Thread: 10 Richest People of All Time

10 Richest People of All Time and
How They Made Their Fortunes

Part One
Quick: who is the richest man of all time?
Bill Gates? Warren Buffet?
Not even close, though there's no denying
they're very, very rich.
The richest man of all time,
when wealth is measured as a percentage
of the national economy,
was John D. Rockefeller,
whose fortunes made Gates' and
Buffet's look downright puny.
Keeping score of who's wealthier is like
a spectator sport with Forbes magazine
as its official referee. Last year,
Forbes counted 946 billionaires
(there are too many millionaires to count,
so they don't bother with that anymore)
with combined net worth of $3.5 trillion.
That's larger than the GDP of Germany,
the third largest economy in the world.
But the richest people ever belong
in their own special club.
These people (all men)
have built fortunes of legendary
proportions when calculated at the
peak of their wealth.
Here is the list of the 10 Richest People
of All Time and How They Made
Their Fortunes.

1. John D. Rockefeller


Peak wealth: $318.3 billion
(based on 2007 US dollar).
Age at peak wealth: 74
As a young man, John Davison Rockefeller
said that his two greatest ambitions
were to make $100,000
and live to be 100.
He died two months shy of his
98th birthday, but boy did he make good
on the first goal.
Rockefeller wasn't born to a rich family.
His father, William Avery
"Big Bill"
Rockefeller was a shiftless man who
spent most of his times thinking up
schemes to avoid actual work!
Nevertheless,
thanks to the guidance of his mom Eliza -
a homemaker and devout Baptist -
John D. grew up to be quite a
hardworking man.
Rockefeller started out in business
as a wholesale grocer and went on to
found Standard Oil,
which through shrewd business decisions
and some say predatory and
illegal practices, grew to be a
gargantuan monopoly.
At its peak, Standard Oil had
about 90% of the market for
refined oil (kerosene)
in the United States
(in the early days of Standard Oil,
gasoline wasn't an important component
of the oil industry - indeed,
gasoline produced by the refineries
were dumped in rivers because
they were considered useless!)
In 1911, the US Supreme Court
declared Standard Oil a monopoly
under the Sherman Antitrust Act and
ordered it to be broken up
into 34 independent companies with
different boards of directors.
By that time, Rockefeller had
long since retired from the company
but still held a large percentage of shares.
Ironically, the busting up of Standard Oil
unlocked share values and his fortunes
doubled overnight.
Rockefeller got his first job at 16
as a bookkeeper.
In a move that portended his lifelong
commitment to philanthropy,
he tithed 10% of his income -
from his first paycheck on - to charity.
As his wealth grew, so did his
charitable contributions.
When he died in 1937,
Rockefeller had given away half of his
amassed fortune,
and established philanthropic
foundations to continue giving
after his death.

2. Andrew Carnegie


Peak wealth: $298.3 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 68
Andrew Carnegie immigrated as a young child
to Pittsburgh from Scotland and
began working at 13 years old
as a bobbin boy in a textile mill.
He changed spools of threads
for 12 hours a day,
6 days a week for a weekly wage of $2.
At 16 years old, Carnegie became a telegraphmessenger boy,
and soon after was promoted
to be a telegraph operator.
Carnegie became a personal assistant to
Thomas Scott, superintendent of
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and
learned the ins and outs of the
railroad business.
It was Carnegie who invented a brutally
efficient way to clear the tracks after
a railway accident:
by burning the railroad car!
When he was 20, Carnegie mortgaged
his mother's house and made his first
gutsy investment of $500 for
10 shares of the Adams Express company -
sort of the Fed Ex delivery company
of the 1800s - and
was handsomely rewarded.
He then invested in a company making
sleeping cars for the railway.
By the time he was 30,
Carnegie had expanded his investments
to iron works, steamers,
railroads, and oil well.
But the real money came from steel.
In the late 1880s, Carnegie built his
steel empire to become the world's largest manufacturer of steel rails,
pig iron, and coke.
In 1901, at the age of 66,
Carnegie retired by selling his shares
to John Pierpont Morgan for more than
$225 million
(a large sum today and an
astounding amount of money back then)
in form of gold-bonds.
When the bonds were delivered,
a special vault had to be built to
physically house them!
Carnegie was big proponent of philanthropy -
in a famous 1889 essay
"The Gospel of Wealth,"
he wrote that wealth should be distributed
to promote welfare of other people and
enrich society.
True to his words, Carnegie gave away
more than $350 million or almost
90% of his fortune.

Note: At the end of the Spanish American War,
the United States bought the Philippines
from Spain for $20 million.
Carnegie was appalled at what he
perceived to be an imperialist move and
personally offered $20 million to the
Philippines so it could buy its independence
from the US
(they didn't take him up on his offer).

3. Nicholas II of Russia
The last Russian Imperial family

Peak wealth: $253.5 billion.
Age at peak wealth:
49Nicholas II of Russia
(born Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov)
was the last Tsar of Russia.
He ruled (badly) from 1894 until he was
forced to abdicate in the Russian Revolution
of 1917 by the Bolsheviks.
His reign was marked with
antisemitic pogroms,
a crushing defeat by Japan in the
Russo-Japanese War, revolutions,
internal unrests their bloody suppressions,
undue influence by the mystic Rasputin
and World War I.
A year after he was deposed,
Nicholas and his entire family were
executed by Lenin's order.
The life of the last tsar of Russia was
filled with fascinating myths,
legends, and history - and
readers interested in it are encouraged
to read more about Nicholas II
and the Romanovs.
Suffice it to say that Nicholas II
became the third richest man in history
the old fashioned way:
he inherited his wealth.

4. William Henry Vanderbilt

Peak wealth: $231.6 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 64
William Henry Vanderbilt had a
pretty good start in life:
he inherited nearly $100 million
from his father,
the railroad mogul Cornelius
"The Commodore"
Vanderbilt
(if you want to read a rags to riches story,
Cornelius' is pretty good - see below).

William Vanderbilt was groomed
by his father to be a businessman
(at times harshly - the imperious and
domineering Cornelius liked to call
his eldest son a
"blockhead," "blatherskite, " "*******"
and "good for nothing")

and William turned out to be quite
an able businessman.
He expanded the family's railroad empire
and thus the family fortune,
finally earning his father's respect
and friendship.
When William died in 1885,
he was the richest man in the world.

5. Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII

Peak wealth: $210.8 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 50
Asaf Jah VII
(whose given name was Osman Ali Khan Bahadur)
was the last Nizam or ruler of the
Princely State of Hyderabad and Berar,
before it was invaded and annexed
by India in 1948.
By most accounts,
"His Exalted Highness"
the Nizam of Hyderabad was a
benevolent ruler
who promoted education,
science and development.
He spent about one-tenth of his
Principality' s budget on education,
and even made primary education
compulsory and free for the poor.
In his 37-year rule, Hyderabad
witnessed the introduction of electricity,
railways, roads, and other
development projects.
In 1937, Asaf Jah VII was on the
cover of Time Magazine,
labeled as the
Richest man in the world.


6. Andrew W. Mellon


Peak wealth: $188.8 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 80
Andrew William Mellon was the son of a
Pittsburgh banker Thomas Mellon
(who founded the Mellon Bank).
Andrew got his start early:
he started a lumber company at the age
of 17 and by the age of 27 had taken over
his father's bank.
He also got into oil, steel, shipbuilding,
and construction business.
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding
appointed the financier Mellon as
the Secretary of the Treasury,
where he served for 10 years
(under three U.S.. Presidents).
At that post, Mellon increased
federal revenue by decreasing the
taxation rate and cutting federal spending.

7. Henry Ford

Peak wealth: $188.1 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 57
If Henry Ford's father had his way,
Henry would take over the family farm
and become a farmer.
But after the death of his beloved mother,
Henry, who didn't particularly like farming,
left home in 1879 at the age of 16
to work as an apprentice machinist.
At 28, Henry Ford became an engineer
at Thomas Edison's company and started experimenting with gasoline engines
(with Edison's approval).
In 1896, at the age of 36,
Ford started his first car company,
the Detroit Automobile Company,
which went bankrupt two years later.
Soon afterwards, he set up his second company,
the Henry Ford Company.
A year later, his partners hired
Henry M. Leland to troubleshoot problems
on the shop floor.
Ford clashed almost immediately with Leland,
and was forced out of the company
bearing his name with only $900 cash.
The Henry Ford Company was renamed Cadillac,
and Ford went on to form his third car company,
the "Ford Malcomson" company ...
... and immediately got into trouble when
he couldn't pay his suppliers,
the Dodge brothers. Ford's partner,
Alexander Malcomson was able to
convince the Dodge brothers to invest
in the company instead and the company
was reincorporated as the
Ford Motor Company.
And a good thing they did because
third time was the charm.
The Ford Motor Company made
Henry Ford a very rich man.
Henry Ford's name became synonymous
with automobiles for good reasons:
he introduced the Model T,
the first inexpensive car for the masses.
He also popularized the use of assembly lines
in mass productions, high workers' wages
to attract talent and discourage
employee turnover,
franchise model car dealerships,
and even the 5-day workweek.
One interesting note about Henry Ford:
he didn't believe in accountants.
On one occasion, his son Edsel contracted
the building of a new office building
with much needed space for the
Accounting division.
When Henry asked what the space was for,
Edsel acknowledged that it was for
the accounting department.
The very next day, when the accountants
showed up for work,
they found their office had been stripped -
no desks, chairs, or telephones;
even the carpeting was gone -
and that Henry had fired them all.
(Source: Edsel.com)

8. Marcus Licinius Crassus

Peak wealth: $169.8 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 62
Marcus Licinius Crassus
(ca. 115 BC to 53 BC)
is the earliest historical figure in this list.
He was a Roman general and politician
who defeated the slave revolt
led by Spartacus.
If you think the rest of the businessmen
on this list were ruthless -
in reality they've got nothing on Crassus.
The Roman general became wealthy when
he bought the homes and belongings
from the victims of Sulla's sacking of Rome
(Crassus was one of Sulla's generals)
for cheap.
He then re-sold them at a princely profit.
Crassus then expanded his wealth
through the slave trade, silver mining,
and real estate, especially by buying
houses of those declared enemies
of the state for next to nothing.
But it was Crassus' acquisition of
burning houses that earned him
his lasting notoriety.
He maintained a troop of 500 skilled builders -
and when a fire broke out in Rome
(back then a frequent occurrence),
he negotiated the sale of the
burning properties and those nearby for cheap.
Once he obtained the properties,
he called upon his men to demolish
the burning property and save
the nearby buildings
(that was the preferred technique of
fighting fire during Roman times).
He then rebuilt and leased back
the property to the original owners!
At one point, Crassus owned a large part
of Rome and some wondered whether
the fires might not have
actually been his doing ...
Crassus was so greedy that when he died,
his enemies had his head severed and
molten gold poured into his mouth
as a mark of his greed .

9. Basil II

Peak wealth: $169.4 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 67
Basil II (or Basil the Bulgarslayer)
was a Byzantine emperor from the
Macedonian dynasty who reigned
from 976 to 1025. For historians,
Basil II's reign represented the
apex of the Middle Byzantine Empire -
he expanded the territory of the empire
by annexing Bulgaria,
making it the largest and strongest
it had ever been in nearly five centuries.
Basil had no heir, and within
half a century of his death,
the Byzantine Empire crumbled.

10. Cornelius Vanderbilt


Peak wealth: $167.4 billion.
Age at peak wealth: 82
Cornelius Vanderbilt is a true
rags-to-riches story:
he quit school at the age of 11
(famously saying
"If I had learned education,
I would not have had time
to learn anything else")
to work on ferries in New York.
By 16, persuaded his mom to loan him
$100 for a boat to start his own
ferry business carrying freight and
passengers between
Staten Island and Manhattan.
He repaid the loan with an additional
$1000 one year later.
It's from this business operating ships
that he got his nickname "Commodore"
that stuck for the rest of his life,
even after he started getting into
the railroad business.
Vanderbilt was ruthless in business.
He once wrote a short
(and now famous)
letter to Charles Morgan and C.K. Garrison
of the Morgan Garrison company.
The two men manipulated his
steamship company's stock in his absence
and took it over.
The letter read "Gentlemen:
you have undertaken to cheat me.
I won't sue you, for the law is too slow.
I'll ruin you. Yours truly,
Cornelius Vanderbilt."
True to his words, two years later
Vanderbilt forced them out of business
by running a competing business.
Despite of their wealth -
or perhaps because of it,
the Vanderbilt family wasn't a happy one.
The Commodore was constantly
thinking of his will, which he called
"that paper."
He wanted the money to remain intact,
and thus it must be handed down
to a single heir.
Indeed, he disowned all of his sons
other than William (see above),
believing that only William was
ruthless enough in business
to be capable of maintaining his empire.

A note about the list:
since it is based on the proportion of
peak wealth to the national GDP
in the country the individual lived in at
the time they were alive,
the list is dynamic:
it changes as the GDP fluctuates,
though it's rare to have a large shift
in itscomposition.
I didn't come up with the idea for the list -
the top 10 list presented here is but a
small part of a larger list on Wikipedia.

hmmm great job sd

hmmm superb job

mera naam tou kahin nahi likha iss main sd ye jhooti list hai

^


main bhi yahin soch rahi thi


mary muskuaraht team k tu naam he nahin .........

sd ye aap info cheezain kahan say dhoondti hai

mahwish mil jati hain


Thanks Shaan


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