Want to make the Forbes list? Try these 10 industries.
There are a lot of ways to get rich–including power strips, Pachinko machines and pig breeding. But if you want to maximise your odds of making Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list, there are ten industries that offer the most common path to the three-comma club.
Finance and investments remains the surest way to get ultra-rich. It’s the industry with the highest number of billionaires, 372, including hedge fund and private equity tycoons, bankers, venture capitalists and fintech founders. That’s down from 393 last year, amid a down year for billionaires overall.
Still, finance and investment billionaires keep compounding: the sector added the highest number of newcomers to the 2023 ranking, with 24 fresh faces. Nithin and Nikhil Kamath (estimated net worths: $2.7 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively), who cofounded online discount brokerage Zerodha, joined the ranks this year. Their company is now India’s biggest stockbroker. Rajiv Jain ($2 billion), who runs Florida-based asset management firm GQG Partners, which invested in India’s embattled Adani Group in March, is also new.
As is Hayes Barnard ($3.7 billion), who finances 26% of all U.S home solar installations through his GoodLeap app, which provides loans to homeowners for solar panels, home batteries and other sustainable improvements. In all, finance and investment billionaires make up 14% of the list, down from 15% in 2022. The richest remains investing legend Warren Buffett, the world’s fifth-wealthiest person, worth an estimated $106 billion.
The second most common path to the billionaires list? Manufacturing, which boasts 324 billionaires, compared to 337 a year ago, when the sector also placed second. The richest is Reinhold Wuerth, a Germany entrepreneur who took over his family’s screw and fastener business in 1954 and has grown it into a $16 billion (annual sales) giant. He’s worth an estimated $29.7 billion.
Notable new manufacturing moguls include Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein ($3.8 billion each), major Republican donors who founded packaging distributor Uline, and Michal Strnad ($2 billion), whose Czechoslovak Group is a leading supplier of arms and ammunition to the Ukrainian army. The 30-year-old Czech Republic citizen took over the business from his father in 2018.
Tech firms, meanwhile, have had a shaky year complete with major layoffs at many companies. For the second year in a row, the number of billionaires in technology decreased. There are now only 313 billionaires in the world who made their fortunes in tech, down from 341 billionaires last year. (And this comes despite Forbes recategorizing 13 social media billionaires as tech billionaires this year; last year we listed them under media and entertainment.) Still, technology remains the third most populous sector among the billionaires list. It’s also the richest bunch, worth a collective $1.9 trillion–about $170 billion more than next-richest, fashion and retail. The top tech mogul is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who is the world’s No. 3, worth an estimated $180 billion. (Forbes lists Elon Musk as “automotive” as most of his wealth stems from carmaker Tesla.)
Fashion and retail comes in fourth, with 266 members, up from 250 in 2022, including 19 newcomers. The jump is partially due to the June 2022 death of Leonardo Del Vecchio, founder of eyewear behemoth Luxottica, whose wealth was distributed among his wife and seven children and stepchildren. No one in the industry has fared better than Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of luxury goods giant LVMH. Arnault’s net worth grew by $53 billion over the past year, to an estimated $211 billion, making him the world’s richest person. One notable name who didn’t make the cut:Kanye West, whose net worth plummeted after Adidas dropped his Yeezy fashion line last fall.
Coming in fifth: Food and beverage, with 212 billionaires, compared to 203 last year. Some of the top newcomers inherited their wealth from billionaires who died over the past year. Mark Mateschitz—the only child of the late Austrian cofounder of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz—inherited 49% of the energy drink business after his father’s death last October. He’s the wealthiest newcomer of all on the 2023 ranking.
The Forbes List
The top 10 biggest industries for billionaires in 2023:
(NET WORTHS ARE AS OF MARCH 10, 2023)
#1. Finance & Investments
372 billionaires | 14% of list
Richest: Warren Buffett ($106 billion), chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
#2. Manufacturing
324 billionaires | 12% of list
Richest: Reinhold Wuerth & family ($29.7 billion), chairman of screw and fastener maker Wuerth Group.
#3. Technology
313 billionaires | 12% of list
Richest: Jeff Bezos ($114 billion), founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post and rocket company Blue Origin
#4. Fashion & Retail
266 billionaires | 10% of list
Richest: Bernard Arnault & family ($211 billion), chairman and CEO of luxury goods company LVMH and the world’s richest person.
#5. Food & Beverage
212 billionaires | 8% of list
Richest: Zhong Shanshan ($68 billion), chairman of bottled water company Nongfu Spring. He also controls the publicly-listed Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy.
#6. Healthcare
201 billionaires | 8% of list
Richest: Cyrus Poonawalla ($22.6 billion), founder of Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker (by doses).
#7. Real Estate
193 billionaires | 7% of list
Richest: Donald Bren ($17.4 billion), chairman of California-based real estate firm Irvine Co.
#8. Diversified
187 billionaires | 7% of list
Richest: Mukesh Ambani ($83.4 billion), chairman of Reliance Industries, which holds interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, retail and telecommunications.
#9. Energy
100 billionaires | 4% of list
Richest: George Kaiser ($13.3 billion), who took over his family’s Kaiser-Francis Oil Company in the 1960s.
#10. Media & Entertainment
91 billionaires, 3% of list
Richest: Michael Bloomberg ($94.5 billion), cofounder of financial information and media company Bloomberg LP.
This story was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
