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Rich & Unstoppable: The Youngest Billionaires In The World

Darren December 31, 2022

There are roughly 3,000 billionaires on the planet today. Despite making up a tiny percentage of the world’s population, they control most of the wealth. In recent years we’ve seen a new generation emerge to begin making waves in the business arena as the youngest billionaires in the world today.

Many of them made their fortunes in the tech industry. Others inherited staggering fortunes from their deceased parents. Then some worked hard in other sectors with great success. It’s always fascinating and a little disturbing to see who the wealthiest young people in the world are, so let’s get started.

Nathan Blecharczyk

Blecharczyk is one of the oldest people on this list at the grand age of 39. But this still makes him one of the youngest billionaires in the world. The Airbnb co-founder enjoyed tremendous success by changing the way people vacation. These days it’s as common to check Airbnb’s website as it is to book a hotel.

Meanwhile, Blecharczyk continues to host on Airbnb himself. But he maintains his privacy and doesn’t identify himself to his guests. It’s not surprising that he wants to maintain privacy but continues to enjoy the app. Finally, with a fortune of $7.7 billion, Blecharczyk is a highly established billionaire (via The Guardian).

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Mark Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg is probably the most recognizable name on this list. The 38-year-old billionaire has an estimated fortune of about $50 billion and is one of the wealthiest men in the world. The Facebook founder also owns WhatsApp and Instagram. This makes him the most powerful social media tycoon ever (via CBS News).

It’s always fascinating to see how the youngest billionaires spend their money. But Zuckerberg isn’t a decadent person and focuses on property and charities. The frugal CEO drives a Volkswagen hatchback and ate McDonald’s after his wedding. Who says that money makes people happy?

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Scott Duncan

Many people will think that Duncan and his family are everything that is wrong with this world. All we know is that he is one of the youngest billionaires in the U.S. today. The 38-year-old inherited a staggering amount of money from the oil industry. That’s because his father was a major fossil fuels mogul.

Dan Duncan left his fortune to his children after he died. Scott is the youngest member of the family but he isn’t involved with the company. Nonetheless, he enjoys an amazing lifestyle because he has no financial burdens. He lost his father but gained more money than most people can imagine (via Bloomberg).

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Dustin Moskovitz

We usually think only about Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to Facebook. But he was only one of several co-founders. Moskovitz also became tremendously wealthy from the company. This made the 38-year-old one of the youngest billionaires in the world. Now he runs Asana and donates a lot of money to charity.

Good Ventures are Moskovitz’s passion and this says a lot about his character. Meanwhile, Moskovitz loves the Burning Man festival and attends it every year. He isn’t a typical billionaire because he wants to make the world better. This isn’t easy for anybody but he tries his best (via Quartz).

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Lukas Walton

John T. Walton suffered a tragic death in 2005 after he died in a plane crash. This meant that his son, Lukas, inherited the vast Walmart fortune. Most people would walk past him on the street without recognizing him. But that’s exactly the way the new Walton kingpin likes it (via Forbes).

The 36-year-old has an estimated net worth of over $20 billion. These days he focuses his efforts on philanthropy instead of making more money. It’s always nice to see the youngest billionaires giving their cash away instead of milking the world for more. Walton appears to be a good soul and that’s great to know.

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Bobby Murphy

It’s easy to forget that Snapchat had two founders because nobody talks about Murphy. Everybody mentions Evan Spiegel but they don’t mention his former partner. However, Murphy possesses exceptional wealth in his own right. He has at least $2.7 billion built up in his bank accounts (via Exchange Wire).

The 34-year-old Stanford alum is like a ghost online. He has a Twitter account but never tweets. These days he’s focusing his efforts on virtual reality and on enhanced headsets. Remarkably, he has had such a profound impact on the tech sector but few people know about him.

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Eva-Maria Braun-Luedicke

B. Braun is one of the most powerful pharmaceutical companies in Germany. It also made a billionaire out of its current owner, Eva-Maria. She took the reigns from her mother’s cousin, Ludwig Braun, and became one of Europe’s wealthiest women. The German company has an excellent work culture and is popular in the country.

They develop life-saving surgical instruments and injection solutions amongst other products. Also, Eva-Maria is the sixth generation of her family to run the company. This brings a lot of pressure and it would be easier for her to resent her family legacy. But she remains dedicated to maintaining it (via Forbes).

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Evan Spiegel

32-year-old Spiegel is one of the richest young billionaires in the world. He has an estimated personal fortune of $2.8 billion and is a recognizable name. Spiegel made his money from Snapchat and helped to develop the app with his partner, Bobby Murphy. The former Red Bull intern dropped out of Stanford because he knew SnapChat was special.

Most people would think this was a gamble but Spiegel had a lot of confidence in the app. He only had a couple of classes to complete but decided that it didn’t matter. History was kind to this decision because it made him one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. He’s also winning in his personal life and married Miranda Kerr (via SCMP).

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Patrick Collison

Collison is one of Europe’s richest tech billionaires. He founded Stripe with his brother, John, and continues to go from strength to strength. Stripe offers payment processing services and is a very lucrative business. These days, the 33-year-old has an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion.

That’s a lot of money for a young man but he will need it moving forward. He proposed to his long-term girlfriend in 2022 and agreed to start a family. The pair will have an amazing life together and it’s beautiful that they don’t have any financial pressure. Meanwhile, his fiancee is also a scientist with a brilliant mind (via Daily Mirror).

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Sam Bankman-Fried

Technically we’re cheating by including Bankman-Fried because he doesn’t have access to his vast fortune. The IRS and FBI froze his bank accounts and arrested him after a fraud investigation. Bankman-Fried became one of the most notable young billionaires in the world after the success of crypto hub FTX.

The crypto-trading platform appeared to be the future but it appears that Bankman-Fried was actually a criminal. He may face over 100 years in jail and is already serving time in the Bahamas. It’s a massive fall from grace for the tech entrepreneur. The 30-year-old had a bright future but threw it away (via Irish Times).

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Ludwig Theodor Braun

Braun is another member of one of Germany’s most powerful pharmaceutical families. He owns a substantial stake in B Braun, the medical technology company. His sister Anna-Maria is the company’s CEO but Ludwig also reaps the rewards of his family’s legacy. He has at least one billion dollars to his name.

He’s also one of the youngest billionaires on the planet today. Braun enjoys massive wealth but without the pressures that his sister deals with day to day. The company has a massive presence in Africa with subsidiaries in five nations across the continent. It’s truly a global corporation (via EIN News).

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Andy Fang

DoorDash is one of the most popular delivery services in the U.S. today. Fang co-founded the food delivery platform and became one of the youngest billionaires ever. The 29-year-old saw a niche and exploited it with great success as well as some luck. That’s the story of every great entrepreneur in North America ever (via Bloomberg).

Fang has a personal wealth of about $1.1 billion according to Bloomberg. He briefly left the billionaire’s list in 2020 after DoorDash’s stock prices plummeted. But they rebounded and this reestablished him in the exclusive club. The end of the global health crisis had an impact on sales because people didn’t order as much.

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John Collison

We’ve already discussed John’s brother Patrick. He is the other half of the successful Irish sibling duo that took the world by storm. They created the payment processing company Stripe and are enjoying a lot of popularity. Collison is 32 and has a massive fortune of $3.2 billion (via Irish Mirror).

Since then, Collison unveiled new apps and is also involved in the real estate industry. In 2022, he invested six million dollars in renovating a derelict property. This is the sort of thing that billionaires can do because a few million doesn’t mean anything to them. It must be nice to enjoy that kind of financial freedom.

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Stanley Tang

Tang is one of the trio of tech entrepreneurs who founded DoorDash. Now he is one of the world’s youngest billionaires and enjoying more money than he ever dreamed of. According to the Seattle Times, he may have a personal fortune of $2.7 billion. That’s a lot for a 30-year-old.

The Hong Kong native studied at Stanford and met his future business partners there. This changed the course of his life because the dynamic trio came up with a brilliant plan. They took over the food delivery industry and successfully competed with giants like Uber Eats.

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Elisabeth Furtwaengler

Cosmopolitan and Playboy are some of the most popular magazines in the world. But people don’t consider that many of these publications emerge from the same company. Burda Media distributes its German editions alongside hundreds of others. This ensured staggering wealth for Hubert Burda and his family.

Meanwhile, the magnate’s daughter, Elisabeth, is one of the youngest billionaires today. The 30-year-old enjoys a 25 percent stake in the company and this made her extremely rich. She took a strong interest in the business and is a hard worker. That’s why they control the industry in their native Germany (via Die Zeit).

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Pedro de Godoy Bueno

Bueno enjoys the unique accolade of being Brazil’s youngest billionaire. His late father, Edson, developed one of the most powerful laboratory companies in South America. After he died, he left everything to his children. Now his son is leading the firm and continuing his vision (via Elga Lab Water).

DASA is also a major health insurance firm in Brazil. Bueno and his family enjoy a massive influence over the sector. The 32-year-old is one of the richest men on the continent. Furthermore, his father’s generosity ensured that his sister also became a billionaire. Brazil is a very economically-divided society but there’s no doubt that they’re at the top.

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Jonathan Kwok

Kwok became Hong Kong’s youngest billionaire after he inherited his father’s wealth. Walter Kwok was the chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties in the autonomous Chinese region. The real estate and property development sectors are extremely lucrative in Hong Kong because of the limited space (via SCMP).

Meanwhile, the younger Kwok avoids the spotlight and prefers to focus on business. This isn’t surprising because the Kwok clan experienced many scandals over the years. There were corruption cases and a notorious kidnapping. That’s why Kwok keeps his head down and avoids damage to his shareholdings.

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Gustav Magnar Witzoe

Witzoe is a billionaire who enjoys sharing his lavish lifestyle with his legions of followers. The Norwegian made his fortune from the salmon-fishing industry. His family controls a salmon empire in Scandinavia and he’s reaping the rewards.

Now the 26-year-old is a fashion model as well as a socialite. Many of the billionaires on this list prefer to keep a low profile and focus on their businesses. But Witzoe appears to live every day as though it might be his last. He’s enjoying his life and he wants everybody else to know about it (via NZ Herald).

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Alexander Wang

Wang is the youngest self-made billionaire in the world today. The 25-year-old made his money from the tech industry and is enjoying tremendous success. Analysts believe that he has a personal fortune of about $5.9 billion. Scale AI is one of the most influential companies in Silicon Valley today (via SCMP).

Scale AI is enjoying massive popularity because of its work with autonomous systems. They’re working with the car industry and many other sectors as companies seek to increase efficiency. Some of the billionaires on this list may lose popularity with their social media networks but Wang won’t have this problem.

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Ryan Breslow

This 28-year-old became one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires because of his incredible vision. He’s the brains behind Bolt, a one-click checkout company. This changes the way that consumers and traders operate. Furthermore, Breslow developed a cryptocurrency trading platform.

Breslow has an estimated personal fortune of two billion dollars. He also made headlines after he accused gangsters of running Silicon Valley. This caused one of his customers to sue him in a dramatic and unsavory story. Breslow isn’t afraid to say what he thinks, yet that’s not always a good idea (via Bolt.com).

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Austin Russell

Russell became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire when in 2020 when he was 25. He no longer holds that title but he’s still one of the youngest billionaires in the U.S. He is the founder of Luminar and is playing a crucial role in the car industry as technologies progress.

The innovator believes that there will be driverless taxis in the next decade. He believes that LiDar technology will make this safer because they won’t make stupid mistakes. Only time will tell if his prediction is correct. But the world is changing very quickly so perhaps he’s on the right track (via Time).

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Katharina Andresen

Andresen and her sister were the youngest billionaires in the world when they received their wealth. Now they’re a little bit older but they still enjoy incredible wealth. 27-year-old Katharina is a fascinating figure because she isn’t afraid to spend her money. The glamorous heiress enjoys high fashion and horseriding (via The Journal).

She received 43 percent of her father’s company in 2017 and is making the most of it. Initially, the family made their fortune from the tobacco industry. But they saw the way the wind was blowing and sold up. Their father handed his daughters these vast stakes because he wanted to avoid heavy taxes in Norway.

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Henrique Dubugras

Dubrugras is the second Brazilian billionaire on this list. He’s the co-founder of Brex, a company that wants to revolutionize corporate credit cards. We’ll talk about his business partner, Pedro Franchesci later. But the story of how they met is hilarious because it began online (via Crunch Base).

They didn’t know each other before they had a Twitter argument. The pair studied at Stanford like many of the tech entrepreneurs we’ve discussed. But they never graduated because they dropped out. They saw the potential of their start-up and decided it was time to go all in.

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Wang Zelong

Zelong is one of China’s youngest billionaires. He inherited a massive stake in a chemical company and this gave him instant clout. It operates on the Shenzhen stock exchange where it is a major player. Zelong’s business produces a pigment that is useful for ink and plastic coverings.

The 25-year-old is one of the youngest billionaires in Asia. It’s possible to make a lot of money very quickly in China with the right connections and investment. Zelong discovered this to his benefit and is now going to enjoy a rich future. He also has a stake in Lomon Holdings (via SCMP).

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Pedro Franceschi

We’ve already discussed Franceschi’s business partner, Henrique Dubugras. Now let’s look at the other co-founder of Brex who is also one of the youngest billionaires in the world. Franceschi has an estimated personal fortune of $1.5 billion. He studied programming as a child after developing an obsession with computers.

This helped him later in life because he became one of Brazil’s most successful tech entrepreneurs. He said he suffered burnout twice before he was 26. Now he’s finally achieving his dreams but he remains humble. Franceschi isn’t afraid to bring in external advisors to gain a broader perspective (via Bloomberg).

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Kylie Jenner

There’s a lot of controversy about Jenner’s billionaire status after she allegedly lost millions in 2022. However, she remains one of the most famous people on the planet so we’ll include her. The 22-year-old style icon is a member of the Kardashian clan. This helped enhance her profile.

Meanwhile, her label Kylie Cosmetics became incredibly popular. Forbes estimated that her wealth dropped to $900 million in 2022. But her accountants dispute this so who knows what the reality is? Nonetheless, she retains massive global recognition and influence (via BuzzFeed).

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Alexandra Andresen

Kylie Jenner lives an extremely glamorous lifestyle. However, this couldn’t be more different from the younger Andresen sister, Alexandra. She drives a second-hand Audi because her father advised her to purchase a used car. Meanwhile, she tries to save her money instead of spending it all.

The Norwegian heiress appreciates the little things in life and doesn’t want social media attention. Remarkably, two of the world’s wealthiest young women live very differently. Andresen says that she’s happy with how things are and doesn’t want to change them (via Money).

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Kevin David Lehman

Lehman became the world’s youngest billionaire in 2021 but lost that title. Nonetheless, the German is one of the richest young people today. Allegedly he received his wealth from his father (see below) when he turned 18. That’s because he was a successful investor and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.

Now Lehman has more money than he’ll ever know what to do with. The German has an estimated net worth of about $2.4 billion. Nobody will describe Lehman as ‘self-made’ but it won’t bother him. Money makes the world go around and he has plenty of it (via Delhi Magazine).

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Kim Jung-Youn

Kim is the youngest billionaire in the world right now with a personal fortune of $2.5 million. She inherited this staggering amount of money after her father (below) passed away in 2022. Kim Jong-Ju was a successful game developer and left his wealth to his daughters when he died (via SCMP).

18-year-old Kim lost her father but gained more money than she could ever have dreamed of. It’s safe to say that she is enjoying a start to life that most people will never experience. At the same time, it’s tragic that her dad died when he was 54. This shows that all of the money in the world can’t buy somebody’s health.

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