Bill Gates, 61, Warren Buffet, 86, Carlos Slim, 77, seem to rotate through the title of World’s Richest Man. It should also be noted that all of them are self-made. None of them inherited big bucks from the family.

Now a relative new self-made name enters the arena in the name of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, 53.

Amazon stock surged 40 percent in 2017, boosting Bezos' personal wealth to $90 billion. Starting the year as the 4th wealthiest person he overtook Bill Gates as the world's richest earlier today.

Burger Flipper

Bezos like many rich folks started at the bottom — flipping burgers at a McDonalds restaurant in Albuquerque in 1964. He began his career by selling books out of his garage and that eventually morphed into Amazon that now sells almost everything.

Google

He was also an early investor in Google. Had he kept all the $250,000 in stock he started with it would have a current value of more than $6 billion today.

Washington Post

Despite the decline in newspaper circulation in the US Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 and like most things he touches the Post has seen significant digital growth.

He’s Ready To Leave Earth

Another billionaire, Elon Musk, has long had aspirations to travel in space and so does Jeff Bezos.

Bezos started Blue Origin designed to send people into space and low prices. The first test flight was launched in 2015 and plans are to have manned flights in 2018 with commercial flights to follow.

Time Machine

No, Bezos is not building a time travel machine, but he is building a $42 million giant desert clock designed to run for 10,000 years.

He would like it to outlast the pyramids. It is a mechanical clock impervious to weather, natural disasters and time. Solar and human winding will keep it running.

Some Final Thoughts

Net worth is an amazing thing. During the writing of this blog Bill Gates retook the lead as the world’s richest man. But, the day is not over yet.

I guess to the rank and file worker that kind of wealth is beyond comprehension. But it is fun to imagine what their lifestyle must be like.

And as I mentioned earlier they all had good ideas and turned those ideas into massive fortunes starting at the very bottom.

All these folks did it so you have no excuse not to do it too. What’s your great idea? Will you give these guys a run for their money in the future?

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