Ryan
21. Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Together they pursued Ph.D’s at Stanford, developed the Google search engine, founded Google, Inc., and became two of the richest men in the world. In 2007, along with Eric Schmidt, the man they had hired to help them look after Google, they were at the very top of PC World’s list of most important people on the Web. They are investors in Tesla Motors, a cutting-edge automobile start-up which produces electric vehicles. They also bought a Boeing 767 together, which will eventually be refurbished into an unusually large executive plane. They are still officially on leave from their doctoral studies at Stanford.
22. Ingvar Kamprad & Family
Most of the millions of people who shop at the hundreds of IKEA stores across the globe have no idea that the first two letters of the furnishing chain stand for “Ingvar” and “Kamprad.” (The last two letters stand for the farm, Elmtaryd, and nearby village, Agunnaryd, where he was born.) One of the key innovations behind IKEA’s success is the way Kamprad found ways to lower costs while offering stylish, original furniture designs that are easy to take home and put together. Kamprad is well-known for his frugality. Though he was dubbed the richest European-born person in the world (his fortune is now technically shared by his whole family), he prefers to drive an old Volvo and fly economy class.
23. George Soros
George Soros claims to have started making money as a Wall Street analyst in order to fund his interests in writing and philosophy. He studied under the great British philosopher, Sir Karl Popper, whose book The Open Society and It’s Enemies inspired Soros’ own Open Society Institute (OSI), which “aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform,” according to its Website. A self-made billionaire and notable philanthropist, Soros has been criticized for not living up to his own ideals of transparency, because the OSI does not disclose more than is required by law and is unabashedly political in its aims. Of course, much of that criticism comes from those less sympathetic to Democrats, who Soros staunchly supports in a number of ways, such as by being the largest financial backer of MoveOn.org.
24. Steve Wynn
Called “the anti-Trump” by Time Magazine, Steve Wynn is responsible for developing the Las Vegas landscape into what it is today. He has built and operated several hotels and casinos, including The Mirage, Treasure Island, and Bellagio. He broke his own rules with his most expensive project, Wynn Las Vegas, which forgoes much of the glitz and glamor normally associated with Vegas and requires guests to actually walk inside the building to enjoy the free attractions. Wynn’s dealings in Vegas go back over thirty years, to the early 1970s, when he gained controlling interest in (and completely made-over and expanded) one of the oldest Vegas casinos, The Golden Nugget.
25. Chad Meredith Hurley
YouTube was created in early 2005 by friends who wanted a better way to share their home videos. The next year it was sold to Google for $1.65 billion. It is now one of the most widely accessed sites on the Web, and practically defines the internet experience for millions of users. YouTube’s influence on the United States presidential elections alone is staggering. Of YouTube’s three founders, CEO Chad Meredith Hurley profited the most form the sale to Google. He received approximately $345.6 million in shares of Google stock, which is about 20 million more than co-founder Steven Chen, and more than five times as much as the third co-founder, Jawed Karim. Before that, Hurley’s greatest claim to fame was having designed the PayPal logo. Just over thirty years old, Hurley’s vision helped redefine the way people communicate all over the world.
