Introduction

I want to thank you and congratulate you for downloading the book,“Top 25 Internet Billionaires”.

This book highlights the spectacular success of 25 internet billionaires, and outlines some essential life and business lessons for the aspiring entrepreneur.

In the modern age, more billionaires have sprung out of the internet than anywhere else, which has led some people to refer to it as a ‘billionaire mint’.

For lack of a better term, the internet is still a vivid, wild space. It’s the Wild West - an open ground with no rules. It’s fun and captivating, informational all hours of the day. But most importantly, the internet is a balancing scale– an equalizer. It’s the one place where everyone’s voice gets heard, in a level playing field.

In this interesting space where everyone’s voice is equal, possibilities that arise particularly are economic possibilities. And for those who know how to use the World Wide Web (WWW), the internet presents a crucial connection to the outside world. Some people use it for idle silliness, while others use it as a forum where their voice or original ideas can easily reach billions.

This special book is about entrepreneurs who have been able to bend the internet to their wills. So much so that they have managed to turn an open marketplace and rather simple ideas into insurmountable wealth.

Here are the top 25 billionaires who made their fortunes out of thin air, and now roam the earth like kings. In the following texts, you will also find a detailed insight of each one of them, together with the secrets and ideas that were key to their breakthroughs, whether related to hard work, calculation or wit.

Thanks again for reading this book and I hope you enjoy it!

Table of Contents

Introduction

#1 Jeff Bezos– Founded Amazon.com

#2 Mark Zuckerberg– Founded Facebook.com

#3 Larry Page– Co-Founded Google

#4 Sergey Brin– Co-founded Google

# 5 Jack Ma– Founded Alibaba Group

#6 Ma Huateng– Run’s China’s Top Online Chat Service

#7 Robin Li– Co-Founded Baidu, China’s Most Popular Search Engine

#8 Masayoshi Son– Control’s Japanese Internet and Telecom firm Softbank

#9 Eric Schimidt– Chairman, Google

#10 William Ding– Founded China’s No. 2 Online Game Company

#11 Pierre Omidyar– Founded Ebay

#12 Hiroshi Mikitani– Run’s Japan’s Top Online Shopping Mall

#13 Charles Schwab– Former Steel Magnate Who Brought Online Investing to the Masses

#14 Andreas Von Bechtolsheim– Got Rich From a $100, 000 Early Stake in Google.

#15 Jeffrey Skoll– eBay’s First President & Full-time Employee

#16 Marc Benioff– Founded Salesforce.com

#17 David Cheriton– Stanford Professor who Introduced Google’s Co-Founders to Each Other

#18 Shi Yuzhu– Founded Giant Interactive, One of the Most successful Online gaming firms in China

#19 Mark Cuban– Former Bar Tender who Sold Video Site to Yahoo for $5.7 Billion

#20 Peter Thiel– Facebook’s First Outside Investor, PayPal Co-Founder

#21 David Filo– Co-Founded Yahoo at Stanford University

#22 Meg Whitman– Former eBay Chief, Current HP CEO

#23 Kavitark Ram Shriram– Early Bet on Google Paid Off

#24 Jerry Yang– Cofounded Yahoo

#25 Reed Hastings– Founded Netflix

Conclusion

Copyright ©2016 by Warren Phan - All rights reserved.

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#1 Jeff Bezos– Founded Amazon.com

Net Worth

$54.3 Billion

Age

52

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Amazon.com

Residence

Seattle, WA

# of Children

4

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, Princeton

Amazon.com is a global e-tailing giant whose gears are shifted by billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos. Recent events have helped increase the value of the company’s stocks, and the resultant gains have made Bezos, who owns 18% of Amazon.com, the fifth richest man in the world, and the number 1 top internet billionaire. Bezos has been busy making bold bets these days. In July 2015, Amazon proposed plans for a high-speed-drone airspace that would facilitate flying robots to deliver packages to consumers. Later on in September 2015, he also revealed that his aerospace company, Blue Origin, would spend more than $200 million to construct reusable rockets that would then be launched into orbit by the end of the decade.

Billionaire Background

American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Amazon.com. Mr. Bezos was born on January 12th, 1964, in New Mexico. Since his childhood days, he had a keen love for computers and went on to learn computer science and electrical engineering at Princeton University. After graduation from college. Jeff worked on Wall Street, where he scaled the ladder to become the youngest senior Vice President at an investment firm. Four years later, Jeff decided to quit his lucrative job to open Amazon.com, which he meant to be an online bookstore. Amazon.com later grew to become one of the internet’s boldest success stories. In 2013, Jeff attracted global media spotlight when he purchased The Washington Post at $250 million.

As a child, Jeff expressed a deep interest in learning how things work. He turned his parents’ garage into a workspace filled with electrical gadgets. Jeff’s family moved to Miami when he was a teenager, where his love for computers excelled. He started his first business, The Dream Institute, while he was still in high school. This was an educational summer camp for students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

Jeff met his wife, Mackenzie, at D.E. Shaw, the investment firm where he worked. It is interesting to note that he quit a well-paying job in the financial sector to delve into the nascent world of e-commerce. In the early days of Amazon.com, Jeff set up an office in his garage. Along with a handful employees, he started building the software for Amazon. They managed to expand their operations into a 2-bedroomed house equipped with 3 Sun Microstations, and eventually got a test site up. After involving 300 friends in the testing, Bezos launched Amazon.com on July 16th 1995, naming it after the popular South American River.

The company’s initial success was tremendous. Without any press promotion, Amazon.com was selling books across the U.S. - and in 45 foreign nations - within a month. After two months, the company was grossing $20, 000 in weekly sales, growing way faster than Bezos and his small team had envisioned. Amazon went public in 1997 when local retailers were launching their own websites and analysts were questioning whether the company could hold its own. Against all criticism, Amazon.com became a consistent success, and an e-commerce leader after two years, outpacing all other competitors.

Jeff continued to diversify his company’s offering, introducing CDs and Videos in 1998. Later on, the website started selling clothes, then electronics, toys and a lot more through retail partnerships. While many dot.com hits of the early 1990s were rolling downhill, Amazon flourished, graduating from annual sales of $510, 000 in 1995 to more than $17 billion in 2011. In 2007, Amazon launched Kindle, a handheld e-reader that made it possible for users to purchase, download, read and store book selections. In the same year, Bezos decided to announce Blue origin, a Seattle-based aerospace startup that would offer space travel services to paying customers.

In August 5th, 2013, Jeff made headlines again when he purchased The Washington Post, and other publications associated with it for $250 million cash. In the recent past, Jeff made headlines again when he revealed‘Amazon Prime Air’, a program that would allow the company to provide delivery services using drones.

Success Lessons from Jeff Bezos

Since it was launched in 1995, Amazon.com has graduated from an online bookstore to an‘online-everything’ store. Along the way, it has changed conventional norms in the way we do business. Amazon’s success can be attributed to innovative sales and brilliant commerce strategies, but it mostly narrows down to Jeff Bezo’s unique mindset. His approach to work and success has made amazon the global company it is today.

Lesson #1 Regret Nothing

To invent Amazon, Jeff left a lucrative position as Vice President in a top-flying investment firm. A lot of people would find it tough to leave this kind of financial security behind. But Bezos says he tried to imagine himself years into the future, looking back at his own life. He wanted to be in such a position where he wouldn’t want to regret a thing. Of course, quitting a high-powered post to invest in an e-commerce outfit at a time when the internet’s future was still doubtful was a huge risk. Now that Amazon is the world’s premier online retail marketplace, it’s clear that Bezos regret-avoidance and risk-taking mindset paid off.

Lesson #2 Play the Long Game

During Amazon’s early days, Bezos made it clear to investors that the company was years away from making a profit. In 1997 when speaking to Inc., he said,“We are going to be unprofitable for a long time. And that’s our strategy.” It’s apparent that Bezos was playing the long game. By the late 1990s, the company was rapidly growing, creating new customer-service approaches, and burning through cash. This kind of mental attitude finally paid off in 2003, when the company made its first-ever full-year profit. From the first word go, Bezos was willing to put it all in the line, and he had acknowledged that things wouldn’t be easy after all.

Lesson #3 Start Small, then Diversify

Amazon started out selling only books. But today, the company sells just about anything. Jeff saw books as the initial step in a long process that would ultimately lead to an‘everything store’. This strategy of starting out small and then graduating into a giant outfit helped Jeff build the Amazon you know today.

Lesson #4 Prepare to Fail

If you want to be innovative, prepare to fail. Amazon.com has made online shopping an everyday routine for millions of people across the globe. But when Jeff founded the company in 1995, e-commerce was new and the internet’s future was uncertain. In fact, he told investors that there was a 70% chance they could lose their money. It was only by taking a huge financial and career risk that Jeff Bezos was able to build the little startup into a giant company.

Why Amazon is So Successful

Like most other businesses, Amazon started out from Zero. The company didn’t know enough to guarantee success, but it was willing to think ahead, push the boundaries of e-tailing, and develop data-driven technologies. Today, amazon gets roughly 30% of every e-commerce bill in the U.S. The company is a decade ahead of the competition, and even leads other strong data-centric companies such as Walmart. Amazon was built off the ground through Jeff Bezo’s mindset, and the following four pillars of success:

•         Focus on Customers

•         Continuous optimization

•         Corporate Agility

•         Culture of innovation

Apparently, Amazon is obsessed with making its users happy. And unlike most other businesses, it is willing to trade off short-term gains for the chance to score long-term customer loyalty!

#2 Mark Zuckerberg– Founded Facebook.com

Net Worth

$42.7 Billion

Age

31

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Facebook

Residence

Palo Alto, CA

# of Children

1

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Drop-out, Harvard

Over a billion people use Facebook on a daily basis. More so, Facebook videos are viewed about 8 billion times per day. That’s how‘everyday’ Mark Zuckerberg’s invention is. As mobile advertising becomes more commonplace, Facebook makes more money. In recent times, Facebook announced that it would start shipping out the Rift VR Headset early 2016. All these are factors that have helped push Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth up $13 billion of late. Facebook was founded in 2004, but has managed to grow meteorically, recording massive user signups each year. Since Facebook announced its internet.org initiative in July 2014, the social network has been offering free basic internet browsing services to more than a billion people in over 19 nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Billionaire Background

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born in May 14th, 1984 in New York. He was the only son, and the second born in the educated family of four children. Mark’s dad, Edward Zuckerberg, is a dentist who operated a dental practice next to the family’s home. His mother, Mrs. Karen Zuckerberg is a psychiatrist. In his elementary school years, Mark developed a keen interest in programming. Mark found out that the world was branched between users and programmers when he was just 10 years old. Young Zuckerberg was taught how to program in Atari BASIC by his father. At 12 years old,Mark created a messenger named‘ZuckNet’ in Atari BASIC. The program connected all the computers and facilitated the transfer of messages from the house and the dental office. His father used the application in his dental office so the receptionist could inform him when new patients arrived. Mark also found it fun to develop games and communication tools. His father even hired a computer tutor named David Newman to give Mark private lessons.

While in high school, Mark Zuckerberg created Synapse, an artificially intelligent music player app for MP3s that studied a user’s preferences and generated playlists based on‘guessing’. This involved tracking what music a user wanted to listen to. Both Microsoft and AOL expressed an interest in Synapse and wanted to purchase it out. But the talented young man rejected the offers and politely rejected invitations to co-operate with the tech giants. Just like that, Mark Zuckerberg turned down offers possibly involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, and brushed away the opportunity to work in some of the most prestigious IT-corporations in the world.

Soon after, Mark was studying at the exclusive Academy of Phillips Exeter, where he excelled in science and literature, scoring a degree in classics. The young man also showed talent in fencing, even becoming the captain of his school’s fencing team. Amidst all these engagements, Mark remained fascinated in coding.

In 2003, after leaving the Phillips Exeter, Mark joined Harvard University. By the time he was in his second year at the prestigious campus, he had already cultivated a reputation as a skilled software developer. It was then that he created a program named‘Course-Match’ that allowed students to select their subjects based on lists of courses from other users.

In 2004, at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg started work on Facebook.com

Secrets behind Facebook’s Success

11 years ago, Facebook was nothing more than a coding project in a Harvard dorm room. Today, it’s a global business generating billions of dollars’ worth of revenue every year. The company is collectively worth over a hundred billion dollars. When facebook.com launched, there were dozens of other social networks trying to stand out of the crowd. But only Facebook won, and they lost. Below are some of the secrets that have made the social network the success it is today.

1.     Move Fast

Mark Zuckerberg engineered the draft (beta) version of Facebook.com during his spare time in his campus dorm room. He didn’t even have a business plan. He didn’t bring in advisors to gather what they thought of the idea. Interestingly, he didn’t even conduct market research or spend time applying for trademarks and patents. He just built an awesome product and promptly launched it.

2.    It’s not about the Idea but about Actions

Now, almost everyone has got an idea for what would make a great business. But most times, it’s not about the idea but about the implementation. From the moment Facebook published on the Internet, there has been a big fight regarding whose idea it initially was. Two seniors at Harvard claimed that Mark had‘stolen’ their idea, leading to a legal dispute that lasted almost a decade. Still, outside the gates of Harvard, there were tons of other individuals who had similar ideas. Today, we only have one Facebook. Because it’s not really about the ideas, but rather about making things happen.

3.    Keep it Simple

Don’t overbuild– that’s a key rule of the thumb. So many entrepreneurs get buried in all the cool features that they intend to build into their launches. In all this excitement, they end up making products that are so complex and are hardly usable. The initial version of Facebook was ultra-simple. Then over time, Mark and his team improved it to what we have today. Throughout these improvements, they consistently made sure that Facebook was super-easy to use.

4.    Sort Out Your Challenges

In case you forgot, Facebook is not the first-ever social network. College networks existed in Stanford, Columbia and a lot of other institutions even before Facebook was launched in 2004. For instance, Columbia’s Club Nexus had existed since 2001, but it had violated Facebook’s success rule 3 in that it was too complex. So it never really got off the ground.

Myspace and Friendster were wildly popular. But Friendster Committed suicide. Demand for this service was so intensive that service slowed to a crawl. By the time the company fixed the problem, most of its U.S. users had moved to other networks. Following Facebook’s launch, Zuckerberg controlled user registrations based on the infrastructure they could manage. They added one school at a time. This way, the new network always worked. Zuckerberg effectively identified one of the key challenges that could kill the new startup and made certain to iron it out.

5.    Focus on the ‘Product’ Rather than the ‘Business’

In the early days, Zuckerberg was popularly uninterested in the business aspect of Facebook. All his focus was on the product. This obsession with the product is the main reason why he continually declined advertising revenue. Ads were not cool, and Zuckerberg didn’t want to make the product less good. As Facebook grew, Mark kept his focus on the product and then hired skilled business executives to run the business aspect of the company.

A lot of companies these days are making the mistake of focusing on the business at the expense of the product! As Amazon and Facebook have proved, one of the best ways to create massive value for shareholders is to obsessively focus on the product and customers. This is done, business will follow.

In addition to these, Mark Zuckerberg has proved that he’s very good at hiring, firing, maintaining control and cultivating smart advisors.

#3 Larry Page– Co-Founded Google

Net Worth

$36.9 Billion

Age

42

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Google

Residence

Palo Alto, CA

# of Children

1

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Stanford

In August 2015, Larry Page handed over his Google CEO post to the company’s product czar, Sundar Pichai. Page co-founded Google with his fellow Stanford Ph.D. student Sergey Brinin 1998. Since the company’s launch, Larry Page served as its first CEO. Page is an advocate for clean energy whose network of properties in Palo Alto runs on geothermal energy, fuel cells, and captured rainwater.

Billionaire Background

Larry Page was born in 1973, Michigan, whose parents were both computer experts. His father, Mr. Carl Page, was a leading voice in computer science and AI (artificial intelligence). His mother, on the other hand, tutoredcomputer programming. Considered his parents’ backgrounds, it is no surprise that Page decided to pursue the field of computing. After graduating with a Bachelors in engineering from the University of Michigan, Page enrolled at Stanfordto study Computer Engineering. That’s where he met Brin. As part of their Stanford research project, Brin and Page developed a search engine that displayed results based on the popularity of pages. This was founded on the notion that the most common listing would typically be the most helpful. The duo named their search engine‘Google’, borrowing from the mathematical term‘googol’, which refers to digit 1 plus 100 more zeros. The inspiration for this name was their aim to organize massive collections of data available on the World Wide Web.

Larry and Sergey raised a million dollars from their families, friends, and someinvestors. They used this money to launch their company in 1998. Since then, Google has become the world’s number 1 search engine, processing billions of searches daily. The company is today headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Google made its IPO way back in August 2004, turning both Page and Sergey into billionaires.

By the end of 2006, Google had bought the number one site for user-contributed videos, YouTube, for stock valued at $1.65 billion. As the company’s first-ever CEO, Page shared responsibilities at the company with Sergey, who was working as the special projects director, and Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. On August 10th 2015, Larry and Sergey announced the creation of a parent company, Alphabet, which would take charge of Google and all its other subsidiaries. Sergey was set to serve as the company’s new president, with Page as the CEO, and Sundar Pichaiacting as the company’s top executive.

Most Ambitious CEO?

Larry Page is constantly making huge bets, as Google’s global business continues to thrive. The company has recently announced advancements in balloons that make the internet globally accessible, robots, and nanoparticles. These are all technologies that have the potential to define the future. As one of Google’s most visionary voices, Page has demonstrated expertise in operations. He remains inspired by management idols such as former Ford CEO Alan Mulally, who is one of the newest members on Google’s board. Page has managed to trim products, and unify the look of remaining ones. He has also reorganized ranks at the company and transformed it in line with his grand vision. It was Page who pushed Google to put mobile first. In his tenure as the CEO, Google has become extremely powerful. The company is always extending core businesses, including the likes of Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Ads, Android, and many more. More importantly, the search giant is expanding its reach to cover virtually all areas of computing.

How does an already successful tech corporation remain dominant? According to Page, the secret is to invent the future. Through the company’s moonshot factory, Google X, and a number of meteoric projects, Google is inventing the future!

#4 Sergey Brin – Co-founded Google

Net Worth

$36.1 Billion

Age

42

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Google

Residence

Los Altos, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Divorced

Education Level

Masters, University of Maryland

Sergey Brinis the current president of Alphabet, the recently announced parent company that he and co-founder Larry Page are using to house Google and its subsidiaries. The Duo’s aim with Alphabet is to“get more ambitious things done.” In addition to Google, of which YouTube is a part, Alphabet will also house Nest, the smart home thermostat company, and Calico, which dwells on Longevity, Google Ventures, and Google X.The Google X team recently produced the computer-on-your-lenses Google Glass. Development for this project appears to have stalled, though. Google X is also the team responsible for the company’s self-driving cars, which were announced way back in 2014.

Billionaire Background

Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Russia, in August 21st, 1973. His family moved to the United States in order to escape the persecution of Jews that was taking place in 1979. Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin, Brin’s father,was a Soviet mathematician-economist. After getting his degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park, Sergey enrolled at Stanford. That’s where he met Larry Page. Both Page and Brin were completing doctoral programs in Computer Science.

As part of their Stanford research project, Brinand Page created a search engine program that could list pages based on their popularity. This was based on the conclusion that the most popular listings are often the most useful. This search engine program was named Google, inspired by the mathematical term‘googol’, which refers to 1 followed by a hundred zeros. The duo chose this name to reflect their mission to organize massive volumes of information available on the Internet.

After raising a million dollars from friends, family and investors, Larry and Sergey launched Google in 1998. Google held its IPO in 2004, making both Page and Brinbillionaires. The company processes billions of searches every day. Google has managed to purchase a number of companies in robotics, nanoparticles and many other fields related to computing. Apparently, the company’s appetite for expansion is a phenomenal one.

Google’s Success Secrets

1.     Focus on the User

Ever since its launch, Google has focused on providing the best possible experience to users. They take ultimate care to make sure that they serve the user rather than their own internal bottom lines. The company’s homepage interface is indeed one of the clearest and simplest. This undivided focus on the user is one key factor that has contributed to Google’s success.

2.    Do One Thing Extremely Well

Just like Facebook did, Google has managed to do one thing extremely well. The company’s major specialty is solving search problems. They are already improving their useful service, making it easier for millions of people to find the information they are looking for.

3.    Fast is Better than Slow

Google understands that its users’ time is valuable. People go to search engines because they want to find answers fast. Google might the only website in the world whose goal is to have users leave their homepage as soon as possible. The average wait time on a search result is a fraction of a second. By striving to work even faster, Google has broken its own speed records countless times before.

4.    Democracy Works

Google appreciates democracy on the web. The search engine works because it counts on the people who are posting links on their sites to help establish what websites are offering valuable content. They assess the authority of every single web page using a collective of over 200 signals, and a variety of techniques as well.

5.    The Need for Information is Universal

Google was founded in the U.S, with a goal to make access to information around the world easier. Today, the company has offices in dozens of countries and offers its search interface in over 110 languages. Using the tools that the search giant provides, users can be able to consume information created in languages they do not understand.

For Google, being great at something isn’t just enough. The company sets goals that can’t be reached yet and stretches to meet them. Through a vibrant innovation and interaction plan, Google has managed to achieve the unachievable.

#5 Jack Ma– Founded Alibaba Group

Net Worth

$21.9 Billion

Age

51

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Alibaba

Residence

Hangzhou, China

Nationality

China

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, Hangzhou Institute

From New York to Davos, Jack Ma has emerged to become the symbol of China’s global rise in Internet and smartphone users. Mr. Ma’s ecommerce business, Alibaba Group set a record in New York as the world’s biggest public stock offering when it reached $21.8 billion in 2014. Jack Ma is a bold and lively entrepreneur. He has invested in movies like Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation, formed a web portal with American department store Macy’s, and created a sports division with Chinese partners. Although the company’s stocks were taking a downward turn as of 2015, Alibaba was quick to point out that selling knock-off goods by 3rd party merchants is a risk faced by all global platforms, including Amazon and eBay.

Billionaire Background

Jack Ma was born in September 10th1964 in China’s Zhejiang province. Both his parents were traditional musician-storytellers. Ma had a desire to learn English at an early age. Each morning, he rode on his bike to a proximate hotel and talked to foreigners there. Given the chance, he guided them around the city, with the goal to improve his grasp of English. Ma reckons that he did this for 9 years, cultivating a pen pal relationship with a foreigner who nicknamed him‘Jack’, because his Chinese name was difficult to pronounce.

Jack Ma failed the entrance exam for university three times, but managed to get a slot at the Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute, where he graduated with a Bachelors in English in 1988. Ma was a student leader while at the school.

Ma had heard about the internet as early as 1994, and in 1995, he had managed to travel to America, where he learnt more about it. In April of 1995, he teamed up with his wife and a friend, raised $20, 000, and launched an internet company that created websites for local businesses. The company was named“China Yellow Pages”, and was worth about $800, 000 three years later. In 1999, Ma quit his job at a tech company to found Alibaba in his apartment, with the help of 17 friends. By January 2000, the startup had attracted venture capital worth $25 million. Ma’s main goal was to enhance the condition of global e-commerce system. In 2003, he founded Alipay, TaoBao marketplace, Lynx and Ali Mama. Noting the rapid rise of TaoBao, eBay offered to purchase the company, but Ma rejected. At the time, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang supported Jack Ma’s company with a $1 billion investment.

In 2014, Alibaba became one of the most valuable tech firms globally, after raising $25 billion at the NYSE IPO. This was the biggest IPO in US financial history. Today, Jack Ma serves as the Exec. Chair of the Alibaba Group that houses 9 major subsidiaries, including the Taobao Marketplace, eTao, Tmall, Alibaba.com, Alibaba Cloud Computing, 1688.com, Alipay, AliExpress and Juhuasuan.

11 Keys to Success from Jack Ma

It takes an extraordinary person to amass a net worth of over $20 billion. Founder and CEO of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma is one such extraordinary person who has never lost his sense of perspective. Below are Jack Ma’s 8 keys to success.

1.     Value Attitude

Ma says that attitude and passion are more important than theoretical skills. Great leaders are able to inspire passion in their employees.

2.    Unite People under a Goal

Jack Ma understands that it is hard to convince each single person. Instead of trying to bring his company together under the vision of a single person, he unites his teams under a specific, common goal.

3.    Foresight

Ma believes that good leaders ought to have foresight. It’s important for any leader to develop one’s creative thinking ability, and follow informed intuition!

4.    Know How to Hire

According to Ma, a successful leader hires employees with superior skills.

5.    Tenacity

Leaders must be tenacious, and must have a clear vision. It’s important to know what you want to accomplish, and willing to chase it down the challenging path of success.

6.    Defy Failure

According to Jack Ma,“giving up is the greatest failure.” Set out on a goal, and see it through to success, regardless of how many times you fail. Like all inspirational leaders, Ma acknowledges that fact that we learn the most from the hardships and obstacles that we face.

7.    Love for Life

“If you’re spending your entire life working, you’ll surely regret it,” says Ma. Life is about enjoying, and making things better for others.

8.   Expect the Unexpected

As Jack Ma keeps of saying, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.

9.    Connections are Not a Must for Success

According to Ma, connections are not a necessity for success– you don’t need a rich father, you only need customers that support you.

10.                       Money is a Responsibility

When Jack Ma graduated from college, he earned $20 a month teaching English in China. When you’ve made your first million, you’re a lucky person, but when you’ve got many millions, you’ve got a lot of trouble. The more money you have, the bigger the responsibility on your shoulders.

11. Think Ahead

Alibaba is success not because they did a superb job today, but because they had a great dream 15 years ago.

#6 Ma Huateng – Run’s China’s Top Online Chat Service

Net Worth

$16.9 Billion

Age

44

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Internet

Residence

Shenzhen, China

Nationality

China

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, Shenzhen University

Ma Huatengis also popularly known as Pony Ma. He is one of China’s most renowned internet tycoons. Mr. Huateng founded TencentHoldings, China’s biggest internet portal, in 1998, and is its CEO. Tencent’sinstant messaging service, QQ.com, is ranked among the 10 largest websites globally. The Group’s WeChat mobile messaging service boasts over 600 million users and is an enabler for mobile commerce via its WeChat Wallet. Equally impressive, Tencent Games is today the largest online gaming community in China.

Billionaire Background

Ma Huateng, of Han nationality, was born in 1971 in Chaoyang, China’s Guangdong province. Ma’s nickname‘Pony’ comes from the English translation of his family name, which means‘horse’. As a teenager, Pony Ma moved to Shenzhen, where he studied software engineering at the Shenzhen University, graduating in 1993. Upon completing his studies, Ma Huateng worked at various companies, including Shenzhen Runxun Communications Co. Ltd., and China Motion Telecom Development Ltd, where he gained experience in internet calling systems, and internet paging systems respectfully.

In 1998, Ma Huateng ganged up with 4 friends and co-founded Tencent, Inc. The money they initially invested in the company mostly came from stock market earnings. The group found the going quite challenging during the first few years, and Ma took up various positions at the company, from website designer to janitor, in order to keep the business afloat. Initially, Tencent offered e-mail and internet paging services. Tencent announced its internet messaging service, QQ, in 1999. In order to attract a bigger market share, the company was offering the service for free (free download). This appears to have been the right strategy, as they were able to scale to over 5 million users in just a year. At this stage, Ma was able to offer more benefits for QQ users, including memberships and ring tones. He customized some products and expanded cellular phone services. By 2004, Tencent was already the biggest instant messaging platform in China. In June 2004, the company announced its public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Stock prices rose by nearly 60 percent. Since Ma wasn’t convinced that Tencentwould continue being successful, he pursued an expansion strategy while at the same time retaining the firm’s core instant messaging business.

In 2004, Tencent also added games to its list of services. This announcement pulled over a million online Chinese gamers. The company was also looking at how it could add e-commerce to its existing services. By 2012, WeChat had over 200 million active users. In 2013, Tencentfeatured on the Forbes Asia Fab 50 list of the region’s best big companies.

Quick Success Lessons from Tencent

Tencent’s core instant messaging business, QQ, has over 1 billion global users. Here are some tech lessons to be learned from the massive success of this Asian tech giant.

- Strong Service Offering – Chat is a crucial service for everyone. As the Internet developed, the need for effective communication services in China and elsewhere was rampant. Tencent was able to create and offer this service at a time when users were realizing how badly they needed.

- Huge Market – Tencent was able to capitalize on the large numbers of the Chinese market for its own success. The company created a social service for an extensive market.

- Persistence – in 2000, during the Winter of the Internet, Tencent was almost going under. The company was facing multiple financial benefits, and Ma Huateng was switching posts between janitor and web designer. But through persistence, Tencent was able to see the Spring of the Internet.

#7 Robin Li– Co-Founded Baidu, China’s Most Popular Search Engine

Net Worth

$12.3 Billion

Age

47

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Internet Search

Residence

Beijing, China

# of Children

4

Nationality

China

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, University at Buffalo

Along with Alibaba Group and TencentHoldings, Robin Li’s search business Baidu is one of 3 dominant forces in China’s Internet arena. Competition from peers and the shift from desktop to mobile computing has compelled Baidu to be more involved in video platforms, e-commerce, and linking its online audience to offline services such as tickets purchase, and food delivery. This diversification appears to have diminished the company’s profits in recent times, but Baidu Chairman Robin Li says the focus is on long-term benefits.

Billionaire Background

Robin Li is a Chinese Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of China’s search engine Baidu and is one of the richest people in China. Li

Why Baidu is So Successful

Baidu has an 80% share in the Chinese market. In China, the general consensus is that if you‘can’t find it on Google’, you can‘find it on Baidu.’ The company’s success can be summed up to the following:

1.     Less is more

Like its founder, Robin Li, Baidu advocates minimalism. It focuses on diving into a large market and offering a perfect product. The company’s philosophy is to‘never increase an entity unless it’s necessary’. Baidu has been able to apply this principle in their product design to push user experience first. Like Google, Facebook and a lot other successful internet companies, it follows the rule that products have to stay easy and simple for the consumer.

2.    Taking Huge Risks

Like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Baidu’s Robin Li is a risk taker. The company faced a defining moment towards the end of 2009 when they announced a move to switch from the traditional advertising system to a more effective system similar to Google’s Adwords. The risk was huge in that it involved hundreds of thousands of clients and millions of keywords. Since customers’ habits are hard to change, one false move could lead to the search giant’s customers leaving in droves. Despite the risk, Robin Li had a strategic long-term goal in mind. He set the switchover to December 1, and although there were negative ramifications thereafter, customers adopted first, and Baidu even recorded an increased profit the following year.

Most of Baidu’s success secrets are similar to Google’s. The company has deployed a perfect, simplistic and effective search product that helps the Chinese audience find the information they are looking for in a fraction of a second.

#8 Masayoshi Son– Control’s Japanese Internet and Telecom firm Softbank

Net Worth

$11.4 Billion

Age

58

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Internet, Telcom

Residence

Tokyo, Japan

# of Children

2

Nationality

Japan

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, Berkeley, CA

Masayoshi Son’s mobile internet company Softbank spent a tremendous amount of money to buy a 32% stake in Alibaba after the Chinese e-commerce giant went public in 2014. Although Alibaba’s shares have been dropping in recent times, Son has hinted that he will stick with his holdings over the long term. Mr. Masayoshi is inspired by the legendary billionaire investor, Warren Buffett. He plans to sink about ten billion dollars in Indian startups. In 2014, Son introduced a human-looking robot named‘Pepper’, seen as the first ever robotics device that could sense human feelings. Masayoshi has also taken an interest in content creation, investing $250 million in Legendary Entertainment, the company that created“Godzilla” and“Interstellar”. Masayoshi spends about half his time in the United States.

Billionaire Background

Although ethnic Koreans, Son’s family adopted the Japanese surname Yasumoto. Young Son used this name throughout his childhood. Son’s started pursuing interests in business after securing a meeting with Japan’s McDonald president Den Fujita. Following his advice, young Son studied English and Computer Science. He moved to California when 16 years old, and completed high school staying with family and friends in San Francisco. He went to the University of California, Berkeley and LA. He majored in economics and learned computer science. Inspired by a microchip featured in a magazine, 19 year old Son was confident the computing technology would fuel the upcoming commercial revolution.

Compelled that anything microchip-related could bear a fortune, young Son decided to come up with at least 1 entrepreneurial idea daily. Eventually, he patented a translating device that he sold to Sharp Electronics for $1 million.

Building & Rebuilding an Empire

Masayoshi Son build the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank from zero, only to lose most of it to the dot.com crash. His choice? Return to the company he founded from nothing, and restore it to its former glory. The Japanese born billionaire kicked off his entrepreneurial career while still a teenager at the University of California, Berkeley. He leased arcade games such as Space Invadersto and Pac-Man. He also leased venues for music in California. This quickly earned him almost a million dollars. And that was just the starting point.

His first gig in the technology world was when he teamed up with his UC Berkeley physics professor, Forrest Mozer, to develop and patent a pocket dictionary. Once the device was ready, Son started getting in touch with companies that might be interested in buying it. Eventually, Sharp electronics bought it in 1979, for what would be equivalent to about 1 million dollars today.

The young man’s unique mindset and incredible business acumen was a great benefit to him when he moved back to Japan after college, to start work on the largest mobile internet company in the country today.

Masayoshi Son started SoftBankin 1981. Although starting out as a PC software distributor, the company quickly graduated into an outfit that invested in telecom ventures and new tech. One of the most brilliant early moves by the company is that it developed a system that allowed Japanese customers to choose local and long-distance services for calls based on what different companies were charging. This was a revolutionary offering especially at a time when most customers didn’t have much choice.

As the internet skyrocketed, Masayoshi Son made sure that his company invested significantly in promising startups. He went on to craft a partnership with Yahoo! launching its Japanese edition in 1996. Son stepped down as chairman of that partnership in 2015. But the two companies share a good working relationship, and SoftBank still retains a 36% stake.

As the dot-com bubble burst, Son witnessed his company deflate. Between its peak and its lowest point in the early 2000s, SoftBanklost about 98% in value, and Son’s net worth degraded by over $70 billion. But despite this massive loss, Son still doesn’t believe that there was any bubble.

Masayoshi Son and his SoftBankengaged a number of steps to steer their company to profitably again. One of the key things that they did is invest in internet, by leasing infrastructure from Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone. This was a truly out-of-the-box move that saw the company provide speeds of up to 12 Mbps for only $21 monthly. This brilliant move brought intense competition to Japan’s high-speed internet arena and opened new opportunities for SoftBank. In 2006, the company bought Japan-based Vodafone KK for $15.4 billion and used it as a platform to build its mobile business. Although the buyout came with a lot of debt balance for SoftBank, it helped the company increase its mobile presence, as well as set the stage for Masayoshi Son’s next move. Son saw potential in the iPhone, and the company’s decision to launch the phone proved to be a huge success. His company was the exclusive carrier for the iPhone one till late 2011. This helped elevate the company’s subscriptions, as well as outpace the competition. SoftBank purchased Sprint for $21 billion in 2013. This gave it a 70% stake in the U.S. carrier and helped the company established its role in the mobile space.

Through these strategic maneuvers, Son’s personal wealth also recovered. By 2014, he was listed as the 38th most powerful person by Forbes Magazine and the richest man in Japan.

In addition to building and rebuilding his empire, Son has been heavily involved in giving back. For instance, he pledged $120 million plus his annual salary till retirement to help victims of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. He plans to retire in his 60s. But until he does, he’ll likely keep making the bold moves that have defined his place in the tech scene.

#9 Eric Schimidt – Chairman, Google

Net Worth

$10.6 Billion

Age

60

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Google

Residence

Atherton, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Ph.D., Berkeley, CA

Eric Schmidt is Google’s chairman and a global ambassador for the search giant. Mr. Schimidt has visited a number of the world’s most authoritarian regimes, including Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Cuba, to advocate for open Internet access.  In August 2015, Google announced that Schmidt would be the chairman of Alphabet, the parent Google announced to house its business ventures. The majority of Schmidt’s wealth originates from Google stock. In 2005, his investment vehicle purchased a 20% stake in hedge fund company D.E. Shaw. Eric Schmidt is also a founding partner at Innovation Endeavors, a venture capital firm with offices in Tel Aviv and Palo Alto. This firm apparently invests in tech startups, including AngelList, and Uber, among others. Schmidt was the CEO of Google between 2001 and 2011. Before that, he held posts as the CEO of Novell, and the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Sun Microsystems. He studied electrical engineering at Princeton and later obtained a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. By 2013, Schmidt was already the 138th richest person globally, with wealth estimated at $9.1 billion.

Billionaire Background

Eric Emerson Schmidt was born on April 27th, 1955 in Washington, D.C. He is an American entrepreneur and software engineer, as well as the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc.

Schmidt spent his youth years in Northern Virginia. He was one among three sons of Eleanor, holder of a Master’s Degree in Psychology, and Emerson Schmidt, Professor of international economics at Johns Hopkins University and Virginia Tech. Schmidt went to Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia, where he graduated in 1972. He later attended Princeton University to study electrical engineering. In 1979, Schmidt earned an M.S. degree for crafting and implementing a computer network (Berknet) that connected the school’s computer center and the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. He also earned a Ph.D. degree in EECS in 1982. Eric Schmidt was a joint author of Lex at Bell Labs. This was a program that generated a lexical analyzer from regular expressions. A lexical analyzer is an important tool for compiler construction. In the early 2000s, Schmidt taught strategic management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Earlier in his career, Schmidt held a number of technical positions in IT firms, including Byzromotti Design, Zilog, Bell Labs, and Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. He joined Sun Microsystems in 1983 as its first software manager, quickly rising to become director of software engineering, then V. president of the general systems group, and later on the president of Sun Technology Enterprises. He became Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Novell’s board in April 1997. In 2001, he left after the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners.

Schmidt at Google

Google’s founders, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, interviewed Schmidt. He was impressive, and the young Google duo hired him in 2001, to run their company under the oversight of venture capitalists Michael Moritz and John Doerr. Schmidt joined Google’s board of directors in August 2001. He shared the daily responsibilities of running Google with Larry and Brin. In 2007, Schmidt was ranked by PC World as being number 1 on its list of the 50 most important people on the web. Other people featured on the list were Google’s co-founders, Page, and Brin. Schmidt is one of the very few people who have become billionaires as a result of stock options obtains as an employee in a corporation in which he or she was neither a founder nor a family member of the founders.

On April 2011, Schmidt was replaced by Page ass CEO of Google. But he continues to serve as the company’s executive chairman and an advisor to co-founders Page and Brin.

When asked about the future of the web during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Eric Schmidt said that the‘internet will simply disappear’. Apparently, Schmidt was referring to the‘internet of things’, where the internet will be part of your presence at all time.

#10 William Ding– Founded China’s No. 2 Online Game Company

Net Worth

$9.2 Billion

Age

44

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Online Gaming

Residence

Guangzhou, China

Nationality

China

Education Level

Bachelors

A couple of years ago, investors were debating whether PC-era Chinese bigwigs such as Robin Li’s Baidu, and William Ding's NeEasewould successfully transition to a mobile-centered world. Clearly, they have. Popular mobile games have helped William Ding’s brainchild, NetEase, grow its revenue by almost two-thirds in the first half of 2015. China’s internet profits greatly from multiplayer gaming. Thanks to Ding Lei, founder of NetEasegaming portal, millions of people can play games on a daily basis. William Ding Lei’s gaming portal hosts top popular international games, including World of Warcraft. When Mr. Lei invented NetEase, little did the engineering graduate from Chengdu College know that he would eventually turn out to be a‘video game billionaire’.

Billionaire Background

William Ding Lei was born in October 1971, in China’s Zhejiang province. He studied electronic science and tech at the Chengdu College, where he scored a bachelor’s degree. Post-graduation, he worked as an engineer at a local state department. He then traveled to Guangzhou where he worked for Sybase. He later left Sybase, founded NetEase and went on to become the richest person in Mainland China as of 2003. At the time, his net worth was estimated to be $5.2 billion.

Ding Lei Success Lessons

William Deng’s NetEase success has been meteoric but rocky. He never expected to be one of the richest persons in China. While some critics think he was just happy, he has insisted that people who want to be strong must create opportunities. Smart people seize opportunities and never let them slip through their fingers. Below are some crucial success lessons from William Ding and NeEase.

1.     Setting a Goal

As a young man, Deng’s dream was to be a successful mechanical engineer. His life heroes were Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison. After graduating from college, Ding could make software, and he stood out from his peers. He quit a job at China Telecom and gave up attractive pay from a foreign-funded enterprise to pursue his goal. According to Ding, setting a goal is the first step towards achievement.“Nothing is easy if one has no idea of where to go,” he says.

2.    The Responsibilities

According to William Ding, NetEase is a responsibility for clients, users, investors, employees and the internet. His responsibility is to make NetEasethe best it can ever be. Ding’s aim was to make gaming both educational and enjoyable. He believes in the foreseeable future, the Internet will develop even more dramatically in China. And he is prepared to take the challenge.

#11 Pierre Omidyar – Founded Ebay

Net Worth

$7.7 Billion

Age

48

Source of Wealth

Self Made, eBay

Residence

Honolulu, HI

# of Children

3

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, Tufts University

Pierre Omidyar is the founder and Chairman of eBay, the online auction giant. Mr. Omidyar is the single largest shareholder at eBay, with an 8% stake. However, he is not involved in the day to day operations at the company. In late 2013, Mr. Omidyar also launched First Look Media, a company that aimed at presenting new approaches to independent journalism. With a $250 million pledge from Omidyar, First Look launched its first ever digital magazine, known as‘The Intercept’, in February 2014, featuring work from the popular investigative journalist, Glenn Greenwald. Mr. Omidyar spends time on his philanthropic investment firm, Omidyar Network, and is a member of the Giving Pledge. Omidyar and his wife have recently funded campaigns against human trafficking, including a $115 million funding for United Foundation, which bankrolls up to 85 nonprofits that seek to stop modern-day slavery.

Billionaire Background

Pierre Omidyar is an Iranian-American economist who founded Ebay.com. He was born in June 21st, 1967 in Paris, France, to Iranian Parents, but his family immigrated to the U.S. when he was only 6 years old. Unlike most other internet billionaires, Pierre Omidyardidn’t set out to be an internet tycoon. He moved to Maryland when his father accepted a residency at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. He created his first computer program at 14 years of age, designed to catalog books at his school’s library.

eBay

Omidyar graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Tufts Unversity in 1988. He first worked for both Macintosh and Apple, before founding eBay. Ebay, the multi-billion dollar online auction company that you know today, started out in the summer of 1995. Omidyarwrote code for his auction invention when he was 28 years old. He created a page named‘Auction Web’ on his personal website, which he used to let people list items for auction. To his surprise, the page attracted so many sellers and buyers that he soon decided to set up a separate website dedicated to just auctions. Omidyar charged between 25 cents and $2 to people who wished to sell something through auction notice. He also obtained a small amount out of every sale. This way, the company was able to generate revenue by simply creating a hub where buyers and sellers could meet. At this time, Pierre was working for General Magic, an Apple-backed Internet Phone Venture. This time, his auction site was growing phenomenally. He quit his day job nine months after the launch of the company’s first auction, to focus solely on Ebay.

In 1998, he was named eBay’s chairman, after which he selected Meg Whitman to be the president and CEO of the company. Ebay has continued to thrive since then, under the direction of Meg Whitman, who has effectively expanded the auction launch   to offer services in other jurisdictions such as Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. She has also overseen a number of joint ventures and acquisitions.

By the end of 1998, eBay had over 2.1 million users and made generated over $750 million in revenues. This was more than enough to catch the eye of e-commerce giant Amazon.com, which launched its own auctions in 1999. Today, there are countless auction websites on the web. The sector has become so successful that industry critics have predicted it might be the dominant e-commerce model in the future.

Omidyar accepted his first board position outside eBay. He became a member of the board for ePeople, and e-marketplace focusing on technical support services. Omidyar is married to Pamela Wesley, and the couple has three children.

#12 Hiroshi Mikitani – Run’s Japan’s Top Online Shopping Mall

Net Worth

$6.2 Billion

Age

50

Source of Wealth

Self Made, e-Commerce

Residence

Tokyo, Japan

# of Children

1

Nationality

Japan

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Harvard

Hiroshi Mikitaniis a popular name in Japan. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the country’s biggest e-retailer, Rakuten. Even as a billionaire, Mikitani is still in the game of hunting for the next deal. In 2014, he picked up Ebates, a website that allowed people in the United States to earn something when purchasing stuff at stores such as Home Depot and Macy’s, for $1 billion. In March of 2015, Rakuten also acquired OverDrive, an Ohio-based company for $410 million. In the same month, the company bought a 12% stake in Lyft for $300 million. Hiroshi Mikitaniis notably the head of Japan’s Association of New Economy, a key group of tech companies that work with the country’s top leadership to ramp up the nation’s economic advancement. Mikitani has been reported as building a $20 million home in Japan’s catch Shibuya ward. He spends a lot of time in California, where he owns a second home. Hiroshi has managed to develop Rakuten from a local startup to an international business.

Billionaire Background

Hiroshi Mikitani was born on March 11th, 1963, in Kobe, Japan. His father, Ryoichi, was an economist, while his mother, Setsuko, was an employee at a top trading company. He was born in a family of three, with a brother named Kenichi and a sister named Ikuko. There isn’t much that can be gathered on Hiroshi’s background, other than the fact that he graduated from Hitotsubashi University in 1998, before going to Harvard Business School in 1993. During this time, he was an employee at the Industrial Bank of Japan. Before launching Rakuten, there wasn’t much to Hiroshi’s career. He worked for the Industrial Bank of Japan since 1988 (after graduating), and left after 9 years to start Crimson Consulting Group in 1997. It was also in 1997 that he founded Rakuten. This just shows that Hiroshi was not the sort of a person who vies up on one job or business easily. He worked in one company for nearly a decade, before upgrading to his own enterprise.

Rakuten

Rakuten was established in 1997, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani and a few other co-founders. The group raised 250, 000 of their cash to fund the launch. Today, Rakuten is a solid group consisting over 40 different businesses and services, in different industries.

- Online retail

- Banking

- Travel

- Securities

- Media

- Sports

- Entertainment

Examples of some of the businesses the company has started include Play.com, Kenko.com, Viber, and Aquafadas. Until 2005, Rakutenwas only based in Japan. After that, they began creating sub-companies in Canada, the UK, Spain, and France, among many other countries. The company bought Viber for $900 million, and Play.com for£25 million. The company employs more than 11, 000 individuals, with a revenue of $5.3 billion as of 2013.

Hiroshi’s tips on Empowering an Organization

In a recent LinkedIn post, Hiroshi Mikitani published his 3 tips on empowering an organization.

Tip #1 – Team Work

Organizations should demand that their employees work together to solve problems. This helps cultivate a culture of empowerment in the organization. Each member of the team should feel that they are responsible for themselves, and the success of the entire team. Collaboration is a great way for employees to give more to the team while at the same time expecting more in return.

Tip #2 – Allow for Failure

There’s a significant difference between business and sports. There are a limited number of shots for success in sports. In business, however, you can try as many times as you like. In order to make sure that employees keep playing, business leaders must emphasize that the enterprise will accept trials. And that along, the way, failure could happen. When leaders accept this, employees are encouraged to keep trying.

Tip #3 – Avoid Chaos

Empowerment has little or nothing to do with giving each person freedom to do whatever they want. Rakuten uses KPI (Key Performance Indicators) to help prevent chaos. The organization measures everything. They know how long it’d take a certain project to move through completion. They know how many developers it takes to effect a system change. They even know how long it takes an employee in the front office to reach a meeting room on the 12th floor. The organization keeps employees empowered by setting specific and clear goals.

#13 Charles Schwab– Former Steel Magnate Who Brought Online Investing to the Masses

Net Worth

$6.2 Billion

Age

78

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Discount Brokerage

Residence

Atherton, CA

# of Children

5

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Stanford

Charles (‘Chuck’) Schwab is the investment czar credited with democratizing investment. He stepped down from his top post at his eponymous firm in 2008, although he remains its biggest shareholder, cultural core, and executive chairman. Schwab started his brokerage firm (the San Francisco-based Charles Schwab Corporation) in 1971, rubbing the competition by charging half what other brokers asked for. He managed to cut fees this by choosing to stick to the basics. Boosted by deregulation of brokerage commissions, and a commanding lead in online trade, Schwab‘s company had amassed over $2.5 trillion in client assets. Today, most of the company’s revenue emanates from investment management, and the company attracted media spotlight again in 2015 when it became one of the leading major firms to allow automated investment advice.  In addition to his money-making activities, Charles Schwab actively engages in a number of volunteer and nonprofit activities. Together with his wife Helen, he co-founded the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation.

Billionaire Background

Charles Schwab was born in Sacramento, CA. He graduated from Stanford, with a degree in economics, and a Master in Business Administration. He is a father of five children. He lives with his wife in Sacramento, San Francisco Bay Area.

The first job Schwab took, he was selling walnuts. That was before he ventured into his own brokerage company in 1974, based on a $75, 000 loan from family and friends, and just four employees to start with. In 1978, Charles made a bold bet– take advantage of his own image to advertise the company. This essentially put a human face to a firm in the brokerage space and helped send droves of clients to the company. The millionth customer account at the company was opened in 1985. In 1995, Charles Schwab’s company joined the internet, published a catchy pitch labeled the Schwab Investment Doctrine that offered advice Schwab-style. Online accounts topped a million in 1997. He took a corporate backseat in 1998, grooming David Pottruckto take the helm. By the end of 2003, Charles had decided to return to his company’s board, and revenues hit a record $1 billion in 2006.

#14 Andreas Von Bechtolsheim – Got Rich From a $100, 000 Early Stake in Google.

Net Worth

$4.8 Billion

Age

60

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Google

Residence

Palo Alto, CA

Nationality

German

Marital Status

Single

Education Level

Masters, Carnegie Mellon

Andreas‘Andy’ von Bechtolsheimis the chairman and CDO (Chief Development Officer) of network switching firm Arista Networks. The company’s successful IPO in 2014 was crowded by lawsuits from long-time partner David Cheriton, and Cisco (ex-employer). David Cheriton, also an internet billionaire, co-founded Arista with Bechtolsheimand is also the firm’s biggest shareholder. In the lawsuit, he claimed that Arista Networks had violated a licensing agreement with his software venture OptumSoft. Rival firm Cisco also accused Arista of infringing patents, inclusive of those based on the work both Cheriton and Bechtolsheim did as employees of Cisco. Both Cheriton and Bechtolsheimgo back to 1998, when each one contributed $100, 000 to fund Google, then a startup. That single investment has made both men billionaires. Although it’s hard to predict the outcome of the IPO lawsuit, Andy is nonetheless and accomplished entrepreneur who has amassed massive wealth from various strategic bets.

Billionaire Background

Andreas von Bechtolsheim was born in Germany on September 30th, 1955. He grew up on a farm that had a distant view of the Alps. He is the second of 4 children. His isolated home had distant neighbors and no television. He experimented with various electronics as a kid. His family moved to Rome in 1963, and Germany again in 1968. By the time Andy was 16 years of age, he developed an industrial controller, basing it on the Intel 8008, for a nearby firm. The royalties he earned from this product supported most of his education. While studying engineering at the University of Technology Munich, young Andy participated in a contest for young researchers and scored the physics prize in 1974. He received the Fulbright Award in 1975 and moved to the US to go to Carnegie Mellon University. This is where he got his M.S. degree in computer engineering a year later. Bechtolsheim went to Silicon Valley in 1977, working for Intel. However, he quit after they transferred him to Oregon during the first week. He scored a summer job at the Stanford University, where he also started studying for a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

String of Innovations & Investments

While at Stanford, Bechtolsheim crafted a superior computer (workstation), featuring built-in networking. The machine was called the SUN workstation. The origin of this name was the initials for Stanford University Network. Forest Baskettwas Andy’s advisor. In 1980, Vaughan Pratt also inspired the young talent. Support for the SUN project was also provided by DARPA and the Stanford Computer Science Department.

In partnership with a few individuals, Andy left Stanford to launch his company, Sun Microsystems. He was the number one employee. Three other members of the founding team included Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, and Bill Joy. Sun Microsystems had its first IPO in 1986, and hit $1 billion in sales two years later, by 1988.

In 1995, Bechtolsheim left Sun to establish Granite Systems, a company that would focus on the design and development of high-speed network switches. Cisco Systems bought the firm in 1996 at a cost of $220 million. At this time, Bechtolsheim owned 60% of the company. He became the Vice Presidentand general manager for Cisco’s Gigabit Systems Business. He left the company in 2003 to lead Kealia, Inc.

Bechtolsheim co-founded Kealia in 2001 with David Cheriton, a Stanford Professor who had also been a partner at Granite Systems. The company would focus on advanced server technologies. In 2004, Sun Microsystems acquired Kealia in a stock swap. Following this development, Andy went back to Sun, now serving as a senior Vice President and chief architect. In 2005, Bechtolsheim partnered with Cheriton to again launch another high-speed networking company. The company was named Arastra, but later changed its name to Arista Networks. He left Sun Microsystems to work as the Chief Development Officer at Arista in 2008. He would continue to serve an advisory role at Sun, though.

Bechtolsheim also co-founded HighBAR Ventures, together with two Sun colleagues. Bechtolsheim and Cheriton were among the first investors in google, each investing a hundred thousand dollars in 1998. In fact, Bechtolsheim wrote the cheque to google before the company was even founded. He inspired the founders to organize the startup under the name‘Google’. Resulting from investments like these, Bechtolsheimis seen as one of the most successful‘angel investors’, more so in areas related to electronic design automation.

#15 Jeffrey Skoll – eBay’s First President & Full-time Employee

Net Worth

$4.1 Billion

Age

50

Source of Wealth

Self Made, eBay

Residence

Los Angeles, CA

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Stanford

Jeffrey Skoll is a former eBay executive who has spent the past one decade as a film producer and philanthropist. Essentially, Mr. Skoll has been using his wealth to try to better the condition of the world. In April, he took over as interim CEO of Participant Media. Skoll launched Pivot TV a cable channel, in 2003. He has reportedly invested $200 million towards that effort. Jeffrey made his fortune as eBay’s first employee. He left the auction giant in 2001 to start the Skoll Foundation, which mostly backs high-potential social enterprises that are working to improve healthcare, education and access to employment in some of the poorest regions of the world. Since he launched Participant Media, the company has released over 60 films that are geared to inspire social change, including“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”,“The Help”, and the Edward Snowden documentary– Citizen Four.

Billionaire Background

Jeffrey Skoll was born in the French-Canadian city of Montreal, in 1965. His family moved to Toronto, Ontario, when he was a teenager. Skoll’s father owned an industrial chemicals supply company in the city. One day, his father came home and broke the sad news that he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer. Fortunately, his father survived the ailment, but it had a lasting effect on Skoll. He swore that in life, he would do the things he always wanted to do, and never position his career ahead of his personal goals.

Although Jeffrey wanted to be a writer, he reckoned that he first needed to make enough money to guarantee a comfortable living. His goal was to make some good money in his 2os and then retire early. Skoll studied electrical engineering and earned a degree at the University of Toronto in 1987. He started a computer consulting firm and run a profitable computer rental business. It wasn’t long before he realized that he lacked the management skills necessary to operate a business successfully. He went back to school and studied Business Administration at the Master’s level (M.B.A). He went to the Stanford University in California. Although there were homeless people in Canada, Skoll was stunned by a large number of homeless people in the San Francisco area. He went on to become an editor for The Reporter, a student newspaper at the Stanford Business School. He wrote about the gap between the rich and the poor in the world and offered insights as to what his generation– the business-school graduates– might do to reduce it. Skoll earned his Stanford M.B.A in 1995, after which he took a job at a newspaper. His role was overseeing the distribution channels for newspapers. At that time, a casual acquaintance of Skoll, a young programmer named Pierre Omidyar, started an online auction website– Auction Web. Pierre had managed to write a unique program for this site, and though he could use revenue from sales to bankroll a larger online empire. He shared his plan with Skoll, referring to it as a‘stupid idea’. Skoll agreed to come on board. Initially, Omidyar hired Skill to craft a business plan.

When eBay was formally launched in 1995, Jeffrey Skoll was its first employee. The name eBay originates from Omidyar’soriginal business name, Echo Bay Consulting Services. Soon enough, eBay’s auction business began to promptly catch on. The firm was netting thousands of additional users monthly. Most of these were either sellers or buyers of collectibles. It wasn’t long though before more sellers joined the bandwagon, bringing merchandise such as clothing, vinyl records, furniture, and tools. A feedback system was added that helped make the system transparent. Jeffrey Skoll and Pierre Omidyarwere amazed at how quickly the enterprise caught on.“We saw disaster around every corner,” Jeffrey told New Zealand Management. They were concerned that a bigger company, such as Yahoo, Excite or AOL, could turn their attention to the space and copy what they had done, almost instantly sending them out of business.

eBay IPO

Through the first couple of years, eBay didn’t have a real estate address, and Skoll’s Palo Alto home was its headquarters. He quit his newspaper distribution job in 1996, assuming the position of eBay’s full-time president. He was at the helm of the company’s meteoric growth for two years. When eBay issued its IPO in 1998, Skoll was given a 7.9 stake in the firm, and this made him an instant millionaire.

Meg Whitman, a very decorated American corporate executive, had replaced Jeffrey Skill as president of eBay in the run-up to the company’s IPO. Skoll was now a vice president for analysis and strategic planning. Though a millionaire, Skoll continued to live in his modest home and got a keen interest to share his wealth. The millionaires Skollmade from eBay’s IPO are the groundwork that have helped him amass his current fortune– worth billions of dollars.

One major lesson from Jeff Skoll is to believe in the essential goodness of human nature. He funds the Baycat arts education center in San Francisco, which helps at-risk children, and engages in a number of other charitable projects. Another main tip from Skoll is to forget about money, and just focus on doing a little good in the world.

#16 Marc Benioff– Founded Salesforce.com

Net Worth

$3.8 Billion

Age

51

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Business Software

Residence

San Francisco, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Southern California

Marc Benioff is the founder and chief executive of Salesforce.com, and a billionaire angel investor in dozens of promising tech startups. When he failed to agree to a deal to sell Salesforce to Microsoft in 2015, shareholders didn’t seem to mind. Salesforce stocks have been trending lately. Marc Benioff owns over 5% of the company and has been at its top since he co-founded it over a decade ago in 1999. Mr. Benioff also has a 13% stake in Fitbit, a fitness tracking company. Lately, the billionaire has been making headlines for his activism and philanthropy. He urged South Carolina to do away with its confederate flag and expressed his opposition to Indiana’s controversial laws on religious freedom. Marc Benioff worked at Apple, and Oracle for 13 years before leaving to start his company.

Billionaire Background

Marc Benioff was born in September 25th, 1964. Today, he is a renowned internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author. Benioff was raised in a Jewish family in San Francisco’s metro area. He went to Burlingame High School from where he graduated in 1982, before going to University of South California to study Business Administration. He earned his degree in 1986. Marc Benioff started his business ventures while still in high school when he sold his first app (How to juggle) for $75. At age 15, he also founded liberty software, created and sold games for Atari 8-bit computer. By the time he was 16, Benioff was already earning royalties of up to $15000 monthly. This was enough to pay for his college education. He scored an internship as an assembly language coder at Apple’s Macintosh division. He was inspired by Steve Jobs, the company’s co-founder. Benioff wanted to continue learning programming after college, but his professors urged him to acquire customer-based experience first. He joined Oracle after graduation, working in a customer-service position. Just three years in Oracle, Marc Benioff was promoted to Vice President, being the youngest employee to hold that post. He was only 23 years old.

Salesforce

Benioff launched Salesforce in March of 1999, from a rented apartment in San Francisco. Benioff has been credited with spinning the software space upside down, revamping the way applications are designed and distributed. He is a longtime evangelist of SaaS (Software as a service). By allowing his customers to construct their own apps on the company’s architecture, Marc Benioff has greatly been able to extend salesforce.

Marc Benioff’s Success Secrets

Here are a few lessons on leadership and vision from Marc Benioff, Chief Executive and chairman of salesforce.com, a cloud computing company.

- Be Inclusive – Benioff clearly intends Salesforce.com to be a community, rather a company. Apparently, he knows that a community is way too harder to stop.

- Be Confrontational- Marc Benioff is a billionaire who has never been afraid to pick a fight. He even seems to enjoy it. He aims to forge a narrative that pitches the salesforce community as a new revolution that’s against the old guard. In his speeches, he’ll occasionally throw a jab at Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and brush Oracle the wrong way. Many top-flying CEOs in the tech scene are hesitant to be provocative, but not Marc Benioff!

- Evolve– one of the reasons why Salesforce.com is what it is today is because Marc Benioff is good at evolving. He took advantage of Software as a service but then perceived cloud computing as being just around the corner. A little then, he saw social media as the hot thing. This way, less of his competitors are able to keep up.

- Be Infectious- Marc Benioff has been able to infectiously inspire his customers. He truly believes there’s a Salesforce.com revolution, and this kind of passion has transmitted to his community of customers.

#17 David Cheriton – Stanford Professor who Introduced Google’s Co-Founders to Each Other

Net Worth

$3.5 Billion

Age

64

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Google

Residence

Palo Alto, CA

# of Children

4

Nationality

Canadian

Marital Status

Divorced

Education Level

Ph.D., Waterloo

David Cheritonis a common name in the top internet billionaire’s list. He is a renowned Stanford University Professor and American tech entrepreneur whose early investment in search giant Google made him a billionaire. Of late, Cheritonwent to court just before the IPO of Arista, challenging the company’s alleged violation of licensing‘terms’ for a program made by his other software firm, OptumSoft. Arista is a company he co-founded with billionaire Andy Bechtolsheim. He owns a 13% stake. Prior to this lawsuit, David Cheriton, and Andy Bechtolsheim had a 30-year old business relationship. Each one of them invested an initial $100, 000 in Google that served as the basis of their wealth. They also co-founded Granite Systems and Kealia. Cheriton lives in the Palo Alto home he has owned for over 30 years.

Billionaire Background

David Ross Cheriton was born on March 29th, 1951 in Vancouver. He is a renowned Canadian mathematician, computer scientists, businessman, and venture capitalist. As a child, Cheriton went to public schools. Cheritonreceived his Mathematics degree from the University of British Columbia in 1973, and later obtained a Computer Science Master’s in 1974 and a Ph.D. on the same in 1978 from the University of Waterloo. For three years, he worked as a professor at British Columbia, before moving on to Stanford in 1981. He founded and chaired the Distributed Systems Group that developed V operating system at the Stanford University.

Industry & Wealth

Together with Bechtolsheim, he founded Granite Systems, a company that built Gigabit Ethernet gadgets, in 1995. Cisco would later purchase this company for $220 million. In August of 1998, two Stanford Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, convened with Andy Bechtolsheim on Cheriton’s front porch. Mr. Bechtolsheim wrote the due their first cheque to fund the new startup, Google. During the meeting, David Cheriton also matched Bechtolsheim’s $100, 000 investment.

In 2001, Cheriton and Andy co-founded another company, Kealia, that would build a top-capacity streaming video server. Later, the Duo founded Arista Networks, a company that made Gigabit Ethernet switches. Cheriton is also the founder of OptumSoft.

Besides Investing, David Cheriton has served on advisory boards or the BoDs (Boards of directors) for the startups he has supported. His experience in both business and computer science makes him a blessing to any tech-scene startup. Cheriton has said he likes to invest in companies that create products or services that he personally would be interested in using, such as Google's search engine.

In addition to being a professor at Stanford Univerity, David Cheriton has many investments in promising tech startups. He also has interests, including windsurfing, and music.

#18 Shi Yuzhu – Founded Giant Interactive, One of the Most successful Online gaming firms in China

Net Worth

$3.1 Billion

Age

53

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Online Gaming

Residence

Shanghai, China

# of Children

1

Nationality

China

Marital Status

Divorced

Education Level

Masters, Shenzhen University

Billionaire Shi Yuzhu is one of the most storied investors in China. His corporate outfit, Giant Interactive is expected to increase profitability after relisting in China. The company had earlier delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in a $3 billion transaction. Mr. Yuzhu is also Jack Ma’s co-investor in digital media company Wasu Media.

Billionaire Background

Shi Yuzhu was born in 1962, in an ordinary family. His father was a police officer. As a child, Yuzhuwas an active thinker. His love for books made him knowledgeable in a wide range of fields. He loved reading comics and mastered a keen understanding of China’s history and culture. By the time he was 10, Shi read a few things about making explosives. He decided to make one for himself, and following a few tests, he managed to do just that.

Shi Yuzhu earned a degree in mathematics from the Zhejiang University. He went on to study software engineering at Shenzhen University.

Business Engagements

Shi Yuzhu’s career in tech started in 1991 when he established the Zhuhai Giant Hi-Tech Group. But his appetite for quick growth and unachievable goals heavily indebted the business, eventually collapsing in 1997. Not one to be disillusioned, Shi reorganized his business and tried his luck in the health and online gaming sectors. Giant Interactive was founded in 2001, with the aim to focus exclusively on multiplayer online gaming. These are games that are played via networked servers, and allow participants to play as they interact and connect. Giant Interactive was first listed in the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. Yuzhu is also the director of MinshengBank and owns a huge percentage stake. He has bought shares in Beijing’s HuaxiaBank and diversified in China’s rice wine market.

Shi Yuzhu serves as the founder and president of Giant Interactive. Mr. Yuzhu appears to be opposed to foreign investment in Chinese firms. Recently, his company made a patented game (Glorious Mission) that pits the Chinese army against the American.

#19 Mark Cuban– Former Bar Tender who Sold Video Site to Yahoo for $5.7 Billion

Net Worth

$3 Billion

Age

57

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Online Media

Residence

Dallas, TX

# of Children

3

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, Indiana University

Mark Cuban is a former bartender who sold his video portal, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.9 billion– in 1999. Since then, he has spent the last 15 years half doing just about anything he wanted. One of his latest movies is starring as U.S. president in the shark-storm movie, Sharknado 3. Cuban has even fancied the prospect of running for the U.S. presidency. In recent times, Mark Cuban has been busy putting his money behind promising startups on ABC Shark Tank show. Amid all this frenzy of activities, Mark Cuban tries to enjoy his riches and live his dream lifestyle.

Billionaire Background

Mark Cuban was born on July 31st, 1958, in Pennsylvania. His father, Norton Cuban, was an automotive upholstery. In 1981, Cuban graduated from the Indiana University, where he was pursuing a degree in Business. He shifted to Dallas, Texas, after college, to create a computer consulting firm called‘MicroSolutions’. When he sold this company to CompuServe in 1990, it turned him into a millionaire. In 1995, Cuban and enterprise partner Todd Wagner started work on a new idea that would later graduate to Broadcast.com. This was a website dedicated to streaming live events through the web. In 1999, the duo sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo, bringing massive money to Cuban. In 2000, he bought NBA’s Dallas Mavericks Basketball Franchise at the cost of $285 million. Mark’s organizational skills helped the team rich the finals in 2006.

In 2001, Mark Cuban launched HDNet, a network that provided the highest quality of digital broadcast possible. Cuban and Wagner started a media outfit named 2929, which has stakes in scores of firms in the entertainment industry, including Lions Gate Entertainment, Landmark Theatres chain, and Magnolia Pictures.

Mark Cuban’s Secrets to Extraordinary Success

Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire“Shark Tan” investor, Mark Cuban, has created several businesses, and invested in over 120 promising enterprises throughout his career. Before earning his business success, Cuban was a recent graduate living in a crowded apartment. He decided to venture into his own businesses after being sacked from a job. Mark Cuban has outlined his 11 Mantras for success.

#1 Time is your Greatest Asset

How wisely you spend your time has a profound impact on the direction your life takes. Cuban launched his first business when he had no cash. Once it started realizing success, his secretary disappeared away with $83, 000 of the total $85, 000 that the business had. Cuban was not discouraged, he learned to code and did a lot of things to gain an edge over his competition. By the time he was done with MicroSolutions, he sold it for $6 million.

#2 Be Nice to People

According to Mark Cuban, being successful has everything to do with being able to relate well to people, and giving back as well.

#3 No balls, No babies

That’s something Cuban once heard from a blackjack dealer. Once you have prepared, you got to go for it.

#4 Fun is Part of Work

Mark says that if you do not dedicate some time for fun, your work will suffer. When Cuban launched his business, he took 7 years before even thinking of a vacation, but he emphasizes the importance of unwinding every once in a while.

#5 Change your Fear to Motivation

Cuban says that when you’re faced with a crisis situation, you have to convert your adrenalin to a determined mindset. Use fear to increase your competitiveness.

#6 Be Read for the Unexpected

It takes a success mindset to appreciate the fact that there are things you can never see coming. This way, you can take control when a thing changes unexpectedly. This also helps you see opportunities that other people are ignoring.

#7 How do you Rebound

Sometimes, you’ll be down– that’s how life works. But you’ll be judged based on how promptly you rebound.

#8 It’s About You

You are responsible for your own happiness and success. Cuban advices that you try to control the game, so that your rules govern the competition.

#9 Action is Key

Aspirations that aren’t followed by action are vain. Ask yourself how you can get from where you are to where you want to be.

#10 Pigs Get fat, but hogs get slaughtered

Cuban first heard this from business partner Wagner. When making a business dealing, don’t let greed get in the way, otherwise, you could miss out on great relationships. In every good dealing, there’s a win-win middle ground. Don’t try to squeeze every last penny out of a deal.

#11 One Move is All it Takes

Yes, it only takes a single move to be successful, regardless of how many times you may have failed.

Mark Cuban is popular for his clear views and bold mindset. This has a lot to do with his success in the entrepreneurial landscape. It’s impossible to anticipate what billionaire Mark Cuban will innovate, buy, sell, or produce next, but it’s evident whatever he does will be considered genius– like the man himself.

#20 Peter Thiel– Facebook’s First Outside Investor, PayPal Co-Founder

Net Worth

$2.8 Billion

Age

48

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Facebook, Palantir

Residence

San Francisco, CA

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Single

Education Level

J.D., Stanford

Peter Thiel is an early Facebook investor and a PayPal co-founder. Although he sold most of his Facebook shares during the 2012 IPO, he continues to sit on the social network’s board.  His biggest holding is in Palantir, a CIA-supported big data firm he cofounded and now chairs.  As of July 2015, the company was valued at $20 billion. Peter Thiel’s venture capital entity, Founders Fund, aims to boost firms that have the capacity to push rampant technological change. Some of his notable investments include Airbnb, a peer-to-peer renter, and payment services firm Stripe. Thiel Foundation awards young, talented entrepreneurs $100,000 through 2 years to skip college and follow their business interests.

Billionaire Background

Peter Andreas Thiel was born on October 11th, 1967 in Frankfurt, Germany. His father, Klaus Thiel, was a chemical engineer.  His mother is called Susanne, and he has a brother named Patrick Thiel.  His family immigrated to the United States when he was only a year old. He grew up in Foster City, California. As a young man, Peter Thiel was a US-rated Chess Master and appeared on top lists for under 21 players across the nation.

Thiel went to Stanford, where he studied 20th Century Philosophy. He scored his B.A. in 1989 and later obtained a J.D. in 1992 from the Stanford Law School. Along with Norman Book, he established The Stanford Review, which is now the college’s main newspaper, in 1987.

Thiel first worked as a court clerk after graduating from law school. He also worked for Credit Suisse Group between 1993 and 1996. He founded his multi-strategy fund, Thiel Capital Management, in 1996.

PayPal

In 1998, Peter Thiel and Max Levchinboth co-founded online payments system PayPal. Later, the company would merge with X.com. PayPal went public in 2002 (February). Later on, eBay bought it for $1.5 billion. Peter Thiel’s 3.7% ownership in PayPal was worth $55 million during that time.

In 2004, Thiel invested $500, 000 in social network startup Facebook, in exchange for 10.2% ownership in the company. He also joined Facebook’s board. His contribution has been portrayed in the 2010 movie, The Social Network. Thiel was not involved in the day-to-day running of Facebook, and his advice to Zuckerberg at the time was to“not fuck it up”. But he helped with the timing the rounds of timing. During Facebook’s IPO, Thiel sold 16.8 million shares for $638 million. He sold nearly all of his remaining shares for $395.8 million in 2012. In total, he had earned over a billion dollars from his initial investment in Facebook, and still had 5 million shares and a board position remaining.

In addition to Facebook, Peter Thiel has made massive early-stage invests in promising startups, either through his venture capital fund, or personally. Some of the company he has invested in include Slide, Booktrack, LinkedIn, Friendster, Geni.com, Rapleaf, Yammer, Powerset, Yelp, Inc., Practice Fusion, Vator, MetaMed, Palantir Technologies, Votizen, IronPort, Asana, Big Think, Quora, Caplinked, Ryple, Nanotronics Imaging, Stripe, Legendary Entertainment, and TransferWise.

Thiel is highly regarded in Silicon Valley. In 2013, he won the TechCrunch Crunchie Award for Venture Capitalist of the year.

#21 David Filo– Co-Founded Yahoo at Stanford University

Net Worth

$2.3 Billion

Age

49

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Yahoo

Residence

Palo Alto, CA

# of Children

1

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Stanford

David Filo cofounded Yahoo. Two decades later, he’s still helping run the platform. Assuming the title‘Chief Yahoo’, Mr. Filo is tasked with overseeing the company’s technical operations. Filo is Yahoo’s biggest shareholder, owning 7.5% of the company. In 1994, David Filo and Jerry Yang, classmates at Stanford Ph.D. program, cofounded Yahoo and dropped out the following year. In 2013, Filo and his wife helped create K12 Start Fund, an outfit that invests in Edu-tech companies.

Billionaire Background

David Filo was born on April 20th, 1966, in Wisconsin. But his family shifted to Louisiana. He went to high school at Sam Houston and later attended Tulane University, scoring a degree in computer engineering. Filo’s success story begins in Stanford, where he was listed for postgraduate studies. He met another doctoral candidate named Jerry Yang, and the pair started working on a computer chip design project. However, they found this particular project disinteresting, and often took to the internet to kill the boredom associated with academic work. They found out that the internet had a major organization discrepancy– it was hard to track websites they had previously visited.

Yahoo is Born

Together, they decided to craft a roadmap system for web users. This involved listing website they liked by organizing them based on topics. They started work on a search engine that could help people find websites based on keyword searches. Initially, the platform was called‘David and Jerry’s Guide to the Web’. Eventually, the list expanded and it became necessary to create more categories and subcategories. Later in the year, they renamed the platform‘Yahoo’.

As of November 1994, the company had 170, 000 daily users. Four years later, they were getting as much as a million users daily. A lot of the established tech corporations of that time, including Microsoft, AOL and Prodigy tried to buy Yahoo, but Filo and Yang had better plans. The duo was deriving a lot of enjoyment from their invention, but Stanford University was not happy with what they were doing. Apparently, Yahoo was increasing network traffic and crashing the campus system. Filo and Yang were asked to move off the campus, and that’s when they decided to make Yahoo a proper company. Venture capitalist Mike Moritz invested $1 million in the new startup. A team of friends and school interns was hired to help, with Tim Koogleas the company’s CEO and president.

Today, Yahoo is one of the leading internet brands and a highly trafficked network. Despite the wealth he has accumulated by being the largest individual owner at Yahoo, Filo’s life has changed little. He still drives his old Datsun. Filo is a generous philanthropist. Recently, he donated $30 million to the School of engineering at Tulane University.

In a quote, Filo says that one should be passionate about whatever they are doing. This way, you’ll enjoy the experience even if you fail. Filo argues that it doesn’t matter whether or not you turn out a billionaire, as long as you drive enjoyment from what you are doing. It’s not worth working tirelessly on something that one doesn’t like at all!

#22 Meg Whitman– Former eBay Chief, Current HP CEO

Net Worth

$1.98 Billion

Age

59

Source of Wealth

Self Made, eBay

Residence

Atherton, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Harvard

Meg Whitman is an accomplished corporate executive. As the current CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Meg has been busy overseeing the $111 billion (revenue) historic split as the company forms into two separate divisions. Following the split, Whitman is the head of HP Enterprise, the branch that will be tasked with business software, hardware, and services. Executive Vice President Dion Weisler is in charge of HP Inc., the PC, and printer division. Meg has been CEO of HP since 2011, after working at Hasbro, Bain & Co., and Walt Disney Co. Most of her wealth emanates from her long tenure as CEO of auction giant eBay. Apparently, she helped the company expand from 30 staff and $5 million revenues to over 15, 000 staff and over $8 billion revenues. She ran for California governor in 2010, sinking $144 million of her monies into the attempt. But the bid was not successful. Nevertheless, Meg Whitman remains one of the most accomplished corporate executives and internet billionaires in the world today.

Billionaire Background

Margaret Cushing Whitman was born on August 4th, 1956, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Meg Whitman comes from a historically prominent family. She went to Cold Spring Harbor High School and graduated in 1974. Although she initially wanted to pursue a career as a doctor, she later decided to study math and science at the prestigious Princeton University. She later changed her course to economics and obtained an honors degree in 1977. She went on to Harvard Business School, where she earned her M.B.A. in 1979. Her husband is a neurosurgeon who works at the Stanford Medical Center.

Whitman’s career began in 1979 when she worked as Procter & Gamble brand manager. She later moved to Bain & Company’s, working as a consultant in their San Francisco office. Promptly, she rose through the ranks to soon hold the position of senior vice president.

In 1989, Whitman became the head of strategic planning at Disney. She moved to the Stride Rite Corporation, and then worked as CEO of Florists’ Transworld Delivery, in 1995. Whitman joined eBay in 1998, at a time when the company had only 30 employees. She has been credited with turning eBay from a little-known startup into the world’s premier auction marketplace, worth billions of dollars. Her first day working at eBay, the website crashed for 8 hours and was a simple black and white web page. During Meg Whitman’s tenure as the chief executive of eBay, the company purchased Skype at $4.1B, before later selling it. For the work she did at eBay, Whitman has earned numerous international awards and accolades. Fortune magazine has also named her among the top five most powerful women.

She is a top-flying American business executive and is currently chief executive of HP Enterprise.

#23 Kavitark Ram Shriram – Early Bet on Google Paid Off

Net Worth

$1.91 Billion

Age

58

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Google

Residence

Menlo Park, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Bachelors, University of Madras

A brilliant, early bet on search engine startup paid off well of Kavitark Ram Shriram, who has sat on the company’s board since its inception in 1998. Mr. Ram Shriram serially invests in promising, early-stage startups through his Sherpalo Ventures, including Paperless Post, Datafox, and Zazzle. At this time, he has either sold or given away most of his Google stocks, but he remains a smart and notable entrepreneur making his wealth on the sidelines of major tech innovations.

Billionaire Background

There isn’t much information available on Ram’s background, but he is an Indian-born American entrepreneur. Kavitark Ram Shriram is formerly a board member at search giant Google. He earlier worked for Jeff Bezos as an officer for Amazon.com. He started his stint at Amazon in 1998 when the e-commerce retail giant acquired Junglee, an e-shopping comparison firm where Ram was president. Shriram has also been an executive member of the Netscape team, he joined them in 1994. Mr. Ram Shriram went to the University of Madras, where he obtained a degree in Science. He has also invested in worldwide mobile ads network, InMobi, as well as a search bid management tool going by the name mKhoj. As of 2007 (September), he owned 1.7 million shares at Google. Mr. Ram is also big on charity. Together with his wife, he donated a total $61 million to bankroll engineering initiatives at the prestigious Stanford University, where both his daughters studied.

#24 Jerry Yang– Cofounded Yahoo

Net Worth

$1.67 Billion

Age

47

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Yahoo

Residence

Los Altos Hills, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Stanford

Jerry Yang partnered with fellow Stanford Ph.D. student David Filo to found Yahoo in 1995. Today, he’s an accomplished billionaire who spends his time venturing into new tech firms. Jerry Yang runs a venture capital outfit going by the name AME Cloud Ventures and has thus far invested in 50+ startups, including Wattpadand Tango, and Evernote. He sits on the board of Alibaba and software company Workday. Jerry briefly served as CEO of Yahoo but stepped down in 2009. He left the company’s board in 2012, and made a brilliant bet channeling a $1 billion Yahoo investment into Alibaba. This paid off very well during Alibaba’s 2014 IPO.

Billionaire Background

Jerry Yang was born on November 6th, 1968 in Taiwan. His family immigrated to California, United States when he was only 10 years old. His mother was an English tutor. Yang went to Sierramont Middle School, then PiedMont Hills in San Jose. He obtained a Bachelors and Master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford.

Yang founded Yahoo in 1994, and worked as the company’s CEO between 2007 and 2009, before leaving in 2012. He started AME Cloud Ventures in 2015 and continues to serve on various corporate boards. In the 1995, when Yahoo was barely a toddler, a $2 million investment from Sequoia Capital helped get it off the ground. The second round of funding came in the same year from Softbank and Reuters. By the time the company went public in 1996, it had only 49 employees.

In 1997, Yang met Jack Ma, a government employed tour guide as he visited the Great Wall of China. The pair discussed the development of the web, and several months later Jack Ma created Alibaba. Under his guidance in 2005, Yahoo purchased 40% of Alibaba at $1 billion in addition to the assets of Yahoo! China, worth $700. In 2012, Yahoo! Sold off its share of Alibaba for $7.6 billion, and made $9.4 billion during Alibaba’s 2014 IPO. This move was sometimes referred as the best investment an American company had ever made in China.

#25 Reed Hastings– Founded Netflix

Net Worth

$1.54 Billion

Age

55

Source of Wealth

Self Made, Netflix

Residence

Santa Cruz, CA

# of Children

2

Nationality

United States

Marital Status

Married

Education Level

Masters, Stanford

Although placed at the tail end of this list, Reed Hastings has more money than most people can ever dream of. By founding video-streaming service Netflix, Reed Hasting changed how the world watches entertainment. Netflix is increasingly a famous source for digital entertainment content, including original content such as the award winning movie House of Cards. Hastings has turned Netflix from a struggling startup into an accomplished billion-dollar business. Outside of entrepreneurship, he takes a keen interest in education and is a member of the Billionaires Giving Pledge.

Billionaire Background

Wilmot Reed Hastings was born on October 8th, 1960, in Boston, Massachusetts.  He joined the Marine Corps in the summer of 1981. Later on, he left the Marine Corps and joined the Peace Corps following his graduation from Bowdoin College. He traveled to Swaziland, where he taught math from 1983 to 1985. After his work with the Peace Corps, he returned to the US and enrolled at Stanford, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Science.

Founding Pure Software

Reed Hasting’s first job was at Adaptive Technology, in 1990. He created a tool that made debugging software easier. He left Adaptive in 1991 to establish his own business, Pure Software, a company that created products to troubleshoot applications. The new business recorded massive growth, and Hastings soon realized that he lacked the managerial skills necessary to run it. He tried to fire himself from the CEO position, but the board refused and he learned to be a businessman. The company’s revenue was doubling annually. By 1996, Hastings firm announced a merger with Atria Software. Pure Software’s bug detection tools were now integrated with Atria’s complex software development solutions.

Founding Netflix

The merged company was however acquired by Rational Software in 1997. Hastings was assigned a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in the combined companies. But he soon left and co-founded Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997. The company is headquartered California and has so far attracted over 44 million subscribers. According to Hastings, he had no idea that customers would use Netflix when he launched the service. After his management worries at Pure Software, Hastings was concerned with Netflix growth. He was determined to cultivate fast growth without losing entrepreneurial spirit.

As growth picked, the company’s innovative practices for management were noted. Hastings approach was based on a culture of“Freedom and Responsibility”. Employees were paid handsomely, and allowed to convert any amount of their annual compensation to stock. This helped it attract top talent. His focus on the welfare of employees is one among other strengths that he has used to help his company grow.

Hastings is also a board member for Facebook, since June 2011, and served on the Microsoft board 2007 - 2012.

In a Fortune Magazine interview, Hastings said that the secrets to his success revolved around choosing a specific niche, staying flexible, not underestimating the competition, and realizing that there are no shortcuts.

Conclusion

Thank you again for purchasing and reading this book!

I hope this book was enlightened on you the fortune-minting ways of the top internet entrepreneurs in the world.

In learning from their wealth secrets, it’s apparent that the most successful internet started small, took advantage of trends, had a mission, worked for free, served everyone for free and reinvested in their businesses.

Finally, if you enjoyed this book, then I’d like to ask you for a favor, would you be kind enough to leave a review for this book on Amazon? It’d be greatly appreciated!

Click here to leave a review for this book on Amazon!

Thank you and good luck!

Table of Contents

Introduction

#1 Jeff Bezos– Founded Amazon.com

#2 Mark Zuckerberg– Founded Facebook.com

#3 Larry Page– Co-Founded Google

#4 Sergey Brin– Co-founded Google

# 5 Jack Ma– Founded Alibaba Group

#6 Ma Huateng– Run’s China’s Top Online Chat Service

#7 Robin Li– Co-Founded Baidu, China’s Most Popular Search Engine

#8 Masayoshi Son– Control’s Japanese Internet and Telecom firm Softbank

#9 Eric Schimidt– Chairman, Google

#10 William Ding– Founded China’s No. 2 Online Game Company

#11 Pierre Omidyar– Founded Ebay

#12 Hiroshi Mikitani– Run’s Japan’s Top Online Shopping Mall

#13 Charles Schwab– Former Steel Magnate Who Brought Online Investing to the Masses

#14 Andreas Von Bechtolsheim– Got Rich From a $100, 000 Early Stake in Google.

#15 Jeffrey Skoll– eBay’s First President & Full-time Employee

#16 Marc Benioff– Founded Salesforce.com

#17 David Cheriton– Stanford Professor who Introduced Google’s Co-Founders to Each Other

#18 Shi Yuzhu– Founded Giant Interactive, One of the Most successful Online gaming firms in China

#19 Mark Cuban– Former Bar Tender who Sold Video Site to Yahoo for $5.7 Billion

#20 Peter Thiel– Facebook’s First Outside Investor, PayPal Co-Founder

#21 David Filo– Co-Founded Yahoo at Stanford University

#22 Meg Whitman– Former eBay Chief, Current HP CEO

#23 Kavitark Ram Shriram– Early Bet on Google Paid Off

#24 Jerry Yang– Cofounded Yahoo

#25 Reed Hastings– Founded Netflix

Conclusion