10 richest people of all time
Quick: which is the richest man of all time? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Not even close, although there is no denying that we are very, very rich. The richest man of all time when wealth is measured as a percentage of the national economy, was John D. Rockefeller, whose fortune was made by Gates and Buffet to see Punyed directly.
Result of maintaining the richest which is like a spectator sport with Forbes magazine as the official arbiter. Last year, Forbes counted 946 billionaires (there are also many millionaires to count, so do not bother with more than) with the combined net worth of $ 3.5 billion. That is larger than the GDP of Germany, the third largest economy in the world.
But people increasingly affluent belong to their own club. These people (all men) have been built fortunes of legendary proportions when calculated at the peak of its wealth. Here is a list of the 10 richest people of all time and how they made their fortunes.
1. John D. Rockefeller
Peak wealth: $318.3 billion (based on 2007 US dollar). Age at peak wealth: 74
As a young man, John Davison Rockefeller said that its two biggest ambition is to make 100000 dollars and live to be 100. He died two months shy of his 98th birthday, but boy who did well to make the first goal.
Rockefeller was not born of a rich family. His father, William Avery "Big Bill" Rockefeller was a shiftless man who spent most of his time thinking systems to avoid the real work! However, thanks to the guidance of his mother Eliza – a housewife and devout Baptist – John D. grew to be a hard man.
Rockefeller started out in business as a wholesale grocer and went to found Standard Oil, through shrewd business decisions and that some say predatory and illegal practices, grew to be a colossal monopoly. At its peak, Standard Oil had about 90% of the market for refined oil (kerosene) in the United States (in the early days of Standard Oil, gasoline was not an important component of the oil industry – indeed, gasoline produced by refineries were dumped into rivers because they were considered useless!)
In 1911, U.S. Supreme Court declared Standard Oil monopoly under the Sherman Act against monopoly and ordered to be divided into 34 independent companies with different boards of directors. At that time, Rockefeller has long since retired from the company but still held a large percentage of shares. Ironically, the rapid Standard Oil unlocked share values and doubled his fortune overnight.
Rockefeller got his first job as an accountant in 16. In a move that lasts a lifetime portended his commitment to philanthropy, decimated 10% of their income – his first paycheck – to charity. As his wealth grew, as did their charitable contributions. When he died in 1937, Rockefeller had given away half of his fortune amassed, and has created philanthropic foundations to continue giving after his death.
2. Andrew Carnegie
Peak wealth: $298.3 billion. Age at peak wealth: 68
Andrew Carnegie emigrated as a toddler from Pittsburgh to Scotland and started work in 13 years as a boy rolls in a textile factory. He changed spools of wire for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for a weekly salary of $ 2. In 16 years of age, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy, and soon after was promoted to be a telegraph operator.
Carnegie became a personal assistant to Thomas Scott, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and acquired the entrances and exits of the railroad. It was Carnegie who invented a brutally effective way to clear the tracks after a train crash: the burning of the railroad car!
When I was 20, Carnegie mortgaged his mother’s house and made his first gutsy investment of $ 500 per 10 shares in the company Adams Express – the kind of Fed Ex delivery company year 1800 – and was rewarded handsomely. He then invested in a company takes sleeping cars for the railway. At the time it was 30, Carnegie has expanded its investment in iron works, steam railways, and oil wells.
But the real money came from steel. In late 1880, Carnegie built his steel empire to become the world’s largest manufacturer of steel rails, pig iron and coke.
In 1901, at age 66, retired Carnegie by selling its shares to John Pierpont Morgan for more than $ 225 million (a large sum today and an astonishing amount of money at that time) in the form of bonds gold. When the bonds were delivered, a special vault had to be physically constructed to house!
Carnegie was a strong advocate of philanthropy – in a famous 1889 essay "The Gospel of Wealth", wrote that wealth should be distributed to promote the welfare of others and enrich society. True to his words, Carnegie gave more than $ 350 million or almost 90% of his fortune.
Note: At the end of the War of Spanish americas, the United States bought the Philippines from Spain for $ 20 million. Carnegie felt what he perceived as an imperialist and move personally offered $ 20 million to the Philippines so it could buy its independence from U.S. (which did not take him in his bid).
3. Nicholas II of Russia
Peak wealth: $253.5 billion. Age at peak wealth: 49
Nicholas II of Russia (born Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov) was the last Czar of Russia. He ruled (bad) from 1894 until he was forced to abdicate in the Russian revolution of 1917 by the Bolsheviks. His reign was marked with anti-Semitic pogroms, a crushing defeat of Japan in the Russo-Japanese war, revolutions, internal conflicts of their concerns bloody suppressions, the undue influence of the mystic Rasputin and the First World War I. One year after he was deposed, Nicholas and his entire family were executed by order of Lenin.
The life of the last czar of Russia was filled with fascinating myths, legends and history – and readers interested in that they are encouraged to read more about Nicholas II and the Romanovs. Suffice it to say that Nicholas II became the third richest man in history the old way: he inherited his wealth.
4. William Henry Vanderbilt
Peak wealth: $231.6 billion. Age at peak wealth: 64
William Henry Vanderbilt had a good start in life: he inherited nearly 100 million dollars of his father, the railroad magnate Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt (if you want to read a rags to riches story, Cornelius’ is quite good – see more below).
William Vanderbilt was combed by his father to become a businessman (sometimes harshly – the imperious and dominant Cornelius liked to call his eldest son a "Blockhead", "blatherskite," "sucker" and "good for nothing") and William turned to be quite clever businessman. It expanded the family of railroad empire, and therefore the family fortune, finally, his father earns the respect and friendship.
When William died in 1885, he was the richest man in the world.
5. Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII
Peak wealth: $210.8 billion. Age at peak wealth: 50
In most accounts, "His Exalted Highness" the Nizam of Hyderabad was a benevolent ruler who promotes education, science and development. He spent about one tenth of its budget of the Principality in education, and even made primary education compulsory and free for the poor. In his 37 years rule, Hyderabad witnessed the introduction of electricity, railways, roads and other development projects.
In 1937, Asaf Jah VII was on the cover of Time magazine, labeled the richest man in the world.
6. Andrew W. Mellon
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed the financier Mellon as Treasury Secretary, where he served for 10 years (under three U.S. presidents). In that post, Mellon increase in federal revenue by decreasing the rate of taxation and spending federal court.
7. Henry Ford
Peak wealth: $188.1 billion. Age at peak wealth: 57
If Henry Ford was the father of her form, Henry would take over the family farm and become a farmer. But after the death of his beloved mother, Henry, who do not particularly like agriculture, left home in 1879 at age 16 to work as an apprentice engineer.
At 28, Henry Ford became an engineer with Thomas Edison and the company began experimenting with gasoline engines (with the approval of Edison). In 1896, at age 36, started his first Ford car company, the Detroit Automobile Company, which went bankrupt two years later.
Shortly after, he created his second company, the Henry Ford Company. A year later, his companions hired Henry M. Leland to solve problems in the workshop. Ford clashed almost immediately with Leland, and was forced out of the company that bears his name with only $ 900 in cash. The Henry Ford Company was renamed Cadillac, Ford and went on to form his third car company, "Ford and Malcomson" company …
… and immediately got into trouble when he could not pay its suppliers, the Dodge brothers. The partner of Ford, Alexander Malcomson was able to convince the Dodge brothers to invest in the company instead and the company was again as the Ford Motor Company. And a good thing they did, because the third time was the charm. The Ford Motor Company Henry Ford did a very rich man.
Henry Ford’s name became synonymous with automobiles for good reason: introduced the Model T, the first low-cost car for the masses. He also popularized the use of assembly lines in mass production, high workers’ wages to attract talent and discourage employee turnover, model franchise car dealers, and even the 5 working days.
One interesting note about Henry Ford: no cree en accountants. On one occasion, his son Edsel contracted the construction of a new office building with a lot of space for the accounting division. When Henry asked about the space, Edsel acknowledged that it was for the accounting department. The next day, when accountants are presented for work, found his office had been stripped – no desks, chairs, telephones or even the carpeting was ido – and that Henry had shot them all.
8. Marcus Licinius Crassus
Marco Licinius Crassus (ca. 115 BC to 53 BC) is the first historical figure in this list. He was a Roman general and politician who defeated the slave revolt led by Spartacus.
If you think the rest of entrepreneurs in this list are ruthless – actually, I’ve got nothing in Crassus. The Roman general became rich when bought houses and belongings of victims of Sulla of the sack of Rome (Crassus was one of the generals Sulla’s) for cheap. He then re-sold at a princely profit. Crassus then expanded their wealth through the slave trade, silver mining, and real estate, primarily through the purchase of houses of the declared enemies of the state for almost nothing.
But it was Crassus’ acquisition of burning houses that earned him his lasting fame. The maintained a troop of 500 qualified builders – and when a fire broke out in Rome (then what happens frequently), negotiated the sale of properties and burning near the cheap. Once obtained properties, appealed to his men to demolish the property and burning of buildings near the bridge (which is the preferred technique of fighting the fire during Roman times). He then rebuilt and return leased property to its original owners! At one point, Crassus owned much of Rome and wondered if some of the fires may not have actually been doing his …
Crassus was so greedy that when he died, his enemies had broken the head of gold melted and poured into his mouth as a mark of his greed
9. Basil II
Peak wealth: $169.4 billion. Age at peak wealth: 67
Basil II (or Basil the Bulgarslayer) was a Byzantine emperor from the Macedonian dynasty who reigned from 976 to 1025. For historians, Basil II’s reign represented the apex of the Middle Byzantine Empire – he expanded the territory of the empire by annexing Bulgaria, making it the largest and strongest it had ever been in nearly five centuries.
Basil had no heir, and within half a century of his death, the Byzantine Empire crumbled.
10. Cornelius Vanderbilt
Peak wealth: $167.4 billion. Age at peak wealth: 82
Cornelius Vanderbilt is a true rags-to-riches story: he quit school at the age of 11 (famously saying "If I had learned education, I would not have had time to learn anything else") to work on ferries in New York. By 16, persuaded his mom to loan him $100 for a boat to start his own ferry business carrying freight and passengers between Staten Island and Manhattan. He repaid the loan with an additional $1000 one year later. It’s from this business operating ships that he got his nickname "Commodore" that stuck for the rest of his life, even after he started getting into the railroad business.
Vanderbilt was ruthless in business. He once wrote a short (and now famous) letter to Charles Morgan and C.K. Garrison of the Morgan & Garrison company. The two men manipulated his steamship company’s stock in his absence and took it over. The letter read "Gentlemen: you have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt." True to his words, two years later Vanderbilt forced them out of business by running a competing business.
Despite of their wealth – or perhaps because of it, the Vanderbilt family wasn’t a happy one. The Commodore was constantly thinking of his will, which he called "that paper." He wanted the money to remain intact, and thus it must be handed down to a single heir. Indeed, he disowned all of his sons other than William (see above), believing that only William was ruthless enough in business to be capable of maintaining his empire.
A note about the list: since it is based on the proportion of peak wealth to the national GDP in the country the individual lived in at the time they were alive, the list is dynamic: it changes as the GDP fluctuates, though it’s rare to have a large shift in its composition.
I didn’t come up with the idea for the list – the top 10 list presented here is but a small part of a larger list on Wikipedia. For the complete list, visit Wealthy Historical Figures 2008
No related posts.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment