How Do Billionaires Become Billionaires?

My name's Robert Bonavito, New Jersey forensic accountant. This video is part of a series of videos where I discuss forensic accounting topics for educational purposes only. People often wonder how do billionaires become billionaires? I think most people assume that they inherited it, but if you look at the top...in the Fortune 500, if you look at the top 10 or 15, I think there's only 3 or 4 that inherited their wealth. One is the Waltons of Walmart, and there was one other one that I don't recall.
 
But if you look at the top 400 richest people, probably a little over 273 made it by earning it, like a Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett type situation where they made a product and sold it, or gave advice and sold that advice. And that's important to understand because I think one of the best way to acquire wealth is to start a company, to start a business. And if you look at most of the successful people, a lot of times it is those who actually started the business, compared to those who took over a business that's basically on autopilot and your running it. It's a lot easier to run, you know, Microsoft now, or Apple now, or General Electric. But it's really difficult to start those companies, and it takes a special type of person to do that. But I think ultimately that's the people who create this...the value and those are the people that become billionaires. It's just an interesting topic that a lot of people...we talk about, so I wanted to discuss it briefly here. If you have any questions, feel free to give me an email.