When it comes to investing, some people think of stocks and other securities, while others prefer real estate.
But the most prominent investors in history have been those who focus on something much bigger: entire economies. Let’s explore some of the most famous investors in history and what they invested in!
Top 10 Biggest Investors in History
When do you think of the wealthiest people in history? Who comes to mind? For some, it might be families like the Rockefellers or Rothschilds. For others, it might be business magnates like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. But these are only a few of the dozens of people who have amassed vast wealth over the centuries. Here is a list of some of the most famous and influential people in the world who have all made millions and billions upon billions of dollars over the years.
- Warren Buffet
The biggest investor in the world is Warren Buffett, the owner of Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company with more than $500 billion in assets. Buffett is famous for buying undervalued companies or businesses and then letting them grow through intelligent management. One of the most notable investments he made was the purchase of Burlington Northern Railroad in the early 1970s for $26 million. Buffett purchased the company in 2009, worth about $44 billion.
- George Soros
Soros is a Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist who made his fortune speculating on currency markets. Soros is considered by many to be one of the world’s greatest investors. He was famous for making huge profits from the British pound sterling “Black Wednesday” when it crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in September 1992. More recently, Soros was in the news for selling all of his holdings in gold at a significant profit just before the market turned south at the end of 2011. Other notable investments in Soros’ portfolio include Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
- Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s most significant hedge funds with an estimated value of more than $160 billion. Bridgewater is known for its highly systematic approach to investment management based on mathematical formulas developed to model market trends and identify the best opportunities. The firm uses computer systems called “Dalia’s brain” to manage its investment portfolios and reportedly makes millions of trades every day. He also founded a unique university that is focused on teaching the principles of modern economics to students from all backgrounds.
- Carl Icahn
Carl Icahn is an American business magnate, investor, and activist hedge fund manager known for taking bold action when he believes a company is being run poorly. A self-made billionaire, Icahn acquired his first fortune as a founding partner of TCI Partners and later founded the investment company Icahn Enterprises, which controls more than $27 billion in assets. He is known for promoting changes in corporate policy through his relationships with CEOs and other senior executives at major corporations. For example, he advised the board of Dell Computers to consider taking the company private in an $8 billion buyout deal and helped push Microsoft to raise its stock dividend by 30%.
- Bill Gates
Bill gates are the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software maker. Gates is also a co-founder of Microsoft, the largest software company in the world.
- John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller was one of the founders of the modern oil industry in America. He was born to a low-income family in western Pennsylvania, but he eventually became the wealthiest man in the world at the time of his death in 1937. He is best known as the founder of the Standard Oil Company (which later became the present-day ExxonMobil). According to some estimates, he was worth over $340 billion when he died!
7. Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004 while a sophomore at Harvard University. His idea was initially met with skepticism from some of his classmates, but it quickly became trendy and eventually took over the world. Today, he has an estimated net worth of over $67 billion.
- Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was one of the pioneers of industrial capitalism in the United States. He amassed his fortune through many successful business ventures, including steel manufacturing, railways, and oil. He died an old age in 1919 at 84. He was reportedly worth around $350 billion at his death!
- Carlos Slim Helú
Carlos Slim Helú is a Mexican businessman whose net worth is estimated at just over $73 billion. He is a multi-billionaire who made his fortune in the telecommunications industry and is now the wealthiest man in Mexico and one of the richest people in the world.
- Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs back in 1976. He is best known for creating the first personal computer in the world with Jobs. He was also involved in the early development of personal computers at Hewlett Packard and Atari Corporation before starting his own computer company, known as Woz Computer Systems. He is currently worth over $25 billion.
- Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg is the former mayor of New York City and a self-made billionaire worth over $54 billion. He made his fortune in the financial services sector and is currently the Chairman and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He is also a former three-term Mayor of New York City and a former Governor of New York.
- William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst, the owner of the largest newspaper publishing company in the United States, was one of the richest people in the world during the early 1900s. He was named the wealthiest American during the “Roaring Twenties” and lived a life that was as extravagant as it was controversial. He built a vast collection of art and rare antiquities and was an avid collector of wild animals that he housed on his sprawling estate in San Simeon, California.
- Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch was a manager of Fidelity’s Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990 and was responsible for its phenomenal growth during his tenure as manager. Mr. Lynch founded his investment firm in 1970 and managed its development to become one of the premier investment management firms in the country. He received a degree in economics from Colgate University and earned an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has since authored several books on investing and is still an active philanthropist in the Boston area today.
- Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is an entrepreneur and business investor best known for his ownership of the NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, and his successful internet company Broadcast.com which he sold to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in 1999. He was also an early investor in Google which he sold a controlling interest in 2001 for $750 million. He now runs an internet-focused media company called Audiomex and holds investments in several technology companies, including Spotify and Uber.
- Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud is the founder and chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, a diversified holding company headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He holds a law degree from King Saud University in Riyadh and is interested in various industries, including real estate, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, mining, retail, and media. In 2013, he ranked as the 40th richest person in the world and the 10th richest man in the Middle East, with a net worth of $18.8 billion.
- Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey was born in rural Mississippi in 1954. She moved to Tennessee with her single mother as a child and experienced a difficult childhood that included a problematic relationship with her mother and poverty and racism. However, she was determined to overcome these obstacles and went to Nashville at 19 to pursue a career in broadcasting. She received her first job in radio and soon became a well-known broadcaster in Nashville before being offered her talk show which became enormously popular and helped pave the way for her future success. She later found her television network and began producing her movies and reality shows. She is considered one of the most influential women in the world and is currently regarded as one of the wealthiest people in the country, with an estimated net worth of $3 billion.
