As part of its 100th anniversary, Forbes published on Tuesday, September 19, the results of its special study, which highlights the hundred of the greatest business minds in the world.
When creating the list, Forbes experts selected people who had a strong influence on the processes taking place in the business world, or who inspired the development of entrepreneurship.
Here's what the top 10 most prominent businessmen of our time according to Forbes looks like. All of them are distributed alphabetically, and not according to the ranking "from greater to lesser".
10. Mark Benioff
The man who founded Salesforce started his business at the age of 15. It was at this age that he created the Liberty Software company, which creates games for the Atari 800 computer. By the age of 16, the young man earned $ 1,500 a month, enough to pay for tuition at the University of Southern California.
Benioff spent a summer internship at Apple, working as a programmer in the Macintosh division under the leadership of Steve Jobs. This experience was subsequently useful to him, as he realized that revolutionary ideas could be encouraged by entrepreneurs.
Currently Benioff leads the company developing the eponymous cloud CRM system. This longtime competitor, Oracle, is valued at $ 40 billion. Salesforce’s special idea was to avoid selling software that companies had to install on their servers. Salesforce allowed people to access business applications from a web browser. And even now you won’t surprise anyone like that, in the late nineties it was a revolutionary idea.
9. Jeff Bezos
Owned by Amazon, one of the world's largest online retailers.
Now it’s hard to imagine that the office of such a successful company was located in the garage of the future billionaire, where, along with several employees, he began developing software for the online bookstore. Subsequently, the office expanded to a two-room house. In 1995, the entrepreneur opened Amazon.com, named after the winding South American river.
Through large retail partnerships, the businessman was constantly expanding the range of products Amazon was ready to offer. CDs joined the books, and later clothes, electronics, toys, and more. Although many of the dot coms went bankrupt in the early 1990s, Amazon flourished and its annual sales skyrocketed from $ 510,000 in 1995 to more than $ 17 billion in 2011.
Currently, the state of Bezos is estimated at 72.8 billion dollars.
8. Warren Buffett
Like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett donates billions of dollars to charity, refuting the stereotype of the greed and heartlessness of “sharks of capitalism”. He tops the ranking of billionaire philanthropists, having donated more than $ 46 billion since 2000 to various needs. This represents about 71% of his condition. By comparison, Bill Gates has donated $ 18 billion, or 22% of his fortune, since 2000.
7. Bernard Arnault
This French businessman is one of the owners of the luxury conglomerate LVMH and one of the richest people on Earth. According to Forbes, Arno’s fortune reaches $ 34 billion.
Arnaud earned the nickname “Wolf in Cashmere,” due to the acquisition of a large number of fashion and beauty brands, including Givenchy, Guerlain, Sephora, Fendi and Loro Piana, as well as many jewelry brands, including TAG Heuer, De Beers and Bulgari . Many did not believe in the advisability of gathering “under one roof” a variety of brands, since this does not allow focusing on one direction, moreover, some of the companies acquired by Arno were direct competitors.
However, Arno, as a true ingenious entrepreneur, did not pay attention to critics. He changed the pricing policy of the conglomerate, making brand products available not only to very wealthy buyers, but also to people with average incomes. And those who are dissatisfied with this “averaging” can always get things from expensive limited series of clothes and accessories.
6. Giorgio Armani
The founder of Armani is a visible proof of the theory that a beautiful person ages beautifully. Over the course of his life, he tried a lot of activities: from an assistant photographer to a window dresser, but the creation and fashions of Armani brought fame and fortune. At first he did this for various Italian brands, and then in 1974 introduced clothes under his own name. A year later, succumbing to the entreaties of a friend of the architect Sergio Galeotti, Armani created his own company.
This Italian fashion designer was brought to work on costumes in such iconic paintings as The Matrix, American Gigolo and The Untouchables.
5. Philip Anschutz
The American businessman, despite his multi-billion dollar fortune ($ 12.5 billion), leads a rather modest lifestyle and does not too strive for publicity. He very rarely gives interviews to the press (the last detailed interview he gave already in 1974). However, it is known that Anschutz is the head of one of the largest oil producing companies in the USA, owns several football clubs and cinemas, a railway and a huge number of farms. Anshutz also owns the telecommunications company Qwest Communications - one of the leaders in this industry in America.
4. Paul Allen
Paul Allen first made his mark in the business world when he co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. This happened in 1975, and since then Allen has remained one of the main innovators in the field of entrepreneurship and technology. He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which controls the businessman’s charitable and business interests, from sports teams such as the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers to cultural heritage projects such as Seattle Cinerama and the Museum of Pop Culture.
Thanks to his commercial and philanthropic investments, Microsoft co-founder initiated important events and innovations in science, technology, space, education and art. For example, since 2003, he has invested more than $ 500 million in basic brain research by opening the Allen Institute of Brain Sciences. He also created the Allen Institute of Cell Science and the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence.
3. Michael Eisner
For 21 years, Eisner has been the permanent leader of The Walt Disney Company. Under him, a division of Walt Disney Television Animation appeared, producing cartoons for TV. Children love cartoons in the morning and the ratings from this decision were very good. In addition, Eisner authorized the sale to television companies of the rights to display old Disney cartoons and films. These steps have significantly strengthened the financial position of the company. However, Disney veterans criticized Eisner’s actions, reproaching him for focusing solely on making a profit and new movie studio products that had lost the notorious Disney spirit. In 2005, the Disney Company boss stepped down.
2. Karl Aikan
Aikan earned his fortune as one of the notorious "raiders" from Wall Street in the 1980s. He owned large stakes in corporations such as RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum and Viacom. In addition to raiding, he was engaged in the so-called greenmail: the repurchase of shares of companies at inflated prices. Icahn’s success was such that he greatly inspired the scriptwriters to create the image of the famous Gordon Gekko from the film “Wall Street”.
Currently, 81-year-old Aykan is ranked 43rd in the Forbes richest people ranking.
1. Sheldon Adelson
On the first line in the selection of the best business minds of our time is one of the leaders in the global gaming business, the founder of Las Vegas Sands Corp. and influential US Republican sponsor.
However, later Adelson personally blew up The Sands Hotel & Casino to build in its place the Venetian luxury hotel-casino, decorated in the Venetian style (up to canals and gondoliers). And then he entered the international arena, having built luxurious casino hotel complexes in a number of countries.
Over the course of her career, Sheldon Adelson has created over 50 diverse companies.
Russia in the list of outstanding entrepreneurs of the century was represented by Yuri Milner (55th place). He participated in the creation of Mail.Ru Group and the international venture capital fund DST Global.
