Plus, a look at some of the youngest billionaires in the world.
Photo: Twitter
$13.7B: Brian Chesky, 39
Chesky is the CEO and co-founder of room and home-rental company Airbnb. Much of his wealth comes from Airbnb’s highly-publicised IPO in 10 December 2020. Prior to Airbnb, Chesky worked as an industrial designer.
$14.1B: Cheng Yixiao, 37
Cheng is the co-founder of Kuaishou, a video-sharing social media app similar to TikTok. Tech conglomerate Tencent is an investor in the company.
$14.6B: Eduardo Saverin, 39
Image courtesy: Gravesv38 – Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
One of the three co-founders of Facebook on this list, the Brazilian-born Saverin is now a venture capitalist. His firm, B Capital, invests in Southeast Asia and India. Saverin is based in Singapore.
$15.6B: Lukas Walton, 34
As the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, Luke Walton inherited his fortune when his father, John Walton, died in a plane crash in 2005.
$17.2B: Pavel Durov, 36
Image courtesy: Schreibvieh – CC BY 2.0
Durov is the creator and owner of messaging app Telegram, which has over half a billion users worldwide. Prior to Telegram, Durov created Russian social media site VK.
$17.8B: Su Hua, 39
Su is the co-founder and CEO of Kuaishou, a video-sharing social media app similar to TikTok. Tech conglomerate Tencent is an investor in the company.
$17.8B: Dustin Moskovitz, 36
As one of the co-founders of Facebook, Moskovitz owns a rough 2 percent stake in the company – where most of his wealth comes from. Moskovitz is also the co-founder of Asana, a web and mobile application that manages workflow.
$29.6B: Yang Huiyan, 37 and family
Yang owns 57% of Country Garden Holdings, a real estate developer based in Guangdong, China. The stake was largely transferred from her father, Yang Guoqiang, in 2007 – just prior to the company’s IPO. Country Garden has projects across China, Malaysia, and Australia.
$35.6B: Zhang Yiming, 37
Zhang is the CEO of Bytedance, the Chinese internet company that he founded in 2012. The company develops popular social networks TikTok and Douyin; as well as news aggregator Toutiao.
Mark Zuckerberg, 36 – $97.0B
Image courtesy: Anthony Quintano – CC BY 2.0
Facebook might have been around for 17 years, but it should be noted that founder Mark Zuckerberg started the social networking site at just 19 – making him not just the richest millennial, but one of the richest people in the world behind comparatively older entrants like Jeff Bezos (57) and Bill Gates (65).
The 5 youngest billionaires in the world
Kevin David Lehmann, 18 : $3.3B
Ownership of 50 percent of Germany’s leading drugstore chain, Drogerie Markt (DM), makes Lehmann the youngest billionaire in the world at just 18. Lehmann’s stakes in the company were transferred to him from his father, Guenther, in 2017.
Wang Zelong, 24: $1.5B
Wang is heir to his family’s pigment chemical business, CNCC Hua Yuan Titanium Dioxide; and also has stakes in Lomon Billions Group, another titanium dioxide producer in China.
Alexandra Andresen, 24 – $1.4B
Andresen and her sister Katharina each inherited 42 percent of the family-owned Norweigian investment company Ferd.
Katharina Andresen, 24 $1.4B
Katharina and her sister Alexandra each inherited 42 percent of the family-owned Norweigian investment company Ferd.
Austin Russell, 26 – $2.4B
Russell is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire thanks to Luminar Technologies, an automotive sensor company that he founded and runs. The company went public in an SPAC merger in Dec 2020.
