America is the land of the self-made. There are many millionaires and billionaires on this list who came from next to nothing, only to make themselves rich. The sectors in which the rich invest and form companies are varied. The value of hard work, however, is the constant that doesn’t change.
Each person on this list has managed to get where they are through savvy business acumen, hard work, and a little luck, too. Click through to see who’s who on America’s most interesting millionaires and billionaires list.
Jeff Bezos
Company: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Net worth: $160B
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is at the top of the list as the world’s richest person. Born in New Mexico and raised in Texas, Bezos founded Amazon as an online bookstore in 1994. The company kept expanding and growing. Now, it is the world’s largest e-commerce retailer.
Bezos came from humble beginnings and worked his way to the top. His mom was a high school student when she had him, and his dad worked at a bike shop. His mom and dad split up, and her new husband, an immigrant from Cuba, adopted Bezos. Bezos received an education from Princeton before starting Amazon.
Oprah Winfrey
Company: OWN
Net worth: $2.8B
Oprah Winfrey is one of the world’s most inspiring leaders. She was born in Mississippi and moved to Milwaukee, where her mother, a single teen mom, raised her. Winfrey’s childhood was not easy. She overcame these hardships to become the first African-American multi-billionaire in North America.
Oprah founded the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2008. She still has her talk show, as well, which she started in the 1990s. Winfrey was nicknamed “The Queen of All Media.” President Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom in 2013. She is also philanthropic and very politically active for the Democratic Party.
Bill Gates
Company: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Net worth: $93.9B
Among all the world’s philanthropists, Bill Gates is notable for giving $35 billion to charity. This is the highest amount from a single donor on record. Married to Melinda Gates, Bill Gates received an education from a private preparatory school before moving on to Harvard. He dropped out of Harvard after just two years to start Microsoft.
Gates wrote the first codes for Microsoft Software. He partnered with IBM (NYSE:IBM) to develop software for their computers. From there, the business grew. Gates had always had a reputation as a computer whiz. He was able to grow that reputation into billions.
Kylie Jenner
Company: Kylie Cosmetics
Net worth: $900M
Kylie Jenner is the sister of Kim Kardashian. Kylie, though only 21, has become a global businesswoman thanks to her cosmetics line, Kylie Cosmetics. After receiving attention and speculation for her full lips, which she had not had when she was a teen, Kylie revealed that she had had lip fillers.
She then decided to design a product for fans that would mimic the look of fillers. She first put out Kylie Lip Kits, which were liquid lipstick and liner kits to plump your lips. The Lip Kits sold out almost immediately.
Mark Zuckerberg
Company: Facebook (NASDAQ:FB)
Net worth: $53.8B
Mark Zuckerberg is famous for starting the social media giant, Facebook. Zuckerberg is only 34, but his fortune is worth more than fifty billion dollars. He was born to a psychiatrist and a dentist. He started writing code for computers in middle school after his father taught him ATARI’s Basic Programming system.
Almost decade later, Zuckerberg attended Harvard and had a reputation as a software genius. He founded Facebook (then called Facesmash) as a way to rate how attractive people were on Harvard’s campus. The site took off, and Harvard banned it. Zuckerberg decided to pursue Facebook and left Harvard.
Marissa Mayer
Company: Yahoo
Net worth: $300M
Marissa Mayer was the CEO and president of the online giant Yahoo! (NASDAQ:AABA) She also founded Lumi Labs. She is also a Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) spokeswoman. Mayer stepped down from her position at Yahoo! after the company merged with Verizon (NYSE:VZ) Wireless for almost $5 billion. After leaving the company, Mayer founded Lumi Labs with Enrique Torres, a former colleague.
Lumi Labs focuses on consumer media and artificial intelligence. It is headquartered in Palo Alto. Mayer still sits on the boards of several major companies. She sits on the Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and Jawbone boards, and she is involved in several nonprofit organizations.
Tim Cook
Company: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Net worth: $625M
Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple, taking over after the death of Steve Jobs. Apple is currently valued at over one trillion dollars. Despite his millions, Steve Cook lives frugally, buying discounted clothing. He’s planning to donate his stock earnings to charity after paying his nephew’s college tuition.
What you may not know is, Tim Cook is also a groundbreaker in another area. He was the first Fortune 500 CEO to come out as gay. Cook currently serves on the board for Nike (NYSE:NKE) and the NFL, in addition to his work at Apple. Duke University granted him a trustee position.
Rupert Murdoch
Company: Fox News
Net worth: $9.1B
Rupert Murdoch is a media titan. He was born in Australia, but he obtained American citizenship. He owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the Times of London. Recently, Murdoch sold Fox News to Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), Co. for approximately $52 billion.
Murdoch recently underwent a scandal when the man he supervised, Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, was hit with a barrage of sexual assault allegations. Murdoch brushed off the accusations, claiming they were isolated incidents. When over 24 women emerged to accuse Ailes, Murdoch decided that maybe he was wrong. Ailes was fired.
Jack Dorsey
Company: Twitter
Net worth: $4.4B
Jack Dorsey is a businessman who, like others on this list, took his talent for computer programming and coding and made it into a gold mine. Jack Dorsey founded the social media site Twitter. He also founded Square (NYSE:SQ), which is a facilitator for mobile payments. Interestingly, Twitter was never designed for revenue-earning.
Dorsey’s three business principles are: craftsmanship, constraint, and simplicity. Profit is not listed on there. Twitter has been able to earn revenue through advertising. Dorsey’s company has come under scrutiny because of its issues with harassment between users.
Diane Hendricks
Company: ABC Supply
Net worth: $5.8B
Diane Hendricks is the chairwoman of ABC Supply. ABC Supply is one of America’s largest wholesale distributors of construction materials. ABC Supply distributes windows, siding, and roofing materials. Hendricks has also produced two films: The Stoning of Soraya M. and An American Carol.
Hendricks has turned her focus onto Beloit, a Wisconsin town that was hit hard by bad economic times and is struggling to recover. Hendricks is looking to turn Beloit into a new mecca. She has been buying up old, abandoned buildings and repurposing them.
Judy Love
Company: Love’s Travel Stops and Country Store
Net worth: $6.0B
Judy Love and her husband Tom started small. They used a $5,000 loan from Judy’s parents to open a gas station in Oklahoma in 1964. Judy and Tom ran the gas station for a decade before Judy went back to college for degrees in interior design.
Judy and Tom’s company expanded from a single gas station to an entire chain. Love’s Travel Stops and Country Store operates in over 41 states and has over 430 locations. The convenience store chain’s revenue is $16 billion. Tom and Judy are still married, and now they have four kids.
Sheldon Adelson
Company: Las Vegas Sands Corporation
Net worth: $32B
Sheldon Adelson is a businessman and political activist who funds many Republican candidates. He is the fifteenth-richest person in the world. Adelson grew up in Boston. His mother ran a knitting store, and his father drove a tax. His mother was an English immigrant.
Adelson’s first business was a computer trade show COMDEX. He and his partners sold COMDEX to Japan’s SoftBank Corp. From there, Adelson decided to get into the entertainment industry. He bought the Sands Hotel & Casino, a Vegas hotspot for celebrities such as Frank Sinatra. He then added on to Sands, continuing to develop his empire.
Doug McMillon
Company: Walmart, Inc.
Net worth: $48B
Doug McMillon is the CEO and president of Walmart, a massive chain of discount stores across the U.S. McMillon first worked at Walmart as an associate when he was in high school. He was promoted to a general buyer. McMillon became the general merchandise manager for Sam’s Club, a wholesale retail location that Walmart owns.
McMillon became the CEO of Sam’s Club in 2005. McMillon changed Sam’s Club marketing to veer more towards small business owners looking to buy in bulk. McMillon then went from Sam’s Club to Walmart’s International Division before he became the actual Walmart CEO.
Jay-Z
Company: Roc-A-Fella Records
Net worth: $900M
Born Shawn Corey Carter, Jay-Z is a rapper and businessman worth almost $1 billion. He is the husband of superstar singer Beyoncé Knowles. Jay-Z founded Roc-A-Fella records, which was a division of Russell Simmons’ Def Jam records. Jay-Z has won 21 Grammy awards. He also recently started Tidal, an online streaming service.
Tidal receives new music from artists before other streaming services do. There are also podcasts, in addition to the 60 million tracks and more than two hundred thousand music videos. Currently, Aspiro, a Norwegian company, operates Tidal. Jay-Z invested $56 million into this service.
Lynda Resnick
Company: Wonderful Co.
Net worth: $4.2B
Lynda Resnick and her husband and business partner Stewart founded Wonderful Company, a holding company that owns FIJI Water, POM Wonderful, Teleflora, and more. Lynda was a young entrepreneur, starting her first ad agency at 19, called “Lynda Limited.”
Lynda also was known for her political activism during the Vietnam War. She lent her friend, a government official, use of her Lynda Ltd. printers. She discovered that the friend was faxing secret military documents. Lynda took the documents and turned them over to the New York Times. The NYT posted them, calling the documents “The Pentagon Papers.”
Richard Fairbank
Company: Capital One
Net worth: $1.1B
In 1988, Fairbank founded the bank Capital One with Nigel Morris, his partner. He still serves as Capital One’s CEO and chair. He also is a director for MasterCard and serves in an advisory capacity for Stanford Business School. Stanford, his alma mater, granted him an Excellence in Leadership award in 2006.
Fairbank receives zero base salary per year. His $1.1 billion net worth comes from stock awards and option awards. He receives no bonuses, either. Fairbank has declined a salary since 1997. He still manages to pull in more than $20 million a year.
Nick Cannon
Company: Ncredible Entertainment
Net worth: $50M
Nick Cannon started his career as a teenager on MTV’s All That. He continued his career in television, hosting The Nick Cannon Show, America’s Got Talent, Wild ‘N Out, The Masked Singer, and Lip Sync Battle Shorties. Nick founded Ncredible Entertainment, a media company. Nick Cannon married Mariah Carey in 2008, and the pair divorced in 2016.
Nick Cannon is still producing and rapping. He also has built up an acting career. Nick is known for the films Roll Bounce, Drumline, and Love Don’t Cost a Thing. Cannon also starred in the comedic TV show “Real Husbands of Hollywood.”
Russell Simmons
Company: Def Jam Records
Net worth: $340M
Russell Simmons is the chairman and CEO of Rush Communications, and he also founded Def Jam Records. Simmons also created Tantris, Argyleculture, and Phat Farm, three clothing brands to go along with his record label. Simmons is also a controversial figure.
He made a “comedy sketch” in which an actress playing abolitionist Harriet Tubman engaging in inappropriate actions with an actor portraying a slave owner. The sketch was widely labeled as being in poor taste, and Simmons later apologized. He also has come under fire for sexual assault allegations, which ten woman have brought against him.
Kanye West
Company: Yeezy
Net worth: $160M
Eccentric rapper, clothing and shoe designer Kanye West is never out of the headlines for long. Kanye West first got his start as a producer for Jay Z and others. He then became a rapper. He also owns a record label, GOOD Music. Kanye recently got into designing clothing and shoes for his label, Yeezy.
Yeezy is extremely popular among celebrities, and Kanye’s wife, Kim Kardashian West, has had a big hand in helping the label advertise. As of late, Kanye West has come under scrutiny for his bizarre, often contradictory tweets.
Elon Musk
Company: SpaceX, Tesla
Net worth: $19.9 billion
Elon Musk’s name has been popping up in headlines a lot these days – but not always for good reasons. The controversial billionaire is most famous for leading the world’s next era of transportation with SpaceX and Tesla. And maybe someday the Hyperloop. He’s developed everything from space transport to artificial intelligence to his own brand of tequila.
Musk was born in South Africa before getting Canadian citizenship when he was 17. He first began living in the United States when he attended the University of Pennsylvania, and eventually got a U.S. passport. But Musk’s reputation for aggressively attacking his critics has often landed him in hot water with the press, the public and his own company.