Bill Gates is once again the richest man in the world, adding another $10.6 billion to his net worth in the past year. Not a bad haul, but four other billionaires actually outearned Gates in the past year.
Using data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which recently relaunched and expanded online to include 500 billionaires across the globe, Business Insider ranked which of the 30 richest billionaires in the world gained the most wealth in the past year.
Bloomberg’s ranking updates daily to provide up-to-the-minute data on the world’s wealthiest men and women, but for this ranking, wealth figures were used for the period starting February 28, 2016 and ending March 1, 2017. You can read about the billionaire index’s full methodology here.
The two biggest gainers in the past year were Wang Wei, who added $22.7 billion to his fortune as the founder and majority owner of China’s largest package delivery company, and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, who boosted his fortune by $21.9 billion thanks to Amazon’s strong performance.
From tech moguls to skilled investors to retail giants, read on for the 15 billionaires whose wealth grew the most in the past year.
Note that Bloomberg does not report the net worth of its founder and owner Michael Bloomberg, who does not appear on this ranking, though other sources peg his fortune at roughly $45 billion.
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14. TIE: Sergey Brin
Net worth: $41.6 billion
Net worth increase: $4.1 billion
Age: 43
Country: US
Industry: Technology
Source of wealth: Self-made; Google
Along with cofounder Larry Page, Sergey Brin helped facilitate Google’s massive restructuring, which the company announced in 2015. The move put Google under the auspices of a holding company called Alphabet, run by Brin as president and Page as CEO. Google’s other ventures, such as Nest and Google X, are separate companies also under the Alphabet umbrella.
The restructuring allowed Brin to focus on exploring inventive new “moonshot” projects and ideas. With top talent and an abundance of resources at its disposal, Alphabet has already made automated homes and self-driving cars a reality.
Brin, who emigrated from Moscow to the US as a child, connected with Page in 1995 at Stanford, where they were each pursuing a PhD. Three years later they founded Google, now one of the most powerful companies on the planet.
14. TIE: Li Ka-shing
Net worth: $30.6 billion
Net worth increase: $4.1 billion
Age: 88
Country: Hong Kong
Industry: Diversified investments
Source of wealth: Self-made; CK Hutchison Holdings
Despite humble beginnings, business magnate Li Ka-shing has become the wealthiest man in Hong Kong. After his father died of tuberculosis, Li dropped out of school at 16 to support his family, working in a factory making plastic flowers. Six years later, he opened his own factory, the predecessor to what’s known today as CK Hutchison Holdings, a vast business empire with interests in real estate, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, and technology.
A savvy investor, Li and his venture-capital fund Horizon Ventures have backed companies like Facebook, Skype, Spotify, and the egg-replacement food startup Hampton Creek.
Two years ago, Li reorganized his business affairs under two new listed companies, one entity for property holdings and another for all other global assets. The move is most likely in preparation to hand over control of his sprawling fortune to his son, but the 88-year-old doesn’t have any plans of slowing down just yet. In August 2015, he opened the 12,000th location of AS Watson, CK Hutchison’s health and beauty-products retailer, now the largest in the world. Li’s net worth rose by $4.1 billion over the past year.
13. Larry Page
Net worth: $42.5 billion
Net worth increase: $4.3 billion
Age: 43
Country: US
Industry: Technology
Source of wealth: Self-made; Google
As a Stanford PhD student in 1998, Larry Page teamed up with classmate Sergey Brin to create BackRub, an early search engine. The project eventually morphed into Google — now called Alphabet — one of the largest and farthest-reaching companies in the world, worth more than $581 billion. Over the past year, Page’s personal net worth has increased by $4.3 billion.
Page oversaw major changes to Google’s business structure in 2015, starting with the creation of Alphabet, the holding company that manages Google and all of its related ventures, including Nest, Calico, and Google X. Previously the chief executive of Google, Page moved up to helm Alphabet, which has its hands in everything from home automation to self-driving carsto prolonging human life.
Page doesn’t make a lot of splashy purchases, but the alternative-energy advocate does own an eco-friendly mansion in Palo Alto that uses geothermal energy and rainwater capture. He’s also an avid kiteboarder.
roducts retailer, now the largest in the world. Li’s net worth rose by $4.1 billion over the past year.