The Unknown Billionaires: The life stories of 50 self-made men and women

by Michael Caldwell

When you hear the word ‘billionaire’, the usual suspects come to mind – Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, and the indefatigable Donald Trump. What most people don’t realize is that the billionaire population has grown over 1000% in the last 25 years. We chose 50 self-made men and women from the list of over 1,500 billionaires. And while you may not know their names, you will probably know of their achievements. Some of these stories will surprise you. For all is not sunshine and honey. You will read about gambling addiction, billion-dollar divorce, suicide, forgery, sweatshops, bribery, fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, cocaine and murder. Although they are very gifted and very rich, in the end most are just like you and me...fantastic and flawed.

Genres: Business

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 6, 2014

Reviews

[Martin, I stand with ISRAEL · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is somewhat interesting. Mostly short stories about people who took risks and became successful.

Had a problem with a gentleman named Edir Macedo. An “evangelical” preacher worth 1.3 billion. Let’s just say he skimmed some money off donations.

Otherwise there are better books to spend your time on.

[Viktor Nilsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept to write a book about self-made billionaires - apart from the ones you've heard about! But in the end I was quite disappointed:
-How was the selection made? What are the sources?
-The writing is not really top-notch.
-Each story is so short that crucial business developments are left out completely, leaving big holes in the stories. One day they drove a truck with just one satellite dish... Next they get $300M junk bond financing and send a satellite into space. What? In another case 20 years are skipped between two paragraphs.
-I don't know if the author is generally jealous or just angry at billionaires, but he spends a disproportionate effort on delving into all legal issues they've been accused of (which definitely will happen once people have the opportunity to extract billions from you). Acquittal seems not enough to refute his conviction that they are all wicked.

All in all: Sometimes inspiring but hardly illuminating.

[Hans Kribbel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok to gather information

The stories are rather boring, as new money does not have the flair of the dynasty of the Rothschild's, Carnegie's, Rockefeller's or Vanderbilt 's. But it's interesting enough to learn how certain twists in the society, certain strange ideas or just simple determination of individuals can create incredible fortunes.

[Rebecca Conaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome❤️

Thanks to this book I have great hope for others. It is interesting to know their histories. It helped to understand the products. For instance,after reading about the creator of RedBull, I bought some. I avoided it until I read about him.

[Wenslaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic

[Pamela Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Other Lifestyle

I was very interested in these over achievers. It is amazing how they began life and were able to transform themselves.

[Robert Firring · Rating 5 out of 5]

very enjoyable read

The world moves so fast. These are short profiles of business people who made a difference. I enjoyed getting to know them.