Phil Knight

While many of us work in business, you’re not going to make your fortune staying at your day job – the average office worker in the US earns about $41,000 a year. If you manage to get to an executive level, you’re getting closer, but you still have a long way to go. If you can reach the top, CEO salaries know no bounds, but you’ll have to pick the right company!

Many of the wealthiest business people on our list are investment bankers or have done well on the share market. A few have inherited a business empire or secured a good chunk of shares in a blue-chip company through a sizeable divorce settlement. Others are lucky enough to be friends with a “generous” head of state (aka Putin) and find that their wealth can grow to unprecedented levels when supported by state-backed enterprises.

Nowadays though, it’s harder to start traditional business empires from scratch. Media moguls have fallen out of favour in recent years and the big names on this list come from tech. Bill Gates has been a stalwart and is now accompanied by Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk. Innovation is the key to wealth, but only if you can get the cash, confidence and idea to really make it big.