A person richer than Bill Gates appears, taking the number 1 position in the world
According to Forbes, at the beginning of the trading session on July 27, Amazon shares increased by 1.6%, raising the assets of founder Jeff Bezos to 90.6 billion USD, officially surpassing billionaire Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world.
With 90.6 billion USD, Jeff Bezos' assets are 600 million USD more than Microsoft founder Bill Gates', officially becoming the 7th person to hold the title of "world's richest" in the past 30 years, Forbes said.
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Founder and CEO of e-commerce company Amazon, Jeff Bezos - Photo: CNBC. |
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The rise of Jeff Bezos shows the enduring power and value of Amazon, as well as the billionaire's influence across culture, technology and media through his multi-industry business empire.
Starting his business at the age of 22, Jeff Bezos became a billionaire for the first time in 1998 with a fortune of $1.6 billion after Amazon went public. In 2007, his fortune increased to $4.4 billion and gradually increased to $18.4 billion in 2012, making him the 26th richest person in the world at that time.
However, in just the past 2 weeks, thanks to the sharp increase in Amazon shares, Jeff Bezos' assets have also skyrocketed. He currently holds 79.9 million Amazon shares, equivalent to a ratio of 17%.
Over the past 5 years, he has "pocketed" an additional 70 billion USD, including an additional 45 billion USD in 2015 - 2016. Accordingly, Jeff Bezos became the person with the most increased personal assets in history.
Sharing about his early career, Bezos said he came up with the idea of selling books online while working for a hedge fund in New York. He gave up his high-paying job to found a risky startup.
“I took the less safe path to pursue my passion, and I'm proud of that choice,” Bezos shared.
Over the past two decades, Amazon has grown into the world’s largest e-commerce company. In addition to Amazon, Bezos’s business empire spans many areas, including the Washington Post and space tourism company Blue Origin.
Amazon could become the “first trillion-dollar company” if its stock hits $2,000, according to an analyst.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates has been the world's richest person for 18 of the past 23 years. The two people who have surpassed Gates are Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim of Mexico (in 2010 and 2012) and legendary investor Warren Buffett (in 2008).
Jeff Bezos is in the complete opposite camp to billionaire Bill Gates, who has devoted most of his time and money to charity over the past 25 years. The Amazon founder rarely gives interviews or speaks to the media, especially rarely about charity work.
While Gates founded the Giving Pledge, which encourages billionaires to donate at least half of their wealth to charity, and Gates has given away a total of $32.9 billion in his lifetime as of 2016, according to Forbes, Bezos has given away only about $100 million to charity as of 2015. He has also not participated in Gates's program.
However, like many other tech billionaires, Bezos always sets the biggest goal of changing the world instead of getting rich. He is pursuing many future technology projects, including the ambition of taking humans into space for tourism.
According to Kim Tuyen/vneconomy