The minimum net worth to make Forbes second annual list of wealthiest entrepreneurs under 40 dropped by nearly one third to $270 million, from $400 million a year ago, as four well known entrepreneurs aged out of the elite group including Uber’s Travis Kalanick, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and What’s App’s Jan Koum. Four others from the 2015 ranks stumbled badly (including one who would have aged out anyway) and fell way below even the reduced cut off. They include Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, whose net worth is now estimated around zero; Zenefits’ Parker Conrad and FitBit cofounders Eric Friedman and James Parker.
In their place comes a star-studded class of celebrities and athletes. Newcomers to the 2016 ranks include NBA stars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and boxer Floyd Mayweather as well as pop star Beyonce and actress-turned-consumer products marketer Jessica Alba. The latter are the only two women among the top 40 under 40. All five of these superstars have net worths that range from $275 million to $350 million, meaning they made the cut this year in part thanks to the lower net worth cutoff.
The richest under 40 newcomer is Bryan Sheffield, who has struck it rich in the Texas oil patch. Sheffield is worth $1.45 billion. Another new billionaire is Kevin Systrom, cofounder of photo-sharing app Instagram. He is one of just two new tech tycoons to make their debut this year. The other is Kyle Vogt, who cofounded and sold two startups, Twitch Interactive (a video platform and community for gamers) and autonomous driving firm Cruise Automation, both before his 31st birthday.
Number one on this list of youngest by a wide margin is Mark Zuckerberg, whose Facebook shares and net worth soared to new heights. He is now worth $50 billion, up $2.9 billion from a year ago. That’s $40 billion-plus more than the next person, his Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz.
Other notable gainers are the Collison brothers, John and Patrick, who together created online payment outfit Stripe. A recent funding round boosted the value of the company and their fortunes by nearly 50% apiece. That makes 26-year-old John Collison, Stripe’s president, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire -- two months younger than Snapchat cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel, who is also 26. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, 28, and Snapchat cofounder Bobby Murphy, 28, are the only other self-made billionaires in the world under age 30. Among these ranks, only 24-year-old Palmer Luckey, who sold his virtual reality equipment company Oculus to Facebook at age 21, is younger.
Tied as the year’s biggest percentage gainers are Adam Neumann, whose firm WeWork rents out co-working space in over 30 cities in 12 countries around the world, and Robert Pera, whose wireless products-maker Ubiquiti Networks entered the consumer tech market in May 2016 with its $199 home Wi-Fi router. Both of their fortunes are up two-thirds in the past year.
To be eligible for this list, individuals had to be under age 40 as of December 12. These entrepreneurs also have to reside in the U.S. and substantially have made their own fortunes in this country. So people like Stripe’s Collison brothers, who came from Ireland but have set up shop and residence in California, qualified.
These net worths are a snapshot of wealth on December 7, the day we locked in stock prices. Fortunes could have changed significantly since then. For private tech companies like Stripe, we used values for companies set by the latest institutional fundraising rounds. We do not base our estimates on investors' individual decisions to mark down the value of their investments. These values may change the next time entrepreneurs try to raise money, either through private fundraising or public markets. Once that happens, we will revise our net worth estimates.
Number one on this list of youngest by a wide margin is Mark Zuckerberg, whose Facebook shares and net worth soared to new heights. He is now worth $50 billion, up $2.9 billion from a year ago. That’s $40 billion-plus more than the next person, his Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz.
Other notable gainers are the Collison brothers, John and Patrick, who together created online payment outfit Stripe. A recent funding round boosted the value of the company and their fortunes by nearly 50% apiece. That makes 26-year-old John Collison, Stripe’s president, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire -- two months younger than Snapchat cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel, who is also 26. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, 28, and Snapchat cofounder Bobby Murphy, 28, are the only other self-made billionaires in the world under age 30. Among these ranks, only 24-year-old Palmer Luckey, who sold his virtual reality equipment company Oculus to Facebook at age 21, is younger.
Tied as the year’s biggest percentage gainers are Adam Neumann, whose firm WeWork rents out co-working space in over 30 cities in 12 countries around the world, and Robert Pera, whose wireless products-maker Ubiquiti Networks entered the consumer tech market in May 2016 with its $199 home Wi-Fi router. Both of their fortunes are up two-thirds in the past year.
To be eligible for this list, individuals had to be under age 40 as of December 12. These entrepreneurs also have to reside in the U.S. and substantially have made their own fortunes in this country. So people like Stripe’s Collison brothers, who came from Ireland but have set up shop and residence in California, qualified.
These net worths are a snapshot of wealth on December 7, the day we locked in stock prices. Fortunes could have changed significantly since then. For private tech companies like Stripe, we used values for companies set by the latest institutional fundraising rounds. We do not base our estimates on investors' individual decisions to mark down the value of their investments. These values may change the next time entrepreneurs try to raise money, either through private fundraising or public markets. Once that happens, we will revise our net worth estimates.
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