10 Interesting Facts About Billionaires

If you thought billionaires were just the people who had a lot of money, think again. The term billionaire is used to designate a person who has 1 billion or more units of a currency. You may know some famous billionaires such as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffett; but there are many other interesting facts about them that you might not know.

Here are 10 interesting facts about billionaires:

1) Many billionaires are self made:

Think you’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth? Think again. Contrary to what many people believe, many billionaires didn’t just inherit their wealth. In fact, for every one billionaire who inherited his or her money, there is another billionaire who made his or her fortune from scratch. There are also several billionaires who are the descendants of a very rich person for example, Paris Hilton is the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton.

2) Their names can be used in many other ways:

Billionaires aren’t very big in size, but they are definitely big in terms of their net worth. For example, if you were to print the word “Bill” on a bill that was made of paper with $1 printed on it, it would likely be too small for someone to read. If you were to print Billion on another bill, it would be much bigger. In the same way, Bill is much smaller than Billion. When someone is called a billionaire, it usually refers to their net worth of $1 billion or more.

3) Bill Gates has a significant amount of personal wealth:

Although Bill Gates is technically not a billionaire, he has a net value that is close to being one. After all, his philanthropic activities have gained him widespread recognition and fame in the world. He currently holds the record as the richest man in history and as 1 on Forbes World Billionaires List, which ranks billionaires based on their assets.

4) Most billionaires go to college:

Even though money can be used to pay for college, very few billionaires actually attend college. When you look at the list of billionaires who attended college, you’ll see that most of them came from the top 1% of the richest Americans. There are a few notable exceptions such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk who both dropped out of college after their first year. Even though Bill Gates ended up dropping out, he still has a net value that matches that of many people who attended school.

5) A lot of women and children make it to the Forbes World Billionaires list:

Forbes World Billionaires List is home to only 0.1% of the women in the world. Even though there are only 20 women out of a total number of 1,826 billionaires, you must remember that 3.2 billion people live in the world today. That makes the number of women who make it to Forbes World Billionaires List at 0.000012%. This number has increased over time as well; a few decades ago, there were fewer than 20 female billionaires alive.

6) The world’s first billionaire was an American:

John D Rockefeller Sr is the father of modern day billionaire families and was also the richest man in history for a time. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, all billionaires in their own right, say that he was their inspiration. They also attribute their success to the data driven approach that he took.

7) Most billionaires are male:

Only 44 women made it to Forbes World Billionaires List in 2015. However, there are a lot more who made it on the Forbes Midas List. Approximately 1% of the richest people in the world were women as of 2015. This is surprising considering how much money they have and how they are able to support themselves without having an income from a man’s salary.

8) Billionaires are always involved in charitable causes:

The truth is that billionaires support charity in many ways. Bill Gates, for example, has donated millions in support of the fight against malaria. He gave money to help fund mosquito nets and provided food packets to children who suffer from malnutrition and lack of clean water. His mission is to eradicate malaria worldwide.

In fact, he has contributed $40 billion towards this cause so far. Although he was once referred to as a world class jerk by Neil Armstrong, his contributions are very generous and admirable.

9) Most billionaires married the love of their life:

Most billionaires got married to the love of their life; some even went and found their soul mates again. This means that these billionaires didn’t just marry anyone; they also chose to be with the person that they liked. It also shows how much these people value true love, which is something that I think we can all learn from.

10) There are only 10 women on Forbes World Billionaires List:

There are 60 women on Forbes Midas List, which is more than in the previous year. However, when you look at the list of 1,826 billionaires and the number of women on it approximately 20, this is something that we need to pay attention to.

Several of these women are actually self-made billionaires like Oprah Winfrey who started out as a news anchor and became a billionaire after her 30th birthday. She even founded her own cable TV channel and once had a talk show that was also named after herself.

In Conclusion

It’s great to know that there are a ton of billionaires out there. However, we need to keep our eyes on the fact that inequality is still highly prevalent in our world. Once we realize how many women are in the bottom of the social ladder, we need to start doing something about it. For example, I think every woman should have access to education and also have equal rights at work. The time is now to change this start from nothing trend that we see nowadays.