Of People With More Than $1 Billion Net Worth

The other day, I was looking for some information on Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, when I stumbled upon the 2006 Forbes.com list of world’s billionaires (OK, this link is now pointing to the 2007 list. I haven’t yet figured out where they hid the 2006 list. Will update as soon as I find it). So, I started tinkering around with the list trying to look at it after sorting it in different ways and got interested in the age distribution among the billionaires. I will share some of that information in this post. But, before I throw some interesting (but pretty much useless) graphs and data at you, here are a few words of admiration for the billionaire who drives this 1993 Volvo 240 GL:

Yeah, that’s Ingvar Kamprad’s car! I don’t know what it takes for a man worth $23 billion to drive a car like that. May be it’s sheer indifference for the concept of *status symbols* or may be it’s frugality personified. Whatever it may be, driving that kind of car, when you are a billionaire, is suggestive of awesome self-control. Here is what Forbes.com says about the man and his frugal attitude.

Founder of the Swedish furniture and home goods company IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad is the proud owner of a 13-year-old Volvo 240 GL. Though he may own a Volvo, Kamprad still takes the bus and even uses his pensioners’ discount card, as he explained in a rare 1999 interview. Despite being a double-digit billionaire, Kamprad also still flies economy class and avoids luxury hotels. In fact, in his self-scribed 1976 Bible, “A Furniture Dealer’s Testament,” Kamprad decries that “IKEA people do not drive flashy cars or stay at luxury hotels.” Indeed, Ingvar Kamprad practices what he preaches.

With that out of the way, let’s now look at some interesting facts about the list. I have included a few Excel charts, but I hate to say that there is nothing *instructive* in those (at least not for the casual reader)…they are just presenting the facts in a better way.

• There are 793 billionaires on the list.
• Age of the youngest billionaire: 22 (the 2006 list is probably based on 2005 numbers, so look at the ages accordingly)
• There are 4 people under 30 years of age and all of them are rich because of inherited wealth.
• The youngest *self-made* billionaire is Sergey Brin (age 32), followed closely by Larry Page (age 33), both founders of Google.
• Oldest on the list: Ernest Gallo (age 97) a California wine maker.
• Out of the 793 people, there are 371 (almost 47%) Americans on the list! Do we have a lot of money or what.
• Based on the list, the top 8 countries in terms of number of billionaires are shown below. The US dwarfs the rest of them. China has 8 billionaires and Hongkong has another 17. Their combined total can take them up to the 5th place.

• Below is a chart showing the age distribution of the list. Much more than half of them are over 60 years old. There is an increasing trend up to the 60-69 age category which is probably suggesting the gradual increase in wealth over the years. The numbers start falling in the 70’s - most probably due to some rich guys dying and others distributing their wealth among their children/family members. Btw, the ages of 32 people on the list were not available, so the numbers won’t add to 793.

• The collective net worth of 400 richest Americans (all billionaires) is $1.25 trillion. Below is a chart showing the age distribution of the 400 Americans with net worth more than $1 billion. Btw, there is some sort of an inconsistency with the Forbes.com lists….if there are 400 American billionaires in a different list, the world’s richest list should include 400 Americans, not 371. I haven’t yet figured out what’s up with that. Anyways, if you compare this chart with the chart above, you can see that they are almost similar in trend and proportions…so there is nothing abnormal happening in the US…and yet there are 400 billionaires. Does sound like a lot of business opportunities and may be too many people spending too much money and making the businesses rich.

Any thoughts/observations about why there is such a disparity between the number of billionaires in America and the rest of the world? Do you think it’s some kind of a reflection on the American way of life?