This is how long it took America’s 50 richest self-made billionaires to earn their first billion

This is how long it took America’s 50 richest self-made billionaires to earn their first billion

Helen JamesSeptember 12, 2023

Over the past few years, the US has boasted the largest number of billionaires globally, and 2023 is no exception. A total of 735 US individuals are featured on the Forbes “World’s Billionaires List” in 2023. Eager to find out more about America’s most prosperous, our team at SuperCasinoSites set out to examine how long it took the 50 richest self-made billionaires in the U.S. to earn their first billion.

Key Takeaways

  • It took America’s 50 richest self-made billionaires an average of 21½ years to earn their first billion in the US
  • The billionaires who managed to earn their first billion in the shortest amount of time are Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos–4 years, followed by Jan Koum (5 years), and Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Brian Chesky (6 years)
  • These individuals were the youngest to reach billionaire status in our ranking—Mark Zuckerberg (23), Dustin Moskovitz (26), Sergey Brin (30), Michael Dell (31), Larry Page (31), and Bill Gates (31)
  • Eleven of the 50 richest billionaires in the U.S. made their first billion before they were 40—Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Brian Chesky, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Ken Griffin, Jan Koum, Dustin Moskovitz, Larry Page, Robert Pera, and Mark Zuckerberg
  • It took these billionaires the longest to amass a fortune of at least $1 billion—Judy Love (49 years), Harold Hamm (41 years), and Eric Smidt (40 years)

People become billionaires as early as their 20s and as late as their 80s

Having a 10-figure net worth is no small feat. It can take decades of hard work and diligence
Of course, some might find themselves luckier than others. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, made their fortune in just four years. Moreover, both of them had fairly humble beginnings. Bezos founded the e-commerce giant Amazon in his garage, while Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook was, at first, simply a project he undertook at college. Now, they are among the richest individuals in the US.

Zuckerberg also happened to be 23 when his net worth sky-rocketed to $1.5 billion, the youngest to reach billionaire status in the ranking. In contrast, Endeavor Energy Resources founder Autry Stephens was 80 when the experts at Bloomberg determined his net worth to be worth billions of dollars ($11.4 billion) in 2018.

The person whose billion dollar journey took the longest is Judy Love, who was first listed among America’s richest in 2013, along with her late husband. Their joint venture, Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, was established in 1964, which puts the gap between the start of her initial business and the year when she reached billionaire status at 49 years.

Although Judy Love and Autry Stephens represent a selection of individuals who found financial success in fairly traditional business ventures involving convenience stores and oil, respectively, a notable group of US billionaires made their fortune in the tech sphere. This includes Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Jensen Huang, among plenty of others. What is more, over half the billionaires in the top ten ranking are tech tycoons, with Elon Musk taking the first spot with a net worth of a staggering $232.5 billion.

Methodology

Our team selected fifty US billionaires based on their net worth, as estimated by Forbes in their Real-Time Billionaires List as of August 8, 2023. Only self-made billionaires who have a self-made score of 6 or above were included. Moreover, in the cases where two individuals were included under the same Forbes profile, the net worth was divided by two in order to determine their respective net worths.

The year during which a given individual reached billionaire status was determined based on their net worth or their company’s total assets at the time. Our primary data source is an archive housing past Forbes and Bloomberg billionaire lists, which can be found at Areppim. Other tools and sources of information include Forbes, Finmasters, Bloomberg, the Wayback Machine, YCharts, and annual reports of the companies Nike and Oracle.

We used the data to calculate the approximate age of each individual when they reached billionaire status and determine how long this took.

Raw Data

Billionaire Forbes Self-Made Score Start of Business Company Name Reached Billionaire Status (year) Years to Reach Billionaire Status Reached Billionaire Status (age) Net Worth as of August 8 2023 (in billion $)
Jeff Bezos 8 1994 Amazon 1998 – $1.6 billion 4 34 $162.10
Mark Zuckerberg 8 2004 Facebook 2008 – $1.5 billion 4 23 $110.10
Jan Koum 10 2009 WhatsApp 2014 – $6.80 billion 5 38 $14.30
Larry Page 8 1998 Google 2004 – $1 billion 6 31 $108.40
Sergey Brin 9 1998 Google 2004 – $1 billion 6 30 $103.00
Brian Chesky 8 2008 AirBnB 2014 – $1.5 billion 6 33 $11.20
Dustin Moskovitz 8 2004 Facebook 2011 – $2.7 billion 7 26 $13.30
Robert Pera 6 2005 Ubiquiti Networks 2012 – $1.5 billion 7 34 $10.30
Eric Schmidt 8 1997 Novell 2005 – $2.8 billion 8 50 $20.90
Henry Samueli 9 1991 Broadcom 2000 – $5.1 billion 9 46 $10.10
Bill Gates 8 1975 Microsoft 1987 – $1.25 billion 12 31 $117.60
Michael Dell 8 1984 Dell 1996 – $1.1 billion 12 31 $63.30
Steve Cohen 8 1992 S.A.C. Capital Advisors 2004 – $1 billion 12 47 $17.50
David Tepper 8 1993 Appaloosa Management 2006 – $1.2 billion 13 48 $18.50
Michael Bloomberg 8 1981 Bloomberg LP 1996 – $1 billion 15 54 $94.50
Jerry Jones 8 1989 Dallas Cowboys 2004 – $1 billion 15 61 $13.60
Steve Ballmer 6 1980 Microsoft 1996 – $3.7 billion 16 40 $101.30
Ken Griffin 8 1990 Citadel 2006 – $1.5 billion 16 38 $34.20
Elon Musk 8 1995 Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla 2012 – $2 billion 17 40 $232.50
Larry Ellison 9 1977 Oracle 1994 – $1.18 billion 17 49 $143.90
Leon Black 8 1990 Apollo Global Management 2007 – $2 billion 17 56 $10.50
Len Blavatnik 9 1986 Access Industries 2004 – $1.9 billion 18 46 $33.30
Jeffery Hildebrand 8 1988 Hilcorp 2007 – $1 billion 19 48 $11.20
Stanley Kroenke 6 1983 The Kroenke Group 2003 – $1.4 billion 20 56 $12.90
Stephen Schwarzman 8 1985 Blackstone Inc. 2006 – $2.5 billion 21 59 $32.00
John Doerr 8 1980 Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers 2001 – $1 billion 21 50 $12.00
John Tu 9 1987 Kingston Technology Corporation 2008 – $2.5 billion 21 67 $10.30
David Sun 10 1987 Kingston Technology Corporation 2008 – $2.5 billion 21 57 $10.30
Daniel Gilbert 8 1985 Rocket Mortgage 2007 – $1.2 billion 22 45 $22.70
Michael Rubin 8 1990 KPR sports 2013 – $1.7 23 40 $11.40
Jensen Huang 8 1993 Nvidia 2017 – $2.7 billion 24 54 $39.90
Phil Knight 8 1964 Nike 1990 – $1.09 billion 26 52 $42.40
Diane Hendricks 9 1982 ABC Supply 2008 – $3 billion 26 61 $15.70
Jim Simons 8 1978 Renaissance Technologies 2005 – $2.5 billion 27 67 $28.10
Thomas Frist, Jr. 7 1968 HCA Healthcare 1996 – $1.1 billion 28 57 $21.80
David Duffield 8 1968 Information Associates 1996 – $1.2 billion 28 55 $12.50
Warren Buffett 8 1956 Buffett Partnership 1986 – $1.4 billion 30 55 $117.50
Israel Englander 9 1977 I.A. Englander & Co. 2007 – $1.2 billion 30 59 $11.30
Thomas Peterffy 10 1978 T.P. & Co. 2010 – $1.4 billion 32 65 $27.70
Shahid Khan 10 1980 Flex-N-Gate 2012 – $2.5 32 61 $12.20
Ray Dalio 8 1975 Bridgewater Associates 2008 – $4 billion 33 58 $19.10
Jeff Yass 8 1987 Susquehanna 2021 – $12 billion 34 65 $28.90
David Green 10 1970 Greco Products 2004 – $1.1 billion 34 62 $15.40
Donald Bren 8 1958 The Bren Company 1996 – $2 billion 38 63 $17.40
Robert Kraft 8 1968 Rand-Whitney Group 2006 – $1.1 billion 38 64 $10.60
John Menard, Jr. 9 1962 Menards 2001 – $2 billion 39 61 $19.50
Autry Stephens 9 1979 Endeavor Energy Resources 2018 – $11.4 billion 39 80 $10.00
Eric Smidt 10 1977 Harbor Freight Tools 2017 – $2 billion 40 62 $10.30
Harold Hamm 10 1967 Continental Resources 2008 – $4.4 billion 41 62 $18.50
Judy Love 9 1964 Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores 2013 – $1.25 billion 49 76 $10.20