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The top 10 start-up billionaires

31 points by _Mark 16y ago

jkahn 16y ago
A number of these startup billionaires are paper-billionaires due to Facebook's grossly inflated private market valuation. I expect to see a lot of these names dropping off the billionaire list as quickly as they got onto it.
- ig1 16y ago
  I had a look into this a while back, I could only find a single person who became a startup paper billionaire and then lost it (Jay Walker of Priceline.com), I suspect that the reason for this might be that while valuations may be off, they're unlikely to be off by an order of magnitude.
listrophy 16y ago
Meh. Good for them, but fawning over these guys is like aspiring to be the next Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet. The startup media focuses too much on the outright winners instead of... I don't know... not failing?
- qq66 16y ago
  If you aspire to be Michael Jordan and you fail, you still might be pretty good at basketball. If you aspire to not fail and you fail, you've just failed.
Skeletor 16y ago
I have the most respect for #10. It boggles my mind how you can become a billionaire from eggs (not sold on the internet.)
- DevX101 16y ago
  I'd be willing to bet there's ill gotten gains involved somewhere on that guy. He's only 35 and was previously involved in Ukranian oil & gas. There's a lot of shadowy players in that market.
- biot 16y ago
  People buy eggs and eat them every day -- either by themselves or in pasta, bread, or various other products. Long-term prognosis of that business is excellent. How much do people buy daily on Facebook?
- khafra 16y ago
  Obviously a psuedonym for Milo Minderbinder. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Catch-22#Chapter_22 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Catch-22#Chapter_22
shin_lao 16y ago
Did you notice that most (all?) of these billionaires are related to social networks? I wonder how volatile is their fortune.
tybris 16y ago
> Another Facebook co-founder, Saverin was given a sympathetic portrayal in the 2010 movie The Social Network. What exactly was so sympathetic about being portrayed as a guy who could not separate emotion from business, was terrible with girls, nearly destroyed his own business by closing the account, let himself be tricked into giving away his stock. He got off more poorly than Sean Parker.

31 points by _Mark 16y ago

jkahn 16y ago

A number of these startup billionaires are paper-billionaires due to Facebook's grossly inflated private market valuation. I expect to see a lot of these names dropping off the billionaire list as quickly as they got onto it.

ig1 16y ago
I had a look into this a while back, I could only find a single person who became a startup paper billionaire and then lost it (Jay Walker of Priceline.com), I suspect that the reason for this might be that while valuations may be off, they're unlikely to be off by an order of magnitude.

listrophy 16y ago

Meh. Good for them, but fawning over these guys is like aspiring to be the next Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet. The startup media focuses too much on the outright winners instead of... I don't know... not failing?

qq66 16y ago
If you aspire to be Michael Jordan and you fail, you still might be pretty good at basketball. If you aspire to not fail and you fail, you've just failed.

Skeletor 16y ago

I have the most respect for #10. It boggles my mind how you can become a billionaire from eggs (not sold on the internet.)

DevX101 16y ago
I'd be willing to bet there's ill gotten gains involved somewhere on that guy. He's only 35 and was previously involved in Ukranian oil & gas. There's a lot of shadowy players in that market.
biot 16y ago
People buy eggs and eat them every day -- either by themselves or in pasta, bread, or various other products. Long-term prognosis of that business is excellent. How much do people buy daily on Facebook?
khafra 16y ago
Obviously a psuedonym for Milo Minderbinder. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Catch-22#Chapter_22 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Catch-22#Chapter_22

shin_lao 16y ago

Did you notice that most (all?) of these billionaires are related to social networks? I wonder how volatile is their fortune.

tybris 16y ago

> Another Facebook co-founder, Saverin was given a sympathetic portrayal in the 2010 movie The Social Network. What exactly was so sympathetic about being portrayed as a guy who could not separate emotion from business, was terrible with girls, nearly destroyed his own business by closing the account, let himself be tricked into giving away his stock. He got off more poorly than Sean Parker.