Getting to the $1 billion mark isn’t a race, but some just get there faster.
Of the 1,645 members of the Forbes Billionaires list, 31 are under the age of 40. That elite group no longer includes the Google guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both of whom have crossed into their 40′s. One unexpected twist: this year’s group includes a new youngest billionaire.
No. 1: Perenna Kei & family
Age: 24
Little-known Perenna Kei, a newcomer to the list, displaces former Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz as the very youngest billionaire. Hailing from Hong Kong, Kei oversees an 85% stake in Logan Property Holdings through various companies and a family trust. Her father, Ji Haipeng, serves as chairman and CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed company, which went public in December.
The 39 youngest people on the 2014 Billionaires list have a combined net worth of $115.7 billion. Facebook employees past, present and future–including Sean Parker, Mark Zuckerberg and WhatApp’s Jan Koum–account for 42% of that. Koum, a newcomer following Facebook’s decision to purchase WhatsApp, is worth $6.8 billion. He sold his mobile messaging company to the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social networking company for $19 billion in stock and cash last month.
Thirteen of the world’s young and wealthy call the U.S. home, while the others hail from the rest of the globe. Find the full list below.
Net Worth: $1.3 billion
The world’s youngest billionaire title goes to Perenna Kei, who owns an 85% stake in Logan Property Holdings through different companies and a family trust. Logan’s chairman and CEO, Ji Haipeng, is her father. Previously known by the name “Ji Peili,” Kei is a non-executive director at the company, and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the University of London.
No. 2: Dustin Moskovitz
Age: 29
Net Worth: $6.8 billion
No longer the world’s youngest billionaire, Dustin Moskovitz will turn 30 this year. Mark Zuckerberg’s former roommate, Moskovitz helped kick start the social network from a Harvard dorm, dropping out of school after two years to work on the venture full-time as Facebook’s third employee. He left Facebook in 2008 to start Asana, a software company that aims to improve how people work with project collaboration tools. He got married in the past year to longtime girlfriend Cari Tuna.
No. 3: Mark Zuckerberg
Age: 29
Net Worth: $28.5 billion
Facebook turned 10 this year and no one was celebrating harder than CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After seeing his company past the growing pains of a disappointing May 2012 IPO, Zuckerberg has the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company flying high. Facebook’s shares are up more than 130% over the past year as of mid-February. That’s caused Zuck’s net worth to more than double over the same period, even after he gave away 18 million shares in late December. He sold more than 41 million shares and exercised 60 million options around that time as well.
No. 4: Anton Kathrein, Jr
Age: 29
Net Worth: $1.35 billion
Anton Kathrein, Jr. is the third generation to lead his family’s Kathrein-Werke AG–”the oldest and largest antenna manufacturer in the world,” according to the company’s website. A pioneer in automotive antennas, it also makes radio and TV broadcast antennas, satellite and terrestrial reception systems, equipment for high-speed multimedia transmission by cable TV operators and antenna systems and electronic components that allow cell phone signals to bounce across the world. The company–with 18 production sites worldwide, over 6,800 employees and $1.8 billion in revenue in 2012–was founded by Kathrein’s grandfather in 1919. Anton Sr. ran the company from 1972 until his unexpected death in 2012.
No. 5: Drew Houston
Age: 30
Net Worth: $1.2 billion
Dropbox cofounder and CEO Drew Houston is Silicon Valley’s newest boy-wonder billionaire. Barely out of his 20s, he joins the 10-figure fortune club this year after his San Francisco-based tech company raised a new round of funding in January at a valuation just under $10 billion. Houston (pronounced like the New York City street, not the Texas city) cofounded Dropbox, a cloud-based file-sharing service, with Arash Ferdowsi in 2007. Houston started tinkering with computers at age 5 and has been involved in startups since high school.
No. 6: Albert von Thurn und Taxis
Age: 30
Net Worth: $3.8 billion
Although he first appeared on Forbes’ billionaire list as an 8-year-old, Albert von Thurn und Taxis, the 12th prince in his family line, officially inherited his fortune in 2001, on his 18th birthday. His assets include real estate, art and 36,000 hectares of woodland in Germany, one of the largest forest holdings in Europe. An eligible bachelor, he lives in the family castle in Bavaria, Schloss Emmeram, and drives race cars.
No. 7: Scott Duncan
Age: 31
Net Worth: $6.3 billion
Scott Duncan is one of Texas’ most eligible bachelors and one of four heirs to a massive energy-pipeline fortune built by their late father, Dan Duncan. He is $1.2 billion richer than a year ago thanks to a rise in the stock price of Enterprise Products Partners and a generous dividend plan. His father, formerly the richest man in Houston, died in 2010 at age 77. At the time of his death, there was a one-year lapse on estate taxes, allowing the siblings to inherite the fortune tax-free. Had Duncan died at another time, their fortune would have been subject to a federal tax of at least 45%.
No. 8: Eduardo Saverin
Age: 31
Net Worth: $4.1 billion
Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, who was born in Brazil, has been living in Singapore since renouncing his United States citizenship in 2012. He rarely makes media appearances and now spends his time as an angel investor. “My life is not about creating another Facebook,” he said at a Wall Street Journal conference in Singapore last year.
No. 9: Yang Huiyan
Age: 32
Net Worth: $6.9 billion
China’s richest woman Yang Huiyan is vice chairman of real estate developer Country Garden. She was given her father’s stake in Country Garden before the company’s initial public offering in 2007, the same year that she topped Forbes’ list of China’s richest with a net worth of $16 billion.
No. 10: Fahd Hariri
Age: 33
Net Worth: $1.2 billion
Fahd Hariri is the youngest son of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He graduated from the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture de Paris in 2004. While he reportedly hasn’t set foot in Beirut since his father’s assassination in 2005, he develops residential buildings there and credits his father for his love of real estate development.
.........To be continued
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