break with Broadcast.com, Cuban had a variety of jobs, including as a bartender and salesperson, which honed his business acumen.
Cuban struck it rich by selling his video portal, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999. His investment in this early internet streaming service proved timely, netting him a huge return within four years.
Li Weiwei (4 Years): Technology Investments
Li WeiWei, also known as Li Yifei, studied at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, where he earned an executive master of business administration degree. He worked for several IT companies before founding his own business.
Li Weiwei’s fortune came through Chinese technology and internet investments. He repurposed an auto parts company into a network gaming company, for example, focusing on microtransactions and web games. Four years later, he was a billionaire.
Jerry Yang (4 Years): Yahoo Co-Founder
Jerry Yang moved to the U.S. from Taiwan at the age of 10, unable to speak English. He later attended Stanford University, where he earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.
Yang co-founded Yahoo in 1994, turning it into one of the internet’s earliest pioneers. As Yahoo expanded its services, its initial public offering and subsequent rise in stock value quickly made Yang a billionaire.
David Filo (4 Years): Yahoo Co-Founder
David Filo, originally from Wisconsin, attended Stanford University, where he met Jerry Yang. As a co-founder of Yahoo, David mirrored Yang’s path to wealth.
His technical expertise and vision for the web platform transformed Yahoo from a directory to a major internet portal, earning him billionaire status when the stock rose in value after its IPO.
Evan Spiegel (3 Years): Snapchat Co-Founder
Evan Spiegel grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, and attended Stanford University, where he studied product design. It was at Stanford where he and his co-founders came up with the idea for Snapchat.
Spiegel saw his creation become a cultural phenomenon among teenagers and young adults. The app’s unique disappearing messages feature attracted millions, and its public offering in 2017 swiftly solidified Spiegel’s billionaire status.
Bobby Murphy (3 Years): Snapchat Co-Founder
Bobby Murphy, born in California, received a B.S. at Stanford University. There, he met Spiegel, his future co-founder.
Working alongside Spiegel, Murphy engineered the technical side of Snapchat. Murphy’s programming expertise was crucial in creating the app’s unique features, and he also became a billionaire after Snapchat’s IPO.
Cheng Wei (3 Years): Founded Didi Chuxing
Cheng Wei, a native of China, graduated from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology. He spent his early career at Alibaba Group before founding Didi Chuxing, China’s leading rideshare service.
Pierre Omidyar (3 Years): Created eBay
Pierre Omidyar was born in Paris, France, and moved to the U.S. when his father got a residency position at Johns Hopkins University. Omidyar graduated from Tufts University with a degree in computer science.
In 1995, he launched eBay, a global online auction and shopping website that connected buyers and sellers worldwide. He became a billionaire following the platform’s IPO in 1998.
Eric Lefkofsky (3 Years): Groupon Co-Founder
Eric Lefkofsky grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan, where he received his undergraduate degree before later graduating from the university’s law school.
Lefkofsky co-founded Groupon, which offered daily deals to consumers by leveraging group buying power. The concept caught on quickly, which led to a highly successful IPO in 2011, making Lefkofsky a billionaire.
Andrew Mason (3 Years): Groupon Co-Founder
Andrew Mason is from Pennsylvania and attended Northwestern University, where he studied music. As the CEO of Groupon, Mason capitalized on the emerging trend of social commerce.
His approach to online deals and discounts fueled the company’s explosive early growth, culminating in its public offering, which made him a billionaire.
Gary Winnick (1.5 Years): Founded Global Crossing
Gary Winnick was born in New York City and attended C.W. Post College in Long Island. Winnick founded Global Crossing in 1997, which laid fiber-optic cables across oceans.
His venture took advantage of the dot-com era’s demand for bandwidth. He became a billionaire after Global Crossing’s IPO.
Jay Walker (1 Year): Founded Priceline.com
Jay Walker was born in New York and is an alumnus of Cornell University. Walker founded Priceline.com, a company that revolutionized travel booking by allowing customers to name their own prices for hotels and flights. His idea caught on, leading to a highly successful IPO in 1999, which made him a billionaire in just a year.
Most of the billionaires on this list have something in common — they created a product or service that resonated with users. Establishing a business that finds mass appeal like Facebook, Amazon or Snapchat can be a great way to quickly increase your net worth.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 15 Billionaires Who Became Rich the Quickest — and How They Did It
