Young and billionaire

03.05.08 | Comment?

Today I saw the new Forbes billionaires list, noticing, as usual, some changes between the first’s places of the richest people. Little boring, more of the same. Maybe noticing Buffet on first place is something good: he’s a good trader, a fundamental one (for those who don’t understand this: be a fundamental trader, is be a non speculative one for sure). This could be a lesson for some people on Wall Street nowadays. Anyway, the point is I found something really interesting, three examples to follow, and to learn about. All belongs to the youngest billionaires list, and all had self made fortunes. Check it below:

Mark Zuckerberg, U.S.
Age 23
$1.5 billion, self-made

Tech’s newest golden boy founded addictive social-networking site
Facebook in February 2004 from his Harvard dorm room. He left school
for Silicon Valley that year. Microsoft paid $240 million last October
for a 1.6% stake, giving the company an implied valuation of $15
billion. Some analysts and a few Facebook investors think that’s high.
We think Zuckerberg’s stake is worth $1.5 billion. Regardless,
Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire on earth and possibly the
youngest self-made billionaire ever.

John Arnold, U.S.
Age 34
$1.5 billion, self-made

Raised by a lawyer dad and accountant mom, Arnold whizzed through
Vanderbilt University in three years. He became an oil trader for
Enron, supposedly earning $750 million for the company in 2001, when
he was just 27. He went into business for himself after Enron
collapsed a year later. Today he runs hedge fund Centaurus Energy.

Xiaofeng Peng, China
Age 33
$2.5 billion, self-made

It’s easy being green for Peng. The relative youngster got into solar
energy only in 2005. Two years later, he took his company, LDK Solar,
which makes silicon wafers used in solar panels, public on NYSE
Euronext.