If many years ago it was Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Larry Ellison who appeared on the world stage as new rich people, thanks to Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Oracle, now is the time for a new generation that carries the flag of Artificial Intelligence on their backs. They are the new batch of billionaires who, thanks to their companies, are making a big impact.
In this sense, the maximum exponent of this new generation is Jensen Huang. Thanks to being the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, the price of its shares rose by almost 300% last year, ranking him among the top 20 billionaires. Currently, he is in 20th place, with an estimated fortune of 74.1 billion dollars. So far this year, this Taiwanese has amassed 30.1 billion. The CEO of Nvidia estimates that general AI will arrive in five years and will be more accurate than human intelligence. “The CEO of Nvidia estimates that general AI will arrive in five years and will be more accurate than human intelligence, 8% better than most users.” In this line, he believes that it will be achieved in tests such as “a bar exam, logic tests, economics, or simply passing a medical exam.
After Huang is Charles Liang. Also from Taiwan, this entrepreneur co-founded Super Micro Computer in 1993, a company that provides computer infrastructure solutions whose servers and storage systems are now highly demanded by AI and cloud computing companies. In 2023, he generated revenues of 7 billion dollars, and his shares have risen by over 1100% in the last 12 months. His fortune reaches 7.4 billion dollars, and this year he has accumulated 5.53 billion.
Kwak Dong Shin closes the podium of the new AI tycoons. Born in South Korea, Shin heads Hanni Semiconductor, a company that manufactures equipment used in semiconductor packaging, one of the final stages of chip production. Among his clients are Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Like Liang and Huang, Shin’s fortune was positively impacted by his shares rising by over 560% in 2023. Currently, his net worth stands at 2.9 billion dollars.
Shunsaku Sagami has a fortune of 1.9 billion dollars. This 33-year-old Japanese man became wealthy by founding the Mergers and Acquisitions Research Institute in 2018, which uses AI to connect potential buyers with companies that often face closure risks, despite being profitable, because their owners are aging and cannot find successors. The company’s annual income increased by nearly 200% year-on-year to 28.8 million in the fiscal year ended in September 2022.
The first American on the list is Ivan Zhao. The co-founder and advisor of the productivity startup Notion, valued at around 5 billion dollars from secondary market transactions with estimated revenues of 250 million dollars. His net worth is 1.5 billion dollars.
One of the most authoritative voices in Artificial Intelligence is Sam Altman. The CEO of OpenAI kicked off the AI explosion with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, but he has no stake in the company, which is valued at over 80 billion dollars. After being fired and rehired by OpenAI, he owes most of his wealth (currently 1 billion dollars) to investments he made as president of the startup incubator Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, an early bet on Stripe, and stakes in Reddit and the nuclear fusion startup Helion. Regarding his opinion on this tool, Altman revealed earlier this year that there is no certainty about its future, “even with its very limited current capacity and very deep flaws, people are finding ways to use it.”
Lisa Su is the first woman to profit from Artificial Intelligence, specifically thanks to semiconductors. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices have multiplied by over 60 since this American entrepreneur (born in Taiwan, but immigrated to New York at the age of 3) took the reins back in 2014. Her fortune reaches 1.3 billion dollars.
