Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
Curious about how to become a billionaire? This is a question that got me thinking…
At the beginning of the year I was browsing social media and came across an interesting post. Someone asked a pointed question that seemed particularly relevant since I was in Las Vegas at the time. “What do you have to do to become a billionaire?”
With all of my personal finance and business knowledge, I started thinking about what my best advice would be. I had two answers pretty quickly. Here are my thoughts on how to become a billionaire.
Ways to become a billionaire
I was a little late to the party but was making my way through Succession when I was asked the question of how to become a billionaire. Given the theme of the show, the question seemed even more interesting as I was thinking of a fictional billionaire family loosely based on the Murdoch family.
I've been lucky enough to meet a billionaire a few times in my life, and my business school education was primarily focused on making as much money as possible in finance. So with all this knowledge and experience, what was my answer to the social media question?
I think you have two options:
- Marry a billionaire
- Start a multi-billion dollar company
As much as we'd like to believe that hard work and budgeting can result in huge payoffs for our finances (which it does, by the way), these steps are unlikely to make you a billionaire. Working your way up the corporate ladder in a lucrative career while being careful with your money is a realistic path to becoming a millionaire, even many times over. But to get a billion, you probably have to do one of two things.
Note: There is a third way – inheritance. However, 90% of the family wealth disappears in the third generation. If your parents or grandparents are billionaires, you will probably be a millionaire (or multimillionaire). But it will be difficult to maintain billionaire status after dividing the estate with your siblings, paying taxes, and more.
Marry a billionaire
Marrying a billionaire isn't impossible if you move in the right social circles. If you attend the right university, like Harvard, Oxford, or King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, you could befriend a billionaire and find yourself in a whirlwind romance. At least it worked for Kate Middleton – even though her family was already firmly represented in the ten million club when she met her Prince Charming at university.
Outside of college, you could enter the orbit of billionaires by making massive donations to nonprofit organizations at annual charity galas or attending other exclusive events. The annual Davos conference is full of people with ten-figure net worths. Or maybe you'll meet the son or daughter of a billionaire family at the Masters Tournament with top golfers.
Remember, you're targeting a billionaire, so a bad actor or musician like a child of Jerry Seinfeld (net worth about $950 million) or Tom Cruise (net worth about $600 million) isn't enough. Even Taylor Swift barely makes it, with a net worth of around $1.1 billion.
At the end of 2023, Forbes listed 2,640 billionaires worldwide. If you can snag a date with one of them or their heirs, you could find your way into the private jet and yacht lifestyle in no time!
Related:
How to become a millionaire at any age
Start a multi-billion dollar company
Of those who have achieved billionaire status without walking down the aisle or inheriting $1,000,000,000, hard work coupled with a bit of luck is the most common path to billionaire status. But if you work for someone else, they get most of the profits. If you want to join the world's richest elite, you need to start your own company and grow it to be worth billions of dollars.
In the last generation, some of the most successful billionaires came from Silicon Valley startups. The founders of companies like Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat, Pinterest, Dropbox and other technology companies earned their B-card by founding companies worth billions of dollars and holding a share of at least a billion .
Most multibillion-dollar companies raised funds from investors in fundraising rounds before offering shares on the public stock exchange. Every time an angel investor, venture capitalist, or investment fund invested money in the companies, they had to take a share of ownership. So just starting a billion-dollar company is probably not enough to become a billionaire. Your best bet is to start a company worth tens of billions, and hopefully your stake will make you a billionaire.
Related: How to become a millionaire at 25
Is billionaire status overrated?
Billionaires are some of the most admired and loathed people in the world. But it's probably easy to fend off the haters when you helicopter land on your private yacht for a little relaxation.
But in reality, you don't have to be in the top 0.00000037037037% of the world's population to achieve financial stability and happiness. Most of us start out as thousandaires and are lucky enough to reach millions.
If you manage your career and finances well, or marry someone with high net worth, you may still have enough wealth to live a comfortable life.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
