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Jay Z Net Worth

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What is Jay Z’s Net Worth?

  • Net Worth: $1 billion
  • Date of Birth: December 4, 1969
  • Gender: Male
  • Income Source: Rapping, Business

Nationality: American

About Jay Z

Jay Z is an American rapper known for his substantial contributions to the music industry as evidenced by 21 Grammy awards and record sales of at least 100 million records globally. His current net worth is $1 Billion. Jay Z is married to renowned singer Beyonce. The couple have three children.

Early Life

Jay Z was born as Shawn Corey Carter on December 4, 1969 in the Brooklyn Borough of New York. He grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing complex which is a project on the Bedford Stuvyesant neighbourhood. His parents are Shawn and Gloria and he has three siblings. His father abandoned them leaving their mother to raise them all by herself. He attended the Eli Whitney High School but when it was closed down, he transferred to George Westinghouse Career and Technical Educational School. He also went to Trenton Central High School in New Jersey.

His mother realized his affinity for music when he kept on banging drum patterns on the kitchen table. She bought him a boom box which he used to write his first songs. It was when he got introduced to Big Daddy Kane that be became known to a much wider audience across the world.

Career

Jay Z started by selling CDs of his records out of his car. He also created his own label in the name of Roc-A-Fella Records in 1995. With a distribution deal with Priority Records, Jay Z released his first album in 1996 entitled Reasonable Doubt. The album peaked at the 23rd spot in Billboard 200 and generally received favourable reviews. The album later on was certified as a platinum. In 1997, Jay Z landed a distribution deal with Def Jam and enabled him to release another album entitled In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 which was also certified platinum.

His already growing popularity was skyrocketed with his third album entitled Hard Knock Life in 1998. The album was five times platinum, selling over 5 million copies. His 4th album Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter was released in 1999 and sold over 3 million copies. This was followed by the album The Dynasty: Roc La Familia in 2000 which sold over 2 million copies in US. His 6th album, The Blueprint sold more than 427,000 copies in two days after the release and debuted on the top spot of Billboard 200. The album was also certified 2X platinum in the US. Jay Z released more albums including The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse, The Black Album, Kingdom Come, American Gangster, The Blueprint 3, Magna Carta… Holy Grail, and 4:44. He also had collaborative and compilation albums.

Aside from music, Jay Z is also a businessman. He launched the clothing line Rocawear in 1999 and in 2000 he also launched the company Roc Nation. He also is a part owner of the streaming company Tidal. He has investments in Uber, real estate, and in his cognac D’Usse. He has a huge investment in the champagne company Armand de Brignac.

Career Highlights

Jay Z has received a total of 226 awards and 400 nominations. He has 3 American Music Awards, 37 ASCAP Awards, 29 BET Awards, five Billboard Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. He also won in the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on the categories Integrated Grand Prix 2011 and Titanium Lion 2011 for Decoded Campaign, and the Excellence in Music Video category 2018 for Smile. Jay Z also won 22 Grammy awards to date with the most recent one in 2019 in the category Best Contemporary Album for Everything is Love.

Jay Z Quotes

“People respect success. They respect big. They don’t even have to like your music. If you’re big enough, people are drawn to you.” – Jay-Z

“I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me.” – Jay-Z

“You learn more in failure than you ever do in success.” – Jay-Z

“Those who are successful overcome their fears and take action. Those who aren’t submit to their fears and live with regrets.” – Jay-Z

“Either love me or leave me alone.” – Jay-Z

“When you’re growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you’ve let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.” – Jay-Z

“By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn’t need pen or paper – my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.” – Jay-Z

“I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That’s what this world is about.” – Jay-Z

“You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can’t falter. You can’t slip, you can’t sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever.” – Jay-Z

“I believe everyone in the world is born with genius-level talent. Apply yourself to whatever you’re genius at, and you can do anything in the world.” – Jay-Z

Life Lessons

Jay Z often reflects on his life lessons and realizations through his songs. Talking about his song This Can’t Be Life, he mentioned that it was about his fear of failure which he could not talk about.  This kind of feeling is similar for many of us especially when things are not going our way. When we make bad decisions, when we experience bad luck, when we are placed in bad situations everything becomes too hard to bear, we start telling ourselves that this cannot be our story. It cannot be our life. That moment for Jay Z was his powerful motivator to change the life that he has and to keep on working to becoming better.

Current Lifestyle

Jay Z, along with his wife Beyonce, owns a $26 million East Hampton mansion. Their home is equipped with seven bedrooms, seven and a half bathrooms a pond, a meadow preserve, and a1,800 square foot guest house. They also have property in Bel Air worth $88 million with eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a 15-car garage, staff quarters, and a basketball court. They also have a $2.6 million mansion in New Orleans and a $6.5 million penthouse in New York. Jay Z has 15 cars including a Tesla Model S, a GMZ Yukon SLT, an Alfa Romeo Spider, a Jeep Wrangler, a Pagani Zonda F, and a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport.

Summary

Jay Z is a multi-awarded rapper, song writer, and producer. He is known for his many chart-topping songs, with many of them detailing his life story and experiences. Aside from being an artist and entertainer, Jay Z is also an established businessman.

Billionaires

Warren Buffett Net Worth

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Warren Buffett Net Worth

Net Worth: $81 Billion

Date of Birth: August 30, 1930

Gender:  Male

Income Source: Entrepreneur, Investor

Nationality: American

About Warren Buffett

Warren Buffet is a business magnate who is known as one of the most famous investors in the world. He is the chairman of the Berkshire Hathaway since it’s beginning years in the 1970. Buffett is one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of $81 Billion. He was married to Susan Thompson from 1952 until her death in 2004. He remarried to Astrid Menks in 2006. Buffett has three Children Susan Alice, Howard Graham, and Peter. 

Early Life

Warren Edward Buffet was born on the 30th of August 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska to parents Leila and Howard Buffett. His father was a Congressman. Warren was the second of three children in the family. Warren went to Alice Deal Junior High School and later on to Woodrow Wilson High School where he graduated in 1947. AS a child, Warren has ventured into different small business opportunities. He experienced selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola bottles, as well as selling door-to-door magazines. He also did work in his grandfather’s grocery store. In high school, he delivered newspapers, sold golf balls and stamps, and was into detailing cars. When Warren was a sophomore, he and his friend purchased a $25 second-hand pinball machine and placed it in the local barbershop. The business was good and they started buying more pinball machines and placed them in different barber shops. They later on sold the business to a war veteran for $1,200. Upon graduating from high school, Warren didn’t want to go to college and wanted to do business, but his father didn’t allow him. 

Warren has had an interest in stock market exchange since he was first exposed to it in the stock brokerage office near his father’s own brokerage office. When he was 10, he went to visit New York and made sure to see the New York Stock Exchange. HE bought three shares of the Cities Service for himself and also bought three more for his sister. Warren’s job as delivery man of the newspaper earned him $175 monthly. When he was still a high school student, he invested in his father’s business and bought a 40-acre farmed land. When he was 14, he bought the land using his $1,200 savings. After graduating from college, Warren already saved $9,800.

Warren studied in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and studied for two years. He eventually transferred at the University of Nebraska where he graduated with a Bachelor of Sciences in Business Administration. He continued on to study Master of Science in Economics in Columbia Business School, Columbia University and graduated in 1951. He then continued to study in the New York Institute of Finance. 

Career 

Warren Buffet worked in the Buffett-Falk & Co. as an investment salesman from 1951 to 1954. He then transferred to Graham-Newman Corp. and worked there from 1954 to 1956 as a securities analyst. HE also worked at the Buffett Partnership, Ltd. from 1956 to 1969 as a general partner. From 1970, he became the Chairman and CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Berkshire has traded at $775 per share in 1979 and ended the year at trading at $1,310. When Berkshire started selling class A shares on 1990, Buffett became a paper billionaire. HE continued to invest in other companies and his wealth continues to increase.

Career Highlights

Warren Buffet took control of the Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 and in 1970, he became the company’s chairman and CEO.  In 1989, he acquired 6.3% shares of Coca-Cola for $1 Billion. In 1995, he took control of the GEICO in a $2.3 billion deal. In 2008, Buffett invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. 

Warren Buffet Quotes

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” – Warren Buffett

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffett

“Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.” – Warren Buffett

“The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient.” – Warren Buffett

“An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.” – Warren Buffett

“Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.’” – Warren Buffett

“The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.” – Warren Buffett

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.” – Warren Buffett

“Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.” – Warren Buffett

“Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you’d be content to own it in the absence of any market.” – Warren Buffett

“Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.” – Warren Buffett

“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” – Warren Buffett

“Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.” – Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett Life Lessons

One of the important life lessons from Warren Buffet is to live below one’s means, meaning to live frugally. He considers the rest of his money as a protection in case of emergencies. He realized that if he lives frugally, his wealth can increase faster because he will be able to invest more. Also, it will be very unlikely that he will declare bankruptcy. Another is to value time and skip meetings and unnecessary time-wasters. Also, communication skills are important. He hated public speaking before but learned that it will be important in his career, and thus, forced himself to learn it. His efforts were rewarded as he soon reaped the good effects of being a good communicator.

Current Lifestyle

Warren Buffet is living a frugal lifestyle. With his net worth of billions, he still continues to live in his old house located in a quiet neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska. This is the same house that he bought in 1958 for only $31,500. Adjusted for inflation, the house’s value today is $276,700. The home is 6,570 square-feet with five bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. It is surrounded with security fences and cameras. Aside from his own home, he also purchased a vacation home in Laguna Beach, California for $150,000 in 1971 in the gated community of Emerald Bay.

Summary

Warren Buffet is one of the richest people in the whole world. He has been business-minded ever since he was young. With his investments and wise way of sending his money, Warren remains among the richest and most powerful business people in the world.

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Billionaires

Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth

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What is Mark Zuckerberg’s Net Worth?

  • Net Worth: $82 Billion
  • Date of Birth: May 14, 1984
  • Gender:  Male
  • Income Source: Entrepreneur
  • Nationality: American

About

Mark Zuckerberg is an American programmer famous for the creation of the social networking platform Facebook. He currently has a net worth of $82 billion and has broken records as the youngest billionaire in the world. Mark Zuckerberg is married to Priscilla Chan. The couple have two daughters.

Early Life

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on the 14th of May 1984 in White Plains, New York, to parents Karen and Edward. Karen was a psychiatrist while Edward was a dentist. Mark has three younger siblings Randi, Donna, and Arielle. The Zuckerberg’s were raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Mark went to Ardsley High School where he excelled in class. He eventually transferred to the Phillips Exeter Academy. In his high school years, he won a number of awards recognizing his excellence in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and even classical studies. Mark was also part of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth summer camp. He is also multilingual with excellence in the languages French, Hebrew, Latin, and ancient Greek. Zuckerberg was not just an academic child but he also excelled in sports, in fact, he was the captain of the school’s fencing team.

Mark was exposed to computers and programming when he was in middle school. He learned Atari BASIC Programming and his father also hired a software developer to tutor him. When he was still in high school, Zuckerberg took a graduate class in Mercy College to learn more about programming. He also created a software program that organized his father’s computers in the office and at home. He also worked under the company Intelligent Media Group to develop a music player which used machine learning. Mark eventually went to college in Harvard University where he studied psychology and computer science.

Career

While in Harvard, he launched the social networking service Facebook in 2004 with his roommates. The site eventually expanded and had already reached 1.2 billion users by 2012. In early 2012, Facebook was opened to the public. Zuckerberg’s team also released Wirehog in 2004, which was a peer-to-peer file sharing service. Facebook continued to expand and opened the Facebook Platform which allowed programmers to create social applications within Facebook. Although widely received by different age groups in different parts of the world, Facebook has had a number of legal controversies pertaining to security, content, and technicality issues.

Career Highlights

When he was 23 years old, Zuckerberg became the world’s youngest billionaire. In 2019, he was the only person under 50 years old in the Forbes 10 richest people list. He is also the only person under 40 years of age in the top 20 billionaires in the world. Time magazine also recognized Zuckerberg as among the 100 wealthiest and most influential person in the world and was also given the Person of the Year award. He was also among the Forbes list of the World’s Most Powerful People.

Mark Zuckerberg Quotes

“I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Give everyone the power to share anything with anyone.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Instead of building walls, we can help build bridges.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

Life Lessons

There are some lessons that Mark Zuckerberg tries to embody as he continues to be among the most successful businessmen in the world. First is to fail fast. He mentioned before the importance of move fast and break things. In computer programming, the sooner you fail, the sooner you will realize the mistakes, the sooner you will find them as well, and the faster you will recover. Secondly, he believes in the power of the basics and that “if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress. Third is the importance of caring about people, which should be a priority in the business. Thus, Mark listens to the feedback of the customers and adjusts accordingly to their needs. Next is the importance of technological innovations. With the advent of AI, manual jobs are easily being replaced. It is important to adjust to the changing times accordingly. More importantly, it is important to live with a higher purpose and have an important mission that goes beyond money or power.

Current Lifestyle

Zuckerberg, similar with the other tech giants, is also not fond of wearing fashionable clothes. He sticks to easy choices such as a gray t-shirt and hoodies. He drives an Acura TSX and a Honda Fit, which are inexpensive cars valued around $30,000. He also has a Volkswagen Golf GTI which costs around $30,000. Nonetheless, Zuckerberg is also a fan of sports cars and has an Italian Pagani Huayra which costs around $1.3 million. Although compared to other billionaires, Zuckerberg’s cars are quite low-key, his real estate says otherwise. He has a 5,000 square-foot home in Palo Alto which he bought for $7 million. He wired his home with a custom-made artificially intelligent assistant. He also bought the four homes surrounding his home where he spent about $30 million. He also has a 5,500 square-foot townhouse in Mission District San Francisco which he bought for $1 million. In addition, he has a 357-acre former sugarcane plantation in Kahu’aina and a 393-acre property called Pila Beach in the island of Kauai. These two properties are worth $100 million.

Summary

Mark Zuckerberg is an American programmer famous for the creation of the world-renowned social media platform Facebook. Zuckerberg has continued to expand Facebook by buying other companies and developing new features he has even made it more user friendly. Since its launch in early 2000s, the platform has acquired billions of users. Facebook has already been a part of an ever changing social culture and has now established itself as a normal means of communication.

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Billionaires

Elon Musk Net Worth

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What is Elon Musk Net Worth?

Net Worth: $21.6 Billion

Date of Birth: June 28, 1971

Gender: Male

Income Source: Entrepreneur, Investor

Nationality: South African, Canadian, American

About

Elon Musk is known as an innovative entrepreneur. He has three citizenships including South African, Canadian, and American. Elon Musk has had different business ventures over the years and has succeeded in many of these businesses. He currently has a net worth of $21.6 billion and this will surely increase in the following years as he continues to expand his companies and partnerships across the world. Elon Musk has been married three times. First to Justine Wilson whom he was married to for eight years. The second and third marriages were with Talulah Riley whom Musk married in 2010, divorced in 2012, remarried in 2013, and divorced again in 2016. His current partner is Claire Boucher commonly known as the singer Grimes. Elon has six children with his first wife. The eldest, Nevada Alexander, passed away 10 weeks after he was born. His five children named Griffin, Xavier, Kai, Saxon, and Damian were all born through IVF. Recently, his girlfriend Grimes has confirmed she is pregnant with Musk’s child.

Early Life

Elon Reeve Musk was born on the 28th of June, 1971 in Transvaal, South Africa to parents Maye and Errol. Elon has two siblings Kimbal and Tosca. Their parents divorced in 1980 and Elon lived mostly with his father, who he regarded as a terrible man. As a child, Elon had always loved reading. When he was 10, his interest was captured by computing whilst playing the Commodore VIC-20. He learned programming by himself and when he reached 12, he sold the code for a video game he created to PC and Office Technology Magazine. The game was called Blastar and he earned $500 from it.

As a kid, Elon was severely bullied up to the point of hospitalization when a group of boys threw him down the stairs. His head smashed the pavement and his nose was damaged, requiring corrective surgery. Elon went to school at the Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and Pretoria Boys High School. He attended the University of Pretoria for five months. Since he has always wanted to go to America, he moved to Canada against his father’s will with a plan of obtaining Canadian citizenship which would make it easier for him to enter America. In Canada, Elon went to Queen’s University in 1982 and moved to America in 1992 to study business and physics in the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated with a BS in Economics and a BA in Physics. In 1995, he almost started a PhD journey in Stanford University but decided to drop out two days after to concentrate on the launching of his first company, Zip2 Corporation.

Career

Zip2 is a web software company founded by Elon and his brother which was eventually bought by Compaq in 1999 for $340 million. Elon eventually started X.com, an online bank responsible for launching PayPal. This was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. After X.com, Musk ventured into space technology and founded SpaceX and became the company’s CEO and lead designer. He joined Tesla, Inc. in 2004 and also became the CEO and product architect of the company. The SolarCity, a subsidiary of Tesla, was also created. In 2015, the OpenAI research company was founded with the purpose of ensuring ethics in AI. In 2016, he co-founded Neuralink which deals with neurotechnology and The Boring Company which deals with tunnel construction.

Career Highlights

Elon Musk is considered as one of the most exceptional innovators of our time. He started the e-payment revolution with X.com, an e-payment company which eBay eventually bought and renamed to PayPal. He revolutionized the electric cars with Tesla Motors and invests in space exploration with SpaceX. He also invested in solar technology with SolarCity. Musk also landed a contract with NASA for flying the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.

Elon Musk Quotes

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” – Elon Musk

“I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can buy a much cheaper cell phone or laptop, but Apple’s product is so much better than the alternative, and people are willing to pay that premium.” – Elon Musk

“What makes innovative thinking happen? I think it’s really a mindset. You have to decide.” – Elon Musk

“A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.” – Elon Musk

“I’ve actually not read any books on time management.” – Elon Musk

“I would just question things… It would infuriate my parents… That I wouldn’t just believe them when they said something ’cause I’d ask them why. And then I’d consider whether that response made sense given everything else I knew.” – Elon Musk

“It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.” – Elon Musk

“The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.” – Elon Musk

“When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.” – Elon Musk

“My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.” – Elon Musk

 

Elon Musk Life Lessons

Elon Musk has certain lessons and principles that he clings to as he continues expanding his business portfolio. First one is to have a specific goal. But this goal should not be about getting a lot of money or being promoted. It should be about something that will make things better. If there is a product that doesn’t exist yet but will be beneficial for others if it will exist, then make it real. Second is to acknowledge that your ideas are not perfect. With this you will need to seek criticism and need to get as much feedback especially from people that you trust. Third, it is important to concentrate on working on one thing at a time and work harder and longer. Fourth, it is important to not fear failure but instead make it your friend. He views failure as a necessary component for innovation. Last but not the least, there is beauty in being extraordinary. Choose to challenge and question the norms.

Current Lifestyle

Elon Musk is known to own a real estate portfolio that is worth about $70 Million. He owns more than one Bel Air estates with one of these mansions costing $17 million and having a two-storey library. The mansion also has a home theater, a gym, and a thousand-bottle wine cellar. Musk is of course, also a fan of cars. He owns a $920,000 Lotus Esprit submarine car which was used in a James Bond movie. He also has a Ford Model T as well as a Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Roadster. Musk is one of the pledgers in the Giving Pledge effort started by Warren Buffet, Bill, and Melinda Gates. He also donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute to be used for regulating artificial intelligence.

Summary

Elon Musk is an innovator. He has a lot of fresh ideas about various things in life and he is well-equipped in achieving them with his academic background and intelligence. His earlier working life mostly revolved around these novel business ideas that he eventually brought to life. Musk is still in the process of expanding his business empire and coming up with more ideas which will definitely be something for us all to look forward to.

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