Who wants to be a billionaire?
Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a billionaire?
Interestingly over the past two years, the wealth of Australia's 47 billionaires has doubled to $255 billion.
That's more wealth in the hands of 47 people than about 7.7 million Australians.
But how do you become a billionaire?
Well, the path those who have become billionaires have taken to grow their wealth has changed over the course of the generations.
Businessfinancing.co.uk pulled details from Forbes’ list of living billionaires and used them to create a profile of the average billionaire from the past four generations:
- the Silent Generation (born 1928-1945),
- Boomers (1946-64),
- Gex X (1965-80), and
- Millennials (1981-96).
They found that billionaires are becoming less schooled, less married – and less male.
And the self-made tycoon is giving way to the billion-heir, with 33.6% of rich millennials having inherited their wealth compared to 19.3% of the preceding Generation X.
Here are their key findings
- 19.1% of millennial billionaires are women, compared to 11.9% of Gen X’s and 9.8% of Boomers.
- Finance & Investments is the most common industry of older billionaires, but Gen X and Millennials are more likely to make their money from tech.
- Millennials are the first generation not to produce billionaires in Logistics, Gambling & Casinos, Telecom, or Sports.
- No millennial billionaire has a PhD, and only 13% has an MBA – compared to 28.3% of Gen X billionaires.
- New York City is the most popular residence for billionaires born before 1964, while Gen X favours Beijing and Millennials are in San Francisco.
Source: BusinessFinancing.co.uk