7 Self-Made People Who Became Billionaires within 4 Years

Typically, the road to billionaire status is a long shot. It takes years of hard work, consistency and smart investing. Thankfully, technology has shrunk the timeline. Some self-made billionaires made their fortune almost overnight, and they are among the world’s wealthiest people.

Most of these billionaires work in the fast-growing technology sector. While it may take decades for some to become billionaires, others have done so in as little as four years.

Here is a list of self-made billionaires who made their first billions within four years.

David Filo – Yahoo!

David Filo is a software developer who wrote his server application in the computer language C, formerly called webpages by Yahoo!.

He co-founded Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. The company began as a website, but it quickly expanded into other areas and is now a significant online brand.

He made his first billion dollars in 1998. This resulted from his foresight and hard work when building the foundation of Yahoo!.

Jerry Yang – Yahoo!

When he was ten years old, Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, was born in Taiwan and migrated to San Jose, California.

In the first year of starting Yahoo!, it was an immediate success, with hundreds of thousands of visits by the end of its first year. After swiftly generating a $2 million investment, it went public in 1996.

The firm was worth billions by the dot-com bubble burst, making Yang a billionaire just a few years after the company was created.

Li Weiwei – Online games

Li Weiwei, commonly known as Li Yifei, is the founder of Wuhu Shunrong Sanqi Interactive Entertainment Network Technology, a Chinese company.

Before Weiwei transformed the firm into a network gaming company, it produced only vehicle parts, mainly plastic fuel tanks for automobiles. They sell items both in China and abroad.

With the popularity of several microtransaction-fueled mobiles and online games, he expands the firm into network gaming.

After the expansion, the firm drastically developed to the point where it brought in millions of dollars in sales. He became a billionaire after restructuring the company to concentrate on gaming.

RELATED:

7 Netflix Movies Every Entrepreneur Should Watch 

Mark Cuban – Broadcast.com

Mark Cuban made his first billion dollars by taking advantage of the dot-com boom. After schooling, he worked in different places, such as a Dallas-based software retailer. However, his first effort into entrepreneurship was with a firm named MicroSolutions.

He sold the company for around $2 million. His most successful endeavour, however, was with Audionet in 1995. This was later known as Broadcast.com.

It expanded to have hundreds of staff in four years with millions of dollars in yearly sales. After four years with Broadcast.com, Yahoo! bought it for $5.7 billion in equity, making Cuban a billionaire.

Jeff Bezos – Amazon

As of early 2022, Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, was valued at over $184.5 billion. After graduating from Princeton and working in different places such as Wall Street, he founded Amazon.

The firm was created in 1994 to sell books. It swiftly moved into other industries and began supplying many items.

Through this, Bezos rose to become a millionaire from a firm he began in his garage. Four years after the firm was created, his net worth was $1 billion. Today, he is the second richest man in the world. 

Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

If you use Facebook, the odds are you have heard this name. While in school, he met his co-founders. Zuckerberg is the quintessential “accidental billionaire.”

This is because he was only attempting to develop a social platform for students with no intention of making money.

Zuckerberg was valued at $79.7 billion in early 2022, making him one of the world’s wealthiest people. Also, his net worth barely surpassed a billion dollars in 2008.

Jan Koum – WhatsApp Inc.

Jan Koum felt compelled to enter the burgeoning Internet technology sector. As a result, he went to San Jose State University to study programming. In 2009, he created WhatsApp Inc.

The app is now a prominent mobile texting network that also attracted the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who wanted to form a partnership with Koum.

Mark Zuckerberg finally bought the company for $19 billion, making Koum a billionaire. Koum’s fortune is also bolstered by his ownership of billions of dollars in Facebook stock.

NEXT:

7 Netflix <strong>Shows</strong> All <strong>Entrepreneurs </strong>Should <strong>Watch</strong>