15 people who are part of the 1% of the population with half of all the wealth in the world

The difference between the financial situation in the various segments of the population is enormous: while some are getting richer, others inevitably take a step beyond the poverty line. For example, currently, to be among the 50% of the richest people on the planet, you only need to have 3,210 dollars (about 12,700 reais) in your hands, while half of all the money in the world, according to statistics, is in the hands of just 1% of the population.

At the awesome.club we discovered some people who have been on the Forbes list for many years and who have their own wealth index on the Bloomberg Billionaires List.

One of the world’s experts in the field of information security and the only representative of Russia in our post. He made his fortune at Kaspersky Lab, a company that develops systems to protect against hackers, viruses and other network threats.

Kaspersky has been divorced twice and is now happy: he is married to a Chinese woman and has five children. The youngest of them was kidnapped in 2011 and a ransom of 3 million euros was demanded, but thanks to the actions of the police the boy was quickly released.

He founded the Virgin Group, a conglomerate of companies with a wide range of services. His interests include mobile telephony, air travel, recording, radio and cable TV.

Since Branson is a public figure, he often becomes the subject of satirical attacks. For example, the Zenith comic series is dedicated to him. In its pages, the billionaire appears as a supervillain, which is easy to explain: the comic book publisher is the direct competitor of the Virgin Group.

Since childhood, he dreamed of becoming a Hollywood tycoon, but he lacked patience and diligence. Geffen did not graduate from college. However, that didn’t stop him from getting a job as a music band recruiting agent. To get this job, he faked his certificate of studies with his own hands.

A little later, he opened his own record label, Geffen Records, with which he made his fortune. Today he is one of America’s most famous philanthropists and often donates money to art and medical research.

President and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. In his youth, he believed that the future was in electronics (he wasn’t wrong, by the way), so he went to study engineering. Now, Quincy wryly points out that he understood one simple thing very early on: his classmates knew a lot more about semiconductors, and he himself was good at doing business. For this reason, he left the university.

For a long time, James worked as a simple employee, and when he gained the necessary experience, he was offered a chance to become a partner in Coca-Cola.

Pinault did not even graduate from school, as he had a hard time studying. He left his studies and went to Algeria in search of adventure. He returned with the initial capital and immediately founded a timber sales company.

Soon the crisis erupted. Before her, Pinault managed to sell his creation to investors for 30 million francs and, after the crisis, he bought it for just 5 million francs.

He currently owns several global brands: Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Brioni, and in his “free time” he collects original paintings by Picasso and Warhol.

She is the granddaughter of the famous Franklin Mars, founder of Mars Incorporated, a company that still produces the famous nougat and chocolate bars.

Although Jacqueline foresaw an entrepreneurial future, she received training in the field of art and science. She has been married twice and has three children from her first marriage.

The paparazzi find it difficult to reveal the details of the Mars’ private life: family members lead an extremely closed life and rarely allow themselves to be photographed.

MacKenzie is an American writer, but her fortune has nothing to do with her books. He made the Forbes list of the 20 richest people after a painful divorce in 2019 from the richest man on the planet: Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon. The ex-spouses remained friends and agreed that MacKenzie would give up 75% of his stake in the company.

And it’s hard to say how successful her writing career was. She has published two novels that have been praised by critics, The Testing of Luther Albright and traps🇧🇷

It owns the largest investment company in the world and actively participates in the development of artificial intelligence. The Chinese version of “ICQ”, called QQ, belongs to Huateng.

In 2010, he starred in a funny situation. Shenzhen authorities have decided to allocate a monthly sum of US$450 to successful entrepreneurs to keep them in the city. In some inexplicable way, Ma Huateng, with a fortune of over 4 billion dollars, also appeared on the list.

Alice is the only daughter of Sam Walton, the owner of Walmart. Unlike her brothers, she is not obsessed with the family business, preferring to invest in art. This passion of hers is so strong that one day Walton spent $20 million at auction.

She was married twice. The first husband was a successful banker, the second an ordinary builder. Both marriages ended in divorce.

Françoise entered the Forbes list of the 20 richest people after her mother’s death in 2017, receiving a legacy of approximately 40 billion dollars and a third of the shares of L’Oréal. Under her leadership are the global brands Maybelline, L’Oréal Paris, Elséve, Garnier, Black Opium, Giorgio Armani, Lancôme and others. And, in 2019, she was officially recognized as the richest woman on the planet.

Interestingly, Françoise holds two academic degrees related to the study of the roots of Greek mythology and international Jewish-Christian relations, and has even written her own bible study in five volumes.

India’s richest citizen lives in England. Wealth from him was inherited. But his father earned money from his own work: he was the fifth child in the family, left home at 17 and founded an oil extraction and sales company, becoming one of the largest in India.

Mukesh is not very popular among Indian citizens. Particularly because of a years-long fight with his younger brother, Anil (also a billionaire), in which one accuses the other of having fraudulent businesses.

Bloomberg was born into the American family of a Russian immigrant. He worked in banking for 15 years and was even mayor of New York. He spent 3 years in charge of the city, but later took over the management of his own finance company, Bloomberg LP.

He became a true American celebrity when he gave himself an official salary of 1 dollar a year as mayor and refused to receive free housing.

Mexico’s richest man made his fortune in the mobile phone company. He also controls the newspaper The New York Times🇧🇷 He earned his first million at age 17 with the help of his father, who used to give his children a lot of money by teaching them to invest.

Mexicans often blame the billionaire for striking it rich in a country where half the population lives in poverty. Meanwhile, many forget that Carlos Slim is one of the world’s greatest philanthropists. He invests in education, medicine and the culture of his home country.

As a child, Ellison was abandoned by his mother and grew up with his aunt and uncle. He met his biological father only at the age of 48. However, personal tragedy did not stop him from making his fortune. In 1977, Larry founded the world famous Oracle company, which made him a billionaire.

It is curious that the businessman studied at two universities at the same time, but did not graduate from either of them. But somehow he managed to work at the CIA.

President of the multinational conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. In total, he controls nearly 70 brands, including the world-famous Dom Pérignon, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Kenzo Parfums and Dior Watches. In April 2018, he was recognized as the richest man in Europe.

Like many people, the businessman loves cultural monuments. So, in 2019, he donated 200 million euros to the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, which was destroyed by the fire.

As you can see, many billionaires have gained their wealth due to a fortuitous confluence of circumstances. Imagine how lucky it takes to start a business and suddenly become popular and successful. Do you think wealth is the result of incredible work, or is it just pure luck? We look forward to your opinion in the comments section.